DarkVeins had the pleasure of interviewing American producer, screenwriter and director Jeremiah Kipp, whose busy filmography includes several short films including Berenice, Contact, Crestfallen, The Minions, Painkiller (review of the film here) and the feature film The Sadist with Tom Savini. Jeremiah Kipp talks about his films and future plans.
DV: Hi Jeremiah, thank you for giving us this interview! Tell us a little bit about yourself.
JK: I'm a filmmaker in New York, making a living as a director and sometimes as an assistant director. It's a financially challenging and artistically fulfilling life where I feel like one of those guys who said, "I'm going to run away and join a circus!" In fact, mine is an almost nomadic existence where you constantly meet and re-meet fellow travelers along the way. I can say that at times it is difficult but never boring. At the best of times one has highly adrenaline and extreme experiences, comparable to extreme sports; peak moments one can never forget. No wonder so many artists use drugs as life is not a series of ecstatic moments. When you plummet to the bottom, the result could be devastating if you can't put your life back together-perhaps that's why I make films about the extremes of life.
DV: You have written and directed several short films. When did you discover your passion for filmmaking?
JK: I grew up with my grandparents in the deep woods of Rhode Island. My late grandfather passed on to me a love of reading, graphic design, photography, acting, and, when my family bought a VHS camcorder intended for filming weddings and picnics, we immediately began gathering the neighborhood kids together to make backyard zombie and woodland war movies. We made a three-hour version of Stephen King's "The Shadow of the Scorpion," where my grandfather played Randall Flagg. It was a lot of fun, and making movies combined all those loves I had as a child: storytelling, the visual element, the acting aspect. When you find what makes you happy, you want to stay there for the rest of your life. I've been in the film business ever since.
DV: Berenice is the film adaptation of Poe's short story. Contact (2009) deals with themes of drugs, nudity, blood and violence. In Crestfallen (2011) the music is by Harry Manfredini ("Friday the 13th"). What can you tell us about these three short films?
JK: Berenice originated as part of a horror anthology called Creepers which is available for purchase at creepersfilm.com. I have wanted to make the film for quite some time now, since the ending of Poe's short story is truly astonishing. When the story was published, ill-disposed readers wrote to the editor asking how he could publish such garbage. He decided there and then that he would continue to disturb the public, because, in order to appreciate a story, one must read it. We modernized the story by inserting sexual references as well. We were not that far from the truth since Poe's writing is voluptuous and suggests images of sexual obsession and perverse nightmares.
For me Contact and Crestfallen are complementary works. Both are love films whose stories are told from a very damaged perspective. 
Contact was made when I was in a really critical and desperate moment, and it was born out of the belief that the closer you are to someone, the more mysterious that someone becomes. We human beings are dangerous animals but we still feel like being close and touching each other, or loving each other. In Contact the characters try to get closer but this causes something unpleasant, complications, and heartbreaking shock.
Crestfallen is more than a kaleidoscope of life, it is based on a script by Russ Penning who adapted it loosely to his own experience: his own suicide attempt. Our main character (played by Deneen Melody) experiences a disturbing journey similar to Russ's. The film is ultimately an affirmation of life and how it is worth living even in its most painful moments. Harry Manfredini's music is appropriately sweeping and epic as our feelings are immense: love, hate, fear, envy are as powerful as an orchestra. Harry thoroughly enjoyed the film, and his contribution was essential in terms of the emotional impact he had on the finished work. I would love to work with him again sometime. He is from Chicago and has promised to break my legs if I don't hire him in my next feature film.
DV: The Minions is the title of your fascinating and elegant short film about witches. Can you tell us about it? What was your inspiration for it?
JK: I had previously worked with playwright Joe Fiorillo on a short film entitled. The Days Gos slept, and ours was a great experience where we said we should make more films together. I was reading a novel by Joe, and one of the chapters was essentially the plot of The Minions. We decided to make a movie out of it, I was attracted to the idea of someone having to confront a supernatural force that may or may not be real. However, that doesn't make it any less terrifying. In the fantastic short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by writer Washington Irving, we don't know whether schoolteacher Ichabod Crane has had too much to drink, is superstitious, or is actually being attacked by a scary ghost. The Minions deals with opposing themes such as the natural and the supernatural and inner evil as opposed to outer evil. All this is presented from the point of view of our character William who dares to walk along the witch's path.
DV: Let's talk about The Sadist (2015), your film starring Tom Savini. What was it like working with Savini? How would you describe your feature film?
JK: No one hates this film as much as I do. The Producer's cut is available on Amazon but it has the wrong aspect ratio (we shot in widescreen and they released it fullscreen), and the edit is not mine in any way. I probably should have taken my name off this project. It's a movie with a killer roaming the woods, where the killer is a war veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It's sort of like a bad Rambo.
Our producers were horrible, we hated each other, and it's hard to talk about the film in a positive way. I will never work with those producers again, I will never trust them again. The cast and crew in New York would agree with me that working with people like that was hell.
Having said that, I really enjoyed working with Tom Savini, a supportive man, powerful as a tank, an extraordinary guy. People who know him say he is a very grumpy man, but the Tom I met was full of positive energy and love for film.
DV: What are the other horror films you've directed? What about the most recent one? Can you tell us about them?
JK: Painkiller I describe it as a "body horror meets Fight Club"--a brutal film both in front of and behind the camera. Lovers of the genre enjoyed it very much. It was made on the basis of another short film titled Baggage with screenwriter/producer/actor Rob Dimension, a kind of unhealthy "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode with a bad twist at the end. Audiences can find that film for free on YouTube here. I like to balance my filmmaking career between nerve-wracking narratives such as. Baggage and Painkiller alternating with more poetic and avant-garde shorts such as The Minions and Drool.
DV: What are you currently working on? Tell us about your upcoming horror projects.
JK: This year I found myself involved in two feature films. One is an ultra-low-budget, sleazy, gritty project titled Theresa & Allison, a vampire movie that reminds me of the obscene videos made by William Lustig in 1980. It is as if Lustig were making "Alice in Wonderland." The producer, Charles D. Lincoln, is a real lunatic and we never thought he would be able to get us so involved. If we attempted an MPAA rating, we would definitely get that NC-17 rating. We went pretty far while still maintaining my interest in making films that are beautiful but at the same time also macabre.
The other film is Black Wake starring Nana Gouvea and Eric Roberts, written by the screenwriter of Painkiller, Jerry Janda. The script was written almost as a joke. We struggled to make Painkiller; shooting in cramped quarters was like shooting inside a submarine, and we often joked that the next film will have to be shot on a beach.
In an interview, Jerry also heard me say that I hate found footage films and would never want to make one. That immediately sparked him: he wrote the script for a found footage filmed on the beach and inspired by those wonderful HP Lovecraft stories where ancient gods are about to awaken, want to rise up to reclaim the earth. The film is about the end of the world documented by pragmatic scientists going off the deep end.
DV: What are your top five favorite horror movies and why? Do you have a favorite director?
JK: There are so many wonderful directors and we draw from each of them. Some of my favorite genre films include George Romero's "Dawn of the Living Dead," John Carpenter's "The Thing," Andzej Zulawski's "Possession," Tobe Hooper's "Don't Open That Door," and Val Lewton's "Kiss of the Panther." These are the first five films that came to my mind, probably if you ask me this same question tomorrow, I will bring up more titles!
DV: The movies you mentioned are part of the list of my favorite movies! What are your film influences?
JK: It depends from project to project, as I admire Steven Spielberg's stunning visual storytelling as much as Abel Ferrara's gritty, raw aggression. You couldn't find two of the most different directors but I drew from both and the others.
Painkiller is a body horror inspired by the brilliant David Cronenberg but we also thought of other directors such as William Friedkin, John Cassavetes and James Cameron. We are all walking in the sand following the deep footsteps of those who came before us.
DV: Leave a message for DarkVeins readers!
JK: Many of my films can be seen for free on my site, so I invite you to reach out and take a look. If you like them, check out The Minions and The Days God Slept in VOD.
The great passion of my life is cinema, and it is made to be shared with the audience.
And to all DarkVeins readers, get scared.
DV: Thank you Jeremiah!
