Seeing UNSEEN EVIL Part Two

By: John Thonen
Date: Sunday, March 31, 2002

Director Jay Woelfel's UNSEEN EVIL stars Richard Hatch (Apollo from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) and Tim Thomerson (Jack Deth himself) in a pleasantly surprising, low budget, direct-to-video little chiller. Today we continue our profile of Woelfel and his particular craft.



Woelfel was pleasantly surprised when Richard Hatch chose to come onboard the project and Jay also managed to talk his neighbor Thomerson into working on the film. While the popular character actor is seldom without work, Thomerson tells CINESCAPE he was happy to help out his friend Woelfel, and to also spend a few days in the San Bernadino mountains where the film was made. When asked about his character in the film, he launches into an impromptu song to explain his role: "Ranger Chuck, he's a lonely man, lives out in the woods, eats a lot of Spam." He then adds, "I decided he was this cowboy/intellectual/Thomas McGuane type. So when you see him, just note that he'd read Proust and Balzac before the monster lopped his head off." Duly noted Tim.

While scripter Scott Spears' concept of an unseen monster was a budget saver, both he and Woelfel realized they couldn't cheat the audience forever, so the creature is gradually revealed as the story unfolds. To help realize the beast's visualization they turned first to Octavio Sirroco, a fledgling CGI artist who had previously done Jay's IRON THUNDER title sequence. Later, after working on Hatch's BATTLESTAR GALACTIC promo trailer, Woelfel brought in several of the CGI artists who had worked, free of charge, on that project and utilized them to beef up UNSEEN's CGI effects even further. Ultimately, the film depicted most of the creature's appearance in a manner similar to that seen in the big budget hit PREDATOR: a slight distortion of the normal scenery, suggesting that light was bending around an object in order to conceal it. But, there are also scenes where the creature appears in a semi-solid form, and eventually in all fanged and clawed glory.

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To give the cast something tangible to work against during filming, Woelfel brought in makeup effects artist Greg Fyler. "This was his first paying job," says Jay, "and he did great. I didn't think we could afford a full size monster, but he did it, and also a miniature for its death scene." Thomerson describes the beast as "a great big badger-thing" while the director likens it to "a big bug, about the height of a dog." Opposing views, but then who wouldn't be confused about the appearance of an invisible creature?

Unlike major productions, which often rush through post-production in order to start generating income to offset their enormous costs, Woelfel's creations often move at a slower pace. Months may pass between one phase of the post-production process and the next, as the filmmakers wait for the next outlay of cash from their financiers. While production had been completed on the film since early '98, the marketing of IRON THUNDER didn't begin until the spring of '99, with it's video release happening in mid 2001, though foreign release was seen much sooner. UNSEEN waited even longer for U.S. distribution, finally finding it after a minor title change to UNSEEN EVIL. By that time, Woelfel and producer David Sterling had butted heads over Sterling's insistence at repeating the effects footage of the monster at several points in the film, including glimpses of it in the film's prologue, a move Woelfel was strongly against and still regrets.

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While Woelfel chomps at the bit for his chance at a larger budget, he does admit there are some advantages to life in the low budget trenches. "The financiers said they wanted a sci-fi action film with a little nudity, and some kind of a name. They told us what our budget was and then left us alone. We really had total creative control within the limits of the money. That's a real rarity at any budget level today." Meanwhile, Woelfel continues to try and land some more upscale work, where his talents can have the money needed to excel, rather than simply survive.

While Jay remains on the outs with UNSEEN EVIL's producer David Sterling, he and Johnnie J. Young have formed Young Wolf Productions and are currently talking with Roger Corman's New Concorde and shopping ideas to other independent producers. Nearing final post-production work is TRANCERS 7, a re-teaming of Jay with Charles Band, for whom he did the shot-on-video DEMONICUS last year. Unfortunately, the severe budgetary problems Band has experienced in the recent past made it impossible for Tim Thomerson to return once again as time-travelling cop Jack Deth. This time around, Deth's mind again journeys through history, but ends up in the body of a female, and a voluptuous one at that, a twist Woelfel describes as "Lara Croft inspired." We can hardly wait.