By Erin Free
The VelociPastor cinematographer and producer Jesse Gouldsbury chats about jumping into the director’s chair for VelociPastor 2, the highly anticipated equal-sequel to the original 2018 breakout cult hit.
In 2018, unsuspecting audiences were introduced to The VelociPastor, one of the most gloriously deranged and wildly entertaining low-budget exploitation films ever made. Written and directed with lashings of spirt and barrelling bold humour – and very little money – by the ingenious Brendan Steere, this horror-comedy mash-up is the story of Father Doug Jones (Greg Cohan), a priest who is unwittingly infected with an ancient artifact which transforms him into…a velociraptor. Half-man and half-dinosaur, he then uses his powers to fight an insidious cabal of ninjas and various other bad guys. Perverse, inventive, and driven by some wonderfully cheap special effects (The VelociPastor itself is sub-vintage-Godzilla let alone Jurassic Park), the film inspired a fevered cult of uber-fans, and now gets the equal sequel treatment with the highly anticipated VelociPastor 2.
Though original writer/director Brendan Steere has surrendered the director’s chair to the first film’s cinematographer and producer Jesse Gouldsbury, Steere is still on board as a co-writer, and the sequel has all the inspired madness of its gleefully whacked-out predecessor. In a daring move, VelociPastor 2 sees Father Doug Jones (the returning Greg Cohan) and his hooker-doctor-lawyer girlfriend Carol (Alyssa Kempinski) heading off to an hilariously and cheaply rendered Italy…where a lunatic sex maniac is ritualistically murdering virgins. This sounds like a case for The VelociPastor…
The VelociPastor has developed quite the cult. That must have been a delightful surprise? What have been some of the highlights of the original film’s release?
“Delightful doesn’t even begin to explain it! It’s been absolutely mind blowing. There’s a bunch of wild things that have happened like the amount of VelociPastor tattoos (my signature is literally on a person’s body, which is so cool) and recently I found out that a cult film class at Cal State has been teaching The VelociPastor as part of its curriculum. There was a time a few years back when I was in Toronto with my wife and some friends that were tabling at TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) and at a random bar when some college kids started chatting movies with one of my friends. Somehow VelociPastor came up and my friend from across the bar points to me and tells them, “That’s the producer/cinematographer”, and they immediately ran over and just start talking about how it inspired them to go to film school and stuff. It was wild and wouldn’t be the last time. As a kid who grew up loving movies and going to events just like this to meet people that inspired me, it feels amazing to be at the other end and to give aspiring filmmakers that experience.”
Obvious question: how was it jumping into the director’s chair for the sequel? And for making your feature debut in that role? You did a great job!
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou! It was incredibly intimidating, to be honest. After we wrote it and it started to look more like this thing might come together, Brendan had been thinking about what he wanted to focus on and it was more the writing aspect of film vs directing. With that, we all talked and decided I would step into that position. It was definitely nerve-wracking (I joke that this film wouldn’t be possible without Zoloft!), but then when in it, I found it was a place I thrived in. I had done shorts, music videos, and a lot of documentaries and jumping to feature kind of felt like fighting a FromSoft boss, the bigger challenge and the bullshit is what makes it fun. Ha hah.”
VelociPastor 2 is absolutely nuts, but it really engages the viewer, and there are moments of genuine feeling…is it difficult to find that balance?
“Yes! I owe so much of that to the film’s amazing editor, Braith Miller, who also was the cinematographer. We spent so much time going back and forth on the smallest beats to find the balance. It’s kind of funny to think about how much thought we put into this silly dinosaur priest movie.”
Greg Cohan and Alyssa Kempinski are again wonderful…do you work with them a lot as a director? Their performances are pitched perfectly…
“I try whenever I can! They’re both incredible actors and so darn good at playing around. Greg can do this amazing thing with his ears while acting. Keep an eye on it next time you’re watching him but the way he emotes and controls his face is so fine tuned. It’s really something else…he’s one of the best, and he’ll continue to be my dream cast for the new Wolverine!”
Frankie Kevich was a fantastic addition as the nasty villainess…can you tell us a little about her and how you brought her onto the film?
“Frankie rules. We found her through auditions and our casting director, Joshua Michael Payne. Polish Basketball was the audition scene for that character and there’s one specific line that when she read it in the audition, it just cut so deep. She was in LA at the time, so she was one of the very, very few that we took video calls with versus the in-person callbacks we were doing. She still was so good that even through a choppy internet connection, she nailed it.”
Very happy to see the return of Father Stewart…was that always a must?
“Father Stewart is of course played by Brendan’s dad, Dr. Daniel Steere. He was just too much fun, so we had to write him in!”
What was your biggest challenge on VelociPastor 2?
“Gosh, it was probably finding the balance in tone. We have all these amazing pieces and it being up to me, Braith, and even our composer Alec Lambert and sound designer/mixer Adam Myatt to polish and land the plane. It’s been so amazing watching it with crowds now that we’re touring it and seeing people respond exactly how we hoped. Like I said before, the fun is in the challenge.”
You kick off the film with Chad Everett’s “Jesus Hammer” over the opening credits…what a song and what an actor! Who sourced that tune? Was it tricky getting rights etc? Tell me about!
“Ha hah! Thank you. This was something Brendan and I found on a record at a thrift store. It was just a picture of Chad Everett and said ‘CHAD.’ We thought it was funny so we bought it for a dollar and eventually listened to it and found it had some bangers on it. We actually originally wanted to use ‘Jesus Hammer’ for the first film, but we knew so little back then about how to track down rights and stuff. It was very, very, very, very hard to get the rights because everyone involved in it is dead.”
When do you all start work on VelociPastor 3? 😉
“I already have an outline…”
VelociPastor 2 will screen at The Sydney Underground Film Festival on Saturday, September 12 at 9:45pm. Click here for all ticketing and venue information.
