DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
"It's not Porn."
That's my first response to the inevitable first question I'm always asked when I tell somebody about SEX MACHINE.
Their follow-up question is usually:
"Well, then what kind of movie is it?"
That's the harder question to answer.
A modern day Frankenstein? A love story? An experimental B-movie? A blue-collar, romantic horror-comedy?
Nothing really seems appropriate.
SEX MACHINE is bound to disappoint any horror fan looking for a movie that hits all the genre beats. At the same time, it's probably much
too gory and lowbrow for the arthouse crowd. And I don't want to imagine the trauma it might inflict on an unsuspecting housewife looking for a romantic comedy.
SEX MACHINE was originally conceived as nothing more than a low-budget horror flick to contain as much cool stuff as we could possibly cram into it: hot girls, mad scientists, kneecap violence, bowling, reanimated hitmen, etc. This was our chance to wear our influences on our sleeves and pay tribute to the ultra-obscure movies we secretly loved but couldn't mention in polite company. We decided to throw everything in, mix it up and see what happened.
We had no budget, but a surplus of enthusiasm. It was a labor of love for everyone involved. We shot on nights and weekends with a volunteer cast and crew and a digital video camera. We soon discovered that a lot of the original script was basically unshootable due to our lack of budget. So we improvised and collaborated, always using the screenplay as our guide, determined to tell the story by any means necessary.
Once the movie was finally on a hard drive connected to an overheating iMac, I realized it had taken on a personality of its own. It was
something different than we had initially set out to make, but I felt it had the potential to be something much better, much stranger and
ultimately much more personal. The initial cut was 3 hours - far too long. So I jettisoned subplots, pared down characters and narrowed the focus to what I consider to be the heart of the story.
The finished film still has its B-movie elements intact, but at the same time it is a very personal film. It's a document of the insane perseverance of a group of people determined to do something that was close to impossible. It's the culmination of many years of obsessively watching movies, writing scripts and tinkering with short films. It lays the groundwork for future projects and offers a glimpse at the look, style and flow I plan on exploring in the future.
At the very least, it's got hot girls, mad scientists, kneecap violence, bowling and reanimated hitmen. I think it's a fairly entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.
So what kind of movie is it?
That's for you to judge.
—Christopher Sharpe
Writer/Director/Producer