| Jeff Frumess | |||||||||||
| Years Active: | 2010–present | ||||||||||
| Website: | https://www.frumess.com/ | ||||||||||
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Jeff Frumess is an American regional filmmaker, writer, and podcaster from Westchester, NY.
Frumess began his filmmaking journey after watching The Snowball Effect — a documentary chronicling the production of Kevin Smith's first feature film, Clerks. A string of short film experiments soon followed.
Initially cutting his teeth with live music production and documentary work, Frumess made a shift into narrative feature films beginning with Romeo's Distress. A second feature, Gouge Away, followed. Frumess is currently working on a third feature film, My Shadow.
Upon returning home to New York, Frumess began working on a documentary project recording the history of the punk band The Misfits told through the eyes of those who surrounded the band, as well as their contemporaries and notable musicians who would draw great influence from the original 1977-1983 lineup. Since 2021, the project has undergone a vast revision in its scope and approach, with interviews andother materials still being gathered.
Conducting interviews for They Came From Lodi introduced Frumess to the Horror Punk scene and the bands it represented. He teamed up with Sal Bee from Sardonica to start a YouTube show called Rock and Roll Cooking with Sal Bee. Various bands would come to Sal's house in Lodi, New Jersey, where he would cook a band-themed inspired meal followed by a song performance or two in the kitchen studio. Bands who appeared on the show included Doyle, Blitzkid, Nim Vind, The Jasons, The Independents, Stellar Corpses, Cancerslug, Whiplash, Cinema Cinema, Sardonica, Michale Graves, and Dr. Chud's X-Ward. The show was to feature Mister Monster and The Undead, but ended before the episodes could be taped.
In late 2011, Ex-Misfits 95 frontman Michale Graves had assembled a whole new band as he was preparing to roll out new songs for his forthcoming LP. Informally dubbed "The Dumonts," this acoustic/electric lineup was taped for a live DVD with Frumess handling production duties. The show took place at Club Europa in Brooklyn on December 16, 2011. The release was eventually shelved over inconsistencies and dissatisfaction with the live performance itself.
Frumess accompanied Blitzkid on their farewell U.S. and European tours as a videographer doing 46 shows in 10+ countries from Moscow, Russia to Santa Cruz, California. The documentary that was to come out of the footage would serve as one part band history, one part road movie, and one part concert film. The film remains unfinished and will never be completed.
On the Hellnights leg of the European tour, Blitzkid played Conne Island in Leipzig, Germany to a sold-out crowd.The resulting show was recorded with four cameras with audio coming directly from the soundboard, which Frumess used to produce a feature-length concert film to release as a limited edition DVD for Kickstarter pledges of the Return to the Living Documentary Kickstarter campaign.
When Blitzkid: Return to the Living failed to materialize, Frumess took the footage he shot surrounding the Horror Punk festival Ghouls Night Out at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ and produced another feature length concert film. The live footage used was originally envisioned to be the third act of Blitzkid: Return to the Living.
The resulting material was turned into Long Live the Horror. It was intended for horror punk fans who contributed to crowdfunding campaigns for both Blitzkid: Return to the Living and another unassociated project, Ghouls Night Out that was separately helmed by its concert promoter, Matt Pathetic. Since Blitzkid had played their last U.S. show at the Ghouls Night Out festival, Long Live the Horror was intended to serve as something for all parties affected. The feature film was intended to be released exclusively for free on YouTube but currently remains shelved. A hard drive with a copy was stolen and never recovered.
Inspired by Jeremy Gardner's The Battery, Frumess set out to make his true directorial debut with a no-budget narrative feature in August 2014. Romeo's Distress is a gothic, neo-noir horror film that takes its name from the Christian Death song of the same name. The film follows a creepy man named James, his unrequited love for a beautiful girl named Jane, and her father's sadistic response to it all.[1]
The film had its world premiere at the Macabre Faire Film Festival in January 2017, where it was nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Feature Film Director, and winning Best Feature Film Screenplay. Romeo's Distress was also nominated for Best Feature Film Screenplay at Nightmares Film Festival and winner of the Esprit De Gore independent Spirit Award.[2]
Kieran Fisher of Dread Central called it "the personification of a passion project, a smorgasbord of influences ranging from avant-garde cinema, Gothic literature, punk rock and more."
Dave J. Wilson of Diabolique Magazine wrote, "Romeo's Distress is a unique and intriguing oddity. A strange arthouse experimentation seamlessly melded together with an energetic genre-bending pastiche of creativity, the film is an engaging character study that is a darkly comical and ultimately bleak exploration of the dark side of love."[3]
Kevan Farrow of Scream Magazine said, "Romeo's Distress mixes more highbrow influences with an idiosyncratic, almost mischievous oddness and, like its troubled protagonist, walks its own path, unswayed by more 'respectable' trends. Atmospherically dense, gleefully oddball, and relentlessly unnerving."[4]
In late 2020, Frumess directed a segment along with a slew of other filmmakers for the almost unclassifiable The Transformations of the Transformations of the Drs. Jenkins. To call Jenkins a mockumentary would be as wildly accurate as it is inaccurate: Determined to create the ultimate pandemic movie, filmmakers recruit 20 of their friends to each shoot a segment of their art film. A lot goes wrong.
Creating a unique kind of anthology film showcasing the creativity of 20 different filmmakers (each given no direction and only one rule: use only what you have on hand), combined with an engaging and side-splittingly funny wraparound about the making of the film, the result is an enormously entertaining midnight movie that doubles as a highlight reel for some of the best indie talent working in the genre. - Stephanie Malone, Morbidly Beautiful
On April 21, 2021, Frumess began work on what would become his second narrative feature-length film, Gouge Away. The film is a sequel to a previously incomplete film called Wash Away (2020). Gouge Away had its world premiere at midnight, Saturday, September 3, 2022, at the GenreBlast Film Festival at the Alamo Drafthouse in Winchester, VA, and winner of the GenreBlast Forever Independent Spirit Award.
B&S About Movies said:
Giallo Julian of Dread Central wrote, "Sounds like the beginning of a Creepypasta, doesn't it?"[5]
RJ Bland from You've Got Red on You wrote:
S. Michael Simms of Morbidly Beautiful said, "We basically have a crime drama with comedic elements, with the style of comedy in this awkward limbo between Napoleon Dynamite and Beverly Hills Cop."[6]
Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Visions and Chaos Magic is a Gonzo documentary in a similar vein to American Movie (1999). It started life as a behind-the-scenes featurette for the upcoming Blu-ray release of Gouge Away, until a larger story revealed itself and broadened the scope.[7]
Over a hundred of hours of video diaries and behind-the-scenes footage spanning nearly two decades were utilized in telling the story of the incomplete film, Wash Away, and its Corman-esque resurrection-turned-transformation into its own continuing sequel-like story, Gouge Away.
Wash Away initially fell apart when production halted in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The revenge thriller was originally about a therapist named Stanley who is given the opportunity for nefarious indulgence and retaliation against a former nemesis who ruined his life years prior.
Following the premiere of Gouge Away at the GenreBlast Film Festival, Frumess began work on My Shadow, a new screenplay for an old idea called Dead Dog Robert. It is envisioned as Frankenstein by way of Pet Semetary via Little Shop of Horrors.
The synopsis follows Robert, a painter, who struggles with the sudden demise and grisly resurrection of his best friend — a Rabbit named Shadow. Now, all Robert wants to do is take the-girl-next-door Sydney to the Jovial Halloween Ball and have a good time. But it's hard to have fun when your best friend aspires to be a rock n roll singer and won't stop eating the people you know.
The story is named after the song "My Shadow" by Jay Reatard. Preproduction is set to begin in 2024.
In March 2020, while in quarantine at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Frumess began to livestream filibuster about music, film, and history. Soon, live interviews began with musicians and filmmakers. The streams initially started on Facebook before moving to YouTube. The shows are typically long, passionate, unscripted, and interactive.
| Year | Title | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| width=65 | Director | width=65 | Writer | width=65 | Producer | width=65 | Actor | width=65 | Cinematographer | Notes |
| 2017 | Romeo's Distress | |||||||||
| 2018 | Long Live the Horror | |||||||||
| 2021 | The Transformations of the Transformations of the Drs. Jenkins | Segment director | ||||||||
| 2022 | Gouge Away | |||||||||
| 2024 | Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Visions and Chaos Magic | |||||||||
| 2025 | My Shadow | |||||||||
| 2025 | They Came From Lodi |