AGE OF DEMONS & interview with DAMON FOSTER

This is DAMON FOSTER, the director and producer of [AGE OF DEMONS]!

DF With His Pet Scorpion, Destron!

!!! WARNING !!!

All the photos in this site are not allowed to use privately.

Copyright : DAMON FOSTER

If you have any question about this, ask him.

 This is interview with DAMON FOSTER, who produced  AGE OF DEMONS and publishes good fanzine ORIENTAL CINEMA. First I traded some  movies with  him, secondly I read his zines, and finally I saw his movie AGE OF DEMONS. I was shocked to death when I see that movie!!! Of course, it's very cheesy, cheap and low quality, but also full of fun!  Hard Core  Punk +  Black Magic  Witch +  Brutal Killing  + Big Breast Chicks + Japanese Robot Hero + HK Kung Fu Action + ... and so on. Surely, this  movie would be under Z-GRADE  movie, but it's very good to  enjoy. You might see  several movies that  is made with big budget but  have no  fun at all.  At the point  of joy,  AOD is much superior to them!
So I interviewed him. Let's check it out.

And if you're interested in ordering AOD, check draculina site.

This girl must die, at the start of this movie. T_T

Poor girl... Poor girl... T_T

mrKwang(K): I saw your movie AGE OF DEMONS. Of course, it's cheap, cheesy,  low quality, but very brillant movie. In  fact, it's more interesting than  plain B-movies. If you could get more money and time, it would be good movie. How did you come to make this movie? 

Damon Foster(D): AOD was the  result of several ideas. I had scribbled notes for a  couple years,  notations of  different ideas ("punk  rock", "acrobatic stunts", "beautiful girls",  "comedy",  "monsters", etc.) that  I wanted to use in an amateur video. I had more ideas ready,  than there are Big  Wheels parked outside Michael Jackson's bachelor-pad!   So  it was just  a question  of taking all these different suggestions and  concepts, and building  a coherent script around them.

K: I know  that you are a  great fan of JAPANESE  HEROES and I can see that on  this movie, [AOD]. I think it's  very rare case that an adult American  likes JAPANESE HEROES.  How did you come  to be like that?

D: As a baby in the 1960s, I loved watching BATMAN, ULTRAMAN and of course THE GREEN HORNET.  Most people outgrow this stuff, as they get into more "adult" pursuits  like sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. I got into all these "adult"  things too, but somehow, never got tired of karate-chopping superheroes! In the 1970s, when  I was a little boy, there  were local  Japanese TV  stations (my vicinity  has many Asian immigrants)  which aired programs  like JINZO-NINGEN: KIKAIDA, YUUSHA  RAIDEEN,  HIMITSU  SENTAI:  GO-RANGERS,  SUPERCAR:  GATAIGA, TOYAMA NO  KINSAN and  UFO DAI APOLON.  I realized  growing up, that very few local  Americans were aware of, or  even interested in such exciting programs.   Most "normal people" out  here were into sports and other garbage I had to patience for.   Being raised on Japanese programming isn't a bad thing, I think it broadened my horizons and made me a more innovative, openminded person.  Even now, when I'm in my 30s, I still wear my KAMEN RIDER T-shirt with pride!

 
K: In fact, I want to get something  from this question best. Who are the women  in  your movie?  Just  friends? But,  I  think, just friends never  get stripped and  die by the  sword. ^_^ (Especially, 1st. dead woman.)  Who were they? Where were  they from? And... what about another guys? All all friends?

D:  Whenever I make a video, I put my girlfriends, and guy friends too, in the movie.  Girlfriends come and go, but the male actors, my best friends  (Barrie Evans, Butch Portillo, August Ragone, Perry Wong, John Grace, Ed Martinez) will always be here for me.  My male cast is also  in other tapes of  mine, like HOT DOGS  ON THE RUN and THE  ADVENTURES  OF MYSTERON.  These  dudes  are eccentrics, unique people like me.  It's difficult to find people  as unusual, and cool as them!   I've known them most of my  life, and grown up with them. But  as for  the  ladies:   AOD  was  a slight  problem,  because my ex-girlfriend was  in the  movie, as  well as  the current  (at that time) love  of my life.   The two  of them didn't  like being around each other,  there was jealousy on  the set.  But  most of the local gals won't  allow me  to show  them in  the nude.  So the gorgeous  blond, Tammie  Costas (she's married now;  her old name  was Tammie  Garcia) was  a model I hired.  She only charged  me fifty bucks for her appearance!   That's just $25.00 per  breast-implant! She later posed nude in PENTHOUSE magazine, which aided in AOD's sales.

K: I  think AOD  is a good  movie, and I  wonder if  you have made another videos or not. Can you tell me more?

D:   I have  indeed made other  videos, like  DAMON FOSTER'S WEIRD VIDEOS, HOT  DOGS ON  THE RUN, THE  ADVENTURES OF  MYSTERON, and THE ADVENTURES OF MYSTERON VOLUME 2.   But none of these are as slick as AOD.  AOD  is still my best video.   The others are made for limited audiences,  I'm spoofing  specific, obscure  genres, so  most people don't get  all the jokes.   Pople have  said my other  tapes make no sense, so I don't eagerly  promote them. I think AOD  is the only video I'm especially proud of.

D. Foster and his friends are looking at FLYING DEMON!!!

And one of them, Barrie Evans has his own site. Check it out~

3 witch chicks and 1 super-natural boy.

 
K:  How could  you make  those 'costumes'?  I really  wonder about that. The clothes robot wore,  demon wore, villian wore, ... and the big-breast-witch wore. They wore wonderful things!

D:   Voluptuous vixen Becca  Torez made all her  own costumes, and Alice C.  made hers  too; these were  outfits both  already had, for previous projects like Halloween parties, etc.  Ed Martinez has done special effects in movies like THE DEAD PIT (where I play a zombie), and he was  helpful in assisting on  costume designs & construction. Also, I simply went into  costume shops around  Halloween time, and  was amazed  at what  useful costume accessories  I could  buy!  They really  helped make  AOD look  colorful.   I also  experimented with contact  cement, super-glue,  and  materials  I bought at a fabric store, and it was incredible  how good some of my hand-made costumes  came out.

 
K: About budget, money.  Of course, AOD is almost no-budget movie, but you  might pay  some money  on clothes(women,  demon, villians), hiring model, renting something(university, concert place) and lunch for your staff. Where  did you get money? Production like Draculina? Or all by yourself?

D: All the  money for AOD came  out of my own pocket! I paid for things (costumes,  materials to  construct the  "dungeon" set  in my garage, etc.) just  a little at a time.   That's one reason AOD took over a year to produce.  I'm not rich, and never have been. I live in what's basically a  ghetto for low-income people; my neighborhood is so lower-class and  sleazy that the nearby clothing store doesn't have  "Dressing Rooms",  instead  it  has "Undressing  Rooms"! But seriously, when financing production of AOD, I just pinched pennies, shopped around for  bargains (I was lucky a  nearby costume shop was going out  of business, and  they had some great  sales), and really budgetted myself,  very carefully.   I'm very  poor, so  poor that I consider things like food and water to be luxuries for rich people!  
 

K: Are  there many INDEPENDENT  movies like yours?  I've seen some INDE-movies, but  they put  much more  money than  yours. ([Clerks], ...) What do  you think about them? And  how about [El Mariachi]? If your  film  was  picked  up  by  major  studios,  would  [AOD]  well remastered like them?

D:  There are no  independent movies which are anything like mine! That's  about  as  likely  as  finding  a black  inner-city  welfare receiving girl  who's not  had at  least two  kids yet!   What other independent  movies are  trying to  do, is  be professional. These  people WANT  mainstream acceptance, so  they're attempting  to be as normal  as they  can, to  get  that "big  break". EL MARIACHI is a  classic example of  that; his low-budget movie got  him into the big time. I however, know I'll never be directing Hollywood movies,and therefore, don't  give a damn  about what  the monotonous mainstream
thinks.  I made my  videos because it's fun, and know that hundreds, maybe thousands of people  will see and enjoy these productions, and I owe nothing to the professional movie-makers. I have no desire to  "sell-out",  so  I'm  one  of the few who can TRULY be called  "independent". And  no, I don't think  any Hollywood releasers would ever show interest in remastering  my work; my stuff  (like AOD) is pretty abnormal, there's no commercial market for it.
 
 

K: What do  you do for a living? I  think you are not professional movie maker, so you might have another job. What's your real job?

D:  Right now  I get  paid  miniscule wage  doing Temp  Work  as a  technician. I work in the engineering department in a large company. I'm  in  the  process   of  completing   school,  and   getting  my architectural degree. I've learned AutoCAD, a computer-aided-drawing program which  can be applied toward  3-d modeling, architecture and engineering.  Once I complete my resume and portfolio, I can finally  make a  decent living.   I'm so  tired of being broke, and bouncing  checks all the time.

Our superhero ROBOT is fighting against tha muthafuckin' DEMON!!!

D. Foster's friends are fighting against villians. It's HK movie style!!!

ROBOT is fighting against the boss of villians.

K: Have  you ever attend  on making another movies?  You said that  you were  the zombie on  DEAD PIT. Is  that the only  movie you were concerned in? And where did  you learn how to make a movie? Were you the staff(Camera, editor, ...) of any good movie?

D: I  played several different  villainous zombies (I  get shot in  the chest by  a gun, thrown off a large  tower by the hero, etc.) in  THE DEAD PIT, and actually played a "good" zombie called 'Dead-Man' in  an absolutely terrible no-budget  video from  the  late 1980s, called SECRET OF THE SUPERHEROES.  In both these roles I got paid, I was just  an actor, and had  no control over scripts or stories. If nothing else,  my involvement on  the sets of  these movies inspired  me. Brett Leonard  (director of THE  DEAD PIT)  did a good  job, I watched  him, and learned  from  him.    Perhaps  he influenced my  approach directing AOD a little, I don't know.

K: You  publish that  magazine ORIENTAL  CINEMA. Plain  movie fans don't make  such a good fanzine,  they only see  movies. How come to make that cool zine? When did you start to make it? How often do you make that zine? And... so on. Tell us about that zine briefly.

D: I've been doing OC for over 20 years!  I first started doing OC on Crayon (I could not  type then) back when I was  a little kid. I had  become mad that nobody was writing about the rare Asian films on TV, and decided to  do something about it!  Later,  I was amazed to make connections  and find  others in  my field!   But  they were  all so boring, and still are!   I felt I needed my publication to stand-out somehow. So I decided to be  silly, like the  way I really am in person.  The other dull fanzine makers can just keep being lame geeks, But I decided to do what came naturally for me:   To make OC amusing and fun.   But OC,  again, like  all my  stuff, isn't  very commercially successful, so it comes out irregularly, like once or twice a year.

K: You might see some  KOREAN b-movies, because you're a great fan of ORIENTAL CINEMA. What do you think about those movies? Of course, I could read your reviews on ORIENTAL CINEMA, but others don't. This question is for them. ^_^

D: I enjoy Korean b-movies.  The sci-fi/superhero films don't have the overdone, big-shot special  effects seen on current Japanese TV. So often,  the action is  left to  the martial arts.   So sometimes, Korean  movies remind  me of the Golden Years (1970s) of Japanese Superheroes! The Koreans are  making fun movies which nobody else is making. Some of these entertaining  movies are also pretty stupid, which adds unintended humor-- so I like them even more. I had a lot of fun watching the silly  Batman rip-offs, like  SKY WARROR: EAGLE MAN, and that absolutely ridiculous SUPERBATMAN AND MAZINGA V!

K:  You've grown  up  with  JAPANESE HEROES as well as AMERICAN HEROES. What hero did  influence you  most? What  hero do  you like best? And  what do  you think about  Korean hero  movies, like POWER KING, THUNDERBIRD FROM THE OUTER SPACE?

D: The Japanese  heroes that influenced me  the most were KIKAIDA, IRON KING, GO-RANGERS,  SPACE SHERIFF GAVANN, and  of course all the KAMEN RIDER  shows of  the 1970s.  I love  them all though,  I can't  choose just one favorite.  I have a tape of POWER KING, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.  As for other Korean superhero movies, I really  enjoyed the later  UREME films, SPARKMAN,  and that wacky, cheap farce, YOUNG GU AND THE GOLDEN BAT.  

These are both of video covers.

What do you think about them? Wanna see it~?

The music in AOD was performed by

punk rockers THE GARGOYLES.

K: How  many copies of AOD  did you sell? How  did many people see  your flick? Did you recieve any reviews from them? What did they say to you?

D: I've sold  hundreds of copies of AOD,  but don't have any exact numbers. AOD was reviewed in several magazines.  Most of the reviews were positive, except for  two: BLACKEST HEART and FILM THREAT VIDEO GUIDE. But  I think the perverts who make these  magazines are real sickos, so I'm glad they  didn't like it. Besides, I rather got the impression that  both publications  had personal grudges  against me specifically, and  that's why they trashed  AOD, to get  to me.  But  I've seen some  of the movies these disgusting  people like, and I'm quite glad my work doesn't fall into those sickening categories!

K: What system did you use to make AOD? (Camera, Sound, Edit, ...) Your answer could help another INDEPENDENT directors, as I think.

D: I  shot all the footage  on 8mm, before  transferring it to VHS during the editing. But I think most amateurs should use Super-VHS, for  better quality-- less clarity is lost during editing and transfers.

K: Are  you making another flick  now? AOD was made  at 1993 and 5 years has passed. Not any more?

D: Yes, I am trying to, but it's very difficult. I would love to make more "Satanic Punk-Fu" videos like AGE OF DEMONS, but it's all just so tiresome, expensive and stress-inducing! I am hoping to begin work on a very similar video, to be called DEVILS, DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES; if all goes well, production should begin in the year 2000, if I'm lucky. But it's been six years since I made a Satanic Punk Fu movie, so I'm out-of-practice, I've lost a lot of skills and equipment. So I did an experimental short film called SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE in April, to celebrate "Walpurgisnacht", the Satanic Holiday. But SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE is only six minutes long, it's not a real movie like AOD. SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE (accidently mispelled "Satanic Mass of the Vamire" on the video's title itself, oops!) was just a warm-up, to see how much I could remember before starting another big project. SATANIC MASS OF THE VAMPIRE is no big deal, but it reminded me how to gear up for making another video. So hopefully, I'll start work on DEVILS, DRAGONS AND VAMPIRES in 2000 (at the very earliest), and might have it finished by 2001. It will be much like AOD: Hard rock music, monsters, martial arts, beautiful women, horror, satanic covens, and of course, a lot of comedy!

K:  Are there  any other  good INDEPENDENT  movies nearby  you? If there are some, let us know about them. (At Draculina, or what?)

D: The only ones I  can recommend are the EL FRENETICO AND GO-GIRL movies, from Pat Bishow.  Though some scenes are boring, and some of the  actors  over act way  too  much, Bishow's  stuff  is  at least watchable. Steve Ross made an amusing  movie  called EYE  OF THE  MOSQUITO 3: MASTER  OF THE FLYING GUILA-MONSTER.  Steve Wang's KUNG  FU RASCALS is  okay, but every other independent  movie I've seen is  complete and absolute garbage, I hate almost all of them!

K: Finally,  this is the  last question of  this interview. Please say something to guys and  ladies who read this article and see your good movie AOD.

D: Never fall in love, for it may stick to your face.

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