Sunday, March 22, 2009

I got shot in the head today!!!

And it was even in the trigger happy Nørrebro part of Copenhagen! But fortunately it was only in a movie! I went to the Danish capital today to star in a new Herschell Gordon Lewis inspired underground movie entitled PLANET HOLOCAUST.

 



PLANET HOLOCAUST is directed by renowned underground musician, film maker, and actor Amdi Peter. Amdi Peter is well known on the Danish punk scene for his old band Amdi Petersens Armé which also received some underground fame in the US and toured there, and he has later played in Gurilla Angreb and various other bands. Peter is also a well known face on the alternative Danish film scene. About five years ago he played the lead in the zombie flick RÅDDEN KÆRLIGHED which, incidentally, is also where I first met him (I was one of the zombies, LOL) and he directed DEN INTERGALAKTISKE GENVEJ starring Heine Sørensen and Henrik Larsen (of Obskuriøst magazine). Interestingly enough, I finally got to see the place where INTERGALAKTISKE was shot as today's shoot was done at the same flat.

PLANET HOLOCAUST is an ambitious trash movie that has already been 18 months underway and which still has a long way to go as it isn't scheduled for release until the end of the year. The cast is fairly big counting almost everyone from the Copenhagen scene of horror/trash movie collectors. For instance, today I spoke to Rockugle-Kim from the Copenhagen record & video store "Rock Uglen" who is also in the movie, along with Hetero Jens of Moshable magazine & Lowcut.dk and Heine Sørensen (of Stay Sick! magazine and several underground films including Martin Schmidt films, LOL), and countless more.

When I starred in RÅDDEN KÆRLIGHED five years ago I said I wouldn't do another movie. My feelings towards it all were kinda like when Ed Wood in ED WOOD says: "This is the one I'll be remembered for". Back then I said to Heine: "I don't wanna do another movie ever; this is going to be my cult role". Haha, well, you have an opinion until you change it for another one, LOL. The thing is Heine kept bugging me about this movie going: "Oh go on, they really want you in this, they keep asking me!" So I caved in, haha.

Anyway, my part isn't very big anyway and it was all done today. I only have one scene and Heine told me there wouldn't be very much dialogue, just a couple of lines. Well, never trust a bullshitter!!! haha. When we arrived today Amdi Peter pulled out FOUR PAGES OF DIALOGUE!!! I got more lines than anybody else in the whole bloody movie!!! I said "but how am I gonna do this, I can't remember four pages of dialogue. I'm not a fucking actor for chrissakes!"

Anyway, I believe it went alright in the end. Briefly about the plot; The film is about this virus from the moon that spreads to Earth and makes someone mutate into a hideous monster. A monster which obviously kills people, haha. In the film I play an astronaut who returns from to Earth and tries to warn people by leaking his story to a journalist although the company has told him not to. Obviously both he and the journalist get violently killed with gun shots to their heads. Good fun!

The journalist is played by an American guy called Justin that I hadn't met before and he knew as little about the movie and the plot (and the lines!!) as I did but he was a good trooper and after a few rehearsals it all worked out well (that was my impression anyway but of course you never know how it's gonna look once it's on the screen!). Our big snuff scene was, needless to say, quite gory. The special effects were provided by Tue Sick who also did the FX on RÅDDEN KÆRLIGHED (and who also played in some punk bands, I'm not sure if he still does). His surname (listed in the end credits to Rådden Kærlighed) probably isn't "Sick" but I suspect it's a reference to the magazine I publish; "Stay Sick!"). :-)

All in all a fun day. I hope they'll finish the movie sooner than later as it's probably gonna be great fun. We watched a teaser trailer and that certainly looked fun. They're talking about getting the film out on DVD and they've been speaking to a (for the moment being undisclosed) video label about a release but whether this'll pull thru or not remains to be seen. If nothing else they'll put it out on their own label. More info later.

EDIT (2020): The film was retitled GROTESK before its release. It premiered at the Blodig Weekend horror film festival (Copenhagen) in 2013 and was released on English friendly DVD from AWE (Denmark) soon after. The filmmakers were lousy cheapskates and I had to buy my own copy – they wouldn't even give me a lousy dvd-r. Not very punk if you ask me (actually complaining about it is way more punk, haha).

Here's some pictures from today's shoot. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a proper camera so they were all done using my cell phone and yes they're pretty crappy!! Sorry, haha.

Tue Sick working on my head-shot wound.

The shot wound before it was painted with skin colour.

Me with my open skull that doesn't look open at all as it wasn't painted at this point. Colour makes all the difference!

Tue hard at work.

Director Amdi Peter.

My co-actor Justin.

Preparing Justin's bloodied face (he gets splattered by MY blood and brain matter!).

Still preparing Justin's bloodied face.

Heine Sørensen looking by.