Ever since I first saw the film “Getting Lucky,” about a high school student who finds a leprechaun in a beer bottle, I have been obsessed with director/writer/composer Michael Paul Girard. So it was a pleasant surprise when Michael found me through Horror Yearbook, and a sure sign that all my hard work had paid off. It is also a true honor to be able to bring Michael Paul Girard back into the spotlight where he so deserves to be. Talking to him was a real pleasure and only added to my love for the man, a man that comes from a different time of film making, when small filmmakers really went above and beyond to see their films made and movies featured music that was actually made for the film, not just some hot pop song that was added to sell a couple extra soundtracks.
Michael’s first film, “Over-sexed Rugsuckers from Mars,” is about a vacuum cleaner named Dusty, who is chosen to mate with the human race after aliens from Mars decide they don’t like the way we have evolved. When Dusty gets a hold of some tea designed to help with the libido, he goes on a murdering and raping rampage which ends when one of his female victims gives birth to a half-human/half dust buster baby on a courtroom floor.
“Rugsuckers” was shot on Super 8 film and had a total production cost of about $1100, including the film stock and developing. Michael explained to us how he got the movie made, a story any aspiring filmmaker should stop and listen to:
“I would buy 50 foot rolls of Kodachrome and Ektachrome for two-dollars a roll just past their expiration date. I was unemployed at the time and living in my van and doing house-sitting. I had about a thousand dollars left in the bank and decided to go out with a bang instead of a whimper. All my friends in the film business said I was nuts for thinking I could shoot a feature-length film for a thousand dollars (that was in the days before mini DV and Final Cut Pro). Once I shot the film and had it in the can, I went out on the road playing keyboards with a circus for four and a half months to get the money to do post-production. Postproduction on Rugsuckers cost around $2500.”
The star of “Rugsuckers” was also cheap. “That vacuum cleaner was my first production expense on the movie. I bought it for one dollar at a thrift store. It wasn’t working, that’s why it was so cheap. I kept that vacuum cleaner for a few years, but finally tossed it in the dumpster around 1992.”
Girard didn’t just write and direct his films, he also composed most of his own music, which is one of the best parts of watching his movies. I have never met a person who I have shown the movie “Body Parts” to that didn’t walk away with the lyrics of one the songs stuck in their head. “Rugsuckers” is no different since Michael wrote all of the music except “Yeah Yeah Yeah,” which was written by Greg Heupal (the guitarist in the band Ray Zone Day). When you watch a Michael Paul Girard film you don’t only walk away a fan of the movie, you also become a fan of the music. And make sure to pay close attention to all the songs because you will notice some of them appear in multiple films. The great song “It’s Just A Job” appears as “a more punk version” in Rugsuckers, but then also appears later in “Body Parts” as a totally new song.
If you ever stayed Up All Night with Gilbert Gottfried or Rhonda Shear, you may have seen Mr. Girard’s next film, “Getting Lucky,” which as I mentioned before was the movie that turned me on to him. “Getting Lucky” is about a high school nerd named Bill who just wants to score a date with the school babe, Crissy Schackler. This may sound like your typical 80’s sex comedy, but this one has a twist. One day when Bill is recycling some bottles, he finds an alcoholic leprechaun inside one who grants him some wishes. The problem is he always seems to screw them up, leading to all kinds of crazy hi-jinks such as Bill being shrunken down and ending up in Chrissie’s panties. This is one of cinema’s classic lost scenes as Bill is forced to crawl up Crissy’s vagina while she is in school, leading to her to orgasm during class. This scene was most definitely cut on the U.S.A. channel. Girard goes on to explain how he shot the scene he calls “The Pubic Forest Sequence”:
“Bill never actually climbs up into Crissy’s vagina, he stays on the outside trying to climb up the pubic hairs, but as his mountaineering efforts cause Crissy to become aroused, the ensuing increase in moisture causes her clitoris to become a big slip ‘n slide.
We sewed three sheets together to serve as Chrissy’s panties and shot Bill bouncing around on the bicycle ride at 48 frames per second. Then, for the Pubic Forest, I took a garden hose, chopped it up and spray painted it black, and hung it from chicken wire for the dangling pubic hairs. The stationary “rooted” pubic hairs (tree trunks, if you will) were PVC pipe painted black. The floor, or skin, was a plastic sheet over paper painted a pastel pink, and the background ‘forest’ was painted on standard wall board.”
I was also very excited to find out “Getting Lucky” was originally written as one of the many “Witchcraft” sequels, one of my favorite film franchises.
“After I finished ‘Rugsuckers’, I signed a distribution deal for it with Vista Street Entertainment at the end of 1988. They had just had great success with the first Witchcraft movie and were planning on doing a sequel. Jerry Feifer asked me to write a script for Witchcraft II. The script I gave him was called “Hell Of A Honeymoon” about a young high school couple that got married, with a Mephisto sort of twist: the nerdy guy makes a pact with the Devil to get the hot cheerleader at school to go for him. And the Devil causes all sorts of problems on their wedding night. Jerry Feifer said it wasn’t right as a Witchcraft sequel, but he wanted to do it anyway. As I rewrote the script, it gradually metamorphosized from a horror flick into a teen sex comedy: The Devil became an inept, yet benign leprechaun, the nerdy guy becomes likable with good intentions and is picked on by the Big Stud on Campus jock.”
Michael did, however, go on to direct and write three “Witchcraft” films: “Witchcraft IV: The Virgin Heart” in 1992 which he only, wrote starring Julie Strain who he says “was a very nice person.” Then he directed “Witchcraft 7: Judgement Hour” in 1995, the least of my favorites, which is probably because he did not write it. “I was asked to direct ‘Witchcraft 7’, but I did not write the script. Ordinarily, I don’t like to direct other people’s script’s unless I am really excited about the story. I didn’t like the script to ‘Witchcraft 7’, so I tried to add some humor like, the Congressman who liked to wear diapers while being horsewhipped by a dominatrix, and that sort of stuff.” My favorite scene in that movie is Ashley Rhea running in slow motion with the open back hospital gown. It’s enough to make a man petition the Government for Universal Health Care. He then got to redeem the franchise with “Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh” in 1997, which is one of the best “Witchcraft” films, and the one that turned Will Spanner into a ghost who can only be seen by a prostitute.
When asked how he got involved in the ‘Witchcraft’ films and why there were so many gaps in the ones on which he worked Michael explains, “Actually, ‘Witchcraft 9’ was shot right after ‘Witchcraft 7’. What was released as ‘Witchcraft 8’ was shot before ‘Witchcraft 7’, and was, to my understanding, originally called ‘Salem’s Ghost.’ I guess it didn’t do well under that title, so Vista Street re-released it as ‘Witchcraft 8’.” This only adds to the whacky world of the Witchcraft films and probably makes Horror Yearbook the only website on the net with this much information on them. Michael also added that he has no interest in directing part 14 but does admit, “In a limitless Universe, all things are possible.” Lets just say another Witchcraft directed by Michael Paul Girard would make this fan one happy person, especially a follow up to Mel House’s good ‘Witchcraft 13’ (Read Review Here). I’ll even write the script!
Of course the Witchcraft films are not the only movies of Michael’s I love. Actually, the second film I ever saw of his, and my favorite Michael Paul Girard film ever, is the great and wonderful “Body Parts,” about a serial killer terrorizing some strippers at a local strip club. Even though Michael does not agree with me, if I could suggest only one of his films for someone to see it would be “Body Parts.” He would suggest “The Perfect Gift,” which I have never seen, so who am I to argue? “Body Parts,” as it stands, is still my favorite film of his, especially after hearing the interesting story of how it came to be:
“Vista Street was going to shoot two films at the same time, both set in a strip club. They were ‘Underground’ and ‘Body Parts.’ In this way, you could amortize the sets: the crew on the first movie would shoot for 12 hours, then the crew on the second movie would come in and shoot the next 12 hours, thus amortizing the lights, sets, props, etc, and even use the footage of the strippers on stage in both movies. I was not involved in either of these movies at the outset, although I did compose the music for ‘Underground, when it was in post-production.
Anyway, from what I was told, about 2 days into the 24/7 shooting schedule, the director on the second movie, ‘Body Parts,’ got into an argument with the Executive producer and walked off the set, evidently taking his script with him. So ‘Body Parts’ was abandoned and they went ahead and shot the movie ‘Underground.’
A few months later, Jerry Feifer called me up and wanted me to come in and look at some footage. It was about 10 minutes of footage from the aborted ‘Body Parts’ project. All it consisted of was the strippers taking it off on stage, a couple scenes in the strippers dressing room (like the one with the Tarot cards) and a couple scenes of inane dialogue at the bar, and some bad hand-held footage of girls being stabbed and a few dead bodies with knives protruding from them. Jerry asked me if there was any way I could figure out a way to use this in a feature-length film. I wrote a script that would use the original hand-held footage as being shot by the murderer, and I would have two detectives trying to investigate, unmasking the murderer at the end. During one of the dressing room scenes that were already shot, I saw the blond girl walk in with her dog. I asked Jerry where they got the dog, and he told me that it was the blond girl’s dog. Since I hate storylines with predictable plots, I decided to make the dog the killer. And, incidentally, that dog should have gotten an Academy Award for best “tongue wagging” in a feature film.”
I agree, as it also should have also won for best song that year for “Kiss My Body,” the opening number to the film, and in my mind one of the greatest film scenes of our time. “Kiss My Body” is what hooked me on Michael Paul Girard films for life, but much to my dismay he has no plans to release his music on CD, something I would crawl half way across the world to get a copy of.
Like many of our readers on Horror Yearbook both young and old, I pine for the days of directors like Michael Paul Girard. I hate to sound like an old man and use such a cliché phrase, but they just don’t make films like they used to. In this day and age when everybody is a critic and already has an opinion about a film before it is even released, I truly miss the days of finding films like “Body Parts” at your local video store, or staying up late in my bedroom to catch Skinemax’s late night programming just to see a good old “Witchcraft” film. We actually used to watch and enjoy these films as opposed to just wearing them as a badge on our sleeve or carrying it around on a lunchbox.
These days a lot of directors think we will be impressed by some cheap acting mixed with some gore and nudity, but when you see a film directed by Michael Paul Girard you realize it takes more than that. One can see even through the cheap production of something like “Rugsuckers” that the man has talent. Not only talent in directing, but writing and composing music as well. Michael even manages to make the simple scene of the jock pulling down the cheerleader’s panties behind the school a great shot, and watching his films makes one realize that the filmmaking style of directors like Girard is a lost art. Everyday we are bombarded with hundreds cheap direct to DVD movies. Any idiot with a DVD recorder can make a film and call himself a filmmaker, but this fan would surely trade in fifty of those films for one good quality picture like “Getting Lucky” or even a cheap skin flick like the “Witchcraft” films. Even the good days of decent foreign Skinemax films are way behind us, and while most of our horror publications continue to shove the likes of Roger Corman down our throats over and over, directors like Girard and his films go forgotten. If I had a magic leprechaun I would wish the days of these films back, but I would probably accidentally end up in someone’s butt.
Horror Yearbook would like to thank Michael Paul Girard for the hours of entertainment his movies have provided us and for him for taking the time to answer our questions through E-mail.
- WIL Keiper
