Interview by Lou Radon

There seems to be a resurgence of interest in gore by film goers and filmmakers alike, but over the last few years most aspiring and established filmmakers in the U.S. wouldn't dare to even consider making such a movie. Regardless of all that, Augustine Arredondo continued on with his own vision and passion for hardcore genre flicks. The following is an interview with one of Southern California's most talented and relatively undiscovered filmmakers.

Tell us a little about your production company SLOW LEARNER PRODUCTIONS and how you decided on that name.
The whole thing started in 1998 after I bought a DV camera and shot my first short movie, which was "Today, I met the Girl I am going to marry" and it starred Robert Harvick, Jenifer Illingworth, and John Synco. It was a silent movie about a stalker who beats the crap out this poor guy he finds in place of the young girl he had planned on raping. After we edited the thing I realized I needed a production name for the credits. Rob had made some movies before under the Pentagram Films banner but since it was my first movie I felt that I needed
my own. I ran through a bunch of names but nothing really stuck. At the time I was reading a lot of Thomas Pynchon so it was pretty natural for me to look to him for some kind of inspiration. This turned out to be a good thing as I took the name "Slow Learner" from his short story collection. And I think it fits. I mean I had to drop out of film school because I couldn't conform to their ways. What can I say? I didn't get it.

Prior to "Holy Terror", what was the longest movie you had made?
That would be "Rancor." The last movie I made during my brief time at film school. It ran for around eight minutes. It was basically a mean spirited revenge movie. Needless to say my amoral approach to violent revenge didn't fly at school.

Your work seems to push every resource available, if you had say 10 Times more to work with, what are some of the things you would experiment with as a filmmaker?
Well, let's say I had 10x the budget. That would have brought me up to about $8000. If I had that money then.hell, if I had it now, I would definitely have bought a light kit. While shooting "The Holy Terror" we never had one and I think the look of the film has obviously suffered from that lack. Then I would have purchased a copy of the Magic Bullet Suite for After Effects so I could convert the movie from 60i to 24p in order to gain film stutter. After those purchases I would probably have around 3K left. I would dump the bulk of that into
heavier gore effects and I would have hired and assistant for my effects man, Brad. These three things would have made for much more of a kick-ass movie, but I think that the movie we made with nothing is fine. In the end having ten times the budget wouldn't have allowed us to shoot on a higher quality format or hire a crew or use professional actors, but it would have given us a lot more freedom to create more striking and stylized visuals. Which in the end is what we are always striving to achieve.

Can you give us any info on your upcoming feature "HAND OF DOOM"?
Well, it's kind of a buddy movie. But in this case the buddies are a Mexican Ranchero and a Nazi Skinhead. Under normal circumstances this would be a lethal combo -which at many points in the film is definitely the case - but, they are forced to tolerate each other in order to defeat the spirit of a Mexican Wizard. There is a lot of offensive material (racial, sexual, religious, what have you.) in the movie, which could serve to turn off potential viewers, but it is my belief that if you are making cult/exploitation/no budget movies then you had
better say fuck it and give it everything you've got. If your balls aren't on the line then you have no business making this type of movie. As a fan there are things I expect from this genre and I know how I feel when I watch movies that don't deliver, therefore as a filmmaker I never want to leave somebody wanting something more from my movies. If anything I want to give them too much - as long as the budget allows me to do so. At this point in time I would say the movie is 40% finished. I can confidently say that I have some really great
scenes in the can. This time around I have more experienced actors working for me and behind the scenes I actually afforded some lights for this shoot. So, on many levels it should be a step up in quality from "The Holy Terror." It should be finished in early 2004. So keep your eyes open.

Do you have any funny stories about showing your movies to people?
No. Nobody has seen it. We had one screening at a bar in Long Beach, but it was smooth. Nothing wacky or out of the ordinary happened.

During your interview with BURIED.COM (www.buried.com/interviews/augie_arredondo) you credit your father for introducing you to "fringe" movies. Has he seen your recent works and if so what's his reaction?
Well, he didn't watch any of my movies until after I got distribution for HT, if that tells you anything. But, now he is very supportive. He has always been pretty liberal about content in movies. So, sodomy, murder, blasphemy, and that sort of thing never really bothered him. His main reaction was that I should spend more money on effects because, in his opinion, they looked fake.

Without compromising any of your trade secrets, give us some idea of your creative process during the pre-production phase.
Pre-production is a blur. I don't know if I can remember what specifically happened that far back. It was over a year and a half ago. In the conceptual stage I knew that I didn't want to deal with any established cults, religions, dogmas, or faiths other than Catholics, of course. There are too many established rules and whatnot to research, which seemed like a big burden to me - creatively and otherwise. So from the beginning I knew that I would have to create my own Demon Mythology. Which I think I did a fairly adequate job with. You know
Orphael and all that mumbo jumbo. I think for the rest of pre-production I was a total failure. I never really planned anything out save for the finale - which ended up becoming a complete disaster on its own. But, luckily I think pretty quickly on my feet and I rearranged things as I went to facilitate whatever disasters were thrown at us.

Did you have any supernatural experiences during the making of HOLY TERROR?
None. I had pentagrams and satanic shit everywhere and God never came calling. Neither did the Devil. Although, I did get stabbed in the forearm by one of the more care free actors.

Have you had difficulty finding actors due to the subject matter or graphic nature of your movies?
I can't say I had any difficulty finding them but I have had lots of trouble keeping them. In HOD we just lost the actress we had cast for a nude dream sequence. It would not have been bad had she not dropped out after we spent a full day shooting the scene. The story is that she is a very weak willed person. The person she was dating is affiliated with our production. Being the personality leech that she is, she asked him if she could be in it. Since, she was so eager I was thrilled when they asked me. Everything was cool until they broke up. Then she got a new boyfriend with a new set of morals she could adopt. So she called us and asked to be removed from the film. My friend never gave her the release form to sign. Legally, we cannot keep the footage of her in the film. Big lesson. Always have your actors sign release forms. Especially, the easily influenced moronic types who want to glom onto your project until someone can convince that it is morally and politically incorrect.

Robert Harvick who does a great job playing Glenn in HT has apparently collaborated with you before. Can you tell us a little more about him?
Rob is a good guy. I have only made one movie without him and I don't really plan on making any more that way. He is hugely motivated. Aside from being an actor he is also an engineer as well as a drummer. He plays in a few rock bands, although his main band of the moment is the punk rock outfit The Politicians www.thepoliticians.net

Special effects artist Brad Palmer has also joined forces with SLP Numerous times, what's his reaction to your special effects requests?
Usually, his first reaction is to say, "This is going to take some money." Then reality sets in and he figures out a cheaper way to it. That is one of his greatest strengths. Brad is a master of the cheap, but effective, gore effect. He can turn oatmeal into a realistic festering pus-filled wound. Genius. He and I met at film school, we were the only two people who were proud to be interested the horror and exploitation genre. I mean being surrounded by a bunch of wannabe romantic comedy writers and Tarantino/Aronofsky cocklickers it was natural for us to gravitate to each other.

Explain to us what you define as "Fringe" Cinema.
I define fringe cinema as movies that have sidestepped the mainstream and challenged the status quo be they big budget blockbusters or micro budget underground flicks. Usually, they contain some sort of extreme content - gore, blasphemy, sexuality, melodrama, psychedelics, politics, overt religious messages, what have you. It’s a pretty broad term. Some examples of what I consider to be fringe cinema could be anything ranging from "Starship Troopers" to "81/2" to "Cannibal Maniac." Ostensibly, they have nothing in common but it is through their extreme perspectives that I lump them together.

What about these types of movies interests you so strongly as a filmmaker?
I think the attraction for me lies in their energy, honesty, and the way that many of them seem to either turn the standard film formula on its ear or disregard it entirely. And, the fact that these movies seem to have no fear makes them intensely appealing. Look at a movie like John Waters’ "Female Trouble," there is a scene in there where a little girl walks in on her parents having sex and her step father stops to ask her to "suck daddy’s dick." In any other movie this would be played into some sort of overly dramatic morality hogwash, but Waters’ turns it into the most hilarious bit I have ever seen. When the little girl responds with "I wouldn’t suck your dick if I were suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!" I was in heaven. Anyway, to put it simply, these movies do not shy away from anything and are not afraid to make light of the darker side of life. I like that.

It takes a lot of confidence to almost single-handedly create a 60 minute movie and see it through to completion. What were some of the most discouraging aspects of HOLY TERROR and what helped keep you going?
What got me down most wasn’t the fact that actors were dropping out or not having a budget but myself. In my head I would tell myself that people weren’t into it and everyone helping out knew that I had no idea what I was doing and they were all looking down on me for it. But, in reality most people were absolutely fine with the working conditions and we got along great. No matter what I was telling myself. I have a tendency to be self-defeating. What got me through the shoot was my girlfriend who was constantly setting me straight and pushing me to finish. So, keep your head on straight and you can finish no matter what. Get neurotic and it’s over.

With so many people having been swept along by political correctness over the last decade or so, most of the more commonplace ultraviolence in cinema such as scenes from movies like Total Recall had become taboo. What are your thoughts on this form of social censorship?
It can only lead to bad things. The safer people try and make things the more intolerant and repressed our culture gets. Intolerance and Repression then lead to covert deviance. This deviance then leads to children getting fucked in the ass by their priest/pastor/ice cream man.

Maybe that’s too extreme...
I think it’s a shame that people can’t take a fucking joke or simply separate fantasy from reality. Should we all have to suffer because some intolerant Jesus loving son of a bitch can’t help but hate himself for his desire to watch sexual and violent movies? If adults could only grow up and think for themselves then we wouldn’t have censorship. But, there are a lot of self-righteous deviants out there with power that will constantly force their insane and immature perspective on the masses and suppress progression. That is not to say that ultraviolence is progressive, but the ability to laugh at fantasy and to look at harsh realities straight in the face certainly is.

Asked time and again... Do you think movies with violent or gorey content encourage people to hurt each other?
Not at all. I think that someone with violent tendencies is going to commit acts violence even if he watches David and Goliath reruns all day. Entertainment has nothing to do with it. That whole thought process is simply for parents who can’t take the responsibility for their shitty job of nurturing a maladjusted child.

It seems general audience viewers who are actually looking for crazier than mainstream material are still sometimes overlooking the older flimmakers and revering the newer pop "Indie" types. What do you say to that?
Well, anyone who tells me they loved the new "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" but never saw the original is a victim of bad taste and the conversation would end there. Also, being a cinephile, I just don’t understand why someone would neglect seeing the older directors in favor of what I would know to be a watered down rehash of something of substance. At the same time, I am not a fan of Pop, so people like Guy Ritchie and Michael Bay hold about as much water with me as Britney Spears would at a hardcore show.

Share with us a small chronological history of your earlier exposure to 'fringe' cinema. (what age, year, format/screening, etc.)
When I was a kid cable was always wide open. I could watch whatever I wanted. SO, I am sure a lot of movies got me before the proper viewing age - seem to recall repeated viewings of Conan, the Death Wish series, Scarface, Firday the 13th and all of it’s clones, and lots of late night softcore. Things really got crazy when my dad bought our first VCR. He was never one for censoring anything so he would rent me whatever was on the new release shelf. When I was 9 I remember he rented me "A Clockwork Orange." That was a party. I almost puked from fear, but I watched it about three times that night. I could go on for hours about this. I will cut it short here.

Hollywood is currently buying the rights to as much Japanese Horror/Trash as they possibly can. Sometimes the material is bought only to be shelved away so that audiences have no further access to it. What do you think hardcore Japanese filmmakers will do next to maintain their reputation and their edge?
I think the best thing that anyone, not only the Japanese directors, can do is to not pay attention to Hollywood. Consider any given underground or indie music scene. They always start with a group of people who just want to play music together. Eventually, a somewhat unified style emerges, which is usually the polar opposite of the mainstream at the time. They snub the status quo by doing what they want to do and their quality/integrity remains intact. But, as soon as one of the bands signs, the scene goes to utter shit. The music gets diluted by people making "compromises" as they try to follow in the footsteps of those who sold out before them. The scene is destroyed. So, hopefully people like Takashi Miike and Sogo Ishii will keep their middle fingers up toward Hollywood and keep on doing what they are doing. I guess what I am saying is that the moment you cater your ideas toward someone other than yourself, is the moment you should consider re-evaluating why you are doing what you are doing.

What's the game plan for SLP now that you've worked your way up to features?
The only game plan I have is to keep on working on ideas. I have a lot to learn and even more stories to tell. The road seems wide open so long as my energy holds up.

SEEK OUT HAND OF DOOM in 2004.

Augustine Arredondo c/o Slow Learner Productions, 3310 E. Broadway - Long Beach, CA 90803 USA WEBSITE