Chillerama

Origin

Adam Rifkin and Tim Sullivan met while working on Detroit Rock City and quickly discovered they shared a mutual love of horror, monster and drive-in b-movies, so they began developing an idea to make an anthology called Famous Monsters of Filmland, loosely based on the magazine they'd grown up reading, and with each short dedicated to a different era in film. First they came up with names and mock-up posters for each of the mini-features: The Diary of Anne Frankenstein (1940s), I Was a Teenage Vampire (1950s) Zombie Drive-In (1960s) and Werewolf of Alcatraz (1970s). A deal with Famous Monsters magazine fell through, so it was pitched as a weekly MTV series to be hosted by KISS frontman Gene Simmons, but reality television was beginning to dominate American airwaves, so the project was shelved.

A few years later, Rifkin and Sullivan met with directors Adam Green and Joe Lynch at Rainbow Bar and Grill, and the idea resurfaced. Soon the quartet decided to make Chillerama as an independently produced film, with Green's studio, Ariescope Pictures, serving as the headquarters of operations. 'Due to estimated budgetary constraints, Werewolf of Alcatraz was dropped and replaced with Wadzilla; I Was a Teenage Vampire was changed to Teenage Werebear at Lynch's behest; Zombie Drive-In became Zom-B-Movie; and a fifth short called Deathication was added to the drive-in sequence to fake out viewers.

Premise

"Wadzilla" is a spoof on 1950s monster movies and is about "a guy that goes to get his sperm count raised, and it creates one big sperm that attacks New York City".

Cast

Production

It was directed and written by Adam Rifkin, who also stars in the film. Special effects were done by The Chiodo Brothers.

Premise

"I Was a Teenage Werebear" is a musical and a spoof of Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, The Lost Boys, and The Twilight Saga. It is set in 1962 and is about a "closeted kid who meets these other closeted kids, who when aroused turn into leather daddy werebears".

Cast

Production

It was directed and written by Tim Sullivan. Sullivan, who is openly gay, included some gay culture in the segment. The word bear is slang for "big hairy burly men" in the gay community. It includes five original rock 'n roll songs performed by the actors.

Casting was difficult as straight actors declined the role and many gay actors were not allowed to do the role by their representatives. Former porn star Sean Paul Lockhart (Brent Corrigan) was cast as the lead role. On November 5, 2010, a scene was filmed on the beach of Sycamore Cove near Malibu. Robert Pendergraft provided the practical effects.

Soundtrack

All tracks written by Tim Sullivan & Patrick Copeland except where otherwise noted.

eBay controversy

In February 2012, writer/director Tim Sullivan began selling copies of the CD soundtrack for I Was a Teenage Werebear on eBay, and as a bonus he included an autographed 8x10 still (a screen-capture from the film) of star Sean Paul Lockhart clad in a pair of red briefs. After a few of the auctions had ended, eBay suddenly pulled down the listing and canceled all finalized orders of the album and 8x10. Initially Sullivan thought it was a mistake, but when he spoke to people in eBay’s safety & trust department, he was told that the auction included a photo of a man with "engorged genitalia" which they deemed "sexually and morally offensive." The exact same photo graced the cover of the May 2011 issue of Odyssey magazine which has sold on eBay without incident, and thus led Sullivan to believe he was being discriminated against because his auction's accompanying text emphasized the gay content of the production. Sullivan was initially told that he could re-list the auction, but only in the adults-only section of the site that features pornographic material. After two failed appeals to reinstate the auction in the regular site, eBay told him that he couldn't relist it at all, even without the offending photo. Rather than wasting more time, energy and risk further jeopardizing his eBay seller feedback rating, Sullivan decided to give up and just sell the album and 8x10 directly from his Facebook page, instructing buyers to send him an email with the header: "Fuck yes, I wanna be sexually and morally offended!"

Standalone DVD

On September 20, 2012, writer/director Tim Sullivan began selling a stand-alone DVD of his segment, I Was a Teenage Werebear through his Facebook page. Titled Uncut & Hairy Ultimate Edition, this version is limited to 2500 copies and includes an extended version of the short with 5.1 audio and color correction, as well as assortment of extras which were not included on the Chillerama DVD.

Stage musical

Soon after Teenage Werebear was released, Tim Sullivan was approached by Sean Abley, a producer and filmmaker who had previously adapted cult films such as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Reefer Madness to the stage, with the proposition of turning the short film into a full-length stage musical. With Abley set to direct, Sullivan began writing additional songs and retained several cast and crew members, including Sean Paul Lockhart, Anton Troy, Tom Colby and producer Adam Rifkin for a production which was originally announced to hit the stage in September 2012, though it didn't come to fruition by the projected date.

Premise

"The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" is a black and white film about Hitler "trying to create the perfect killing machine to win the war".

Cast

Production

Adam Green came into Chillerama with the title of this short already established, but he was encouraged to make it his own. Green's first decision, given the delicate nature of the subject matter, was that the story had to be over-the-top and would have to "make a clown out of Hitler" to ensure no one would deem it offensive. His second decision was casting Joel Moore in that role. "If Joel Moore is Hitler," Green said, "there is absolutely no way you can take this seriously for a second."

Green then decided to hire a cast of German-speaking actors and, to make Hitler look like even more of a fool, have Moore speak gibberish throughout the film. Green's idea was to have Moore sound slightly convincing as the film began to give audiences who don't comprehend German the idea that he was actually speaking the language, but as the film progresses "his German gets worse and worse," ultimately devolving into total gibberish and random words and phrases, such as "Oshkosh B'gosh" and "Boba Fett." Actress Kristina Klebe and her mother translated Green's script into German, and the cast rehearsed it two ways: first in English to get the rhythms down, and then in German as it would be shot. For a few key moments, Moore was taught to speak German phrases, albeit not the ones that are subtitled on the screen. For example, during his song "I Don't Want to Rule the World," instead of the titular line Moore sings, "Ich habe Würmer in meinem Schwanz," which means, "I have worms in my penis."

Premise

"Zom-B-Movie" is a spoof of '70s and '80s zombie films and was directed and written by Joe Lynch.

Cast

Soundtrack

All tracks written by Bear McCreary except where otherwise noted.

Release and reception

Chillerama was distributed by Image Entertainment. The segment "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" was shown at the 2010 London FrightFest Film Festival to a positive response from the audience. It was shown at Fantasy Filmfest in Germany on August 22, 2011. The film was released in various major cities in the United States from September 15, 2011, to October 29, 2011. It was released on video on demand on September 29, 2011 and on DVD and Blu-ray on November 29, 2011.

The movie was warmly critically acclaimed in Russia where Tony Vilgotsky wrote in his review of Chillerama for Darker magazine that this movie has a great value for the horror genre (though he mentioned that Chillerama could be adequately appreciated only by die-hard horror fans).

Two soundtrack albums have been released for the film. Chillerama Presents Zom-B-Movie was released on November 16, 2011, through BSX Records. This album includes Bear McCreary's complete score, as well as I Don't Want to Die a Virgin by star Brendan McCreary's band Young Beautiful in a Hurry. Seven songs featured in Zom-B-Movie were omitted from the album.

Chillerama Presents: Tim Sullivan's I Was a Teenage Werebear was released on February 14, 2012 through BSX Records. This album includes all of the songs from the segment, as well as Room For All (Everybody's Gay), a production number which was cut out of the version of the film included in Chillerama, and two versions of the titular Chillerama song by Psycho Charger.

Currently Andy Garfield's music for Wadzilla and The Diary of Anne Frankenstein is not commercially available.

Writer/director Tim Sullivan began selling a limited number of DVD-Rs of the "Uncut and Hairy" version of I Was a Teenage Werebear on September 20, 2012.