By the way, before reading any further, worth mentioning is also that many people don't believe the amounts of money we've used for these films - some say we've spent too much compared to the quality, some think the other way, hah! We've always used as little money as possible, but of course, the budget-info doesn't include the so-called "long-time investments" such as the cameras, editing software, computers, tripods, monopods, uv-filters etc)... We've spent quite a lot on these equipments, but hey, life's not cheap, you know... Most of the gear is now either sold or wrecked useless...
Maahanmuuttajat (Invaders, 40 minutes, 1994)
The first actual movie, although few "ready-when-shot"-movies were made before (clips of these movies, like "Eliminator Squad" from 1992, can be found in a retro-documentary found in couple of our dvd's.) "Maahanmuuttajat" was edited with home VCR and dubbed with a hi-fi VHS-camera - that really was a task, as one mistake and it was hard to do it again - I think only once we lost a clip of the original audiotrack, don't remember how we replaced it... It's basically a lot of dud shootings, lousy humour and bad gore-effects - all the elements were ready here, hah!2 special agents have been sent to kill some illegal immigrants, who are endangering the country. The agents don't know that the government of the intruders is after them, and has sent a terminator-like killing machine, Tiberius, after them. No-one wants to see this one!!! Budget was around 20€, which was spent on Hi8-tapes, VHS-master-tape, fake-blood and costumes. Probably the only effect we spent money on was a "melting head", which was made out of moulding plastic and melted with fire and lighterfluids... Horrible effect, but one of the first experiments on making real gore-effects.
In 2004 a 10-year anniversary edit was made and released on dvd in limited edition (15 dvd's only) for the makers of the film. All the VCR-made edits were "cleaned" and digital effects (such as flames on the fire-arms when fired) were constructed. The soundtrack was remastered and some of the lousiest effects were completely re-edited from the original raw-material (only some of it was left). The result was 9 minutes shorter, but more entertaining than the previous turkey, which is nowadays almost impossible to watch... Yet, it remains as a horrible film, but has a few good memories among the makers.
Cannibal Hunt (8 minutes, 1995) + *Bingo Des Bloodletter (10 minutes, 1995)
The first movie done with professional edit equipment – analogue though. It was shot in 8 hours on the same day that Finland won the ice-hockey world championship. We edited it in two days at the local youthcentral, the legendary “Kettis”, and we had never edited like that before. Hell, we didn't even know the basics of the editing board/systems, but as it really was quite simple, it was ready sooner than we thought.
A cannibal-killer receives a “cannibal alert” and tries to hunt the meat-eater down. Unfortunately, there’s also the protector of the cannibals in the same neck of the woods… Lots of kicking, gut-munching and last-but-not-least, exploding fake head! Budget was 8€, which was split in half by two of the makers. Hey! It was a lot of money those days, when the main income-source was the wallet of our parents... The money was spent on fake-blood, sausages (which were cut off as fingers) and few fireworks for the bazooka-sequence. The result was splattery rubbish (pure trash in the purest form), but it served it's purpose well - we knew now how to edit professionally...
Bingo Des Bloodletter (the name is just gibberish) was the first “real” movie, to which a script (although a weird one) was made. I think we made it for somekind of competition, to which it was never sent. A guy tries to spend a normal day, but is accidentally drawn into an illegal “deathmatch”-tournament. As we had now a little more precise vision on how sequences work and how the edit/soundmixing worked, we even did some storyboards. Cheap gore, weird plot and probably the most fucked-up characters in the Teams history ever! Budget was 20€, and most of it was spent on gasoline (no explosions or that kind of shit, just to fuel up the car, as we had quite a few locations this time). Even to this day, some say it's one of the most interesting works in the whole filmography, despite of the "aging problem" - it's not very fresh-looking nowadays...
Splattenstein (28 minutes, 1998)
After the making of Bingo Des Bloodletter the team members spent 8 months in the finnish army. In that era the team met also few other people, who were interested in filmmaking (and splattery horrormovies of course)...To cut the long story short, the team was close to it's heyday... The new members brought in new ideas and also made it possible to use DV-cams and digital editing (as one of them worked aside of studies in OUBS, the legendary tv-channel located in the student area of Helsinki University of Technology). So basically, this is the "real" beginning of Team Splattenstein. We then chose to use "Sarastus production" as our name yet it seemed non-explanatory... We then changed it after the Splattenstein trilogy to Team Splattenstein, as that was what we were known for...
The plot was just an excuse for some splattery sequences... A mad scientist tries to create a perfect woman from the pieces of the “still-living” ladies, but is chased by the police. On paper it seemed like a coctail of "Re-animator", Hammer Studio's "Frankenstein movies" and the trash classic "Pieces", but it was not a rip-off attempt... First part of the Splattenstein-trilogy was a worthwhile gorewrapping, but is a little bit slower on the pacing than we intended. Anyway, we learned pretty much from the digital editing (and digital effects as well, which were quite rare back in those days in findie-genre) and knew we were on the right track of what we wanted to do - same kind of "shitty and stupid splatter" but with more speed and action in it. Budget was 70€, and it seemed like "big bucks" those days... It was spent on some fakeblood and gasoline (to fuel up cars) as the locations were rather widespread.
Splattenstein 2000 (45 minutes, 2000)
After the first part was aired on the OUBS tv-channel and duplicated to friends (who then duplicated it forward), the word spread and we got in touch with a few new and old faces, who were now interested in joining the team... Unfotunately, to some of the new members the goal of the project was not that clear... They had hoped that this could lead to something (maybe tv-work or something), but as we really had no intentions to commercialize or even try to do something "serious" the way they wanted (like more actor-based moviemaking, drama and shit...), this eventually lead to some departures, but more on that further on...The fact is that this is the most popular entry in the whole filmography. The plot is basically the same as in the prequel, but this time the Count's dealing with a time machine... It's more fast-paced, much more splattery/gory and has a lot more humour in it… It’s a no-brainer, as someone stated (a quote from the cover of the swedish cult-movie "Evil Ed")! Budget was doubled from the first part and we tried to put all of it to the screen: more splatter, more blood, neater locations, more actors etc... All in all, this was how we wanted it done - no plot, just some stupid motherfuckin' splatter!
More from the movie can be read from the download section, but lets put this one still here: In the beginning of this part Tony Reponen joined the team, and he rapidly became one of the main members of the team - if his kind of people wouldn't have been in the team on the era "when the misunderstandings lead to some departures", the team would've probably expired in 2002. You know, we didn't need people with goals and hopes with the products, as the products were our goals - nothing more, nothing less. This wasn't about anything more than to make movies of the genre we liked and have some laughs (and some beers while on the set)... Tony was also a great horrormoviefreak - again a "quality" appreciated in the Team Splattenstein camp, hah!
Splattenstein 3D (37 minutes, 2001)
We decided to make a trilogy out of the series (as all the great movies come in threes) but this time it was again time for something new... It would've been really easy to do another installment to the series, but we wanted to use innovative ideas and learn new methods of making, as we were really "hungry" those days to learn more stuff...We again continued with a simple plot - this time the Count is (after rehabilitation, as he was critically injured) inventing the serum of life, but he has to fight with some ghosts of the past (in the form of Franz Zorbas, the brother of the pornproducer Frank the Count killed before) and some serious economical problems. All of the scenes were segments of their own, and could be viewed as independent comedic parts in the whole, and each of them were made with different styles... We had b&w artfilm, Jaws-parody, drama, reality-tv... Hell! Even a cocaine-sniffing contest and Robert Ginty's Exterminator parody was thrown in – and the result was either horrific or terrific (depends on the viewer).
The feedback was mostly bad, although we loved the flick... It had something fresh the whole time, even if the movie itself wasn't quite well-structured... We tried to make it look chaotic all the time, and managed to do so, but it was reviewed as a mess... Anyway, it has a topnotch performance by Krisse Salhi (as Franz Zorbas, the german-brother of the pornproducer of the Splattenstein 2000), and some brilliant comedy as Franz and Jamis (also from the S2K) misunderstand some things with a female agent hired to hunt the Count down... The budget was around 70€, and it included a 1,5-meter whiteshark-head used in the Jaws-parody sequence, and a few fake-heads (one almost equal to the legendary Exterminator Vietnam-scene in the beginning)... All in all, it was a mess, but we gained a lot of experience from this one, on how to make scenes more and more technical...
Black Karma (35 minutes, 2002)
Barbarians are here… After S3D, which even some of the teammembers thought too confusing, we decided to finally start a project which would showcase our skills of that era (however, things didn't go quite as planned)... After a brief meeting we decided to do a barbarian movie, which had always (from the childhood) attracted us with the low-budget yet entertaining looks.Made with a campy-touch, this film had only little to offer for anyone who hadn’t seen masterpieces like “Iron Master”, “Sword and the sorcerer”, “Ator” or “Deathstalker” not to mention Lucio Fulci's brilliant "Conquest"... Unfortunately almost half of the team hadn't seen these masterpieces either, and that caused some unfortunate conflicts within the team. The result was that some of the familiar faces were no longer with us - fortunately it was only a matter of filmmaking so we're still friends allright...
It came out like we intended - weird characters and campy plot-twists... Similar to those in italo-ones (just check out the forementioned "Conquest", and you know what I'm talking about!) The story was about a great warrior, Blaas Karma, who is betrayed by his master, King Pest. The warrior swears revenge, and in his quest to destroy the king he faces a lot of weird shit - even finding out that the King is his father! The camp-look did turn some of the viewers off, but it got pretty good reviews, though... It had one of our first choreographed fight-sequences in it, and even as it did look good, we learned how NOT to shoot a fightscene even if it had skillful martial-artists in it... The budget was around 70 euros, and was spent on gore-effects and wardrobe...
Like mentioned before, a few teammembers were not with us anymore after this film, so we were pretty much in a situation where we had to sit down and talk about what we wanted to do in the future... Almost all of us wanted to do "more scripted and planned" stuff, and we headed to do the short-movie "Suostuttelijat" which premiered at the Tampere Film Festival's "Trash festival" - a part where finnish amateur movies were shown for a day...
Suostuttelijat (Persuaders, 11 minutes, 2002)
A short-movie made for the Tampere Film Festival’s “Trashfest”-part. Many have said this is the most professional work of the team ever. Again, nice splatter-segments like screwdriver into the forehead and head splattered to the wall (“Deadly Friend”, anyone?) are here, but most of the time it focuses on the more comedic plot.A countryside businessidea is brilliant! "Persuaders" would persuade anything from anywhere using all methods available... Sounds fucked-up in the beginning, doesn't it, but the hicks don't see it that way. After a gig goes horribly wrong (a drunken hillbilly is accidentally killed) the "persuaders" are caught by the police and in the interrogation a lot of shit from the past of the company comes up - murders are revealed, a tax fraud comes up etc... The showdown shows what kind of justice could be used in a quiet villages, if this kind of situation would happen... It's all-comedic, yet the splatter-sequences are made skillfully even to the smallest detail. I think we topped ourselves in the gore-section this time...
Budget was around 40€, and it was purely spent on the few special effects on the film (a fake head "exploded" to the walls, fake screwdriver was built and some digital effects were also used). All in all, if you tolerate the "acting" and the comedic plot, you'll probably think this is quite an entertaining 10 minutes - and hopefully watch it again...
Haava (Wound, 3 minutes, 2003)
The story behind this quickie can be read in its entirety from the downloads section......But what the hell... This site is VERY text/informationbased, so a few lines more won't matter... When we started to shoot and edit the film (which actually is not a "genuine" Team Splattenstein movie as mentioned in the download section), we thought we'd try a few things, like the b&w-flashback, as it has worked in quite a few movies... We didn't actually remember any movies at that point in which it was done and weren't quite sure about the "transition" from present to past, but we knew we'd try it here and use it later, as when properly used, it's a pretty effective form of storytelling. It went right (the way we wanted it) the first time and the flashback-effect was used later on both "Bastard" (which pretty much based on it) and "2019".
Also the fake-head with a sprig-in-the-eye was meant to be different, as we shot the actual face of the actor from the same angle with a meaning to combine them later (as on Suostuttelijat)... We shot it wrong (the angle was bad) and it wouldn't have worked properly within the time we had, so we left it unfinished and campy... However, later on we tried to do the composition and it worked like hell! We still have it somewhere on DV, and might put it here someday... It was all done frame by frame and it took about a couple of days to finish, but it was worth it - the eyeball really pops from the actors socket! It looked brutal, but we never inserted it... Not even here, 'cause we're such lazy assholes, hah! Anyway, the frame-by-frame -effectmaking was so timeconsuming (as we never had any 3D-software of our own) that we decided to use it later on only if necessary... The technique was used properly in "Bastards" machete-scene (where it comes out of the guys back) and in "2019" in the bazookascene (which is painted frame-by-frame with the aid of some lousy bluescreen-smokes we once shot).
Splattenstein Death Camp (32 minutes, 2003)
This was the first production in which the team had to "fight" against the amount of time available from the members - there was very little of it due to jobs, studies etc. Looking back, I think it was the beginning of the end, although we didn't know it...At the time, it was that "reality-tv" era, remember? Shitty series made quick with sloppy editing and worthless people looking for fame... The team decided to make a competitive product for the Findie-scene in 48 hours - completely from the beginning to the end. Why? Who the hell would want to do movies like this? Well... The so-called home-editing systems had become so popular that a lot of Findie-groups were formed... Most of them announced movies that never came out - only teasers and trailers were made... Hell! If you really are into what you're doing, it doesn't take years to do some 10-minute quickie, which has flaws like never seen... I guess we were a little pissed off about the fact that there were hundreds of groups, but the quality in the whole was crappier than ever... So, we decided to make a movie in two days, which would be equal quality-wise compared to the other films which were shot for even two years and over!. Sounds like an asshole-attitude, doesn't it... We don't see it that way, as it was also challenging for us to try to beat ourselves and a tight deadline.
This time it's the near future, and count Splattenstein's a manager of a juvenile prison. Due to "postholocaust" settings, no-one cares that some of the prisoners are missing... Count arranges death hunts with prisoners, who are chased by mutants, cannibals, jerk-off hunters and the Count himself in a combat zone near the prison! A lot of gore and comic-book violence, but nothing really fancy due to the tight deadline! It was completed in about 47,5 hours, so the task was done, but the final product was not viewed during the limits... Despite of it's production schedule, it's definitely a good entry in the filmography, but is it really comparable to the other movies of that era, that's up to you. Budget was approximately 80 euros, which was spent mostly on effects and beer - not to mention a lot of energy drinks, as we edited through the nights... By the way, the dvd-version of the film contains burnt-in english subtitles, and can be ordered from the Trash Video webstore, www.trashvideo.org. Instructions should be in english too...
Ltn A.D.Bastard - Luopio (Leutanent A.D.Bastard - Renegade, 32 minutes, 2004)
Again a return to something more serious... other than plotwise of course. I have to admit that "Memento" nearly blew our minds away. We'd always loved neatly done flashbacks in movies, and decided to use it as one of the key-elements in our next movie...Veteran Commando is called in with a taskforce to fetch an important government officer from the hands of a guerillagroup. When they enter the enemylines, almost all of the team is mysteriously wiped out. Who? What? Why? The guerillaleaders swear that they haven't done anything - who is the mysterious killer? Done in a "memento-like" flashback structure, where half of the movie is "past" and half of it is "now", "Ltn A.D.Bastard - Luopio" is a fast paced and bloody war-mystery with something for almost all the fans of the previous titles. Budget was around 150€, which aside of usual effects and fake-gore was spent on "commando-outfits" and a second camera was rented (yet I don't recall ever having a receipt from it, so I guess we never paid for it)...
This came out as colourful as planned (locations included snowy forests and a neatly lighted studio) and the flashback-structure worked out fine, but the fact that we had to really fight to find the time to do this movie (as almost all of the sequences were written so that almost all of the actors were needed all the time) really sucked the life out of us. As it had began to "feel like work", this is where we sat down and finally said that it's time to quit this... We decided to make one more film and put every effort in it - we'd do a film that would finally combine all of our positive experiences of working/well done scenes with a plot, that didn't include Count Splattenstein - our then trademark character... Hell! We'd do one more film, which would top all of our previous works and remain fresh-looking for some years to come...
2019 Il Ultimo Silenzio (47 minutes, 2004)
The swansong of the group is a post-holocaust revenge-flick with a high bodycount and well-staged sequences. It's a fast-movin', high kickin' tribute to the old italian trashmovies like 2019 after the fall of New York.Budget was approximately 700€ (it seemed like a "monepit" at that time, hah) and every member was "forced" to get their own wardrobe and props (including fake-blood supply, if the character played was killed... And almost all of them were, hah... That's why many of the victims wear skimasks) so in reality the budget was little bit higher... This way we could do some more miniatures and to finance the "bluescreen" sequence in the end. As mentioned in the download area, the postholocaust-feel could have been more intense, but we had to face the fact that we had only limited amount of time to finish this... Even if we had decided to do this for another year (the thought once crossed our minds) it wouldn't have been any better - it could have been even worse, because we really had a "drive" when doing this on a tight schedule.
So... This really is the best we could do within our "guidelines" of filmmaking... It's far from perfect even in the genre of amateur moviemaking, but we don't actually care a bit... It served it's purpose: we finally did the film which combines our know-how more than the lousy parts (and added even some new ideas which miraculously worked) and we had our laughs (and beers on the set)... And, it's a pretty darn entertaining "findie-movie"! Okay, time to quit the bullshit... Let's close the book with the fact, that the there were two major injuries on the sets of 2019 - both injuries were on the knee-area, and the other one of them was alcohol-related, hah!