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HEARTSTOPPER
Produced by Charles A. Gelini
Written and Directed by John Russo
Director of Photography - John RiceKevin Kindlin
Michael J. Pollard
Tom Savini
Moon Unit ZappaIt was winter quarter of my junior year in film school and my class was gearing up to shoot our thesis films in about two months. It was time for the junior class’ annual Cinematography workshop. What we would do is bring in a noted Director of Photography and during 2 or 3 days of intense filmmaking, we would study his style and pick up tips and tricks. If you ever come across a book titled Master’s of Light, look at the table of content and you’ll see a list of names. When invited to teach the workshop, almost everyone listed in that book turned up down. Everyone, that is, except the dead guys.
Our instructor was a fellow named Russ Johnson, a good guy who didn’t want to let the class the down. He searched high and low to find a DP willing to come in and lead this workshop. Finally he came across a guy from Pittsburgh whom no one had ever heard of named John Rice. Flattered at being asked, John flew into Dayton with an armload of sample reels and videos. The guy was good, I’ll give him that. His commercials were all warm, fuzzy, and family friendly. Looking at his reels it was easy to see that he loved mixing various color temperatures. Maybe one day I’ll tell you his great trick involving Chinese lanterns*.
Towards the end of his introduction he threw on his 16mm sample reel and showed us come clips of a film he just finished shooting in Pitt. Again, he was back to mixing color temperatures, but this stuff blew away everything he had shown us on video. The shots were basic coverage of a man running across a bridge somewhere in downtown Pitt. Eventually the character came into focus and I was able to put the face with a name I read dozens of times in Fangoria, Tom Savini.
It turns out this guy who I never heard of had just finished shooting HEARTSTOPPER for John Russo. Generally he wasn’t happy with the film, but he was pretty satisfied with the way the look turned out. Me? I was as pleased as the cat that ate the canary just to be in the room with a guy who was part of the George Romero’s inner circle. Before the reel ended I was already plotting ways to lift it from his backpack.
John Rice was right; the movie itself is pretty bad. It still looks nice despite a 10-year old transfer that doesn’t do John justice, but the story is about as inspired as an evening of must pee TV.
Tom Savini plays an over worked cop on the trail of a child killer. It turns out the killer is a vampire who was killed almost 250 years ago. Tom, being the man of action that he is, wades through a cesspool of useless nonsense to catch the killer. Along this way, Tom finds out that there are more monsters in town than just a vampire.
I have an overwhelming desire to discuss the films’ subtext but there’s a small problem, there isn’t any. For that matter, there is not subtlety or common sense in the script. When people walk down the street it’s to make themselves targets for whatever the hell happens to be hiding in the shadows this time around.
HEARTSTOPPER is genuinely a bad movie. I could go on, but I don’t want to waste the server space.
But at least it looks nice...
This film was originally released by Tempe Video but has long since been on moratorium and is no longer available.
*Okay, I guess someday is today. Rather than use a Key light and a Fill light, John would place a Chinese lantern around a Key. This wasn’t an ordinary Chinese lantern; it was one of the extra large spherical types. The paper of the lantern diffused the light, softening the shadows. The lantern’s spherical nature disbursed the light in such a way that no Fill’s were needed. Add a backlight and you’ve got a perfectly lit shot that works on anything from medium shots to close-ups.