EP#223 Richard Elfman

Kevin Lane's Spill Your Guts

This is our 40th episode of Spill your guts and the final episode of season 2. We will be taking a few weeks to recharge our batteries and prepare season 3. Also, we’ll be catching up with folks and checking out some new movies at the amazing Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal this week and next week so we’ll be taking you with us. Thanks to my incredibly hard-working team for a fantastic season and to all of you for sitting down with us. Much more guts to be spilled in season 3 and once again, thank you for joining us.

Our guest today is one of the genres great showmen. His films are whacky, funny, boundary pushing, musically charged, sexual, gruesome, occasionally satirical but never mean spirited but most of all, a hell of a lot of fun. There is no one else like him and no other films like his.

Today we are joined by the hilarious, thoughtful and wonderful… Richard Elfman.

Richard is very much an auteur. His 1980 cult classic “Forbidden Zone” is an upside-down topsy-turvy musical adventure of madness. It is basically impossible to classify. Not really a horror film, nor musical, nor fantasy… it’s a Richard Elfman film and that means you’re in for a good time. With masterful scores by his brother and frequent collaborator, the legendary Danny Elfman, Richard has a filmography of impossible to classify movies that all carry his distinct signature as filmmaker.

Richard’s films also have a strong DIY quality that speaks to his determination to get his films made the way he wants to make them. I can only imagine what a pitch meeting with studio execs for “Aliens, clowns & geeks” would be like. Actually, that would be awesome. I’d love to be in that meeting.

Richard discusses his approach to filmmaking including the joys of bringing your family and friends onboard, his two personas, finding his tribe as the director of San Francisco transvestite performance group “The Cockettes” and founding the beloved “Mystics Knights of the Oingo Boingo”.

As an added bit of awesomeness, Richard has provided us with musical tracks by Danny Elfman, Ego Plum and Radioactive Chicken Heads from his new film “Bloody Bridget”. “Bloody Bridget” is absolutely insane and a total blast. See it with an audience if you can and keep an eye out for a kick ass performance by Richard’s wife Anastasia Elfman in the titular role.

Let’s take a trip into the forbidden so with the maestro of madness, Richard Elfman!

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