Saturday Morning Massacre: Spencer Parsons Channels Corman and Argento

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Spencer ParsonsThis is the third in a series of four interviews related to the Austin-shot movie Saturday Morning Massacre (Jette's review), which recently premiered at Los Angeles Film Festival. Don't forget to read about our chats with producer Jonny Mars and screenwriters Aaron Leggett and Jory Balsimo, and look for the fourth interview later this afternoon.

Before he moved to Chicago to teach at Northwestern University, Spencer Parsons spent over a decade making movies in Austin. His first feature film, I'll Come Running, premiered at LAFF in 2008 and also screened at Austin Film Festival that year. Despite the move, Parsons hasn't been able to escape Austin completely. His second feature film, Saturday Morning Massacre, shot locally, earned Parsons and crew a return trip to LAFF earlier this month.

Jette and I sat down with Parsons and talked horror, the Austin film scene, his move to Chicago and (of course!) breakfast tacos.

Slackerwood: So we've been hearing from Jonny Mars about the six-week wonder production.

Spencer Parsons: It's really crazy. When I got the call about it and they were pitching it to me, I thought, yeah, it sounds great. In large part, just because as an overall fan of the genre, and also as a filmmaker, I've always read stories about how things were actually made, and so I've read so many stories where you've got [Roger] Corman going, "Hey, you've got a set still standing. Charles Griffith, you go write a script." And lo, two weeks later, you have The Little Shop of Horrors. For real, that really happened.

So under those conditions, I said, "Let's do that, it sounds really fun. Let's do an exploitation movie." We have this opportunity… and not in a grindhouse way, but let's do it under these constraints, and let's do it Corman-school.

Corman-school in Austin, which is kind of Corman-y to begin with.

Parsons: Well, and truth be known, just before this, I had just come off teaching a class called "The Roger Corman School" at Northwestern, and it was all about, what are low-budget techniques and what are ways to sort of connect to the audience through genre? On these limited means, you come up with more interesting and exciting ways to do things, because when you're working so quickly and on so little money, you can take some more risks.

Those old movies are not just great because they're cool or they've inspired Quentin Tarantino. All that stuff is there, but they're interesting because of the process by which they are made and produced. Not just bad moviemaking but different takes on how you make a character, how you make a plot, what are the things that are important, because it's being shot so fast and cheap, it's fun to embrace that.

Did you have any other filmmakers or films that influenced Saturday Morning Massacre?

Oh yeah, a million. After a certain point, I'd have to own up the mantra on this film, like how to solve any problems, how to deal with things was, "What would Dario [Argento] do?" It's not a Dario Argento pastiche in any way, but there's a certain way in which those movies narratively are really inventive -- let's just say crazy -- that is freeing, and that's why I love them. It's exciting to watch a story that just goes nuts the way that like, Profondo Rosso or Tenebre or Suspiria. The stories are really … they're not normal, so it's freeing to think in that kind of perspective, "What would Dario do?"

This is very different from your last feature of yours, I'll Come Running.

Parsons: It is really different, and that's good. I like to do different things. One of the writers, Aaron Leggett and I, before this film, we'd been working on another horror-based project that's closer to I'll Come Running, but it's also much more serious and would be scarier than this. It's interesting in that way; it's the I'll Come Running evil twin, as i think of it. So we'd been working on that for some time, and I really hope to be able to make that now. It's different than I'll Come Running, but in a way, that's a movie that's covered by a certain mash-up of romantic comedy and horror film logic. This is very different but it is totally of a piece for me. I like the style, and I like that my methodologies could change up.

Was it easier shooting your second feature?

Parsons: There's so much you learn on a first feature that you can't learn in any other way. it's an exponential growth.  Maybe at some future point if I've made enough, it'll get easier, but I sort of think of it as that moment in Jurassic Park 2 when Richard Attenborough says "We won't make the same mistakes next time," and Jeff Goldblum says, "No, you'll make all new ones." And that's sort of feature filmmaking in a nutshell -- you're letting the dinosaurs out every time.

Is there anything else in the works that you can talk about?

Nothing that I can tell you about.

Ashley Rae Spillers said she had worked on something else with you in Chicago recently?

When we started this, my second feature became my third or maybe my fourth feature. It's a very strange, kind of evolving project that is radically improvisational. I guess it's kind of -- it's one of those old-school improvisational projects where you just shoot and shoot and shoot and it takes up a long period of time. I probably won't do it again after this one because it's so difficult to keep the whole thing going and I keep worrying ... well, I know for sure I've pissed people off with the long schedule, but we'll see how it goes.

You're shooting most of your films in Austin but you're now living in Chicago. How are you making that work?

My move to Chicago was hugely enabling in that having a real and steadier and better-paying job finally allowed me to afford to be an Austin filmmaker. On the one hand, it makes a lot more sense to make films up there, and I'm doing my darnedest to make that happen. Coming back to Austin has been important just to to keep any kind of filmmaking momentum because those relationships in Chicago have to be built. I've made two films in Austin since I've moved away. Well, two films and the little Slacker 2011 segment.

Is there something you particularly miss about living in Austin?

Parsons: Breakfast tacos.

And which are your favorites?

Parsons: Well, basically, for me, the big three are Torchys, Mi Madre's and Tamale House. Those are the big three, and then there are lots of other good breakfast tacos around. I wouldn't rank them, because they're each delivering you a slightly different kind of thing; they're about equal and it just depends on one's mood.

Maybe that's what I should do instead of filmmaking. I should open up a breakfast taco place in Chicago, because man, I could clean up.