“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” -Mary Oliver
Pushing boundaries and stepping into darkness is all in a day's work for maverick author, producer, director and
craft service master, Stephen Biro. If you recognize titles like "Gini Piggu", "1-Ichi", "Rubber's Lover" and "Frankenhooker", you can thank Stephen Biro and Unearthed Films for getting them to you. Perhaps the greatest buzz about Stephen currently is his American Guinea Pig films and the brutal mastery he has already shown for this series.
Body Count Rising: You first owned Hooked on Comics then you owned Video Mayhem and now Unearthed Films, Books and Music. Does Unearthed have an actual storefront, or does it exist entirely online?
Stephen Biro: It’s entirely online. It used to have a storefront in the very beginning. The company became so popular that I was always working. I just could not continue to rent out movies so it transitioned online. Moving from Video Meyhem to Unearthed Films saved on overhead to some extent, but now there’s just a new type of overhead. Plus it seems like most of my customers became filmmakers! There’s a new video store here in Tampa called Grindhouse Video and they help me get out with orders and promote Unearthed on their website.
Body Count Rising: Are you still affiliated with Paul White (
who was integral in sealing the “Guinea Pig” deal) and Rhett Rushing who you founded Unearthed with in 2001?
Stephen Biro: Yeah. Rhett Rushing is still part of Unearthed films. Great guy and great friend! And Paul White does multiple jobs while I am working on writing, working with filmmakers and doing some ghost writing here and there. We’re just one big happy family. We’re an honest company right now and everything’s moving ahead.
Body Count Rising: I love that. “
Right now.” (
laughing)
Stephen Biro: You know… I value honesty and I know the filmmakers do too. Either they come to us because of that, or some of those that haven’t come back say they wish they had. For example, I was going to pick up this one movie and they ended up going with another company. Later I got this email saying “
I really wish I would have gone with you guys because it’s shelved and nobody knows the movie exists.”
Body Count Rising: Are you still working with MVD for distribution?
Stephen Biro:Yeah. Those guys are honest and up front. We started out with MVD and ended up going with another company because they were bigger and they sold more, but the other company completely ripped us off. I wish we never would have left MVD because we’d be in a totally different place right now. We would have received all of the money we were due. We’re back with them now and I couldn’t be happier.
Body Count Rising: Did you always have the vision of what this company would become, or has it evolved over time?
Stephen Biro: The initial vision was to be a comprehensive label. Comparing back then with where we are now, I’d say we actually accomplished that. People around me are helping me out because the company is growing so fast and so big. Everybody helps promote and it’s just really cool.
Body Count Rising: Absolutely! I love that the goriest and the grittiest films are all there in one place. How do you decide which films you’re going to pick up?
Stephen Biro: I look for both the forgotten gems and the diamonds in the rough. I look for a good story and for quality. I form relationships with the filmmakers so they’ll want to work with us on future projects. Plus I do a lot of work internationally, so that also expands the market.
Body Count Rising: I saw you have “Cannibal” on your site, have you ever talked to Marian Dora?
Stephen Biro: No, nope. I haven’t. There’s a German company we deal with. I think he’s rather elusive, like he prefers to stay in the shadows.
Body Count Rising: Oh yeah… I heard he’s a surgeon and “
Marian Dora” isn’t even his real name.
Stephen Biro: Oh yeah? I heard he worked in the
post office. (
laughing)
Body Count Rising: (
laughing) Moving right along… What made you decide to expand to Unearthed Books and Unearthed Music Group?
Stephen Biro: I have written a couple books myself. I started with the memoir ‘Hellucination’. I was shopping around to different publishers and the regular publishers thought it was too rough. Horror publishers didn’t quite know what to make of it because they felt it had a Christian theme to it. I mean I’m not proselytizing. This actually happened to me, so I created Unearthed Books to just get it out there. It worked out pretty well. The market is flooded, so I’m careful about the books I choose. I don’t want to promote anything that won’t make the novelist money. If I don’t think I can sell it well, I’ll hold off. The last thing I want is a bunch of pissed off horror novelists.
Body Count Rising: Has segmenting Unearthed created any special challenges?
Stephen Biro: Oh yeah! In the horror genre, it’s very hard to get reviewers to sit down and do reviews for a book that will take them a week or two to read. Now the music industry is also flooded, but the nice thing is that we have a push with the excitement behind the Unearthed fans. The idea is to make everyone money. Bands generally would need to tour to make money. The speedcore DJs and horrorcore rap is intense and wouldn’t always get the right kind of marketing that they need while touring. In effect by promoting these books and this type music along with the Unearthed brand of film is a cross-pollination. The fans of each genre will step back and say “
Hey wait. What the hell’s going on over here?” The music fans were looking at the books. Horror film fans became fans of bands like Screamerclauz. It helped to bring awareness across the board. We support the physical media for all… getting them promoted and into the right stores.
Body Count Rising: You must have retailers that just don’t want your particular grade of horror in their stores though.
Stephen Biro: It’s lightening up a little bit, but the bigger issue is with large retail chains that require a phenomenal amount of units up front. If a certain retail chain requests a film and I know they don’t have a good history of sales with these type of films, I will turn them down. Say they want 40,000 units and they will sell whatever they can
if they bother to take the shipment out of their storeroom and put it on the shelves…
Body Count Rising: Oh no!
Stephen Biro: They ship you back whatever they don’t sell, so now you could be sitting on 35,000 copies. And I’ve had that happen once or twice with movies back in the day. Next thing you know I’m at a convention throwing countless copies at the guys behind the Troma booths and I’ve got another 8,559 to go.
Body Count Rising: Man, I had no idea they could do that. The first film you produced, Andrey Iskanov’s “Philosophy of a Knife” was unbearably brutal. Did this set the tone for the type of films you would be involved with going forward?
Stephen Biro: Oh sure, somewhat.
Body Count Rising: Would you say “Unearthed” is the hallmark of underground gore, grit and true nastiness?
Stephen Biro: Well fuck yeah! (
laughing)
Body Count Rising: Which of the Unearthed projects are you most excited to be promoting right now?
Stephen Biro: We’ve got a lot of films lined up and each announcement is going to create an interesting splash across the internet.
Body Count Rising: Oh yeah it is.
Stephen Biro: And more and more people will know what Unearthed is about. It’s going to be a fun year. Right now… “Mecanix" and "Sheep Skin”. “Mecanix” is a wonderful, visual masterpiece like the Bros Quay and Svankmajer, shot on 16mm while “Sheep Skin” is a werewolf mystery /drama horror film that is pretty amazing that comes out in May. We just announced “Atroz” and “Lilith’s Hell” and I’m working with Deodato on the extras for those films. I think that’s really exciting. I mean I could sit here and talk about “American Guinea Pig” nonstop because Marcus Koch did an amazing job directing “AGP: Bloodshock”. I’ll be announcing a new giallo or two, in about two weeks and people are going to be really fired up about those.
Body Count Rising: I know I am! So, was there ever a film, book or band you had to turn away because they were just too heavy or brutal?
Stephen Biro: We had to turn down a Marian Dora film, “Meloncholie der Engel” because of animal cruelty. His people said he killed a cat in it; then after I turned it down they came back and said it was fake. There were some other scenes that didn’t quite fit in with us too, so I just had to pass. That pushed my boundaries and I wasn’t comfortable with it.
Body Count Rising: Wow… for YOU to say that, I can’t even imagine. (
laughing) You’re the guy that put out "Philosophy of a Knife" after all! I made it through a lot of films but that one… I just couldn’t make it through the whole thing.
Stephen Biro: It’s so long! (
laughing)
Body Count Rising: It’s a lot... It’s a lot. (
laughing)
Stephen Biro: We (
Iskanov and I) actually fought about that. I tried to get it cut for film festivals because no film festival is going to want to screen a four hour long movie. I didn’t want to cut any of the gore or violence; just the snow shots and such just to reduce the time. Man, we really went back and forth on that. I just wanted to tighten it up for a film festival version.
Body Count Rising: Was there ever any you had to refuse for just not being brutal enough?
Stephen Biro: Consistently. I turn down movies every week. I feel really bad because I know the filmmakers spent a year, a year and a half, two years putting their hearts and souls in a movie and they say “
Here’s my movie!” and I watch it and it’s got bad acting, bad dialogue, bad something… and I feel like “
Oh you poor guy!” Here’s what’s fucked up: 95% of all movies don’t make their budget back.
Body Count Rising: Wow…
Stephen Biro: And this is the case even before now, when the industry was great. People make a film for half a million dollars. They sell it to the US for forty to eighty thousand, they sell it to Germany for twenty, Japan for ten, France for ten, the UK for fifteen, Australia for five… Yeah, that’s not even close to half a mill. A lot of films just don’t make their budget back. The industry is just so hard.
Here’s the criteria for Unearthed Films. Is it gut-busting? Is it over the top? Is the gore phenomenal? Is there a good story to it? Is it psychology in-depth where it plays with your mind? From a business sense, if a film doesn’t have the qualities that are important to me, I have to turn it down.
Body Count Rising: What effect does streaming movies have on the sales of physical media for a film?
Stephen Biro: Oh the torrents are just killing the industry. They just steal like little robber fucking pieces of shit. They don’t realize or understand that they’re hurting the filmmakers, they’re hurting the actors and they’re hurting the industry. Every single person that’s on the list for the cast and crew of that film gets hurt by illegal downloading. Right now it’s a dangerous time.
Body Count Rising: What about Netflix, Hulu or the Roku streaming channels?
Stephen Biro: Back in the day, people would watch a movie on cable and go out and find the movie later to buy it. And Netflix, Hulu and the streaming channels on Roku can be good. But I know of filmmakers that have their movies streaming on Roku and they’re getting ripped off as well. They haven’t seen a dime for streaming their whole collection on a Roku channel, and that’s because they’re dealing with a greedy middle man. Netflix and Hulu aren’t bad. Netflix doesn’t pay a lot, but extra money coming in is good for the filmmakers.
Body Count Rising: Plus you had commented in a previous interview that in general the new generation of horror fan does not collect physical media like previous generations.
Stephen Biro: There are collectors out there, but the collectors market has changed so drastically. That is why there is such an emphasis on the artwork and the extras available when you purchase a physical version of the film. There is also a difference in the urgency. There is always great anticipation for a new release, but collectors will often say, I’ll pick it up when I have the cash. And that’s more to do with the economy.
Body Count Rising: Looking at “AGP: Bouquet of Guts and Gore” and “100 Tears”, your commentaries and behind the scenes are actually FUN. It’s like listening to a friend talk about the film. I have heard commentaries that are just so monotone and boring that it really makes me appreciate what you’re doing.
Stephen Biro: Well, I’ve been a collector for a long time and I also know that when listening to commentaries it can be a real snooze-fest. And dammit, gorehounds are more then friends, they're family!
Body Count Rising: Right! Exactly!
Stephen Biro: When I do a commentary I want it to feel like you’re sitting there with us, having a beer with us and listening like a fly on the wall. And I think that’s a lot more fun than just droning on about craft services and the ham and cheese sandwich we had.
Body Count Rising: I’m going to switch gears on you for a moment, because I have to ask. Is it safe to say you’re possibly one of the most controversial writers in the world? (
For the dead baby books…)
Stephen Biro: Aww yeah… (
laughing) At the time it was a bet between me and my ex-wife. I told her a couple of dead baby jokes and she said I bet you can’t make a whole book of those. And lo and behold “The Dead Baby Joke Book” was born. And holy crap I got so many death threats. And I kept my name off it because everyone said “
Keep your name off it.” But I was like, “
Oh hey, what’s the worst that could happen?” Then the death threats started happening from the UK. And ‘The Mirror’ and ‘The Sun’ did these whole exposes on how the dead baby jokes were harming the mothers there. Then the Prime Minister chimed in.
Body Count Rising: Oh my God! (
laughing)
Stephen Biro: Oh yeah. (
laughing) There was a press release threatening Amazon to take my book down. There were petitions… and it was just crazy, but their overreaction was great marketing and my sales in the UK skyrocketed. And I was like “
Wow! OK!” so I put out my next dead baby item- a cookbook! And then when I published that, it seemed like everyone in the UK said “
Wait a minute…” and they were onto me, so they ignored me and the sales just kind of stopped.
Body Count Rising: Can we expect to see “Gator Green” as a feature length film in the future?
Stephen Biro: With the whole politically correct bullshit that’s going on, I just don’t know. The screenplay’s phenomenal. The short is something different than what the feature length would be. We’ll see how it goes. The guy is a just madman behind the camera in the best possible way. We’ll be releasing the “Gator Green” short, “My Sweet Satan” and “Roadkill” with all of the extras and commentary here soon.
Body Count Rising: Nice!
Stephen Biro: Yeah it will be nice! We’re trying to energize Jim because he’s got this new documentary coming out on him. And I think more people will see Jim for the filmmaker he is and he’ll be chugging out more films left and right.
Body Count Rising: And you’re in that documentary, right?
Stephen Biro: Yeah, I’m in it. It was shot over five years and I think it’s an interesting film and Victor Bonacore did a great job. I think Jim's fans are excited to see it.
Body Count Rising: Yeah I can’t wait to see it, for sure. Will Jim VanBebber be involved in future Guinea Pig films, like he was with “Bouquet of Guts and Gore”?
Stephen Biro: I’m trying to keep everything fresh with each new film, with all new actors and actresses. Everyone I cast will go through try-out regardless. It’s harder because you have to find the perfect people for torture on film.
Body Count Rising: Taking on the Guinea Pig franchise was absolutely brilliant. How did that transaction come about?
Stephen Biro: I’ve been trying to get the rights to “Guinea Pig” since 2002 and they wanted nothing to do with it. The movie has brought great shame to the country because of Miyazaki, the child murderer. Paul (
White) was integral to the deal, and the President of the company in Japan was retiring, so he allowed us to access the rights. Now we’re moving forward with a whole new series.
Body Count Rising: How did you determine the timing of your series of eight?
Stephen Biro: Basically I’m trying to get them done as quickly as possible, but with the kind of quality the Guinea Pigs truly deserve. We’re putting together budgets for the next film with the help of crowd funding, and we just keep moving ahead. The next film is supposed to be done in South America and I’m working with some filmmakers in Chile who did “Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness”. It’s a hair’s breath under Serbian Film. It’s going to be amazing. We had a producer drop out and I needed to temporarily put that project on hold, so now the focus is on “Exorcists”. Hopefully we don’t have to change the title because of “The Exorcist”.
Body Count Rising: Really?
Stephen Biro: Yeah, we might have to. It would really suck to get everything ready and printed and then to receive a cease and desist from Warner Brothers, who has a trademark on “The Exorcist.”
Body Count Rising: How much of your memoir ‘Hellucination’ or your past makes its way into “Exorcists”?
Stephen Biro: I have a bunch of people anticipating this film because they know it’s going to be like ‘Hellucination’, and they’re like “
Holy shit.” And they want to be involved. A little bit of the film is based on my past. I’ve met the Devil on occasion, and you can quote me on that. I met God and it was the most frightening experience you can ever have in your life.
Body Count Rising: So, when you say you met the Devil and you met God, that’s figuratively because you were on LSD, right?
Note: ‘Hellucination’ is a memoir of a time when Stephen would take LSD and use nitrous on his search to find God. The book was called a “drug-fueled trip through the gruesome levels of hell”.
Stephen Biro: I’ve seen people possessed who knew things that no one would. The next thing you know they snapped out of it and were freaking the fuck out. They say the Devil likes to masquerade… Well, it’s all in the book. And I’m really proud that I managed to write that book without sounding batshit insane. It really does pack a psychological and mental punch. I’ve had emails from people that had nightmares for weeks after reading it.
Body Count Rising: Reviews for your book express the positive message in Hellucination…
Stephen Biro: Uh-huh! 100% Actually, I almost became a priest. But as a priest, minister or teacher, you’re held under stricter laws. With that full realization I abandoned the idea.
Body Count Rising: Did you go through formal training to be a priest?
Stephen Biro: I started to and then I quit. I’ve had people talk to me about religion, but I don’t push myself on anyone. You know, someone who is spiritual can be just as fucked up as anyone else. It’s like we’re not alone out there, except in some ways we are. It’s pretty heavy. I was actually an atheist for most of my life until I hit 30 years old.
Body Count Rising: OK, so if “Exorcists” is based on ‘Hellucination’ and ‘Hellucination’ had a positive message… Well, your films just don’t seem to end too positively.
Stephen Biro: No they don’t. (
laughing) I’m not going to tell you where “Exorcists” ends, but it does follow the “Guinea Pig” model. People are going to want to go find a fuzzy animal to hug after watching that film.
Body Count Rising: You have an effects credit for “Bouquet of Guts and Gore” and you also had effects master, Marcus Koch on set. What effects did you work on specifically?
Stephen Biro: Oh! What didn’t I? The eyeball scene was one of them. I worked on a lot of the effects. Working with Marcus closely, I got a crash course in effects. Hey, I worked on the effects in “Bloodshock” too, but Marcus didn’t give me any credit. Boo hoo hoo! (
laughing) It’s cool. I can do some stuff, but I can’t even come close to the stuff Marcus can do. In one week I watched that guy make seven dicks.
Body Count Rising: I heard he was the dick guy.
Note: Marcus proudly deemed himself the dick guy in a previous interview.
Stephen Biro: He is the dick guy. He makes all sorts of dicks. He made seven different dicks for seven different films. In the coming year we can expect quite a bit of dick mutilation. Now when you see those independent movies come out, you can say “
Marcus made that!” He loves a challenge, and when I say “
Hey, I’d like to do this!” he will say “
That’s never been done before, but I’ve got ideas.”
I do a lot of things that I don’t list myself for, because, you know, it would be like blowing smoke up my own asshole. Did I say I was in charge of location? No. Am I going to say I was the prop master? No. Craft services? I did craft services. Am I going to put that in the credits? No! (
laughing)
Body Count Rising: I’m going to put that in your intro. “
Craft Service Master, Stephen Biro.”
Stephen Biro: Yeah… I can just see filmmakers saying we need to get that Steve Biro,
Craft Service Master from the "Guinea Pig" series.
Body Count Rising: It’s true. He makes a hell of a ham sandwich.
Stephen Biro: That’s right. He makes a
HELL of a ham sandwich.
Body Count Rising: I understand “Exorcists” will have some insane effects. What else can you tell us about this upcoming film?
Stephen Biro: We’re going balls to the wall. It’s going to be hard because we’re going to be compared with "The Exorcist" since it is the greatest exorcism film of all time. No movie can hold a candle to that film. But this will be my baby. “Bouquet”; I did that as the bridge between the 1st series and ours. It's not polished. It's gritty, ultra violent and harkens to the day when tape trading was at its peak and tape collectors went for the worst stuff first. “Exorcists” will be a completely different beast just as “Bloodshock” is a completely different beast compared to “Bouquet”. I don't think anyone has come close to “The Exorcist”, not even in the gore department so what I will be going for is an outright extravaganza of gore and what evil truly is.
Body Count Rising: You know what though? You’re going up against “Guinea Pig”. And all of the blood, guts, gore and crazy madness that is the “Guinea Pig” franchise will be expected from the fans. You’ve set your own standard high, and when you hold yourself to your own standard, you’re going to kill it. Speaking of, how did the fans handle “Bouquet of Guts and Gore” at the festivals? I know I had to pause it a couple of times and get up and walk around and come back.
Stephen Biro: The film festivals were fun. We had people leave and come back, leave and stick their heads in the door… We showed “Bloodshock” in its full completed state at the festival. Marcus has been editing this thing for the past year. We had one person that had to run out and barf. Marcus really hit it out of the park with this film.
Body Count Rising: How do you wash off “Bouquet" and "Bloodshock” and step into real life at the end of the day? Does it stop while you are filming, or is it always with you?
Stephen Biro: It’s always there.
Body Count Rising: What are the advantages of being an auteur with your “American Guinea Pig” films?
Stephen Biro: You know more of what your capabilities are from the beginning. You have a picture in your mind of how it will play out. Besides, I love writing because it’s about the only thing regarding filming that isn’t collaborative. You only limit yourself. Directing is different and you need to keep track of twenty different people.
Body Count Rising: You said you were interested in doing a video series on YouTube about film making. Is this your way of giving back to the independent film community?
Stephen Biro: I would like to share the reality of the industry. I’d love for a film school to come across the tutorials and recommend them to the classes. I think I’ll end up doing it. I just need to figure out the timing. I mean “Bloodshock” isn’t even out yet.
Body Count Rising: What is the main lesson or idea you would want to convey more than anything else?
Be happy with the contract and make sure you have an honest company with the right reach into the market you’re in.
