For those of you who are familiar with the Art Words archives, you may remember when The Slow Mutants began the production of RED toward the end of January. Just a few short months later, strippers are being harvested for their organs, the dead are mysteriously alive (and ornery as ever) and the organic zombies haven't quit yet. 

All of The Slow Mutants films showed twice on June 5 at the Stone Tavern in Kent. All seats were filled for both showings. 

As I sat down with part of the cast and crew right before the second screening of this disgustingly suspenseful flick, I was filled in on how everything went. 

This time around the cast was shooting in the dead of winter, which not only presented the challenge of getting power to outdoor locations, but it also caused some frigid bodies. One of the first scenes in the film is an eviscerated stripper, clad in electrical tape and not much else, lying dead in the crisp, white snow. 

Besides the cold, the other challenges for this crew were an increase in filming locations (producer/cameraman/editor, Brent Simon, "jokingly" said he enjoyed the strip club the best), and a bigger cast. This calls for detailed organization and more skilled camera work.  

Overall, the script is indeed getting complex. 

From the film BLACK when we are introduced to Novie's horrific food secret, an angsty young girl who almost unnoticeably tells us she is impregnated with her father's seed (EW!) and a town with strange people. 

In their production GREEN, a crazy organic cult "harvests" the earth's "weeds," which are the undesirable people polluting this luscious green planet. 

This brings us to RED, where a pregnant girl is chained in a basement, is fed human organs and tries to sweet-talk her way into an escape. She is being protected because her belly contains some treasure for the Organic Ones (that we met in GREEN). Meanwhile, a strip club owner and organ harvester is cool and collected on the outside as he uses Novie to lure young women into his lair, but he ends up showing us his soft and squishy side — in more ways than one. 

Sorting through it all is sex-crazed FBI Agent Stephanie Bellman. Beginning to show his disdain for the little town of Mantua, Bellman is left with more questions than answers. 

And so are we. 

Mastermind Jorge Delarosa assures me that these first three films, along with three more, will be edited together into a full-length film titled Mantua. They have already shot some additional scenes that will be edited in to ensure a tight, clear story line. So stay tuned. We are soon to find out just what's up with the spider, Novie's flower, what the Devourer has to do with the FBI, how Sheriff Calhoon rose from the dead and just what the Organic Ones want with this newborn baby. 

Sounds like a lot, but what can you expect when each script has a different writer and director? This is what especially draws me to these films. The cast and characters stay the same, but with each film the plot is up in the air.

I even overheard Delarosa discussing the next film, WHITE, with the new writer. I'll keep the details under wraps, though. I don't want to become plant food.