Jason Impey's Career
Early years
Jason Impey was born in Northampton and got interested in
films at the young age of 5. He used to secretly watch old horror films on VHS
and watch late night movies on TV, his interest in films and filmmaking grew
and led to him making his first short film in 1994 aged 10 with his dad’s video
camera, which was titled ‘Split Second’. Impey continued filmmaking and made an
environmental documentary 2 years later in 1996 aged 12. Eventually Jason went
to Bedford College when he turned 16 in 2000 to study media for 3 years that
was to lead him to making more professional short films and eventually his
first feature ‘Woods Of Terror’ that he began filming in 2004 and completed in
2005.
Career
Jason Impey’s award winning short zombie film ‘Zombies in
the Wood’ led him to make his first feature film ‘Woods Of Terror’. This
feature is made up from 2 semi features ‘Zombie Village’ & ‘Nightmare in
the Woods’ to make the overall film feature length. ‘Zombie Village’ tells the
tale of a village under siege by the dead caused by a careless environmental
activist who accidentally spills toxic waste into the nearby lake. The local
redneck fights back to recover what’s left of the village, but will he survive,
or will the zombies tear his flesh apart like everyone else in the village.
Jason started to collaborate with Marc Price (director of Colin) after they met
working at Princess Productions as runners. The first scene shot was the house
siege in which a herd of zombies break into a house and attack the last
survivors, Marc produced this scene and was shot at his flat in London, after
this 2 day shoot Jason returned to Milton Keynes and finished the film a month
later with the main story about a crazed redneck who turns out to be worse than
any of the flesh eating zombies. Zombie Village played at the Tromafling
festival in Edinburgh 2005 and has been on the under ground film circuit for
many years. ‘Nightmare in the Woods’ is about three people who go for a walk in
the woods to get drunk and high. They begin to tell scary stories to scare each
other, but one of the stories is real and the killer from the story is coming
to get them! One of the short stories in this film contains the character from
Jason Impey’s earlier short film ‘Lone Warrior’. Jason raised private investment
to go out and make what was supposed to be his first feature film, but when it
came to editing Jason was very brutal and ended up with a film shorter than
‘Zombie Village’! So after a panic Jason merged ‘Nightmare in the Woods’ with
‘Zombie Village’ to create his feature film ‘Woods of Terror’. Jason filmed a
short title introduction sequence for the title ‘Woods of Terror’ and put
‘Nightmare in the Woods’ as the first film as he thought it was the stronger
film. To tie the films together to give it the old back to back drive in cinema
feel Jason put his 16mm zombie trailer ‘Zombie Terror’ in between the films to
finish the project off.
The film was originally picked up by ‘Supersonic Films’ for
distribution, but after the distributor began to fold Jason had to get the
rights back and seek alternate distribution which lead him to ‘SRS Cinema’
where he was offered another distribution deal, but due to lack of independent
film sales the release never came about. Eventually Jason got a DVD release
with ‘WWMM’ (World Wide Multi Media) that lead to another special edition DVD
distribution from ‘Chemical Burn Entertainment’ which contains the 70 minute
making of documentary for ‘Zombie Village’ titled ‘Zombie Apocalypse’. For this
release the distributor asked Jason to change the order of the film so ‘Zombie
Village’ plays first then ‘Nightmare in the Woods’ which he did making this a
unique version of the film.
Impey’s second feature film is ‘Sick Bastard’ that is homage
to Andreas Schnaas’s film ‘Violent Shit’. ‘Sick Bastard’ tells the story of a
madman who escapes an asylum and has to fight his own demons and come to terms
with his past. If you’re in his way the last thing you will see is the evil in
his eye, as you die a slow painful death. The madman has a hate-ridge for life
and his own demented world. He will take his anger out on anyone as he makes a
rampage journey through the woods. This is officially the first full-length
feature film Jason shot. The film was shot on SVHS to give it a retro feel. While
Jason was shooting ‘Sick Bastard’ he also shot a short film version on HDV that
acted like a promo for the feature, this promo ended up being put on the ‘Tales
of Terror 2’ DVD compilation. This film was originally released on the
‘Sinister Souls’ DVD 6 movie set by ‘Pendulum Pictures’, and then was later
released on the ‘Catacomb of Creepshows’ 50 movie box set. There is a single
DVD release of this title distributed by ‘WWMM’.
Jason then moved on to make his third feature film ‘Home
Made’ that has not gone down well with the critics. ‘Home Made’ follows Jack
Hess, the most controversial filmmaker ever known to mankind as he battles to
make the ultimate snuff film. When he is finally caught with help from a
victims boyfriend he tells all that makes him tick. But he has a poor, sweet,
innocent girl and a half dead man locked away being watched by one of his
perverted cameras. Will anyone find them? Has Jack Hess really been stopped?
Jason spent 9 months in 2006 bringing this film to life and shot on multi formats
to give the film a unique look. The opening snuff sequence is shot on Super 8,
and then through out the film when it cuts to snuff footage it is shot on
miniDV on a Canon XL1S. The sub plot of the two-trapped victims is shot on
DVCam to give it rich colours and the rest of the film is shot on HDV on a Sony
Z1. The film was picked up and distributed by ‘Maxim Media International’ on
their ‘Brain Damage’ label that includes the 90-minute feature length making
of. The film also got released on the ‘Mortuary of Madness’ 50 movie box set
and ‘WWMM’ released a no frills DVD-R version.
Following the release of ‘Home Made 1’ Jason jumped straight
onto the sequel ‘Home Made 2 The Footage’ in which he chose a totally different
style to shoot. He made the film as one complete snuff movie. This was part of
the original concept for ‘Home Made’ that got changed throughout production.
‘Home Made 2’ has been compared to the ‘August Underground’ films because of
its style, Jason had a harder time finding distribution for this film, but
‘WWMM’ ended up giving it a DVD-R release after they had released the first
one. A trailer was specifically shot for this film showing Jack Hess’s ultimate
snuff film being discovered, the actor in this trailer is in fact Jason’s father
Alan Impey.
Impey then made a totally different film and shot his next
feature ‘Troubled’ in the ‘Dogme 95’ style of film making. The film is about
Freddy and Fanny Salmon, brother and sister. We get to see what characteristics
they each have. We learn that Fanny loves Freddy, but turns out to be more
obsession than love. Freddy is slightly brainwashed and drawn into this and
really does not know much different as he lives such a sheltered life. We then
learn that Freddy and Fanny are actually having an incest relationship in which
Freddy is feeling slightly guilty about. He tries to commit suicide in various
ways but fails. Fanny is bullying him more than supporting him, but in her own
little demented world she believes he needs her and she is his saviour. Jason
sat on the idea of making a film following a character that has OCD and severe
depression for a year. Eventually he created the initial idea and came up with
a beginning, middle and end. He cast the two leads of Freddy & Fanny Salmon
who he then worked on their characters with and guiding the film decided to
shoot it in the ‘Dogme 95’ vein of filmmaking and there was no dialogue written
for the film, it was all improvised. The film ended up taking a slight
exploitation twist and went to darker places than Jason had planned. The film
ended up being screened in September 2007 at Cineworld Milton Keynes and has
now had a DVD release by ‘WWMM’.
After ‘Troubled’ Impey returned to his roots of exploitation
filmmaking and made ‘Cut & Paste’. A filmmaker (Jason Impey) goes to sign
the contract of his life in New York, but all goes horribly wrong when a mad
gimp goes on a killing spree jeopardising Jason Impey’s film career. Who is the
Gimp, where does he come from, what does he want? And most of all who will make
it through the night? ‘Cut & Paste’ is a homage to Lucio Fulci’s ‘Cat in
the Brain’ aka ‘Nightmare Concert’ and uses various scenes and shorts from
Jason’s earlier films, these include a shower scene from ‘Troubled’, two snuff
scenes from ‘Home Made 2 The Footage’, the gutting scene from ‘Sick Bastard’,
the shower scene from ‘Nightmare in the Woods’, alternate footage from the
shower scene in ‘Tortured AKA Sex Slave’ that was currently in post production
at the time of editing this film, and the digital version of Jason Impey’s
short film ‘Lust’ was used in it’s entirety. Jason made ‘Cut & Paste’ for
the love of filmmaking and to get further use from his arson of footage he had
built up, and to make a true fun exploitation flick. This film was shot just
before production of ‘Tortured AKA Sex Slave’ and therefore on set of
‘Tortured’ Jason specifically shot Michelle Young’s reverse phone conversation
she has with him in ‘Cut & Paste’.
After the shoot of ‘Tortured’ Jason then edited ‘Cut & Paste’ then
moved straight into postproduction of ‘Tortured’. ‘Cut & Paste’ has been
released on DVD by ‘WWMM’ and a double bill DVD containing ‘Cut & Paste 1
& 2’ has been made for ‘Chemical Burn Entertainment’. The original screener
Jason Impey made was a 2 disc double bill of ‘Cut & Paste’ & ‘Naked
Nazi’. ‘Naked Nazi’ tells the story of the she-devil who kills her gimps, but
she has met her match in the form of a crazed Nazi killer and rookie detective!
This film was originally shot under the title of ‘Smut’ and was shot in one
day. The day of production was a multi use shoot and was for pick up shots of
Jason’s hoax exploitation trailer ‘Women Prisoners Of SS Camp From Hell’, the
shoot was also for a scene for Alex Bakshaev’s feature ‘Naked Trip’ that Jason
produced & starred in. The footage from that days shoot has also been used
as the snuff video in Kemal Yildirim’s ‘Penance’. On top of all this Jason
managed to shoot enough material to create his XXX feature ‘Naked Nazi’. The
original edit of this film was 50 minutes and screened at the ‘Hard Liquor and
Porn festival’. A 5-minute version was then edited to be screened at the
‘Painted Lips And Lolly Licks’ festival. In 2011 a new shot was inserted along
with 10 minutes of re-edited material from ‘Tortured AKA Sex Slave’ to make the
film over 1 hour to get a distribution deal with ‘SRS Cinema’.
The next big film in Jason’s career is ‘Tortured’. The film
follows the frequently violent and obscene exploits of two escaped convicts,
Kurk and Quaid who take a sexy female hostage in an attempt to avoid getting
busted by the cops. Filled to the brim with f-words and crash zooms, ‘Tortured’
(also known as Sex Slave) is an outrageous journey into the domain of
exploitation cinema. While Jason was making his controversial short film
‘Revenge of the Dead’ he came up with an idea for a scene about two criminals
who had killed a women and were trying to dispose of the body while they get
into an argument and disturbed nearly getting caught, they were almost rookie
killers. As Jason started to develop this idea he began work as director of
photography on Kemal Yildirim’s 30-minute Giallo film ‘Penance’. This was a big
shoot and while on it Jason thought it would be a good idea for him to make a
different horror sub genre and combine the films to make a double bill which
Kemal thought was a great idea and so pre-production started for ‘Tortured AKA
Sex Slave’. Jason gave ‘Tortured’ an AKA name on purpose to homage all the
classic European video nasties and their 101 titles. Jason also wanted to cross
a few of the sub genres from the video nastie era and added a zombie twist into
the graphic rape and revenge storyline he had mapped out. To add to the project
Jason and Kemal decided to make 4 hoax trailers to add between both films to give
it the old drive in cinema feel like Rodriguez & Tarantino’s ‘Grindhouse’
and call the whole project ‘Exploitation’. Two guest directors made with help
from Jason & Kemal their trailers while Jason & Kemal directed a
trailer each, Jason’s being ‘Women Prisoners Of SS Camp From Hell’ which is a
homage to the Nazi sexploitation films of the 70’s. ‘Maxim Media International’
has distributed the original uncut version of ‘Tortured’ used in this double
bill complete with the Nazi trailer on their ‘Brain Damage Films’ label. In
2010 Jason revisited his ultimate exploitation film to rework it into the
original film he wanted to make. He took the zombie element out and removed the
extreme hardcore shots that had caused the film trouble. He then made the
original beginning into a flash back to help develop the characters and shot a
new beginning, a new ending, and more scenes that were used throughout to
develop the police characters of Charles and Doug. This is the definitive
edition of Jason Impey’s rape and revenge shocker.
Jason co-wrote and produced Naked Trip. ‘Enfant terrible’ of
the UK indie scene Jason Impey (Tortured, Sick Bastard) stars as obsessed
filmmaker George Eastman in this bizarre mix of trash and experimental cinema
directed by Alex Bakshaev (Bittersweet). On the run from the mafia he kidnaps
actress Sarah Asproon and heads off on a strange journey to the coast. George
& Sarah encounter various odd characters as well as a duo of feeble minded
hit men. Jason Impey produced, starred and edited this feature that has a DVD
release by ‘Chemical Burn Entertainment’. ‘Jess Franco plus Jean Luc Godard
equals Naked Trip’ Mathis Vogel.
After ‘Cut & Paste 1’ was picked up by ‘WWMM’ Jason
decided to make a sequel to get a quick easy distribution, however this was not
the case as ‘WWMM’ had trouble with this film due to the graphic content, but
there is a small little release out there and ‘Chemical Burn Entertainment’
have a ‘Cut & Paste 1 & 2’ double bill DVD release. The sequel carries
on in the same vein as the first one, following a crazy filmmaker as he tries
to have the perfect career. This film uses Jason’s short films ‘Revenge of the
Dead’ & ‘Women Prisoners Of SS Camp From Hell’ in their entirety. It also
uses scenes from ‘Naked Trip’ and blurred XXX footage from ‘Naked Nazi’. There
is also a scene in this film that Alex Bakshaev shot and edited in Russia and
sent to Jason to be included in the film.
After this Jason revisited some of his previous features to
make a new horror anthology. ‘Killer Stories’ is a film in which Jason
re-edited his films ‘Tormented’, ‘Sick Bastard’ & ‘Home Made’ into 30
minute films and shot a wrap around storyline to put it all together to create
this new feature. The wrap around storyline consists of a couple who have come
home from a nightclub to have sex, then get into telling each other these
stories about local serial killers they know, but not all is what it seems as
the man shows his true colours. Jason used his alias name Joe Newton to direct
this film.
In 2010 Jason teamed up again with fellow filmmaker Kemal
Yildirim and cast British scream queen Eileen Daly for his social zombie drama
‘The Turning’. This film tells the story of a man called Dillon who is trying
to escape his past when he is thrown off track by an accidental meeting with
his old flame Stacey. Soon they rekindle their love for each other, but desire
gets the better of them and while they make love Stacey’s husband Michael
rudely interrupts this passionate affair. Acting on instinct Dillon takes to his
old ways as Michael begins to beat Stacey and therefore pays the price with his
life as Dillon reacts with his gun! This is only the start of Dillon’s journey
to hell as when they go to dump the body Michael has become the un-dead and
soon Stacey and Dillon find themselves in the world of the living dead, a
bounty hunter and an underground Nazi organisation lead by Ilsa (Eileen Daly)
who is behind everything!
After returning to the zombie scene Impey then moved back to
shock cinema with his 40 minute disturbing movie ‘Snuff Film’. This film is a
film like no other; this is a simulated adventure into the perverted, sick and
twisted mind of a true psychopath who has decided to record his wild journeys
into depravity on his only friend, his video camera. Through the eyes of the
camera we get to see a glimpse of how far this tormented individual will go to
get himself off, but can even this twisted sicko go too far? Jason Impey
directed this nastie little film under his alias name Joe Newton and was made
after a brief conversation with ‘WWMM’ expressing interest for a film like this
on their label. Jason was editing ‘Home Made Redux’ at the time and sent the
teaser trailer of this film to ‘WWMM’ that sparked the interest and so ‘Snuff
Film’ was born, a kind of spin off from the ‘Home Made’ films that uses some of
the original rushes from ‘Home Made 1 & 2’. Jason went out and shot an
additional 30 minute simulated snuff scene with his wife Sharon Impey to finish
the production off. While making ‘Snuff Film’ Jason also edited ‘Death On
Camera’ that is a rework of ‘Home Made’. Jason has re-graded the film and cut a
few scenes and shots out here and there and added a brand new shocking
22-minute snuff ending.
Filmography
Woods Of Terror (2005) – Director/Actor
Tales Of Terror (2005) – Director/Actor
Tales Of Terror 2 (2006) – Director/Actor
Sick Bastard (2006) – Director/Actor
Home Made (2006) – Director/Actor
Home Made 2 The Footage (2007) – Director/Actor
Troubled (2007) – Director
Cut & Paste (2008) – Director/Actor
Naked Nazi (2008) – Director/Actor
Tortured AKA Sex Slave (2008) – Director
Naked Trip (2008) – Producer/Actor
End Transmission (2008) – Co-Director/Actor
Tormented (2009) - Director
Cut & Paste 2 (2009) – Director/Actor
Killer Stories (2010) – Director/Actor
The Turning (2010) – Director/Actor
Psychopaths (2010) – Director/Actor
Snuff Film (2011) – Director/Actor
Death On Camera (2011) – Director/Actor
External Links
The Official Jason Impey Website
www.jasonimpey.co.uk
Jason Impey at the Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2563700/
Jason Impey’s Official Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/jasonimpey