A multi-faceted writer, producer and director, Charles D. Lincoln is mostly known to genre fans as the creator of the web series 21st Century Demon Hunter as well as his upcoming film Bishops' Cove. Now, in honor of Black History Month, I talk with him about his start in the industry, creating the Demon Hunter universe and the upcoming film.
Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general?
Charles D. Lincoln: No worries. Always glad to do these sorta things. I can’t remember not being into horror. According to my parents, the first movies they ever took me to was Alien, and then growing up I remember watching stuff like The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist and all those types of classic horror films.
Me: Were you into genre films growing up? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?
CL: Growing up, I was obviously into Star Wars and sci-fi and all that stuff, but I was hugely into horror. Especially things with a demonic bent to them. I used to watch The Omen as a little kid and wish I could be Damien. No babysitter ever hung herself and said it was for me, and as a kid, that seemed powerful. I was a bit of a disturbed kid, I guess. Hahaha.
Me: When did you initially discover a passion for filmmaking? What aspect of this industry appeals to you?
CL: Very late in life. I mean, as a kid, I used to love writing these messed up stories and then I went to college and took film and television production classes but had such a negative experience with it, that I figured I could never be a director. I spent most of my life in punk and metal and goth and all these dark, cool little scenes, making music and doing all the typical drunken rock star things you do, even at a local level when you’re from NYC. So, I saw a lot. A lot of fun stuff and a lot of messed up, fucked up things. Then I went deaf, not through music, but through one of those lovely little diseases you’re born with but don’t know you have until you’re in your thirties called Meniere’s Disease. And so, we had to cancel a Midwestern tour we had planned, we had record label interest, we had a following, and I kinda had to find something new to do with my life, and I remembered how much I used to love writing stories, so I tried to write some screenplays that I could sell, and I’d just be a writer. Then I did a friend’s video, Tibbie X, formerly of the bands The X-Possibles and, more recently, GASH, and currently, the bassist of Reagan Youth, where she wanted me to be a sleazy pirate. I had such fun on that set that I decided I should start getting paid to do it. And so I went into acting, and one of the things my dad always told me, was that you should make your own work in between working for other people. So, I started writing stuff to cast myself in, and then it just went from there. I wrote a short found footage kinda spin-off for Theresa & Allison and the director didn’t want to do it and suggested I direct it, which sounded weird to me, but I figured I’d give it a go and it sucked and you’ll never see it, but it gave me that itch and as I did more and more stuff and did Lucy in da Five Borors and eventually 21st Century Demon Hunter, I got better and better at it and learned, I really enjoyed directing. I like that it gives me the ability to have whatever weird, deranged ideas I have in my head and make them a reality. I love that I have an ensemble and some great crew people, where I can just come up with some outrageous shit and then we’ll be shooting it a few months later. It’s wonderful for me, as someone who, as a kid, I had so many authority figures telling me how weird I was and how bad my ideas were and how bad I should feel for having them.
Me: Having worked on plenty of short films early in your career, what tools and skills do you acquire working on those that transferred to future film projects?
CL: Well, the biggest lesson I learned, is through conventions, that nobody watches short films except other filmmakers. They serve more a long-form reel for potential collaboration more than something for a general audience. That’s why anthology films are good. It’s this weird mindset of the general public, that they won’t pay money to see a half-hour film, but they’ll pay to see three of them assembled into a movie, with a wraparound story. I can’t say why that is, but it’s something I definitely observed. And as far as tools and skills, I mean, that’s just the result of repetition. The more you do something, the better you’ll be at it, and you’ll learn what your strengths are. If you’re smart, you’ll learn, what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your collaborators are, and you’ll emphasize their strengths while compensating for their weaknesses as they do the same for you.
Me: You're mostly known as the creator of the series 21st Century Demon Hunter. Where did the concept of the series come from? Was it always decided on being a long-lasting series?
CL: 21st Century Demon Hunter started from a writing exercise I did when bored where I just kinda did an improv conversation between two roommates where I just had each one kinda quipping back and forth. A modified version of that conversation is in the Demon Hunter novel in the very beginning. But it was a normal roommate person with a demon hunter roommate, who was a shitty roommate, and it was just an exercise to stretch my imagination a little bit. No plans for anything further yet. So, the next night, I got the idea to write another little exercise and this was a flashback to when this character, Julie, was eight years old and her dad brought a demonic clown to the party that she was expected to kill before it murdered all her friends. This scene is also in the early part of the Demon Hunter novel. But from there, this whole story started to pop into my head and I started writing the rest of the novel from there. The series came about when I met Chelsea LeSage, who had auditioned for something else for me but didn’t get the role, but there was something about her that reminded me of the Julie character I had written, so I asked her if she wanted to read for it, and she was just perfect. She was originally intended to just be on the cover of the novels and maybe a cameo in other stuff here and there, but she asked me if I had ever considered doing a web series. I had not, but just her asking me that, I wrote like five scripts that night, three of which became episodes of Season One. I had flirted with the idea of doing a Demon Hunter comic but didn’t really know any artists I could afford to do a whole comic, so I took a lot of the ideas I had for the comic and put them into the show, and the show has kinda taken on its own life. And now, I’m writing the second novel, we just wrapped on Season 1.5, and there’s all this crazy fucked up lore, and it’s written in a way where you could just read the novels or you could just watch the show and be okay, but if you do both since they’re both “canon,” however much someone with a few published works as I do can have a canon, watching one will enhance the other, even if you can watch or read one without the other. But no, a series hadn’t occurred to me until Chelsea brought it up.
Me: With a cast of experienced and talented indie actors, how'd you settle on the cast getting involved in the series?
CL: I do the casting myself. It’s very important that if I’m writing, that I have the right people. I have had a few negative experiences when other people tried to cast stuff for me, so I am very much in charge of that whole process and I’ve had some amazing people in my stuff. I know it sounds snobby, but I feel that horror films need to try to cast better actors. Just because you’re ripping out hearts or showering the screen with blood and boobs does not mean you can’t have talented, awesome people working for you. I think I’m also fortunate in that I live in New York City, where the best actors in the world are. If you want to be a star, you live in Los Angeles. You want to be an actor, you move to New York City. So many of the actors in my stuff are also stage actors. People who regularly perform Shakespeare and Arthur Miller and Eric Bogosian and all these cool playwrights. So, they are a different caliber than if we were shooting stuff out West or whatever.
Me: What was the set like while shooting the episodes? How did the cast and crew react to the type of film being made?
CL: I mean the set has changed since Covid hit. Now, we have all sorts of precautions and the crew are masked, the cast is masked when they’re not being made up or being shot, everybody is being tested, a couple of cast have been vaccinated, so it’s a lot different than it was a year ago. But even then, I like to have a fun set, but we’re there to do business. We’re there to work. I don’t like too much fooling around or wasting time. We do a lot of rehearsals because I don’t want to go in there doing a million takes of everything, so I want the actors to all know what’s happening before they get to set. We choreograph any scenes of violence, any scenes of sexuality, anything where someone might be uncomfortable if we didn’t take the time to make sure everyone feels safe and confident before we do it. But it’s not a crazy set. I’m not in the music industry anymore, so as crazy as some of the stuff on screen is, offscreen, I try to keep it comfortable and friendly, but work-focused.
Me: Do you recall having any odd or funny on-set stories about yourself or any of the other cast/crew members?
CL: I mean, we shot the whole first season very DIIY with a point and shoot and our friend Tristan helping out. Since Julie is a very punk character, we wanted a very punk aesthetic for the first season. So, we’d shoot in some places we had permission to shoot in and some places we didn’t quit. Like the first scene of the first episode was us kinda squeezing into a toilet stall at a store together and filming Chelsea snorting Inositol, which for you kids out there unaware, is what we and a lot of other productions use when a character is supposed to be snorting cocaine. It’s a Vitamin B substitute and it’s safe to snort, but it looks just like coke, so it’s what gets used. And Chelsea’s on the toilet, snorting her fake cocaine because that’s the first impression I wanted to give of Julie to the audience. I wanted people to see that this is not a classy girl. And while we’re shooting, Chelsea tells me she has to really pee and asks if it’s okay to do that while we’re shooting, so I say sure, and when you hear her peeing in that first episode, that’s actually Chelsea. Actually, thinking about it, there were a few times where Chelsea had to pee and asked us to film it because we were there and she had to go. We used two of them in the first season, but it was definitely more than twice, where it happened, but I don’t really look through old footage once I edit something, so I can’t remember how many times it happened. There was also a time where she chugged a beer, also in the first episode, and told me, before she did it, “If I throw up, you guys follow me into the bathroom and get footage of that,” but she held it down and never really threw up in the episodes, even though Julie throws up a few times. But that’s movie magic vomit.
Me: As well, you also split off several characters for their own film Theresa and Allison. How did that come about? Was there always a plan to expand their story into separate films?
CL: Theresa and Allison came from talking to one of my father’s old associates and a lot of the old school 70’s-90’s porn people got out of porn and were looking to go into indie horror. So, my stepmom told me about this guy who used to work with my dad back in the day, and we have a meeting and while we’re there, he asks if I’ve ever thought of doing a lesbian vampire film. And my first thought was, “Why the fuck would I want to do that? That’s stupid. Vampire movies suck.” No pun intended. But then, I thought about it, and I thought about how I used to like vampire movies. Near Dark and The Hunger and even, Martin, to an extent. And they were all these very dark, very violent vampire films, and I thought why don’t I take a genre that I thought was played out and boring at the time, like vampire films, and make one I’d like to see. One that was like those other films I mentioned. So, then the next question was what would the story be about, and it immediately occurred to me that I had two vampire assassins in the 21st Century Demon Hunter novel and I had some established vampire rules, so I decided it should take place in the same universe as Demon Hunter. So, I had the script, I knew I was too inexperienced to direct it myself, so I talked to a director I had met on a short film I was a part of, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Me: When working on these projects, do you prefer to be involved from the beginning or work later on once it's been started?
CL: So far, no one has hired me to be a director. I have been an actor, I’ve done wardrobe for people, I’ve done sound (which is funny, considering I only have one good ear left), but anything I’ve directed, I’ve produced and written, as well. I would be interested in directing someone else’s stuff if any producers want to talk to me. If I like the script, I’d love the experience. I want to do everything possible, just for the ability to say I did it and see if I like doing it, so I can do it more if I like it.
Me: How much involvement did you have with the rest of the production team bringing it to life? What was the early life of the film like?
CL: I’m very hands-on. I did all of the wardrobe for Demon Hunter, Theresa & Allison, and now Bishop’s Cove. I did the casting for all three, with the director Jeremiah, also helping with the Theresa & Allison casting. I decided on a lot of the set dressing; I was A.D. during any scenes with large numbers of extras, I was script supervisor, and I was in charge of rehearsals. I have a very distinct vision for the stuff I make and while that got a bit changed with Jeremiah’s vision being part of the film too, often toning stuff down, I want to make sure it happens. I wear a lot of hats. Now, if I ever get hired on, like, a Marvel film or something, where there are hundreds of people in dozens of departments doing all the heavy lifting for me, I would trust them to just let me worry about the script and the acting, but at the DIY indie level that we’re at, I want as much control of the situation as possible.
Me: You're also working on your second film, Bishops' Cove. What can you tell us about it so far?
CL: I still consider Bishop’s Cove to be my first film, only because I’m the director this time. I wrote, produced, acted in, and was pretty much butcher, baker, and candlestick maker on Theresa & Allison, but I didn’t direct it. I didn’t have the final say over how the scenes went or what shots they did, even if the edit was more my vision than Jeremiah’s. There are definitely things I would have done differently than he did, but at the time, I was nowhere near experienced enough to direct a film and if I had done it, instead of him, at the time, the film would have sucked. So, Bishop’s Cove, in my head, is my first film, and it’s going great, outside of Covid having to stop us from shooting for almost a year. We had hoped to be finishing up around now, instead, we’re about 30% done with it, with shooting starting back up in March and we expect to have people able to see it in festivals in 2022. It’s a very personal story because I was homeless for two years and lived in this whole punk rock community of kids with no homes who did what they needed to survive. And every now and then, one of them wouldn’t. All the flashback scenes in Bishop’s Cove reflect that world I spent so much time in. A lot of the fun times and a lot of the ugly times. A lot of the flashback scenes were stuff that happened to either me or people I knew. The supernatural stuff is basically from my love of Hellraiser and wanting to make a film that makes people feel the way Hellraiser made me feel. Something just dark and bleak and yet perverse and twisted. I want people to remember Bishop’s Cove the same way I remember Hellraiser, even after having its first scene like 30-something years ago.
Me: Lastly, what else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers?
CL: Thank you again for your time! Well, Season 1.5 of 21st Century Demon Hunter will hopefully drop in the Spring and it gets very dark, very fucked up, and very weird, but it’s also, I’d like to think, deceptively intelligent and I hope people care for the characters of it. Currently looking for a new distributor for Theresa & Allison. It was on Amazon and it did great. We cracked the top 100 horror films on the service but for whatever reason, it got taken down and it’s time to get it back up for people to see and appreciate. Been talking to a few companies. Hope I have something to announce soon. And finally, people should buy the 21st Century Demon Hunter novel at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Century-Demon-Hunter-Charles-Lincoln/dp/1948278170) or Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/21st-century-demon-hunter-charles-d-lincoln/1132489698) or directly from the publisher, Burning Bulb Publishing (https://www.burningbulbpublishing.com/product-page/21st-century-demon-hunter-paperback). We’re also on pre-production of a Theresa & Allison prequel called Bastille Day, so that’s something to look for news on, maybe next year. I also have about four scripts I’m writing at the moment and two novels. Look for news on them soon! You can also check out the two podcasts I do with Chelsea LeSage, Beyond the Belle, which is our women’s wrestling podcast at https://anchor.fm/beyondthebelle and Cinematic Autopsy, where we analyze some of our favorite and least favorite film, which you can find at https://anchor.fm/clsquaredproductions
But yeah, thanks for having me. Any time you have questions, there is a good possibility, I will have answers.
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