For a moment let’s take a break from B Movie creature, slasher, slapstick, boob films and enjoy some B Movie shorts with filmmaker Jeremiah Kipp. Okay there is blood and boobs, but done differently than most B movies. He can take my family vacation videos and turn them into a masterpiece.
Jeremiah is a big fan of genre films. With little or no dialogue he does a great job directing so everything is portrayed through body language and visuals. His shorts are horror that scare the audience psychologically with a slight touch of drama to make the audience sympathize with the characters. I can only imagine how his feature slasher horror films will be. Can’t wait!
Jeremiah graduated from Tisch School of the Arts with honors, received a B.F.A. in film from NYU, and has dozens of Assistant Director credits and Director credits for shorts. He has a lot of experience and we will be seeing many more feature films and shorts from him in upcoming years.
Watch Jeremiah’s short films and here are a few simple comments about them.
CONTACT
“Contact” was praised by producers and they brought Jeremiah on board to direct the upcoming film “The Sadist” which stars Tom Savini.
A young couple purchases a weird drug from an even weirder dealer. The girl has scary hallucinations that lead her to freaking out. It’s a great Say No to Drugs short. The bad trip is scary, but possibly worse is the sympathy for the parents. The music, sound effects and camera angles made me feel like I was tripping along with the couple.
I had to give my 5 and 8 year daughters a hug after watching it and told them if they ever shoot up some wicked drug that they can always come home. They said “okay” and it made me happy.
http://kippfilms.com/contactfilm.html
CRESTFALLEN
A powerful short of a girl well on her way of committing suicide. The good memories and the bad memories rush through her mind. Which will prevail?
With no dialogue in the film, Jeremiah does a great job visually to engross and make us empathize with the girl. Yeah, slightly different than us rooting on the creature to mutilate people. Again, I appreciate Jeremiah’s camera angles. At one point in the short I caught myself turning upside down and almost standing on my head.
http://kippfilms.com/crestfallen.html
THE DAYS GOD SLEPT
‘The Days God Slept’ is a cinematic prayer that deals with love and secrets; with faith and acceptance. Kristy has a secret to tell John and when she does – will their burgeoning ties of affection be strengthened or severed? Or will they find that the hardest thing to accept might be oneself? (IMDB summary)
This film has a strong message. Do not ask a strip club entertainer too many personal questions. It’s tempting I know and most guys think the entertainer actually likes them, but things will just get very complicated the more you pursue it.
Lauren Fox made this film quite intriguing.
Trailer: http://kippfilms.com/daysgodslept.html
DROOL
Unlike water, drool is thicker, slipperier, and according to the film it makes for a great skin care. Definitely a mesmerizing short film. If you ever see a dog or someone drooling, you’ll remember this short. This one had me captivated for the duration of the film. I had to ask Jeremiah more about this one.
http://kippfilms.com/drool.html
Five Quick Questions with Jeremiah Kipp
As a kid you ran around with a camcorder making your own zombie films and knew you were destined to make films. Do you remember what gave you that desire at a young age to make films?
JEREMIAH: My mind was blown by THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and DAWN OF THE DEAD. I saw them when I was really young, and while I found them scary I also somehow knew that someone was able to go out and make those movies. Something about them spoke to me in a primal way, maybe a way I didn’t even understand at the time beyond the visceral level. But I understood they had an impact. When my folks purchased a camcorder to record weddings and family gatherings, I immediately started gathering up the kids from my block to make zombie movies in the backyard and haunted house films in the basement. You know, I felt the same way watching TEXAS CHAINSAW as I felt looking at the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. They were utterly violent, but full of extremities and aggression and passion. Far more than what I saw in most other movies. I wanted to share that passion.
Your shorts are intriguing, but I have to ask about one that had me captivated for the duration of the film. “Drool”…where, what, how, why?
JEREMIAH: That was made with the participation of an art space called Mandragoras. They wanted to collaborate on a video, and this is what emerged. The actors involved had experience in performance art and were fearless about the content, and while we never discussed it in an intellectual way we knew it was going to be dealing with relationships, addiction, birth, monsters…but it’s an open film so the audience can interpret it however they want. It exists as an art-horror hybrid. The actors threw themselves into the work and we shot it in a few hours, and then the project was beautifully edited by Scott W. Perry.
In regards to directing “The Sadist,” aesthetically did you go for a B-Movie style?
JEREMIAH: Talking about this film is a painful subject, because my creative team and I were going for a hard-edged B-movie aesthetic and could have delivered an enjoyable picture to genre fans. As it happens, the inexperienced producers seized control of the movie and re-cut it and shot entirely new scenes with a different cinematographer. If they had stuck with me, we could have scored the film with Harry (“Friday the 13th”) Manfredini, who composed the music for my short films THE DAYS GOD SLEPT and CRESTFALLEN. Instead, they decided to go in their own direction. I hope for the best. Apparently, they have completed the film, and for what it’s worth I hope audiences enjoy it. I did have a contractual right to final cut that they have completely ignored, but as an entertainment lawyer told me, a low budget contact isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. I’ve done my best since then to only associate with producers who I know and trust. I must also add that Tom Savini was a dream to work with. He has a reputation for being difficult, but let me assure you he is a team player, an ally and a friend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?[v=CHdiM2GsusA]
You wrote and directed several episodes for “In Fear Of”. The series is heading into season 2, can you tell us about it? (I didn’t see where on the website to watch it, however I’m blind sometimes)
JEREMIAH: That’s ironic, because my episode for Season 2 is about the fear of blindness. We’re finishing up post-production on that right now. IN FEAR OF came about because of my colleague Scott W. Perry, who found a list of phobias and cooked up the idea of a TWILIGHT ZONE-style Web series where each episode dealt with a new fear. My two episodes for the first season were surreal body horror-style fever dreams, closer to hallucinations than narratives. My episode for the second season, starring the wonderful actress Susan Adriensen from Alan Rowe Kelly’s THE BLOOD SHED, is more narrative driven, a character study of a girl losing her sight and spiraling out of control. Some of the scenes in that one feel like we were filming an exorcism! I can’t wait for people to see it, and we are planning to put it online this October. Folks can find out more by going to http://www.infearoftheseries.com/
IN FEAR OF – Podophobia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzAW4CG3aG0
IN FEAR OF – Apehephobia: http://vimeo.com/53380445
More episodes and other videos can be found on the In Fear Of Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/InFearOfWebSeries
Is there more feature films in the works? Maybe a creature or monster B Movie?
JEREMIAH: I do have a script for a creature feature that I would love to make, as well as a bad-ass low budget vampire film. The current projects in circulation are THE DAYS GOD SLEPT, set in a phantasmagoric strip club where not all is as it seems, which is playing the festival circuit now; and BAGGAGE — a grisly straight-up horror movie I directed for producer/writer/lead actor Rob Dimension, which is currently for sale via Rob’s Web site at http://youvebeenrobbedfilms.com/ That one reminds me of a mean-spirited Edgar Allan Poe story, a slow burn that builds to a macabre climax. Those are both short films. There are plans for a second feature written by and starring Lauren Fox, the lead actress from THE DAYS GOD SLEPT, produced by Lauren Rayner (who has produced many of my post-SADIST films). That one is more of a love story, but with an element of danger. You don’t know if the story will end in romance or utter destruction. Beyond that, let’s see what the future brings.
For more information and too keep current with Jeremiah be sure check out his website and follow him on Twitter:
http://kippfilms.com/main.html
https://twitter.com/JeremiahKipp
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