RICKY GLORE TALKS SWEET MEATS
"As long as the effects fits the tone"
Daniel John
Getting films made is never easy, and as I understand it, Bobby Sweets culinary ideas originated from a previous project that you just weren't able to get off the ground?
Correct. The name, the lore, the backstory, the iconography of “The Butcher” with the pig mask, butcher's coat, the pig logo, even down to a variation of the “opening scene” in 'Sweet Meats', comes from a film we were trying to raise the budget for, called 'Open House'. 'Open House' is a script that I wrote, that is about a middle aged mother and her teen daughter, who when we meet them, are unhoused and are having a rough go at life. With their backpacks, a cellphone, and each other, we see glimpses of their day-to-day lives. As a way to ensure having a roof over their heads for the night, the teen daughter sets up house-showings, so that while during the showing, the mother and daughter can unlock some windows and doors, return later at night to the house, and break in. Unbeknownst to them, the top realty couple in this small town, are kidnapping some of the people they show houses to, and subject them to the workshop of their off-off-off broadway rock opera show, about Adam and Eve. The couple are also cannibals, and when the “audience members” start to lose their “attention” they hang them up by their hands and use a carving knife, like you would with gyro meat, place a tub below the body, where they will be cutting, and the tub has a Sweet Meats-logo on it. Throughout the movie, we would sometimes cut to these tv commercials about a local waffle house or bob evans-esque restaurant called Sweet Meats. I had a whole brother and sister thing and it connected to a character we used in 'All Your Friends Are Dead', our first film, made for $5,959, Hardware Store Bob, and if you remember him, he lost his eye. The meta of all of this, is that Hardware Store Bob was played by longtime childhood friend and creative collaborator, Mike Flinchum, whose grandfather is country music icon, Bobby Mackey, of famed haunted salon. While Mike and I discussed “the world of Sweet Meats”, the restaurant and how it came to be, I infused the “semi” true story of someone being a country star, but also that just being one part of a much bigger business. We didn't get our budget for 'Open House' and we had to cancel that project. Using some of the “backstory” that I had come up with, as well as using elements from a blackbox theatre-show I had written in Chicago called 'Fleetwood Macbeth', what if Macbeth were done in the seventies at a radio station, as a musical, and the music is Fleetwood Mac, I came up with 'Sweet Meats'. I repurposed some country songs I had written, Wonky Tonk's version of 'Catching You' originally appears at the end of our horror short film 'Roadkill', asked the owner of the restaurant we were going to film at, if we could instead of film for three days, film for eight, locked in the cast and, bam, that's 'Sweet Meats'. Long winded, sorry, I am very detail oriented and have a pretty good memory. There's even more specificity that I left out. For some semblance of brevity.
The film doesn’t hold back much when it comes to the visceral imagery, can you speak to going so practical with it?
In my limited experience as a filmmaker and in my lengthy, exhausting experiences as a film-intaker, I can say that my favorite horror movies lean on practical, and are not just straight “scare you” movies. As far as holding back, we definitely did, but not in the way of say, taste, or maybe a different, more specific choice of taste. We held back in the sense of “low budget or no budget” practicals. Where with more money, time and experience, we may have been able to lean harder in. If that makes sense. Lizzie Schreibeis and team did a fantastic job of executing and bringing to life, all of the things we had scripted, for a miniscule amount of money. But that's partly why I love horror. If you do it practical, the audience is already buying into this fantasia that you have built, so as long as the “effects” fits the tone, vibe, and over-all feeling for the world that the film is presenting, then I think people give some “less impressive” effects a pass, and sometimes sing their praises louder, because that is part of the “magic” of the broad genre of horror and it's many off shoots. Of course just my opinion!
What do you mean you held back?
I say we held back, because budget and time and how we manage all of it, play a big hand in what we do and attempt to do. We can't afford to do that many takes, build that many appliances, set ups, and so on, so figuring out what we can show, in advance, helps. That's part of the indie mindset. When coming up with some of the SPFX-gag stuff, myself and the SPFX–team were at a mexican restaurant and just throwing out ideas of practicals we could do, while exploiting some of the restaurant utencils and apparatus'. I remember 'Evil Dead Rise' had come out and we were talking about the cheese grater scene in that, so we thought, “what can we do” that fits into the world, the story and the characters we have, and for the budget we have. Three things we “held back from” aka decided that it wouldn't really help or hurt the film, and at the end of the day, would have taken more time and money to accomplish. Should we do nudity? Well, 'Sweet Meats' is southsploitation and feels like some drive in movies back in the seventies. With the cheerleaders, all actresses were willing and comfortable to do nudity, but at the end of the day Hiance and I discussed and decided, “Why? That's not this movie”. Should we show cutaways to meat being grossly prepared? The restaurant owner told us about a process of boiling meat that they do and that we could come get b-roll of that and other meat products. We decided not to. In the script, we “see” all of the food that Bobby confronts Laddie about, when pointing out her hypocrisies, but ultimately, we didn't feel like it would “Add” that much, to do inserts where we actually saw it. Should we show inserts of all the different singles, on forty-five sleeves, that are being sold of Bobby's songs? Again, time and and money and after doing an edit of the movie, the question came, “Do we need it and would it add that much”?
Troma picked this film up just from reading the script, and it is easy to see why. Lloyd Kaufman’s releases often share a similar, distinct, unapologetic filmmaking vibe. What influences, big and small, known and niche, do you have on your creative taste buds. What secret ingredients are in the mix?
This question is better answered by me just listing the influences of things I was aware of, and am now aware of. The Monkees movie 'Head', 'Smokey and the Bandit II' and the 'Any Which Way You Can' soundtrack. 'Macbeth', 'Phantom of the Paradise', 'Motel Hell', 'Rocky Horror Picture Show', 'Little Shop of Horrors', SNL, 'Grease', 'Sweeney Todd', any Faustian-like Monkey Paw story. Now, the thing I didn't know was an influence, because it was just unlocked about a week ago, while my twin two year old boys were watching 'The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' on Disney Plus. That opening where it goes from “real life” into the children's book opening up, and the map of the forest. I said out loud, “Oh shit, this is where the children's book stuff came from, for 'Sweet Meats'!” I hadn't seen 'The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' since I was a kid when sometimes during the summer we would get the Disney Channel for free, as like a trial.
Having headlined standup shows you know your way around comedy. How close is this dark, sometimes musical material we have come to know you for in film to what you’d put on stage?
Standup comedy is not my favorite form of artistic expression, comedy and creativity, mainly because it is largely a solo sport. The older I have gotten, I've become more interactive with the audience, but the deeper I get into the film, the more standup seems in the past. My “voice” as a filmmaker seems much easier to display than currently in any live variation of my standup. I wish I could find a hybrid, because I do love performing live. Two quotes that I go back to in my mind, on the podcast Low Budget Rebels, the host said, “I think 'Sweet Meats' is weirder than you think it is”. Which thinking about it.. yep. To me, it is just a mix of all of these influences I have in my head, blended up to tell this story, of these characters, at this time in their lives. After our first film, our mantra for NKY Films became heart and humor. Each one of our films, no matter the genre, must have those two. Corny as it may sound, it's our metric. The other quote was from a reviewer of 'Sweet Meats', who said that the way they would describe the movie, after watching it, is if, “It is a Christopher Guest movie, made by John Waters”. Quite the compliment, that I would never say about myself or the art we do, but I like it.
How did you get into filmmaking and working behind the camera. Was it a shift at some point?
It has always been an interest, but it seemed tangible because even before everyone had a camera on their phone, and no excuse, some people had the “Spielberg” story, where the camera became like an armature of his limbs, and his way to communicate, I was aware of all of the possible outlets for entertainment, but because of a childhood friend living on the same street had a father who was a freelance cameraman, it became more real. It became more real, because he had old equipment, that he let us fuck with. So because my friend Nick Prince and I were big into SNL, 'Kids in the Hall', 'In Living Color', and understanding our limitations, if you try to “shoot the moon” you may never get off the ground, we started filming original sketch comedy in his basement, at around eleven-twelve years old. This eventually grew, and concurrently observing indie-film, with the likes of Kevin Smith, with new and old friends, we elevated slightly our “sketch comedy” game and filmmaking. Insert story here about meeting Nick Hiance and him introducing me to Rebel Without a Crew, and the rest is history!
I did notice a few Glore’s in your movies. Are you the one pulling people in or is the passion for storytelling a family affair?
My initial love for pop culture, not just movies, comes from my dad, Rick Glore Sr. If you see an “Edwards” listed in the credits, those are also my half-siblings. None of my family is “jonesing” to be in a movie, but they are all happy to participate in the ways they feel comfortable. Ali Delianides, my wife, on the other hand is a fantastic actress, who has not yet had the opportunity to “truly” shine in one of our movies, yet. 'Open House' was going to have Ali as one of the main realtor leads alongside Timmy Hart Barron. Brenda Delianides, my mother-in-law, is not an actress, but has “been around the arts” and in my opnion, electric on camera. Anna Glore, my daughter, is the one to keep an eye out for...
As hard and unpredictable as the process can be, I understand your next film is now already in post and it's not a horror this time?
For me, the “horror” genre is the broadest to play in, and possibly the easiest to execute for little to no money, but I am not exclusive to it. 'Casually Cool' is the first movie we completed as part of our two features in one calendar year self-imposed challenge, and is “our version” of all of the detective shows of the late seventies and early eighties like 'Rockford Files', 'Murder She Wrote', 'Magnum PI', 'Simon and Simon', 'Mannix', and so on. I think it is one of the more personal films, but for different reasons. If I can brag for a bit, it has a killer sountrack, courtesy of Dustin Matthew Taylor, Jason Dill of The Upset Victory, Morgan Foster of Foster, DemonScar, Eric Hunter and much more. And Timmy Barron, the film's star, is editing it, because his editing, especially of comedy and action, is top notch. While 'Casually Cool' is in post production, we are about to announce our 'Seed & Spark' campaign for the second film, where like 'Open House', was originally going to be a musical-dark comedy called 'Truly Trudy', but had to be scrapped due to lack of funds and casting, is now our horror-slasher, satire run... keep your eyes peeled...
