ED: You're the associate producer for the upcoming film HALLOWS POINT which was scheduled for an October 06 debut, but since that didn't happen, when is the movie expected to be released and how come it has been delayed?
BG: It was a dream, earlier in the summer, for the film to debut by Halloween; but then the reality of post-production eclipsed any further speculation about an October release. Better I should channel the director, Jeffrey Lynn Ward:

Jeff Ward: "We had originally wanted to release the movie for Halloween, but we soon realized that we would have to rush things too much to comply with that deadline. Part of that has to do with the footage coming out better than some had thought. Now everyone thinks that HALLOWS POINT can be something special. We would rather have the extra time so the people composing the music and working on the special effects can do the movie justice."

ED: Can you tell us in short words a little about HALLOWS POINT, what it is about and such.
BG: It's best to view the trailer (www.hallowspoint.com) and draw your own conclusions. Quite succinctly, it involves a clique of students who resurrect their deceased, bloodthirsty biology teacher. Chaos ensues, if ya get my drift. The teacher, Nathainial Raber, is played by Tom Nowicki, who drew blood in THE PUNISHER. I was bitching about the weather and there was Tom, buried beneath all of those cadaverous prosthetics, somehow immune to the blistering heat. A terrific actor, a real trooper. Anyway, I was elated that the script isn't a contrivance for torture and entrails, always a smokescreen for story deficiency. Jeff Ward's camera is very kinetic, it's a very interactive presence.

ED: The movie seems to have a great cast with Christa Campbell, David Naughton and Tom Nowicki among a bunch of others. How did you get them to be in the film and would you say that they've added a lot to the movie?
BG: HALLOWS POINT takes itself very seriously and you need sterling actors to append further credibility to the story. It was my privilege to recommend Christa Campbell. These days, there are only a few legitimate actresses indelibly linked to horror in some capacity, either directly or marginally-in addition to Christa, there's Cerina Vincent, Kari Wuhrer, Denice Duff, Caroline Munro, Angela Bettis, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shawnee Smith, Barbara Crampton. Hey, maybe Misty Mundae, she kicked ass in MASTERS OF HORROR ("Sick Girl" episode), her performance totally floored me. Christa embodies the classic femme fatale. Effortlessly sexy and sultry. But she's not content with functioning only as eye candy, Christa is an actress with a tempestuous flair. She was baking in the Florida heat but never broke a sweat. Off-camera, she's extremely articulate, everybody fell in love with her. Tim Sullivan loved Christa so much in 2001 MANIACS that he's expanding her role in the sequel. David Naughton is an iconic presence, he's the AMERICAN WEREWOLF (IN LONDON). He's also totally cool and a helluva actor. And, as I already noted, Tom is the consummate thespian. Only yesterday, I was discussing the cast with Jeff (Ward); cue one of those swirly optical effects and fade to a flashback-

JW: "We were very fortunate in securing David and Christa. One of the crew members was old friends with David. We tracked him down, he was up at a horror convention in New England and we faxed him the script. He agreed to the part right away and we redirected his flight home through Tampa Bay. David is such a professional and one of the funniest guys you'll ever meet. In HALLOWS POINT, David plays an occult shopkeeper. I think he liked playing a creepy, dark role for a change. With Christa, Bill George had worked with her before and mentioned her as a possibility. We sent her the script and she agreed to the part of Tanya Graves. Christa was an absolute delight to work with. She's smart, sexy and a wonderful actress. We definitely want her back for the sequel."

ED: Will HALLOWS POINT get a theatrical release or will it go straight to DVD?
BG: Again, I'll acquiesce to Jeff:

JW: "We are definitely planning for a limited theatrical release. We are in negotiations with several distributors as we speak."

ED: How has it been working on the film? What's your general feel of things, has it been fun or has it been a lot of hard and difficult work?
BG: I had a blast. I really admired the work ethic of the cast and crew. There was a genuine fraternity on the set, but everybody was extremely professional, very disciplined, always busting butt. Sometimes shooting stretched until 3 AM in that sweltering studio: nobody bitched, they just literally sweat it out until it was time to split.

ED: What would you say separates HALLOWS POINT from other horror movies?
BG: Well, it's not a remake, not a reimagining, not a clone, not another teen meat movie, not another "Oh God, let's ask those hillbillies-the ones picking their teeth with hooks and human intestines-if they can repair our car." It wasn't conceived as a cash cow. This is the realization of Jeff Ward's dream-I think he originally wrote the script about twenty years ago. The guy is obsessed with horror films! He savored the opportunity to work with genre icons like Christa and David Naughton. Anyway, as director, he had the freedom to adhere to his vision. Jeff doesn't want to make you feel nauseous, he wants to scare the hell out you. By the way, he previously worked with Michelle Bauer, the last of the great video divas. They worked together on THE DWELLING, but that horror film ran afoul of sleazebags who pretty much purloined and re-edited it; I mean, they really fucked Jeff and producer Glen Kral out of their vision and profits. Anyway, bottom line, HALLOWS POINT is a valentine to horror movies and that's validated by the selection of the cast, the shots and a 20-year waiting period to do it correctly.

ED: Sounds very interesting, I'm really looking forward to see the film! How has it been working with director Jeffrey Lynn Ward, I mean, would you say that you have the same taste as him and what do you think of his vision of HALLOWS POINT?
BG: Jeff and I have quite a lot in common: we're insomniacs and workaholics, and-growing up-we developed an addiction to Hammer, William Castle and Vincent Price movies. We debate which performance is Peter Cushing's best, though that's pretty subjective because Cushing was really wonderful in all of his movies-even in something as shameless as LAND OF THE MINOTAUR. I was drawn to HALLOWS POINT because, not to belabor the point, Jeff and I share the same view on the psyche and politics of horror: modern films are regressing to the Grand Guignol of the 1980s, they're in denial of a story and opting to compete on the gross-out meter. Call it deja-vu. Back in the 80s, the public-generically linking horror with cheap splatter-no longer bought into the genre; theatres and the video market were saturated with this junk and the whole trend eventually eroded. The significant difference, today, is that gross-out has "graduated" from low-budget to corporate Hollywood films. A good director can apply carnage to a practical purpose-Stuart Gordon orchestrated gratuitous violence into comic opera in RE-ANIMATOR. Tim Sullivan utilized violence as his punch line in 2001 MANIACS and John Gulager negotiated a similar confection for FEAST. But less talented directors think it's a hoot to wallow in mean-spirited sadism and that just isn't my bag. Jeff realizes that violence is indispensable to the genre but he respects his audience and invokes a bit of Jacques Tourneur in his restraint. He's also compassionate about female roles and the guy is tireless. He was averaging about 2-3 hours sleep on the HALLOWS POINT shoot. Trust me, he won't be challenging critics to boxing matches-even if he did, I doubt Roger Ebert would survive one round.

ED: Haha, that's great to hear! Has there been a lot of changes to the script while shooting the film and also tell us a little about your experience on the set.
BG: One of my most pleasant experiences was working with an actress named Angela Austin. She replaced Rhonda Shear-thank you, God-in the role of "Cindy Coleman." Angela is a hard worker and one of the most gorgeous women on Earth. She could slum through a role if she chose to, male audiences wouldn't care if she performed a Shakespeare sonnet or Pat Barrington's expositional dialogue from ORGY OF THE DEAD. But Angela, and I say this in all sincerity, is not at all self conscious of her beauty. She prefers to be challenged by a role, she's impassioned with acting-not stardom. Angela was congenial enough to pose for some pinups because I thought the resultant photos would pitch the film to a target demographic. The irony is that Jeff and (executive producer) Buddy Winsett declined to include any sort of sexy scenes in the HALLOWS POINT trailer. Angela performs a discreetly-photographed shower scene and Alexxus Young, the Sci-Fi Diva, looks pretty smokin' in a seduction scene. I was hoping these scenes cut would be cut into the trailer, even on a subliminal level, but Jeff and Buddy prefer to sell the film entirely on the merit of its horror content. Angela is not really visible in the trailer so her role will be a welcome surprise when you see the film. And she kicks ass, she's not a screamer nor does she retreat from a rendezvous with the film's hellspawn. Anyway, Angela moonlit as script supervisor, she was melting in that Hades heat but never beefed; she was absorbed into the film, in front-and in back-of the camera.

Script changes? Well, according to Jeff -
JW: "We did some improvising, but there were no changes made to the script once production started. We really had an extensive pre-production period and were able to solve most of the logistics before we started shooting. Changing a script during production is something I try to avoid at all costs. Because the screenplay had gone through so many drafts and was really polished up, everyone was happy with the story and changes weren't ever discussed."

ED: As far as I know, HALLOWS POINT mixes a lot of different genres. How do you think things have turned out with that, are all the genres like comedy, sci-fi, action, horror all very visible in the film?
BG: Things turned out so well that I have no doubt there'll be a sequel. Our antagonist, Nathainial Raber, is not a machete-wielding guy who drops-by only to chastise horny teens. He's a biology teacher who's intelligent, pissed-off and dead. I mean, even as a "living," decaying corpse, he wears glasses-it's a deft touch of humor that prevails in the film. And the actors who play Raber's students aren't written-off as body bags. They're exceptional actors, all of them: Robin Hines' performance is particularly intense, she's chased into this morgue-like labyrinth where (SPOILER ALERT). Mike George and rest of the crew knew how to create this haunted hamlet, Hallows Point, without sliding into any sort of absurd extravagance. Our cinematographer, Erik Curtis, previously shot MIAMI VICE, TRANSPORTER 2 and a sci-fi shocker, ALTERED, which was written by a good friend, Jamie Nash. But the humor and action don't converge at the expense of the horror-no annoying "comedy relief," I guarantee you. And the climactic scene is grim but oddly funny-it really kind of unnerved me while it was being shot.

ED: You've been filming in Tampa Bay, Florida. How come you choose that location and how has the location itself affected the film?
BG: That is Jeff Ward's turf, so I'll defer to the director:

JW: "Most of the principles involved with HALLOWS POINT are from the area and our company, Chameleon Filmworks is headquartered in Clearwater. It's a great place to shoot a movie year round. We're planning to do our next couple of movies here as well. Believe it or not, the Tampa Bay area has an incredible talent pool of young actors, many of them have already moved to LA but can travel back and work as local hire. It would have been cost prohibitive to fly in as many actors as we needed and house them all. The twelve kids playing the roles of the high school seniors just may be the best young ensemble cast of its size ever cast in a movie. Tom Nowicki who plays the villain, Nathanial Raber lives in Florida too. Tom did an amazing job creating the serial killer/Biology teacher who is driven by black magic to commit unspeakable acts. The character is so fascinating yet so frightening, I think Tom is on his way to becoming a monumental actor in the horror genre."

ED: Do you watch a lot of new horror films? Have you seen any new films lately that has been really good and if so, which ones?
BG: I've may have seen most of the new horror films but, quite frankly, I'm not impressed-quite a few recycle the splatter shtick. Nevertheless, there's some "modern" talent whom I feel are a credit to the genre-Tom Sullivan, Lucky McGee, Jamie Nash and David Thomas Sckrabulis, actresses Blythe Metz and Jennifer Huss. Jennifer was infinitely better than both her horror films; she's extremely versatile...flawless actress and singer...my God, she's edited a magazine and she's now a popular d.j. in Cincinnati. No one is more deserving of expansion and better movies. But the talent pool is receding. The best villain in the Horror Cinema, in my humble opinion, is CURSE OF THE DEMON's Dr. Julian Karswell. He was played by a criminally underrated actor named Niall MacGinnis. The character is a Satanic officiator who, not unlike TV ministers, profits from his disciples. Saddled with an Oedipal complex, he's not an aggressive bad guy-in fact, nothing would please him better than to compromise with the smug hero and avoid a showdown. Brilliant writing, brilliant acting. A similar criterion could be applied to Walter Huston's "Mr. Scratch" in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER or Boris Karloff as THE BODY SNATCHER; Karloff's character, appropriately named "Grey," is a murdering mercenary though there's a little bit of light somewhere in his darkness. But now the heavies are played by stuntmen, the wicked wit has been overshadowed by hardware and CGI is the answer to everything. God, there's a scene in the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS where a simple kiss is the catalyst for fear and melancholy. It's all compressed into one close-up. I've seen nothing to match this sort of subtlety, today's horror is akin to the boorish party drunk who wears a lamp shade on his head. Just for the record, the last good sleeper that I screened was William Wesley's SCARECROWS-I found it on the bottom of a Blockbuster shelf, years ago, collecting dust.

ED: There are some hot young ladies in Hallows Point, how would you say that has affected the film as a whole? I mean, are there a lot of focus set on showing of hot girls?
BG: God, I did the math: Woo-hoo, steamy weather + cool lagoons=string bikinis. Wrong calculation. Exempting a pool party or two, the actresses were entirely dedicated to their work. Zip recreation. After retiring from the set, they were studying their lines for the next day's shoot. Bummer. Yes, there's a lot of focus on the actresses but Jeff didn't write them as clothes dispensers. Alexxus Young's character was supposed to be topless for one scene but Jeff subsequently scotched her nudity. Again, Jeff has too much confidence in the horror content to risk t&a distractions. The likes of Christa Campbell and Angela Austin don't need nudity, they're naturally hot. Red hot. Horror films are inherently erotic, and this oscillates from kinky fetishism to Hammer's vampirism, the latter transforming repressed Victorian women into bisexual liberators. Hell, I'd love to see a truly erotic horror film-Stuart Gordon is one of the very few directors who understands this hybrid. But most directors interpret "eroticism" as a scene where a starlet strips-off her bra before she's hacked-up; it's one of the reasons that the genre is handicapped with unshakable misogyny. Hey, I love gratuitous nudity but I'm not nearly as fond of the films that flaunt it.

ED: I hear you and I couldn't agree more. Would you say that any horror films has inspired HALLOWS POINT, and if so, which ones?
BG: I think HALLOWS POINT is homage to all of the horror films that Jeff screened during his adolescence.

ED: What do you have coming up next, if anything, do you wanna continue to work with doing horror films or do you have some other plans for the future?
BG: I'm stereotyped and I don't mind it a bit. All of my life, I've been editing and writing-the recurrent theme has been women and horror. Last year, I matched my professional obligations with all sorts of odd jobs to pay for an expensive hobby (collecting vintage horror posters). Then it dawned upon me, get involved in the filmmaking process. I'm working on a film, shot in Baltimore and Atlantic City, titled THE COLLECTOR; some of the rough-edited stuff, directed by Emmy award-winner Charles Roggero, was previewed at the AFI. I did a couple of rewrites, which segued into a horror film that will be shot in Ellicott City (MD) during the summer ('07). I developed the screenplay with Dayna Mizzer, who is apprenticing the genre by working for Horror Mania (Europe's opulent horror magazine). We'll be casting in March/April and shooting in June. Unfortunately, I'll be losing Dayna, for a few months, to the University of Westminster; she'll be studying in London during early '07 but will return home, by late spring, to work on the movie. We're working on a p.r. blitz for Dayna, she recently posed for Steve Parke (Prince's photographer). Dayna is being nurtured into a sort of horror hotty because the East Coast needs some representation in this capacity; filling the vacancy, Dayna has no problem with torrid pinup photography because she's secure with her own sexuality. After wrapping each shoot, she hits the books...she just earned a 98 on her Psych mid-term. Dayna is writing a treatment on women's roles in horror films. She loves THE HAUNTING ('63), specifically the Eleanor Vance role (played by Julie Harris); she's also intrigued by Theo's lesbian rapport that was further explored in the uncut print. The screenplay doesn't chastise Theo's lifestyle though we doubt many spectators picked-up on her sapphic demeanor. At any rate, we look forward to working with Jeff Ward, again, next summer. Jeff would like to shoot CRYPT CHICKS, an anthology, but he may opt for a ghost story. I can't talk about any of these movies right now, plagiarism runs rampant in this industry. But you'll be the first to know.

ED: Thanks! Anything else that you would like to add and say to the readers before we wrap this one up?
BG: Just be sure to check-out the HALLOWS POINT web site; we look forward to your feedback.

ED: Major thanks to you Bill for all the great answers!
You can check out the official HALLOWS POINT web site at hallowspoint.com

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