Cursed in Baja (2024)

Cursed-in-Baja
Cursed in Baja

If you have watched a single Rob Zombie movie, you will likely picture Jeff Daniel Phillips as the first person who comes to mind. Whether it be his off-the-wall depiction of Herman Munster or his blood-clad character in Halloween II Phillips is a jack of all trades in regard to what roles he can play. Hollywood does not end solely as an actor for him for he is a director as well. He has directed four movies such as Cursed In Baja which he acted in, wrote as well as directed and the film is set to have its world premiere at London’s FrightFest followed by Blu-ray and VOD distribution by Anchor Bay Entertainment. We also have the exclusive trailer for you as well as an interview with Phillips in which he discusses his most intimate to-date film that has recently failed to gain ample focus.

Pirelli brings the house down literally with a tour de force for an ex-apprehender- searching for an inheritor to a fortune buried across Los Angeles but suffering from a dark past in Mexico. But what he finds in Baja is what shatters him the most.

While Phillip is mostly known for being an actor, he is not a stranger to the chair. He directed music videos and short films back when he was still studying at USC Film School. Nonetheless, attending a horror convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is what encouraged him to commence working on his latest feature film. During that event, he led a panel with young filmmakers regarding some of his tools as a filmmaker.

Phillips recalls an event when he took the microphone and started to speak: “Guys, this is my approach and this is how I went about it. The way I am explaining is one a lot of people do. For one long hour, I talked and by the end of the entire discussion, I was a bit tired. After leaving the meeting I returned to Los Angeles and to my surprise I was wondering why I was explaining to them how to do it instead of doing it myself and then making a list of everyone I could gather to get the job done. That is exactly what went on in my mind and I did.”

Phillips is also informed by producer Kent Isaacs that they are taking a step forward and together with him explaining what it is that they need to start with- it is time to go and do exactly as Phillips said. Forget about the budget, just do it and see how far you reach.

To start off with the filming, Phillips started making calls to his friends along with his former employers to assist him with the assembling of a more cast and crew. He has known Keith Quintero Coleman, who served as the cinematographer for the film, around twenty years apart until they coincidentally crossed paths on the streets of New York City. An actress and singer engaged in burlesque who performed in the cast, Audrey DeLuxe, was working with Phillips over ten years back when he was invited by Rob Zombie to celebrate Sherri Moon Zombie’s birthday with them. Phillips had the ability to fit this particular tale together with the leverage of several years-long networks.

“I started bringing together the pieces of the story that I knew I could create, similar to what Robert Rodriguez would do. I started with what I had, and I worked with it,” Phillips reminisced. “That’s how it all began, and then it steadily continued to grow.”

While in Phillips’ case, the entirety of the focus was on understanding what kind of movie he wanted to create, in his case, he had already gone to the extent of searching for cast members and locations for the film, and now it was time to outline the film’s internal narrative. It is exactly during this point that he looked up to Rob Zombie and the great filmmaker’s idea. As the movie advanced, the concept inched closer to completion through certain events, and the procedure was, in essence, chronological. And that is a Rob Zombie thing as well.

Phillips praised him, saying, “I have to give him some credit. He is never shy to disassemble things any time he is there for a set, all he says is, “It isn’t working.” And whether it is a performance, voiceover, or lines, he comments that we will shoot this and that. And for him, it works so often. So in essence, I almost do this instinctively.”

While Phillips wrote a script, Isaacs and Coleman boarded a plane toward Mexico with the aim of shooting at a Baja farm. Phillips was on the film and while he had no clue how the end scene was supposed to be, he still was over the moon with excitement to see what they would get. That’s how non-linear, imaginative terror movement functions just get out there and film everything and anything.

Phillips explained how “The drone didn’t work well on certain spots, which were further into the canyon, especially when we did some breathtaking drone footage. Then again, some areas were over the mountain with no GPS units.” He took a nap in this barbed wire for quite a long time.”

However, the footage taken in Mexico was not of any interest to the filmmakers. The vast majority of this film is built around clips and fragments of materials that were left on the editing room floor after Phillips’ previous scans almost two decades ago. The finished version of the film is rather conceptual in form. It mashes a variety of things together to tell the story of a man who is going insane. It’s almost dreamlike in quality and is principally an act of recollection for Phillips and his character.

“I use a lot of clips from other sources in my old projects, even as far back as 20 years. [It footage] which I might have had to extract from some other project, but somehow I sprinkled it in here,” Phillips recounts. “The project was substantial material I could work with and then I let my hair and beard grow and changed appearance over the years and whatnot. So, it came together nicely.”

Indeed, Phillips has such materials, for example, the footage that he shot of a young Seeker Bell, who also plays an adult Seeker Bell in Cursed In Baja. This is similar to how Richard Linklater during the filming of Boyhood planned the shooting of young children to create a movie that spanned the character’s life from childhood to adulthood. While it was never Phillips’ aim, it was good luck considering Bell these days is a music artist with fans in Mexico.

“As a child, I got to know him. That’s how I first saw the kid. So I put it in the script, said Phillips. “So, implying that they record together, Conejo and Jose the rapper knew each other, so I put that in the script. Such a thing came to Cursed In Baja as well.” Above all, Cursed In Baja is a labor of love for Phillips the inventor, and a spectacular tribute to B-cinema. Which, for Phillips, seems to have been the intention.

“Let’s just say we succeeded in creating it and now we are going to London to showcase it and celebrate it to be precise. There’s no point in getting additional awards or things like that,” Phillips said. “I just want to put it out and then make it. And for me, most of it is making it, you know?” Together with Kent Issacs, Phillips was the coproductor of Cursed In Anda. The executive producers were Thomas Zamback and Brian Katz. The music was by VAL. Remember to catch the film’s premiere at FrightFest this August.

For more movies like Cursed in Baja visit 123movies.

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