By MICHAEL GINGOLD
From the frigid wilds of Canada comes a psychological/supernatural chiller about “the Death Dealer, a mysterious entity tasked with collecting the lost souls of sinners.”
Fright-fave actress Debbie Rochon got in touch with the first news, images and poster for FLESH OF THE UNFORGIVEN, which she shot earlier this year as co-star and co-producer. Joe Hollow is the writer/director and lead actor, and the cast also includes August Kyss and Adriana Uchishiba. The synopsis: “A novelist with writer’s block, Jack Russo [Hollow], travels to a secluded cabin in the mountains of Quebec with his estranged wife Sienna [Rochon]. His aggressive and impatient agent gives him a 72-hour deadline to complete a treatment for his next best seller. As he lacks inspiration, his agent seemingly sends him a VHS tape to view, thinking this will catapult his imagination. Jack becomes obsessed with this sick and disturbing tape, so much so that he soon gets pulled deeper and deeper into a state of phobia and hallucination until he can no longer identify reality. Sienna tries desperately to pull him back to the real world and focus on his book and their fragile marriage. But her secrets are even more life-altering than the VHS tape as she traverses the boundaries between the mortal realm and the supernatural fray amidst the twisted games played by the Death Dealer and his manipulating legion of demons.”
“When Joe said he was shooting in Canada in February,” Rochon tells us, “I was a little nervous; it can be brutally cold in certain parts. Well, we were definitely in ‘certain parts’ because it was painfully cold! We were at a beautiful cabin in the mountains of Quebec. It was breathtaking–the views and the freezing air!
“There were so many times we had the cinema gods smiling down on us,” she continues. “We set up our shot of the characters arriving at the cabin with an iced-over lake in the background. When we filmed the arrival, there were kids’ hockey teams down on the ice skating around. It looked like we paid big money for that shot!
“We shot FLESH in two weeks,” Rochon reveals. “A lot of people shoot their films in two weeks, it’s true, but with the exceptional locations we used and all of the detailed setpieces, we pulled off a very visual movie strictly because of the months of preproduction Joe and his team dedicated to it. There was a wild outfit sent for my character in the finale, and it was a one-of-a-kind piece of art made by some very talented costume designers at Wasted Couture in Germany. It has a certain bad-ass ROAD WARRIOR vibe to it. Every actor and crew member went above and beyond, and in my experience, that’s the only way you can pull off making a good movie quickly.”
This looks like a perfect showcase for the talents of Debbie Rochon! Very excitedly looking forward to seeing this one!
Good to see Joe back doing what he does best. Looks like an exciting movie can’t wait to see the finished product.