By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Indie director Jeffrey Arsenault, who made a series of New York vampire movies starting with the John Leguizamo-starring NIGHT OWL in the 1990s and early 2000s, has returned to filmmaking with the Texas-lensed CRIMSON CLINIC. He gave us some words and a few exclusive photos from the movie.
CRIMSON CLINIC, which Arsenault helmed from a script by Sarah Goode, stars Kevin Toy, Lambert Maddy and Josh Jameson in the story of an intern who arrives to start a new job at a remote rural medical facility, only to find it and the surrounding town largely deserted—except for a few holdouts. “This isn’t like anything I’ve done before,” Arsenault tells RUE MORGUE. “Thematically, it does explore the people-are-not-who-they-seem-to-be angle, which has always interested me. In CRIMSON CLINIC, only one character is who he appears to be, and I doubt audiences will figure out who until the end.”
Shot this past January, CRIMSON CLINIC marks Arsenault’s first production in a dozen years, though he notes that during that time, “I was always writing. I wrote novels, short stories, screenplays, etc. The creativity never stopped, and I tried to get a few films off the ground that didn’t happen. But within the past two years, I started feeling burned out by writing. I seriously started thinking about getting back into production, although I was hesitant to make any kind of movie without a distribution deal in place. But finally, I decided to just do it. I dove headfirst back into production last year, and shot two shorts to refamiliarize myself with the process, because so much had changed. I’d never shot in HD before, or even with a tapeless video camera.
“It was a very intense shoot,” he continues. “Cast and crew stayed at the house we filmed in, located in a remote area of unincorporated land in Caldwell County. The most surprising thing to come out of the shoot was that I learned I still had it in me to work long days. We shot from early in the morning until late at night. I stuck to my shot list and pulled it off.” We’ll let you know when CRIMSON CLINIC gets closer to release.
