17 BUCKS IN THE BANK, AND ENDLESS SHOWERS: An interview with the Inspiring (and suprisingly nice) Eamon Hardiman( director of Catholic Ghoul Girls, The Porkchop Trilogy, Zombie babies, Vampire Whores From Outerspace and the upcoming The Crawling Dead)

 

The first question i wanted to ask is one that a lot of my readers and friends that have seen the porkchop films and the zombie babys film ask and that is Eamon Hardiman your real name? and if so what ethnic background does the name originate with? if not where did the name come from?

Yep, that’s my real name. It’s Irish and fairly common in other parts of the world but a constant source of . It’s pronounced “Ay-muhn.”

lol now that that completely random question is out of the way let’s get down to some film questions.

A lot of people have pointed out that while porkchops and the sequels are cool and entertaining films they tend to have quite a few off screen kills and filler, how do you feel about this view and is it an issue you plan to work on in future projects?

Well, it’s tough when your shooting schedule is so short. We shoot most of these movies in under 10 days and are usually working around schedules with a very tiny budget and loads of FX bits planned that wind up having to be tossed out because it’s just not feasible. One person showing up two hours late or one person not getting things ready in time for a scene can mean “Oh shit, I guess we’ll have to cut that out.” Some stuff, however, I think it’s just more fun to have it left up to your imagination. I like gore but I wouldn’t call myself a gore-hound by any means.

what inspired you to make films and when did you start?

I remember my dad filming us with a Super 8 camera when I was a kid (not in a creepy Butterfly Effect way) and he would project the movies for the whole family and I always got a kick out of that. After he eventually tossed it aside, I fished it out of a file cabinet and played around with it…but just as a toy to torture GI Joes with. Later on, I messed around with his VHS camcorder and filmed little stop-motion things with Star Wars figures. Then one day I decided to make a short film with some friends. We borrowed someone’s little brother’s camcorder and started scripting out scenes. That was I dunno…high school I guess.

who would you say were you biggest influences?

Landis, Raimi, Kubrick. Anyone who ever directed an 80s comedy movie.

What is your favorite horror film of all time and why?

This varies but I guess at the moment it would be Idle Hands. I really appreciate the Argento homages in the use of color, it has a wildly unique cast (at least for the time), and it mixed comedy and horror (with an emphasis on the former) in a pretty great way. First DVD I ever purchased. I even own a 35mm film print of the trailer.

Now that remakes are all the hype, would you allow somone like say, michael bay to remake the porkchop films? why or why not?

Yes, absolutely. I’m poor as hell and need to sell out as soon as possible. My car barely works, we live in a dirty apartment with junky second-hand furniture in the #1 unhappiest, unhealthiest city in America….I’d love to be able to not live in squalor. I’d like to have more than $17 in the bank at any given time.  And anytime there’s a remake it makes the original film gain some kind of mystique. It would make them seem like some kind of lost masterpieces. I don’t think anything else would do that. Oh wait, sorry, I mean “Hell no! Remakes suck!”

In Porkchops there is a scene in which a teacher discusses the porkchop legend with his class but rather then hear the dialog we get music and an 80’sesque montague-like scene…was this a homage to random pointless 80’s montages or was it an issue with sound or something else altogether?

No, that part was planned out from the beginning. We wanted to occasionally just throw some insane moments in the film. That was one of them.

There’s quite a bit of humor to your films, how do you feel about darker more sinister horror films like Saw or Hostile?

I’m not a huge fan of the Saw movies. I really enjoyed the first one. I do like the Hostel flicks quite a bit, but those have a LOT of dark comedy. I watch every type of horror and I like a lot of it….I don’t know. I guess comedy has always appealed more to me as a writer. I don’t know if I could ever scare anyone but I feel confident that I can make them laugh at least once in a movie.

Does your company ever buy scripts from outside sources are you strictly within the company for things like that?

No, I pretty much write it all. We’ve tried to do other scripts in the past but our actors/crew never really gravitated towards them. I’m not sure why they want to do mine.

A lot of people point out that porkchops is very much like a remake to the first film (almost a second try) rather then a true sequel..would you say theres any truth to that statement?

Yes, we tried to make both Porkchops/Porkchop II: Rise of the Rind and Porkchop 3D their own stand-alone films, kind of like Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. That’s why we originally titled it Porkchops instead of Porkchop II. But then the distribution company titled it Porkchop II and we just looked like assholes.

Where were the porkchop films actually shot?

Porkchop 1 was shot in White Sulphur Springs, WV and a bunch of other locations. 2 was in Charleston, WV and White Sulphur Springs. 3 was shot in Charleston and Fayetteville.

I’ve noticed alot of trouble with sound with your films which can be a deterent. what causes these issues and are you working to fix them?

We had a lot of sound issues on Zombie Babies due to a noisy filming location full of passing logging trucks every fifteen minutes, an inability to get the actors in to do ADR due to lack of funds, and a really bad dialogue track. Basically, the person overseeing the audio didn’t have his boom ops get in close enough to the actors with the boom mic and turned up their mixer to compensate for the low volume, creating ridiculous amounts of noise. Now we make sure to get as close as possible to the actor and don’t use a mixer. Sometimes when you’re out in a lot of outdoor locations, there’s just nothing you can do. The world’s a noisy place, you’ve just gotta go with it and hope the audience doesn’t get hung up on technical details and enjoys the ride.

Where do you get your ideas?

Lots of conversations with friends, lots of movie-watching, lots of showers. If I’m writing or editing I will take like seven showers a day. Each one usually yields the solution to a problem or some new idea that seems like a good idea at the time.

Will we ever see a prequel to Porkchop actually showing him killing and eating his parents and the slaughter that ensues at the camp after he escapes?

If someone wants to fund it and I can find the right child actor.

 if porkchop is so adamant about his love for pigs then where did he get the stitched together pigface he wears as a mask?

Well he saw his pet pig murdered in front of him by the person he trusted and looked up to and that kind of shit can warp the hell out of you. I think Porkchop is a mess of different feelings, slathered in rage. You can see a bit of those emotions in Porkchop 3D.

I’ve seen Porkchop 3d but honestly not all the way through because the film doesn’t work well with non-3D tv’s and alot of s fans want to know, if and when there will be a non-3D version of the film?

Yes. When? I have no idea.

 What was the worst horror film you’ve ever seen and why?\

I honestly couldn’t tell you. Even a bad horror film is entertaining…if only because it’s so bad.

 Would you ever consider teaming up with a larger independent company like Troma Team Video so you could get a slightly larger budget and larger distribution?

Troma picked up the overseas rights to Porkchop 1 and 2 but I don’t know when that’s going to happen. I’d make an original film for one of those companies in a heart-beat.

How did you feel about the review i did on your porkchop films?

No offense but bad reviews or good reviews, I’ve stopped reading them. If it’s on Youtube or something, I will usually wind up seeing it….but if it’s bad it just makes me angry or sad and that really isn’t going to do anyone any good. I guess a review is meant to either praise someone for doing something great, something exceptional or damning them for making something that person did not enjoy. I’m not sure low-budget independent cinema needs that. I’m not sure filmmakers need to be discouraged. I think that if a micro-cinema flick is great, there should be praise, sure. But if it’s bad? Of course it’s bad, it’s micro-cinema! There’s no budget, no time, usually no professional crew. How many Hollywood movies are good? Not many. And they have budgets, time, and professionals behind the wheel. It’s rare you see a fantastic, almost perfect Hollywood film. It’s a fucking MIRACLE when you see a micro-budget one. So we should praise those folks and encourage others but never talk shit, never tear down. It’s not going to accomplish anything except hurting someone’s feelings.

would you be intrested in submitting any other films to be reviewed by the site?

Sure, we’ll send along a copy of The Crawling Dead when it’s done.

 What projects can we look forward to in the future from you and your company.

We’re working on post-production for The Crawling Dead right now and that should be out in Late May or early June. That one’s going to be a free web-series. We’re also trying to get funding for a free web series called pig girls

For more info on razor sharp studios and their work go to http://razorsharpstudioswv.com