In honor of Valentine’s Day I figured I would post a commercial we did in 2008 for the Brooklyn based Screen Printing T-Shirt company “Love is Lame”. It’s a cool piece, our good friend Jarred Alterman
came up with the concept and directed it and the main Backseat Conceptions crew was in full effect. Assistant Directed by Evan Meszaros, produced by Nick Esposito
, gaffed by Zafer Ulkucu and I did the SPFX.
Check out the video here:
“Love is Lame” Commercial from Backseat Conceptions on Vimeo.
Check out the coverage on Post Mortem Pinups and interview with me on Girls and Corpses Magazine’s website! Below is an excerpt and the full article and interview can be read here. Article and interview by Nekromagikal.
“Arterial splatter is the money shot in the sexy world of Doug Sakmann and his erotically macabre Post Mortem Pinups. What is Post Mortem Pinups you may be asking?
Post Mortem Pinups is all about discovering beauty in death. Of course it helps that everyone who is represented in the visual death of its art are still sexy enough to insert the flesh trocar that is entering stages of a strange living rigor mortis in the pants of everyone looking at the images Doug has created.
Through the art that is Post Mortem Pinups Doug Sakmann, a man who has enthralled the world with comedic horror porn parodies such as XXXorcist, Re-Penetrator, and Evil Head, has given hope to the sexually repressed as they pass car accidents, accidently stumble upon suicides, and inspire light bulbs as to what to do with the body of their girlfriend after they snuff them from too much bitching.
Post Mortem Pinups is not so much a reflection or commentary on how society detaches and denies its psyche from impending natural death as it serves to remind us that death can be sexy as long as we find the bodies first and redress them in lingerie and make sure that they weren’t fat in the first place. Rolling dead bodies around in flour to find the wet spot isn’t any sexier than if they were alive, especially since in death that wet spot is probably just grave cheese anyway. That’s the necromantic equivalent to a yeast infection and who needs that right?
Post Mortem Pinups is about hot dead chicks, which is exactly how it should be! All dead girls should be sexy, fully dressed in pre or postmortem makeup, and posed in what is to some, very erotic positions. Those “real” world corpses dying in all kinds of gross and unattractive positions just need to take a few community college classes to get it right so they can collapse and rot appropriately. Shakespeare once said that life is all a stage so death should not be any different, get it right!”
Read the full article and interview here
That’s right, Punk Rock Holocaust is recommended viewing in the Syllabus of the NYU “Punk Cinema” course. Back in Fall 2008, Punk Rock Holocaust fan and friend Zac Amico (and director of the upcoming “Mickey Maniac”) did a Sequence Analysis as one of his projects for the course, check it out below!
Punk Rock Holocaust
“Meanwhile, in the moshpit”
Starting at 1:08:20
In the sequence, the masked killer comes up upon an unsuspecting group of dancing youth with violent intentions, and using a samurai sword from Satan begins a zombie infestation in the pit that takes over the entire crowd. That might be the best sentence that ever started a formal analysis of a film in an academic setting. The movie, which was filmed throughout the Warped Tour over a summer, frequently uses crowd footage, and in this case a crowd genocide, where a massive group of concert goers are laying on the ground covered in blood writhing, as if the killer annihilated an entire city’s scene. The sequence itself cuts between crowd footage and footage of a smaller crowd that is obviously in a parking lot for the zombie footage.
Director Doug Sakmann, prior to making this film, was the head of production for Troma Films, even directing segments for their UK television show, Troma’s Edge TV. And the Troma influence shows up throughout Punk Rock Holocaust, especially in scenes such as this one. What Troma and subsequently Doug do not have (money, experienced crew, etc) they make up for with the spirit of complete defiance to convention. This film looks like punk rock sounds, raw and over the top. Instead of having a zombie bite three people, this scene has numerous zombies eating a crowd of people, culminating in a pile of writhing bodies covered in makeshift blood and gore. In classic Troma style, this movie relies on quantity over quality. It could look a lot better, the sound is atrocious, and the acting is practically non existent, but who can argue with 110 on screen kills? Just like the original credo of punk rock, this movie is all about doing it yourself with what you have available to the most extreme point you can.
From the zombie apocalypse set up, the film uses a comic book style transition (note the use of comic books and comic imagery in movies like Smithereens and The Great Rock’N'Roll Swindle, both of which are mainstays of punk cinema), to go to the heroine finding out about the killer on the internet, a simple shot of her on her laptop reading about what happened. As in most Punk Cinema, and especially in horror, the means of the plot are really 2nd priority, it’s what happens that matters, so this throw away kind of reveal doesn’t particularly harm the plot. If you’re still watching at this point, that’s certainly the least of your worries. She reads a fake Rolling Stone article that basically explains the entire plot of the movie and how the killer got his powers. The text on screen, when paused, actually reads “In this candid interview Belial(the Devil) the head of Mega Records (the record company that the Devil owns) talks candidly about his life, his career, a band called Brutal Enigma and mentions a Zombie Sword for no apparent reason.” Its this mocking of the movie’s own plot, in a self referential twist, that’s so “punk” about the scene, it knows its ridiculous and makes no apologies. Belial, as a side note, is played by Lloyd Kaufman, head of Troma Films, who are punk cinema legends.
As far as the aesthetics of the sequence is confirmed, it looks and sounds awful by Hollywood standards. There’s a loud hiss under all dialogue, some of which is barely audible when it’s not terrible ADR’d. The shots are simple, lots of two shots and close ups to prevent having to light big areas. Subjects are frequently smack dab in the middle of the shot, focusing on what’s actually occurring on screen. Content is definitely the focus of the camera’s lens. It’s not about why anything’s happening or how we view it occurring, it’s completely about what is going on.
At the next scene, the head of security uses a Walkie Talkie to say, “It’s a go, Asbury Park Convention Center.” We then cut to footage of the convention center, where the zombies supposedly were (the footage itself did not occur at this venue), being destroyed. Actually, the Center actually was being demolished and when it was captured on film that was written into the plot. So the government supposedly comes in and destroys the entire convention center rather than deal with the teenage zombies, leaving all the punks for dead. In a very obvious reference to Return of The Living Dead (arguably the most influential film on the Deathrock and Horrorpunk subcultures) the head of security reads the coordinates of the site of the bombing in a mimic of
the end of that film.
So other than it being in the title of the film, what makes this sequence “punk?” Well, for starters, the supposed crowd is all dressed to depress in their Saturday night best (that rhyme scheme was somewhat unintentional). It features a death by spiked bracelet, an accessory common in punk, especially the commercialized punk of the Warped Tour. The movie being at the Warped Tour, one of the most popular festivals in America, seems to make it less punk so to speak, as it features many pop bands who were well known at the time such as Simple Plan and The Used, however what’s more punk than killing the supposed sell outs? In fact, the entire notion of killing your idols to make room for the new is a theme in many punk movements and pieces, and the fact that its later revealed that the killer is a jilted front man from a synthpop band makes it even more self referential and humorous. This movie certainly doesn’t take itself seriously plot wise, but the movie itself is most definitively passionately made and produced, as the organization of so many deaths is incredible. Not only that, but like in punk, it promotes the use of everyone as opposed to a talented few, as many non-actors are featured speaking roles in the movie, and the entire Warped Tour Staff plays themselves. The “punk” nature of the film lies solely in the passion in which it was made, its love for horror as a genre bleeds through every scene into the viewers eyes. No one can argue that, as in any ideal punk situation, it took a community effort to put this scene together. Every single dead body is someone who is passionate about horror movies and about punk rock, or else they wouldn’t be covered in fake blood under the hot sun. It’s the sense of community in punk, and this film, that gives it life and embodies so much excitement and passion in its fans.
Check out one of my latest Suspensions and Flesh pulls with the Disgraceland Hook Squad at the 2009 Blood Manor, NYC’s Premiere Haunted Attraction! I also did a suspension at Paul Booth’s gallery in NYC on Halloween and should have some pictures soon. Pictures from Laura DeSantis-Olsson
It’s been almost 2 years since I updated this website so I figured it was time for a complete overhaul. A lot has gone on in my life since then and you can check it all out here! I’m still working on the design and functionality of the new site so stay tuned!
Strip for Pain was featured in a 2 page article in February’s Bizarre Magazine in the UK! There is also going to be pictures and video going live on www.bizarremag.com next week! I love Bizarre, it’s a complete guide to worlds most bizarre things including fetish, alt girls, weird pictures, sexy videos, tattoos, sexy girls, human oddities and more! It’s an honor to be covered by them!
Motion City Soundtrack’s newest music video “Disappear” produced by Backseat’s Nick Esposito has been released. I provided SPFX and assistant directed the video. Check it out here!
I’m working with Director Adam Ahlbrandt (‘Sight’ and ‘The Burnt House’) to produce a series of horror films that we are currently looking for funding for. I’m going to be doing special effects on all of them as well. We created a number of teaser posters to help shop the movies around and I did all the SPFX on them as well, check them out here! You can also check out the first teaser site at www.childrenoftorture.com.
‘The Burnt House’, the 2nd feature film by writer/director Adam Alhbrandt has secured distribution at the first Philadelphia Film Market. I co-produced the movie and also handled all of the Special Effects and makeup on both ‘The Burnt House’ as well as Ahlbrandt’s first feature, ‘Sight’ which was picked up by Lionsgate. I’m currently working with Adam to secure funding for the next film, ‘Children of Torture‘.
You can see the trailer for ‘The Burnt House’ here.
For the new cover album, produced by me for Space Monkey Studios, Directed by Doug Spangenberg, now airing on Finnish TV! I also did the voice over! Check it out here!
