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Gruesome twosome's films are just a scream
Darla Enlow (left) joins her Next Monkey Horror Films partner, Dana Pike, for a photo with "Night of the Living Dead" director George Romero. courtesy
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Published: 10/23/2009 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 10/23/2009 5:29 AM
By day, Darla Enlow owns and manages rental properties around the Tulsa area. By night, well, it depends on the night.
She might be filling her house with fog, or stacking up bodies, or directing people to run screaming around a lake area.
Enlow and Dana Pike, her partner in trauma, are a crew of two at Next Monkey Horror Films, filming slasher flicks locally for the last six years. It is their hobby, their passion. It is, you might say, in their blood.
"We do not do chick flicks," said Enlow with a chuckle. "We love the thrill of the chase. We shoot what we love, and that's the freaky dude in the mask who makes you run for your life, the kind of movie that makes the audience say, 'Don't go in there, stupid.' "
Their first three films — "Toe Tags," "Branded" and "The Stitcher" — are all available on DVD on Web sites such as Amazon.com. They are currently shooting their next project: A short film, "The Last Trick or Treater," will be the first of three parts that make up a feature film with a wraparound story.
"We've been shooting off and on for three months, and the rain's been killing us," Enlow said, no pun intended. "We just got out there a couple of nights ago to finish shooting something, and we froze our rears off, but that's what we do."
Making the cuts
The film shoots have taken place in a variety of places over the years. A commercial property in Broken Arrow, downtown Jenks and Enlow's home have been locales ("The house was so full of fog it set off the smoke alarm around midnight, but hopefully it didn't wake the neighbors," she said).
Enlow and Pike met on a film shoot in 2000. They were working on a film that had something in common with most locally produced movies on a mini-budget: The people behind the camera had some good ideas, but a lack of financing or creativity or persistence would keep the film from being finished.
"Those people would just get overwhelmed. One morning, after a full night of shooting on yet another little movie that was never completed, Dana and I had a cup of coffee and decided we could do it better. We knew that we could finish a film, and that at the end —while we may or may not be able to pay the actors — we'd feed them at the shoots and everybody would get a copy of the movie."
Fun on the set is a guarantee from Enlow (she directs, run the camera, edits the film and scores it) and Pike (by day she operates a cleaning service; by night she does makeup, wardrobe and more). While the films often take several months to shoot around people's schedules, no cast member has ever left in the middle of a film.
"We laugh, we cut up, we have our pizza and if we get done early, we might get out the wine. We have a good time," said Enlow, a former Linda Layman model with a wicked sense of humor. She offers a sample of her fun-among-friends directing style: "OK, let's try that scene again, and let's see if you can suck a little less this time around."
Not that she worries so much about the acting quality these days. The company has recently included several local theater veterans like Carmen Garrison, Craig Walter, Justin Boyd and Scott Gaffen, the hero of "The Stitcher," and who now helps Enlow and Pike with casting and publicity.
"It's good to be working with people you know, and with people who you know can bring it," Gaffen said of his fellow community theater veterans. He has come to appreciate the style of Next Monkey Horror Films, and the necessities of low-budget horror flicks.
"I made a deal with my barber, because every two weeks I had to get my hair cut for consistency," said Gaffen, whose hero character "gets the snot beaten out of him." "I got Cherokee Barber Shop into the film credits, and they made me a deal."
Bringing evil to life
But to the point: What are a couple of nice girls doing making Tulsa-chainsaw-massacre style movies?
"I do get that, especially being a female, and for anyone who thinks that is odd, well, there's an ass for every saddle," Enlow said. "I'm doing what I love. We've made three horror films here, and we've got worldwide distribution for all of them. That's quite an achievement."
Enlow could feel the love in 2007 when her husband, Robb Vanskike ("He's a trouper for funding my passion"), rented out a 200-seat theater at RiverWalk Movies in Jenks to show "The Stitcher" to the cast and some friends. When the audience overflowed, with people seated in the aisles, that was scary good.
"Oh, that was a moment. I was overwhelmed, which takes some doing," she said. "I remember thinking, man, not even Steven Spielberg could touch me right now."
Just a warning: If you are out one night, and you see people running and screaming bloody murder, it's probably not due to a chainsaw-cranking killer. They may be running from Enlow, Pike and a camera.
Where to buy
Next
Monkey
Horror
Films’
first three
movies
can be
purchased
online at
Amazon.
com and
cD universe.
When in stock locally, Steve’s
Sundry, Books & Magazines has sold
some. More information about Next
Monkey, including photos of Darla
enlow and Dana Pike at horror movie
conventions, promoting their films
and meeting stars, can be found at
tulsaworld.com/nextmonkeyfilms.
Michael Smith 581-8479
michael.smith@tulsaworld.com
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
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