Interview: Pandie Suicide talks gory horror ‘Massacre’
Pandie Suicide, the New Zealand born model and actress known for her work with the Suicide Girls website, wore dual hats on the new film Massacre. As writer and star of the bloody horror jaunt, Suicide tells us it was quite an undertaking but she doesn’t regret doing it hard to get her “bloody baby” made.
So you’re fresh from the Massacre premiere. How did it go?
It went so great, thanks for asking! We had so many of our wonderful Massacre talent both from behind and in front of the camers show up, like of course our director Erik Boccio, DP Evan Pesses, our other producer Damian Lea, and my two award winning composers Jeordie White and Rob Patterson – they got us an award for the soundtrack at the Fantasmagorical Film Fest last month! Plus Jeff Hilliard, Katy Foley and so many more. We also had in attendance Pernicious director James Cullen Bressack, actor Jonathan Lipnicki, actor Bryan Rubio who just had a large role in a new film for Universal called Lowriders with Theo Rossi and Eva Mendez, artist Zak Smith, creature actor Mick Ignis, and more! It was at Busby’s East in Los Angeles and several other short films were also shown including Sparkle Puss and the West Files.
Was it nerve-wracking watching the film with an audience?
It was incredibly nerve wracking! I’ve only ever watched it with one or two people at a time before, and those were mostly people who were working on the film with me! I almost couldn’t watch it! But it all turned out well and people seemed to enjoy it so I think it went okay!
Where to now for the film?
So far the film has played at two festivals – the Fantamagorical Film Fest at Fandom Fest in Louisville, Kentucky, where it picked up the honorable mention award for soundtrack and the Horror Hound Weekend in Indianapolis, Indiana where it was nominated for Best Short. Then of course it premiered in Los Angeles recently, and is now set to play at the Puerto Rico Horror Film Festival in October with more festival dates to be announced. A lot of people have been tweeting and Facebooking and instagramming us asking where they can see the film, so other than the festival dates (which will be up on the Massacre Facebook and Twitter @massacremovie very soon), we’ve been looking at the options for some kind of digital distribution so we should have some exciting news for you about that after the festival run is done!
When and how did Massacre get going?
The story for Massacre came to me in a very vivid, violent and bloody dream one day. When I awoke I grabbed my notebook and began writing as if in a trance. At the end of this, I had basically the full script for Massacre written out in its first form. Now as far as the talent I was very lucky that my co-star London May who plays bass/ drums for Glenn Danzig’s band Samhain among others, had heard about my film and approached me wanting to be involved and as it turned out he was perfect for the part of ‘The Detective’! My other co-star Billy Morrison who plays guitar for Billy Idol and has also appeared in many things as an actor including an episode of one of my favourite shows ever Californication, I met him at my friend Laney Chantal and Jeordie White’s wedding through a mutual friend Moxi Suicide when we gave him a ride home, and then next thing you know he is the Paramedic in Massacre! And he did a great job of it too!
Did you pretty much wear most of the hats on the film? And if so, how did you handle such an undertaking?
I was the writer, producer and played the lead role of Marianne James a girl who wakes up at the site of a bloody mass murder and can’t remember what happened. I also did all kinds of other little things like collecting all the costumes and props, I was driving around Los Angeles covered in blood with a trunk full of guns and police uniforms a couple times there, I was very careful to drive the speed limit. It would have been interesting trying to explain that to that cops! But while I did handle a lot of it as Massacre is kind of like my (very bloody) baby, it was definitely a team effort and everyone involved pitched in to help make this movie possible and for that I’m really grateful!
Have you always had a love affair with horror? When did it begin?
I grew up watching the Rocky Horror Picture show and earlier Peter Jackson splatter movies as well as being raised on Bauhaus and Bowie and Hendrix and Sabbath and Zeppellin, I think I was always destined to turn out this way! Horror is definitely one of my great loves! I actually found an urban fantasy/paranormal type novel on an old hard drive very recently that I must have written when I was about 16 or 17. While it’s more in the fantasy genre it definitely has some good horror elements in it, I mean Satan himself makes an appearance! So I think this appearance and appreciation of dark themes in my life and my creative work runs pretty deep! I’m going to be releasing the novel as an eBook very soon, in fact I have an amazing artist working on the cover for me, he’s British in fact, Mister Sam Shearon who has done all kinds of horror inspired art too! Whatever I’m doing horror’s not far from it!
And we’d be remiss to ask you about your appearance on TVs Community. How was that?
That was a really small thing a long time ago but it was a lot of fun I got to play an anarchist punk for the day, and all the actors from the show that were there were all super rad so it was a cool little experience!
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Look out for Pandie Suicide’s Massacre playing a horror festival near you soon!
