Blood-soaked axes, murderous rampages, the Devil himself and a singing Catholic schoolgirl? This strange collaboration of musical carnage will come gushing into Madison this Sunday, when Massacre: The Musical"" - a locally made independent film - premieres at the High Noon Saloon at 8:30 p.m.
The film - entirely written, composed, directed, acted and produced by Madisonians - is a black comedy/slasher that slices through genre boundaries like bulging carotid arteries.
Directed and co-written by Will Gartside - former UW student and gore connoisseur - and adapted from a play by Rob Matsushita and Morey Burnard, ""Massacre"" is simultaneously an ode to campy, 1980s blood baths like ""Evil Dead,"" a biting social commentary and a hilarious collection of catchy, sadistic melodies.
A trailer for ""Massacre"" notes: ""This year, death is kinda... cute."" That message spills into the film's opening scene as police arrive at a secluded cabin and find themselves face-to-face with an adorable youngster named Discordia, cheerfully beaming over a carpet of mutilated corpses, her red axe still dripping in hand. ""I did what I did in the name of God,"" she chirps, and the fun begins.
Gartside liked the graphic introduction's affect on audiences and tried to make the film fast-paced enough to jolt audience's emotions and stomachs for its entire 45-minute runtime. To achieve this, the film quickly backtracks, Tarantino-style, and follows Discordia's exciting evening as she accidentally decapitates someone at a friend's hedonistic retreat, prays to God for guidance, and ends up with the Devil's instead. After confusing a traditionally dressed Devil for Jesus, she follows demonic counsel for the rest of the film with enthusiastic piety.
Made on a $7,000 micro-budget, ""Massacre"" was shot by a 14-member crew/cast (several of them former UW students) over a two-week period last summer in various Madison locations. While crew were often laced with laughter and capped by booze, they were not without their problems, including messes of fake blood that turned the first weekend into 18 hours of filming and 12 hours of clean up, according to Gartside.
No one became more acquainted with that mess than Edgewood College grad Kelly Kiorpes, who stars as Discordia, the hyperbolic fusion of Elmyra from ""Tiny Toons"" and Carrie. Told to act perky while cold, tired and drenched in gallons of sticky, corn syrup-based blood, Kiopres' own willingness to cooperate would be unthinkable, if not for her interest in the film's concept.
""It's not quite like anything I've ever seen,"" Kiorpes said. ""I think it has a lot of quirkiness to it and originality... and so much fucking blood.""
The role of Satan, meanwhile, was tackled by Pete Rydberg, a UW Theater grad student, who jumped at the chance. After all, he said, ""How often do you get to grab evil by the balls and run with it?""
The entire cast has followed the twisted project ever since being drafted by Matsushita and Burnard during the 2005 Mercury Players Theater Blitz - a yearly marathon of competitive drama that gives participants 24 hours to create an entire play from scratch. Within the first hour of the blitz, the duo had banged out a 15-minute script for their play, ""Thug Passion 2: Discordia's Sunshine Revenge.""
Two years later, Gartside saw a revised version of the play (following the advice of Matsushita, his video store co-worker) and within days handed Matsushita and Burnard a screenplay and convinced both to join him on an expanded film adaptation.
When they finally worked up the nerve to start production, the biggest obstacle faced by the filmmakers turned out to be making the film's grisly effects believable. According to Matsushita, ""In the stage production, you can have Kelly swing a plastic axe at somebody ... but on film, you can't get away with that ... it's called 'Massacre: The Musical,' not 'We're all Going to Sing and Nobody's Going to Get Killed.'""
The final product is a calculated combination of innovation and imitation the filmmakers hope will help them be admitted to this year's Wisconsin Film Festival.
""We had to be kinda careful,"" Matsushita said of making the film. ""The weird thing about using gore is that if you don't go over the top enough, it just ends up being disturbing ... If you go so far, then the audience just knows 'Ok, there isn't that much blood in the human body.' The trick is doing it gory but, you know... in a fun way.""
