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INTERVIEW WITH TIM RITTER by Felix Lepplemier (Reprinted by permission of Indie World magazine) Catching up with Tim Ritter is a hard thing to do. The 34-year-old cult filmmaker, who has been writing and directing feature films since he was seventeen years old, recently uprooted from his home state of South Florida and is now bouncing around somewhere in the Midwest, where he is working on a slew of new literary and movie projects. I finally narrowed him down in an Ohio editing suite, where he was putting final touches on some kind of movie that featured laser guns and Grey aliens from outer space. There was also a spooky Marilyn Manson type of bad guy, who seemed to be some sort of indestructible bogeyman... But that's all for another time. Right now I'm wanting to know all about his first novel, which has just seen publication by Erica House Publishing (www.publishamerica.com). It's called The Hammer Will Fall and is an incredibly good suspense/horror yarn about a teacher that gets into a 'private war' with a nasty group of teen rebels. Having just finished reading Hammer, I was literally blown away by its style and cutting edge content. More than anything, this book ENTERTAINED me beyond belief with a fast and furious, page-turning style not seen since, well, early Stephen King. So without further to-do, I sat down with Ritter and launched a barrage of questions at him... INDIE WORLD: So, having worked so long in the movie business, what made you suddenly sit down and write a novel? 
TIM RITTER: Well, I've always written screenplays, and the budgets to take those scripts to screen have always been very small. A lot of readers were really impressed with my screenplays, even back in 1985, when I first started. They were always disappointed when the finished movies didn't measure up to what I had written on paper, so I always had it in the back of my mind to write a book. I was always inspired by authors anyway, people like Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Jack Ketchum, David Morrell, and Richard Laymon. You know, the greats! IW: So what took so long in finally completing a book? TR: It takes a LONG time to make movies, to go out there and get funding and distribution. One movie can tie up a couple of years of your life and still not get a green light. That's how my first novel evolved...way back in 1985, I wrote a script that was too expensive to be financed by investors, just because I didn't have a track record and all. I came back to that script in 1990 and updated it, adding a lot of stuff, and again, wasn't able to find anyone to finance the thing for the budget I wanted. I didn't want to compromise the material. Finally, in 1999, when some investors got interested in it again, I decided to just write it out as a novel so the true, full vision would get out there, as opposed to a diluted one with monetary restrictions. I also finally got a computer in 1999, and saw how much easier it was to edit your writing! Gone were the days of typewriters and white out! My fingerprints are still white from those days... IW: Was it easy taking a script and making it into a novel? TR: It was cool to have a blueprint down for the story direction and all, but there's so much more you have to put into a book. You really have to get inside the character's heads and explain what they're thinking, that was a challenge. In scripts, I had to restrain myself from going into too much detail, but with a book, you can really let go. So it was a fun test, and once the words started coming out, they wouldn't stop until the story was finished. John (Night Of The Living Dead) Russo has done this quite well before, so I figured I'd follow in his footsteps! IW: How long did it take you to complete the book? TR: Fourteen years, from the original script! (laughs) I don't know, I had been working on this story so long, and had seen it in my head so many times, that it came pouring out like a torrential rain. Must've taken only a few months to finish up. I took great inspiration from Stephen King's early Richard Bachman novels, that kind of style, which I love. They're short, swift, ferocious reads that really take you on a fun ride! IW: What inspired this whole book? TR: A lot of things, actually. My father is a retired shop teacher, and it was actually his idea to do something on the kind of 'bad kids' that you have to deal with in that profession. Not all of them are bad, but industrial arts does attract a lot of juvenile delinquents that are looking for a quick and easy grade and don't want to work at all. They are really hard to deal with and are very destructive. Many of the incidents in the book are based on real things that happened to my father! IW: Oh, man, I remember shop, and your portrayal of things is just like I recall it! Those bad "metalhead" kids making bong pipes out of wood, sawing off hammerheads! TR: (laughs) Exactly! I actually took shop in high school and had my father as a teacher. I didn't see how he kept order. It was like an asylum. In the book, I used one of his classic opening lines for each period as he tried to get everyone to sit down and shut up when the bell rang. "If I don't see ya, I'll mark you absent!" IW: (laughing) True life, I love it! What specific incidents in the book are based in fact? TR: A lot of the kids fighting in shop, my father had all kinds of roughhouse problems with certain students. Then there's the chisel incident---someone threw a chisel at him one day. The porno tape scene, that was based on reality---some genius replaced his safety video with an adult movie, unbeknownst to him, and he pushed play... IW: (laughing with tears coming out his eyes now) That is too funny! 
TR: Crazy, isn't it? And a lot of the teacher idiosynracies are based on reality, there's a lot of real colorful characters in any school system. Of course, I took everything and twisted it into fictional areas at a certain point, making it for a more entertaining tale. Then I added the murder mystery aspect, which of course didn't happen, just for the record! (laughs) No need to go digging up senior patios looking for bones! (laughs again) But the big thing in the book that did happen is the vandalism---the kids really did trash my dad's shop like they do in the book. It's a terrible thing, really, because this is a fun course, one that is practical where you can actually learn a trade that pays decent, and here's these kids in each period, trying to ruin it for everyone.
IW: It'll never change. My son is now in high school shop, and I had him read your book and he said 'that's just like it still is today, dad!' TR: Incredible! So that's where I took a believable situation and took it to the next level, inspired by movies like Death Wish and Walking Tall, where the hero solves the problems by taking out the troublemakers...any way he can! IW: That's what worked so well for me in this novel! Al Hammer is a true hero, a good guy, and we really root for him. You almost wish he was real! And he's not some cold-blooded psycho, he lets the first few students set themselves up, doing things they shouldn't, and they accidentally meet their demises because of their own stupidity. I remember there's a line where Hammers says, "If you would've paid attention in class..." It's only near the end of the book where Hammer actually kills anyone, and then it's clearly in self-defense. And I absolutely love where he has to convince himself of what he has to do, it's quite a psychological build-up there, an incredible character-oriented piece... TR: Thanks, that was a big piece of the novel. Dealing with how a character decides to make a drastic, controversial move, those internal justifications. With some of my movies, that's been hard to show, how a character finally decides to kill people to defend their families and livelihood. It's a huge leap in any medium and with this book, I was really able to get inside Hammer's head to show the transition and his mindset... IW: When you talk psycho teens, you can't help but think of the Columbine incident. Even though that happened way after you started this project, you can't help but consider it, and it's even mentioned in the book. How did you deal with this issue, and the continuing 'violence in schools' controversy? TR: The Hammer Will Fall is meant to be just a good, heart-racing story. A fun time, and it's kind of set in its own world. I deliberately chose to use no guns in this book because then it would've been 'too real.' In reality, the crazed teens in my book would've been blasting away at everyone with uzis, more than likely. And that would have made for a real short, depressing story, ya know? No one would want to read that. But in my escapist world, that wasn't an option. Hammer is set in its own Twilight Zone or Twin Peaks type of universe, where things just unfold in a quirky, wild and kind of unexpected way...hopefully! (laughs) IW: It most definitely is! The ending, oh man, I didn't see that coming. I won't give it away, but the ending to this thing is so powerful and... feel good...that I couldn't believe it! I felt like I did after I watch a Rocky movie or something! TR: Cool, then it worked. I wanted people to come away from the book and go, "wow, that was great," and maybe want to read it again. I have a few books that I read over and over again and I tried to live up to what entertains me so much. After all, I'm still just a fan, emulating what I love so much! IW: For your diehard fans, there are some characters that have been in some of your films, and some other connections... TR: Yes, the story is set in the fictional town of Sunnyville, Florida, where most of my movies have taken place. There's very obscure tie-ins with the other things, plus an appearance by Detective Rosenberg, who was one of the main characters in the original Truth Or Dare film. IW: An excellent character, really developed well in the book. And the nice thing is, you don't have to know the films at all to get into this, but if you do, the extension is there, making the experience that much more "full." Rosenberg was so slick in The Hammer Will Fall, he reminded me a bit of Detective Kinderman from The Exorcist. TR: Having been a lifelong fan of all these kinds of books and movies, yes, there's a little influence in this book from everything I love. A definite homage to it all, and I'm happy that people like yourself are picking up on it already. That's very cool! IW: Okay, the inevitable question. When's the movie coming? This book SCREAMS to be made into a film. You can visualize it so clearly in your mind as you read it...and Hollywood really needs a story like this, something old yet so new, with all the added twists and turns that you've given things... TR: There's interest in making it into a film. It would just have to be the right circumstances, that's all. And that means the right amount of money to do it justice. I've held out for eighteen years now on getting this story onto the screen, so I'm not about to let it go for nothing. IW: Someone like Kevin Spacey playing Al Hammer would be so fine... TR: (grins) Indeed, Al Hammer is an actor's dream role. He goes through so much... IW: And would you hold out to direct the movie, like most of your others? TR: Not necessarily, this one may need the talents of someone that brings a special vision to the story. But it's impossible to say, and right now, I just hope people pick up the book and enjoy it for what it is: a little escapism from mundane, everyday life that hopefully delivers a cathartic release! IW: Well, I can tell everyone that you've definitely succeeded in that category. The book was the best $20.00 I've spent on the entertainment medium in quite some time. Thanks for your time, Tim, and everyone, do yourself a favor and read this book as soon as you can. You most definitely won't be disappointed! Order Now, Directly From EricaHouse Publishing at www.publishamerica.com |
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