GRAVESTONED: An Inside Look by Gary Murray

Famed painter Michael McWillie comes across very down to earth. In a dark shirt and faded blue jeans, he looks more like a guy taking time off his day to catch a flick at the Studio Movie Grill. But he is at the cinema to promote his latest endeavor, the independent feature Gravestoned.

The film is a comedy horror flick where a director, wanting a truly realistic prop severed arm for his horror opus, unwittingly gets delivered a real severed arm. And it seems that the dead man wants his property back. This machete whacking weirdo comes across the movie set, full of scantly clad actresses and incompetent filmmakers. Revolving around the mayhem are two stoned grave diggers who contemplate different aspects of life as they try to decide whether they should dig a grave. Gravestoned covers the ABCD's of low budget flicks - action, babes, comedy and dogs.

Though he worked as a creative consultant with Roger Corman years ago, this is Michael's first big film. One of his former short films was even seen behind the Iron Curtain, and he was told it was considered a cult classic. Though he didn't ask for advice, Michael said that Corman would have told him, “Shoot in one location and shoot fast.”

Like a proud papa, Michael wants everyone to see his little work of fiction. His fun little film has played at different festivals and is now available on DVD. He freely admits that at one of the screenings more than a few patrons were imbibed.



Going from having a painting on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to being the creative force of a comedy horror film is a long and different haul. “It started out that I had a painting that was in the White House that was getting a few honors, ” Michael said. After being told by a buddy that he was nothing because he had never made a feature film. He admitted, “It got under my skin.”

Then Michael had a spark of inspriation. “The idea was for these pot smoking guys who want to break into the movie biz. I thought I gotta (make a film) because I'm gonna be hearing about it for the rest of my life. I raised the money, shot it and put everything in it including Scotties. All sort of vices and beautiful women. I just had fun with it.”

Since he is known for his dog paintings, he lovingly referred to Gravestoned as 'the Citizen Kane of Scottish Terrier horror films.' The two most difficult aspects on getting this film made were raising the money and getting the special effects right. “It had to be visually nice to me. I had a certain vision and we kinda got what I wanted.” He credits this to his 'great lens' and his director of photography who “never put the camera in the wrong place, and just nailed it.”

He did have worries about both the actors and the weather. Since the film was shot in a 60 acre Gothic graveyard in Oak Cliff, Michael fretted about his actresses having to come to a bad section of Dallas during the night, with gunshots heard in the distance. Since the cemetery is the resting place of The Lady of White Rock Lake, that added a spooky dimension to the proceedings. He found that it was difficult asking a young actress to pant and working around a no-nudity clause during a simulated sex scene. But all the restrictions eventually worked to a finished product.

Lar Park Lincoln (Friday the 13th Part VII) is the big name in Gravestoned, and Michael said of her, “She was great with the young actresses.” Then he added, “She was just a pro and we were glad to have her. She went above and beyond, even helping with marketing.”



Michael had a plan of raising half the funding with a limited partnership and to paint Scotties to earn the rest. “Shoot the movie, make the payroll and move on from there,” was going to be his motto. Editing and sound work were the biggest challenges for the second half, but he added, “You raise the money, you get the film made.”

Michael McWillie compared making Gravestoned to building a Harley, where you keep adding on to it and it is different from the original vision. “The beauty of doing this is that you get to get people from different (creative) areas and get them to come over.”

He sees Gravestoned as a series. “I would love to do it” he said. But he has plans to work on a romantic comedy and a action/drama before he can think of doing a sequel. But he was thrilled with idea of Gravestoned. “It's the kind of picture where you don't have any restraints,” he explained.. “It is so off the wall that you can fill in what every you want.”

Since Gravestoned is his first finished feature, it was asked for his advice to a young filmmakers. Michael said, “Always plan for the entire film. Clearly there were some things involving music that I wanted to put into the film that I didn't realize that I had to get that into, spending time on the soundstage for hours and hours. I wish I had known more about that and budgeting time. What it takes to do it right.”

He completed his thought by saying, “I got what I wanted from it. It is tongue-in-cheek.” It's clear that he loves his finished product.

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