Brian Paulin

An Interview with Brian Paulin

• Hi Brian, Could you start by telling us a little about the history of Morbid Vision films?

I started Morbid Vision Films back in 1990 with a friend of mine Rich George. We are hardcore horror fans and we started doing this for fun because we wanted to go beyond simply watching horror films. It was a way to celebrate them. I had been doing make-up effects for a couple of years and I was getting tired of creating effects just to take a couple of pictures. We got a hold of a video camera and starting making short movies and we never stopped doing it. Then in the mid 90's I discovered magazines like Film Threat Video Guide and Alternative Cinema and saw there was actually a market for shot on video movies. That’s when I tried harder to make movies that would be worth a horror fans hard earned money. It took 15 years of practice.

• The sfx can sometimes let down low budget and self financed films, but this is certainly not the case with Bone Sickness. What's your background regarding special effects and make up?

I started doing make-up effects back in 1988. I rented Fangoria's Scream Greats Vol.1 Tom Savini and I became obsessed. That weekend I was grabbing anything around the house to try to do gore effects. From there I bought every book and video I could find. I am mostly self taught. Although I did finally enrol in Dick Smith's advanced course. I have seen many indie movies and I see that there usually isn't many make-up effects. I enjoy making creature effects films and it's fun to go over board with the gore. Not to take away from the story, but to give the audience a wild ride. I try to give our films the feeling we got watching the gore classics of the 80's.

• Rich and yourself have acted in all of your films so far, will you both continue to appear in future projects?

That comes from us being in our short movies when we started out. I enjoy acting in my movies, getting covered in gore and doing action scenes. We are in all of our movies for one simple reason. I know we will show up! It's hard to find dedicated people to spend their free time acting. Everyone is all gung ho about being in a horror movie until they realize just how much work it is, then all the excuses start flying. I would like have all new lead actors in our next project, what ever that may be.

• Rich George has done some pretty crazy stuff; the car flipping, being set on fire and of course, the worm gargling. Has he trained as a stuntman, or does just dive in and get on with it?

It's a bit of both. When we first started using a camera Rich was diving out of trees onto the ground just to see if it looked good. He did end up on a stunt team in Conn. for four years. He got to do some stunt shows before the team disbanded. But he kept it going in our movies. I think Rich maybe the only indie stunt guy working in the indie scene on our level. If he had performed the amount of stunts for a studio production that he did in Bone Sickness, it would have cost about $30,000 He wrecked four cars, rolled one over, a couple of car hits with his body, and two fire gags. The body he did lasted 32 seconds which is pretty long.

• It's great as a fan watching movies made by people who are obviously themselves fans of horror. Have any recent films impressed you?

Not many recent US ones, but I love Asian horror films! Their movies are just so over the top, complex, and outrageous. The best horror film I have seen in years was Dog Soldiers, which is again a non-US horror film. Shaun of the Dead kicked ass also.

• Here in Britain censorship is still a big issue, although things have gotten a little better. What are your views on the subject, and have you encountered any problems with the content of your films?

Not really. That's one of the best things about shooting underground horror. We can do pretty much anything we want. I was surprised that our vampire movie At Dawn They Sleep got picked up by a major chain store. And that movie has a nun being molested by an angel with crotch tearing. Bone Sickness has more gore than all of our past movies

combined and we have had gorehounds tell us that some scene even made their stomachs turn. And yet we've been told that Best Buy & Blockbuster Video is interested in the movie. The thing is, we make fantasy horror films and I think you can get away with more when it's zombies creating the gore rather than a cold blooded killer. Personally I think an adult should be able to make their own choice of what is appropriate to watch. Not their government. But yet it's ok for the news to show mangled bodies in Iraq.

• So what's next for Morbid Vision films? Is there anything new in the pipeline?

I have a few ideas but I have not made up my mind on what I'm doing next. I really want to do a zombie film with swordplay. Plus there is a slight chance that I maybe making a movie for a film company. We are going to talk about it soon. What ever is next it will be extremely gory and there’s a good chance it will have zombies in it. Bone Sickness has been received far better than I ever expected so I will takes those elements that worked and go even further with them.

• Thanks very much for your time Brian, and good luck with your future projects.

Thanks for your interest in Morbid Vision Films! S.J.T.