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Jeff Frumess | |
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| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2010–present |
YouTube information | |
| Channel | |
| Years active | 2011–present |
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| Website | https://www.frumess.com/ |
Jeff Frumess is an American regional filmmaker, writer, and podcaster from Westchester, NY.
Frumess began filmmaking after watching The Snowball Effect — a documentary about the production of Kevin Smith's first feature film, Clerks . Beginning with short films, then live music production and documentary work, Frumess made a shift into narrative feature films beginning with Romeo's Distress. A second feature, Gouge Away, followed.[ citation needed ]
Returning home to New York, Frumess began working on a documentary project, They Came from Lodi, recording the history of the punk band The Misfits told by those who surrounded the band, as well as those who were influenced by the original 1977-1983 lineup. Since 2021, the project is incomplete.[ citation needed ]
From 2011 to 2017, Frumess and Sal Bee from Sardonica ran YouTube series called Rock and Roll Cooking with Sal Bee. Various bands would come to Sal's house in Lodi, New Jersey, where he would cook a band-themed inspired meal followed by a song performance or two in the kitchen studio. Bands who appeared on the show included Doyle, Blitzkid, Nim Vind, The Jasons, The Independents, Stellar Corpses, Cancerslug, Whiplash, Cinema Cinema, Sardonica, Michale Graves, and Dr. Chud's X-Ward.[ citation needed ]
In late 2011, Frumess produced an unreleased DVD of a live performance for The Dumonts, an acoustic/electric band led by Ex-Misfits 95 frontman Michale Graves, from a show at Club Europa in Brooklyn on December 16, 2011.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Frumess accompanied Blitzkid on their farewell U.S. and European tours as a videographer for a documentary that was never completed. In 2014, Frumess again recorded a Blitzkid concert at Conne Island in Leipzig, Germany using four cameras with audio coming directly from the soundboard. The resulting concert film was released to supporters of the Blitzkid documentary's Kickstarter campaign.[ citation needed ] Some of the 2012 footage shot at the Horror Punk festival Ghouls Night Out at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ was developed into an unreleased feature length concert film in 2018, titled Long Live the Horror.[ citation needed ]
Inspired by Jeremy Gardner's The Battery , Frumess set out to make his directorial debut with a no-budget narrative feature in August 2014. Romeo's Distress is a gothic, neo-noir horror film that takes its name from the Christian Death song of the same name. The film follows a creepy man named James, his unrequited love for a beautiful girl named Jane, and her father's sadistic response to it all. [1]
The film had its world premiere at the Macabre Faire Film Festival in January 2017, where it was nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Feature Film Director, and winning Best Feature Film Screenplay. Romeo's Distress was also nominated for Best Feature Film Screenplay at Nightmares Film Festival and winner of the Esprit De Gore independent Spirit Award. [2] Kieran Fisher of Dread Central called it "the personification of a passion project..."[ citation needed ]
In late 2020, Frumess directed a segment for The Transformations of the Transformations of the Drs. Jenkins, an art film about the pandemic shot by multiple filmmakers separately.[ citation needed ]
On April 21, 2021, Frumess began work on what would become his second narrative feature-length film, Gouge Away. The film is a sequel to a previously incomplete film called Wash Away (2020). Gouge Away had its world premiere at midnight, Saturday, September 3, 2022, at the GenreBlast Film Festival at the Alamo Drafthouse in Winchester, VA, and winner of the GenreBlast Forever Independent Spirit Award.[ citation needed ]Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Visions and Chaos Magic is an incomplete revenge thriller that began as a behind-the-scenes documentary featurette for the Blu-ray release of Gouge Away. [3] The revenge thriller was originally about a therapist named Stanley who seeks revenge.[ citation needed ]
Frumess began work on My Shadow, a screenplay based on a previous project Dead Dog Robert about a man whose best friend has been resurrected and begins eating people. The story is named after the song "My Shadow" by Jay Reatard. In March 2020, while in quarantine at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Frumess began to livestream filibuster about music, film, and history. Soon, live interviews began with musicians and filmmakers. The streams initially started on Facebook before moving to YouTube.[ citation needed ]
| Year | Title | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | Actor | Cinematographer | Notes | ||
| 2017 | Romeo's Distress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2018 | Long Live the Horror | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2021 | The Transformations of the Transformations of the Drs. Jenkins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Segment director |
| 2022 | Gouge Away | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2024 | Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Visions and Chaos Magic | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2025 | My Shadow | Yes | Yes | Yes | — | — | |
| 2025 | They Came From Lodi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The Misfits are an American punk rock band often recognized as the pioneers of the horror punk subgenre, blending punk and other musical influences with horror film themes and imagery. The group was founded in 1977 in Lodi, New Jersey, by vocalist, songwriter and keyboardist Glenn Danzig. Over the next six years, Danzig and bassist Jerry Only were the group's main members through numerous personnel changes. During this period, they released several EPs and singles, and with Only's brother Doyle as guitarist, the albums Walk Among Us (1982) and Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood (1983), both considered touchstones of the early-1980s hardcore punk movement. The band has gone through many lineup changes over the years, with bassist Jerry Only being the only constant member in the group.
Horror punk is a music genre that mixes punk rock and 1950s-influenced doo-wop and rockabilly sounds with morbid and violent imagery and lyrics which are often influenced by horror films and science fiction B-movies. The genre was pioneered by the Misfits in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Subsequent bands formed in the Misfits' wake like Mourning Noise, the Undead and Samhain, solidifying horror punk's first wave. In the late 1990s and early 2000s the genre gained attention through the reunion of the Misfits and success of groups like AFI, Son of Sam and the Murderdolls. This popularity continued to the modern day with Blitzkid, Calabrese and Creeper.
The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which also hosts a screenplay competition, workshops, screenings throughout the year and events with an emphasis on independent films with budgets under US$1 million.
Mina Shum is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity both premiered in the US at the Sundance Film Festival and Double Happiness won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at Torino. She was director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She was also a member of an alternative rock band called Playdoh Republic.
"Dig Up Her Bones" is the seventh single by the punk rock band the Misfits. It was the first single released by the re-formed lineup of the band, after the original incarnation broke up in 1983. It was the only single released from their 1997 album American Psycho, and the accompanying music video was the first official Misfits music video ever released.
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Michael Emanuel, better known by his stage name Michale Graves, is an American singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist for the 1990s re-incarnation of the horror punk band Misfits from 1995 to 2000, leaving briefly in 1998. He has also released several albums as a solo artist.
Paul Caiafa, known professionally as Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, is an American guitarist best known for his material with the horror punk band the Misfits and his own band eponymously named Doyle.
Cropsey is a 2009 American documentary film written and directed by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio. The film initially begins as an examination of "Cropsey", a boogeyman-like figure from New York City urban legend, before segueing into the story of Andre Rand, a convicted child kidnapper from Staten Island whose known or suspected crimes in the 1970s and '80s may have inspired or been blamed on Cropsey.
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Blitzkid is an American horror punk band from Bluefield, West Virginia. One of the leading proponents of the horror punk scene, the band is led by singer/guitarist TB Monstrosity and singer/bassist Argyle Goolsby. Active from 1997 until 2012 and reforming in 2020, Blitzkid released five studio albums, appeared on numerous compilations, and toured both nationally and internationally.
Mister Monster were an American, New Jersey–based horror punk band, started in 1998 by singer Jason "J-Sin" Trioxin, notable for their use of Doo Wop harmonies within Horror Punk, a style the band called Boo Wop. Mister Monster's influences included classic Doo Wop, The Stray Cats, The Damned, the Misfits, and the Ramones.
Jack Thomas Smith is an American producer, writer and director of feature films and documentary television series. His feature horror films include Disorder and Infliction. Smith is a member of the Horror Writers Association.
Argyle Goolsby is an American musician, best known for being the lead vocalist, bassist and co-founder of horror punk band Blitzkid (1997–2012).
Romeo's Distress is a 2017 American independent, gothic, neo-noir, horror film and the directorial debut of Jeff Frumess. It was filmed on location in Westchester, NY. The film had its world premiere at the Macabre Faire Film Festival in January 2017.
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Coralie Fargeat is a French film director and screenwriter. She gained international recognition with her 2017 debut feature film Revenge, for which she received awards from several independent film festivals. This was followed by her second feature, The Substance (2024), a satirical body horror film starring Demi Moore, screened in the main competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where Fargeat won the Best Screenplay award.
Scott Teems is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work on That Evening Sun (2009), The Quarry (2020), Halloween Kills (2021), Firestarter (2022) and Insidious: The Red Door (2023).
