Exclusive: Chad Armstrong And Andrew Thompson Talk Deimosimine
David Gelmini
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We recently spoke to director Chad Armstrong and writer/producer Andrew Thompson about Deimosimine, their new drug-related horror film which is being made via their company Legless Corpse Films. To make matters even more exiting, it’s being produced by Volumes of Blood creator PJ Starks, so they do indeed have some strong talent on-board. Check out the interview and some footage and images after the jump.
DC: How are things going with your company Legless Corpse? Is business taking off?
Chad Armstrong: Things are going good I really can’t complain. The accomplishments and goals we have superseded in the last year have been incredible. We just moved into a new location and can hire some additional people when needed, so that’s always a good thing.
DC: Can you talk about the cast of Deimosimine?
CA: The cast is fucking AMAZING. The first 5 days of shooting Ashley Coughlin (playing lead Cindy Richards) was just splattered with blood everyday and never complained, well she did in a sarcastic playful way, which is how we all communicate on set. It’s like a big family. But the entire cast we have worked with has been great and amazing, Jim O’Rear can aboard for one day and just nailed this very cool character and then sat in the makeup chair for almost 3 hours getting made up into an awesome creature by our FX guru Dennis Preston. Scott David who is playing Dr. Winter, was a replacement for another actor and was cast literally 2 days before shooting and showed up and did an incredible job. Everyone has just been awesome!!!
DC: Is the titular drug and its adverse effects intended to be some sort of metaphor for how big pharmaceutical companies in the US charge outrageous prices for lifesaving medicine?
Andrew Thompson: Not really — I wasn’t thinking in that direction with this script (although I did consider it for the follow-up, if there is one!). For Deimosimine, the drug is there as the catalyst for the horror that is to come — moreover, I thought of it as a kind of Greek tragedy-type element for the character of Dr. Winter, the inventor of the drug: He sincerely wants to help people, but he’s blinded by his pride and success. Thus, his greatest creation becomes his downfall, playing up the old parable of a good but impatient/overzealous man sowing destruction by trying to do good things.
DC: How did you find the experience of writing a character struggling with an addiction?
AT: The script actually only deals with her addiction in the first half of the first act, so I didn’t spend a lot of time on trying to get that deep into the addiction itself — there’s a scene where she receives a dose during a bad spell of DTs that shows how the heroin affects her physical and mental state, and a sequence during her detox that’s pretty harrowing, but other than that the rest of the film deals with the affects of her “cure” rather than her addiction. For insights into how she would be during that first act, and having no personal experience with drugs to work from, I drew instead from people that I’ve known who struggled with different addictions (mostly alcohol or pills) and did a lot of reading on heroin addiction and it’s tribulations. Using my own addictive impulses (I’m a collector, and a horror film junkie, obviously), I embellished and exaggerated those thoughts and feelings, and used the first hand accounts and research to create what I hope is a least a passable suffering for the character in those opening scenes.
DC: And you’re using practical creature effects?
CA: Yassss! Who doesn’t love practical FX? We have 4 creatures in the film all practical, sculpt, molded, foamed, painted, applied, etc. Very tough to accomplish on our budget, but we have done pretty well. The film has been 2 years in the making and we are finally closing in on finishing up. We have some of the major action sequences with the main creature and one another creature to shoot so we are shooting and raising funds at the same time. If anyone is interested in helping out they can grab anything on Deimosimine.com and not only do the proceeds go to the film but you will be reimbursed from the profits of the film. They will be like mini-investor, which we think is fair because they are putting faith in us, being patient why we finish the film and they deserve something for their contribution.
DC: So to round off, why is fear the best medicine?
CA: Well you have to see the film or watch the trailer to see that the tagline ties into the film, but mainly it’s just a cool tagline!!
Synopsis
Deimosimine is a dark multi-creature feature that is bringing true dark horror back to the fans. We are funding the film by a unique pre-order option where if you pre-order any items from the official Deimosimine store, you will get your items and we will pay you back with the films profits just like a traditional investor, but on a much smaller scale.
Visit Deimosimine’s Official website and Facebook account.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRzLgMjciUI]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI3_bbBikPI]
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