When we visited Charlottesville’s LOOK3 Festival earlier this year, we saw a lot of great art–but one exhibition we were really blown away by was Slumber Party Massacre. A collaboration between Charlottesville artists Rich Tarbell and Brian Wimer, this was a striking series of photographs in which the two artists restaged the 1982 horror film of the same name. The film was written by Rita Mae Brown, who is perhaps best known today for a series of cozy mysteries set in the Charlottesville area and featuring talking cats and dogs, but originally gained fame by writing Rubyfrut Jungle, one of the first literary novels to deal openly with lesbian issues. Tarbell and Wimer integrate the feminist subtext of Brown’s original screenplay into their photographic recreation of the narrative, as well as adding a few twists of their own. During LOOK3, Tarbell was also showing several different projects of his related to the classic era of rock n’ roll, predating the internet and quick digital file sharing. From Cheap Trick albums to Creem Magazine, he focused on the great lost elements that existed in that era’s media, which have been de-emphasized or outright eliminated today.
We were interested in learning more about the work of these artists, particularly Slumber Party Massacre, so we caught up with them recently over lunch to discuss Slumber Party Massacre, Charlottesville indie radio, making a zombie film in one weekend, and quite a bit more. We definitely encourage you to research the further work of Tarbell and Wimer, both separately and in collaboration. The two recently collaborated with performance artist Opal Lechmanski on a short film called “The Pumpkin And The Sword”–see that film here. And check out the full set of Slumber Party Massacre photos on our facebook page by clicking here.
Rich, I bumped into you at the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville, and I really liked the Slumber Party Massacre photos that I saw. Is that a project you both worked on together?
Rich Tarbell: Yes. I was actually laid up all of last year with cancer and didn’t do anything physically for months and months. Once I got over that, I was trying to figure out what I could do to come back and do something creative. Our university radio station [WTJU] had a rock programming fundraiser show that Rob Sheffield did [in the early 90s]. Rob’s now with Rolling Stone as the pop culture editor. Rob did this annual show called “The Slumber Party Massacre,” and it was an amazing show, a big annual event. It always stuck in my mind, and I had cassette tapes [of the old shows] on my desk that I kept looking at and kept seeing that title. I was thinking “I’ve got to run with that.”
That was kind of the impetus. All I needed was the title. I was thinking “All right, how can I do photograph with this?” Then I started thinking [about] Gregory Crewdson–I could do something like that, [but] I was like “you can’t just do one–you can do a series.” Then I took it to Brian, because Brian has all this filmmaking experience; it’s amazing, he’s very cinematic. So we started hashing it out together as we worked backwards from the title. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do, and we sat there and did the little back-and-forth of making our own storyline. I mean, there is a movie called The Slumber Party Massacre, there’s a screenplay called The Slumber Party Massacre, but we didn’t work exactly off of that. We interpreted it. We looked at it, we watched it, but we wanted to make our own storyline. Using those epic shots that everybody knows and can identify with, how do we recreate those? Put some humor into it, put some twists into it, and basically make a movie with… our goal was 20 photographs, I think we ended up using 21.
Brian what did you think of the project?
Brian Wimer: I kind of thought ‘What the fuck?” at first. Rich had just gone through this thing that was, you know, life threatening, and the first thing he wants to do is to do a bunch of images of women being stabbed. I’m just like, “Okay, guess you had some sorts of life-changing moments there that we really needed to do this.” [laughs]
Rich: It’s either that or it’s all the painkillers and other drugs they had me hopped up on so I didn’t feel anything for six months.
Brian: I think a lot of filmmaking is like the Make-a-Wish Foundation; whatever you want to imagine, you can do. Whether photographers are involved or actors or actresses, especially in horror for some reason, you can do anything. I did a zombie movie a little while ago. I cast a dude in it who was in a wheelchair, and he had never been cast in anything, but I cast him for a fairly primary role. At a certain point, after a zombie had done a striptease for him, he looked at me and said, “This is the best night of my entire life.” It’s wish fulfillment for me–it’s wish fulfillment for everyone. That’s what cinema is. You’re creating fictions and making them real. And they can be twisted and messed up fictions that are on the darker sides of our psyches, or they could be on the happier sides. I tend to toe the line on both of them.
I’m kind of wrestling with whether I’m an artist or a hack filmmaker, and I probably end up somewhere in between. Because within horror, you have a lot of different audiences than with a coming of age drama. You have a more forgiving audience, you have an almost humble audience. And it’s kind of funny how that translated into photography, because photography can be pretty snooty. But this was just like, “Let’s take something very pop culture, and lowest-tier, and elevate it.” Because to a certain extent, these are things that somehow implanted in my psyche from watching this stuff when I was a kid, and makes me who I am today–because I watched so much of it. It’s enshrining these moments–the person hanging upside down and they swing down, those things that scared you that you still wake up with now, as well as the sexuality–and digging deeper into this.
When I got involved, I didn’t know who wrote this, and to find out that it was written by this person [Rita Mae Brown] who had written this incredible book called Rubyfruit Jungle, and was part of feminism, part of her own lesbian journey, it was just like “Whoa, wait a minute.” I found out this lesbian wrote this film, Slumber Party Massacre, which is essentially an exploitation film. What is that about? So it gives deeper relevance to these narratives in our life. We say, “OK, is that just something I watched at midnight, or did that speak to my inner soul?” And maybe that’s good that you watched it at midnight, because it slips in a little more. You watched it when you were half-asleep, and it startled you awake, or you started having dreams right afterward.
Rich: In the gallery, you can get that connection, too. Because [Brian] had that connection; as we talked through the idea, you could see the lights going off in his head. What it meant, or what it could mean. And as I watched people through the weeks it was in the festival and on display, you could see the people it connected with. And there were all types of people who’d come out and say, “Now that was fun.” That’s all we were trying to do, just connect with people and involve people–and it did. It resonated with a lot of people, like “that was really enjoyable,” as opposed to… I think a lot of times photography is a little stiff. I think we accomplished what we set out to do because enough people went through and gave us the feedback where you could see their eyes just light up. There was a connection, it might have been to their 14-year old self or their 16-year old self or their college days, but it made sense to them and it took them back. In terms of the narrative, it took them back to the time they enjoyed.
Brian: But hopefully it has a deeper resonance than just enjoyment, because I think there’s something about going into a gallery show that you don’t have to put on your big hat and say “OK, what is the metaphysical meaning of this, and what metaphor is going on here, and what’s the allegory, and let’s see how many weird words I can use that I picked up in college somewhere.” But there is a certain validation of a moment, and I think Jeff Koons did this to some extent, and I don’t think we were hacking off him, but I think he was tapping into something that other people were tapping into before him–but just this notion that you can enshrine this piece of your childhood or your adolescence, and it’s special. It’s more than just a grin, because it resonates with all sorts of choices that you make. So I think people can come out of it, and go, “Wow, that was kind of fun,” but you might think about it a day later and go “That was kind of funny, they twisted this around…” We did kind of play with the story a little bit, and say, “OK, there’s a little mystery there, let’s see if we can hide some glances here, little nuances that followed through, and a twist at the end, or a revelation.” All those things are metaphorical, they’re all dream stuff.
Rich, it seems like you tap into pop culture a lot, re-imagining album covers, rock n’ roll visuals, stuff like that. Has that been a constant, or is that something you just got into?
Rich: No. It’s as I got older, just looking around and now there’s a whole generation below me. There are some people that I’m friends with that are twenty-somethings. I’ve already been through what they’re going through now. So I think about… how did I get to this point in my 40s, where I can see 50 off in the distance? It’s like, all right, you spent your whole life doing these rock n’ roll things and chasing these rock n’ roll dreams, how did we get here? I don’t want to be grumpy old guy, and I don’t want to be all nostalgic, and be like “It was better back then.” I’m trying to bring it forward.
I started it as a study of how we view our media now. I do get kind of frustrated with how in the music business, and how we share information, everything’s a click and a download. There is no community to it. In terms of when I was enjoying music that meant so much to me when I was growing up, we got that the record cover and you sat there and you got all of your information from the record cover itself. You read all the musician’s names and tried to figure out where they’re from. It just seemed like a bigger deal. You didn’t have internet, the magazines were bi-weekly or monthly–you had to wait for stuff. You had to digest what was in front of you, and what you were sharing with your friend next to you or in your basement bedroom, playing the stereo. That’s all you had, you didn’t have any other distractions. The album cover project was a part of that. I had taken it to a level where I kind of wanted to do something else, and I was working with Brian. That’s where the music and the movie idea kind of meshed. We ran with the Slumber Party Massacre idea in the same vein, for me, as tapping into those old days. And like Brian was explaining, we tried to take it a little further, and still make it artsy–they aren’t just silly photographs, we really tried to put some effort into making them look beautiful.
Brian: Album covers are kind of a lost art, because nobody gets an album anymore. You get a download, or a DVD cover but you throw it away, and eventually you end up with [just] a disc. [Back then, album covers] were precious. In the same way, taking the stills from the film–because even the film, you don’t go to a movie theatre anymore, you get it on Netflix or iTunes and you can pause it or whatever. But to take those images, blow them up and put them on metal, make them where you can almost go up and touch them, even just in that freeze frame–you can savor that moment, and it’s there and it’s tangible. And that’s very different for me, because I’ve always worked in digital, and this was a physical thing, you can hold it.
In working together, what do you guys think you bring to the table that compliments each other?
Brian: We don’t overthink things, and I think that that works well with us. I’m often in the belief that the great is the enemy of the good, and we’re able to produce things because we don’t baby them too much. We respect photographers who take six months to set up and light everything perfectly to get that immediate shot. But to a certain extent, every artist works within the resources that they have, and if you can do something in a weekend–hell, I shot a freaking zombie movie in a weekend once, 48 hours, a feature film, just by getting platform crews together and shooting it all at the same time. It wasn’t the greatest movie in the world [laughs] but it got done. And I think the biggest obstacle to a lot of artists and some producers is just completing something. That was the nice thing about this project too, was that it had a lot shorter lead time. You’re shooting this all in a sequence, and you have to get sets up and cast people, and all that kind of thing, but you don’t have to edit it, not like you do a feature film. For me, it was a lot quicker–you just dance it through. We had music playing, and were just eating popcorn and shooting away. I think that’s the best kind of [production]–low stress. You just go into it, keep everybody happy and playful, and it comes out in the pictures too.
Rich: I kind of had the general idea on this one, and developed it to a level. When we do stuff, if I bring something to him, he takes it to another level. [We’re] very quick to get on the same page, but then he’s like, “Why don’t you take it in this direction?” And it just pushes the envelope a little further than I may have done by myself. Invariably, he’s right–always taking it one step further and doing something a little more extreme that makes it all come together, and makes it a lot stronger than it would have been otherwise.
What do you have coming up down the road that you’re excited about?
Rich: The rock n’ roll thing–there’s two things that were going on there. It goes back to evaluating your narrative fallacy or what have you, as to how you got here. What is your memory of something? Is it as romantic as you thought it was? The one picture, I called it “Surrender” after that Cheap Trick song. “Surrender” was one of my favorites, and there’s a little line in there about “mommy’s alright, daddy’s alright,” where the kids discover that when they’re out, mom and dad are playing their KISS records. It just kind of goes back to that era. I made the collection of album covers to stick in a single still life photograph that should tell a story in itself. Like The Slumber Party Massacre was 20 [photos]–this was one. I made 25 to put into that stage, and they’re all in there and they all tell a story. But that was such a success and well received because I was trying to take it a step further.
I was looking back again in the media of that era, and there was a Creem magazine and a Circus Magazine–and of course Rolling Stone, but I was never really a Rolling Stone guy, I was a Creem guy. Kind of the Iggy Pop era, Iggy and the Stooges. [Creem] was a Detroit magazine so it had a lot of Detroit influences. They had amazing writers like Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau and all those people, and there was still an edge to their magazine. There were some iconic parts to their magazine that every month I would look forward to, so I started replicating those. But instead of my friends being the models, I went to real rock bands and said “here’s what I’m doing.” The response was just so overwhelming; they were just so overjoyed, like they had never been so excited about a photoshoot. So I grew from just asking the first person to who I got photographs with to, like, The Hold Steady, J. Roddy Walston & The Business, Frank Black from The Pixies, over a dozen bands. So I’m trying to bring those iconic things together but I haven’t figured out quite the way to wrap it all up.
It seems like you’re on a journey to recreate those things from the past to try to understand them. How much of an impact did you being sick last year have on your thinking? It’s gotta be life-changing.
Rich: It was, to some degree. It just started the questions again, like “How did you get here and why? Why did you follow that track?” Why do I enjoy music so much? Why did I take my media from that era? Why did this friend of mine go and be a doctor, and why did this friend of mine go be a lawyer, and this friend is a stockbroker–and they’re all millionaires–but I’m still this poor starving artist that still enjoys music, and will still go to any decent rock show that comes through? Why is that, and how did I get to this? I don’t know if it’s a narrative fallacy, looking back, or what I’m trying to figure out, but that’s kind of the direction–I just find it interesting to challenge myself.
What projects are you working on Brian?
Brian: There is the “Pyrometheus” thing that I did with Christian Breeden that we’re finishing up a soundtrack on. That’s sort of a weird art-house rethinking of the myth of Prometheus with a bunch of fire dancers and crazy shit, and some songs, and it’s all metaphysical and weird. It’s actually becoming a series now. I’ve got two daughters and every year we go to the Richmond Ballet’s Nutcracker. By the sixth viewing, I was like “OK…” and my mind started wandering. I started thinking on this weird traditional holiday play, and how twisted it really is. I mean, it’s this weird metaphor for sexual coming of age and fetishism, and all sorts of magic, and who knows what. I started weaving this story and I ended up with this art-house version of The Nutcracker that we shot last December and I’m editing now. It’s about enlightenment and the truth behind Christmas. It keeps on developing.
It’s sort of like that rabbit hole–whenever you investigate a project and you keep on peeling away the possibilities, you find the relevance behind things that you didn’t even know were there. Like, working on Slumber Party Massacre, realizing how critical the source material was. And the more I delve into The Nutcracker, the weirder it becomes. So we’re still shooting a couple of pickup pieces for that, but I’m working with a bunch of artists and performance artists. I like to work collaboratively, so they’re bringing half of the party. When working with somebody like Christian Breeden, he brings more than half the party. With Christian’s film, we shot part of it at his place, and ended up with sort of a cinematographer’s dream. I’d written in the script, “And then there’s a big bonfire, and 100 people begin this massive orgy.” And somehow, that actually took place. [laughs] I don’t know, I think it’s the magic of Biscuit Run or something, but it was like, “Everybody take off your clothes”–and they did. That kind of happened with Nutcracker too. It always ends up a little weird and metaphysical and sexual, and that’s kind of a fun place to be.
Rich: I agree. [laughs]
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