Editorials
18 Things We Learned from the ‘Patchwork’ Commentary
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has stood the test of time thanks to both its own merits and the strength of the Universal horror films that adapted it and its monstrous creation to the screen. The novel’s legacy also endures through the hundreds, if not thousands, of other works of art riffing on the core concept of mad, egotistical scientists and dead human flesh reanimated and recombined into something new.
Tyler MacIntyre is probably best known for the excellent slasher comedy, Tragedy Girls, but his feature debut came two years prior with his take on the Frankenstein tale. Patchwork is very much a low-budget affair, but its indie, genre-loving filmmaker heart beats loudly with a story about three lonely women brought together – quite literally – in death.
Last year marked its ten-year anniversary, and the fine folks at Terror Vision have celebrated it with a special edition 4K UHD/Blu-ray release packed with new special features.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Patchwork (2015)
Commentators: Tyler MacIntyre (director, co-writer, editor), Matt Donato (moderator, film journalist, lovable goober)
1. MacIntyre talks about the kinds of films that influenced his own love of horror as both a fan and a filmmaker, and Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator is obviously and rightfully towards the top of the list. He also refers to other “splatstick” movies like Evil Dead II and Dead Alive.
2. His manager, Allard Cantor, played devil’s advocate with MacIntyre, suggesting that maybe this wasn’t the movie he should make as his feature debut, but the filmmaker was adamant. Cantor immediately got behind him on the project, and his first call was to Gordon to set up a meeting with MacIntyre.
3. The film was shot over twelve days, which was “shorter than it probably should be.”
4. While it’s never actually said on screen, the collective “monster” is called Stitch in the script.
5. Jennifer, arguably the lead as the main body of Stitch, is played by Tory Stolper. She also co-stars in MacIntyre’s short film that Patchwork is based upon.
6. MacIntyre attended the American Film Institute with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, with the latter including Patchwork among his very first features. He went on to shoot movies like Hereditary, Midsommar, and The Woman in the Yard.
7. James Phelps plays Garrett, but the role almost went to Jack Quaid. Similarly, Sharni Vinson almost played Madeleine (Maria Blasucci).
8. McIntyre’s given at least some thought to a sequel, and he suggests it would include a setup about how this film’s owl-cat “had gone on and proliferated.” The result would be a series of animal-focused creations that create all manner of fun mayhem.
9. Stolper watched films with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin to help with the physicality of her performance. MacIntyre also showed her films as varied as Oliver Stone’s The Hand and Carl Reiner’s All of Me.
10. They talk about having to prioritize and plan days that would involve stunt work, and that includes times when they took some risks and decided that certain scenes shouldn’t fall under that heading. They were budget considerations, and MacIntyre says those choices backfired on occasion, leading to minor issues, including one “stunt” that accidentally brought real glass into a scene. Thankfully, they never found themselves landing in truly dangerous territory with their non-stunt performers.
11. Donato shares a compliment from his friend, a self-described loud, angry feminist, who watched the film and said, “There are few men who can write women, and Tyler is one of them.” Having had the honor of meeting Amelia Emberwing in person, I can confirm that this is a pretty big deal endorsement of MacIntyre’s writing and characters.
12. There are various character traits and themes at play here among the three leads (Stolper, Blasucci, and Tracey Fairaway) that come, in large part, from the filmmakers being in their twenties at the time. From loneliness and the fear of being alone, two different things, to the kinds of predatory concerns that would eventually blossom into the “Me Too” movement, the film is very much the product of young people trying to find their way in Los Angeles.
13. MacIntyre’s second-favorite John Carpenter movie is Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Reader, trust me when I say that I was tempted to stop listening to the commentary right there. “I get a lot of shit,” he adds, and it’s entirely possible I may have muttered “clearly not enough” to an otherwise empty room.
14. The frat house rampage plays to a song by Generationals called “Ten-Twenty-Ten.” The band wouldn’t sign off on its use here until they saw the scene itself, and obviously, they were pleased with the results.
15. “It’s probably the weirdest thing we’ve done in our apartment,” says MacIntyre after the film’s rambunctious sex scene. Garrett’s apartment is actually MacIntyre’s own apartment in Koreatown, and this was the one scene that his neighbors complained about hearing.
16. Garrett is wearing a brown t-shirt at 1:00:24 with an 8-bit sprite image on it that’s actually the lead character from Dead Alive. It was made for the film, but MacIntyre really could have earned back some of the goodwill he lost after that Memoirs of an Invisible Man debacle by producing this shirt for sale. Missed opportunity there.
17. It takes until 1:10:32 for someone to mention Frank Henenlotter’s brilliantly weird Frankenhooker, and it comes when MacIntyre admits that he hadn’t seen that film yet when Patchwork went into production. He and co-writer Chris Lee Hill actually took a day in the middle of filming and made a point of closing that gap, and they were pleasantly surprised to see some similar elements to what they had found on their own.
18. The film ends with the reveal that the recently deceased Garrett has been Frankensteined back to life, and MacIntyre suggests that a follow-up would also have explored that the two bumbling lab techs (Eric Edelstein, Craig Anstett) are now part of him. Between that and the promised return of owl-cat, the commentary really leaves you wanting that sequel to happen.
Quotes Without Context
“I’m always amused by how dead Tracey managed to look in this scene.”
“We do not have the time to shoot any of these scenes right.”
“I’ve been, over the years, saddled with people I did not want to cast.”
“There’s a certain type of post-art school douchebag that this is channeling.”
“There’s a lot of amateur wig experts out there.”
“I cut myself out of the movie. That’s the first lesson of doing a director’s cameo.”
“Dating in L.A. is hard.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
You must be logged in to post a comment.