I first interviewed filmmaker James Felix McKenney back in 2008, but just had to conduct a follow up after watching his latest horror flick, SATAN HATES YOU, a film that you will need to keep your eyes peeled for. In addition to SATAN, McKenney is working on a new monster movie, HYPOTHERMIA, and is launching his own DVD label, Midnight Channel.


You told me that SATAN HATES you is based on a specific genre of Christian films from the 1970s. Can you elaborate?


I'm a big fan of any kind of regional low-budget filmmaking, whether it's horror and exploitation films produced in Florida, highway safety films from Ohio, or religious films made by a church group in Iowa. Any voice that comes from a place outside of Hollywood, New York City or any of the other major cultural centers really appeals to me.

I'm no film historian, but the Christian "scare" films seem to have become really popular in the early 1960's. They would be shown to kids at church, boy and girl scouts and even in schools. Most of them were sort of bland, amateurish and super square. They were meant to teach kids a lesson by showing them what could happen if they didn't obey their parents, go to church and become good little citizens.

A little later on the films began to get really intense and bizarre. The films of Ron Ormond are insane -- intensely violent and sadistic, filmed with amateure performers and sets right out of a grammar school play. His films IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? and THE BURNING HELL are classics of the genre. But for real horror Donald Thompson's A THIEF IN THE NIGHT cannot be beat. It's as scary as any horror movie. It's really well made with a sort of "Twilight Zone" kind of feel.

The Christian comic tracts of Jack T. Chick were also a huge influence. I have been picking them up in laundromats and bus stops for years. I have quite a collection.


What was the genesis of this story? It's very high concept.


I wanted to do something that combines the stock situations of these films and comics, but would also be it's own unique creature. The structure of the film owes a lot to the Chick comics. I decided to go with two story lines running side-by-side, the "girl in trouble" and the "evil homosexual," but give them my own spin.

Religious media these days seem to be more focused on a political agenda rather than a spiritual one. I wanted to create an alternative, something that horrifies and entertains, but allows the viewer to come to his or her own unique conclusions in the end. I expect that based on their own mindset, different audiences will come away with VERY different interpretations of what's being said in SATAN HATES YOU.


You're working with many more actors and locations than you have before. How hard was it to convey your vision to such a large group? Did they understand what you were doing?


Locations weren't a huge problem. We built our own little "studio" inside a warehouse in Brooklyn that served as every interior in the film, except for the hotel and the bar. So changing locations was usually just a matter of moving a few feet or re-dressing the room we were already in.

I've worked with the majority of these actors before, so most of them had a good idea of what I was looking for without me even saying it. There were some new faces, but they're all professionals with amazing instincts, so communication was never an issue. Also, the shoot was compartmentalized based on the performers' schedules, so most of the "guest" actors did all of their scenes in one or two days, so it was very easy for us all to maintain our focus.


Even though it's a contemporary film, your cinematographer did a great job of capturing the seedy look of a lot of early 70s films.


Absolutely. Films from 1970's New York are cinematographer Eric Branco's favorite things in the world (well, maybe after the Yankees), so he was the right man for the job. He used a lot of different lenses to give the film just the right amount of grain. I love the way this movie looks.


What are the distribution plans right now?


We're currently working on a somewhat non-traditional approach to getting the film out there. I don't have any details yet, but will in a month or so. In the meantime, we hope to get a screening or two here in NYC. We aren't focusing on the festival route, as it seems more and more that the mainstream festivals are just looking for the next LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or classic horror knock-off and SATAN HATES YOU is definitely not going to be their cup of tea, but we may submit to some of the more non-traditional fests.


In comparison, HYPOTHERMIA at least sounds like a much more conventional film. Was that a deliberate reaction to making something as offbeat as SATAN HELPS YOU?


I think every film is in some way a reaction to the previous one. Originally SATAN HATES YOU was going to be full of puppets and low-tech effects, sort of like THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS, but once I made AUTOMATONS I had got all of that out of my system and wanted to work with real people again. The same could be said for the move from the the black & white of AUTOMATONS to the explosion of colors that are featured in SATAN.

HYPOTHERMIA is more conventional because Larry Fessenden asked me to write some stuff for the Dark Sky slate of films that Glass Eye Pix was putting together. I knew that they weren't looking for my want my usual kookiness, they wanted something more commercial, so that's what I gave them. I think that the end result will be a very satisfying, action-packed monster movie that will probably go over well with horror fans and general audiences who may not have been that into my more experimental stuff. We'll see!


What can you tell us about your new distribution company?


The company is called Channel Midnight. Most of the work is being done by my partner Lisa Wisely who was a producer on AUTOMATONS and SATAN HATES YOU. We set up the company in order to release a re-mastered version of my first movie, CANNIBALLISTIC! and a few new features that I have in the works.

2010 is the 10-year anniversary of when we shot CANNIBALLISTIC!, so it seemed like a good time to put together a new cut of the movie with improved picture and audio and six minutes of footage that was cut from the original release. The DVD will include a new behind-the-scenes featurette and some short films, including a never released zombie movie that we shot in Brooklyn in 2002. We're looking at an October release for that one.

In the meantime, there's Nathan Wrann's mind-blowing film BURNING INSIDE. We had originally planned to only distribute our own MonsterPants movies, but I've really fallen in love with Nathan's movie and want to do all that we can to help get it out there. If all goes as planned, you'll be seeing BURNING INSIDE this coming spring. Check out the trailer at burning-inside.net.

We'll have more information about Channel Midnight very soon at monsterpants.net.