Local filmmaker has big, scary dreams

Kirk Baird

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001 | 8:18 a.m.

Twenty-seven years and several independent, straight-to-video flicks later, he's still not over that family outing.

"That set me off," he joked. "Now I'm doing these sick films."

Atkins' latest "sick" film, "Eat the Rich ... The Cannibal Murders," has its premiere tonight at a free screening at Silverton.

But as demented as its title would suggest, the movie could have been much worse.

With nine hours of raw footage to edit, Atkins had to cut many of the film's more twisted and grotesque scenes to get "Eat the Rich" to its final running time of one hour, 27 minutes.

Since the film has yet to be picked up by a distributor for video release, it has received no official rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. With an abundance of blood and gore, expletives and gratuitous nudity, however, "Eat the Rich" would easily qualify as R-rated material.

Las Vegas resident Terry King, lead actor/co-producer of the film, calls the project a "low-budget, independent, dark comic-book-horror film."

As Atkins said: "We weren't setting out to do 'The Godfather,' that's for sure."

Then again, "The Godfather" wasn't created on a $3,000 budget and filmed entirely in Las Vegas over a six-month period (mainly on weekends and the occasional weeknight) using local actors (Atkins' friends).

But that's the life of an independent filmmaker who's working toward the dream of a major studio release.

"I will continue to make movies with what I have, but it's going to take a bigger budget to get into films," Atkins said.

Atkins' love of film is obvious. The walls of his home are covered with movie posters -- mainly horror, his favorite genre, and the 1979 cult classic "The Warriors," his favorite film.

The director also has a large collection of movies on DVD and video, and has little difficulty referencing obscure films and directors in casual conversation.

Atkins, though, has an equal love for music. In fact, before moving to Las Vegas from Southern California in 1989, he wanted to be in a band.

After experiencing the problems associated with working with other musicians, such as dealing with mixed personalities and commitment to the group, he decided to give filmmaking a chance six years ago.

His first effort, "The Payback and the Vegas Bloodbath," which he described as a low-budget "GoodFellas," was filmed for $400. After securing distribution with a small independent company, Atkins eventually grossed 50 times that budget.

It was during the production of "Payback" that Atkins decided to become a full-time filmmaker, after losing his job at a printing press.

In this case "full time" meant conceiving, writing, directing, producing -- along with his wife, Jennifer -- scoring and occasionally acting in his films.

His next project was "Schizophreniac" in 1996 and '97, followed by its sequel, "Necromaniac," a year later. Both films, as one could surmise by their titles, are exploitation/slasher flicks.

Also in 1988 Atkins served as a "hired gun" on the film "Scorpio," meaning he directed a movie that was based on someone else's script. Originally scheduled for a 15-day shoot in Florida, he was given four days.

The quality of the film suffered as a result.

"I wish I'd been given more time," he said. "There are some good scenes there, but it needed more work."

The experience only made Atkins more determined than ever to produce "bigger and better films." He began "Eat the Rich" in 1999, shortly after acting and collaborating with King on his labor of love, "The Elvis Killers," which had its premiere a year ago at The Orleans.

"Eat the Rich" is based, in part, on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" as well as 1999's "Ravenous," the darkly comic tale of cannibalism at a U.S. fort during frontier times.

"('Ravenous') is a great little film," he said. "It inspired me."

"Eat the Rich" is not a film for everyone, Atkins acknowledged. But, he contends, it's better than today's horror movies, such as "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer."

"Those other films will run their course," he said. "You'll remember 'The Exorcist,' but will you remember 'Scream' in 30 years?"

Atkins' belief in the superiority of old-school horror films is why he opted to adopt the same style and tone of those movies -- such as "Chainsaw" and "Night of the Living Dead" -- for his project.

"If I'm going to make a horror film, I'm going to make it like they used to," he said. "I want to bring back the old horror films."

The filmmaker, however, insists he's more than a horror-movie maven.

Just as John Carpenter and Wes Craven, movie-makers who built their reputations on fright flicks but expanded their craft to include comedy and drama, Atkins wanted to prove himself capable of more than the slasher genre.

So last year he and King collaborated on "Grip," a dark, psychological thriller shot on 16-mm black-and-white film, instead of the digital camera he's used on his other projects.

The goal, they said, is to get "Grip" accepted to January's Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the premier independent film festival in the country, and then work to get it distributed.

In the meantime Atkins intends to use his mail-order company, Cutthroat Video, which specializes in locating hard-to-find, uncut exploitation flicks, to help distribute his other films.

Through his work, most of his movies, including "Eat the Rich," are available on VHS at the Tower Records-Videos-Books in the Wow Center on West Sahara Avenue for $14.99. He's also negotiating with Tower's corporate headquarters, as well as Best Buy, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, about distributing his films worldwide.

"We should know something in the next month," he said. "I hope to see them on DVD next year."

No matter if the distribution deals pan out, Atkins said he will continue to make movies, increasing the budget -- and quality -- along the way.

"It's hard work but I love it," he said. "I don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't making a film."

Atkins paused a moment to consider the subject matter of many of his movies: cannibalism, murder, gratuitous violence.

"It's probably just as well," he said.