THE MAKING OF
THOU SHALT NOT KILL . . . EXCEPT

By
Josh Becker

       July, 1979.
       I sat in my apartment in the Hollywood Hills on the brown vinyl cowboy-themed couch I had pilfered from a friend's backyard, thinking, "What's a good idea?"
       At that point in my life I had written four full-length screenplays, all of which were inept in one way or another.  I had not yet in my life gotten a reasonable idea from which a rational, workable screenplay could be written, so what exactly was a good idea was still something of a mystery to me.
       I began thinking about bad guys.  Why must everybody use Nazis or terrorists as the bad 
guys in their stories?  Aren't there any other bad guys in the world?
       The Manson family jumped into my mind.  They certainly were bad.  So, who fights them?  The cops?  They'd just arrest them, as they did.  But who would really fight them?  The Manson murders took place in 1969, what else was happening that year?
        The Vietnam war.
       What if some soldiers got back from Vietnam, battle-hardened and trained to kill, and they fought the Manson family?  Or, better yet, some marines. Hmmm?  I mused about this for a while, then put it all out of my head.

       The next day my friend Sheldon, a marine vet that fought in Vietnam, picked me up to go out to lunch.  The marines versus the Manson family idea came back into my head and I pitched it to Sheldon.  He laughed and jokingly said, "It should be called BLOODBATH."  We both chuckled and dropped it.
       Later that night, Sheldon called me and said that he hadn't been able to get the idea out of his head; it wasn't a stupid idea, it was a pretty good idea.  I suggested that we work on it together and Sheldon agreed.  Sheldon, at this point in his life, had written one inept screenplay, so we were in approximately the same place.  Sheldon and I spent the next couple of months working on the story and writing the script. 
       The end result was a 185-page script that was very, very serious and not much fun.  I was displeased and told Sheldon so.  He didn't really care because he had already moved onto a another script.
       I moved back to Michigan and subsequently worked on EVIL DEAD down in Tennessee. 
Throughout the shoot my mind kept drifting back to BLOODBATH.
       On the drive from Tennessee back to Michigan in a big Ryder truck (which, having gone under a thick, low-hanging branch, we had managed to tear the roof off of within 10 yards of our location), Bruce Campbell and I discussed this story idea.  I already had an approach that I wanted to explore -- since the idea of the marines fighting the Manson family was so warped, why not tell it like an all-American John Wayne movie?  Attempt to get a rooting interest going for the marines instead of just feeling bad for them, then ashamed of them as the first draft had done.
       Bruce and I kicked the story around for hours as we drove north.  When we finally had the 
entire story worked out, and Bruce had fallen asleep, I pulled into a restaurant, had coffee, and 
wrote everything down on the back of a placemat (which I still have somewhere).

       Back in Michigan I got a job as a security guard at a construction site from 5:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M.  A lot of time to do very little.  So I brought a little, portable typewriter with me each night and began writing the 2nd draft of BLOODBATH.  My intention was to write a short script that I could potentially shoot in Super-8 making a 30-45 minute pilot film to use as an investment tool to help raise money for a feature.  After several weeks of work, I had a 38-page script that I rather liked.  Wanting to differentiate this version from the last one, I renamed it STRYKER'S 
WAR (Stryker is John Wayne's name in THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA).  I made copies, gave it to all my buddies in Michigan, and sent a copy to Sheldon.  My Michigan buddies all liked it and 
agreed to help me make it into a movie.  Sheldon, on the other hand, blew a gasket.  He yelled at 
me for a solid hour about how bad it now was and how terribly I had ruined a good idea.
       I then raised $5000 dollars to shoot the pilot film.  Luckily for me, right at this time I got laid-off from the security guard job.  For the one and only time in my life I received unemployment benefits, which I viewed as my state film allotment.
       Principal photography began on the Super-8 pilot version Aug. 25, 1980, with Bruce Campbell starring at Stryker and Sam Raimi as Manson, and finished on Sept. 2.  While shooting the biggest scene in the movie, where the marines come to free the hostages at the Manson-held campground, it began to pour rain, thunder and lightening flashing and crashing all around.  A bolt of lightening struck a tree about 100 yards away, severing a limb.  Scott Spiegel, playing one of the marines and wearing his uniform, ran perhaps 50 yards to his car, started the engine, burned rubber screeching away up the road and disappeared as 30 people watched.  The storm blew over and about 20 minutes later Scott returned, his whole body visibly trembling.

       We then shot inserts and pick-ups whenever people were available for the next three weeks.  As Bruce and I were shooting inserts on the front lawn of his parents' house, Bruce's older brother Don (who plays one of the marines in the film) stood by watching, occasionally poking Bruce in the side with his toe.  Bruce told Don to stop it and Don persisted.  Suddenly, Bruce turned around and stuck Don in the arm with a screwdriver, embedding the point deep into Don's flesh.  Don went insane, kicking Bruce as hard as he could, then chasing him all over the neighborhood holding his wounded arm and screaming bloody murder.
       Armed with the 45-minute pilot version of STRYKER'S WAR, I then attempted on my own to raise several hundred thousand dollars to make it as a feature film.  In the course of the next year I got absolutely nowhere.  I did write and rewrite the feature version of the script many times, but was unable to raise any money.
       Undaunted, I took the pilot film and the feature script to Hollywood, got an agent at ICM who said (honestly), "This kid is the next Steven Spielberg."   I began hanging around Roger Corman's New World Pictures.  I bothered Corman's assistant, John Schouwieler (now a producer), so often for the next several months that he finally let me in to see Roger Corman.  As I stepped into Roger Corman's office it finally struck me that he was one of the senators in THE GODFATHER PART 2, which I hadn't realized until then, and I said so.
       He smiled.  "Yes, I was.  I'm sorry, I don't have a job for you."
       That was that with Roger Corman.
       I took a number of meetings, but they all came to naught.  My agent at ICM never called me back once in 5 months.
       So I dropped STRYKER'S WAR and moved on with my life . . .

       Four years went by.  Scott Spiegel and I, now partners, had spent the previous year and a 
half vainly attempting to raise money for a slapstick feature (we'd shot a 16mm pilot this time) 
which we knew we could not produce for a penny less than $600,000.  After 18 grueling months 
of meetings with prospective investors, we had raised exactly $18,000.  On August 17th, my 
birthday and the day we were supposed to start shooting, it was totally apparent to both of us that 
we had failed.  Desperately, I suggested going to L.A.  Scott countered, suggesting, "Then let's 
shoot the feature version of STRYKER'S WAR."
       "With $18,000?" I queried.
       "How much did the Super-8 version cost?" asked Scott.
       "Five grand."
       "So, we've got almost four times that much."
       I seriously considered what he said, then uttered the fateful words that have launched so many other great and foolish enterprises, "Sure!  Fuck it!  Why not?"

       We planned to start shooting Oct. 1, come hell or high water.  To prove our point we purchased $5000 worth of film stock from Kodak and left it sitting in the middle of the office floor so everyone had to step over it.  (As a technical note: I chose 400 ASA color 16mm film stock, the highest-speed film available.  This goes against the common wisdom for a 16mm film that one intends to blow-up to 35mm.  The idea being, keep the grain fine by using low-speed film stock (and a lot of lights) so when the grain is magnified to double it's size it won't be too grainy. 
       Everything that took place in the woods, which was a lot of the film, would need lighting and I didn't have the money for a lot of lights or a generator, certainly not a real movie generator that was quiet.  With 400 speed film I could easily get an exposure in the woods or anywhere else for that matter with very little lighting, so I decided that the grainy look in 35mm would be part of the gritty aesthetic of the film. Quite frankly, I think this worked out fine.  The high-speed film stock blew up to 35mm without a problem).
       In the next six weeks Scott and I put together our gigantic cast (there are about 100 different actors in the film), our small, completely untrained, crew, and a million period props and vehicles from the 1960s.   (In retrospect STRYKER'S WAR was an insane movie to make with so little money).
       We began principal photography on the feature version of STRYKER'S WAR on Oct. 1, 1984.  Here is my one journal entry for the month of October, 1984 (the top left corner of this page of yellow legal paper is torn off and taped back on).

Mon, Oct 7, 1984
It's 6:00 A.M. and I'm taking a shit before shooting today.  We have all of the Vietnam battle footage except four shots and a few inserts.  Today we do interior car dialog.  My crew is inexperienced, generally unprepared but dedicated and having a good time I believe.  My cast is also inexperienced, but dedicated and look good together.  Presently Brian Schulz who portrays Stryker is the weakest link.  Robert Rickman as Jackson is the best and is doing a swell job of stealing the picture out from under Schulz, who is so busy with character interpretation he can't see it.  I am directing, shooting, producing (with Scott), managing, running, and starting today, lighting this film.  Oh my . . .  It's all working, but I could use some help.  Michelle Poulik is doing pretty well at wardrobe and props, Pam [my sister] is panicking as coordinator, Scott is getting by as co-producer, Ann and Brian Belanger take up a little slack as A.D.s, etc.  I just have to remember every single detail.  Right now we are about to film a scene and the marine's uniforms have no rank insignia.

       By Oct. 10 we were completely out of money.  After the first week the film lab, Producer's Color Service in Detroit, continued to process our negative, but no longer printed dailies.  For the next six weeks I would call the lab, speak the our sales representative (a very nice guy), and ask, "Is there an image on the negative?"
       "Yes," he would reply. "When are you going to pay your bill?"
       "Soon."
       Then I would proceed to shoot as though everything were fine.
       I threw myself on my mother's mercy and begged $3000 out of her.  I could now feed the cast and crew and make a half-assed attempt at paying people.
       Somehow or other we wrapped on Nov. 21.
       My mother and father, having just watched us pull off damn close to a miracle, now miraculously stepped in and financed the rest of the picture. They put up $80,000 between them.
       Pick-up shooting with a little Canon Scoopic camera continued for months afterward. I edited the film in 16mm on a KEM flatbed with just my pal, Paul Harris, there as the one and only assistant, synching and keeping track of all the film.

       Then Bruce Campbell stepped in as supervising sound editor.  We hired a half dozen Wayne State University students to edit the sound, among whom was Wendy Stanzler who went on to edit ROGER & ME (which was shot with a lot of the same crew as STRYKER'S WAR). 
       Joe LoDuca, who had previously scored EVIL DEAD, came aboard as composer.  Joe's score, in my opinion, is the single best thing about this entire film.  It's a full orchestral score with a five-piece ethnic accompaniment (Asian flutes and drums). I own a lot of soundtracks to war films: PATTON, 1941, MACARTHUR, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE SAND PEBBLES, THE BATTLE OF NERETVA, etc.  Joe LoDuca's score for this film stands up there with the best of them.  I only wish it was available on CD.
       I am particularly pleased with the front title sequence, edited together from actual Vietnam news footage.  Since you pay by the second for stock footage, I purchased 60 seconds, then had it all double-printed into slow-motion making it two minutes. 
       The sound for the film was mixed in Toronto, Canada by Filmhaus Sound, where we got a very good deal due to the U.S./Canadian exchange rate. 
       We were taken on by Irvin Shapiro and his company, Films Around the World, an overseas sales agency that had handled EVIL DEAD.  Irvin, who was then about 85 years old (and one of the founders of the Cannes Film Festival), didn't like the title STRYKER'S WAR.  "It sounds like people are on strike and at war."  Irvin had changed BOOK OF THE DEAD to EVIL DEAD.  So we changed the title to SGT. STRYKER'S WAR, which nobody really liked.
       The film premiered at the Universal Theater in Warren, Michigan to a standing room only crowd of 700 people on Sunday, Oct. 13, 1985.
       Irvin Shapiro called one day and said, "The new title of your picture is THOU SHALT NOT KILL . . . EXCEPT.
       "That doesn't sound like a title, that sounds like a tag-line," I replied.
       "Nevertheless, that's the new title of your picture."
       I was flabbergasted.  "THOU SHALT NOT KILL . . . EXCEPT?" I repeated, certain I must have heard him wrong.
       "Yes."
       I considered it for a moment, then said very honestly, "I don't think I can live with that, Irvin."
       "Do you want me to represent your picture?"
       "Yes."  I most certainly did.
       "Then the new title of your picture is THOU SHALT NOT KILL . . . EXCEPT."
       And so it was.