Holiday Gift Guide 2015: Larry Blamire’s The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

It’s that time of the year and Granny has a great suggestion for your holiday gift giving. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a spoof on the 1950’s B movies. Larry Blamire not only wrote the screenplay, but he also directed the film and acted in it, too. Find out why I think this film would make a great stocking stuffer after the jump.

Plot

The film which stars Larry Blamire, Jennifer Blaire, Fay Masterson, Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell and Brian Howe, is an independent film that was done on a low budget. While Dr. Armstrong (Blamire) and wife Betty (Jay Masterson) go searching for a meteorite that crashed into the nearby woods, Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) is searching for the Cadavra Cave in hopes of finding a fabled skeleton with mythical powers. Strange things begin to happen when a second meteorite crashes to earth. The meteorite turns out to be a spaceship.

Aliens Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks and Lattis (Susan McConnell) are stranded on earth and desperately need the atmosphereum, which is a special element contained within the first meteorite, to fix their ship. When their pet mutant (Darren Reed) escapes, the aliens must disguise themselves as “Earth People” to blend in. Blending in is not something this galactic duo can easily carry off and that is when the fun begins. While Fleming does the bidding of the evil skeleton, we are introduced to a creature known as Animala (Jennifer Blaire).

Conclusion

I was instantly hooked on The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra which was cleverly made and freaking funny. You have to watch this film, just to see Kro-Bar and Lattis maneuver their way up a stairway.  There’s talk of making the film into a musical. How do I know this?

Allow me to introduce you to Director, Larry Blamire.

Marie: Larry, thank you for this interview. I loved watching The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. It’s crazy funny. What was your inspiration for the film?

Larry Blamire: I think the Lost Skeleton was a result of me wanting to recreate a lot of the low budget films that I loved as a kid. It was also a way to make an independent film on a very low budget because it was supposed to look low budget; that was part of the fun.

I took some elements from the play, Bride of the Mutant’s Tomb, which was about a low-budget film maker trying to finish his sci-fi film and combined the horror and sci-fi typified by the mutant and the skeleton.

Marie: I’ve read that you’re working on a musical.

Larry Blamire: Yes. I recently adapted Lost Skeleton as a musical which includes twenty six songs. I’m starting to shop this around–I’ve always thought Lost Skeleton would make a great musical.

Marie: What do you enjoy better, the writing or directing?

Larry Blamire: Well…it’s very different and, writing might be my favorite thing and it just edges out the directing a little bit, but they are very different hats to wear…I enjoy acting, too, but it might take third place. I also do a lot of graphics.

Marie: While I was doing research on you for The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, I saw another project of yours, a comedy album called The Audio Adventure Book of Big Dan Frater. What is this about?

Larry Blamire: It’s a comedy about the adventures of “Big Dan Frater”, a character from my movie, The Trail of the Screaming Forehead played by Brian Howe. The album is like an old radio show with five adventures on the first album with each one running ten to fifteen minutes. Phil Proctor of Firesign Theatre is the narrator. It features most of the actors from the Lost Skeleton films and they are extremely silly.

Marie: I’m very interested in another project of yours because I’m into Steampunk and I’m known as Steampunk Granny. Tell me about Steam Wars?

Larry Blamire: It is a graphic novel and it is very exciting because it is a long time project of mine that I started developing before there was a name, Steampunk, at the time. It is an epic science fiction adventure set in the 1890’s with giant steam-powered machines. I’d done a number of paintings and graphics to present the story and it is coming out in the spring.

Marie: I will definitely be on the lookout for this novel when it comes out. Do you see this novel becoming a film?

Larry Blamire: That was my first inclination and I have completed a screenplay for it. I have always seen it as a film first. The graphic novel is a step in that direction. We’d also like to do some action figures of the steam machines.

Marie: When Steam War comes out in the spring, I’ll interview you again. I know lots of people who are devoted to Steampunk. What kind of reviews has The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra received?

Larry Blamire: It was released in 2004 by Sony and we were just thrilled because it received tremendous reviews from so many sources.

Marie: You write, direct, act and have a graphic novel coming out. Can you tell us about your new film, The Salem Witch File?

Larry Blamire: This is very different and it’s the only time I’ve collaborated on a screenplay. Kyle Rankin, known for Infestation and Night of the Living Deb, is a terrific film maker. The film, which is in production, is about some teenage girls who get involved in witchcraft and things get out of hand.

Marie: Thank you, Larry for being a guest on Biff Bam Pop.

Larry Blamire: Thank you very much.

For a great holiday gift idea you want to get find The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra here and The Audio Adventure of Big Dan Frater here and here.