Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on June 21, 2003, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Dead & Rotting represents producer J.R. Bookwalter’s swan song as a supplier of product to Full Moon. But his die-hard fans aren’t likely to notice the difference, as they probably will have been picking up the limited-edition DVDs he’s been putting out recently under his own Tempe banner, as opposed to the simpler discs Full Moon has issued. Rotting represents a good case in point, as the typically expansive Tempe DVD was issued at the same time as a Full Moon disc that, even though it’s paired with a second feature (Stitches), is far skimpier on overall material.
The directorial debut of makeup FX artist/longtime Bookwalter pal David P. Barton, Rotting benefits from creepy rural atmosphere and a capable cast (including the ubiquitous Debbie Rochon as the requisite femme fatale), though the Tales from the Crypt-style story strains to make it to the 70-minute mark. The 1.85:1 image on Tempe’s DVD, recognizably shot on video and filmlooked, bears good colors and only a mild amount of grain under the circumstances, and handles the sporadic day-for-night photography well. As is standard on Tempe product, the audio is mixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, with a level of activity that belies the movie’s low-budget status.
The trials of such indie moviemaking are, not surprisingly, a running theme on the audio commentary by Barton, actor Tom Hoover and ghoul performer David Greathouse. There’s a good deal of discussion about the locations and shooting on a short schedule, less about the cast and their performances and plenty of deadpan jokes (explaining the light visible outside a door in a night scene, Barton quips, “The story’s set in Alaska”). The trio share some fun anecdotes, as when they recall shooting the gruesome climax in a store basement while customers came and went upstairs, though occasionally they let opportunities slip away; the owner of one house location is said to have “an interesting story,” but we never find out what it is.
There’s also an on-camera interview with Barton, in which he recalls “competing” with Bookwalter during their Super-8 youth and suggests he wasn’t paid for his Full Moon FX work; on-set footage, including one memorable moment when an unseen crewmember gripes about having to shoot “gobbledygook” that will probably be cut later; peeks at both this movie’s FX and Barton’s early work in this area; and Howard St. Blues, a Super-8 spoof of TV’s Hill St. Blues (complete with stolen music) from Barton’s childhood. It’s silly stuff, but still boasts a higher level of humor than Filthy McNasty, a 45-minute shot-on-(unprocessed) video horror/comedy that’s also included, apparently (and absolutely only) for Rochon completists.
Full Moon’s Rotting disc contains none of these extras, and its similarly letterboxed transfer suffers from quite a bit more grain. So does the image on its co-feature Stitches, which (though the packaging strangely doesn’t say so) does boast a couple of significant supplements. Director Neal Marshall Stevens contributes audio commentary, and while he’s a personable speaker as he recalls his own budgetary challenges and the alterations his concepts went through as a result, his talk has far too many gaps to be fully satisfying. A short documentary covers some of the same ground (like two of the actresses coincidentally being roommates, leading to a bit of awkwardness in a scene where they kiss) and pays particular attention to the costumes, given that this is one of Full Moon’s few recent period pieces.
A bit of a period piece itself is Skinned Alive (pictured above), a 1989 production from back when Bookwalter’s outfit was called The Suburban Tempe Company. Co-presented by Retromedia, this DVD is a first-rate restoration package for a pretty cheesy movie, a tale of rural slaughter equally informed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the early work of Sam Raimi (complete with the director’s frequent collaborator Scott Spiegel playing “Phink”). As it was shot in 16mm, the film is presented full-frame, and while an opening title card warns about the condition of the negative elements (which are indeed in fairly rough shape), the remastering is very sharp, with fine colors and, once again, a pro Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround soundtrack that does as much with the limited source material as one could hope for.
Bookwalter discusses the creation of this new transfer in a brief segment, with revealing comparisons to the original VHS version. This process seems to have gone a lot smoother than Skinned’s original production, which was beset by every problem you could think of and maybe some you couldn’t. In a terrific 35-minute documentary, practically everyone who worked on the movie is interviewed, except star Mary Jackson (so they talk to her son instead!). As we find out, her lead villain Crawldaddy was originally intended to be a man, but a last-minute decision was made to switch the character’s gender. This was before Jackson’s stepdaughter, initially cast as Crawldaddy’s daughter Violet, was dropped from the film (working with her, writer/director Jon Killough remembers, was “like trying to get a doorknob to act”) and replaced with Susan Rothacker, Killough’s then-girlfriend who herself had been sacked from a crew position.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg—never has so much on-set tsuris been so much fun to hear about, with the participants’ distance from the experience allowing them to recall it with much-needed humor and perspective. Not to mention honesty, as Killough (who laments, “It’s horrible that Skinned Alive ended up as crappy as it did,” given their ambitions for it) and Bookwalter are remembered by others and themselves as being too passive and too bossy, respectively. About the only positive shared memory is the energy Spiegel (who himself replaced another actor who didn’t work out) brought to the shoot. We get to see footage of the original Phink and Violet in camera rehearsals/wardrobe tests, plus behind-the-scenes video (in which the crew barely look out of their teens), concept art & FX storyboards and—what the hell—an episode of the Ohio public access cable sitcom Roommates that several of the Skinned team took part in.
Finally, Bookwalter and FX artist David Lange sit down for an audio commentary that’s just as entertaining and revealing as the doc. Lange helps explain why certain FX scenes don’t quite work, while Bookwalter points out specific improvements in the new transfer (like the lack of an incongruous insert shot made by the original negative cutter), notes a scene filmed in the same location with the same actress (Barbara Katz-Norrod) as one in Dead & Rotting and goes into depth about additional sequences he personally shot—after Killough walked off the project—to boost Skinned to feature length. (He comments that deleting this extra material would reduce the movie to 74 minutes—ironic, given that Rotting runs only 72!) This package is enough to make one interested to see what this group could do with a special edition of the contemporaneous Robot Ninja—but given that Bookwalter and co. hold that movie in even lower esteem than Skinned, don’t hold your breath.
