BEST WATCHED ON A FULL SIZED SCREEN

This was the toughest time for Joe.    First, while attending seventh grade at Hoech Junior High School, his dad died, November 10, 1970.   He was 12 years old.   Next, his mother's parents came up from Ft. Worth, Texas to help.    One day Joe came home from school to find most of his toys had been thrown away.    When he asked, his mother told him "Grandma and grandpa think you're to old for such baby things."    This was the first time he felt the full impact of betrayal.    Then, without any discussion, Joe and his mom were moved to Ft. Worth. Texas back to his grandparents home.    His grandparents continued to interfer now saying Joe was "too young" to have his own television set.  This time, Joe's mother put her foot down saying his color tv set was the last thing his father had bought for him and it would stay.

 

Joe began attending Hanley Middle School.    It was savage compared to Hoech.    Literally, there were fights in the back field during lunch and on the way home from school everyday.    It reminded Joe of the bullying he suffered at Kratz only  many times worse and he wanted no part of it.    He complained to his mother and even faked showering after gym class so he wouldn't have to be naked and vulnerable.    Joe's mother was also getting fed up with their living conditions and decided to move she and Joe back to St. Louis to live near family friends, Ron and Sandy Eilers.  During the summer of 1971, Joe and his mother lived with Eilers for a period of time and then family friends Tiny and Lawrence Dellinger until they found a home and purchased it.

 

Joe had withdrawn emotionally.    He truly only wanted to be by himself and play records (mainly Elvis Presley) on the portable record player his dad had gotten him.    During the summer, a trip with the Eilers to drop off still picture film for processing led to Joe discovered home movie films, primarily horror.    Horror and science fiction movies had been he and his dad's viewing habit.    Joe even used to rush home from the bus stop during Hoech 7th grade to catch the last 10 minutes of the gothic TV show Dark Shadows hoping to see the vampire Barnabas Collins or the werewolf Quentin Collins.    He was told that he could watch these home movies with a home movie projector.    He could even make his own movies with a Super-8 movie camera.    Being the first major interest he took in anything, his mother purchased all three items for him.    This was to be the beginning but not without hurdles. 

 

Joe did a LOT of super-8 movie shooting experimentation in eight grade.    He even presented to his eight grade English class about shooting movies.    That year, Joe and and a school friend decided they were "ready" to make a movie.    The friend would write the script and Joe would shoot and edit.    After several weeks, this "deal" fell apart when his buddy finally admitted he didn't know how to write the script.    Furious at the betrayal, Joe told his friend "FINE!  I'll do it myself!"    Joe's writing began ... as did the first onset of realistic production mindset.    Joe was determined to move forward and wrote his own script that he would produce but not before getting in trouble with his grades.   Joe never was that great at math and when he received a D (Deficient) his mother took his Super-8 camera and projector away and put them up in her bedroom closet.  "When the grades come up, they'll come back down and not a second before." she told him.    No argument was going to work (she was a strong parent and personality).    True to her word, Joe got a minimum of C's next grade period and she gave him back his passion.

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                                                     Over the summer of '73, Joe wrote, produced, directed and edited his first short film                                                        titled (click to see a clip on Facebook)  "The Teenage Werewolf" in homage to his father

                                                     and his favorite horror movie.   It was quite the adventure.  Shooting included the

                                                     basement of neighbors Jim and Loretta Wood, Joe's front yard, the area between two

                                                     business

                                                     and behind one of the same businesses behind Joe's house, the bowling alley doorway

                                                     (after so many takes and not really knowing what we were doing, the management

                                                     finally said "Okay, in, or out!"), the bowling alley parking lot, the shopping strip mall

                                                     across Woodson Road and Guthrie parking lot and alley, the long run down Corregidor

                                                     Drive and a neighbor's drive way and backyard.  This was all without sound.  They gathered together again to add a cassette dialog track (which never kept synchronized, a first lesson in sound) and foley (the sound effects).  It took all summer to catch times when everyone (John Reid, Tim Horrell, Timmy and Jimmy Wood, and Terry Brown) was available to shoot (lots of times of Joe going to Tim's then girlfriend's house to get him!)  See a clip here!

 

TO BE CONTINUED ...