PopHorror Let's Get Scared
A lot of you probably know Jeff Daniel Phillips from his work with Rob Zombie, having starred in several of Zombie’s films like Lords of Salem, The Munsters, 3 from Hell, and more. Others probably know him as the Caveman in the Geico commercials. What most of you probably didn’t know, is Jeff is also a writer and director and his new flick, Cursed in Baja (read our review HERE), which he also stars in, is well worth the watch.
Pirelli, an ex-lawman, travels to Mexico searching for the heir to a Los Angeles fortune, while confronting his own complicated past. But what he finds in Baja challenges him to the core.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Jeff about how the project came about, Barabara Crampton, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I’m excited to talk to you about Cursed in Baja.
Jeff Daniel Phillip: Thanks!
PopHorror: So, you not only wrote and directed the film, but you also starred in it. What sparked the idea for the film, and did you write it with yourself in mind for the lead role of Pirelli?
Jeff Daniel Phillips: Well, so it all started… I go to a lot of horror conventions, and I was promoting The Munsters in Michigan, and they signed me up to speak to some young filmmakers at the convention. It was like Sunday morning; I had no idea I was going to be doing this, but I went in there kind of blank. I’ve done a lot of low budget films and music videos and whatnot, so I just started telling them how to go about it and they were very excited. I was just talking about approaches on table reads and digital technology and making a list of what you have and creating a film that you could pull off. Something that’s available to you, what your assets are. Anyway, I came back to Los Angeles, they were excited, I was exhausted. I came back and I was telling my friend about it, Kent Isaacs, who also produces, and he goes, “Well, why aren’t we doing this?” So I go, “I don’t know.” And so it just started. It was like snowballed and within a month, we were down in Mexico shooting some of the feature. It was almost as a test shoot, but then we just started shooting and we started going nuts. I collaged a couple of characters that I had been working on already, and the reason I did this so quickly is there was a window. So, there was availability. I had five months before there was an actor strike, and so we just set that as our goal to try to chip away at it in those five months. I had a DP – an old friend of mine – Keith Coleman, and he said, “As long as you’re respectful of my schedule, I’ll help you all I can.” He had all the equipment. So that’s what we did. We just started chipping away a few days here, a day here, a couple of days here. In that kind of a situation… I went to art school and it was like, you always end up doing all these self portraits because you know you’ll be there and you’ll show up. It’s the same thing with low budget movies. So I always knew over those five months I’ll be available. I’ll look the same, and I just built it around that. I’ve done this a lot with short films and whatnot, so that’s how it came about. That’s how we moved quickly and that’s how we came up with a film in five months in the can.
PopHorror: I’ve heard that before when a writer/director then also stars in it, that it’s really kind of out of necessity, and also the fact that they know that they’re going to be the one that’s going to be there and show up and be able to do the part as they’ve written it. I can appreciate that because I can’t imagine directing, acting, and everything else that you have to do on it.
Jeff Daniel Phillips: Yeah, no, it’s again, you could do it when it’s spread out like this. If I had to do it for three weeks and I didn’t… At this low of a budget, you don’t have a huge crew or support system, so it’s really hard to do something like that for three weeks in a row if you don’t have an AD or a script or any of those people, you’re just doing it on the fly. But in this situation, you could get through three days of not sleeping well. In our situation, we went down to Mexico, and it was completely unhinged and guerrilla shooting on the streets and climbing mountains and just craziness. Sleeping in sleeping bags in 30-degree weather. We pulled it off though, I hope.
PopHorror: That shows your dedication, and I like that.
Jeff Daniel Phillips: Yeah, and when you surround yourself with like-minded filmmakers and crew members, it’s great. It’s actually really exciting.
PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about bringing to your character?
Jeff Daniel Phillips: About the character I’d say, well, he was an ex-con, ex-lawman, ex-soldier, ex-junkie, and he was just searching for redemption in his unethical approach. So just going to Mexico was already a wrong thing to do and I’m sure his parole officer wouldn’t agree with it, but I was adamant. Like he had his own vision of what he thought he could do in his quest, whether it was right or wrong, he knew what he was trying to do, at least. I guess that’s what I was adamant about. As far as adamant about the filmmaking, what I really wanted to use because it’s basically an ode to the B movie – the genre movie, the crime, horror, sci-fi, western. It’s those movies that just… They had a lower budget. They had to be more clever. They had to shoot efficiently. What I really wanted to do was use practical effects. I think horror fans dig it too.
PopHorror: Yes!
Jeff Daniel Phillips: I think it has that feel – the real blood gags and all the creature and ripping apart stuff. I got lucky. This guy, Jim Ojala, he had turned me into a Cyclops in a commercial and I went to his studio, and he just had shelves and shelves of all these prosthetics and blood gags and all this stuff. I went along and I just said, “Hey, can we use that? Can we use this? Can we use that?” And then I worked it into the script. So, it was already made and built and I knew he could pull it off. I’d bring him in for a few days and it was probably the most expensive thing we did; however, it was so worth it. As long as you’re efficient about it and you could knock it out relatively quick, I think it just ups your grade of horror. It’s just… I don’t know. I think the fans appreciate it.
PopHorror: Us horror fans always appreciate practical effects versus CGI. There’s nothing I hate more than CGI blood, so anytime I see practical effects, I always appreciate it.
Jeff Daniel Philips: Yeah. We didn’t have CGI blood, that’s for sure. The only thing I would say, CGI comes in handy when it comes to gunplay. You don’t want to mess around with that if you don’t have an armor. With gunplay, that’s the only thing I would recommend trying to do like CGI or sound effects and smoke and all that, because it’s just too dangerous. It’s not worth it. And on a low budget thing, why would you ever want to risk anybody’s life? We’ve all heard the horror stories. When it comes to low budget, that’s what I think it’s necessary for, but yeah, I don’t think in this type of film, definitely not.
PopHorror: I can get on board with that for sure. And Barbara Crampton, I was really excited to see her in here. She is such a horror icon and a beloved member of the horror community. How did you convey your vision for the film to get her on board?
Jeff Daniel Phillips: Well, Barbara Crampton is just like such a beloved force in, like you said, the horror community, and she’s always working or promoting or supporting different filmmakers. It’s funny. So, in knowing all that, I thought she would have the clarity, and her voice would have the clarity of talking to this Pirelli character and trying to guide him, because she does that so often with the horror community and filmmakers. I thought that was cool. And plus, I just think she’s very talented. She’s a great friend. I knew I could go to her, and she didn’t think twice. She said, “When do you need me? I’ll show up.” I’m extremely grateful that she’s a friend of mine and she’s just a good person.
PopHorror: Horror, it’s evolved over the years and has become a box office powerhouse. I think we see more horror in theaters now than we have in the last few years. Why do you feel so many people resonate with the genre?
Jeff Daniel Phillips: I’m no horror historian. I’m not as well versed as I’m sure you are or most horror writers. But I can make a general statement – and this comes from just going to so many conventions – that maybe the horror audience, besides loving getting scared, tend to be more outsiders or disenfranchised or they just don’t want cookie cutter, formulaic stories. They want to be surprised. They’re open to different types of narratives. They like anti-heroes. Maybe it’s time for the audiences out there that want something different and more personal. A lot of times, there’s more of the voice of the filmmaker that can be seen. It doesn’t look like a corporation put together, this should happen, this should happen, and this type of person and this age girl, and all that. It seems to be that, especially in the lower budget, you know who the filmmaker is, or you get a sense of how they feel or what their motives are, their thoughts in life. I think that’s more exciting to horror audiences. But then maybe I’m just blowing smoke. I don’t know.
PopHorror: No, I completely agree with you. And you said giving a voice, I feel like, with horror, it opens you up to being able to do and say things that you could say in a comedy, but it wouldn’t come off the same. Like, you can be more open and real about it versus trying to make people laugh or something. I walk away with more when I leave a horror film than I do any other genre.
Jeff Daniel Phillips: Yeah, I could see that.
PopHorror: I have just one last question for you today, Jeff. What is your favorite scary movie?
Jeff Daniel Phillips: The type of scary movies I like are the type of horror movies when the people are the scariest part of the story. It’s not necessarily a creature or a being. It’s the people that you don’t expect. So when I was a kid, my parents took me when I was way too young, and I saw this movie, Race with the Devil. These guys are in an RV and Warren Oates, Peter Fonda, and Loretta Swit, and I can’t remember the other woman’s name, but they’re camping, and we used to camp as a kid. Then they witnessed this crazy sacrifice, and then they run back to the town, and they realize everybody’s in on it. But the rest of the movie is just chaos. That stuck with me as a kid and that’s one of the reasons I went back to that when I made this movie. It’s a really simple premise, but I guess there’s a surprise element that I just love. It’s like a Rosemary’s Baby or even Body Snatchers or something like that. Everybody’s at peace, everything’s normal, and then it’s not. It’s just like the rug’s pulled out. Those are the kind of horror movies I like. I don’t have one name specifically, but those are the kind that I like that you don’t expect. I remember that movie more than any Disney movie that I saw as a kid. I remember that movie and it really stuck with me because, wait, what? They’re throwing this lady on a fire? It blew my mind. And effects in it… Yeah, there’s a bunch of stun effects but there’s this one scene – I don’t think anybody cares if I give this away, it’s been out for 50 years or something – but they walk into this public pool and there’s like 30-40 people and they’re all swimming and talking, and they’re rattled from what they experienced, and then everybody stops. They turn and look at them, like 40 people, everybody’s playing and then they stop, the kids and everybody, and they stare at them. That freaked me out as a kid and I just thought that was so effective and as I got older, such a great low budget visual. Those are the kind of movies that stick with me because of that, that age when I saw it. But there’s so many good horror films and there’s so many different types of horror films. The horror genre… It ranges,you know. I’m telling you, you know more than I so… I pay homage to that movie. I throw a dirt bike in the desert just to pay homage to it. And I love Warren Oates. I think Warren Oates is just bitchin.
Thank you so much to Jeff for taking the time to speak with us. Cursed in Baja is available now on VOD and will be on DVD and Blu-ray December 10!
