Interview: Drew Rosas on Blood Junkie

In the world of DIY movies, it’s quite a feat just to complete one, but to have a successful film? That’s a rarity. Writer/Director Drew Rosas has recreated a neat 80′s styled slasher in Blood Junkie (official site here) on the smallest of budgets, and came out with a winner. Rosas chats thoroughly to Killer Film about the film and how he did it himself.

Jon: From your short film Plastic Fangs to Blood Junkie, it was about 5 years. Talk about getting Blood Junkie going through this time period.

Drew Rosas: Plastic Fangs was my senior thesis project for film school at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. I shot on 16mm and had access to a giant array of support and equipment with the UWM film department. After graduation I went straight into working in the local film industry as a PA and eventually moved up the ladder and began producing. It ate up a ton of my time and without the class requirement and deadlines of film school, I struggled for a while getting a new project together.

I wanted to move to L.A., but it occurred to me I should make a film in Milwaukee before I split town. I had racked up a large number of film favors working on various projects in Milwaukee. I decided I would cash in all my favors on one epic indie film. I landed a job working as the Art Department Coordinator on Michael Mann’s film Public Enemies. The pay was decent and I was renting a live/work warehouse space at the time for $200/ month so I was able to save about 90% of my pay check for Blood Junkie, but at the time it was called Rocky Trails.

When the job ended I made a pact to turn down all work for three months and focus on my Blood Junkie. I actually turned a couple of the best offers I had but I need to dedicated 100% of my time to the feature project. Once pre-production began, I was all in. I spent a lot of money so it pushed me to do everything in my power to make it worth every cent.

Jon: The budget was a mere $7000, yet it looks perfectly adequate for its 80s intentions. What were some of the hardest things to work around during production at this budget, and more importantly, how did you do it for that price?

Drew Rosas: I knew going into this film that would be paying for everything out of pocket. Plastic Fangs cost $3,200 and was shot on 16mm. My first goal was to structure a film in a way that would allow for the naturally occurring shortcoming of no-budget film-making.

In other words, knowing that I didn’t have the money to make a super slick contemporary horror film, I thought I could pull off and campy 80′s style horror film. If I had to use non-actors and friends for roles, and that was okay. They did the same thing in the 80s. If someone wasn’t hitting a line right or had bad delivery one day and we had to keep moving, f*ck it! I’ll over dub them later! That was okay, they totally did that in the 80s. So I fashioned the script to allow for low budget film-making and even embrace it and make it funny. This let me go out and just have fun with the genre. I didn’t have to take everything so seriously, and I could improvised with my cast on the spot a lot more. It just created a filming environment that was fun and made people want to come and help out for free. Our sets were always a party.

In fact, a ton of the scenes in the film where the characters are drinking, they are really drinking, and completely shit-faced at points. I guess you could call them method actors.

Jon: One of the best things of Blood Junkie is that great, rusted, abandoned warehouse. To me, it added atmosphere and mood more than any budget could buy. How did you find it and what were some of the challenges filming there?

Drew Rosas: This was the piece of the puzzle that sent the entire film in motion. I broke into this factory with some friend years back when I was in film school and I took a bunch of photographs. I had explored a number of decaying rust belt factories in the Milwaukee area, but this building was different. It was massive and creepy as hell. I vowed to some day return an shoot a horror film there.

The building was first constructed around the turn of the century and was designed to use as much natural light as possible. I assume this was because the electricity needed to light a giant warehouse was far more costly in those days. The beauty is that now, 100 years later, the building’s design made for the most incredible natural lighting situation I have ever shot in. When the initial idea for Blood Junkie started developing I remembered this building and went back to location scout. This time the cops showed up and gave me a warning to never return without the owner’s permission. “Who is the owner?” I asked, but they refused to give out any information. This began a six week internet investigation to find the mysterious owner of the Glue Factory. I checked the property records but the seem to be a dead end accept for a strange name “Jalovec” on one of the tax forms from six years prior. With some more help I found that the ownership seemed to have moved from a Wisconsin owned company to a company in Naples, FL. I did a white pages search for Jalovec in FL and just cold-called the number. Turned out to be the right guy! He was this wealthy businessman that was totally interested in the film project and gave me full access to the building for free! It was incredible.

Tragically, he died in a helicopter crash shortly after filming was complete and never saw the final edit. The building was demolished last year. I am just glad I was able to preserve it forever with Blood Junkie.

Jon: I’ve likened Blood Junkie to the original My Blood Valentine, as they both focus on rural areas with Middle Class characters, along with a similar looking killer. The film is advertised as a 80s homage to those slashers, but what were some of your inspirations?

Drew Rosas: I am a huge fan of My Bloody Valentine and many other original 80′s slashers. Not too many of the remakes. I grew up in a small town in the Mid-West, so I have always identified with this idea of middle class boredom getting abruptly shattered by the terrifying world of the unexplained. I’m fascinated with the idea that the madness you watch on television could shatter your world. My personal favorite films in this genre are Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, Evil Dead, and Dawn of the Dead to name a few.

Jon: Troma has had a knack at championing these types of films and getting them a wider audience. I’m glad they found Blood Junkie, so talk about their involvement and direction of the film’s release. Would it have been possible to even get Blood Junkie out of Wisconsin without them at this time?

Drew Rosas: Again, this a film I produced and edited on my own and licensed to Troma for distribution. A good friend and fellow filmmaker Fankie Latina connected me with Troma. They loved the film and wanted to add it to their line up. Blood Junkie isn’t exactly a classic Troma film. I personally think it has a very different sense of humor, but I could not have wished for a better match with a distribution company. I really don’t think Blood Junkie would have much of a life without Troma. I’ve been able to screen a few film festivals and some other events but that would be about it. Promoting a film is a full-time job. As a creative person, I was very excited to hand over the film to Troma and give it a new life through their audience and fan base. Now I have some more time available to work on producing new projects. My next film is a comedy/sci-fi with some horror element and will be shot on location in the desert of California.

Blood Junkie is currently on DVD from Troma Entertainment.