Horror Reanimated… the home of Bloody Books

Suzi Lorraine on WON TON BABY by Alan Kelly

August 7th, 2010

Won Ton Baby is nothing if not a pertinent reminder that we should never reproduce; that anyone under four feet should be shackled to a wall with a cast-iron chain and their putrescent little bodies wrapped in razor wire – The Bad Seed, carrion-eating brats, caged here in The 9th Circle of Horror Reanimated would pose less of a threat than Suzi Lorraine’s Baby Won Ton. But enough about my neighbourhood; Baby Won Ton makes the kids in my neighbourhood look like ponies! Warm milk will never pass Baby Won Ton’s lips; he is more interested in making couture out of your entrails, that is, after he has choked you with his umbilical cord.

 
Suzi Lorraine first came to my attention when I picked up a copy of the horror magazine Gorezone, which was, at that time only a demented little fledgling. Her column Diary of a Scream Queen was the reason I began picking it up and it has since grown in popularity with sales of up to 90,000 issues sold per month. I can’t help but feel Suzi had a large part to play in the success of this rag. With over 40 films under her belt, most of which are in the horror genre, her acting career has allowed her to travel all over the world, filming in Italy, Canada, London, Germany, Argentina, Amsterdam, and the British Virgin Islands. She also co-hosted The Gorezone Film Festival in London last October and was honoured by fans in Torino, Italy during ‘Suzi Lorraine Night’ at the Empire Theatre with several of her films being screened that night as part of a Suzi film retrospective. Some of the films Suzi appeared in are Claang: The Game, Sea of Dust and Bikini Girls on Ice. Won Ton… sees her working both in front and behind the camera.

 
Suzi created the story idea for (and co-produced) Won Ton Baby, collaborating with James Morgart to develop the script. Together they’ve created a fusion of comedy and horror; a riotous celebration of the perverse, the ghoulish and the zany all done in spectacular bad taste. Suzi was kind enough to brave an interview with me – she is, after all currently devising sadistic torture techniques for serial killers in Hell – and answers all my questions with great honesty. For those who want to know more, read on….

 
Alan Kelly: Hello Suzi, welcome to Horror Reanimated. Could you tell me a bit about what first inspired Won Ton Baby?

 
Suzi Lorraine: Thanks! I’m thrilled to be here at Horror Reanimated. Couldn’t think of a better place to dwell, for a spell….
 
The idea of “Won Ton Baby!” was conjured up by yours truly about 3 years ago, when I was working on a short horror film. I was playing a maid, and the director had decided on a whim that he wanted my character to speak with a “sexy accent”. So being a goofball, I decided to start speaking with a broken Chinese accent. It amused everyone on set, and I said to everyone, “one day I’m going to make a film where I keep a quirky Asian accent throughout the entire movie”. During the same film shoot, my stomach was rumbling during one of the takes, and we started joking around about me spawning a devil baby who is also Asian. One joke led to another, and the idea of “Won Ton Baby!” was “born”.
 
I further fleshed out the idea, and drew heavy inspiration from my love of 80s killer baby movies such as “It’s Alive”, “Basket Case”, and “Child’s Play”. I wanted “Won Ton Baby!” to have the same campy, tongue in cheek vibe as these movies I grew up with and loved so much.  I’m a huge fan of blending horror with black comedy.  I was also tired of the rampant CGI that is prevalent in so many films nowadays, and I wanted to go back to basics – rather than special effects, our sfx team created a devil baby made from silicone that could be puppeteered. We still have the handsome little devil, although he’s slightly the worse for wear after all of his adventures in the movie.

AK: I think humour in horror is absent nowadays. Earlier I read that Marilyn Manson is to star in a retro slasher flick called Splatter Sisters, which was described as “sexploitation-serial-killer-movie circa 1989″. Do you think horror has had its funny bone ripped out? I ask this because Won Ton Baby is hilariously OTT and you have a flair for comedy (ala Goldie Hawn, the dipsy, cute, sexy and smart character) – I watched The Human Centipede recently and it was so unrelentingly bleak, it actually left a nasty taste in my mouth (no pun intended) – do you believe horror needs to be less…nihilistic?
 
SL: I know what you mean! The vast majority of new horror movies today are straight up and serious as hell! Even more serious than Tiger Wood’s obsession with hookers. These kind of movies certainly have their place, and are the backbone of the horror industry. However, for my particular odd tastes and offbeat strangeness, there are just not enough horror films with levity. I’m so grateful to directors like Sam Raimi, who is keeping the horror/comedy torch well lit. I was quite taken by “Drag me To Hell”. I’ve always been a fan of Raimi’s, and any true horror fan knows the Evil Dead series are classics!
 
As an actor and as a writer, I have to say I’m most in my element when I’m writing something that is off colour and amusing. Plus, let me tell you, it’s much more fun to make a horror/comedy than to make a horror film. More jokes and humor, less blood and anguish. Thanks so much for the kind words about my character in “Won Ton Baby!”. Do you know, it took me over a week to kick that accent after filming?
 
You know, I can’t believe the buzz that “Human Centipede” is getting! I heard about it only a few weeks ago from a friend who was quite taken with the err…. unusual…. premise of the film. And just a couple weeks later, you must be the 6th or 7th person that’s mentioned it to me. I have got to watch this. It goes to show you how important word of mouth is, and how quickly buzz can spread, particularly in the viral video/internet obsessed society we live in.

AK: Did the Won Ton crew face many challenges to get the film completed, where you all working to meet a specific deadline – what problems did you find yourself up against, both in pre/post production?

SL: Our biggest challenge was that Baby Won Ton kept sneaking off to smoke weed and flirt with the extras. 
 
Besides that, the time constraints were the biggest issue.  For a few of the locations, mainly the restaurants, we had a very tight period of time in which we could film.  The restaurant was not available until closing each night, so we began setting up around 11pm.  Our production designer Jen Morgart worked tirelessly to convert the restaurant each night from Italian to full fledged Chinese!  We shot thru the night, and needed to be wrapped by mid-morning so that the restaurant could get ready to start serving lunch that day.
 
Once the film was completed, we were working with a firm deadline to get the film completed in time for the Gorezone International Film Festival.  The film festival committee had accepted a rough cut of the film, but we still had to work quickly to get the final cut finished in time.  We had an amazing team, including our editor Ken Yankee, compositor James Todd, and composer Mars who worked long hours to ensure we met the deadline. 

AK: That slimy, lusty little bugger. Special effects guru Ingrid Okola created Won Ton Baby and what a monstrous little fiend he turned out to be – really hope he was only flirting and not eviscerating those extras – did you have a clear idea of how you wanted Baby Won Ton to look?

SL: I really did.  I pictured baby Won Ton very vividly in my head, even before the script was complete.  I knew I wanted him to be very short and squat, almost Sumo wrestler like in appearance and girth.  I knew he would have wild and wooly black hair/fur, and that he should have a definitive Asian resemblance.  And of course speak with a gravelly Chinese accent.  I wanted his teeth and claws to be gnarly and nasty.   Ingrid Okola and Paul Mafuz of Wicked EFX did a phenomenal job creating the baby from silicone and literally bringing the li’l devil to life!

AK: Those teeth are pretty nasty! Like Emily Booth’s “Movie Massacre” you have your own sidebar w/ Gorezone magazine on serial killers. Can you tell us all a wee bit about this?

SL: I actually started the serial killer project on my own dark and twisted initiative, presented it to Gorezone, and they loved the idea! I’ve always been intrigued by serial killers – far from admiration – but simply amazed by the psychology behind what makes them do what they do. Every day people may have fantasies about killing someone, but the thought of getting caught usually stops them from following thru. But for these guys, the urge is so strong, that they readily off people with complete disregard of the personal consequences.

I decided to try something new with my Gorezone “Diary of a Scream Queen” column, and write short stories/editorials about particularly disturbed serial killers, focusing primarily on the less “famous”, less notorious whackos, such as Bob Berdella, Richard Chase, and Issei Sagawa. It’s opened up a whole new angle for me as a writer, and for the readers of Gorezone, and I think this content is entirely different than what you’d find in most horror magazines.

AK: When did the Divine Debbie Rochon come onboard?

SL: That’s an excellent question. We thought of Debbie even before the script was complete! James Morgart wrote the character of Madame Won Ton with Debbie in mind, and we hoped that she would dig the character and the script and would sign on. We got in touch with her, and were thrilled when she accepted the role. I’ve been a Debbie fan for ages, and it was a treat instead of a treatment to work with her! She’s so prepared, and she brought so much life, energy, emotion, and last but not least, comedy, to the character of Madame Won Ton.

AK: You and James Morgart both worked together to put the flesh on the bones of Won Ton Baby and you’ve both collaborated before – have you any plans for a sequel?

SL: Indeed!  

Delightfully twisted visions of “Won Ton Baby! 2″ are already dancing in our heads.  Since Won Ton baby’s baby mama is part Cherokee Indian, we’re going to make baby Won Ton a Native American Indian in the sequel.  He will have a drinking problem, a wigwam, and will own a casino.  But as is customary with all things Won Ton, the white people will be the butt of the majority of jokes.  Hey, we aim for equal opportunity political incorrectness. 

AK: From the beginning I consider Gorezone to be one of the only horror magazines (I’m including genre magazines and excluding online magazines) to consistently champion underground and indie filmmakers/writers/artists. Would I be correct in saying that GZ waves -and will continue to do so – the flag for the underdog while simultaneously shining the torch on mainstream horror? What I mean is GZ puts cult/mainstream on an equal footing.
  
SL: That’s exactly it. The goal of the magazine is to help fans discover underground cult films, just as much as it is meant to help them discover and learn about mainstream Hollywood horror films. I think independent, lesser known horror films can be very exciting, in that they can really push the envelope and take risks that just wouldn’t be allowed in mainstream studio films. Often indie films are driven by passion, rather than the desire to make a buck. They’re grittier, often darker and more experimental. Indies can also step outside of the tried and true formula; you know the “paint by numbers” predictable formula that can be spotted in many mainstream films.
 
Gorezone is moving in a somewhat new direction, in that there is more of a focus now on substance, rather than just gore for the sake of gore. We don’t want to get pigeonholed into being a “blood and guts” only genre magazine. So we are definitely broadening our horizons, focusing on psychological thrillers just as much as slasher films. What’s interesting to me is that you can have a movie like “The Shining” or “Misery”, which in fact has very little onscreen gore, but your imagination runs wild. The things the viewer envisions are often even scarier than if the killings occur on camera.

AK: Won Ton Baby already seems to be generating quite a buzz — do you think horror filmmaking lacks a certain artistic or creative integrity. What I mean, there seems to be a lot of sameyness in commercial horror. Whereas Won Ton Baby, albeit very tongue in cheek – is a horror film where the viewer could see the love of the subject matter come through – it rivals and pretty much beats – or if Baby Won Ton had his way, chokes – all the other Bad Seed baby monsters that have come before (I am really hoping there isn’t a pun there, though I suspect there is — you’ve corrupted me Suzi) -

SL: I’ll grab your pun and run with it!  Won Ton’s Baby’s bad seed will be the impetus for “Won Ton Baby! 2″, as the poor drunk girl he impregnated gives birth to a whole new generation of baby won tons in the sequel….  
 
I agree – I see a trend of very similar themes in indie horror lately.   Some filmmakers like to “paint by numbers” – i.e. scantily clad girl/s get chased by madman wielding ax, knife, etc. and then offed one by one.   It’s a formula alright, but not terribly creative.    With “Won Ton Baby!”, we wanted to of course keep the elements of suspense and horror, but focus on the hilarity and insanity of the baby.   And the relationships between the Won Ton family members were paramount.  James Morgart did a phenomenal job fleshing out the characters in the screenplay.
 
The true test of a movie is whether you care about the characters.  If you’re half way thru, and you don’t give a “dalmation” whether the lead characters live or die, then the movie failed.  It was really important to us to make the characters very robust and even heartfelt, so that people would relate to them, and hopefully root for them.

AK: When did you first fall in love with the horror genre, was there ever a time that you can remember thinking: “this is the dark twisted avenue I’m gonna go down”?

SL: I think it all goes back to Alice Cooper. There was just something about that first time I heard “Steven” from the Welcome to My Nightmare album. My brother played it at full blast, and I remember it echoing and resonating thru the walls, particularly lines like “Steven, it’s time to come home!” and then the baritone “I’m a little boy”. “No, I’m a great big man”. It was just so creepy, and yet so enthralling at the same time. I think during that one month, I must have run back to my brother’s room 6 times asking him to play that album.
 
In terms of actual films, the imprinting (ahem… damage) had to have been done while watching “When a Stranger Calls”, or “Halloween”, or perhaps “Carrie” or “Psycho II”. It’s so hard to pinpoint the first horror film that I watched that really made a hard imprint. I can’t honestly remember, I just remember them always being a part of my family. My brother and father are horror fans, so I literally grew up around that stuff. I remember being about 9 years old, and being incredulous when my friends told me their parents said they can’t watch a movie. I was like “Whaatttt?? Why can’t you watch “Nightmare on Elm Street” with me? Or even worse, the friends that would say, ‘Suzi, I’m scared to watch those movies”! I honestly didn’t get it, and felt bad that they were missing out so dearly. And therefore, they had to pay!! Mwahhhh!!!!
 
My cousin (decidedly a non-horror fan) can tell you stories about how I terrorized her (lovingly, of course) by scaring the living hell out of her at sleepovers. I would trigger some kind of creepy horror soundtrack/song that I had recorded, and then magically it would start playing and freak her out. Or I would cut all the lights and toss stuff around, telling her it was the ghosts. Or even better, I would dress up as a ghost, and scare the living daylights out of her! (Editor’s note: HR staff found this very amusing…)

AK: Could you give me three titles from film, literature and television which you loved and why?

SL: TV: “Twilight Zone”. Brilliant sci fi/horror tales, with an impactful moral message at the end of every episode. I love the creativity and originality of the series. Riveting, and fascinating. And I love the fact that an episode could be completely creepy and/or terrifying without showing a drop of blood onscreen.

Film: “The Shining”. An example of an all around perfect horror film. You have a picturesque and oh so creepy old mansion, feelings of complete exclusion and isolation from society (and reality), and of course, the one and only Jack Nicholson, who was simply brilliant in the role, as he becomes slowly unwound and homicidal. Not to mention the ground breaking cinematography and art direction of the master Stanley Kubrick.

Literature: “Solitaire”, by Kelley Eskridge. It’s a sci-fi styled fictional account of a young woman in a post modern time who was convicted of a crime she didn’t commit, and was setenced to many decades of solitary confinement. However, in this futuristic world, the justice system has been using a technique in which prisoners are put into a catatonic style “sleep” in which hours seem like days, even years. So an 80 year sentence feels to the prisoner like 80 years, but can be completed in a year or 2. It was a really riveting account of this young girl’s struggles and the way she dealt with the insanity of being isolated for such a long period of time. The book also details her return to society, and how many demons she had to deal with as a result of her solitary imprisonment time.

AK: What are you thoughts on horror on the small-screen, you mentioned The Twilight Zone above – I’m excited about The Walking Dead and really like True Blood and Being Human.

SL: I think horror on the small screen can have tremendous potential, however there really haven’t been too many lasting series dedicated to it as of yet. Of course there are a million and one forensics/crime dramas out there like CSI and Criminal Minds, which are fantastic in their own right, however they are more psychological thriller/forensics based than actual horror.

I have also heard great things about the TV series “Dexter”, although I have yet to check it out. I recently discovered the “Chiller Channel” here in the US, and am loving the content! Speaking of good TV series, they recently played an “American Gothic” marathon on Chiller. What an intriguing show, with outstanding characters. I love that great comedic character actor, Gary Cole, and young Lucas Black (“Swingblade”) is also outstanding in the series.

AK: Thank you Suzi for taking the time to talk to me…

SL: Thanks so much for doing this interview with me Alan! It has been a lot of fun. I loved all your questions!

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