Interview with Richard Siegel

Where did you get inspiration for Shadow: Dead Riot?

RS: My working title was “Damnation” – which was what the cons referred to the prison as. I wanted a super badass bogeyman, compelled by elder dark gods (ala Lovecraft) to free them from their otherworldly imprisonment. Producer Carl Morano gave me a lot of latitude in developing a story from the horror elements that he and executive producer John Sirabella wanted in the film. Shadow (aka Edward Marquis aka Mustapha Jones) was to be the anti-Superman, and since I’d already spoken to Tony Todd about it, I tailored it in part for him. Shadow was to be much like the original pulp/radio Shadow: a living shadow - literally - much in the tradition of German expressionism.

Shadow’s back-story made up the first act of my early drafts. A comic book adaptation, which I scripted, was to be the secret origin of Shadow – basically, what led him to the dark side, clarifying and embellishing things that were only hinted at in the final film. Sadly, the comic was cancelled after two issues. Well, there’s always the chance of a prequel, which I’d love to do. Basically, Shadow is an evil Superman with all the powers of darkness, living in the shadows. His master was Ny’arlath the Undying. His original name was “He Who Walks With Shadows” but that’s a mouthful!

By combining two exploitation genres of the 1970s, when I added super-heroes to the mix, I added the last of the great triple features - kung fu! I’ve always said that Shadow: Dead Riot was like a triple bill on the Deuce (42nd Street) circa 1975!!!

What did Solitaire do, anyway?

RS: Originally, Solitaire grew up in an orphanage after the brutal rape and death of her mother by persons unknown (Shadow). She killed the wrong man searching for her mother’s murderer in one version. I wrote Solitaire as having her powers from the beginning. Of course as she grew older, they intensified. One draft even had the obligatory ‘training montage” of every kung fu film. The kung fu fights were actually scripted by me blow-by-blow and the stunt choreographers were very faithful to the spirit of that.

Is it problematic having a heroine who's so obviously flawed? The prison/"rehabilitation facility" the film is set in is fairly unusual – why did you set it there?

RS: The producers requested a lot of key elements, but mostly: zombies in a women’s prison. In fact, the reason I was hired to develop the story and screenplay (through 10 unofficial drafts/3 official ones) was that my scenario made “sense of senseless killings” (quoting Lois Lane from Superman: The Movie). I think the fact that Solitaire’s far from perfect makes her more accessible to the audience, who’re far from perfect themselves. We like our gods flawed, like ourselves.

(By the way, contrary to what my esteemed co-scenarist later wrote, Solitaire is her name - not Cassandra - at least in my book!)

How did you get Tony Todd involved? Was the role written with him in mind?

RS: Tony and I had worked on the same film although we hadn’t met. I contacted him initially through our mutual friend, director Tom Whitus. At a certain point, the drafts were tailored to his inimitable personality. I never made it to visit on set and I’ve been too busy to attend conventions so I still haven’t actually met Tony face to face! How happy were you with some of the other casting choices?

Early on, I suggested some of the B-indie stalwarts like Misty and Ruby LaRocca. I was involved in casting in New York prior to Derek Wan’s involvement. I liked Meth’s performance a lot. She did a great job and Carla Greene did a fine job considering she was cast a week before principal photography began. I told her briefly via phone (or e-mail) that she was playing Supergirl (with an edge) by way of Pam Grier.

P.S. The warden’s name, Lindsay Danvers, is a nod to Lindsay Wagner and Linda Lee Danvers (Supergirl’s secret identity), and Dr. Swann is a nod to long-time Superman artist, Curt Swan. Lots of comics references were lost in translation, as they say. When I became the "writer off- project" who wasn’t directing, nobody gave a shat what I thought beyond a certain point.

You're a man of many talents – writer, cinematographer, novelist, illustrator, journalist, producer, director, radio actor – is there anything you WOULDN'T do?

RS: I have no interest in porn. It’s all rather mechanical and unimaginative. Steroid freaks and inflatable dolls grinding away in fleshy hideousness don’t excite me in the least. And I’m having doubts about the sado-masochistic nature of modern horror films – I’d prefer to be entertained and thrilled by a good story and characters that I care about rather than people sawing their feet off in torture gardens. Snuff films are very much like porno in their repetitive nature of several false climaxes before the final payoff.

Who are your idols/role models in the business?

RS: Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Walt Disney, Ray Harryhausen, Walter Gibson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack "King" Kirby, Will Eisner, and Merian C. Cooper, Howard Hawks, Buster Keaton, Fellini, Val Lewton, James Whale among others. You know, the originators, the guys that lived the dream - not the following generations of copy cats that rationalize “hand me down” concepts with “homage”.

What are you working on next?

RS: I’m developing some super-secret projects - several involving characters that I created that have appeared in the pages of Weekly World News magazine. A sci-fi serial “Smash Moron, Intergalactic Dolt” which I wrote, produced and directed should be available to subscribers worldwide via cellphone providers this summer. Hopefully, they’ll want more…

IMDB link

Shadow: Dead Riot (2006)

Any film starring horror legend Tony Todd as a sadistic, blood-drinking, baby-eating undead murderer is off to an extremely promising start. So when Shadow: Dead Riot turns out to just be a reasonably competent zombie B-movie, it’s hard not to be just a little bit disappointed.

Basically, once upon a time, a big scary guy with pointy teeth was sentenced to death as a result of his murdering ways. “Going out with a bang” has never been so literal, as Shadow explodes in the chair, sending tendrils of CGI blood winding their way through the prison and causing a riot. The dead prisoners (and remaining bits of Shadow) are all dumped in a mass unmarked grave and forgotten about. Fast-forward twenty years, and the grotty prison has become an even grottier “Experimental Rehabilitation Centre for Women.” (And it really should be pointed out that this is a somewhat lazy move on the part of the filmmakers: alright, you wanted to communicate that this place is slightly out of the ordinary, but surely no real facility would so readily broadcast its “experimental” status.)

Anyway, the theory goes that female murderers and bank robbers can be fixed with a diet and exercise plan. Which sounds just about hippie enough for such an “experimental” facility, but apart from a poorly-positioned aromatherapy room and some questionable vitamin injections, it’s difficult to see how this differs from any other plain old prison: the blood-stained walls and rusty bars certainly don’t inspire much confidence in their methods. Our heroine goes by the name of Solitaire, an alias she’ll provide three different explanations for throughout the course of the film; her real name is Cassandra, which may be a reference to her apparent psychic powers, or someone may just have thought it sounded pretty. Despite having done something criminal enough to land her in jail, she’s also, necessarily, a good person, with, handily, some pretty decent leadership skills.

What follows is mostly a series of standard prison-type escapades, including some incredibly badly choreographed fight scenes, and repulsive lesbian wardens. There’s also an entirely gratuitous shower scene featuring many, many bare breasts. It takes roughly 37 minutes for the first zombie to show up, and even then it’s a while before the real undead action gets going. When it does, it’s a slightly off-balance mixture of gore and hilarity – which is not altogether a bad thing, as there are some genuinely inspired moments: those that stand out include a zombie hand grabbing an umbilical cord after the world’s fastest birth, and a zombie using his dangling eyeball to spot a hiding victim.

Once most of the girls have been killed off (some managing to let their clothes fall off just as they’re getting mangled), it’s finally time for the inevitable showdown between Shadow and Solitaire. Unfortunately, the resulting fight looks like an outtake from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, at least in part due to the number of times Solitaire is thrown up against a wall. Considering that the whole film has been leading up to this moment, it’s very anticlimactic, and ridden with impracticalities. This really is the worst prison ever, considering how easy it is to smuggle illegal objects inside, but presumably the staff were too busy screwing the inmates to worry about things like that. The Darth Vader “revelation” was actually revealed a lot earlier in the movie, and is also glaringly obvious due to the skin colour of the two leads. Which is a problematic statement, though it could be read that Shadow: Dead Riot is making a valid sociological point by showing a prison full of black people, run by white people – but this is a zombie movie, not a social commentary, and similarly, this is a film review and not an analysis of crime statistics. Since it’s also entirely likely someone just wanted to cast Tony Todd and therefore needed to cast a black girl as Solitaire, it’s probably not worth delving any further into the issue.

From a more technical perspective, there’s something odd about the colours of this movie: they’re all washed out, though whether this is a stylistic choice or just a slightly mangled transfer is debateable. Shadow’s voice sounds like it’s coming through a distant synthesizer, which is careless considering this is Tony Todd, a man more than qualified to provide a creepy voice all by himself. There’re a few sloppy continuity errors, and the scripting is occasionally rather heavy-handed – it can’t be possible to find anyone who would say, in all seriousness, “behind this beauty lies your destruction” unless they happened to a Buffy villain, and there are some conversations that just completely fail to make sense.

With all that said, it’s not a complete waste of time. Once the zombies have made an appearance, it’s an enjoyably straightforward race to the finish, and some of the scenes thrown in along the way must rank amongst the most repulsive ever created. The zombie baby is truly gruesome, demonstrating the dangers of breastfeeding in a particularly hideous moment that’ll stick with you long after the movie’s finished. Tony Todd’s not the only horror legend to make an appearance, as the credits reveal some pretty darned impressive guest zombies (and a certain “Erin Brown”, whose screen time is cut disappointingly short), so while it’s obviously complete and utter nonsense, it’s also somehow, against all odds, compulsive viewing, if only for indulging in the time-honoured sport of homage-spotting. It’s not hard to imagine this sneakily becoming a cult classic.

IMDB link