Can you tell us about how you discovered the film Black Devil Doll From Hell and your thoughts on it?My mother rented Black Devil Doll From Hell for me when I was just 14 years old back in 1984. She had no idea what the film was like, nor did I. It’s a good thing I watched that shit after she went to bed, she would have kicked my ass for sure!
At 14 I had seen my share of horror films but I had never seen anything quite like BDDFH, but that didn’t stop me from jerking off to it, sure as hell blew away the National Geographic’s I was used to whacking to.
I can't say BDDFH is a good movie, its quite THE TURD in my opinion, it’s arguably the worst movie ever made, but that’s the charm of it, it is for me at least. Its so fucking bad it has to be seen, to be believed. I think BDDFH is the best example ever of; "so bad its good"…
Would you say your film is a remake, a homage, or an unofficial sequel to Black Devil Doll from Hell?
Here we go again, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked this question I’d have at least thirty-five cents by now!
From the first day I announced Black Devil Doll I have always said that Turner's film was an influence. But I didn't remake BDDFH nor did I rip it off.
So far everyone that was on this “RIP OFF kick” that has actually seen my film has admitted they were wrong. The two films are apples and oranges, both dolls are black, and they fuck, end of the similarities. I wish NERDS wouldn’t judge my film based on the trailer, but what can ya do? The horror crowd is passionate about their films...
Did you try to contact Chester Novel Turner or anyone else involved with BDDFH?
I have been searching for Turner for years, many years now. Probably going on ten years. During the past 5 years I have spent several hundreds of dollars with those “search for people” companies, writing letters, phone calls, you name it. It had nothing to do with my film, I wanted to release his films on DVD, long before I even thought about making a film.
About 2 years ago I thought I found him, there was some asshole with a Chester Turner myspace page, that lied to me and scammed me for about a year. I befriended this person started talking with him on the phone, working on his web site and even went as far as signing a contract with him and having my good friend and artist Michael Broom do some new art work for a BDDFH DVD release. To make a long story short I found out this person was full of shit… When confronted, his phone was all of a sudden disconnected, and his myspace was taken down. I'm still so fucking pissed about this...
Now I'm hearing through the grapevine that Turner died in a car accident in 1996. Not sure if this is true or not and have yet to find out, but it would make sense since its been impossible to track him down. At this point I doubt his films will ever see a legit DVD release and that's a damn shame.
Have you seen Chester Novel Turners 2nd feature Tales from the Quadead Zone?
Yes of course! It’s just as "crap-tastic" as BDDFH and actually showed some growth as a filmmaker, its unfortunate he didn’t do anything else, maybe with some better equipment and some money he could have done some good things.
How did the idea for Black Devil Doll come about?
My brother Jonathan Lewis, the director, my good friend Mitch Mayes, the co-writer, and our DP/editor John Osteen, were all over my place getting wasted and watching movies. The usual Saturday night at the Lewis Home Theatre... And after watching the third piece of shit movie, one of us blurted out, we can do this shit, and we can do it better! A week later we had a script, a month later we were shooting. It happened so fast; we just keep rolling and never looked back.
Can you give us a brief synopsis of your film?
A radical black power militant is on death row for raping and murdering 15 white women. He is executed and his soul is transformed into the body of a wooden doll via a young teen girl's Ouija board. The two have a torrid love affair until the doll gets bored with her pussy and goes after her hot stripper girlfriends and her wigger ex-boyfriend.
Are there any similarities between your film and BDDFH other than the titular character?
No not really. Besides the doll being black, its 110 degrees in the opposite direction from BDDFH. My film plays like an unholy spawn of Russ Meyer, Rudy Ray Moore, John Waters and Herschell Gordon Lewis… Maybe a little Peter Jackson too..
Are their any references in your film or nods to BDDFH?
Well, just the fact that the doll is Black and he has puppet/human sexual relations is a nod in itself. But that’s about it. In fact you will find more influences in my film from Russ Meyer, John Waters and Rudy Ray Moore than anything from Black Devil Doll From Hell. Shit, we even reference Sanford And Son more than BDDFH!
How do you feel about people who think your film is a rip-off?
People are going to think what they want regardless of what I tell them. I just wish they would shut the fuck up and actually SEE my film before calling it a rip off.
If being a “B-movie-elitist-internet-asshole” is your calling in life, cool, more power to you. But do us all a favor and stop talking out of your asshole. Actually SEE the film you are bitching about otherwise your opinion doesn’t mean DICK.
Look. If taking the basic idea of a black doll and making my own film is a rip off, then so be it, it doesn't bother me. The genre is full of rip off's, knock offs, homage’s, you name it. Roger Corman has made a career out of it. Do I need to point out all the Omen, Exorcist, Jaws, Road Warrior and Alien rip offs that we all own, collect, write about, blog about and adore on DVD? I'm not the first to be influenced or inspired to create something and I won't be the last. Are all of the post-Dawn Of The Dead zombie films out there ripping off George Romero? And didn’t Romero himself admittedly rip off Richard Matheson?
Bottom line; don’t let your pre-conceived notions turn you away from my film, that would truly be a shame, because this film was made by fans, for fans, and you will really be missing out if you don’t check it out.
When can we expect a DVD release of the film?
The DVD's will be out this Oct 27th, in stores, rental places like Netflix, and we have a big distributor behind us so it should be available all over the place. If you order direct from us, you get it cheaper. We should start taking pre-orders this coming week on the official Black Devil Doll site.
http://www.blackdevildoll.com
You can also get tons of Black Devil Doll shit there: posters, t-shirts, stickers, and buttons. In a few weeks we are releasing a Black Devil Doll soundtrack CD featuring music by Giallos Flame, you can here some sample tracks here:
http://www.myspace.com/blackdevildollmusic
Also, right now on Amazon.com you can purchase a Black Devil Doll movie-tie in novel written by Stephen Romano:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1448628326/ref=pe_11480_12787570_emwa_email_title_1
I heard that there may be a sequel on the way can you tell us about that?
Yes, Its called Black Devil Doll In Space. It takes place on a space ship in another solar system in the year 2284. But I can't go into much more about it, it’s just to early right now.
Can you tell us a bit about your company Rotten Cotten?
Rotten Cotton is part of my daily struggle to do whatever I have to do to keep from getting a real job...and its the best place to get horror and exploitation t-shirts! http://www.rottencotton.com
Whats next for Shawn Lewis?
Well, I'm about to get stoned, eat some ice cream and watch some cartoons in my underwear.
Links
http://www.blackdevildoll.com
http://www.myspace.com/blackdevildollmusic
Black Devil Doll Novel
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