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(birds chirping)

(woman breathing heavily)

- [Woman] You're fucking insane!

Let me go, no! (shouts)

(bag rustling)
(woman hyperventilating)

- Cut, that's good.

- I don't know how to describe it

because it's hard to describe.

I didn't know what I was watching.

Like...

I just...

I just didn't understand what it was.

(gun clattering)

- (gasps) No, no!

No!

- If I had to summarize what
a W.A.V.E. movie is about,

I would really have to say

you have to see it to
appreciate it, to believe it.

(woman coughing)
(feet scuffing)

(woman gagging)

- I mean, I'd seen a lot
of shot on video stuff,

but this stuff seemed even lower budget

than the stuff that I was used to.

It seemed very homemade, I
guess, is the best way to put it.

(woman choking)
(feet scuffing)

- W.A.V.E. productions are one of a kind.

And I don't think anyone

makes a movie like Gary from W.A.V.E.

- I popped it in and
it was like, you know,

a woman being dragged through a hallway.

And it's just very strange stuff.

(distant tapping)

- W.A.V.E. movies are
like alien pornography.

Picture an alien coming to earth

and trying to assimilate entertainment,

but not really knowing
how human beings interact.

- Everything goes on not
two beats, two long, three,

like five minutes long, ten
minutes, very long takes.

- Who dies for 60 minutes, seriously?

- Some people get addicted to this stuff.

-And every time you see it,

it seems so forbidden and mysterious.

Like there's a photo of Gary
Whitson with his camcorder,

and there's a woman chained
to a, I don't know, a plank

with a mummy hovering over her.

And that just makes your mind go crazy

because you want to see
that no matter what it is.

-And...

(camera beeping)
Action.

(woman groaning)
(feet thudding)

- Mind bending, no budget, low budget,

backyard shot on video insanity.

- I've never seen anything else like

W.A.V.E. productions movies,

and I've seen a lot of fucking movies.

(stylus clicking)

(uptempo electronic music)

- So, shot on video, no
budget, direct to VHS stuff

started...

I mean, it started when, like '83?

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it started with
Sledgehammer and Boarding House

and Black Devil Doll from Hell.

And then Blood Cult,

and all the United stuff came after that.

- I guess it was started
just out of frustration,

where people said, "I
need to get my idea out.

"I can't find somebody to fund this.

"It doesn't need to be on
35 millimeter film anymore.

"Or any millimeters of film anymore

"'cause now we have video cameras.

"And if porn can use this
technology to tell its stories

"then so can we, as horror filmmakers."

- There were a few movies
that were in every video store

like The Ripper and Video Violence.

And a handful of titles like that.

555, I remember renting as a kid.

And I remember thinking,

"Why would anybody
really watch these movies

"when you could watch a real
movie shot on 16 or 35?"

And that was sorta my feeling
about it when, you know.

Why watch Chick Boxer when you could

watch a movie that's
actually shot on film?

- Even from the first time
I saw this movie Blood Cult,

which was made in Tulsa, Oklahoma

and did exceptionally
well in the video stores.

That was like right
ahead of Dead Next Door.

I always thought that video
sounds like a great idea,

but it maybe is not the
best way to make a movie

'cause it's not very cinematic.

It winds up looking
more like a soap opera.

- For the first, I guess,
several years I was at Fangoria,

it was sometimes a
challenge to fill an issue

'cause there was not a
lot of horror coming out,

either from the mainstream
or really noteworthy stuff

on the independent side.

And I think that's kind
of what encouraged a lot

of individuals to kind of jump in.

And also the video market was booming.

You could sell tons of
tapes of any horror title.

And I think those two
factors combined led a lot

of independents to kind of
jump in and try their luck,

and shoot these movies on video,

and try to go out and
compete in the marketplace.

You got a lot of very inventive stuff,

and also a lot of really bad stuff.

- There were sort of like random

shot on video movies prior to that.

But it was not really viewed as a thing

that was gonna happen
or explode or whatever

until the early '90s.

I think a lot of that had
to do with distributors

like Phoenix Entertainment.

They were marketing
things like Splatter Farm

and things like this that
were actually legitimately

getting into video
stores around the country

to where people were starting to see this.

And, at the time, I
think it was a bizarre...

It was an adjustment for the audience

because most people would
rent this stuff and,

on the outside, it looked just
like any Hollywood release.

The art, it had good artwork,
catchy title, good synopsis.

Whatever it is that got you
interested in the movie.

People had no idea what
they were taking home.

Then you would take it home
and pop it in and realize,

"Oh my gosh, this is shot on a camcorder.

"This looks like my Uncle
Joe's home videos or whatever."

I think at that point then it sort of...

That separated the men from the boys.

- When people saw stuff shot on video,

at first they thought, "oh, this is crap."

You know, it was shot on video.

But later on, obviously,
we all embraced it.

- Yeah, it's actually one
of the most exciting times

in history for genre filmmaking

because it's true
creativity just happening.

There were no rules whatsoever,

and they could compete with whatever else

was at the video store.

And the only goal was to get
the movies at the video store,

and to have their friends watch them.

So, it's so pure.

-And you think that, from
a business perspective,

that this wouldn't have
really carried on very long.

Because people would rent
a movie like Sledgehammer

because they thought,

"Oh, this is gonna be a horror film."

And then you think that the
moviegoer, movie renter,

would be shocked at the low
production value and say,

"I'm not doing that again."

But shot on video really
just kind of rampaged

for like a decade and a half.

So, if it started in '83-ish,

I mean, it was still
totally strong all the way

through the late '90s.
- Yeah.

- Of people just shooting
stuff on camcorders.

And that was somehow a
healthy and continuing model

for direct-to-video filmmaking.

And W.A.V.E. came out of that.

Well, and some other weird
fringe need in the market.

- Kind of a mystery actually to all of us.

- What's your advice
for the person who wants

to get into video production?

- I think they need to
basically get a camera,

and just basically just start
shooting and have fun with it.

- Well, I really liked horror movies.

We went to the drive-ins.

The Laurel Theater in
Bridgeton had horror movies.

Saturday nights, we'd have three
horror movies back-to-back.

So, that's what really got me started.

And then once the video cameras came out

and they were cheaper,
that's when I decided,

"okay, it's got the sound,
it's got the video."

When we first started with W.A.V.E.,

it just was basically going to be a hobby.

It was just for the fun of it.

You got people together
that had a common interest.

- So, the W.A.V.E. acronym actually stands

for Whitson's Amateur Video Entertainers.

As Gary got more successful,

he changed it to Whitson's
Audio Video Entertainment.

Some of the harsher critics in the past

thought it should stand for
We Aren't Very Entertaining.

- We had local weekly newspapers.

Anybody who was interested
in horror movies

call this number, you know, so.

We had, I think it was a total

of five or six people show up.

- We knew that we were all into action,

and we were into horror films.

So, I think that's kind
of what drew us together.

It wasn't just a love of
film, but a love of the genre.

We liked things that were exciting.

Chick flicks out.

-An there was a ad
about 10 words, it said,

"filmmaker looking for actors
and special effects people."

So, I was like, Holy smokes.

Who would be doing something
like that down here?

- Hi, welcome to Damsel in Distress.

I'm Clancy McCauley, and I play
three different young ladies

who just can't seem to
stay out of trouble.

- Clancy, of course, was the first.

She was willing to do almost anything.

- Was it exciting?

I would say about five minutes excitement

for every five hours of boredom. (laughs)

- She really got into her parts.

I mean, she was one of
the more dedicated ones.

She was one to, first off,
take some of the risks

so the other girls would do stuff.

She was the one diving into ponds and,

who knows, there are snakes,
alligators, whatever in there.

Really getting messed up with some

of these quicksand scenes.

So, she kind of set the mold
for the first W.A.V.E. actress.

- Was it always fun to be the
woman that was in distress,

but then being able to turn that around

so that we could defeat the bad guy.

So, I mean.

Because I hated the weak female.

That's just a typology I always hated.

It's like, "why did the
women have to be weak?"

It was nice being able to
escape from the slasher

and turn the tables on 'em

and become the victor
instead of the victim.

(water splashing)

I just remembered something.

I don't do dishes.

- [Aven], Here Luke let
me cut you a chunk of this.

(flesh crunching)

Here you go, bud.

Nice big hunk for ya.

How's that, good?

(Luke grunts)

- I grew up, I was always
interested in makeup.

Lon Chaney was a big influence back then.

A lot of stuff he did when
he was a makeup artist,

there was no direction.

There was no Tom Savinis
around and there's no

Famous Monsters of Filmland or anything.

He started it.

- I was always ended up in blood and guts.

And there was times that I was
getting my guts ripped out.

Aven was there to put the nasty,

real cows' livers soaked in
fake blood would end up on me.

I always knew if Aven was
there, it was gonna be messy.

- I would go in, I'd go,

"what's my makeup budget
for this movie, Gary?

He'd go, "$75."

And I'd go, "well, that's
not gonna work here."

"Okay, $100."

And we'd use toilet paper, latex and this,

everything like the least
expensive way to do it,

but yet they would turn out
on film looking really good.

- Good afternoon,

I'm Philip Barnes with the News At Noon.

Our top story today is
the continuing search

for the killer known as
the Valley Strangler.

At this point, police still have no clues

as to the identity of this murderer,

and they're requesting that
anyone with information,

no matter how insignificant it may appear,

to come forward and alert the authorities.

- Well, Sisters was, ironically...

There's a storyline that starts,

that I had used for the
Fanny Starr character,

that dealt with daylight saving time

and sisters getting killed and so forth.

And we used that one where one sister

plans the murder of another sister.

Now, since we only had
Clancy, it had to be twins.

So, what happened was, the idea is

that she plans the murder to
be on daylight saving time.

But, of course, the killer
doesn't adjust his clocks.

So, he ends up killing the wrong sister,

the one who planned it rather
than the, quote, "good sister"

because then you don't know.

Well, really, was it the
bad sister that got killed?

Or was it really the good sister dressed,

the bad sister dressed as the good sister.

It got very kind of convoluted.

- I was gonna call you later

and ask you to be my maid of honor.

- The equipment we had,

we couldn't put Clancy in
the same scene with herself,

so they had to be on the
phone a lot. (laughs)

So, we ended up doing
phone calls between 'em.

So, that made that easier.

And then...

Yeah, it just seemed like that's how

you could progress the plot.

When you needed a phone
call, you had to do this.

There had to be reasons why

you had to go here to do that.

So, to be honest, I don't remember

that there were that many, but, I guess,

yeah, I guess there were. (laughs)

(quirky electronic music)

Now, of course, the day we're shooting,

on daylight saving time, just because

it just happens to turn out that way.

- So, I showed up like an hour early,

and I'm there and no one's there.

And I'm like, "what's going on?"

- He never did anything with his clocks.

So, course he's there an hour early.

And yet the whole story
for the last two months

has been this whole thing about, okay,

we're dealing with
daylight saving times here.

- So, it actually works.

So, I could see somebody
actually making a mistake

and missing somebody by
daylight savings time.

(suspenseful electronic music)

- Hadley's Hellhole was a nightmare

that I had three nights straight.

I kept dreaming of the same thing

of being trapped in the
mine, and we couldn't go up

to get out because there was a cave-in.

So the only way we had to go

was deeper and deeper and deeper.

And, at the end, there's this room,

then there's a door at
the end of the room.

And when you open the door,
it was the door to hell.

I had that nightmare
three nights straight.

So, I was like, that
would make a good movie.

So, I wrote up the script
and I gave it to Gary,

and he said, "yeah, I
think we can do this."

- We turned Gary's
basement into a mine shaft.

We only had 40 by 40 square feet.

And we had to crawl
200 miles to this mine.

So, we shot from like

and we'd move pieces of a mine around.

The mine was basically
wood-frame with chicken wire

with tinfoil over it, spray
painted, but it worked.

Then there was a scene where
the mine starts caving in,

and water starts pouring in.

And we're in Gary's
basement with a water hose.

- [Gary] So, you could
run a hose from the filter

to the top of the deck.

So, we have the water pouring through.

So, the water's pouring
down on both Clancy and I.

(leaves crunching)

So, how do you like being a star?

- It's fun.

Where'd you say that
this was gonna be seen?

- We would edit in camera
for most of the early movies.

So, we wouldn't have any extra footage.

So, we would say "action,"

and then I would start the camera.

So, we would just have that sequence.

And I remember when they
saw some of the early stuff,

it was like, "where's the other stuff

"that maybe we could fit in there"

"if we want to do something with it?"

It's not there.

I guess, specially back
then, we never really thought

that people would be seeing
these things 30 years later.

If I had known then what I know now,

then maybe we would've
shot scenes differently.

We would've shot 'em maybe
twice or different angles.

But at the time it was just let's get it,

move on to the next.

-And I would have friends,

at that time, friends would come over

and I would show 'em the movies.

And they'd go, "These aren't great."

I go, "You know what, we're
getting 'em out there.

"We're making a movie."

And a lot of the guys I had
were artists and semi-filmmakers

and people waiting to make that big film.

I go, "We're making films every month,

"so we're getting 'em out there."

So, that was a big thing, getting it done.

- Once again, we dwell
in the realm of horror.

And here tonight with me

is Terri Lewandowski
and Christine Cavalier,

who are scream queens

from New Jersey's W.A.V.E. Productions.

Good evening.
- Good evening.

- Okay, Terri and Christie, obviously,

were really mother and daughter.

They came...

Their first audition was
actually at the house.

- They were a pair.

They were, can I be brutally honest?

- Please.
- Terri had work all the time.

Face peel, lip injections, eye bleaching,

everything going on.

And she would show up at a shoot,

if they showed up on
time, which was never,

and her face would be beet red.

And we'd go, "What,
did you get sunburned?"

She'd go, "No, I just had a
chemical peel last night."

I'm like, "why the fuck
you do a chemical peel

"when you know you're
gonna be shooting today?"

That doesn't make...

And they had fake everything,
very high maintenance.

(eerie electronic music)

- I think my wife's cheating on me.

- Dead North, that was
probably the closest thing

that we did to a mainstream movie.

And that was the one
actually got on television.

It was very well shot.

And I think it would hold
it's own with any slasher.

But better than some, worse than others.

(suspenseful music)

(muffled groaning)

- Please don't hurt me!

(woman groans)

Oh no!

(ax whacking)
(woman screams)

(woman groans)
(woman whimpers)

- It was a lot of
screaming and... (laughs)

A lot of times Gary would be like,

"okay, that scream was
not realistic enough."

And I'm like, "what do you mean

"that scream wasn't realistic enough?

"I'm screaming at the top of."

He's like, "No, you're not scared,

"and they know you're not scared

"so you need to scream like
you're really, really scared."

- Yeah, what happened with Dead North

was Dave had worked as an
intern or assistant, something,

at a cable station in Delaware.

So, they wanted to do some interviews

with local video people.

You know, the video makers.

In fact, it was called Video Makers.

And he wanted to show Dead
North on the cable station.

And I did actually at one
point hear from somebody

who actually did see it
on the cable station.

God, that movie stunk!

- We should have watched what I

wanted to watch to start with.

- I was really interested
in doing a lot of

what they call fanzines.

I actually did a black and white comic

back in the early '70s.

I could advertise, and say,

I could do comic strips, or
I could do single art pieces.

And that sold.

So, I figured if something
like that would sell,

why wouldn't making a
movie for somebody sell?

- Welcome to In Dire Straits Productions,

where we produce the
tapes you want to see.

From comedy to horror to action adventure.

We do it all.

All from your scripts or movie ideas.

Here are some of the props

that we've used in our previous movies.

- Since a picture is worth 1000 words,

why don't you just sit
back and watch these clips

from custom films we
have made in the past.

- He didn't just want to
be an amateur filmmaker

who made two or three
films and then nothing.

He wanted it to be a success.

So, he was looking for ways
to expand the repertoire.

And he was looking for ways
to expand the film base.

So, he came up with the
idea of let's see if

there are people who want specific films

made specific ways,

and then we'll do what we
can to accommodate them.

It was also a way of getting other people

to pay for the films to be made,

so that it wasn't coming
out of his pocket.

- You would have guys that would

send a five-paragraph synopsis and say,

"This is kind of like
what I'm looking for."

And you would guys have guys
send a 90-page script and say,

"this is my movie, I want
you to do it just like this."

- Think about like cam
shows nowadays, right?

So, like you ask these models or whatever

to do whatever you want, right?

It's kind of like this was before that.

You could see you have this fantasy.

You have this whatever,
this thing you want to see,

and then you request it.

And then it comes to your
house X amount of time later,

you know what I mean?

So, that's kind of exciting, right?

It's a little weird, but I mean, I guess,

everybody's a little weird, so
everybody's got there thing.

-And, of course, you could write

to these people who make custom videos.

And you could say, "I'd love
something about real estate,

"or I'd love something
in it about finances."

But of course everybody wanted sex.

And people had their dark desires.

And they would basically
commission somebody

to act those out on a
camcorder and send it to them.

And some companies
realized that these videos

weren't just meant to be
for an audience of one,

but some of these stories might pertain

to a wide array of
perverts and lonely people.

-And I think, for us, it becomes almost

watching other people's
fantasies play out on video.

There's nothing more insane than that.

I can't think of anything
else that's crazier to watch.

- It's kind of the ultimate experience

to have your own fetish
brought to life on camera.

And, obviously, there were
actresses willing to do them.

To take part in whatever strange scenarios

these people could think up.

- Well, the aspirations for
W.A.V.E. were just mainly

to make the movies that
people would want to see,

be something that I would want to see.

It would include things that

maybe the mainstream movie didn't have.

Maybe a little bit more
of the exploitation

in terms of, let's say, wet t-shirts,

where you have the girl
goes into the pool.

And then if you notice a
lot of times they cut away,

they don't show anything.

Well, I would want to show it.

But I really wanted to just make movies

that I would want to see,
that people might want to buy.

As it gradually built up,

there were more and more people that wrote

and said, "Yes, we like this."

Of course there are all different aspects.

Some people call them
fetishes, but it's just like

some people like wet t-shirts, quicksand.

- Strangulation, chloroforming,
dragging, carrying,

dancing with sleeping girls.

- Shooting in the stomach
and stabbing in the stomach.

Any sort of navel play was popular.

To girls passing out and waking back up.

- Dominance in the form of
bondage, in the form of sadism,

in the form of masochism.

Violence against women
can be a fetish in itself.

- Death by tape, death
by bombs, cannibalism.

- Women being murdered in
particular types of clothes,

certain types of blouses.

- There's a lot of very beautiful women

that have some very difficult

and very traumatic experiences,
such as being killed,

strangled, stabbed, absorbed by quicksand,

shrunk to a tiny person
and then eaten or smashed.

- So, some of it was really strange.

Some guys, it was predictable.

I guess the foot fetish guy,
that was the weirdest one.

But it was a way of of earning income

so we could keep filming.

So, we were like, okay, if
he wants to see bare feet,

let's give him bare feet.

- I think at first I kind of thought

that we were just doing low budget horror.

And then, because a lot of the stuff

that I did at first was just
half naked girls screaming,

running in the woods, getting
killed, getting strangled.

And then later when we
started doing other things

like oil wrestling and
getting pies thrown at us,

then you start realizing, okay,

this is other stuff
going on here. (laughs)

Then you see like...

You'll have somebody
requested you in a film

for a certain type of scene,
then you know it's fetish.

- But since you're dealing
with people's perversions

or interests or obsessions,

you don't know how big the audience is.

For all we know, there are 30,000 people

that sent away to watch a woman

being tortured by a mummy in a basement.

We don't know because that's
people's secretive desires.

- Yeah.

-And so, who knows.

Maybe Gary Whitson lives in
a mansion and has a yacht.

I have no idea.

(both laughing)

- So, it's crazy to think that

Gary got so successful with W.A.V.E.,

that he actually quit his
job as a school teacher

and just became a full-time filmmaker.

- What was your initial
interest, Salvatore?

- I answered an ad that
Gary put in the paper

for amateur actors.

I acted in a few of his films,

then decided, I was always
interested in writing.

Let me try screenwriting,
got behind the camera,

and now I'm hooked.

- Well, Sal was one of the people who came

to a house meeting and
then he got involved

with writing scripts
more, building the props.

He would come up with some ideas.

- Giddy up!

Ya, ya!
(branch whacking)

Ha, ya!

Come on.

- What are you doing?

(branch whacking)

- I'm riding my horse.

- What are you, crazy?

- Why, yes I am.

- Sal was a character, very comical.

Kind of like if you didn't know him

and you're on the set with him,

you would picture him as
a car salesman, I think.

'Cause he was always pushing
to get more out of you,

or pushing Gary to do
more or different things.

He was a force on the set to work with.

He was so loud, his voice,
and just always talking.

And even sometimes just
in the middle of shooting

he would be talking about
something or one of his cases.

He was a prosecutor for Camden County,

and he had all these grizzly cases.

- Every shot was so long with Sal.

Like the struggling and
the bondage took forever.

It's like, okay, can I take
the gag out of my mouth now?

And can I get untied?

"No, no, we're gonna drag this out.

"We're gonna drag this out.

"You're fine!"

He was funny because his expressions

when he would be killing us was just...

His facial expressions
would make me laugh.

And there was times that I
would just start cracking up.

Like, okay, we do this again,

and he'd be strangling me with the eyes.

The big eyes and the faces.

Yeah, he was funny. (laughs)

- Him and Gary were interesting partners.

Sal was a lot more animated than Gary.

(suspenseful music)

- Come on, I'm carrying her.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(suspenseful music)

- I did a younger version of Sal,

and I know Gary wants me to do it.

He wants to do some
reboots now of his titles.

I'd watched one of Sal's tapes,

and I just got the
voice and the mannerisms

that I grew a beard and stuff like that.

Anyway, Gary liked it.

I'm like, "I tried hard, really,

"to get into the method of the character."

But I guess I probably
could have done anything

and Gary would have been fine with it.

Just showing up, I guess,
would have been fine.

- I remember the one expression if...

Gary would say, "Oh, I think
we have enough footage."

"Bologna, Gary!" (laughs)

That was his favorite
expression, "Bologna!" (chuckles)

So, I remember that about Sal.

(muffled groaning)

(dramatic music)

(coffin lid creaking)

(muffled screaming)

I actually came across W.A.V.E.
by way of a local newspaper.

But on the front page,
it was a local company

doing a horror movie.

And so, of course I was thrilled.

You know, there was other
people out there like me,

and in my own county, for that matter.

- He, at the time, considering
Sal and I's ages. (laughs)

He was the stud of the group.

We were the old guys and he was,

obviously, at the time,
probably like in his 20s.

- It was nice to have a guy on
the set every once in a while

besides Gary and Sal, and even Aven.

It's nice to have a
guy our age on the set.

- But yeah, we had a lot of fun.

Especially, I got to work
with so many different people.

Met a lotta girls.

Had a lot of dates too
when I started doing this.

So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

- Great catch.

I don't know why someone
didn't gobble him up yet.

- "Dave, you should be paying
us to be in the movies!"

(Dave chuckles)

"We shouldn't be paying you."

So yeah, that's my funny story.

I would hear that a lot over the years.

- Look for us again in two months.

Until then, this is Pamela
Sutch saying goodbye.

- Pam came to the audition
that we had in '94

at the old studio.

She had responded to the Backstage ad.

- I found an audition.

I believe it was in Backstage magazine.

And I drove all the way out to audition,

all the way to South Jersey,
and it was for horror movies!

And, wow!

I got the part! (laughs)

- Pamela Sutch was my
favorite of all of 'em.

I think it's just 'cause she
was like the girl next door,

and you wouldn't expect to see her

doing something like this.

I always liked that appeal.

I mean, you see some girl all gothed out,

you don't expect her
to do things like this.

But someone that looked like her.

I mean, she was really cute.

And she looked like the girl next door

and she was doing this stuff.

I found that appealing.

- She was really trying.

I mean, she was pushing herself very hard,

promoting every single day.

She deserved to be a scream queen.

- No, it wasn't exciting.

It was fun, we had a fun day,

especially if the weather was nice.

I mean, we were outside.

A lot of times it was really nice.

There were a lot of bugs.

We were in the woods a lot.

We would get mosquito bites all over.

We would get scratched up, you know?

So, it was that kind of fun.

I like that kind of fun.

You know, I'm an outdoorsy type.

No, it wasn't exciting.

- I remember dressing up as
a witch with a mask in one

where I'm cooking her, and I'm
boiling her and eating her.

And like, it was just so
ridiculous and so funny.

We were just always laughing.

So, Pam's a riot to work with.

(quirky electronic music)

(heels clacking)

- Deana we met at the
Fanex convention in '94.

- I got into acting by accident.

I actually was at a horror
convention for my sculpting.

I'm a sculptor, and I happened
to be at a horror convention

in this little tight black
dress selling my sculptures,

and W.A.V.E. was the
next table over to us.

Unfortunately, their
actress did not show up,

and they asked me if
I wanted to get killed

in a horror movie.

So, I decided that I thought
it would be cool to do

'cause I love horror.

So, I thought I would give it a try.

And I ended up being in two
of their films that night.

(thrilling electronic music)

(innards plunking)

(toilet flushing)

- Deana Demko is a staple
at Chiller Theatre.

And she got her start with W.A.V.E.

But she became a very
successful scream queen,

and she even hosted a cable
access show for some time.

(quirky music)

- I was 18.

It was after high school.

And I heard that W.A.V.E. productions

was having auditions for B horror movies.

And I thought, "Wow, this is awesome."

'Cause I've always loved horror movies.

I love acting.

And the thought of being
in an independent film

doing what I love was
just, I was so excited.

So, I went to the audition and I met Gary.

- She had come with her
mother. (clears throat)

And we used to do a form, you'd
have to fill out the form.

And there was always a question
about would you do nudity?

And she was, on her form,
she actually marked it yes,

then marked it no, then marked
it yes, then marked it no,

kind of went back and forth.

And eventually no, she wasn't gonna do it.

- Unfortunately, since I was
18, still living at home,

my mom said no. (laughs)

She didn't want me doing the movies

because of the fetish that's
involved and the bondage.

Few years later when I was 21,

I was out of the house at that point,

living with a boyfriend.

Saw an advertisement in the newspaper.

It was a big article about
W.A.V.E. productions.

And I said, you know what,
I'm out of the house.

I'm 21.

I'm going to call them, so I did.

And I said, "You remember me?" (laughs)

And Gary said, "Of
course, I remember you."

- I had no idea how
much of a talent she was

till I saw her on stage.

She actually was already an
accomplished stage actress

before she came to W.A.V.E.

- I met Dave on one of the
very first W.A.V.E. films.

I believe it was Cannibal Supper.

It was Sal and Gary,

and I was laid out on a
barbecue, wrapped in tin foil.

I had lettuce leaves on my chest,

and I got food and fruit all around me.

And I'm basically
getting ready to be eaten

by Gary's character in this movie.

Gary said, "Oh Laura, by
the way, this is Dave.

"Let me introduce you to my friend, Dave.

"He's gonna be shooting with us."

And I'm like, "Hi, how
you doin'?" (laughs)

I'm laying there ready to
be eaten at a barbecue.

And he's laughing, and I was like,

"Sorry, I can't really get up

"and shake your hand right now."

I'm covered in ketchup and barbecue sauce.

-All the way now from?

- [Man] Philadelphia.

- Oh, the Philadelphians
gonna be so happy right now.

Debbie D and company on Oceanside's record

"I Want You In My Life."

Debbie D, okay.

(quirky '90s music, "I
Want You In My Life")

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ For all this time, forever and ever ♪

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ To be just mine, my only treasure ♪

♪ You know I've been around
the whole, wide world ♪

♪ I've seen more sights
than the average girl ♪

♪ Yet somehow I seem to miss the mark ♪

♪ Possess everything except a heart ♪

- When I actually did go for the acting

is when my whole life changed.

So, it was always trying
to come in to tell me,

"Yeah, you, you sing, okay,

"but this is what you're
supposed to be doing."

And I'm stubborn so I ignored it

'cause I didn't know it was a sign.

Phil Herman said there was a convention

called the Chiller convention,

and a distributor was going to be there.

And he thought it would be
a good idea if I would go,

and try to help sell the
movies and sign autographs

of my first movie, the Burglar from Hell.

So, we drove up and I
spent a Saturday there

and my life changed that day.

I was at Chiller and I got
more fans than I could handle.

They just treated you just fantastic,

meeting you on the spot.

Hi, I'm Debbie D here at the
Chiller Theater convention.

Scream Queens Illustrated came up

wanting to know who this new
scream queen Debbie D was.

And they shot me for
their magazine that day.

- Debbie D missed her calling in life.

She should have been a comedian.

I keep saying it all the time.

- I agree with you totally.

- (laughs) She would just
come out of the woodwork

with some one-liners and shit.

Or you would look at her and she just

had this naturally funny...

You can't help but to laugh.

- When you go to work with Gary,

you don't just do the one.

You're doing, you don't know it,

but you're doing other, "Oh, what is this?

"This something, well, what's this?"

"Oh, we're just going to be over here

"and we're gonna do this now.

"And you're gonna wear this outfit.

And you've just done, you
were just in four movies.

We just did it because we were young girls

and we were having a good time.

And I didn't mind running
around naked. (laughs)

So, he called me a lot.

- Hi, I'm Tina Krause,

and welcome to W.A.V.E.'s
first video centerfold,

featuring yours truly.

- Tina was walking through
Chiller, '94, spring of '94.

Sal sees her go by.

Calls her because of her hair.

Because, at the time, Sal knew somebody

who wanted custom tapes
with girls with long hair.

- Somebody approached me and
asked me if I was an actress.

And I just gave him a real funny look.

And was like, "No!"

But then I thought about
it, and I was like,

"Well, wait, wait, wait.

"If I say I am, will
you put me in a film?"

And I was really just being a wise ass.

I really wasn't asking to be.

It actually was never
something I wanted to do.

I never wanted to be an actress.

And if you asked me a long
time ago of the list of jobs,

I would have told you that would have

been the worst thing you could make me do

'cause I don't like memorizing things.

- [Gary] So we went outside, did a scene

where Sal strangles Tina.

Comes back, she gets to watch it

on the television that we have.

- She's kind of exotic looking.

She actually was a mixture
of Asian and German.

And she kind of looked like Elvira almost.

She had long, long black hair,

really white skin, the
whole vampire look going on.

- Tina, oh yeah, everyone loved Tina.

Small build, you know, that tiny girl

with those big natural bosoms,

that bounced all over the place.

And that long hair.

So she, I would say out
of all the W.A.V.E. girls,

she was probably the most popular

and the most sought after.

- So I was at Chiller, and
that's when I saw Tina Krause.

And, as a producer, when I
saw her, I was like, "Star!"

Star quality, star.

- '94 was probably the
year that things started

to get a lot more, a lot more sales,

a lot more interest in things.

You know, Tina had a lot of fans.

It certainly helped.

One of the earlier problems
was that people did a good job,

but they had jobs and they
had their own lives and stuff.

So, movies weren't their
reason for being, I guess.

Whereas like Pam and Tina and
Laura were really into it,

the other people it was more hobby.

(quirky horror music)

(suspenseful music)

(knife squelching)
(Pam groaning)

(quirky horror music)

(Pam groaning)

(quirky horror music)

(soft gasping)

(Pam groaning)

The premise from the
person's point of view

was his thing was people being carried,

like the Creature from the
Black Lagoon type carry.

That was his thing.

- The first W.A.V.E. movie I remember

was Sorority Slaughter.

Got my liver ripped out in a bathtub.

And, I gotta tell ya, it was
quite an interesting night.

- We were college girls,

and we were living next door
to this crazy psychopath.

Avery strange guy that we kept snooping

on to see what's he doin'.

He's so weird.

And it turns out he was
a crazy psycho killer.

(suspenseful music)

- Radu, I will get you
sacrifices and a bride tonight.

(suspenseful music)

- But he was killing
girls and offering them up

as sacrifices to the Great Radu! (laughs)

Which was some demon he worshiped.

And my very first death
scene for W.A.V.E. ever.

And I remember I was laid out
on a table in the backyard,

and I was stabbed repeatedly,
over and over and over again.

Blood everywhere, lots of gore.

And I had my guts ripped out of me.

We used real cow's liver,

and it was so disgusting,
and it stunk so bad.

I almost threw up, it was so bad.

But I was like, "you know,
I just want to do this

"'cause this is so much
fun so just lay it on me!"

- Sorority Slaughter was hilarious.

I remember laughing because I was like,

"Is this the special effect?"

We have oatmeal on our faces
and you put green paint on it.

(Tina laughs)

- Yeah, there's like a
very long swimming scene.

A long car washing scene.

A long just conversation
that just goes way long.

A struggle scene.

It's sort of like a rape
scene without a rape.

Just like the pre-rape struggle,

and it goes on and on and on.

- I think my first impression of W.A.V.E.

was probably one of just absolute horror

because it was sort of
the absolute opposite

of what I was trying to do.

I was trying to make
essentially the B movies

that I had grown up with that were,

I don't want to say Hollywood movies.

But you're trying to make real movies.

- I found myself sitting around
afterwards thinking like,

"Man, they were really washing that car

"for a very, very long time."

- It's show time.

(camera clicking regularly)

Time to make you a star!

- Yeah, Gary's not the clearest,
best director out there.

(Deana laughs)

- Well, Gary, I think
probably fancies himself

as an Alfred Hitchcock
type, his filmmaking style.

He's got a lot of different styles.

I think if you're talking
about doing the custom movies

as opposed to some of
the features we've done,

he's got a very different
technique he uses.

I think with the custom movies,
there's a lot of long shots.

Just to give you an
example of a girl tied up,

maybe for five, 10 minutes.

And Gary says, "Okay, cut."

We'll start rolling
again, more struggling.

"Cut," another 10 minutes more struggling,

Almost done.

- I don't know what kind
of style there really is.

It's just pretty much set
up the camera and shoot,

and that's it.

You know, even if I ask
if you want another take.

"No, it's okay." (chuckles)

"We got it, we can move on."

- Does W.A.V.E. have
an aesthetic or style?

- It doesn't feel artistic,

but that's great because
art is a pain in the ass.

It's pretentious.

We don't need any more of it.

And Gary Whitson's films are artless,

but they are true to the
needs of their viewer.

- Sometimes the wall would fall.

It was like Plan Nine.

Yeah, I would call him Gary
Wood, that was my name for him.

Gary Wood.

- I need two sequences.

First, I need woman in a maid's
outfit killed in an attic.

She should be strangled.

- By the time I'm done,

you're gonna think these
murders are for real.

- So, this was way before the
internet and to sell his VHS

Gary was selling everything
through mail order.

So, besides classifieds and fanzines,

he had his own newsletter
called Damsels in Distress.

And that's how he would bring everybody

up to date on what his
new productions were.

- Everything including,
just selling our tapes,

were all classified ads in
like the genre magazines.

Fangoria, later Scream Queens Illustrated.

Draculina was a big one.

- Back then, I guess
advertising was cheaper.

And a lot of very small
independent companies

would advertise there because, again,

this was before the internet
and there weren't a lot

of places to advertise
to the horror crowd.

And Fangoria was kind of one
of the biggest places you could

reach out and get that audience.

- But a company like
W.A.V.E. would just be

in the classifieds with
this little tiny banner

that's just like don't
tell anyone that you are

sending away for our catalog, $2.

It just felt deeply forbidden.

- I covered no budget movies

because I was interested
in no budget movies.

I wanted to make movies,

and I would interview
people that I found out

were making a movie or
already made a movie.

And then we started doing
those "making of" articles.

- I would just kind of look
at all the other magazines

that were around.

And there were a lot of
magazines at the time

that were covering this kind of stuff.

You had Draculina, you had
Film Threat Video Guide

and all that kind of stuff.

And I just, for whatever reason,

we found our own voice and our own way

of doing things I guess.

But it was not a...

It grew organically, I
guess, from the first issue.

It gave birth as a completely
shameless self-indulgent way

to promote the stuff
that I was distributing,

but eventually became, I
think a a sounding board

for other filmmakers to have a voice too.

- So, back in the '90s, mid to late '90s,

I purchased Alternative Cinema.

And with that came the
catalog and the mailing list.

So, it started evolving and
started adding titles to it.

I can't recall exactly how
W.A.V.E. production movies

wound up in the catalog,

but I'm guessing that I was just trying

to bulk up the catalog,

to include as many independent
titles as I possibly could.

- My mail order business was
awesome before the internet.

I mean, the catalog grew
to like 60 some pages.

And I would dedicate,

I mean, the W.A.V.E. movies sold so well

that I would dedicate one page

in every Draculina just
to sell W.A.V.E. movies.

And then I had probably five
or six pages in the catalog

with every W.A.V.E. title.

And they sold for 30 bucks a piece.

- With W.A.V.E. I found
their stuff was selling

and then I would start
to zero in on what areas,

like all the chloroform ones.

I'd make sure I got all of them up.

-And I'm not talking
about one or two titles.

I'm talking about 20, 30
titles at a time, every week,

and even more.

I mean, multiples of the same title or.

It was crazy.

Usually when a person
bought a W.A.V.E. title,

they would buy one title
and then, inevitably,

two weeks later I would get
this order for like 10 titles.

- These movies are
addictive, to certain people.

Once they see that these
films are filling that need

for those types of fetishes,

or this type of voyeuristic violence,

they would order 10 at a
time, 20 at a time sometimes.

- Titles that would just be in my head

because, at that time, I was
doing most of the work myself

and I would have to order them from Gary.

So, titles like Strangled,
and there's a series.

So, Strangled 2, Strangled 3.

I don't know how many
were out at that time.

- I remember people would come and

buy the whole Quicksand
series that he would do.

(quirky electronic music)

- Put that in the VCR.

(quirky horror music)

(quirky electronic music)

- You guys were swamped
down there, we saw.

We got some video of you guys.

You had crowds all over the tables today.

(quirky electronic music)

- From Chiller Theatre.

This is Aftermath goodbye, ha!

- I used to joke around a lot

with the guys at E.I. that
Chiller, to filmmakers,

it was like the Cannes Film
Festival of conventions.

And it was like a big deal.

It's like a big deal!

Like, ah!

Like you'd count the days off to Chiller.

- Remember I'd bring like,
especially in the VHS days,

I'd bring like boxes
and boxes of VHS tapes.

And eventually I spread out to two tables,

but even then I would have to almost

double the boxes sometimes.

And people would just dig and
move 'em, dig and move 'em.

-Anybody that went to
a Chiller Theatre show

knew W.A.V.E. because
it was impossible not to

because they had a pretty
big presence there.

- So, when I first saw
W.A.V.E. it was a table,

and he was selling tapes,
and he had a TV set up.

And he had photo albums.

Now, I had never seen this before.

- Well, the girls had their albums out.

I mean, these were like
Polaroids and stuff.

Like some of these pictures
look like they'd been abducted

and stolen back from their abductors,

and they were selling them.

- There are a lot of those
movies I never actually watched.

I just kind of looked
at the back and said,

"Oh, okay, it's a big,
strange world out there."

- There's a tape called Eaten Alive.

And it just said, W.A.V.E.
Productions, Eaten Alive.

And it was a woman on the
front with her mouth open,

and it looked like two little feet kind of

dangling out of her mouth.

And I thought, "that
looks really interesting.

"Maybe we should watch this."

I was not prepared at all for what I saw

because it was so far gone

from any other shot on
video production I had seen.

It was only 40 minutes long,

and it was it was literally a video

about a woman shrinking
people down and eating them.

And that was it.

And it was one of the most bizarre

and also entertaining things
I'd seen in a long time.

- So, when you were discovering this stuff

were you shocked when you found

out just how huge the
W.A.V.E. library was?

'Cause I first saw Sleepover
Massacre and I was like,

"Oh, okay, I get it.

"These guys did this.

"Maybe they did it a couple of times."

And then when I finally
somewhere saw the list of their,

and that was just their
available titles at that time,

which is not even probably a fraction

of the total work that they've done.

It was impossible to me.

It was like the most
robust filmography ever,

that I'd ever seen.

From anybody, like including
pornography or whatever.

It was just crazy.

- But for the most part,
you're seeking out these movies

and you're just disappointed
time and time again

because it's not really
watchable by humans.

- But if you're into disappointment,

it's a great archive to dive into.

- So, with any given filmmaker

talking about their filmography,

you might be looking at, I
don't know, 10, 12 titles,

but with Gary, you're
looking at 400 titles.

I mean, since 1987, he's
made over 400 movies.

- If you don't enjoy amateur video

then you're not going to
enjoy W.A.V.E. Productions.

- Customers who buy 'em
would be like what is this?

This doesn't look like a movie.

This isn't like a film.

People who'd rent it from the video store,

some of the retailers.

These, they had horrible reviews

because of what they look like.

They didn't look like films and stuff.

- It almost wasn't quite
fair to kind of review them

in the same context as you were reviewing

even a semi-pro film.

I mean, these movies are what they are.

They kind of defy criticism.

- I did an interview
with Gary in Draculina,

and I remember asking him how long it took

to make a W.A.V.E. movie.

I don't know, write,
edit, get it in the box.

And he said it took seven days.

I mean, which there have been
movies made in seven days,

but usually they're shot in seven days.

They still got to do all the other stuff.

- W.A.V.E. films differ from other movies

of the '80s and early '90s because,

in other cases, other filmmakers
were trying their best to

make a vague replica of what
a normal movie would be.

They would say, okay, we can't
do a movie like The Hidden

or we can't do a movie like
Basket Case even at our budget,

but we're going to do our
best to approximate it.

And W.A.V.E. never even tried
to be anything but W.A.V.E.

They never tried to rise above
their horror fetish market.

And they were just very
comfortable there, which I respect.

- It was more of an agenda with
him where with other people,

that they had a goal of
making this one movie.

-And it's shot on video, right?

An actress gets a line
wrong, you can do it again.

It's not gonna cost anything,

but no, in a W.A.V.E. production.

- Don't move.

- See you later.
- See you later.

See you later, Blake.

- In a W.A.V.E. Productions production,

they would leave that
in and you're like why?

It's the beginning of a
scene, she got the line wrong.

We could start over.

It's tape, it's free, you know?

Nope, it's in there.

- But his, I remember,
would be very static.

Actor would say something, static,

cut to the actress, but
there'd be like a pause.

And then she'd respond.

(motorcycle engine humming)

- My folks are out of
town for the weekend.

I'm gonna have a swim party tonight.

Would you like to come?

- I'd love to.

- Need a ride home?
- Yes, I do.

- Really, the weirdest thing
to me about W.A.V.E. movies

is just the scenes where people

are having normal human interactions.

And those seem to be
the greatest challenge

for the actors.

Is just to say, we're not being menaced.

We're not being stabbed.

We're not having sex.

We're just gonna, for a
minute, talk about our job

or talk about our dog or whatever it is.

And then the actors are
way out of their depth

and just seem like they
can't get comfortable.

But there's so many moments
where somebody is just

supposed to say, "okay, now you
go sell her that newspaper."

And the actors are just
like, "Oh shit, oh no.

"Like I have to, I have to pass for human

"for the next three minutes,
what am I gonna do?"

And those parts are great.

You feel like the fear and
awkwardness and hesitation

from the actors, and I love that.

It's not bad acting.

It's just like a person
who suddenly realizes

that they have to reveal themselves

as a human being on camera,

and it's sometimes too much for people.

- I guess because it wasn't really acting,

and I get very nervous
when I have to be myself.

So, probably my least favorite one was

when they made me do a date tape.

It was A Date with Deana.

And I was very uncomfortable
just being myself.

- The design of the
original W.A.V.E. tapes,

they're actually really
well-designed unintentionally,

in that sense, because
the whole point of design

is to immediately attract your attention

and make you pick something
up or make you buy it.

And they did that without
even knowing it, I think.

It's very crude.

And it always uses the same
couple of typefaces faces.

And it's just a photograph on the cover

that completely entices
you to see what this is.

Because I love the aesthetic
of snapshots on set

that were taken with a
Polaroid or an Instamatic,

just slapped on a tape.

- [Zach] Like Mummy's Dungeon.

- Oh, yeah.
- Was just like.

- That's the best.

- Yellow background, black
type, mummy in a dungeon.

That's all you get.

That's all you want.

That's all you need, hear it is, done.

- I mean, it's totally punk
rock, you know what I mean?

But that also comes in line
with the kind of punk rock DIY

attitude behind these films, right?

(hard rock music)

- We saw these three
miserable college students

raping and killing our youngest sister.

(woman screaming)

After the murder, we just
totally became psycho.

(hard rock music)

- Well, revenge, I think is
the primary motivating goal

of the Psycho Sisters, but
also there's sometimes no real

motivating goals in a true psychopath.

It is a story about the serial
killers, about psychopaths,

and sometimes that cannot be explained.

- No!

(♪ Decide by Disco Missile ♪)

-At the time I was attending the

Chiller Theatre conventions,

which were quite small
back then, in the '90s.

And I came upon the W.A.V.E. table,

and I was very fascinated
by the W.A.V.E. productions.

They looked very bizarre
and very interesting.

And I knew they were doing custom videos.

I was interested in making a film myself.

I had no resources.

I had no film background other than

I had a cheap camcorder.

But as far as making a big production,

I was unable to do it.

So, I commissioned W.A.V.E.
to produce my film.

I guess I was a custom customer.

But I think, in the end, I turned out

to be a totally different type of customer

when all was said and done.

Actually I'd been very
interested in horror in general,

and monsters, vampires.

However, I came to realize in my life

that really there's no
such thing as monsters,

but there are serial killers.

Serial killers are really
the true monsters of...

of humanity.

And they walk the earth in
surprisingly great numbers.

And to me there's nothing more frightening

than the potential of having an encounter

with a serial killer,

because they could be
your next door neighbor,

your friend, they could be
anybody, including women.

And at the time I became
interested in making films,

there weren't really too many
movies focused around women

as the villains or as the killers.

So, I thought, well, how cool would it be

to have two very normal looking women,

very hot looking women, be serial killers.

So, that's the basic concept
behind Psycho Sisters.

There's a lot of problems.

The original, actually the
original Psycho Sisters

dropped out, and then there
was two new Psycho Sisters,

and then they dropped out.

And finally we cast Pamela
Sutch and Christine Taylor

as the final psycho sisters.

So, it was quite a...

You know, we started shooting it

and then we had to keep on changing it.

- [Interviewer] Why did they drop out?

- You know, I'm not really sure.

I think it might've had something to do

with the the basic
premise of Psycho Sisters.

As you may know, what
the Psycho Sisters do

is they kill young men, guys,

and they cut off their penises
and they put them in jars.

And for some reason, that
just seemed to be something

that the girls just didn't like doing.

- Well, if you're wondering
what happens in Psycho Sisters,

these sisters are psycho and
they (mimics shears snipping)

Chop it off.

They chop a lot of them off. (laughs)

That's what it's about.

That's what it's about.

So is that a fetish?

- We had had other custom tapes,

but this was the first time the person

who did a custom tape directed it.

We never normally had,

normally we would not want somebody

who's doing a custom tape to be there

because may have a few too many problems.

But we had met Pete at the conventions.

So, we knew he wasn't too weird. (laughs)

- I put it together, I
edited it professionally.

Put a really great soundtrack together.

And we promoted it like a real movie.

We had a big premiere at
William Patterson College,

where I was an alumni, in the theater.

- And I can swear that both
Gary and Sal were shooting it.

They had video cameras, in
the aisle, they would be like.

It was a big event.

It was a big deal.

-And I think everybody was, I don't know,

maybe they thought I was nuts.

I'm really not sure because
if you see Psycho Sisters,

you can see what it is.

I mean, it's shitty.

But it's Psycho Sisters,
but I had this vision,

this is my movie, and
I presented it like it

was the greatest thing on Earth.

And it is, I guess, 'cause here we are

and I'm still talking about it.

- So, if we were going to make a movie,

we needed to get it into video stores.

We're talking about VHS into
independent video stores.

We literally would call video stores

and sell them our wares.

- Now, I think Psycho
Sisters in particular

I saw it in a fair number of video stores.

Of course, I spent more
time in video stores

than a lot of people did.

But if you're a video store proprietor,

and you're buying new tapes,

how can you pass on it, just the title.

Just the title of Psycho Sisters.

It's like you're gonna
buy Microwave Massacre

because of its title.

You don't care if it's
any good or what it is.

- Tina was being interviewed
by somebody, I think.

And she was the first one that I heard

say fetish horror, in
terms of the two together.

And I guess that's true.

But I guess my theory
is that anybody who goes

to a horror movie has whatever,

if you want to call it
a fetish or whatever,

you're going to a horror
movie for some reason.

You're either going because you want

to see the person getting
killed and decapitated

or whatever the case may be,
or shot or killed or scared or.

So, to say it's a fetish,
I don't think, you know,

I think all horror is
a fetish in the sense

that you want to go
see it for some reason.

- These are fetish films, okay?

You want to see tits, ass and blood.

You want to see death in
every fucking way possible.

I was like, you know what?

The movie should just be called I Die.

And let's just put all of my death scenes.

It would last for nine
fucking hours, okay? (laughs)

Every single one, you'd have a
fucking library of this shit.

- Yeah, the death scenes
can be a little bit

over the top, and long.

- You're strangling me.

I mean, it's not a horror thing.

Okay, yeah, we're all
gonna get killed, I got it.

But honestly, it's gotta be a fetish.

Like who the hell does that
for fucking 60 minutes?

I'm like, there are points,
sometimes I'd be like,

"Gary, you're boring the guy."

Like I'm bored, I'm bored. (laughs)

I'm the actress, I'm dying, and I'm bored.

-A lot of pannings.

A lot of pannings of different
stages before the death,

and then the death at the end.

Some people want you to die quickly.

They don't want a story.

They just want you boom, bang your dead.

You know, shooting down.

And then the sprawl on the
floor, how the skirt goes up.

What shows, maybe sometimes
it's just the way the blouse

opens up, or if the blouse gets ripped.

Pannings more so, for
Gary, it was the death.

How long you can prolong the death.

And that was unrealistic,

unless you're the person that
was actually doing the murder

and you were prolonging
to see how long you

can almost take her there
and then take her back.

I could see that as being erotic.

- One of the ways of dying
that always made me nervous,

and I always had to be
really careful about was

the plastic bag over the head.

There was a few, quite a few
times I had to do death scenes

like that where I had to stop.

I'm like, "I can't breathe.

"You gotta get this off me."

- To me, like I said, it was,

if I'm getting strangled,
it's about making it

as real as possible.

If I'm getting drowned.

So, that to me was my work.

- I just played a crazy person

and I just, you know,
abduct her in the woods

and tie her to a tree.

And then I take it back to my
place and tape her to a chair

and do all kinds of nasty things to her.

That's a typical day on the W.A.V.E. set.

- The one thing I've always said,

it has to have a
beginning, middle and end.

It can't just be somebody comes in

and just basically beat somebody to death.

That's not what I want to do.

It's got to have at least a story to it.

- Yeah, I didn't know

that that had anything to do with that.

I just thought we were
just making low budget

of these Alfred Hitchcock type of things.

Just horror movies, just B horror movies

where girls are running around the woods

getting killed by the killer.

- I don't know how much they
actually sat down there,

sat and said, you know,
who's watching this?

Why are they watching it?

This kind of thing.

It's, I'm making a movie,
I'm getting killed.

That's it.

- Even though these are like ridiculous,

goofy little movies,

there's sort of this like almost scary,

edgy quality to them.

- I never thought of
myself as claustrophobic

'cause I've been in trunks.

Oh, just close it.

But I guess as I'm getting older now,

like I feel like, are you
sure you got the keys?

So, I might be getting to that point.

-And I would always think every time,

I'm never doing this shit again,

and I'd be there next week.

(woman choking)
(chair rattling)

- Strangulation in itself
to me is a very disturbing

and intimate way to
die or to kill someone.

As far as the sexual aspect of it,

I suppose, again, it
relates to the intimacy

that strangulation is.

I mean, you're right there.

It's, your bare hands
extinguishing a person's life.

It's dominance.

And also the fact that orgasm itself,

orgasm, is I believe in Latin,
it means a little death.

I mean, the fact when someone orgasms,

it's almost like they're dying.

When someone's on their last breaths,

it's like they're having an orgasm.

So, I think many aspects
of death in itself

can have sexual connotations.

- Strangulation is one way of kind of,

you can kind of control
the time that they die.

'Cause I know a lot of them,
they strangle 'em a bit

and then they relax and they
strangle a bit and relax.

-Asphyxiation of any kind, really seems

to be the ultimate violent
demise in the W.A.V.E. realm.

A lot of customers really enjoy

watching women being asphyxiated.

- "Death by strangulation
robs one of the self control

"and supposed mastery over life.

"Death by strangulation
returns the victim to infancy,

"making him again a child
in the arms of his killer,

"begging for suckle of
breath, even as a babe

"entreats the mother for
the life-sustaining teat."

- Celeste, you're looking
exceptionally lovely tonight.

Thank you.

I liked working with Sal.

I felt bad for him because
I think that he wanted

to pursue the movies.

And I think that it was getting him

in a lot of trouble in his marriage.

- Sal worked in law enforcement,

and that his wife was
either a lawyer or a judge,

or someone professional.

And that his wife didn't
really care for the fact

of his involvement with these
tapes, as they are called.

- Sal was a public defender,

investigator for the prosecutor's office,

and his wife thought the movies might've

been a little bit too bizarre
for him to be associated with.

And she gave him a lot of
grief for that all the time.

- Which is sad.

I think once you take
somebody's art away from them,

it kind of breaks them down.

- Well, after W.A.V.E. had clearly started

to become successful, I mean,
they did a lot of business

with these kind of movies,

I started seeing a lot of
other companies kind of come up

behind them and they would take out tables

at the conventions and they would pretty

much follow that model.

- Well, there was Dark
Fantasies, who sold really well.

Thursday Night Video, which
another one sold real well.

There was Aqua Fantasies.

There was TAG, who was near me.

There's Perfect Shot.

- Bind Her, was another one.

And that was just a weird group of people.

- I guess it seems a little fantastic now,

but I guess at the time they
were selling well enough

that it gave a bit of an influence to say,

oh, well, why don't we shoot
similar type things, ourselves?

- There were other companies,
I worked for Bluestone.

They would go and say, "You
have to get Tina Krause.

"I only want her."

And every year I'd be flying out to Canada

doing the same exact thing.

Just being shot with a gun, 100 times.

-And I did a real hanging,

and it's still selling like crazy.

Yes, I won't do it again.

It was seconds.

But being a singer too, and
wanting to talk as well.

It can crush your throat.

I must've had like a
lot of guardian angels

around me at that time because
I said, "Oh, I'll try it."

It was painful.

I didn't pass out.

But there was someone
there to CPR me if I did.

I just made my neck real strong,

and I was put up on the noose,
and I said, "Just let it go."

So, I just, I got lucky,
so I won't do it again.

It's on a site called
Gasping Horror and it's real.

And people know it's real
'cause there's no harness,

there's nothing.

I don't, you know, it's not wise to do.

It's not like I was let go.

It was a slow, as he was pulling it up.

But I was there, my feet were hanging.

And you felt it for days afterwards,

like a little bit of a crushed
larynx kind of feeling.

A little raspiness in your voice.

And if it collapsed, I would
have probably needed surgery.

I would probably have a scar right here

and they hopefully would
have gotten air in me,

you know, somehow.

But people have died for the craft before.

- Some of them, I think,
were somewhat connected

to one another, like Factory 2000.

But suddenly, as the '90s progressed,

there were a lot of companies

that were shooting custom horror movies.

- I definitely feel that my company,

Factory 2000, was kind of
following somewhat of his formula,

and biting on that,
putting in certain fetishes

to gain that audience.

And just kind of wrapping
whatever we could

around it to sell it
at a horror convention.

It was sort of like a trick.

- But I would get called
from Bill Hellfire,

and I knew it was gonna
be something outrageous,

and I would just laugh.

'Cause I just, it would
never be anything normal.

It couldn't be normal.

- In some ways, I think
they actually kind of

exceeded W.A.V.E. because
they had Misty Mundae,

who became kind of a superstar
on the underground circuit,

in a way that I don't
think any of the actresses

from W.A.V.E. necessarily became.

- But Gary never was upset.

He never thought, "Oh,
you're ripping me off."

Or, as a matter of fact,
Gary used to offer me work

that he didn't want to do,

or that was maybe not high enough pay

for both of us to be involved in.

He would just give me all this work.

- They stole all my ideas! (laughs)

No, really.

I didn't really care that
much about other companies

because A. they were
doing things differently.

Everybody, like you had asked
before about certain things

that I do and not do and so forth.

And I know some of those
companies went further

or emphasized specifically
just certain things.

You know, less storyline or more,

some were more graphic than others.

(gun squelching)
(gun blasting)

(woman groaning)
(man grunting)

- I think it's actually
healthy to be able to,

for the viewer to go
and see this acted out.

Because that's who you are,

and you shouldn't hide who you are.

So, there should be everything
out there for everybody.

And I'm glad that there's
still filmmakers making it.

Because whatever brings you
pleasure, go for it. (laughs)

It's my job as an actor to get there

and to do the best I can to portray it,

to be as real as possible.

And I didn't know it was satisfying

so many people so that's.

And I like giving gifts. (laughs)

So, that's the giving part of me.

- I remember thinking like, you know,

is this something that they want to do

to girls in real life?

Like why do they want to see this?

In the beginning I kind of
thought it was a little strange.

But I actually found out over
the years that guys that are

into these fetishes don't have
any intentions of going out

and actually doing this to girls.

It's just something they enjoy
seeing played out, acted out.

And a lot of the guys,
and I'm actually friends

with some people that are
into certain fetishes,

like the drowning and the different kinds

of ways girls get killed.

And they're the nicest guys in the world.

They're real nice
people, real nice people.

- No matter how sexual they
get and how torturous they are

for the women in the movies or the viewer,

there is a friendliness and
a warmth to them sometimes

that is inexplicable and
incomparable to other things.

- It was exciting to see the stupid shit

that would happen on set.

- [Art] There was not a
lot of attention to safety

on these sets necessarily.

-Are you kidding me?

There was no safety on a W.A.V.E. set.

(weapon whacking)
(woman groaning)

- I mainly worried about dropping
girls that I had to carry.

Some of them were a little
bit more than I could handle.

And when you're doing a
lot of different takes

and you're carrying the girls
and moving around with them,

that was challenging.

- Sometimes if you had a prop,

we would like take it out
there and like, you know.

It's like, "Gary, it's a real knife."

"Yeah, yeah, but just
don't kind of, you know.

"Pretend, act."

I'm like, "it's a real knife.

"Can you get a prop?"

"Oh, okay, we'll get a prop next time."

- [Gary] So we had an old
studio on Sicklerville,

and we had enough space
where basically 16 by 16,

that we could put walls up.

So, we'd use aluminum foil
and then spray painted it

with a gray and black paint eventually.

And then sometimes I would
try to throw dirt on it.

And that created the cave.

- Silver spray paint
made space things, okay?

The brown and black spray
paint made the caves.

-And Tina had to do a shower
scene, but there was no water

because it was a fake
shower in the studio.

It wasn't a real shower.

But we were just laughing
the whole time and saying,

"Oh, that's the new fetish, dry showers.

"Everybody has to take a dry shower."

- Hey, you look good.

That's a nice outfit.

- Oh my God!

Oh, this guy, he would come with outfits.

They'd either be too big, too small,

too much in the '80s, too, way.

Oh my God, what the hell is that?

- Gary's funny because
most of the outfits we wear

in the movies are from his own collection

that he collects from
Goodwill and thrift stores.

He'll have us playing a cop

wearing a little short mini skirt

and high heels and stockings.

Like what cop goes around in high heels,

stockings and little mini skirts?

But in a W.A.V.E. movie, that's the norm.

- This is Sergeant Wilson.

I'm out here on the property now.

I found some very unusual evidence.

- I am really good at the quicksand.

And I know some of my
fans out there can see it.

Like, I'm good at quicksand.

I can go under really well.

It's because I have a swimming background.

So, I would just like get
to the point I could...

I'm good at dying.

You know, I can just like, be
like I'm on my last breath.

And then I can go way
under in the quicksand.

It was good.

It was good, really good.

- All right, so he got better
with the quicksand later on,

but the first time he did it

basically what he did
was he took a garbage,

like these giant garbage bags, right,

and dug a hole and then put the hole,

made the hole really, really deep.

And then filled it with
water and then took the dirt

that he dug, which had every bug, insect.

God knows what was in it.

And threw it back in to the water

and then told us to get in it.

- I never liked the
quicksand stuff. (laughs)

It was just so nasty.

Having to sink in that pit in the woods.

And it would be cold and it
would get all in my hair.

And I would say that's probably one

of my least favorite things to do.

- I am Rana.

This is my home.

- Pam played Rana and he used

like a leopard skin seat cover off a car

or something like that to make her suit.

And we shot in the land
behind Gary's parents' house.

And it was pretty jungle
looking back there.

But that was a good series.

And that was the one I
think I got chiggers from,

from hiding in the bushes and
got covered with chiggers.

- I remember watching it and

I wasn't that happy with my acting in it

because it was early.

And I saw myself and I
was like, "Ew, I suck."

(laughs)Anyway, I got really
good at acting after that.

- Tina was a Nazi in that,
who was Rana's nemesis.

And I was Teela the jungle girl

who was Tina's character's sidekick.

Kill! (laughs)

- Teela, get some rope!

- I would speak in like
one word sentences,

like "kill" and "fire!"

- He was like, okay, now
the snake is gonna attack.

I said, "okay," right?

And the first take of it,

it came around and I saw what it was.

I was just like, I couldn't even scream.

I just sat there and I went,

"You have to be fucking kidding me.

"That's the snake?

"I'm supposed to be scared?"

He's like, "Come on, it's a snake, Tina.

"It looks like a snake, in
camera it looks like a snake."

-And I just remember laughing

because we all took turns
being the "snake handler"

and having our hands in this snake puppet.

And it was the stupidest thing,
but it was just so much fun.

And just taking turns, you know,

being this snake and attacking
each other with this puppet.

- I like Deadly Sale.

- Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

That is a good one.

- Because it has even less reason to exist

than the other ones.

It's like, it's like,

"Oh, there's a problem with
this real estate issue.

"Oh, and I'm tied to a
tree, and there's a killer."

But it just feels like Gary
Whitson that week was like,

"I gotta try something different!"

And then he got out there,

and he had the idea and he had the plot.

And he's like, "Ah,
just tie her to a tree.

"That's fine."

I liked that there was
like this tiny little fritz

of inspiration to do
something totally different.

And even the most devoted perv watching

that would be like,

"Wait, what are we talking about here?

"What's going on, why?"

Tie her to something quick.

I don't understand the rest of this.

- I've always been
fascinated with mermaids.

Ever since I was a kid,

I've always loved them and
I've always wanted to be one.

So, I ordered a couple
of custom mermaid tails,

swimmable, fully swimmable mermaid tails.

Just to see what kind of
market there even is for that.

And, believe it or not,
there's quite a market for it.

There's a lot of people that
are really into mermaids

and love to see mermaids
swimming underwater

and all that kind of stuff.

I know there's a big underwater fetish.

- So, I've done mermaid movies with Laura

where they've done it in, I
have an above-ground pool,

which I don't know how many mermaids would

be in an above-ground pool, but.

- There was someone that
ordered one years ago who was,

I guess it was a fetish.

He was into clothed mermaids.

Mermaids where you see their tail,

but they had clothes on over top,

like a skirt and a top and
a then a tail coming out.

I even did one where I sunk in quicksand,

where I was a human,
and I sunk in quicksand.

And then when I finally got
myself out of the quicksand,

I had changed into a
mermaid and I had a tail.

- Ew, that's disgusting!

(women giggling)

Oh my God, who is that
chick buffing Gary's head!

Oh my God! (laughs)

- We all would improv.

We would have an outline,

but then we would just
go off on one another.

It was like an improv
class that was filmed

and put into a movie.

- There's been some movies
where it was mainly all improv.

I mean, we had the basic
idea, but we improved a lot.

- I liked the fact that you can go

and make up these characters on the spot.

Sometimes the scripts were so loose.

Okay, a lot of times, they
were always very loose scripts.

So, you would show up and
you'd be able to improv a lot.

And that was like a great,
great learning skill.

- Can I ask you something?

- Yeah, what?

- What's with the bikini?

- The time machine has trouble
transporting both animate

and inanimate objects at the same time.

The less you have on, the better.

- Oh, then Gary acts! (laughs)

Gary acts.

He gets into the movie
and he tries to act,

and he's really bad.

- I would say that Gary's acting,

he did as best as he could.

- Gary's not much of an actor.

Maybe Gary should not act. (laughs)

- He had a line that he
screwed up three or four times,

maybe five times.

I can't even remember.

One line and the line was, "Yes."

I shit you not.

I said my monologue, the camera turned.

All he was supposed to answer was "Yes."

And we were like, "Okay, Gary, ready?"

And he just stood there.

And we were like.

And he's just like, and then
he just started laughing.

I go, what the, he's like,
"I forgot, what was it?"

I'm like, "it's yes!

"It's yes!

"You can't remember 'yes'?"

- God, Mr. Johnson, you scared us.

- Sorry about that, but with
this maniac on the loose,

I just was checking on you.

- [Woman] Thanks for your
concern, Mr. Johnson.

(quirky electronic music)

- The idea of making custom
movies is not what you would,

not what I would have
immediately thought of doing.

But then you sort of think
about it more over time,

and it's like Gary had
the exact right idea

that everybody probably
should have been doing.

It was just the thing
that makes total sense

is why not make what other people want,

literally custom tailored.

He would have just a scene.

I want a movie where
Tina Krause is sitting

in front of a mirror, brushing her hair.

And he would make an
entire movie around it,

with a story and everything
else and have fun with it

and be making money, you know?

And it was like, instead of worrying about

trying to sell it to the masses,

he's just worried about this one customer

that had this one specific
fetish or niche or whatever

that they wanted.

So, really, I like to look
back on that whole thing now

and think he's got the
last laugh on all of us

because he was really doing
it the right way all along.

- Everything's changed.

I mean, everything around has changed.

The fact that he's still
making these movies,

and he's making a living off of it.

That's awesome.

- Because here we are in the modern age.

With a catalog.

(interviewer laughing)

It's full circle in many respects

that there's actually a
print catalog that goes out

to thousands and thousands of people.

It's like it's 1995 all over again.

- To stay that dedicated and
to keep a consistent aesthetic,

a consistent vision and a consistent goal

in front of you at all
times, is tremendous.

I think it's a tremendous
feat for any kind of art,

especially filmmaking.

If anything, that's one
reason to check out the whole

breadth of his work.

- If you're into someone
getting drowned or strangled

or chloroformed or dying in
quicksand, or put an apple

in their mouth and served
up on a dinner table,

I don't think you can
really go anywhere else.

You're gonna have to go to
Gary to get what you need.

And, obviously, after 30
years, he's the number one guy.

- It's amazing that Gary's still

making movies after 30 years.

I mean, it's just really insane.

He's still strangling
girls in his backyard.

It's incredible.

- I don't regret that or
anything that I've done

because if I regret than
I didn't learn from it,

then it means I'm ashamed of it.

I'm not.

- Gary and some of the
other small companies that

opened the door and just started
all this independent film

stuff that has been going
on for years and years.

So, it did actually build a career

for me because it is the
career that I do have today,

and it's a full-time career.

- It's kind of the same feeling

as a Ray Dennis Steckler movie.

Everyone getting together
and making a movie

because the filmmaker has
this dream to do this.

And so everyone pitches in
and everyone's happy to do it

because they're excited just to be

in front of the camera and
just to create something.

- And that probably
means that Gary Whitson

is the greatest guy in the world

because all of these
people have spent so much

of their personal time at
presumably very little income

to help him realize these visions

again and again, for decades.

- He's always been kind and good to me.

And...

Whenever it happens, whenever
we go to the next world,

he has left me in charge
of the enterprise.

I was honored and I'll
probably cry thinking about it.

Good guy.

- It's just a completely different world

that spawned a modern world
that we see all the time.

So, I think it's also very important

that people see W.A.V.E. as a company

that helped pioneer something like that,

these custom fetish or
custom fantasy movies.

- Now, what if you gave
Gary a million dollars?

What if you gave Gary a full crew?

I don't know.

You might have something
a little bit different.

- He has the desire.

And I think that's what makes
you a success, that desire,

and that fetish within himself,

and the desire to bring
it forth and to live it.

He couldn't have asked for a better life.

- Cut, that's good.

All right, we got it!

See you on the bus, tomorrow.

Okay.

(both laughing)

(quirky pop music, "I
Want You In My Life")

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ For all this time, forever and ever ♪

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ To be just mine, my only pleasure ♪

♪ You know I've been around
the whole wide world ♪

♪ I've seen more sights
than the average girl ♪

♪ Yet somehow I seem to miss the mark ♪

♪ Possess everything except a heart ♪

♪ But now I've seen the light
and what a sweet surprise ♪

♪ And even found my heart's
delight shining in your eyes ♪

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ For all this time, forever and ever ♪

♪ Oh, I want you in my life ♪

♪ To be just mine, my only
pleasure now, now, now ♪

(uptempo electronic music)