If the devil were a film maker, would he smash his new bride’ s head in with a rock and skulk away? Would he use lo-fi projection tricks to dangle babies over blow job scenes? Would he have belligerent cops slice the nuts off of downtown lowlifes for kicks? Would he rape his own corpse in the bathtub? Probably. But Nick Zedd would have done it first. On super 8, no less. Emerging from the murk of the late ‘70’s New York punk scene, Zedd began his film career as a sort of hipster HG Lewis, churning out blood, tits, and B-movie shlock like "They Eat Scum" and "Geek Maggot Bingo" with whatever strung out rock stars were around. But it was during the grueling Reagan era that Nick’s ‘Total Vision’ crystallized. Dubbing his new found movement "The Cinema of Transgression", he recruited gutter punks like Richard Kern, Tommy Turner, and Cassandra Stark into his campaign of terror, and together, they started making movies. Ugly, mean spirited movies filled with sexual self-loathing and brutal violence. A sign of the times, the films in the Cinema of Transgression remain terminal documents of an era of cultural nausea and nuclear fear, teenage panic at ground zero. As Zedd refined his craft, shorts like "Police State" and "Whoregasm" began to attract a cult following, aided and abetted by Zedd’s rock star looks and equally rock star behavior. The Cinema of Transgression was all about attitude, and Nick had it in abundance. But ultimately, lack of funds and a remarkable inability to "transgress" the mainstream dissolved the COT. Kern went on to shoot for skin mags like Leg Show and Nugget. Everybody else went back to rampant self-destruction and obscurity. Except for Zedd. Despite Chris Gore’s efforts to kill him in Film Threat magazine a few years ago, he continued to make movies whenever he could steal or borrow the film stock, and although the media spotlight on him has dimmed in the last decade, he remains the most fiercely independent cinematic outlaw alive. And he still commands his fair share of fear and loathing. In fact, most people still think talking to Nick Zedd is a really bad idea. True to form, I had my own Zedd backlash to deal with. Although he was he was reasonably gracious during the course of our interview, he wrote me the next day to inform me about how pissed off he was that I would’ve dared to compare his COT-era behavior to Axl Rose. I’m sure that by the time you read this, I will be yet another of Zedd’s press villains. But this story isn’t about sleazy rock journalists, it’s not even about Nick Zedd, really. Not anymore than the murder weapon is about the victim’s family, anyway. This story is about an art form stretched to it’s breaking point, about maintaining the purity of the aesthetic at any cost, including the comfort of the audience or the tenacity of the film maker. Zedd will continue to be the sworn the enemy of mainstream cinema, even if it kills him. Again.

I’ve made a couple of films since ‘War is Menstrual Envy’. In ’95, I made a film called ‘Smiling Faces Tell Lies’, it was a double screen projection in 16mm. In ’98, I made a 16mm film called ‘Why Do You Exist?’ which was a series of screen tests. I’ve showed them at some festivals, and around New York.

The narrative stuff came out in my writing.

Yeh, ‘Bleed’ is in my book ‘Totem of the Depraved’ with extra chapters.

People ask me about my public persona a lot, but I like to surprise people, change things. I didn’t really think about any of that when I was writing it, though. They were more like diary entries.

In ’92 I did a film called "What About Me", and in ’96, I acted in Bubblegum, with Holly Woodlawn. That was directed by Peter Strickland. I recently acted in a movie called "Other People’s Mirrors’ which was shot on digital video. I play a stalker in that.

Depends on the director. Like with ‘What About Me’, the director didn’t really have a clear idea about what she wanted to do, so we improvised a lot, although we discussed it beforehand. Some of the time, I felt like I was directing the scenes I was in…in this film "Other People’s Mirrors", there was almost no direction. It was the first film I’ve been on where I wasn’t even aware that the camera was turned on, which I think was part of her intention. They used this little digital camera that didn’t even require any lights. It was weird, because I didn’t know whether I was supposed to be in character or not.

At first I was, yeh, but part of the idea of the film was to withhold judgement, and go with the flow. After awhile it was cool, but I haven’t seen the finished film, so I don’t know how it came out. I also acted and directed in the film "Thus Spoke Zarathusa",which I shot a couple of months ago. It was co-directed by John Vomit, this guy in Maine. He wrote the screenplay. It’s a short film. I play the lead.

It was very frustrating when I was working on Thus Spake Zarathusra because the co-director showed up on the set drunk. I thought that was very unprofessional. So I took over the directing, and than I figured out that that was just his style of directing. Or not directing. He seemed to be spending a lot of time holding a hand mirror up and applying his eye make up, and there’d be all these people sitting in the kitchen goofing off, and I’d be trying to get their attention to try to shoot a scene. I felt like I was the killjoy at a party. The whole purpose of being there was to make a movie, and they seemed to have forgotten that. I think he knew that he’d be fucking up, and if he did it with me, I would at least keep it on track. But John Vomit’s instincts were good, and the script was good. I wouldn’t have done it if the script wasn’t good. I’m just hoping it turns out ok. This is the first film I’ve done where I haven’t edited it myself.

It’s based on Neitzche’s book, the first chapter. There’s this character, he’s a guy that’s been in his apartment for three years. He hasn’t left because he’s such a recluse. He finally decides to leave the apartment. Zarathusra, in the book, enlightened the human race to the fact that God is dead. So he’s wandering around, and he runs into some club kids, who don’t take him too seriously. There’s a scene where there’s this big party, and they throw him out a window…I thought it was a good idea, no one has ever made a movie out of this book, so that’s why I wanted to do it.

It’s not. Actually, for the last couple of movies I made, the film was donated. For "Why Do You Exist?" I was contacted on the internet by this guy Tom Bennett and his friends. They were film students, and they had film left over. They said they would be into working with me and they gave me this film to shoot with. And I had film left over, so that’s what I used to shoot ‘Ecstasy & Entropy’. I got a grant from the Chicago Underground Film Festival,that was the first time I ever got a grant. It helped for the completion of that film. And the Danish Film Institute, some curator there, he was giving a bunch of filmmakers the chance to shoot trailers for movies that don’t exist, so that’s how I got to shoot "Tom Thumb". The crew and the equipment were provided for free. Of course, those were all short films. I’d like to be able to shoot a feature.

I would do it, but no one’s offered. It’s rare that I’m even published as a writer.

Not really, no.

Well, there was a couple offers to shoot some music videos, but they always fell through. I do remember that there was this magazine called "Zed" in LA. It lasted for one issue. That was influenced by me, I think.

Does he?

I guess. I ran into Quentin Tarantino in a bar once. He was in line for the toilet, and he was pretty loaded, so I went up to him, and I said, "I saw this film that you did, and I’m wondering- is that supposed to be some kind of message to me?" and he said No. But I think it could have been.

I don’t follow his music, so I don’t know. In what way?

Well, I always wanted to be profitable, I just never figured out how. I tried listening to Marilyn Manson, and I just found it totally unlistenable.

You mean his image? Well I saw him on some awards show, I thought it was pretty amusing when he came out and did that speech denouncing organized religion. I thought that was pretty good, with the marching band and all, because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the music. The music is worthless anyway, so at least he got some kind of message out there. That whole thing seemed like something I would do if I was in his position.

Yeh. That seemed pretty blatantly influenced by my career.

No, but I interviewed him during the press junket for that film, and he totally denied that it had any relation to me. I didn’t even ask him. Well, I asked him, is this character of Cecil B Demented based on anyone in real life? And he said, "well, if that means you, no." But I don’t think he’s being honest when he says that.

I go to the underground film festivals every year, but I don’t see any movement. There’s a few filmmakers that are good. I like Jeff Turlik’s stuff, although it’s not transgressive. He’s out of Washington DC, he does these videos…

Right. But there doesn’t seem to be any organized underground activity.

I’m creating multiple identities on the internet, communicating with people without them knowing it’s me. I don’t know how effective that is, though. Most things that are transgressive get suppressed any way. Like that Kurt and Courtney film. Like ‘Waco- Rules of Engagement’, a documentary which PBS refused to show. There are transgressive films that aren’t even acknowledged as being transgressive.

Well, there’s a lot of problems. In New York, the rents are so astronomical, that there’s just yuppies everywhere, and faux bohemians. There’s no real underground people, and the ones who’ve stuck around have sold out. There’s no sense of community.

That was just because of the way I looked in pictures. I mean, Kern and Tommy Turner did a lot more heroin than I did. They were actually addicted. But I think I had more of a wild sex life.

I met this girl in a bar. I told her who I was, and she said, "You’re not Nick Zedd". I told her I was, and she said, "I hate Nick Zedd’s movies". I asked her which ones she’d seen, and she said that she hated them all. "I’ve never seen any of them", she said, "But I hate them." Then she said that she’d heard that I handcuffed Lydia Lunch to an oven. I told her that wasn’t me, that was one of her previous boyfriends. That happened before she even met me. It’s amazing the lies, and the myths…I ran into that woman again a few weeks later, and she ended up letting us shoot a film in her apartment. Her problems with me were based on nothing, on folklore.

Yeh, Henry Rollins would’ve published my book 3 years earlier if he knew that I was alive. He already had the manuscript, but he thought I was dead.

No. No way. That’s like, I’ve been stalked on the internet by this psycho, who’s been using different identities, pissing people off and using my name. People think it’s me, but why would I do that to myself?

(laughs) No, that’s not true at all. I remember around that time I was hanging out with GG Allin, and we were walking down the sidewalk. There was a tv on the street, like out for trash, and he kicked the screen in. Maybe that somehow got connected in the folklore.

I tried to work in a photo lab for awhile. Until they fired me. I don’t know, it’s hard to find work. I was showing movies in a nightclub for a couple years, and I DJ sometimes. That’s about it, though….I’d like to get a job as a film teacher.

Well, I’ve been told they teach me in film classes in some places now. I’m going to try to tech some classes in the fall, if they hire me.

Well, Lydia Lunch did it. She was teaching some film class, or art class, in San Francisco for awhile. I gotta find some way to make money, though. The check’s are running out…