Film School.

To kick things back off, and in the spirit of Halloween, I thought I might post a photo.  It was actually taken during the summer, but that should not detract from its very ghoulish theme, which, as it so happens, is… well, ghouls…

You see, one day, Matthew Gelzer woke up and thought, “Gee, I think I’d like to make a gory horror movie…  Wouldn’t that be neat?”  Other, equally jovial voices in Matt’s head agreed, as did starlet and producer, U-M film school grad Anna K. Jonsson.  What happened next is called Blood Kin: Terror is Thicker than Water, which was written and directed by Gelzer, who also starred and is currently laboring away in post production.  At some point I got a call asking if I could come out to the set for an evening and play one of the ghostly ghoul type things that serve –shockingly enough– as the undead antagonists.  Despite a whopping hangover, I said I would be delighted.  Little did I know that playing the part of a gurgling, grunting, violent zombo-ghoul would involve wearing a burlap sack over my head, being doused in a gallon of fake blood (principle constituents include corn syrup and non-dairy creamer…) and having dirt ground into my slimy red skin while I stumble around shambled and barefoot in the woods outside Hillsdale…

To be sure, clean up was hell, but filming was actually a blast.  Mine was a fight scene.  I got to hit people, make supernaturally yucky noises, and projectile-vomit ectoplasm all while choking the shit out of the director.  Below is the photo, post-burlap headgear and well after my glistening dermis had begun to set and congeal into a dull and outrageously sticky mess.

Another still from the set: