Photo Gallery

The making of DEATHGRIP

The following are excerpts from Mark’s book TRULY INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING;

              For Randy Allen, DEATHGRIP was a good experience, “It was real unusual seeing it because I always understood intellectually how these things were put together, but you don’t ever see the whole product (when shooting your individual scenes). You don’t know the context of how it actually plays out as a story - you only know your small segment of it. I enjoyed seeing DEATHGRIP! To me that’s my favorite one. And it was fun playing an obnoxious character, and David was really fun to work with so he made playing someone obnoxious really a fun experience. And then going back and seeing this (the completed film) was fun, I could see how those things fit with all the other parts of the story. The first occasion of seeing the whole, completed piece was enjoyable, especially seeing the blooper part was nice too. It’s a reminder of the absurdity and the spontaneity that ends up happening when you do a movie, which is very different from a play. It was a good experience.”

Mark Adams films the final scene with Kerry Marsh and David Lake

The ghost of Brooke appears to Sean in a memory from her childhood

              Kerry Marsh also thought that DEATHGRIP was fun, “I loved (DEATHGRIP), actually I really enjoyed it. I thought it came together really well. It was entertaining, and that’s precisely what you made it for. It was not a, ‘I really need to think about how I look at life.’ It wasn’t one of those. It was just a ‘Lets go and get blatant entertainment’. I mean any movie called DEATHGRIP…I mean really! (Laughs) I’d have to go with DEATHGRIP (as my favorite film I acted in), but TRUE IDENTITY wasn’t less rewarding to be involved in or anything. They both had things I enjoyed doing about them. But I think that I liked my role in DEATHGRIP more. I enjoyed not being necessarily as naive, and saying, ‘What is ‘Art’?’ For a Fine Arts major! (Laughs) We get that asked to us so many times anyway! No, but I think I liked breaking out of that ‘mold’ that I had been cast in as a naive…(Laughs and shakes his head)…whatever! (The Christmas Tree in the Void Scene in DEATHGRIP), that was on the same level to me as the outdoor monologue scene in TRUE IDENTITY, in that I really had a chance to act. I mean really got a dramatic situation that I could really seriously act in, relatively speaking I guess for what I could do. But I really liked that part. But it was mostly Becky’s lines, and me reacting to Becky. The fog was really effective.”

            The first day of shooting wasn’t until October, a little later than I wanted to start. I was worried about having enough time to make a feature length film, and didn’t want to fall behind right away. Kerry Marsh recalled the first day, “It was so cool to me how we planned this; I remember where you were parked with the camera and where I drove by. I remember how we had to choreograph that - and I had to drive all the way back and then drive past the camera to get that (establishing) shot. I remember trying to imagine that Becky was out there in the distance, and I was seeing a ghost-like thing. And just struggling so much with the “What the Hell” line. And then the POV shots! (Laughs) Where you came at me! Yes! Oh, I remember those so much. I really do remember you just running at me with this camera, and in real life I’m about to wet my pants (from being scared about being hit by an out-of-control cameraman). And I laughed the first three times we tried it. But I thought that was pretty exciting.”

            Another early scene to shoot was the murder at the beginning of the film at an observation tower in Cheyenne Bottoms. The police at the crime scene was actually the first scene shot at the location, where Wendy first meets Roger and the elusive head is found. I was worried that the fake head wouldn’t look real, but David Lake thought it worked, “(Laughs) I can remember David Schleve holding that mannequin’s head up. When there’s a murder at (Cheyenne Bottoms) and David was the police officer, and how when he discovered this he just held this head up. I thought that was (funny) and how realistic that looked. And I knew what it was; a head off of a CPR mannequin, and how real it looked in the movie.” The key to making the head look real was quite simple; don’t show it in a close-up. When David Schleve held up the head, it was a wide shot seen from the top of the observation tower. When we returned to shoot the murder itself later, I used a mannequin’s head that had roughly the same color and style of hair as the actress who played the victim, Rebecca Pfortmiller. For the shot where the killer hits a pole over her head, I held the mannequin’s head just within view on the bottom of the frame in the foreground. When the pole struck the head, I added the sound effect of sticks breaking for the cracking sound of the skull, which proved to be very effective.

            The tunnels underneath the campus once again provided a great location, as Kerry Marsh remembered, “It was so fun down in the tunnels. I really enjoyed it down there. It was a perfect place to shoot those kind of ‘dark-and-strange’ scenes. It just created some tension, having those scenes in the tunnels. I thought that was really appropriate. That was when Bill Cordes gave his speech…so we figured out he was a ghost, and we all backed up (looking scared). But Bill wasn’t there, so how did we do that? It looks totally normal, now three or four years removed from shooting that, I don’t think about the fact that was shot on separate days. One of my favorite bloopers was where we’re there and looking serious…’Action!’…(Pause very dramatically)…And I’m like, “Oh, is it my line?” (Laughs) Yeah, that’s one of my favorites! Yeah, the tunnels were cool.”

            Tracy enjoyed the day we filmed our characters arriving at Camp Aldrich , “(My favorite scene to shoot was) you, me and Bill (Cordes) coming down the field at Camp Aldrich . (Smiles) We had a really hard time that day delivering the lines. Bill was having a hard time spitting them out, and it was a beautiful, cool fall day and blue skies and very picturesque.”

            Randy Allen found the performance of Bill Cordes in DEATHGRIP a good example of his acting range, “(Bill Cordes) is such a good actor, in all the movies he’s done he’s so good at it. He played that part so well of that sort of slap-happy, ‘There’s the murderer! Want a coke?’ character! (Laughs) It’s just so funny! And then have him reveal toward the end that he’s that sort of malevolent, ‘You’re not suppose to be here. You’re upsetting things.’ character, that’s great! Because you see that’s such a departure from him being this, ‘Hi! Welcome campers!’ kind of persona that’s comes across so different in those two scenes.”

For more information on Bill Cordes click here to visit his web site at

http://www.billcordes.com/

  “That was spooky (shooting in the trees at Camp Aldrich at night). I don’t like the dark to begin with, and those trees are all crinkly like old ladies fingers or witch’s fingers or something. Crystal clear sky and the stars, and deserted for miles around - just you and me running through those trees in the dark. It just doesn’t give you a sense of security. I’d rather be inside where it’s nice and safe and warm.” – Tracy Adams

“Let me tell you that anytime I’m in the car with any other human being, and we drive by (Freedom Park in Junction City, a shooting location for TRUE IDENTITY) I make sure and tell them, “Yeah, I shot a movie up there!” And especially if we go by that phone on the 156 junction to go to Great Bend from I-70, I have to point out, “Yeah, right there! If you ever see DEATHGRIP, that’s the phone I’m talking on!” And people are just ‘astonished’, as you can imagine! “Really? Wow, you mean it happens here?” (Looks down and smiles) They don’t care, and usually they’ve already heard it 8,000 times because I tell everybody. I have a lot of pride in that.” – Kerry Marsh

              I wasn’t sure how people would respond to the film, would it be scary when it was suppose to be scary? Funny when it was suppose to be funny? Or would people laugh at all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons? At the big World Premiere in the Fine Arts Auditorium on campus everyone seemed to like it. I was thrilled when someone actually screamed when the killer jumped out to kill the guy hiding in the shower. And then everyone laughed with disgust at the amount of blood seen splashing all over the walls. This was a scene added later, not in the original script.

            I think this was a memorable scene for a couple a reasons, especially for how it fit into the film as a whole. There were several previous murder scenes, each not very gory in their depiction. I wanted the viewer to think that the shower scene would be as tame, and when the blood started splashing, it was a shock compared to the earlier scenes. But the thing that made it so memorable was how I shot it, and I’m sure there was the inevitable comparison to Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. 

                My shower scene was neither a spoof nor homage to the shower scene in PSYCHO, but I did use Hitchcock’s famous sequence as a guide to how I would shoot and edit mine. The fact that it took place in a shower was purely for logistic reasons. I wrote the scene because I wanted at least one in the film that was gory in some way, with lots of blood. But I knew I would have to clean up the mess when we were finished, and the last thing I wanted to do was to spend hours mopping the floors and walls. So I thought, if the scene took place in a shower, the actor could just clean up immediately when we were finished, and he could rinse off the walls and floor at the same time. Once I had the location, I remembered the shower scene from PSYCHO, and how I was fascinated with it back in high school from a filmmaker’s point of view. I had recorded it from TV, and watched it in slow motion, one frame and shot at a time, to see how the magic was done. Even decades after the film was made, it was still a violent and startling scene and I wanted to know why. 

                I discovered that the shots were very deceiving, a clever slight-of-hand to create the illusion of a woman being killed by a knife. If you look closely the knife never touches Janet Leigh, and there are never any cuts or blood seen on her body during the attack. One shot may show the knife swing into the foreground between the camera and the actress, while her stomach is seen behind it implying it’s cutting her, but they never touch. Nonetheless we hear the sound of the knife entering flesh (which I found out later was a sound effect of a knife entering a melon, a trick I used as well). Another overhead shot shows her holding the killers arm with the knife waving wildly in front of her, but again the knife never touches her. It is the quick cuts of these shots, the killer seen stabbing towards the camera and close-ups of her face reacting to being stabbed, that give the scene the chaotic montage of violence. The true power of the sequence comes from the addition of the music and sound effects that create the emotional response in the viewer. They don’t have time to think about what they see; they can only react on a subliminal and instinctive level, resulting in fear. I wanted to use this approach to the scene but take it a step further into reality.

Four video stills from the shower sequence of DEATHGRIP

from the montage of 29 shots, each only 10 to 15 frames of video

The killer begins to stab his victim in the shower

A close-up of the bloody knife entering the victim

A close-up of the blood splattering on the victim's arm and shower wall

A close-up of the blood spilling onto the shower floor and victim's foot

            I did the same thing with my footage; I shot very specific and short clips that would be cut together into a montage of images. I shot close-ups of the killer swinging a knife towards the camera. I shot close-ups of the knife in front of the actor’s torso. But I had the knife enter a pre-cut slit in his shirt, and give the appearance it actually entered his flesh. I shot close-ups of his face, arms and body reacting to being stabbed: while at the same time blood would splash on him. And I shot close-ups of the wall and floor as blood splashed everywhere. It was a chaotic montage of violence and blood, done to such an extreme that it became humorous to watch because of the overkill. It got the reaction I was hoping for, and gave the film the needed sense of horror, violence and power.

            For Randy Allen, the scene worked because of its familiarity, “DEATHGRIP is a horror movie - people relate to that. They’ve seen all of the ‘slasher’ films. When they get to the scene with the young man getting killed in the washroom, they can relate to that because they’ve seen this in other movies. It’s not so weird - it’s not so strange to them. And at the same time they can enjoy the gory-ness of it because of how far that scene (goes). It’s funny at the same time. It’s gory and you think, “Oh, yuck!” But you laugh at the same time. I think DEATHGRIP works on that level; it has things that are familiar and yet still were surprising. It was funny yet it was horrific at the same time.”

“Yeah! DEATHGRIP! Blood and guts! In DEATHGRIP I played a motivational speaker so I was perfectly typecast for that one. (Bill Cordes is a motivational speaker in real life.) I think of that scene where you and your wife and I come running out and say, “HEY!” And it was a lot fun because there was just a lot of stuff. But that was a pretty gory film. (Laughs) That guy with the blood going everywhere, that was pretty neat.” – Bill Cordes

            Another scene of death by unusual means was in the art room, where Aaron Lake tries to hide from the killer in a kiln used for baking clay pottery. Of course the scene ends with the killer locking him in and turning on the kiln, baking him alive. I was worried about how the audience would react to the situation: to someone so stupid as to try to hide in an oven. But in the end it worked once again because of the audience’s willingness to accept such situations because they know they’re watching a horror film, and they accept it. Aaron Lake later told me, “Yeah, it was great to go in there and just have a blast. There seemed to be no pressure and we had a great time. I, actually, think DEATHGRIP is my favorite of the ADAMSTAR Films. I truly enjoyed watching it.”

            Kerry Marsh had this reaction to the scene, “(When I show people Aaron’s kiln scene), I wait a few minutes before I tell them, ‘You know that when his skin was bubbling, (Mark) fried some bacon on a pan and recorded that.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, that’s pretty disgusting!’ (Laughs) But when it just starts sizzling, people just…it freaks them out. Oh, that was just dark! (Continues to laugh) That was dark! (The Killer) walking in slowly and just…I mean, what else is going to happen? For God’s sake, he (Aaron) gets in the kiln! ‘Maybe it will be OK.’ (Sounds like a frightened child hiding in a closet, then laughs again) The inevitability of some horror flicks, I think, is what really draws people to it. Because they’re like, ‘Don’t go in the Kiln! There’s a guy in the doorway!’ Yeah, the kiln scene was appropriate. That did the job.”

Mark Adams and Kerry Marsh recording music for DEATHGRIP in 1995

Mark Adams and Kerry Marsh in 2000

              This was the last film where Kerry Marsh composed and performed the music specifically for a film, after it was edited. Kerry graduated from Great Bend High School and started at the University of Kansas , and was unable to come back to do the music. Instead, I would get together with him and record some general themes that I knew I didn’t have from the previous three films. I would remix the old music, and use some of the new music in the next several films and this still worked out wonderfully. Kerry’s talent for composing and performing music proved to be an important reason for my recent successes. Early on in my filmmaking experiences I realized how important the music was to a film, and I was very lucky to have known Kerry and to have worked with him. Kerry described his thoughts on the music for DEATHGRIP, “(For DEATHGRIP), you had planned out more of a variety for that movie than before. Well, before (LINK UP and TRUE IDENTITY music) was slightly like a low-key movie, more cerebral, by far, than DEATHGRIP. And so, I was going to have to - somehow with just a keyboard and my limited piano skills - I was going to have to create orchestrations that were going to move these action scenes, and move these comedy scenes. I ended up using a lot of, at least a couple of times I used the stock rhythms that were in my little digital synthesizer. But DEATHGRIP got progressively more intricate, more difficult. I loved being able to watch the screen and see what was going on, and kind of react to it. I thought that was a great deal. I enjoyed getting a second chance at them, after the third time I really got a feel for the scene. The music would be much more professional if I had written that stuff down. I learned a lot about performing under pressure, I guess. There were time constraints involved: we didn’t want to be there until four in the morning. We had a goal: we had to get through this movie. There were ‘X’ number of scenes: LINK UP wasn’t an hour long but they got longer after that. I think DEATHGRIP was the longest movie just because of all of the walking. (Smiles) And Tracy walking around the woods! (Laughs) That’s probably why it was so long!”

“I’m so self-conscious to watch myself, and I’m in so many scenes, that I can’t get past that to see anything else of (DEATHGRIP). I cringe the whole time. I still cringe when I see it because I’m in so many scenes that I can’t get past seeing myself, and thinking that I’m so bad and everybody else around me had (acting) experience. And it’s a horror film. I mean, why I ever agreed to be in a horror film? I don’t like horror films to begin with! I don’t sit down to watch them. Why did I agree to be in one?” – Tracy Adams