DGITW Screening and Q&A at Cinema Village

Last Friday night's 9:30 PM screening of "Don't Go In The Woods" at the Cinema Village in New York City began with an unexpected plot twist, leaving audience members and VDO fans very disappointed, including me. An announcement that Vincent D'Onofrio would not be at the Q&A due to illness was made prior to the screening. I was sitting in the second row on the right with my camcorder in the cupholder in front of my seat, eagerly anticipating filming the Q&A after the film, as I have done before. Vincent had also sent his apologies and a message that he would try to do a makeup appearance at a future screening, possibly next week. Pissed because I had come out on such a bitterly cold night, only to learn that Vincent would not be present, I hoped that my effort to cover the Q&A would be worth it. I then decided to take photos of the Q&A instead of video. I was there to support Vincent's film and silently wished him a speedy recovery. The show must go on, as they say.

I enjoyed seeing DGITW again and grooved to the songs written by Sam Bisbee and Bo Boddie(Carlo in the film), especially "Destroy The Shadows", "Break My Fall" and "Hurricane." Interesting that the biggest laughs from the audience came from the onscreen demise of the two most annoying female characters after they sang the worst of the tunes, the irritating "J'Taime." Oh well, that's showbiz! LOL

The Q&A began at 11 PM with Joe Vinciguerra asking the audience what we liked most about DGITW. I piped up this rave "The music's fantastic!" which Joe repeated as Sam Bisbee and Erika Hampson arrived with three of the cast members, including Gwynn Galitzer, Cassandra Walker and Kira Gorelick. Sam explained that Vincent was ill with the flu and couldn't make the Q&A but would try to appear at another screening next week. The moderator from Tribeca Films asked the usual questions-what inspired the making of this film, why did Vincent, Sam and Joe decide to do a "slasher musical", how the casting was done, how the music was created, etc. There were also some questions from the audience before the Q&A ended at 11:30PM.

We did learn some interesting things about Vincent's directing skills from Sam, Kira and Cassandra, despite the repetitiveness of the questions they were asked. Kira explained how Vincent prepared her for a scene where she must react in horror to finding her murdered friends by breaking her down emotionally as he coached her to produce the desired result. Cassandra, sporting darker hair than before, also related a story about her murder scene as Sam revealed a blooper involving Vincent's hand being seen onscreen momentarily. Turns out that Vincent was holding a container of prop blood which he poured over Cassandra's head, and she revealed that she was cleaning fake blood out of her ears for months afterwards. LOL! Cassandra is also currently involved with performing college humor skits, while Kira is also busy with new projects. Gwynn spoke about an art exhibit she's preparing in Gowanus, Brooklyn next month. Gwynn looks plumper than she did in the film, and Kira has a new hairstyle (I like her new bangs). Sam and Erika have collaborated on a short film called "Robot and Frank" which is currently being screened at BAM-the Brooklyn Academy of Music (that run is sold out.)Sam and Joe also referred to another film that Vincent is working on, which must be "Johnny and Me". Awesome!

As to whether there will be a soundtrack album release, Sam replied that some of the songs are under his name and some are owned by Tribeca Films, so it won't be a simple task getting all the songs written for the film released. Joe mentioned the possibility of having the songs made available on ITunes. We'll see how it all turns out, won't we?