Local DIY filmmaker talks about new movie ‘Assassinaut’ and the process of movie making

When Drew Bolduc started making movies, he did it “out of spite.”

When Drew Bolduc started making movies, he did it “out of spite.”

“A lot of what inspired me originally was bad movies,” he states without irony, over coffee and bagels at a diner in downtown Richmond.

After dropping out of art school, Bolduc began making movies that his professors would have thought were “awful,” and showed them at the local film screening Project Resolution. There he could “bring anything and show it…to see what worked and what didn’t.”

Eventually, after attending a lot of Project Resolution screenings “seeing lots of movies made by young men…expressing sexual frustration in a non-intelligible way,” he came up with the idea for his first feature film: The Taint.

Nearly a decade later, the local DIY filmmaker discusses comedy and filmmaking in anticipation of his newest film, Assassinaut, now in post-production.

“The Taint was a sledgehammer movie, no subtlety,” says Bolduc.

According to him, his newest film may be a bit more serious: “We were going for a darker wave of 80’s kids movies… shooting for that tone.” He did caution that while the movie stars mostly children actors, it “probably is not a kid’s movie.”

Bolduc has made his career up to this point on low-budget, “so bad they’re good,” gross out comedies. His filmography beyond Assassinaut, and the aforementioned “The Taint” includes the feature “Science Team” and a special effects credit on the Troma produced Return to Nuke ‘Em High.

His films, while admittedly dealing with many of the same themes that his peers in Project Resolution’s films did—sexual frustration and violence—also have a very self aware tone that points out the flaws in his characters.

“I like to argue points of view that aren’t mine…in [“The Taint”] I wanted to make a misogynistic movie…so misogynistic that nobody will do it again,” says Bolduc.

There is a line that he will not cross for irony’s sake though. When it comes to exploitation, what Bolduc defines as “shock for shock’s sake, gore for gore’s sake,” to him, it’s bad film making.

While some have lumped his work into this subgenre of horror, Bolduc takes objection to this.

“[The Taint] is a much smarter movie than it should be… though it’s stupid.”

Another characteristic that runs through Bolduc’s movies is absurdity—“pushing a joke so far it’s not funny anymore. But it is funny.”

In Science Team when the main character Chip finds his mother’s decapitated corpse, there’s nothing humorous about the brutality of the image. Chip’s reaction; however, in a cut-away from the corpse, is.

In a scene that lasts at least three to four minutes in an 82 minute film, Chip goes from pleading with the corpse to wake up, to growing angry with it for not responding, to screaming and shaking the body in rage. You could argue the character is grief stricken, but this is only another in a long line of absurdly violent reactions to situations when the viewer would otherwise sympathize with Chip.

Bolduc started off interested in comedy. He’s not as interested in writing that way anymore, but he does still “like the whole ‘South Park’ thing where…it goes all the way with a joke.”

“In Assassinaut… we were filming dramatic scenes where horrible things are happening to characters…but I don’t know if people watching will find it funny…But for me, I find there’s humor on a very dark level.”

Regardless of whether the upcoming movie turns out to be darkly comedic, or just dark, Bolduc says there’s much to look forward to. With a bigger budget than any of his previous movies, “a professional crew” for the first time, and shooting locations all over the state—from Mountain Lake in Giles County, to the interior of a battleship in Norfolk— Assassinaut seems to be the locally funded and produced equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster.

“I’m stupid in that I come up with huge, complicated ideas,” says Bolduc. He continues, “The problem with making movies DIY…for no money, is you can’t pay anyone…after you get to a certain level, its not good to continue down that path.”

And so Bolduc and his film company Ultra Fuchsia, run with co-producer Michele Lombardi, has moved on.

With the film having just wrapped shooting, it may be a couple of months before a trailer for Assassinaut is available, and until the end of the year for a cut of the movie to be complete. While we wait for Bolduc to edit his newest film, there will be a double feature of his other two full-length films showing at Gallery 5 on Wednesday, September 23. Doors open at 7 p.m. and there’s $5 cover. Check it out!

You can get a look behind the scenes of the creation of Assassinaut through their blog here – it’s pretty neat stuff for new filmmakers looking to learn tips and tricks