Red Spirit Lake is psychotronic filmmaker Charles Pinion’s second feature film, shot entirely on video in the early ’90s and featuring several superstars of the Cinema of Transgression movement, such as Richard Kern and Tessa Hughes-Freeland.
The film — available on DVD from the filmmaker — is a wildly evolutionary step up from Pinion’s first feature, the raucous skater punk horror flick Twisted Issues. Below, we discuss Red Spirit Lake‘s production.
Underground Film Journal: Not to get ahead of ourselves, but it sounds like a lot of Killbillies eventually got transformed into We Await.
However, you must have been so soured on the Killbillies experience at the time that you wanted to move onto something completely different. But also, I would suppose that having been involved in at least attempting to mount a major production inspired you to make Red Spirit Lake more — well, it’s hard to find the right word for it,...
The film — available on DVD from the filmmaker — is a wildly evolutionary step up from Pinion’s first feature, the raucous skater punk horror flick Twisted Issues. Below, we discuss Red Spirit Lake‘s production.
Underground Film Journal: Not to get ahead of ourselves, but it sounds like a lot of Killbillies eventually got transformed into We Await.
However, you must have been so soured on the Killbillies experience at the time that you wanted to move onto something completely different. But also, I would suppose that having been involved in at least attempting to mount a major production inspired you to make Red Spirit Lake more — well, it’s hard to find the right word for it,...
- 6/9/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
(Charles Pinion‘s Killbillies, which you’ll discover all about below, is one of the great unfinished underground movies. It’s complex, uncompleted production involved a multitude of talents, not least of which was Joey Ramone whose involvement got a write-up in the infamous Page Six gossip column. The scan of that article that you see here was provided to the Underground Film Journal by Killbillies co-producer and actress Marina Lutz. But, this is Charles’s story… and his on-set pictures. Click the article and all pictures to embiggen.)
Underground Film Journal: Ok, so Madball is done and you’re moving into another film project, Killbillies? What’s the story behind that?
Charles Pinion: Killbillies‘ basic notion came from my friend George Cavano, an artist/musician in Gainesville, Florida. (His piece, “A Violent Release of a Large Body of Water” plays over the opening titles of Red Spirit Lake.
Underground Film Journal: Ok, so Madball is done and you’re moving into another film project, Killbillies? What’s the story behind that?
Charles Pinion: Killbillies‘ basic notion came from my friend George Cavano, an artist/musician in Gainesville, Florida. (His piece, “A Violent Release of a Large Body of Water” plays over the opening titles of Red Spirit Lake.
- 5/9/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Filmmaker Charles Pinion is most well-known for his garish video splatter movies, like Twisted Issues and We Await. However, embedded above is his one completed foray into working with celluloid, the subdued (for him) fever dream known as Madball. A naive, well-kept young man enters a nightmare world of odd, depraved creatures that make his — and maybe yours — brain bleed.
The making of Madball and how it falls into Pinion’s directing career can be read in Part Two of the Underground Film Journal’s epic interview with the filmmaker. But, the skinny of it is that after making his first feature film on video, Twisted Issues, in Gainesville, Florida, Pinion moved to New York City and made this little film experiment before moving back into features.
The film fits in nicely with the New York City underground film tradition of it’s time. The lo-fi quality seems to be...
The making of Madball and how it falls into Pinion’s directing career can be read in Part Two of the Underground Film Journal’s epic interview with the filmmaker. But, the skinny of it is that after making his first feature film on video, Twisted Issues, in Gainesville, Florida, Pinion moved to New York City and made this little film experiment before moving back into features.
The film fits in nicely with the New York City underground film tradition of it’s time. The lo-fi quality seems to be...
- 5/5/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
(In Part One of this interview, we discussed the making of Charles Pinion’s first feature film on video, the skater punk rock splatter movie Twisted Issues. In Part Two below, the Underground Film Journal attempted to discuss his second feature video, Red Spirit Lake, but get diverted into Pinion’s brief foray into film.)
Underground Film Journal: It seems like you had a really good reaction to Twisted Issues that I’m sure helped inspire you to make another video feature. How did the release of Red Spirit Lake compare to the release of your first film?
Charles Pinion: Funny, it’s only through retrospect and in reading the comments of others that I had any notion that Twisted Issues was a “seminal work of the shot-on-video movement” (a pull-quote I used for some time from Timothy Thompsen, who did a zine called Lunatic Fringe). My goals, then and now,...
Underground Film Journal: It seems like you had a really good reaction to Twisted Issues that I’m sure helped inspire you to make another video feature. How did the release of Red Spirit Lake compare to the release of your first film?
Charles Pinion: Funny, it’s only through retrospect and in reading the comments of others that I had any notion that Twisted Issues was a “seminal work of the shot-on-video movement” (a pull-quote I used for some time from Timothy Thompsen, who did a zine called Lunatic Fringe). My goals, then and now,...
- 5/5/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Charles Pinion exists at a unique transection of the modern underground film scene.
A pioneer of the Analog Video Feature Film movement. (That never materialized.) Interaction with the Cinema of Transgression, but not a part of it. Screened back-to-back features at the then-nascent Chicago Underground Film Festival.
He’s been there. He’s done that.
To date, he’s made just three feature films. (Although, hard at work on finishing up his fourth.) And all three — Twisted Issues, Red Spirit Lake and We Await — deserve to be freshly rediscovered and recontextualized. These films put out vibes that stretch out and can be felt in work by makers such as Calvin Lee Reeder, Bob Moricz, Waylon Bacon and others, whether they were specifically influenced by them or not.
All of Pinion’s films can be purchased on DVD from the filmmaker’s website. Gross. Surreal. Unsettling. If that’s your bag...
A pioneer of the Analog Video Feature Film movement. (That never materialized.) Interaction with the Cinema of Transgression, but not a part of it. Screened back-to-back features at the then-nascent Chicago Underground Film Festival.
He’s been there. He’s done that.
To date, he’s made just three feature films. (Although, hard at work on finishing up his fourth.) And all three — Twisted Issues, Red Spirit Lake and We Await — deserve to be freshly rediscovered and recontextualized. These films put out vibes that stretch out and can be felt in work by makers such as Calvin Lee Reeder, Bob Moricz, Waylon Bacon and others, whether they were specifically influenced by them or not.
All of Pinion’s films can be purchased on DVD from the filmmaker’s website. Gross. Surreal. Unsettling. If that’s your bag...
- 4/28/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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