(Very) Bad Girls — Soda Citizen - Photo Stories from the South

Sanethia Dresch, as Mitzi Anne Chandler, left, Morgan Shaley Renew as Val Washington, and Shelby Lois Guinn as Carolyn Hills.

Photos and words by Sean Rayford

Tough guy 2 was a no show on the set of Bad Girls that day at New Brookland Tavern. I was there making photos for the thing that you’re reading now and tough guy 2 had too much fun the night before. I filled in.

The bartender and my friend were shot in the head, tough guy 1 was stabbed, and I took brass knuckles to the face. I think tough guy 2 survived the girl gang rampage.

Bad Girls, released on Feb. 11, is the second feature length from Columbia, SC filmmaker Chris Bickel. It’s filmed mostly in the Midlands. Production wrapped up just before the pandemic lockdown in 2020. It can be purchased at the Indiegogo Bad Girls page.

Below is a February 12th conversation between the filmmaker and tough guy #2.

Sean: What is the target audience for Bad Girls?

Chris: People who like movies that are kind of violent — a little off the beaten track. It's definitely not a Hollywood movie by any stretch, so people who can lower their expectations as far as technical quality — but enjoy things that are a little bit druggy and a little bit tweaky.

Sean: What was the process in naming the kidnapped band members?

Chris: The band members that weren't the lead actors were named by people doing the crowd funding. But the lead actors... ‘Zerox Rhodesia,’ that was my idea of a name that was like Jello Biafra, even though he's not suppose to be Jello Biafra. Just a punk sounding name, that was the influence on that.

And the other one, ‘Bard Gainesworth’ … I knew that I wanted to have a name that was a scrambled version of a really ordinary name. His real name is Brad. And Bard also sounds like he is trying to put on this artistic air. That's his whole thing in the movie. He's always trying to talk philosophy, but it's kinda dorky. And then Gainesworth is kind of a cliche device. By Val kidnapping this guy, she feels like she is gaining worth, by kidnapping this person she's put on a pedestal.

Sean: Tell me about how Shane Silman's play, Girl Gang Rampage, came on your radar?

Chris: Shane and I, and Nick Dunn produced a stage version of Plan 9 From Outer Space that we originally did at Tapp’s and that's when Larry Hembree had just taken over at Trustus as the director. Larry loved it and he loved us, and so we were gonna do a follow-up thing. Shane wrote that script and Larry loved it. And said, ‘OK guys, we're gonna get you on stage the next season.’ And we were all stoked. And a week later, he comes back and he's like, "ummm, the board at Trustus didn't like it and so we're not gonna do it.’ I know it sucked for him because basically he gave us a green light and then was like, ‘Oh… no.’

I think Shane took it pretty hard and he shelved the thing. And it had been sitting on a shelf forever. When I was trying to come up with ideas, I remembered that and looked back at it. I realized it was definitely way to campy to be a movie. It was definitely a stage production, but I thought some of the characters were cool and some of the dialogue was cool. I asked Shane if it was OK for me to take it and run with it. I didn't want to take it if he was still planning to do something with it. But he was like, ‘go ahead.’

I took some of the scenes and some of the characters and reworked it and made it into Bad Girls.

Sean: Tell me about making the drug sequences, it seems you're getting a good response from that and there was one scene… with the Boo Hag song.

Chris: That's my personal favorite part of the movie — is that scene. I just thought the Boo Hag song worked really well for that. It just has a really kinda psychedelic feel to it anyway. I was talking to Micah (Zerox Rhodesia) today. The original idea — I really wanted to give the actors acid and just set them loose for a day. Film them for a day doing whatever the six of them would be doing on acid. And I kinda floated the idea. I can't remember to who, but I don’t think they were all approached with that idea — just a couple of them. But the response wasn't really enthusiastic, so I scrapped that.

And the more I thought about it, it would be a logistical nightmare to try and wrangle six actors on acid at the Border. So I quickly decided that was a terrible idea.

I just kinda told them what to do and we just ran around and had fun. I just tried to film them having a good time and then put a proper amount of effects in post to make it look trippy.

Sean: Was that your favorite experience shooting and your favorite outcome?

Chris: Yea, I think so. That was just a really fun time for everybody. We all just sort of bonded, being thrown together for a couple of days. I think everybody had a good time with that.

bad girls 01814.JPG — Carolyn, Val, and Mitzi.

Sean: When I talked with you last time about Theta Girl, you said you wanted people to "lose their shit." Was that the goal here or was it something different.

Chris: I wanted something that people would be entertained by and that they would talk about afterwards. I wanted to include enough things in there that somebody would sort of gravitate to one thing or the other. And that if they watched it with their friends they'd be able to have a conversation about it when the movie ended.

Sean: How much did it cost to make the film?

Chris: $16,000

Sean: What ate up the biggest part of the budget?

Chris: Almost all of that money went to paying the cast and crew — and not much. Everybody got $50 a day. In the end some of the actors donated their time, so that helped a little bit. We could have done this movie for hardly anything if we weren't paying people, and a lot of indie projects do that. But my fear, is that if you start a project and you're not paying anyone - the first day that it sucks, everybody will quit. And there's always gonna be a day that sucks where things aren't going right. Or it's a long day. Paying as little as we paid, it kept people on board.

We had one big expense, where the upholestry of one of the classic cars got fucked up by accident and I had to pay to reupholster a seat in a Cadillac.

Sean: Can you talk about your favorite fundraising rewards or tactics and how that works with independent filmmaking?

Chris: With this IndieGogo campaign people wanna be a part of it and it’s sort of a fun Easter egg for them. If they can show the movie to their friend and say, 'see that cop, I named that cop’ — and they can show it in the credits. We did another thing where they could send their picture and it was put on a wanted poster. When the FBI guys are in their office, there's a bunch of wanted posters hanging up behind them. Those are all photos of people that contributed to the movie. So I just think it's kind of a fun thing for people to insert themselves into the movie and that’s a thing they can show off to their friends.

I don’t really like doing crowdfunding that much because I don’t like asking for money. But I don't have money, so the money has to come from somewhere. What I've found is people are not only monetarily invested in it but they also become emotionally invested in it as well.

They all want to see it succeed so they’re the ones getting on Facebook, or wherever, and they are talking about it and telling their friends. They don't want to back something that is a losing proposition. They want it to go as far as it can go.

Not only is it money coming in, but more importantly, you're building your team of people that are the true supporters of it. And they are like the street team going out and spreading the word about it.

Sean: Talk about the cars, is that something you had in mind going into it?

Originally in the script I had written ‘bad ass car’ as the name of the car. They steal the ‘bad ass car’ but I didn’t know what it was gonna be. I put feelers out and was like, ‘hey does anybody have a cool old car that they would be willing to let us rent it for a movie? And then Shauna [Brown] messaged me and was like, ‘my boyfriend has a ton of cars.’

So I met with him and he was the coolest fucking dude and not only did we get the Caddy, but I got all these other cars too. That's how we have the cool car that the cops drive around in. And the first car they drive around in is a Nova. When they are driving down the highway and they shoot the guy who is driving in the left lane, that's Shauna's car.

They supplied like five cars for the movie. And they were the coolest people. They would show up on set and just help. They ended up, basically as production assistants in addition to supplying the cars and all the stunt driving.

Gareth Jarvis as Spike Polite, left, and Cleveland Langdale as Bard Gainesworth

Sean: Can you touch on how you’re able to take advantage of the community that is here in the town and your previous relationships?

Chris: First of all, that's all I've got. Because I don't have any money to go anywhere else, so I'm using stuff that's around me - and people. And you wanna put your friends in the thing, so whenever I could I was putting in people that I've known for a long time.

I think people that are from Columbia are going to get a different enjoyment out of it then anybody else would. Because they're going to be watching it and they're gonna go, Oh! there's Jay Matheson, and they get excited to see Jay.

Sean: You’ve got plans for making another film, is that correct?

Chris: I don't know exactly what it's gonna be. I have like three different ideas but none of them are gelled yet. I would like to do a horror movie next because it's easier to sell. Bad Girls is a road movie and if I had a horror movie, there's like 10,000 horror movie blogs that I could pitch a screen or two, and they would write about it because it's a horror movie. But there are no road movie blogs.

There is no fandom based around road movies. So, it's a little bit of a harder sell. With horror, it doesn't matter what you do as long as it has that big H on it, people are gonna give it a chance and check it out. As far as trying to do stuff without really having money and having to put your own money into it — you wanna have at least a fair shake at getting that money back. So horror, definitely next. Also, it's my favorite genre.

I'll probably give Bad Girls another three months and water those plants and try to make that thing grow. Just trying to promote Bad Girl’s and get it in front of as many eye balls as possible. Then I'll redirect and start writing the next one.

Full trailer below