CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BLOOD PUDDING: ACT FIVE

JEREMY: During their conversation in the basement Byron asks Unicorn Boy what his real name is. Unicorn Boy states that he doesn't have one. He's simply been called Unicorn Boy for as long as he can remember. This angers Byron. As far as he's concerned everyone deserves a name. He asks his friend what name he would like. The lad thinks a moment and then says that there was an old man at the circus who mucked out the freaks' cages named Charlie. This old shit-slinger was always good to him and the other freaks. In fact, it was Charlie who helped Unicorn Boy escape. Byron tells him that if that is the name he would like to adopt for himself than so be it. 

Unicorn Boy states enthusiastically, "Oh I do! This...this is too much! I've got a real friend and a real name! I couldn't be happier!"

This was the emotional conclusion to the Byron/Unicorn Boy relationship. In a story as bleak as this one was Joe and I were determined to have at least one moment of happiness for these poor, wretched creations of ours. By taking the name "Charlie" Unicorn Boy is basically casting off the shackles of his former life and facing the world as a free man (or boy).  We wanted there to be a positive outcome for these two characters having met. Byron helps Unicorn Boy become truly free from his past, not just physically, and the lad in turn gives Byron someone to nurture and protect. Without Unicorn Boy Byron is just this deformed murderer breaking into people's houses and eating them.


It's too bad their happiness couldn't last. 

THE DEATH OF UNICORN BOY

JOE: Unicorn Boy's death was a bittersweet moment in the making of Blood Pudding. How did it happen, you ask?  Patch finds Byron and Unicorn Boy in the house they broke into. They are on the way up the basement steps to check out the rest of the house. Before Unicorn Boy reaches the top landing Patch bursts through the door causing Unicorn Boy to stumble down the steps and gut himself on Byron's knife. How sad! How touching!


Byron holds Unicorn Boy in his arms as he dies:


Unicorn Boy (coughing up blood): Byron...my friend...run...save yourself!


Byron: Not without you!


Unicorn Boy: Byron! W...What's my name?


Byron: It's Charlie.


Unicorn Boy: Then it was all worth it. (Unicorn Boy dies in Byron's arms. Byron weeps as Patch approaches.)


Cue the sad music! I shed tears even today at this tender scene.


Byron panics as he draws the knife from Unicorn Boy's gut. Another classic line from Blood Pudding was then uttered by Darren Parsons.


Byron: What have I done?! (He looks at Patch) What did you make me doooooooo?!!!!!!



THE FIGHT THAT NEVER WAS


 

Now we come to the saddest moment in our tale: The battle between Byron and Patch that never was. The day we shot this, we literally shot all day. The last thing we planned to shoot was the end confrontation between Patch and Byron because we wanted it to be dark outside when we shot it. I discussed this with Jeremy. He was fine with shooting a whole day. I then talked to Darren about it. He also gave me a thumbs up.


There were only two real hiccups that I can remember. Darren was late for some reason that I cannot comprehend (JEREMY: Dar late to a shoot? Never!). That, of course, caused a late start, making us fall behind schedule for the day. The point of shooting the whole day was so we could finish the movie. All the scenes left to shoot took place right there in my Grandmother's house. So it should have been relatively easy to finish the movie. But what happened next really ticked me off.

As we were nearing the point to shoot the end fight between Patch and Byron Darren began to complain about the length of the shoot. He said he’d told his mother he would be home at a certain time and that time was drawing near.


"I don't want to disappoint my mother," Darren said. This came out of the blue to me. He'd known about this shoot and the planned length of it for some time! Where was this coming from? What should we do? Reschedule? I was tired of rescheduling and reshooting. Finishing the movie was within my grasp! I feared that if we did not shoot the end battle that night we'd not have the opportunity to finish it. I was determined to finish the movie that night despite Darren's incessant whining.


Darren continued with his line, "I don't want to disappoint my mother." I don't believe he was being entirely truthful here. Something else was afoot. I don't remember if we ever got to the bottom of it. All I can do at this point is speculate and I'm not gonna do that.



JEREMY: I have no problem speculating. I think it had something to do with his girlfriend at the time, Ginny.


JOE: It became clear to Jeremy and I that we would not get to shoot the ending scene we had envisioned. We wanted to have Byron and Patch fight each other up the basement steps, around the first floor of the house, and then out the door and into the back alley where the final showdown would take place. Since Darren insisted that he had to go we cut it short...way short.


While the two characters faced off on the basement steps Byron simply hit Patch in the shoulder with a hatchet that was conveniently sitting within his reach and then ran past Patch and out the door into the alley where the final fight would occur. Not a great thing, but given Darren's whining I'd take that over nothing.


We thought about using the bright light we'd found in the basement to light the scene in the alley. But Darren would continually repeat, "I don't want to disappoint my mother." We ended up using ambient lighting. That was a mistake. We should have at least tried to us some kind of controlled lighting. It was very hard to see what was happening. Byron ended up subduing Patch on a hill at the corner of the alley overlooking a very busy street.

There was a street light directly above us so this scene wasn’t too hard to make out. Byron throws Patch to the ground and hacks him to death with a hatchet. Byron was not carrying a hatchet when he got outside. Where'd the hatchet come from? Well, we planted it there on the grassy hill beside them just to finish the scene. It also made me laugh. We were sorta lucky that no one called the cops on us. The street was pretty busy, even at midnight.


JEREMY: All you can make out of Dar and I in this scene are our silhouetted figures pummeling each other in the foreground while in the background car after car zooms by, its occupants no doubt wondering what the hell was going on, or just accepting it as a drug deal gone bad (this was and is a pretty shitty neighborhood). When Dar grabs the hatchet and does a Lizzie Borden on my character's head he was really slamming the hatchet into the earth inches from my cranium. Had I moved so much as an inch I would've lost an ear or even my life, for what it's worth.


I was always disappointed with this scene, it could've been so much better if we’d had the time to do it properly.


WHOSE CAR IS THIS?



JOE: A small deck sat right outside my grandmother's back door. Parked right next to the deck was somebody's car. Whose? I didn't know, but it sure would be cool if Byron jumped from the deck onto the car in his hasty attempt to escape from Patch. Darren agreed to this. That sort of made up for the screwy fight scene we were forced to shoot. I don't remember how many times he jumped from the deck to the car, but I'm sure I tried to push the limits on this. It turned out quite well in the finished product.


JEREMY: I was given the option of jumping from the deck to the top of the car as well, but it was pretty cold out and a thin sheet of ice coated the car's exterior and since I was wearing cowboy boots that are not known for their traction I opted to simply walk down the stairs in pursuit of my prey. Probably the wisest choice in the end as I was certain I would've slipped and broken my neck had I attempted the stunt.


JOE: So that is the story of the confrontation between Byron and the bounty hunter, Patch.



MR. McCORMAN IS DEAD

After killing Patch Byron then goes to Mr. McCorman’s office and kills him. Nice ending, eh? The movie starts out with a murder and ends with a murder. What was supposed to happen was soooooo much better than what we ended up with. Byron steals Patch's coat and hat in a feeble attempt to disguise himself as Patch. Byron then strolls into McCorman's office and drops Patch's severed head on McCorman's desk. A brief scuffle ensues. Byron kills McCorman. The hero lives happily ever after! Right?


Not quite! The main show piece of the scene, namely the severed head, had been thoroughly eaten and digested by Darren! What to do...what to do...?


I know! We'll have Byron drop Patch's bloody eye-patch on McCorman's desk! Yeah! That will be sooooooooo much cooler and spookier than a severed head!

So here’s the scene as shot: McCorman is on the phone with an unidentified person. Byron enters the office dressed in Patch's coat and hat. What a disguise! McCorman was not the sharpest knife in the drawer so the disguise fooled him until Byron dropped the bloody eye-patch on his desk.

Mr. McCorman: What is this? Who are you?!

Byron answered by shoving an electric screwdriver into his gut. Ha! Where did he get an electric screwdriver? From Jeremy's grandfather's tool-chest, of course! Well, that's where we got it. We were always switching up Byron's weapons for no reason other than I thought it was funny. If anyone ever noticed the weapon switch-a-roo, they never mentioned it.  Not to me at any rate.

JEREMY: Of course, Byron could've snatched the screwdriver from the basement of the home where he killed Patch and the owners and poor Unicorn Boy as well. Though the latter was an accident. At least, that's what Joe tells me.

MR. HANDLON, ARE YOU ON SET?



JOE: This shoot took place on the same night we shot Byron stabbing the homeowner to death, Byron killing Mother/Father, and the hiring of Patch.  It was a busy night!  This was also the one and only shoot that Jesse Handlon attended. I remember being extremely exhausted during this scene. Jesse handled the camera chores and helped set up the lighting. I had to play McCorman so I needed to wake-up enough to do that. I think Jeremy made some tea or coffee for me. He must've had some as well.


As far as I recall, this scene went fairly well. Darren had no lines. That was a plus. The only snag was the severed head. Yes! I cried over the loss of the severed head! I'm man enough to admit it!


JEREMY: That poor, poor severed head. Sniff.


JESSE: I was here for this shoot and did the camerawork (didn't get a credit. Fucking Joe). Joe told me what he wanted the shots to entail and handed me the camera. I asked him if I could do an Evil Dead shot where I follow the electric screwdriver into his stomach. He shrugged his shoulders. I took this as a yes. He then told me that he wanted to start and end each shot with a fade to black. I took a few seconds to figure out the camera's fade buttons and gave him the thumbs up. We shot the scene and it didn't take very long.

After the shoot was done Joe snatched the camera and pulled out the tape. I knew he was anxious to see the footage. He popped in the tape and we all sat back and watched. Now, on the first attempt to fade I goofed a little. As a rule I try not to add too much pressure to things. I'm always afraid I'm going to break it or something. The fade didn't go too well; in fact, it barely faded at all. Joe looked at it and said, "Nice fade."


I wanted to respond by shoving my foot up his ass. Instead, I just said, "Hey, check out the rest of them."


The rest were great because I added the proper pressure to the button. Jeremy and Darren liked the Evil Dead shot. Joe simply nodded and said, "That's adequate."


I wanted to wring his neck but instead I smiled and nodded. This was all on the first night I met Joe Devine and Jeremy Riley. I was going to like this bunch.


THE MOON

JOE: One more scene to shoot and the movie would be done! The scene in question was simply of Byron walking down a lonely stretch of road into the night. The moon was full and bright so I decided that the last shot in the movie would be of this celestial wonder. I don't know why, but my shooting the moon really seemed to tick Darren off, and as I shot it he would not shut up! He would spew profanities at me for some reason every time I would call action. I didn't know if we could edit out his blabbering or not. So after I got the shot, I called him every profane name I knew.

JEREMY: Oddly, for having been raised a strict Catholic he knew quite a few. I believe Dar was sick of shooting the movie by this point and just wanted to go home, so Joe's moment of inspiration of having Dar walk down the darkened street and then pan up to the moon sent him over the deep end.


JOE: That was it. The end of principal photography of Blood Pudding. I shed a tear.



LET'S EDIT THIS SUCKER!

Jeremy and I got together at his place to make a rough edit of the movie. Jesse had some type of consumer quality editing apparatus. So there we were, two VCR's, Jesse's editor, a note pad, a TV, and I believe we ingested some pizza at some point that night in between editing. At the time Jeremy and I loved getting together and watching B-level horror movies or MST3K episodes. We always had pizza at these little get-togethers. So, seeing as how we were making a B-level horror movie that would be right at home on MST3K, pizza seemed to be the obvious choice.

We tried to use the editor, but no dice. It was just a cheap piece of plastic that made a lot of pormises it couldn't keep. I unhooked the editor and smashed it to bits. Jeremy was upset that I didn't leave any parts for him to smash. Oh well! So we ended up just using the two VCR's. It was fun! We hit play on one and recorded on the other. It went pretty smoothly, all things considered. I don't remember having many problems. It was just a tedious and time consuming task.

CREDITS




The only thing left to do was the credits. For some reason Darren refused to use the computers at CIRT to make the credits for Blood Pudding. So Jeremy got some black construction paper and red paint. Now we had some credits. We placed the construction paper on a black trash bag to keep the background completely black. Jeremy and I then shot the credits ourselves. They were ok. They worked.  Not what I had in mind, but they got the job done.


Darren had told me he created a credit sequence for the movie. Then, for some reason, it was unusable or lost, or maybe Darren ate them. I don't know why he didn’t want to make credits for Blood Pudding. The trash bag credits would have to do.


JESSE: Darren had made the credits for Blood Pudding like a hundred times while we sat around CIRT. He always had two problems, the first being Darren wasn't much of a speller and the second that he never saved the fucking things. He'd do the credits and then turn off the computer. I would, of course, inquire why he did this and he would always reply, "Oh, I'll just do them again."


He never did though. We even had a chance on the day of the premiere, but, ah, that is another chapter.


FINAL THOUGHTS



JOE: I enjoyed making Blood Pudding. It was a lot of fun and I made some new friends along the way. The only thing I wish we had done was let the camera roll a bit longer. We just shot enough to get the shot and that was it. We did plan to shoot some behind the scenes footage, but that was not to be.  I still have fond memories of it though. Thanks guys!


JEREMY: Totally my pleasure.


JESSE: Final thought: My ass itches a whole lot. I still use the Blood Pudding tape to scratch it. Ah, relieving.


JOE: Thank you for that, Jesse!

NEXT: MAKING NEWS