Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990 TAG: 9005230136
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Maybe it's the monsters, Cullen thought.
He moved them out of sight and spruced up his display of potted cactus plants.
Monsters? Cactuses?
Right. Cullen also takes photo portraits of both human and animal subjects. His handiwork is evident throughout the shop, along with occasional photos of this guy standing beside a tombstone with a white hood over his head and a chain saw in his hand.
That's Boogieman, the title character of Cullen's new movie, and he's not a lumberjack. But we're getting ahead of the story.
First, Cullen. He's a 26-year-old Roanoke native with a degree in civil engineering from Old Dominion University. He worked as an engineer until January, when he gave it up because he didn't like the travel and he wanted to develop other interests.
Namely, the monsters, cactus plants and photography. He opened The Monster Shop on May 1 as an outlet for them. He also makes art, jewelry and tie-dye dresses.
Cullen favors cowboy boots, jeans and tank tops. He's 6 feet tall in the boots and weighs a mere 145 pounds, thanks to a no-nonsense approach to food and exercise.
He likes to listen to Kris Kristofferson tapes while potting his plants, taking pictures or making his monsters.
The latter are his favorite project of the moment. He calls them Dungeon Dwellers. They're made of plaster and papier mache and are about 14 inches tall. Male monsters have tails and females don't.
They sell for up to $37 and in Cullen's opinion, no home should be without one on the mantle or a shelf in the den.
So far, there are almost no homes with one, but their creator is optimistic. In the meantime, he's counting on the sale of cactus plants and portraits to pay the rent.
Cullen picked up his affinity for cactuses from his mother, who had them around the house when he was a boy. The plants also remind him of the West, which he loves.
The portraiture has grown out of his engineering days, when he learned to use a camera to document the bridges he was building, maintaining - and sometimes destroying. Cullen is an explosives expert too.
"He's real smart," said Kristi King, Cullen's girlfriend. "He can do anything. He's very determined."
Lifelong friend John Murray Jr. agrees. "When Charles works, he works," Murray said. "He doesn't play around."
Murray and King found that out when they appeared in "Boogieman," the full-length horror movie that Cullen wrote and then directed in what his friends say was a very businesslike way.
Cullen also played the title role. That's him in the photos with the chain saw.
The videotape movie is an outgrowth of shorter, silent films made earlier by Cullen about the same homicidal maniac.
By the time "Boogieman" has spun out its one hour and 47 minutes, 24 people have been dispatched by firearm, axe, chain saw, Weed Eater or whatever else is handy.
"The movie is a comedy," Cullen said. "It's gore but it's funny gore. The chain saw goes so much that people laugh when they hear it and say `Oh no, not again.' "
"Charles has a strange sense of humor," Murray said. "It takes a while to understand it, but once you do it's very funny."
"Boogieman" was previewed April at Cheers Lounge. Kristi King, who was there, said the patrons "died laughing."
The movie's next public showing will be tonight at the Iroquois, where Cullen hopes it will connect with the younger crowd.
If it catches on, Cullen said, he'll pitch the movie to the Grandin Theatre as a late show.
Cullen regards his boyhood fascination with reptiles and bats and ghost stories as more or less normal. Perhaps more prophetic was his admiration of rock star Alice Cooper, whose "Welcome To My Nightmare" show had a decidedly macabre tone.
Cooper brought the show to Roanoke while Cullen was in fourth grade. His mother took him to see it as a birthday present, and he never forgot it. Cullen later prevailed upon his mom to take him to R-rated horror films like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
"He always was kind of strong-willed," Dorothy Cullen said of her son. "He always knew what he wanted to do."
She said she supported Charles despite her own feeling that the movies were "kind of gross."
Cullen prefers the horror genre because "it gets more response."
It's not the characters or the stories that interest him. It's the gory special effects.
"They make it look so real," he said. "There are some real geniuses behind that stuff. It takes a real artist to make it go."
Cullen's own special effects are the result of trial and error. He has found that a mix of pasta and ground black-eyed peas is a good cinematic stand-in for human entrails. To make a realistic imitation of blood, he mixes red food coloring, tomato sauce and, for just the right consistency, a bit of clear shampoo. An off-camera pump provides the required spurting when Boogieman opens the arteries of a hapless victim.
Red food coloring accounted for almost $100 of the $500 cost of "Boogieman."
In addition to all his other projects, Cullen is working on two books. One is a novel that fleshes out the characters of "Boogieman." The other is a diet and fitness book tentatively titled "Getting Rid of That Fat for Good."
"Fat is not only unsightly but it ruins you," Cullen said. "I want a healthy body. I want to feel good and look good."
During his railroad and construction days, Cullen spent a lot of time in motel rooms being bored and worrying about the effects of restaurant food. His defensive response was to begin working out, running and eating carefully.
Now he subsists almost entirely on cereals, skim milk, fruit and water. After a day in the shop, he lifts weights and runs six miles, then works on his projects or tests new ideas.
"People have good ideas every day but that's usually as far as it goes," he said. "I like to carry an idea out and try to get something going . . . I guess it seems like I lead a weird life, but at least when I get ready to die I can say I tried a little bit of everything."
by CNB