Shot On Video Heaven & Hell

Tim Ritter is one the key/ important figures in the Shot-On-Video/ultra-low-budget horror genre. He was behind titles such as Truth Or Dare (1985), Killing Spree (1987), and Day Of The Reaper(1985). His work often features creative/ interventive gore/ kills, shifts in tone between unsettlement & humour, and darkly quirky touches. Late last year the fine folks at SRS Cinema released The Tim Ritter Collection- a four Blu-ray set, taking six of his SOV releases- these move between the classic low-budget horror anthology Twisted Illusion (1985),  deranged & demented Escape from Prison Killer film Creep (1995), and Reconciled Through The Christ (2004)  a Christianity-focused mix of horror, drama,  and thriller.  Tim kindly agreed to do an email interview, and below we’ll find our in-depth/ lengthy interview.

M[m] What are some of your earliest TV and film memories, and do you see any of that influenced you to make your own films?

Tim:  Absolutely, I watched DARK SHADOWS, the old soap opera, with my mom! Early Hammer films on TV...And of course, JAWS and THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN were huge influences. Growing up, the original STAR TREK, THE ROCKFORD FILES and SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN were huge creative inspirations. All of these movies, and everything I absorbed growing up, continually get some sort of salute, homage, or inspiration in everything I make. And of course, STAR WARS '77, DAWN OF THE DEAD '78, and HALLOWEEN/FRIDAY THE 13th really fixated me on slasher movies!. Sylvester Stallone, his movies, and the ROCKY and RAMBO franchises were always a big inspiration. DUEL, Spielberg's much beloved 70's TV movie, was always a big influence as well, and the works of early Wes Craven and John Carpenter. All of this mix-mash definitely has informed my weird world of small movies...After seeing JAWS and STAR WARS though, I knew I wanted to make movies...and the HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th franchises kind of gave me the opportunity to emulate things in the real world- neighbourhoods and forests! 

 

M[m] towards the latter part of last year SRS Cinema released The Tim Ritter Collection- a four Blu-Ray/ six film release. Please talk a little bit about how this came about, and as I know you have a long history with SRS Cinema- how/ when did you start working with the company?

Tim: I hooked up with Ron Bonk, owner of SRS Cinema probably in 1995, 1996...when I was self-distributing CREEP. We met down in Florida, hit it off well, and he was just starting the first incarnation of SRS, SALT CITY HOME VIDEO. He did great VHS numbers with KILLING SPREE, CREEP, and a TRUTH OR DARE re-release, and then excellent foreign sales to Germany, and we went from there! I ran a division of SRS in the early 2000's, SUB ROSA MIDWEST. I made SCREAMING FOR SANITY in 1997 exclusively for his outfit, pretty much, and we've never looked back since. It's been nearly a thirty-year collaboration now! Ron wanted to do a box set with most of my non-TRUTH OR DARE video movies, so he approached me about doing that in 2022. My partner, Susana Kapostasy and I then took a year or so to make new extras, assemble old stuff, find old stuff, transfer vintage interviews, films, and footage, and do new interviews and commentaries for everything. We spent a lot of time doing new video transfers of everything as well, analogue to digital is a very difficult thing to get correct without dropouts, glitches, artificing, pixel issues, interlacing, etc. etc. Susana is obsessive about analogue transfers. It's also a perception- one person's idea of a good transfer may not be another's, so we all worked hard with SRS to get the best transfers we could...and it took about a year to do all this, with SRS doing more transfer and post work in the end. Overall, it came out really good, and each movie is represented pretty well, there's tons of extras, commentaries, trailers, interviews, slide shows, making-ofs...you name it!

 

M[m] two of the short films on the boxset are Superpanther and Conan- were these the first ever films you made?. Please talk a little bit about these films, who helped you?

Tim: I had always written stories and wrote little books that I even illustrated badly growing up. Once I grabbed the family super-8 movie camera, that was it though! I was probably 10 years old when I did that, and I saw Joel Wynkoop, my friend and babysitter across the street, making super-8 films, so I knew what I was getting into. I had been in some of his movies as a little kid! SUPERPANTHER was my first movie, a spoof on SUPERMAN '78 and THE PINK PANTHER, and starred my best friend down the street Joe Davidson. It was a klutzily superhero 4-minute reel, where he tries to fly, hits a phone pole, and other "funny stuff" like that. Also loved fantasy growing up, like SWORD OF SHANNARA and CONAN, so my next 4-minute movie was Joe Davidson playing Conan The Barbarian, and I was the evil Skull bad guy, and we had fights with wooden swords, and my sister and her friends were the damsels in distress in bathing suits. Everyone was under the age of 12 years old in these! Ha! Ha! Definitely, DIY backyard experimentations shot in a few hours. As I did more, I planned more, and taught myself how to write scripts, shoot out of order, do effects, edit, and all else...Those two first little 4-minute reels, SUPERPANTHER and CONAN, were the beginning of a lifelong moviemaking obsession!

 

M[m] what did your friends/ family make of your early filmmaking?

Tim:  Probably a mix of fascination and revulsion, especially with the gore and horror stuff! Monsters, sci-fi, and aliens, people can handle, but once you started slaughtering cheerleaders in the shower, or jocks in the shower, and crucifying pep squad members, people don't understand as much!  I think most everyone saw I was very determined and serious about it, so eventually, they accepted it. It was just something I always felt motivated to do, and still do, as long as it's fun and I'm inspired. In the older days, EVERYONE wanted to be killed in a horror movie, or play a zombie...I think that started with Romero, of course, but everyone wants to be a victim or a zombie in a little backyard slash or camp movie, it seems!  

 

M[m] You talk about always having enjoyed writing stories- one of the things I found out from the boxset I didn’t know is that you’ve written a couple of books. Please talk a little bit about how these came about? And talk a little bit about each title you’ve released thus far?

Tim: I've always been an avid reader- from Poe to Stephen King to Clive Barker, Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, James Patterson, Thomas Harris...it's an endless list, of course! So, I'd always wanted to do...Richard Bachman type of novels. Short, concise, violent, intense. Kind of pulp fiction, which I also love. I had this script called CHOP SHOP that was too expensive to make, never could get the budget. So I finally adapted it into a novel called THE HAMMER WILL FALL, and I guess it came out in like 2000. Did pretty well. It's inspired by THE CLASS OF 1984, about a teacher who has to deal with an insane gang at a school, and most of the stories and situations in the script and book were things that happened to my dad. He was an industrial arts teacher in the 70's and 80's and always came home with these insane stories about the kids he dealt with, so...I integrated them into my fictional salute there. It sold pretty well, and I did another novel for the same outfit called UNREEL in 2003, a fictional autobiography, kind of my life story up until that moment, with a big fictional part dealing with chases and 80's action movie salutes. UNREEL didn't do so well, I don't think many people cared, and stories with moviemakers in them, sadly, are not super popular with the public, in general, especially since now days, everyone with an i-phone is a moviemaker! Ha! Ha! So, the mystique is way gone, I think. And like I said, your average person without huge artistic aspirations just doesn't "get it." It's a niche. Then the publisher became a "pay-to-be-published" outfit, and that was terrible, so, I got the rights to the books back and got out of there.  After that, I've mainly contributed chapters and reviews and interviews to other people's books, but I feel in the next decade or so, I'll probably republish those early novels again in some way, and maybe do a few new things. Maybe do a total nonfiction book on all my video movies, for that little niche market. It's there. It's a lot of fun to write, you just don't get that last big rush- going out and finding the locations, casting, and making the ideas a total reality on film or video! 

 

M[m] Your first feature-length was the crude ‘n’ raw early 80’s slasher – what made on you settle on a slasher as your first release?

Tim:   I was inspired by HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, MANIAC and the whole slasher era in the early 80's...I emulated those in my super-8 movies and they grew and grew in scope and length until finally, after reading the books SPLATTER MOVIES and THE AMAZING HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS, published by Fantaco, I finally felt ready to tackle a feature-length slasher/splatter movie. BASKET CASE, PIECES, and other obscurities were also a huge influence at the time! I chose slasher also because it was attainable in terms of writing for locations, I had available- woods, motels, graveyards, houses.

 

 

M[m] Following on from the last question- what do you rate as some of your own fav early slashers/proto-slashes? Please give a little detail/ explanation of these choices?

Tim:  MANIAC was big for me, due to Savini's effects and the incredible soundtrack, along with Spinell's performance. Knowing he penned it too, made it like ROCKY to me, an underdog story! THE BURNING was always excellent, like a standalone FRIDAY THE 13th movie. Wes Craven's stuff, like THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, with all the action being people running around in the woods, was also a huge influence, and of course, more of the same with THE HILLS HAVE EYES. REAPER kind of has a lot of HILLS influence, the summer of '83 or so was when HILLS hit VHS, I think, or early '84. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, of course, with its HALLOWEEN spin and mix of rubber reality in dreams was a game changer for everything though, and along with Stephen King novels, helped to inform TRUTH OR DARE- A CRITICAL MADNESS a couple of years later! It was such an exciting time for horror, the 80's, and the rebirth of all the 70's movies hitting VHS uncut, making them so accessible, was incredible. Another HUGE influence was the first three DIRTY HARRY movies, especially the original, with Andrew Robinson as the Scorpio, wow, what a crazy movie uncut! Upped the ante for certain!

 

M[m] The first film on the boxset is the anthology film Twisted Illusions- which saw you collaborating with Joel D. Wynkoop, who you describe as know from your childhood as he used to babysit you. Please could talk a little bit about his babysitting, and how did you both ended up collaborating together?

Tim:   Yes, Joel lived across the street when I was a kid. He was about six years older than me, I guess, and he drew comic books, which I bought from him with my allowance, and made super-8 movies- and I was in a couple! One was called THE BIONIC BOY, inspired by, you guessed it, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. When my parents had to go out, though, Joel would babysit, he lived directly across the street and his dad was a Preacher and his mom looked in on HIM, babysitting, so everything was really good- he had such a good family. And we were all just these really inspired, creative kids, drawing and filming stuff, emulating the things we loved! So, ten years later, when I was in high school, in a different Florida town, I had made DAY OF THE REAPER and took out an ad to sell it in the school paper. Joel's nephew Terry saw the ad, showed it to Joel, and Joel called me out of the blue, saying he still acted and wanted to make movies and that we should get together! This had to have been 1984 because my mom gave me the message after I got home from the theatre watching THE TERMINATOR! Classic! So...from there, we got together, Joel helped me sell REAPER to video stores when I transferred it to VHS and Beta tapes, and we met another guy at a video store, Al Nicoosi, who also moonlighted at a TV station and had video gear! Once the three of us started talking...it was on! We eventually planned and shot TWISTED ILLUSIONS, an anthology movie with six short segments, in the style of CREEPSHOW and TWILIGHT ZONE...of course, I say that, but inspired by those things since we had ZERO budget. Probably spent $1,000.00 on making the entire movie, including editing for $25 an hour!

I was thrilled though- sync sound and original soundtrack music, done by the vinyl record store clerk and musician I knew- Sean Ruddy. He scored REAPER in a fever of marijuana in his living room! Ha! Ha!

 

M[m] one of the stories you wrote/ directed for Twisted Illusions was Truth Or Dare- which ended up spawning the Truth Or Dare film series. Please talk a little bit about what you found most impressive/ inspiring about this tale?

Tim:  Well, I think everyone can relate to rejection, lost love, marriages that don't work, and that sort of thing...Jealousy. Not being able to let go. So that was interesting to me, even at age 16, when some of the gals in school that I liked and asked out said, "NO!" Shot Down In Flaaaaaames! Mixing those emotions in a story kind of inspired by Stephen King's SURVIVOR TYPE and with the rubber reality of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET seemed to work well, and also, I have always been an avid reader, so Robert Bloch's PSYCHO and Jeffrey Konvitz's THE SENTINEL really intrigued me with characters find out the people they were interacting with...were NOT REAL! Back in 1985, for me, this was absolutely not an overplayed concept at all, I thought it was pretty new, so I researched psychosis and hallucinations and that kind of thing and came up with TRUTH OR DARE...a man that goes crazy when his wife leaves him, and falls into a world of "hallucinatory" characters that taunt him to hurt himself, even kill himself, and finally, go on a rampage to kill his wife while offing anyone and everyone he comes in contact with! I was so inspired when I wrote the short, which every viewer of TWISTED ILLUSIONS seemed to really get a kick out of, so...I expanded it into this feature and added all kinds of insanity, like the stroller scene, a nod to THE FRENCH CONNECTION...but this time, there IS a baby in the stroller! Which, of course, leads to another TRUTH OR DARE sequel, dealing with the father of the kid in the stroller that comes back for REVENGE! [SCREAMING FOR SANITY, 1997.] But man, it was an exciting time, having all those ideas, and this new medium of videotape to potentially get your work scene and into the public eye via video stores! I really felt so alive and inspired in this era! It was incredible. 

 

 M[m]  You mention Stephen King as an influence- what are some of your favourite books by him? And do you still follow his output today?

Tim:  CARRIE is just spectacular. And THE STAND, I've read that one twice. PET SEMETARY, what an incredible novel on the experience of loss and grief. So, bleak. And I love the Bachman books, especially RAGE and ROADWORK. I still follow Mr. King, just finished reading YOU LIKE IT DARKER, and I gotta say, he's still the Master! Old dudes fighting alligators, a wild follow-up to CUJO with snakes, and many other cool stories are in this anthology book of short stories. I really loved it and as always, it inspires me to want to write in some form. King has a way of drawing you in, of making you believe, of taking every day normal Joe characters and putting them in these incredible situations so you not only BELIEVE, but you care. He's The Master. I also enjoy Clive Barker too, I've read most of his stuff, and am going back to a few novels I missed. He is such a precise writer, even if the story isn't the best, the way he tells things as a wordsmith is incredible, and it's always worth the wait for the extreme sex and gore he eventually delivers in his adult stuff. 

 

M[m] Following on from the last question more Truth or Dare films? And what’s your favourite of the four sequels you’ve made so far, and why?

Tim: WICKED GAMES is my favourite, as I decided to go back behind the camera again, like I had in my super-8 movies, and do everything I could! A one-man band, so to speak. I researched things, saw AMERICA'S DEADLIEST HOME VIDEO, and went with the newer Hi-8 format of tape to shoot. It was a tough shoot, though, due to the newness of the format, tape dropouts that drove me crazy, and learning how to shoot, direct, and do all the things I did on that movie. It was a huge challenge to orchestrate, and realizing my original script draft was way too big for the $12k budget I finally got- including my credit cards being charged up! So, car chases were changed to foot chases, that sort of thing. I had learned so much from TRUTH OR DARE and KILLING SPREE and working for Al Nicolosi's video company that made commercials and industrial videos, so I was more than ready for the challenge! Collaborating with the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival and Kermit Christman was a hoot too, I met Kermit while working at a video store, we had similar movie tastes, both loved erotic thrillers, and vowed to collaborate, so we did! It took about 8 months to just shoot the movie to my satisfaction, though, it seemed endless, and many scenes were shot, reshot, and shot again until I got it the best, I thought it would be. Finishing the movie felt like such an accomplishment, driving home with the Super VHS master in hand, with a blood-red sun going down in my eyes, I remember weeping tears of joy I was so thrilled and ecstatic to finally finish the thing! You have to remember, the first draft of the sequel script was written in 1985, then another in 1988 or so, and so on, so it had taken me 8 years to finally "handcraft" a sequel to TRUTH OR DARE. I was on fire with this obsession to complete this movie, any way I could, as funds and the market dried up for this sort of thing concurrently.

 

M[m]  One of the most curious/ unexpected films of the set is the two reality cop show parodies / bad taste comedies 1999’s Dirty Cop No Donut, and its sequel 2001’s Dirty Cop 2: I am Pig. Please talk a little bit about how/ why these two films came about?, as they are a departure from your normal wheelhouse.

Tim:  I always thought the TV show COPS was pretty arrogant and crazy...with these cops going around acting so bossy like they were in charge of everyone and the world. Big brutes with big nightclubs! I also loved the DIRTY HARRY movies and THE BAD LIEUTENANT, by Abel Ferrara, and it started with this "vision" I had of a cop pulling over a drunk driver and demolishing their car with a nightstick and then harassing the driver instead of arresting them...That stuck, and reading David Szulkin's awesome MAKING OF LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT book, again, I was on fire to just do something crazy and in the spirit of total anarchy, so the result was the $350.00 budgeted LOW DOWN DIRTY COP, aka DIRTY COP NO DONUT. We shot the movie in order, on weekends, and I shot it emulating COPS, which my dad loved and watched all the time, and I could barely stand it, but I watched with "distaste" here and there and decided to spoof it. Why not have the cop castrate an alleged rapist? Jump in bed with a lady of the evening? The story kind of just wrote itself as I went along, even though we had a great outline, many lines written out, but there was room for tons of improv to make it all "feel real" and shoot it like a documentary. It was a lot of fun, NO restrictions! We did a lot of those scenes for real, just showing up and doing them, like the convenience store...which you could NEVER do now! We were probably dumb to do it then,really. Before the first movie came out, we were shooting the second with more of a nudity/fetish slant, like WAVE Videos, with filmmaker and friend Donald Farmer playing a competing cop for lead Joel Wynkoop. And Joel was incredible as the cop, I thought- he nailed that brute, nasty, narcissistic character on the head with his skewed, insane world view... Of course, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT hit and made hundreds of millions, so I thought since WE had a "shockumentary" documentary too, we would do the same! Ha! Ha! Sadly, I was naive, definitely didn't catch on in that way at all. But, they were very fun to make in the heat of those inspired moments! Plus, I edited both movies right from the camcorder onto a master tape on just a regular Super VHS machine, with a jog shuttle wheel, manually counting back the frames with the job shuttle wheel, to make my "precision" cuts...because frankly, I was out of money and had no budgets to make anything! Ha! Ha! So...it was this or do nothing! And I had to keep going! I think what made the first video though was Joel Wynkoop's intense performance, I really pushed him to go as far as he could as director, and he really went for it. I'd say DIRTY COP is the peak of the Ritter-Wynkoop collaboration era! That and 1995's CREEP.

 

M[m] The set is finished off with another rather surprising/ unexpected film 2004’s  Reconciled Through The Christ- a Christianity-focused mix of drama, thriller, and horror. This was largely influenced by your shift to become a reborn Christian- please talk a little about how this change of faith occurred, and do you find it difficult blending being a Christian & a horror fan/ horror filmmaker?

Tim:   Well, I was raised as a Christian, kind of fell away from it a lot, obviously, but then came back to it again. So, I guess it was more about rekindling faith, and reading about it all again, and as I did that, I realized that my little spiritual journey might also be the premise for a cool movie, of course! I'm pretty much non-denominational, and I don't really like to mix any politics with beliefs- unlike most people, obviously, these days! Ha! Ha! But I had gone through some rough losses, my grandfather, and my mom was sick with cancer when I made RECONCILED, so I was trying to work through that as well, the belief in a life beyond this one after we pass away, that there's more to life when we are done here. The movie was an incredibly good shoot, I wrote it around some of the earliest CGI effects you could do on a computer that my friend Todd Ponstler could do, so it was a lot of fun and excitement being on the ground floor of that little movement, when it happened, and when you could do CGI sharks, jumping up and eating planes out of the sky, before SHARKNADO, when Asylum did that MEGA SHARK series...but with RECONCILED, we did dragons, burning churches, a prophet on fire, and a bunch of other wild, cheaper computer imagery- including a river of blood! And of course, it's hard to justify extreme horror with Christianity, because I love and enjoy extreme, exploitation moviemaking. I had to really reel things into a PG-13 level for RECONCILED, and it was difficult! But, of course, we have things like THE EXORCIST and now Christian horror is kind of a little niche, I'd say, with the LEFT BEHIND movies and such... It is a balance, though, on what to watch and think about, I'm sure I don't measure up, but I still believe in having faith in John 3:16, that's the big thing, that belief, and trying to help others when you can and do unto them as you would like have done unto you. When you read the Bible, it has about every kind of crazy story you could think of in there, and it's full of wicked villains, bad guys, extreme violence and...redemption. It's a fascinating subject and has inspired and informed moviemakers forever, I think. I'm glad people are getting the opportunity to see the movie again on this Blu-Ray set. I was back with a budget for that one- gone were the $350.00 days, I was armed with about $3,500.00! Ha! Ha! Man. Probably Brad Pitt's lunch on a Hollywood set, I'd imagine! But I still don't believe in censorship, so maybe I'm a Libertine Christian? Is there such a thing?!?! Ha! Ha

M[m]  Any thoughts about doing another horror film from a Christian angle?-  as this is a fairly unequal take on the genre, with the only other film coming to mind with me being the 80’s slasher A Day Of Judgement.

Tim:   Yes, I had initially thought I might do more, and you never say never! I had one about denominations in mind, and another movie called ACTS, based on the book of Acts, that I wanted to try, so...I definitely wouldn't be opposed to trying another one if the angle and story were right. Finding that balance, with a low budget, and locations you have access to, are always the big things. A DAY OF JUDGEMENT would be a fun one to kind of update or redo, or set in more modern times, like the 90's! Can't forget THE WICKER MAN, either, or the rapture scare flick A THIEF IN THE NIGHT- that one scared me to death after seeing it at a 16mm church showing in the late 70's!

M[m] Would you like to see a second box set released with your more known/notable titles like Truth Or Dare & Killing Spree on?

Tim:  Yes, a TRUTH OR DARE box set should be coming out at the end of 2024, or early in 2025. Look for it! We just delivered the materials, and it has everything from previous releases, some new material, and the entire series, 1-5, in one set! I'm super stoked about this! I think KILLING SPREE has had kind of a definitive release with the recent Terror Vision/Vinegar Syndrome edition, but who knows...they could re-press that or do a newer edition, maybe with a 4K disc?!?! Ha! Ha! But that will be two box sets that contain all my "biggest small movies", so really, I guess those are a nice book end for me on those eras of moviemaking. I hope Wild Eye does a HI-8 box set at some point with the three movies on it, that would be fantastic as well!

M[m] Are you presently working on anything film-wise?

Tim:  I just finished executive producing Susana Kapostasy's rape-revenge movie called THE EMASCULATOR, it should be out by the end of 2024. It's a revenge flick inspired by my own CREEP movie and the Hugh Gallagher GORE trilogy and a bit by 70's classics like ROLLING THUNDER. It turned out really good and has all the elements and expectations met that fans of this sort of thing would want. It also looks spectacular, shot on analogue video! Susana has the knack and is incredibly inspiring.  Also have a segment in Donald Farmer's CATNADO coming out this Halloween, and I assembled that for Donald along with a couple other of his movies. I do soundtrack music a lot now too, I've scored many of my own movies and Donald's as well, so...had always wanted to do that and got into it with SHARKS OF THE CORN, so it's a fun creative outlet. I mean, don't we ALL wanna be John Carpenter?!?! Ha! Ha! And I've been working on a homage to Jess Franco, it's in post now, it's called LIL' MISS DEPLORABLE, and once we wrap that up, we'll probably hit TWISTED ILLUSIONS 3. I plan to collaborate more with Susana Kapostasy, as we think a lot alike and seem to collaborate well, and I'm sure SRS and other producers and distributors will hit me up for something more here and there. It's impossible not to stay busy!  

Tim: Also, newer stuff that is currently available on DVD and Blu and Streaming- like on Prime and Tubi, are SHARKS OF THE CORN, HI-8, HI-DEATH, HI-FEAR,and ZOMBARELLA, all worthy entries in the DTV horror world if you like that sort of thing! Check them out, they were really fun movies to make, and it was a great pleasure working with everyone on those!

 

M[m] Very excited to hear that Susana Kapostasy has a new film coming out- as I thought Night Of The Zodiac was an excellent mix of true crime, splatter-bound gore, and bad-taste humour- with the addition of it all being SOV with old-school equipment. Can you tell us any more about The Emasculator & when it’s due out?  And could you see yourself & Susana collaborating on a future- jointly directing it?

Tim:  Definitely, ZODIAC was great! I thought it was a much better variation of my own DEADLY DARES, as a matter of fact- with the true crime element added in! It's wild that Analog is so loved  in some circles today so much, but I think it's great. I mean, I held onto it a long time- DEADLY DARES was edited in SD analog, the first Bootleg Cut, and I was using Hi-8 tapes for the HI-8 movie in 2013 even! Ha! Ha! THE EMASCULATOR is about a Vietnam Vet in a small town, struggling to maintain a relationship with his daughter. When she is assaulted by a group of baddies that videos and releases their "handiwork" as almost snuff movies, he goes into action for REVENGE! Susana has a regular job in the world of animal care, and the main weapon of the movie is called an "emasculator"- used for cow castrations in the cattle industry, so when she saw it during her training, she HAD to spotlight it in a movie...castrating HUMANS, of course! Ha! Ha! We already had a theatrical premiere, and it should be out somewhere around Halloween this year, in theatrical showings and on Bly Ray. Hopefully, I get to continue collaborating with Susana, for sure, so far, we work really well together and have very similar sensibilities.

M[m] What has impacted you in the last year or so- be it film, music, books, or art?

 Tim:  Well, as always, music- the latest Judas Priest album, INVISIBLE SHIELD, is incredible! Really enjoyed Ti West's MAXXXINE, thought that was a fun movie and a great roundup for the trilogy. Susana Kapostasy's THE EMASCULATOR, which I executive produced, came out incredibly good, I believe. The new U.D.O. album TOUCHDOWN is fantastic. And I still read a lot, the new Stephen King book YOU LIKE IT DARKER, is a riveting return to form, NIGHT SHIFT style. There's good stuff out there if you look for it! 

 

Big thanks to Tim for his time & efforts with the interview. The Tim Ritter Collection can be purchased directly from here