"Dear God No!" sneak preview this Friday

  They grow up so fast.
  Seems like just yesterday I was having blood squibs taped to me for my two second big screen debut in the faux-70s Bigfoot vs. biker exploitation flick, "Dear God No!" Now the film is premiering (or sneak peeking or whatever) at the Plaza in Atlanta this Friday.

 

Faux movie poster for the would-be  Japanese release of Dear God No!

My "Dear God No!" Experience. Part Four

  So after waiting around for about forty-five minutes with a tiny little bomb taped to my chest, the crew is finally ready to shoot.
  So, let's do the walk through. I'm urinating by the side of the building. (Really, Jimmy? Really? That's my one moment of acting glory in front of the camera? Pissing on the side of a building?) Finish. And as I'm zipping up and turning around. Bang! I catch a bullet in the chest.
  Wait...did the blood squib actually just go off? While we were doing the walk through? While the cameras weren't rolling?
  Squib detonator guy: "What? Oh sorry. Thought you were filming."

 Fuck!

   Director Jimmy Bickert gives me a shrug and points to the next guy to take my place. The soon-to-be immortalized "Dear God No!" IMDB credit listing for "Pissing guy" was now destined for someone other than myself.
  And my shot at stardom was gone as quickly and as capriciously as it had appeared..
  Or at least that's how it appeared at the time.

My "Dear God No!" Experience. Part Three

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My "Dear God No!" Experience. Part Two

Shane Morton takes aim in Dear God No!

  The thing to know about Shane Morton is that starring in and doing make-up and prop-work on a low budget biker vs. Bigfoot movie is just another day in the life of Shane Morton. Shane lives the kind of life an eight year old boy might plan for himself before being rudely slapped in the face with the cold fish of reality. Somehow, Shane never got that wake up call. 

  He plays in horror-themed rock bands, oversees an elaborate monthly comedy burlesque tribute to classic horror cinema at Atlanta's Plaza Theater, and exhibits and sells his own horror themed paintings at local horror art exhibitions. Last year he put together and oversaw the mammoth Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse, a complete re-imagining of what a commercial Halloween haunted house experience could be. You can find him applying his airbrush skills at the Atlanta Zombie Walk or presiding over one of the cooler floats at the Little Five Points Halloween Parade. And just last week Shane acted in and built sets for the 7 Stages' production of the first act of "House Von Dracul," a rock opera version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

 Waiting for the camera to roll.

  What makes all this possible is a loyal crew of like-minded hard-working genre devotees who show up again and again in Shane's projects and are inspired to go on and pursue their own. You can pick some of them out by the impressive tattoos of various Hammer and Universal horror icons that adorn significant percentages of their bodies, rendered, of course, by Shane.

Shane applies a bullethole

  Although Dear God No! is directed by Jimmy Bickert, there were a lot of familiar faces on the two days I attended the shooting.

Nick Morgan takes a long rest during a break between filming.

Screenwriter (for The Girl Next Door), Fangoria contributor and Atlanta horror perennial Philip Nutman on set where he'll eventually get shot in the chest.

    In a small film such as this everyone pitches in. Even doing things you weren't expecting to do. I showed up just intending to shoot some still shots. 

  Within the first hour I was having a small explosive taped to my chest.

My "Dear God No!" Experience. Part One

 

Shane Morton during a break in the filming of "Dear God No"

  Linda and myself spent a couple days in mid-November shooting publicity shots onset for the low budget 70s retro-exploitationer "Dear God No," a biker vs. Bigfoot movie. Shane Morton had shown me the script a few months earlier when we were working together on another project and even I had been taken aback by the grimy audacity of its envelope-pushing. There was no way I could say no to participating in a movie that had Bigfoot, bikers, machine gun-wielding strippers, Nazi experiments, and abused nuns, no matter how peripheral and insignificant that participation might end up being.

  If ever anyone is to say in the years to come "Wasn't there some weird fucked up biker-Bigfoot movie that shot here in town?" I will be able to proudly hold my head up and say "Oh yes. And I was there."