Season 2 Episode 11: Brian Rukstalis (STONEGATE)

0:41 What's up, y'all. There's another episode of Bulldog Uncensored today. I got a buddy of mine from the music scene, in the indie film scene. Now he's adding a little bit more to his repertoire these days, Buddy Briar ruck Stars. What's up, brother, man? I like you, ma, I'm good. You know, I'm I'm glad you got my last name right, you said it properly. I get mind fucked up all the time. So it's. The amount of people who h you know, try to pronounce my last name. Like if I get phone calls from doctor's office and stuff, they like, all right, just a mister. I'm like, yes, yes it is. I just stop so they don't even bother trying to butcher it.

1:24 But uh yeah, man. Right, A good deal, shit, Brian, I've known you what now? Fifteen? I think yeah, man, I think we first crossed pass when I was in the Dead and the Damned and we did a show at the Lucky Dog in Worcester, I want to say, when we open for Schism. Yeah right, And then when I was in Double Shot, we did the the Spencer Fair and you did your uh your stand up comedy act. So yeah, not not, you know, cross past couple of times had you know, obviously converse more at Sterling Fair or Spencer Fair, but yeah, yeah Sterling, so you know, converse there and that's how we kind of, you know, got to know each other little bit there.

2:23 And dude, you were funny during that. I remember then. That was a fun time too. That fair was a lot of fun. So yeah, it's it's been a hot minute, I'd say at least at least ten maybe a little bit longer ten. Years or so. Yeah. So you're predominantly bass player by great as far as music goes, correct. Yeah, I've been playing bass and guitar since I was probably about fourteen fifteen, so more than half my life now. But yeah, stuck to right, started up bass playing for the better part of since I was about twenty, so you know, fourteen years now, right, Yeah.

3:11 Man, And you've done all kinds of covers and all that kind of stuff. Is there any original music you've been working on? Well, I mean I was in Devlin status uh for a few years there. Love those guys. Yeah, I can't say enough good things about them, you know. But I wrote my first original tune back when I was in high school and you know, just an acoustic song as a tribute to my mom. Uh but uh, you know, I more more covers than original. But you know, Devlin was was, you know, the main original band that I was in, you know for a handful of years. I mean I love it, Like I said, love those guys love playing the music. Actually, had Son had a cameo in the movie as well, So.

4:13 Yeah, I got both Drew Barker and Jim Gevlin guest starring in a little cameo there. Yeah, they they got to rough me up a little bit. It was fun. So folks. As you can see, Bryan's got a new project. He's put his time and effort in quite a bit in the last year or so, putting it all together and working with Pae. I quite enjoyed it. It's available on Amazon and a bunch of other streaming platforms and whatnot. You can rent or buy. If I were you admired just to sports a cast. Yeah, so let's take a look.

4:58 Wait, I forgot spring ticks. Gray, do you go shut the hell up? There's gonna be black mole and asbestos where we're gonna what where you go? Jackson found a cool place for us to explore. Hopefully crap huys look at this plate which was the most haunted. Oh god, look what I found? Anybody you have a way. To play it. This is his father Gary, a play in the second I Am document. He might work here at Stonegate Institute. So this is Hunter Scritchfield.

5:46 He has a suspected case of gizophreni. He also believes he is possessed by Lucifer nine. Demons aren't the ones this asshole believes in. Do your goal? This could be unsolved murder that happened my job. My wives would be at stake. Dad, have you always worked at the supply company? We need to find out who this dude was. If anything evil attaches to me and I bring it to my family. You must obviously whoever this is is angry. You think it's Hunter taking flo as a confidential for a racist. We're not releasing that state. Why the hell not?

6:28 Is not right? What did you find out? Dude? Wish could be heroes making this guy's death known so he's not forgotten and maybe bring justice. Well that was a hell of a trailer man. It's got all kinds of different horror lies. Very Session nine kind of I don't know if you're familiar with that. That's probably one of my favorite indie horror films. So yeah, how'd you get started with this whole thing?

7:15 Oh? Man? So this goes back five years actually, five years ago in September, I had joined this ban Audio backs. They were based out of Taunton, and you know, during the pandemic and stuff, I had found more time to do something else with my time, and I started doing urban exploring, so going to like abandoned places and stuff like that, and this old abandoned hospital in Midfield. I started frequenting there a lot, and I got close with the the grounds guys there and they let me, you know, check out.

8:03 I've probably been about half of the buildings on that property. So when I joined Audio VX, I was like, Yo, guys, I got this awesome idea for a music video. I think we should shoot it at this at Midfield State Hospital. And like, oh, we're doing a music video too. I'm like, oh, who's filming it? And they mentioned the director of Stonegate, Dan Groom. I was like, oh, no, no, kidd And I used to work with him back at AMC Braintree like ten years ago. And so when we got a I shot Dan a text and I was like, hey, man, like I had this idea. I'm in audio X now I heard you were gonna shoot one of their videos that they have for another song, and you know, I kind of came up with the concept of the video, so I was palled remorseless. We shot that at Midfield State Hospital and I kind of started this whole thing and in it was he the end of January or beginning of February of twenty twenty one, me and Dan sat down and came up with what was the more or less the full concept of the movie Stonegate. You know, we hashed out probably like five hours of sitting in this room right here and coming up with the general concept of it, and we you know, he finished the

9:33 script by about I think it was Memorial Day of twenty twenty one. We passed everybody, but because we're still kind of in the pandemic era, everything was on like zoom, like we're doing right now, and you know, we were ready to go, and unfortunately at the last minute we had a change course. So you know, we never lost hope on this project, but it was we put it on the back burner. You know, he did some different things, I did some different things, and we always continue to work together though we had shot a couple more music videos together. And yeah, earlier this in May of twenty four we finally got the okay to shoot at the location that we used in the movie, which was Tukesperi State Hospital. Started casting in June and started The first filming day was the weekend of the fourth last year. So, I know, there was a long winded answer to how did I get how did we get this started? But they needed to be some backstory to you know, go back to where like the original concept started to today.

10:53 So so it started out as a music video type of situation kind of blossoms into something much more. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. The music video opening scene is almost close to shot for shot ish of the opening to the movie. So we used you know, the brain child ideas that we had for that and put it into this as well. Nice. So as far as the plot goes, was that more like how damn come up with that? So we just like I said, we sat down together and collectively came up with this idea, you know, and we're like, well, what if we you know, do this and do that, and I don't I don't want to spoil too much about like what the plot is. But you know, basically, these kids, these teenagers go urban exploring and they you know, when they're in there, they stumble upon a videotape that covered up that should a murder happened doctor and patient that covered up that got covered up after all these years, and uh so like we thought, kind of, you know, in that realm of that would be an interesting idea and like what would come of them finding that and all that. So yeah, I don't know.

12:27 We we both enjoyed the abandoned building aspect, and he's very heavy into the paranormal. I am too, not as much as him, but you know we use that as a plot point as well. So yeah, it was just a lot of you know, back and forth for those like you know, five or six hours that one day, and then he just ran with it. Man, Like the things he's able to come up with, and you know, the dialogue and all that stuff, and every week or so he would send me pages and get my opinion on it, and you know, it's just we work so well together, you know, the things he's able to write down, his vision my vision and we just put them together and I think what comes out on the other end is just magic. And visually everything that we've done, in my opinion, looks great. But you know, without his you know, expertise like it, you know, I just our collabse are great.

13:39 So and you've got to want to addle the cast to one of these young kids, you know, who had the most previous acting experience. So that would actually be I want to say it would be Mark he Mark Lutton, he played the priest in the movie. I want to say him. And if it wasn't him, a close second or right on the same tier would be Patients. She played the aunt of Nolan in the movie. The actor's name is Rowan, so it's a toss up between those. Two at But yeah, those kids showed a lot of promise.

14:24 I can definitely see a few of them standing out later on, you know, as things progress. What was your favorite part about making this man? Obviously being at at the location of Tewkesbury State Hospital was awesome, but just a creative aspect, you know, like whether it be coming up with an idea that the day of shooting, like in the moment, or working with the kids and just like the behind the scenes stuff Like now when I watch TV shows or movies, I know how certain things are done, like because I wouldness to how they were done, you know, so you know the little filming secrets that you know, someone who hasn't worked on a film might not know. So, you know, just being creative man, Like, it's a lot of fun.

15:20 It brings the most joy out of me as a person, you know, just working with Dan being creative and you know, seeing the whole thing come to fruition. There was It's hard to pick one, man, Everything was so much fun. I loved every minute of it and I wouldn't change anything about it. It was awesome. No, definitely, I mean, you know, like you said, without giving too much away, there's a lot of twisting turns in here, a lot of things you might not expect it for his glance, and I really appreciate, especially in the independent film, a lot of times you get very straightforward, you know, not too much flair to anything plot wise, and considering you guys were under twenty thousand dollars budget, you're pulled off going a bit. Yeah. Absolutely, the biggest challenge starting out, like as you were getting past Okay, well we've got this all storyboardede and all that kind of thing, Like what did you see being the first major Like, was there any real hiccups or was it all pretty smooth sailing.

16:42 I'd say it was honestly pretty smooth sailing. There were some instances of unexplained things that happened at the hospital as far as like again, if you believe in the paranormal and stuff like equipment malfunctions or things just going on that we couldn't explain. But no, no, everything went smoothly, man, Like I think there was one day we had to call off because one of the kids was sick, but everything else went incredibly smooth. We had a great you know, help and support staff at the hospital. You know, we had a detail with us that made sure that like no one got in our shots and all that stuff.

17:32 So everything went as smooth as. It could be. I mean, actually, you know what the biggest hurdle was. There was a baseball field that was having little league games right across from where we were filming, and at the end of each games was every like forty five minutes to an hour, they were playing music, so like welcome to the Jungle, or crazy train or the national anthem, so we had to work around that. Other than that, everything went super smooth. I honestly can't think of anything that was a hiccup per se. So a lot of times that most people don't always do this, but you know, you won't always get the entire cast together once, depending on where you're shooting. What was it like when you did have everybody together joke around a lot. Was there any kind of them rory or.

18:29 Oh yeah, everyone got along great? There was. It was like everyone even on the first day I'm shooting, It's like, so we had Rowan and Patrick, so the father and son duo in the movie. Everyone just gelled immediately. And even when all the kids were together that they were having a lot of fun. You know, I was able to we were all able to have fun together and joke around, and you know, even if like takes got a little messed up, we could all like laugh at it and uh, you know, just all right, let's pick right back up. So everyone got along great and that was huge. And you know, in between takes, the kids might be a little like, you know, routed up, but as soon as that red light hit man, it was game faces on. Everyone was amazing, all of them, every single one, from the kids to the adults, to the extras to everyone in between. Everyone was always on point as soon as that red light turned on.

19:36 Now you play a schizophrenic individual hunter, yep. Did you take any inspiration from previous characters that you've seen in film or what was like developing? So? I actually took a lot from Heath Ledger's Joker, Okay, you know, and I know that is kind of strange considering like what happened to him after the fact, but yeah, I I use that. And you know how I used to be when I was in the dead and the damns like you put on a little bit of makeup and you become someone different, you're no longer yourself. And yeah, it was it was mostly those two things. And uh, you know, I obviously changed my voice a little bit.

20:30 Uh had a little more rasped to it. But I would say, you know, Heath's Joker was a huge, uh inspiration for me for this character, even though that the characters are very different. I try to use his his mannerisms a little bit. And you know, even as far as maybe some wrestlers like Kine or the Untaker with like the head Tilts and stuff like that. But uh or Michael Myers, So yeah, I mean i'd say that was those were my biggest inspirations. As far as like getting into character.

21:12 Now, is this the first film you've worked on? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I would say the music videos I've done have been you know, like mini films because they all have kind of like a plot to them or story per se. But as far as like proper film and full length, yeah, this is my first one. For the first shout out of the gate, I can't can't give you any more than two thumbs up. Brother, Thanks, I appreciate it absolutely. So we are in spooky season. We mentioned Michael Myers and all that fun stuff. Do you have any particular horror films that you go back to around this time later year?

21:54 So I will always say that lately I can't think anything better. But my favorite all time horror anything that I think is perfectly done, was the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix that I I'll go back and watch that every year. I think it was just perfect. Us far as movies go, I mean, the og Halloween will always be, you know, the catalyst for the slasher genre and the horror genre. So yeah, even some of the reboots like Zombies, reboot of Halloween and the most recent trilogy that it just came out. I love Michael Myers, He's my favorite slasher guy. But yeah, the Haunting of Hillhouse, I love that, you know, mini series. Yeah, I think I've watched that like five times since it came out.

22:54 You were saying a terror flier movies. I am. I actually saw. I've seen all three. I saw, you know, the third one last Fall. Ah what ey Dory, I will. Say, yeah, I think you know, I actually got to sit down last year with the clown slash David Howard Thornton before everything took off of them, and uh, you know, it's amazing to see where that whole series has gone from where it started back in all Hell of Eve, all the way to the first Tara Flatter, et cetera. So do you foresee any kind of sequel to this story there? I would still get.

23:42 We've discussed it. You know, we'll definitely take some time off. You know, we just at our final in person screening actually last weekend on October eleventh at the hospital actually, so I think, you know, we'll take some time. You know, I'm sure Dan has other projects that you'll be working on. But yeah, we've discussed. I can't say exactly what so as Tonauts spoil they that this movie, but yeah, there's been some light discussion. Might not be for you know, a little bit, but yeah, there there has been some discussion.

24:29 I would like to as long as you know, we can come up with a good story. You know. Well, I think there's a lot to build up of where you guys started with the first film, so I think it's something got potential to go somewhere. Yeah, I agree. I mean, like you said, there there is a lot to build off of, and I am constantly brainstorming ideas. So in the times, right, you know, we'll see. No, definitely, I hope to get back in behind the camera again sometime in the next couple of years myself. So it's been it's been almost ten years. Really more than that now. I did that. I like, I'm here to play friends Bonny years and years ago, and that was a lot of fun I enjoyed. It's a little easier because it's a bit of a comedy, but I'd love to do a horror comedy. That would be a lot of fun.

25:29 Yeah, I mean we threw a little bit of you know, tomed tic jokes into into this, and uh yeah, a couple There was one scene in particular that I could not stop laughing. Uh after each take. H I'll say, when the kids are watching the tape and the dad comes home and then they say what what they were watching in between each take, because as a adults we get it right, but but the kids didn't. And I just I just could not stop laughing in between you It was hard not to laugh when we were filming. I was actually doing sound, had to be as still as possible holding that boom mic man and not make a peep, and so once every time Dan said cut, I was like, I just I could not stop.

26:24 So has anything developed for any of the rest of the cast since then? Anything of note? Uh? I don't know. I actually I know. I mean a lot of the three three of them I think is still in high school. Yeah, Gabriella was actually going into her first year at college. So uh yeah, No. I I saw them all at the premiere and it was just great to just see everybody again. And you know, unfortunately we didn't like chat that much because everything was so hectic, but it was great to seeing everybody, yeah, back in May. So yeah, I mean, I'm like, I agree with what you said. All these kids have a lot of a lot of promise, and you know, we would definitely love to work with all of them again.

27:24 So yeah, we'll see. A creative process for films. Like you said, number of years before, things come to fruition more often than not. Is there anything you would go back and do differently this time, No, not at all. Everything. I'm a strong believer in states. Everything was meant to happen for a reason, and we needed to have those setbacks, you know, uh, four years ago to get to where we are right now, you know, and to get where we got last year when we started filming.

28:08 And honestly, man, I wouldn't change a thing. Everything was and an amazing experience, a hell of an experience. It was a lot of fun, and you know, the last day of shooting was bittersweet, you know, like everything was so nothing was happening for three years, and all of a sudden everything was boom boom boom, boom boom. And then when it flew by, that entire last summer flew by, and when that last day happened and that was it. It was like, Wow, we did it, Like we have been doing this for four years and this summer we did it and it was just one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life, to be completely honest with you, and yeah, no, man, I wouldn't change the thing. It was in my eyes perfect, the experience and everything. So I'm super grateful for for Dan giving me the opportunity to a be in it and be collab with him and do the things that we've done.

29:16 So yeah, man, I wouldn't change the thing. Everything in my eyes was was perfect. So do you think you'll be seeking out any other projects outside of this? Maybe? You know. I mean I'm still, you know, semi retired from music. You know, I still play at home and stuff. But if the right thing comes along and all the stars aligned like that sounds a little egotistical. But. Yeah, if I'm in the right space, I would love to do something else, you know, whether it be music or another film or hell, even a music video for somebody.

29:58 You know. I just love being creative and having someone ask me, hey, can you write like a concept for my music video? Man's that's awesome. I mean, I've never done it before prior to twenty twenty, and it brings me a lot of joy. Listen to the song, read the lyrics, and start writing. And I'm a terrible writer, but I'm able to come up with ideas. So yeah, man, if anyone out there in the world needs a music video idea that has some sort of a story to it, let me know. I love doing it. Absolutely, no word. Mike current band right now is going to be working on getting some new material out and we'll be shooting videos hopefully within the next six months, so I'll definitely be talking about that too.

30:48 Yeah man, absolutely. I mean, like I said, I love doing it. As long as I have the lyrics in the music that I can just zone out, I love it. It's awesome, good deal. So yeah, Halloween's coming up. We got your former bandmates and Devil Inside is playing with me Ravager and about let's see Fall of Atlantis and other worldly entities coming from New York Halloween night. The Raven Worcester Mass will be there speeding in Halloween. We'll be talking about all kinds of stuff and enjoying some really good heavy music costume contests. So be sure to check that out, folks. I'll be posting online about that all week and then some. But Brian, no, it's nice to catch up a little bit. Definitely enjoyed myself well, sitting down and watching Stonegate. It was something out of the ordinary for me, so it was a nice change of pace for sure. But yeah, check out Stonegate online, Stonegate movie, YouTube, Amazon, you name it. I highly recommend it.

32:08 If you're enjoying independent film and want to get down with this boogie stuff, that's the way to go. Absolutely all right, right, well, thanks are coming on, I know, but yeah, I'm glad I was able to connect with you for a little bit. Yeah, I mean too, Man, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this and like I said, man it was it was great catching up and you know, it'spent a hot minute. So I'm glad we got to do This right now, We'll check out Stonegate and always stay tuned for new episodes of Bulldog Uncensored.