Utter Trash--Twisted Spine

Truly Twisted

An interview with filmmakers Ritch Yarber and Brian Foster

By Bob Ignizio

l to r: Brian Foster and Ritch Yarber

“When you’re dealing with a low budget film, it’s the feeling that you put into it that’s more important than the money. I’ve seen people spend $10,000 on a trailer and it looks like crap. Yet somebody that spends a hundred bucks on schlock can make something more enjoyable. If the actors are having fun, the crew is having fun, that’s going to come through in the film itself.” So says director Brian Foster. He should know, having just recently finished filming ‘The Deep Dark Woods 2: No Witnesses’, a micro budget horror comedy where that sense of fun comes through loud and clear.

‘The Deep Dark Woods 2’ was made by a group of Cleveland area filmmakers that call themselves Twisted Spine Productions. Producer Ritch Yarber explains that, “five of the seven of us in Twisted Spine Productions work together at the Giant Eagle Warehouse in Bedford. I’ve wanted to make movies since I was little, but never had anybody to help me, never had any idea what to do. I've always had to work, since my father was a paraplegic, so I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to go to film school or anything like that. One day at work I started talking about filmmaking. It turned out some of the guys there were into making movies as well. We hadn’t hung out beforehand, but the filmmaking brought us together. We were joking around one day and said, ‘Hey, we should make some movies. What should we call our film company?’ Since we all work in a warehouse lifting heavy cases and stuff, we came up with Twisted Spine, because that’s how we’re all going to end up.”

Twisted Spine’s first film was ‘Transylvania Monster Squad’. Ritch says, “That first one only cost about $400. It was a satire on Cops. We did like two episodes of ‘Cops,’ and the whole idea was to improv it and get that “live” feel. Plus we were too lazy to write a script. Basically the cops in Transylvania are dealing with the old classic monsters. Nobody wants to see them anymore because of the new fancy movie monsters, so they’re out of work, drinking and getting in trouble. And we structured it so it’s like you were watching it on TV, with commercials and everything. We put that out, and lo and behold we made our money back in 3 days.”

Inspired by this first success, the Twisted Spine crew set out to make a second feature, the ill-fated ‘The Gobbler’. Ritch says, “We spent about a year on it, but we didn’t have a real substantial story and it kind of floundered. So one day I said, ‘We ought to just go out in the woods and make a horror movie, and do it in one day. I’m tired of sitting around.’ So we all got together and came up with this idea of a killer park ranger. We threw a few concepts around about what we could do to make the movie a little different. We didn’t want to just march people out there and kill ‘em off.” This idea would eventually take shape as ‘The Deep Dark Woods’. Yarber wrote, directed, and produced the film, and Brian Foster acted as videographer.

Unlike Ritch, Brian had some professional experience under his belt. Brian says, “I produce a show called The Midnight Movie, and Ritch was a viewer. We met at the Frightvision horror convention for the first time. That’s where I first saw ‘Transylvania Police’. Ritch then became part of the Midnight Movie show behind the scenes. From there, I ended up being the camera man on the first ‘Deep Dark Woods’. The look of the film was, basically, we had one take on each scene. When you work on a micro budget film, you have no permits or anything. The same people in front of the camera are doing things behind the camera. But we had a lot of fun on that shoot.”

Production-wise, ‘The Deep Dark Woods’ was a step up from ‘Transylvania Police’. In addition to more professional camerawork courtesy of Brian, it also had an actual written script, Ritch’s first. Ritch says, “I wrote a 28 page script, which I thought was great. Turns out it should have been a little bit longer, but it came out to about an hour.” Furthermore, the group of talented amateur actors in the Twisted Spine stock company was augmented by professionals courtesy of North Coast Casting. When released, ‘The Deep Dark Woods’ earned its budget back just as quickly as ‘Transylvania Police’ had.

For the inevitable ‘Deep Dark Woods’ sequel, Ritch wanted to, “do it bigger and better. This time Brian directed it. We used his camera, which is a professional digital camera. The one we used before was just an off the shelf 8mm video camera. Everything got pumped up for this movie except the budget. We don’t spend any money. I’ll be right over Brian’s back saying, ‘We’re not spending any money. We’ll find out how to do it for free.’” When pressed for specifics about the film’s budget, Ritch says only, “It was made for under $3000. Well under $3000.”

What some directors might see as a hindrance, Brian saw as a boon. He says, “Ritch as the producer knew what he needed and what he could get. Trying to get locations that I liked would have been more costly or time consuming. I had to work within his confines, which was good because sometimes directors will go hog wild with locations and spend money like crazy.” Somehow or other, Ritch was able to get access to a real ambulance for use in the film, and got permission to shoot scenes at a real mental hospital, adding a lot of production value to the film for little or no additional cost.

Although still working under a tight budget on ‘The Deep Dark Woods 2’, the Twisted Spine crew did at least have the luxury of a longer shooting schedule. The film was shot over a period of a couple months, with 15 days spent on actual shooting. Brian says, “We were shooting more like a real film, where we would do multiple takes of things to get it right. Some people might say that the acting isn’t real good, but some of the people we’re dealing with aren’t trained as actors. I think the one person that shined the most was Mike Haynes as the accused killer. He has no training, but he was able to pull off line after line with actors who did have professional training.”

Other notable performances in ‘The Deep Dark Woods 2’ are contributed by the hosts of ‘The Midnight Movie’, Dave Shurmer and Mike Perzel. Shurmer plays the part of a scumbag lawyer, and Perzel reprises his role from the first movie as a park ranger who enforces the “law of the woods” very harshly. And Perzel’s contributions to ‘TDDW2’ extend beyond his acting. Brian says, “We all love Mike. He gets a little hot headed sometimes, but his heart is in the right place. He’s also the editor, so he has a lot of involvement. He did some of the props, all of the physical effects. He’s a multi talented guy. The movie couldn’t have been made without him.”

Previous Twisted Spine Productions have been self released and distributed, but this time the company hopes to find a distributor. Ritch says, “We’re looking for somebody who will try to work with the movie, and realize what we’re trying to do and not just slap it out there.” And as for the future of Twisted Spine, Ritch plans to keep growing with each release. He says, “At this point, our forte is the horror comedy market, but I think we would like to do a straight comedy sooner or later. One of the guys is working on a comedy script. And Brian actually has a really good script that we want to do, but it’s too good for our budget right now. I told him we have to hold off because I don’t want to cheapen it.” Until that day comes, you can rest assured that Ritch, Brian, and all the Twisted Spine crew will keep stretching every dollar to deliver the most entertaining films they can.