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→ September 2001 Feature: Suburban Sluts From Hell

Article by Sarah Jacobson

When I was at the Independent Feature Film Market last year, one of the coolest people I met was Lisa Ann Nordstrom. I really wanted to see her film Suburban Sluts in Hell, but I missed it, so I was very excited to see that it was playing at the fest this year. When I finally saw it, I was so happy that it was just as cool and funny as it sounded when I first read about it. The film is hysterical, the satire is really pointed and you can follow the narrative, which is not usually the case with shorts, especially rock 'n' roll ones. The premise is that two girls want to hang out with rock stars so they move from New Jersey to New York's Greenwich Village to be cool. They end up making friends who are actually a Satanic cult who wants to sacrifice them because they're the only virgins in New York City. The characters are so funny and the film is really well written, I just knew I had to interview Lisa.

→ Sarah- What brought you to the concept Suburban Sluts from Hell?

→ Lisa- It has a little basis in my own life. I'm a Long Island Girl, who moved to Manhattan to meet rock stars. The plot come to me in a dream, 'cuz I use to hang out at the WaWa Hut. It was quite different where I'd grown up. A lot had to do with my Christian school education that I had and all the things about heavy metal being Satan's music.

→ S- Where did you get all those great posters?

→ L- They were mine!

→ S- The David Lee Roth poster, that was amazing!

→ L- They're all mine.

→ S- That 's the thing I loved is the realism of coming over from Jersey to be in Manhattan

→ L- But it happens every day. People come over for reasons just like that. Come and meet rock stars.

→ S- I love that scene in the bathroom. Just like the Satan turn, even though it was hinted in the beginning. You think it's going to be straight parody and it balloons up into this sort of madness. You said you were a student of Mike Kuchar's?

→ L- Not a student, but a friend of his. He did some voices for the film.

→ S- Was he a big influence for you?

→ L- In a way, yeah, but I haven't actually seen much of his work.

→ S- Who were some of your inspirations for that?

→ L- Woody Allen.

→ S- Really??

→ L- Spike Lee. My biggest influences were Woody Allen, Spike Lee and John Waters.

→ S- That is kind of the definitive three.

→ L- I love Bergman, too, but I guess you don't see a lot of Bergman in my work.

→ S- I love how smooth it was and just the narrative. Do you find that at NYU, the focus of that school is definitely different? Do you find a dichotomy of what you're doing and what the school wants you to do?

→ L- At NYU, it's a big film school. It's very competitive. My experiences there were great, but you have to find a niche of your own and find people who support what you're doing. I had professors give me C's and D's on my scripts. The next semester with the same script I'd get an A. It's a matter of sticking to you beliefs. When I first started, when I was eighteen, and I wanted to make movies, I saw myself as a real avant-garde serious type. I think the NYU experience, because it has such a strong narrative base, influenced me to see another direction, to learn the rules first before I broke them. My early work is a lot different, very bizarre, trying to be all weird. I think it definitely had an influence and I don't think it's bad. I can see how people get caught up in the whole thing. People would put a hundred grand in to their student films and I didn't have that kind of money. There's a lot of things with that film that, like the second lead actress walked off the set, the second to the last day of shooting. That's why you see a lot of legs walking.

→ S- I was wondering about that. I thought 'I bet they couldn't get sync that day.'

→ L- Exactly.

→ S- Do you have any other good stories about shooting?

→ L- It was all a nightmare from day one. I was warned. They said don't make a film with eleven locations and twenty people in the cast. I said no, because you're a filmmaker, you see your vision and I may have had limited resources but I wanted to do this film. Like the locations at the bar. This guy promised me the bar. The day of the shoot, I've got eight or nine people and a crew. Nobody's there to let us in. It took a long time to do. I worked on this film for four years. Part of the reason was I fucked off, I didn't do it. I didn't have the money. I had to work a series of really horrible jobs.

→ S- Was it really hard to keep the momentum going over four years? How'd you keep the cast?

→ L- Not the shooting. All the principal shooting was done. It was just a matter of titles, negative cutting, sound mix. I just didn't have the money. And I fucked off after college. I went to London for a year. It was a rough film to shoot. A lot of people, a lot of crew problems. When a women directs a film...I have no problems telling people what to do. My crew was mostly male. Some people were cool. Some people had a real problem with this cute little blonde chick telling them to get their fuckin' shit together and be on the camera. People don't expect that. I'm a happy friendly girl and people expect that (teeny girly voice) "Oh please could you..?" That's fine, but when you're on limited time and limited budget, you can't really..you have to be strong.

→ S- You do the transformation into total iron woman.

→ L- Exactly!

→ S- Where did you get your crew? Was it mostly from school?

→ L- From school, friends. I got a lot of help from a lot of beautiful people who believed in the project and put a lot extra in it. The guy who played Johnny Love happened to own a night club and contributed cases of beer. That got extras to come. It kept people motivated. Free beers.

→ S- Oh yeah, people will do anything for one beer.

→ L- One of the big secrets of low-budget shooting.

→ S- Is there anything else you want to say about the shooting? I really loved your film.

→ L- I wanna make the next one. If anyone's got any money I've got a really funny script..

→ S- What's your next idea?

→ L- It's about masculinity, a comedy because masculinity is a very funny topic. It's actually about the battle between a glam rocker and a biker dude. What constitutes masculinity is the theme.

→ S- How much of a budget are you looking for?

→ L- Anything. I take small donations, anything, dollars.

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