MicroCinema Scene

[Editors Note: This is another article from the Vault. Back in the old days, when people still made printed “zines,” Tim Shrum was putting out a D.I.Y. filmmaking publication titled NEXT TUESDAY.  One of his frequent subjects was filmmaker Rock Savage. In this interview, Tim interviews Rock about a documentary called Assignment: Ghosthunt. I find this project extremely interesting, because back in 2003, Rock was covering the type of subjects that have now completely entered the mainstream. You can flip around cable stations on any given night and find a reality series about people investigating “haunted” buildings and having encounters with “real” ghosts. It’s just another example of big mainstream media gradually absorbing fringe subjects were independent filmmakers used to thrive.]

The fearless and dangerous filmmaker Rock Savage and his team of comprades The Savage Film Group return with their latest film, Assignment: Ghosthunt -a paranormal ghost hunt documentary which is in some part a return to some familiar territory already established with their last documentary, Mondo Pagan, the controversial film about the inner workings of Wicca and Paganism. 

The premise of Assignment: Ghosthunt is that Savage members of his film group go searching for ghosts with the National Ghost Hunters Society in a Maryland haunted house that has become so infested with paranormal occurrences and ghost sightings that it has been deemed unlivable.  However, not wanting to waste the money that was spent on the house the owners of the property turn it into—what else—A haunted house for the Halloween season each year.  Think of it as a haunted house within a haunted house.

From beginning to end we are introduced to members of the National Ghost Hunters Society who fill us in a bit of backstory of the house and themselves, and we are soon led on a paranormal tour in which a few events do happen including some paranormal activity captured on digital camera. Savage Film Group alumni, L.W. Woods, even has a encounter with something from the other side when she sits in a “haunted chair.” On later viewing, orb activity was even witnessed on the film.

Rock recently talked with me about Assignment: Ghosthunt and gave me the inside details and what we can expect in the near future for The Savage Film Group.

Tim Shrum: In your own words how would you describe this documentary?

Rock Savage: This documentary is really a “you are there” type of documentary where it is happening as we film it, or video tape it , or whatever you want to call it these days.  Basically that is what it is. You go there, we have no idea what is going to happen. I was hoping to get some really good hauntings there.  I was hoping to get a full materialization of the ghost. A full apparition is very rare, but I was just hoping that since the place was so haunted we would get one, but we never did of course. 

We did get a lot of orbs including the one you saw at the beginning of the film.  It caught me by surprise because I didn’t notice it until after the film was finished because Chanda pointed out to me.  Basically that is what this kind of documentary is.  Because when we made the arrangements to do it we had no idea what was going to happen. 

So the best way to describe it is, it is sort of a mondo film in many ways.  If Rock Savage makes it, it is going to have B-movie elements.  But, it is a true documentary in the fact that nothing was staged.  It is a “you are there” film because we are there with the ghost hunters doing what they do. They hunt ghosts, investigate specters and other things.

And of course as they said in the movie, the haunted KOA [Campgrounds of America] house has been haunted for centuries now. The bottom line is that now the ghost hunters are invited to go there anytime they want and do a ghost hunt and investigate so it has become a giant lab, a ghost lab if you will, for the ghost hunters.  So they constantly have investigations there.  They test out new ways of tracking ghosts with different types of electronic things and gadgets if you will.

Tim Shrum: Before Assignment: Ghosthunt, the last documentary you did was Mondo Pagan. What made you decide to do another one?

Rock Savage: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make another documentary. A friend of mine Mark Opsasnick who writes for Strange Magazine did an article about the true story of The Exorcist. I was very agitated that there was a movie called in the Grip of Fear, which is by the way, a fraud; the documentary is bogus. 

Mark did some thorough investigation and discovered the true identity of the haunted boy.  As it happened, the so called possession, which was really never really possession, happened to a boy. Anyway I wanted to make a documentary telling the real story of The Exorcist. That the boy was not possessed, he was just simply dysfunctional.  That he had a fascinating story behind this because the kid really had some problems, but he did grow to be a respectful adult.  He is pretty old now.  I think he is in his 60’s or 70’s.  He lives on the eastern sea board. 

The reason I didn’t get to make the documentary is that the gentleman that owns Strange Magazine told Mark not to cooperate with me because he was going to sell the rights to the BBC, which still hasn’t happened.  I was agitated, but I was really set to do a documentary about this. 

Frank Vassallo, who you see in Assignment:Ghosthunt was very upset because we were going to recreate some of the fascinating adventures that Mark had. Like xeroxing records, having to leave through the fire escape and having to leave through the fire exits of certain places that he got certain information from because certain schools and institutions are pretty much ashamed of the whole Exorcist thing.

If I didn’t have enough footage I was going to do a thing called the Occult World of Rock Savage.  Everyone we have contacted for the Occult World of Rock Savage basically let us down. They were always too busy, etc. Basically it was just plain laziness.  The only people that came through for us that was contacted was, of course, the National Ghost Hunters. They were serious and honest people and they came through for us.  That’s when the movie became all about them because they were the only ones that came through for us.  The Occult World of Rock Savage never happened, but Assignment:Ghosthunt did happen. 

Tim Shrum: How did you find and approach the ghost hunters and convinced them to be a part of your documentary?

Rock Savage: L.W. Woods, one of my side kicks, my girl Friday if you will, contacted several ghost hunting groups and again out of pure laziness, a lot of the groups never got back to us or they couldn’t even get their act together even for a meeting.  I don’t know how they got together to do a hunt.  But the National Ghost Hunters, Chanda Wright and her group, they came through. Very honest, decent people, very friendly, very dedicated to what they do.  They came through for us so that is why the movie basically became all about them because of that.  L.W. contacted them on the web.  She did a search and contacted many groups in the area, but the ones that were the most, in my opinion, dedicated were Chanda Wright.

Tim Shrum: Tell us a little about the house that you went to that was supposedly haunted.  What’s the story behind it that it is now considered unlivable?

Rock Savage: As you saw in the movie, the owner of the house was a very honest man and he and his wife are very religious people. It simply was not a good experience to live there. Every time an object was put somewhere when they were working on the house it came up missing.  They deliberately put objects there and turned around and they would disappear to prove to see what they were seeing.  Of course there are plenty of noises there at night.  The ghost activity starts very heavily when it gets dark there. 

It is impossible to sleep in that home because it always sounds like someone is moving around in there. People always feel like they are being watched. Can you imagine you are in the bathroom taking a whiz or you’re getting laid and a ghost is watching you? These are some very naughty and rude ghosts. So I would say that makes it unlivable. That is why they set it up as a haunted house attraction. It has got to be used for something.

Tim Shrum: When you were in the house that is in the film did you witness anything that would be called weird or supernatural?

Rock Savage: L.W. Woods as you notice in the film sat in this chair that they call the “haunted chair” because activity is always around it.  They take pictures and of course many of the orbs, the ghostly orbs, that you saw in pictures I had in the film appear in the chair.  And when L.W. sat on there what happened was something touched her on her foot.  At first we thought I might have been the dog, the ghost hunters had a dog that is very sensitive to poltergeist activity.  However the dog was nowhere near. 

I sat in the chair and I didn’t feel anything.  But I did believe L.W. and I do think something did touch her.  But I sat in the chair and the ghost didn’t come near me.  And it didn’t come near my sidekick Frank Vassallo.  Another spooky thing that was witnessed, if you want to call it spooky, was L.W. saw a green orb in the stairway but by the time we all got there it was gone.  But one of the ghost hunters I believe saw a flash of green light there.  But there was nothing there.  But again no surprise considering that the house is extremely haunted.

Tim Shrum: What do you think about the people who are ghost hunters?  In your opinion would you say that they are nuts or are they ahead of the game?

Rock Savage: No, Tim, they are not nuts at all. These people are very sincere and the reason that they are ghost hunters Is because they had experience with ghosts when they were young and they wanted to know more about this phenomenon. You can call it a supernatural phenomena or a natural phenomena bottom line there is something to it and yes I would say they are very much ahead of the game. 

Usually I think I am a pretty good judge of character. I can tell when people who are insincere and honest or two faced right away and I can tell you the ghost hunters are very honest, very honest people and very sincere and I have no reason to doubt them. That is the impression I got, you can usually tell when someone is being phony. Believe me, when you are making independent films you run into a lot of phonies and insincere people out there. Trust me, as a matter of fact you run into insincere people in the cable business where I used to work.

Tim Shrum: Do you believe in ghosts or the supernatural?

Rock Savage: Absolutely! If I didn’t I wouldn’t waste my time making documentaries about it. I actually believe there is something to this. IT is a subject that should be taken more seriously, but it is not because you have these kooky publications like The Weekly World News and Shirley Maclaine going around acting like a bunch of lunatics and kooks.  The true and serious investigations of the paranormal and supernatural are harmed by the lunatic behavior of certain people. 

Like I said certainly people like Shirley Maclaine who claim to have been reincarnated in every life and hears voices or whatever she is doing.  Then you have the guy that talks to dead people, I forgot his name, but he got cancelled recently on TV Crossing Over - John Edwards - that is his name. He is fraud. It is obvious because he does cold readings and anybody that has gone around magicians or has gone to magic shops knows a lot of about cold readings and that’s what Edwards does. Talk to Dave Friedman about it, he has hung around a lot of carnies he knows all about that.  That is what John Edwards is—a carnie.  They give paranormal investigations a bad name unfortunately.

Tim Shrum: After this documentary would you consider doing another such as a sequel to Assignment: Ghosthunt or are you going back to your film anthologies?

Rock Savage: There is no reason why I can’t do both, Tim. When I was doing Assignment: Ghosthunt last year, January 2003, I had close to about 2 hours of footage.  A lot of it I couldn’t use because we were just wandering around in the dark taking pictures and it didn’t look very interesting so I didn’t want to bore anybody. The worst thing you can do is make a boring movie.  I continued and I was still working on my anthology so I finished Over Your Dead Body and I went on to make Operation: Witch Force - both of those movies came out last year. 

The only reason that the Assignment: Ghosthunt was finally finished this year is because I got around to editing it.  I normally have my post production guy Marvin Kennedy edit our films, but with ghost hunt I did basic assemble editing because I didn’t need anything fancy for the documentary and Marvin is tied up with other projects and I wasn’t going to bother him with any editing on assignment ghost hunt since it was a straight forward documentary it didn’t need anything too fancy.  So, I did the title and did the assemble editing myself and voice-overs. 

We are now going to do another ghost hunt this year and probably will once again try to fire up and do Occult World of Rock Savage.  I don’t know if it will work out, we’ll see.  But there is another ghost hunt planned for this year and I have already started writing the stories for my next anthology.  That will happen too.  Both of those things will happen this year.  We will be doing the follow up to assignment ghost hunt and doing another documentary.

Tim Shrum: I know that this is a bit of a sidetrack, but that house had some great creepy rooms because it is now being used as a theme haunted house during the Halloween season.  Any chance that you and the rest of the Savage Film Group might find your way to use some of those rooms for your next films?

Rock Savage: Well, that is a possibility because the owner is a really nice guy. It is a possibility if I asked him he might let us. He’s already allowed our good buddy Conrad Brooks to shoot a film there.  He did a movie there called Hillbilly Monster. He didn’t utilize the creepy rooms there though, he used the regular rooms for sets.  That is basically all he did with it.  We of course would rather use the creepy rooms, but we will see.  We might visit them in the future, there is not reason why we shouldn’t.

Tim Shrum: Any final thoughts on Assignment: Ghosthunt?

Rock Savage: I can honestly say with all the spooky stuff, and I had forgotten to mention earlier, but you saw it earlier in the movie the ghostly vortex that appeared when Chanda took the picture of me at the snack table.  She sensed something there, because one of the things that got Chanda interested in the story of those hunters is because of the fact she used to see ghosts when she was a kid and sensed their presence. 

Like many of the ghost hunters, another girl Vicki saw many ghosts as a kid.  Anyway she took the picture there as you saw in the movie and we showed you the picture right there on the spot it was a ghostly vortex. I was stunned by that. She said she sensed something over there and she took a picture of it and then she took the disc out of the camera, put it in the laptop and here it was!  A ghost vortex. Keep in mind you see the table there clearly so it is just as it happened in that split moment. That was just amazing. We were there and actually witnessed somebody sensing and taking a picture of a ghost. Right there on the table you see that stuff there that is there in the film while we are going around.  So it is pretty fascinating that we were there to witness that right there on the spot. 

Also, the ghostly orb that was at the beginning of the film, as I moved towards it, sees me somehow and runs right up there stairs to get away from me. That is pretty interesting because it flies real quick.  I didn’t know that was there until Chanda called me up and she mentioned that to me.  You caught a ghost orb in the daytime and that is very rare and there it was! 

I am pretty much convinced that this is not the end.  We do continue to live on in some other form after we are gone.  That is a good thing because extinction does not appeal to me. What can you say about extinction? It is so bad it just leaves me speechless. 

I think that we have very good evidence that ghosts do exist and I think in the future as technology improves we will be closer to solving these unsolved mysteries.  It is only a matter of time. 

Interview by: Tim Shrum

Transcribed from Audio tape by: Kendra Shrum

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