Writer/director Brandon Bassham has been making horror comedies for over a decade now. A member of the Upright Citizens Brigade since 2006, his films are released under the Troma label, and that basically tells you everything that you need to know. Brandon was kind enough to share his latest film, Bring On The Damned! with me and, as expected, it’s a wacky and bloody ride through horror absurdity that I really enjoyed.
Understandably, I had a few questions while watching and Brandon had the answers.
LISA F: How long has this project been in the works?
BRANDON BASSHAM: We began pre-production in October of 2021. That’s when I began assembling the team, casting, and making our producer/star Johnny Ferri learn a dance routine. We began filming the ‘Disco Inferno’ segment in March 2021. We started with that because it was our biggest and most difficult segment. We would film one segment then take a little time off to regroup and plan the next. They got faster and cheaper as we went.
LF: Did you intend to make an anthology or did you have a few short stories and crafted other stories to go with them to complete an anthology?
BB: I‘d been wanting to do an anthology for years now. Initially ‘Bring On The Damned!’ was going to be more of a traditional anthology with each segment being written and directed by different people. We ran into a lot of issues with the planning, though. Trying to find a hook to tie it all together was a problem. And out of about 10 scripts we had, the three best were way too similar to each other. We just couldn’t make it all click. Then (probably due to a midlife crisis), I fell on the idea of the gimmick being each segment as a different genre and utilizing a bunch of old scripts and ideas I’d been kicking around. I figured nobody is ever going to let me make feature length movies out of all these ideas, so I might as well shove them all onto one movie. ‘Disco Inferno’ is an idea that I brainstormed with a coworker at Blockbuster Video in 1999. Even though the only things from that version to survive are the character of Artie Fambuglio (Ian Fidance) and the four-way murder montage, it’s still gratifying to finally make it.
LF: Are the various genres that you honored your personal favorites or was there a different reason for choosing them?
BB: It was a mixture of genres I love and ones I thought would work for the material or help give variety to the anthology. I love noir and figured this might be my only chance to do one. I have no real love of found footage movies but we had a lot of fun making Diagnosis: Satan. Johnny Lee & Sam started as a story I had about two serial killers that target the same victim. While trying to decide what to put in ‘Bring On The Damned!’ there just seemed to be a natural connection to that idea and Truffaut’s ‘Jules and Jim’. I can’t recall seeing too many French New Wave horror films so it felt like something we had to try. And honestly that vibe kind of fit the whole project.
LF: Where did the idea for Tara and the Tiger Babes come from?
BB: Tara & The TigerBabes comes from my deep, lifelong love of Josie and The Pussycats and all the other Scooby Doo/Hanna-Barbera stuff. ‘Stop, Look and Listen – The Capitol Recordings by Josie and the Pussycats is one of my favorite albums ever. I had planned to do a TigerBabes short in 2015. I had worked with Faith Fossett (who had done music for the Slashening films) to create some “Josie-like” songs with vocals from Anna Callegari (The Slashening/Fear Town USA) and they crushed it. I ended up not shooting the short because I felt there was a lot more we could do with the idea. BOTD seemed like a good reason to dust this one off. The basic idea was to put one of these mystery solving groups of cartoon characters into a wildly inappropriate context. ‘Seven’ and ‘Mindhunter’ were the most obvious inspirations but also season one of ‘True Detective’. I think some ‘Cruising’ slipped in there, too.
LF: Have you worked with this group of actors previously?
BB: It’s really wonderful how everyone felt like a big family. Some of the actors like Pat Foy, Billy Bob Thompson, and Marcus Bishop-Wright have been with me since my first film, Fear Town USA. Some are Troma stalwarts like Zac Amico, Amanda Flowers, and Vito Trigo. Most everyone involved I knew from either my sketch comedy days or knew from the general Troma film community. It was a very friends and family feel on set. Were there any other stories that didn’t make it into the anthology? We have so many more ideas. We have very tentatively started planning ‘Bring On The Damned! Vol. 2’. We just need to get people to watch Vol. 1 first.
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