Utter Trash--J.R. Bookwalter

Ohio's King of the B's

An interview with Filmmaker J.R. Bookwalter - Part 1

By Bob Ignizio

Filmmaker J.R. Bookwalter currently resides in Los Angeles, California but he originally hails from Akron, Ohio where many of his early films like ‘The Dead Next Door’, ‘Robot Ninja’, and ‘Ozone’ were shot. 'The Dead Next Door' has gone on to become something of a minor cult classic, and over the years J.R.'s ability as a filmmaker has continually improved. More recently J.R. worked in a number of capacities for renowned B-movie production company Full Moon for whom he directed 'Witchouse 2' and 'Witchouse 3'. Now he's putting all his efforts into his own company, Tempe Entertainment, which releases and distributes not only his own films but those of several other up and coming filmmakers as well. I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with J.R. by email, and since we covered so much territory the resulting interview will be presented in two parts. This portion ends just prior to J.R.'s start at Full Moon.

J.R. says he got bit by the filmmaking bug when, “In 1978 my friend David Barton and I stumbled across my mother’s Super-8mm camera one Saturday afternoon and that’s when I started making short films. That was probably the biggest influence. Of course like most kids in my generation, ‘Star Wars’ was a major influence as well. I wasn’t into sports or “normal” stuff so genre movies were my outlet. I was lucky to be so close to Cleveland. We had some great horror hosts always showing cheesy movies so my overactive imagination was constantly being fed. (laughs)” Eventually J. R. became confident enough in his abilities to attempt a feature, and in 1985 he began shooting ‘The Dead Next Door’ (1990). It took him four years to finish, but with a little financial assistance from ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Spider-Man’ filmmaker Sam Raimi, he was able to see it through.

Regarding his professional filmmaking debut J.R. says, “I’m not a big fan of that movie, to be honest! And I don’t mean to insult those who do like it with that statement…the movie has a lot of very loyal fans and for that I’m eternally grateful. It’s just that in my eyes most of the work I’ve done since then is so much better and more polished and, well, ‘Dead..’ looks like what it is — a fanboy zombie flick with a lot of heart made by somebody who didn’t know any better. (laughs) It’s a blessing and a curse because, yes it’s what most people know me for and without it I wouldn’t have done much of anything. But at the same time, some fans still expect me to make that style of movie, which I can’t do. I don’t have the same mindset that I did when I was 18 writing that script…I’m more interested in telling stories and working with actors now than throwing around gallons of splatter.”

While putting the finishing touches on ‘Dead…’ in Los Angeles in 1989, J. R. hooked up with a company called CHV that specialized in straight to video genre films. Although they didn’t release ‘Dead Next Door’ (J. R. says, “The cheeseball at CHV blew it by suggesting to Sam that he should release ‘DND’ as an ‘Evil Dead’ sequel and that immediately squashed any legitimacy they might have had in Sam’s eyes.”), the company wound up producing and releasing a number of J.R.’s films over the next 3 years. J.R. says, “They had caught some of ‘Dead…’ and were impressed, so we had a couple of meetings right on the heels of finishing post on that film. That’s how I got the deal to make something called ‘Robot Ninja’ (1989) — their title, not mine. (laughs) But it wasn’t all bad, because a part of me just wanted to get some movies made quickly after spending over 4 years on ‘Dead…’ CHV was very accommodating to the fact that I wanted to do everything — writing, directing, producing, acting, editing, music, post sound. So I whipped out three 16mm features for them, then edited 4 special interest tapes. When the market sort of dried up we took a stab at 6 shot-on-video features. It was a lot of work in a three-year span of time!”

The assembly line approach at CHV was almost enough to make J.R. give up on the movie business altogether. It was those last 6 shot on video films that really took their toll. “The first one, ‘Kingdom of the Vampire’ (1991), was the best experience out of the 6…if they had all been more like that it might not have been so bad. But the problem with doing so many movies so quickly is you have to cut corners. Usually they’re the wrong corners because there’s a release schedule hanging over you. I’ve never liked that aspect of it, which I repeated with Full Moon over the last few years because everything I did for them wound up being made in batches. That meant there was no time to really think about what you were doing — you just had to get it done. At any rate, in general my experience with CHV just pushed me to do my own thing that much more…and that is a good thing.” J.R. only directed ‘Robot Ninja’ and ‘Kingdom of the Vampires’ while at CHV and served in various other capacities on the rest. Perhaps the most notable film to come out of this period was the ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ inspired ‘Skinned Alive’ (1990) which has developed a bit of a cult following. J.R. produced and did the music and the film stars Scott (director of ‘Intruder’ and episodes of ‘Xena’ and ‘Hercules’) Spiegel.

Disheartened by his experiences with CHV, J.R. returned to Akron where he came across a screenplay that rekindled his enthusiasm for making movies. That screenplay was for the movie ‘Ozone’ (1994). J.R. says, “That was the only period where I very seriously entertained quitting it all, so for this screenplay to get me excited again was a big deal to me. As outlined in the new ‘Ozone’ featurette that’s on the Special Edition DVD, I felt I had to pay for my past sins in some way. Instead of making “product” as I had been doing with CHV, I wanted to make a “movie” again. No release dates, nobody telling me what to do — and more importantly, really just not giving a rat’s ass what anyone thought of what I was doing. I think most of the people around me at the beginning of ‘Ozone’ didn’t believe that it would be any different than all the crap that had come before it and many of them bailed out as the shoot dragged on. But I kept going with whoever was left and didn’t stop until it was done.” Most of the film was shot in and around Akron’s Edwin Shaw Hospital.

‘Ozone’ was well received by critics and fans alike. J.R. says, “I don’t think I was surprised at OZONE getting applauded. Secretly I hoped that it would because I felt that I had gone the extra mile and therefore deserved it! But yes, it was very rewarding when things happened the way they did, especially since that movie more than most of the others that I’ve made was almost 100% me. Mostly it was just doing the opposite of what I had been doing with CHV…being in no rush to finish it and being willing to go the extra mile while shooting, because I could. I was very clear on the look and feel of the movie in my head, and was willing to take the time to bring that vision to life as best as I could under the limitations of the money. I have always said that when making a movie, you have to have either money or time, and preferably both. The CHV stuff was undermined by lack of money but they were also made under insane deadlines. No money and no time equals bad movie…though I suppose the same could be said for too much money and too much time, which is a common Hollywood dilemma. (laughs)”

J.R. started his own video company, Tempe Video, in 1991 to release his movies as well as those of other independent filmmakers. J.R. says, “I had been running Tempe as a mail-order company since doing the CHV camcorder stuff in 1991, and made my first foray into distribution with the ‘Basic How-To Halloween Makeups’ tape. I’m sort of a strong believer in experimenting with your own stuff first before you go dragging others into it. (laughs) ‘Ozone’ was initiated to be the first Tempe feature release, but because the production dragged on, I began acquiring other stuff to get the ball rolling. I didn’t have a day job, and with the mail-order business going strong I felt confident helping other folks get their movies distributed. The market was totally different back then. Now if you don’t get into Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or Best Buy you might as well not even bother. Back then, there were a lot of little sub-distributors with these “boiler rooms” — people on the telephone all day, calling video stores and selling them B product they couldn’t get any other way.”

For his next two features as director, ‘Sandman’ (1995) and ‘Polymorph’ (1996), Bookwalter’s ambitions probably outstripped his resources. J.R. says, “I was never satisfied with the effects on those movies…it was part of the learning curve, at best. I’m happy we did it because we were way ahead of the curve for the underground, and in some cases even the higher-up B-movie producers. For instance, the morph shots we did for ‘Ozone’ pre-dated even Full Moon’s attempts to do the same on ‘Puppet Master 4’! But the fact is, no one else was really attempting this stuff at the time, so it didn’t matter! (laughs) But I was definitely at the limits of what I could do after ‘Polymorph’ which was another one of those “happy accidents” like ‘Ozone’ where I just threw in everything but the kitchen sink and folks seemed to dig it.” Although ‘Ozone’, ‘Sandman’, and ‘Polymorph’ were all quite professional looking for their budgets and had received some good reviews, J.R. was beginning to feel that he had reached the limits of what he could accomplish while based in Akron. Once again, L.A. beckoned.

Next Month: J.R.’s tenure with Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions and taking Tempe to the next level. Plus J.R. talks about working with British cult star Andrew Prine and William “Captain Kirk” Shatner.