Porn Valley- I had a chat with Jonathan Morgan that began Wednesday morning and ended in the late afternoon. Not that we talked that long but because I got interrupted with some other shit.
Morgan is touting his latest porn comedy Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre, a spoof of horror films of the Eighties and Nineties. First, I’m curious as to how you get a title of that length on a DVD boxcover. Morgan explains the design of the cover of the 2 1/2 movie.
“It’s a roller coaster ride of adult cinema entertainment,” Morgan laughs. “If you liked what we did with Space Nuts you will love what we did with Camp Cuddly Pines.”
I ask Morgan if the Internet rumors are true that Steve Orenstein isn’t happy with the project. Morgan says he plays racquetball with Orenstein that if the boss ain’t happy he probably would have heard about it by now.
As for Morgan’s glittering track record [e.g. Double Feature and Space Nuts], I can’t imagine Camp Cuddly Pines being anything but uproarious. Morgan also tells me he shot 10 sex scenes for the movie and that it’s in hi-def- shot, edited and mastered all in hi-def.
Morgan in his chat with me is calling the movie “a comedy home run”.
“We’re really, really excited about this,” he says. “It was a labor of love with a lot of great people. This is one of the first times since Double Feature where I got off the set and said I had such a great time.” The main location for Camp Cuddly Pines was the Sable Ranch where it was shot four months ago. According to Morgan there were eight shooting days.
“It’s funny because they were doing Saw 2 at the same time, so the cast members from Saw 2 kept peering over to watch us while our guys kept peering over to watch them.”
The movie came out on three discs and has 11 1/2 hours of behind the scenes footage. “That includes the casting call, the rehearsals, the makeup and scouting the locations,” adds Morgan. “There’s bloopers, deleted scenes, extended scenes, surprise bonus sex scenes; it has a virtual reality game- there’s so much stuff packed into this disc. It’s just unbelievable. I guess you can say we shot the wad.”
Morgan lends the impression that little if anything is left out behind the scenes. He talks about holding an open audition.
“It’s really interesting to see the different types of interpretations about how characters in the movie should be acted,” says Morgan. “I want to say we definitely had some unbelievable acting talent out there. But for everyone of those there’s three where you gotta go, and now we know why you fuck for a living. But they’re all great girls and very nice. It was a great journey which we’re not quite done with. There’s a couple more things we have to do and, hopefully, it will all end at AVN with a checkered flag at the finish line.
“The BTS is no hold barred,” Morgan goes on to say. “We give you all the blood, sweat, cum of what really happens. It’s hysterically funny. But everybody got along. The movie made me a little bit nervous because this is the first time where- if you’re a horror fan you know that all horror happens at night- I had to shoot the entire movie from sunset to sunrise. As a director it’s easy for cast and crew- once that sun sets- to lose motivation. You want to go home. I had such an amazing cast and crew where everyone kept it together. Nobody bitched. Nobody complained. Everyone was just fired up and excited.”
The cast includes Stormy, Keri Sable, Jessica Drake, Kinzie Kenner, Rita Foltoyano, Rebecca Love. Katja Kassin, Nicole Sheridan, Voodoo, Eric Masterson, Tommy Gunn, Manuel Ferrara and Randy Spears.
“I’ve got to have Randy in almost everyone of my comedies,” says Morgan. About Ferrara, Morgan says this is the first time he’s used a “gonzo performer” and that Ferrara is a machine as far as he’s concerned.
“It was so funny because he had to do a scene with four girls,” says Morgan. “I just wanted to see how long he could keep going. The camera was going for 30 minutes straight at one point and he kept going back and forth. Finally he goes, Jonathan you mind if I have some water? I go, what are you tired? It was the funniest thing. He could literally keep on fucking. And when I said ‘cum’ he was how long before you want me to cum? I go 30 seconds and 30 seconds later he did it. It was like the Ron Jeremy countdown.”
The “killer” in the movie is played by Mike Horner. “He plays a dual role in the movie,” explains Morgan. “He’s the creepy caretaker of the abandoned camp as well as the deformed clown killer. But what I did with this movie is I basically spoof all of the great horror movies in the Eighties and Nineties.”
In our discussion on budgets, Morgan states that Wicked spends a lot of money on its features, noting that $150,000 was shelled out for Camp Cuddly Pines.
“It’s not some extraordinary thing that we would spend that kind of money,” says Morgan. “We spent almost $200,000 on Space Nuts. If you take a look at our budgets, Brad Armstrong just gone done with a film that he spent nearly $200,000 on. Steve Orenstein understands that in order to make money you’ve got to spend money. He absolutely wants the best quality product that’s out there. He’s willing to spend the money. While some companies are spending $100,000 on one feature, we have six features that are over $100,000.”