THE MAKING OF DEVILS, DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES
by: Allen Rengstorff
AR: Here in Northern California’s Bay Area, your productions don’t exactly
have a huge cult following. But Mr. Foster, you do have a reputation for these
penniless productions you keep forcing people to watch. How many low budget
movies & videos have you been involved in?
DF: The amount of independent productions I’ve taken part in rivals the number of hypocritical Christians who think they’re always right about anything & everything. But regardless, the point I’m trying to make is that I’ve lent a hand on countless underground videos, horror movies and non-professional films shot on the budget of a 3rd grader’s weekly allowance. I’ve acted in, sometimes edited, or audio-dubbed portions of many tapes my friends have made, but trying to locate each and every one of them is harder than finding a package of birth-control pills in a Catholic Mexican household. However, I can tell you that I myself have personally completed and released five complete videotapes: DAMON FOSTER’S WEIRD VIDEOS, HOT DOGS ON THE RUN, THE ADVENTURES OF MYSTERON: VOLUME 1, THE ADVENTURES OF MYSTERON: VOLUME 2, and of course, my best video to date, AGE OF DEMONS. DEVILS DRAGONS & VAMPIRES will be my sixth.
AR: Have any of your performances ever made it to videostores? Or are all your tapes so incredibly low-budget that you only sell them mail-order?
DF: Well, I did hear a rumor that some place called "Famous Cult Videos" actually has 1992’s AGE OF DEMONS for rent, but I do know for a fact that Draculina Publishing carries it. Also, I’m the main villainous zombie in THE DEAD PIT, a professional movie which I’ve seen in several videostores. I’m all through the movie, but with heavy makeup, I’m hard to recognize, except for the scene where I get shot in the chest (to the accompaniment of sparks and a small explosion) and go flying backwards. They hired me as the "stunt zombie" because they had been shown some of my older videos, and felt my gymnastics were decent, and that I looked good in "dead" makeup (from my gothic, and/or "death-rock" days). I played a heroic zombie called something like "Dead Man", "Deddman", "Deadman" (Jewish zombie?!), in some other flick called SECRET OF THE SUPERHEROES. The movie sucked so badly though, that I don’t think any video distributor would touch it.
AR: Being that your videos are shot on home video equipment like cam-corders, and often look like the home-movies they really are, has this hindrance worked against you in your career?
DF: What career?! It’s just a hobby, much like my magazine (Oriental Cinema, the late Heroes on Film fanzine) writing. I need to work a full-time, mundane, hum-drum day-job just like all other working people. If I had any confidence that my labors-of-love could be profitable, then I would go commercial. But I know that in the showbiz industry, for every success, there are thousands upon thousands of failures. Not all the independents will get that "big break", and I’m well aware of this. So, cheap or not, I shall continue to make my videos using the same methods I’ve always used; because they work for me.
AR: How did you come up with the concept for DEVILS, DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES?
DF: At the risk of sounding "Politically Correct" (for once in my life), the concept came about because I felt like bashing prejudice. Though I’m always using ethnic humor and offending every minority group in existence, I still don’t see myself as blatantly racist and judgmental (though I do get very annoyed when groups perpetuate their own stereotype and then scream "racist!" when somebody does a satire of this stereotype). I have many friends, from all walks of life, cultures and ethnic groups: Punks, yuppies, Christians, Satanists, goths, jocks, rockabilly hepcats, skinheads, mods, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Pagans, heavy metal headbangers, surfers, geeks-- you name it. Though I can’t relate to all of them, I respect several of them, and find our differences interesting. So I decided to carry this to extremes, and write a script where three priests are forced to unite and form an uneasy bond.
AR: What is the script for DEVILS, DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES about?
DF: The story deals with an unlikely team up of three kung fu priests. I got the basic saga (I never claimed my tales were 100% original!) from old kung fu capers involving monks who kick ass. Not just David Carradine’s lame excuse for adventure KUNG FU, but the classic old Chinese films, where there were these rivalries between different martial arts monks: Shaolin Buddhist vs. Hindu Lama, Shaolin Buddhist vs. Taoist swordsmen, etc. My variation, however, deals with stereotypes closer to my home: There’s not just a Chinese monk, but also an orthodox Catholic and a Satanic wizard. The whole gimmick is to have sort of a "three stooges of religion", so when the characters aren’t beating up the bad guys, they’re exchanging insults and playing dirty tricks on each other. The Christian is pretty stereotypical; he dresses like a Franciscan monk (much like the Jawas in STAR WARS) and carries around a rather large cross. The Satanic priest, played by myself, is distinctly LaVeyan, since that’s the branch I can relate to. A Church of Satan member myself, I feel I should expose people to my personal view of what Satanism is, since I hope we all see the topic differently (you show me two people who completely agree on everything, and I’ll show you at least one liar). Anyway, I’ve already shot some test-footage of a battle between myself and the Christian priest (played by Butch Portillo of AGE OF DEMONS, GUYVER 2 and MEXICALI-JONES), and as an experiment, it looks pretty funny, if not symbolic: The duel is a swordfight, and the Xian is swinging his crucifix, which is clashing & clanging with my stereotypically "satanic" weapon; a pitch-fork!
AR: What type of flick is this? Is it drama? Documentary? Musical?
DF: It’s a comedy, it’s horror, it’s adventure, it’s sci-fi, it’s fantasy, and it’s martial arts. Like AGE OF DEMONS, it combines all these elements. I don’t like to stick to any single theme; I like to cram in as many ideas as there are loud-mouthed idiots on Superbowl Sunday. With my stories combining so many genres, it’s hard to make the stories coherent. My tales all do have a beginning, middle and end, but they’re quite long. AGE OF DEMONS was over an hour and a half long, and I fear DEVILS DRAGONS & VAMPIRES will be beyond feature-length; the story is complex and can’t be told in under two hours!
| This is in sharp contrast to my previous story, which was a five-minute sketch called SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE (which I botched up big time; the film title on the tape reads "Satanic Mass of the Vamire"! I forgot the "p" in ‘vampire’!). I don’t often talk about SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE though; it’s short and insignicant. The only thing good about it is you get a brief glimpse of my pets: A scorpion and a tarantula! | 
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AR: Why so many scantily-clad, voluptuous females in your videos?
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DF: My target audience is heterosexual males, need I say more? Though thin women are attractive too, you can see them on TV, and also anorexic models with implants litter the screen; |
AR: When will you begin production on DEVILS DRAGONS & VAMPIRES?
DF: Though I filmed some interiors, and a gun shoot-out on the beach, the major production won’t begin until early 2000. If all goes well, I hope to have it complete in about a year, perhaps less. Ideally, I would like to have the premiere in the summer of 2000, like maybe in September. But you never know what delays may postpone all that. Actors flake out and I get stood up; people just disappear off the face of the earth. Since I can’t pay anyone, I’m at the mercy of whatever time my friends will volunteer to this little project of mine. Also, we’re always getting hurt doing the karate scenes. I do all my own stunts, and one such jump sprained my ankle during AGE OF DEMONS’s climactic free-for-all. AGE OF DEMONS was suppose to take only a year to complete, but with me out of commission, the video actually took a year and a half to finish, because it took a while for me to completely heal. DEVILS DRAGONS & VAMPIRES involves a lot of stunts, guns, & fighting, so I’m certain we’ll have a few injuries; it’s inevitable.
AR: Your videos always have guest appearances by punk bands. In AGE OF DEMONS, you used San Francisco’s The Gargoyles, and in THE ADVENTURES OF MYSTERON: VOLUME 1, you had a plug for your friend’s band, The Kung Fools. Will DEVILS DRAGONS & VAMPIRES also feature an obligatory club-scene?
DF: Yes, only this time, I’m not sure which nightclub the band will play in. My other videos used Bay Area venues like the I-Beam and the Kennel Club, but both places have long since shut down. The San Francisco club scene is in trouble, with all these damn yuppies buying property South of Market and flushing out the clubs to make way for condos. We’ll probably end up using my old hang-out Gilman Street warehouse (considered by some to be the "birth place" of Greenday & Rancid), a place I was a regular at when I was much younger. It’s an under-age dive that serves no alcohol, but sometimes it’s the only place to see touring hardcore bands these days. It’s so strange to return there in my old age, seeing all these kiddys in mohawks who weren’t born when I had my mohawk and lived for gigs at Gilman! Anyway, the band this time will be Antiworld, a really neat, theatrical band who’s style is a throwback to early 1980s "death-rock" (a precursor to today’s ‘industrial goth’ stuff, but with way more power), and reminds me of 45 Grave, X, The Damned, early Christian Death, Bauhaus’s only two energetic songs, and the first Siouxsie & the Banshees album. Antiworld is too goth for the goths! With the white makeup, they really look the part, and yet have enough raw energy in their music to rival the toughest speed-metal band. Antiworld’s music strikes me as a combination of hardcore, gothic, and a little bit of psychobilly thrown in for good measure. If the band were around in the mid-1980s, they should have been on the soundtrack for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD-- they would have been a natural. Oh well, at least they get to play a song or two in my next video, which is better than nothing.
AR: Being that you’re so poor, how can you afford all the rubber costumes and plastic props you use in your films?
DF: I pinch pennies and eat nothing but rice & Top Ramen for days at a time. I just save up money and shop for bargains at around Halloween season. Most of the costumes I buy aren’t intended for long term usage; they’re meant for a single evening of Halloween clubbing. So I need to keep restoring these accessories with duct tape, contact cement and super-glue. By the ime my movie is completed, all that remains of the props & costumes are shredded pieces of cloth, and broken toys. But hell, they look decent on video, so I use them. Certain central, important props are especially made my skillful, talented friends of mine, like Ed Martinez and ennis Lancaster. Both are professionals in the business of costumes & special effects, and these guys are worth their weight in gold. I value their friendships considerably.
AR: Do you have any final words you would like to share with all the Internet surfers out there?
DF: Yes, here goes.......... Once I ate-out this Chinese chick. But 15 minutes later, I was just hungry for more. Stay tuned for updates!!
Visit Damon's homepages:
http://www.capecod.net/~jhorton/foster.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~MRKWANG/agedemon.htm
http://www.draculina.com/dfoster.html