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AE: How long did you shoot the film?
PEO: Well we shot for 30 days spread over 2 years. We shot the second unit during the Halloween fest in 2001. Then I wrote the script. It just played out time wise. I wrote the script in 2003. We cast right before Halloween rolled around again. Actually, the first day of shooting was the Halloween carnival again. Then we took another hiatus to get ourselves together since it was so rushed. Then we shot the film. It wasn’t a major studio film. We had a limited budget and had to use our shooting time wisely.

AE: What was filming like? Especially the "Carnival"?
PEO: It was crazy. We had 40 crew members and 6 actors some of whom had never been before. It is reputed to be the largest single night street party in the world. There are over half a million people who go. Logistically it was very challenging… as the night dragged on the revelers got pretty sloppy. You turn a camera on them and they’re all over the place.

AE: Tell us about your two leads... where'd those guys come from? Why'd you pick them?
PEO: Dylan Fergus was a new arrival to LA when I auditioned him, I think he’d been there for two weeks. He gave a strong performance as the green guy, the new guy. What sold me on him were his eyes… they were so big and blue and magnetic. And Bryan Kirkwood is someone who lives that grungy sexuality. That’s who he is. He’s very different from Dylan as an actor. Dylan studies and rehearses and creates back story and is technically capable. Brian is an actor who plays with instinct.

AE: Was it hard filming their kiss/sex scene?
PEO: No, not really. They committed to that as actors. The only real struggle we had during the kiss, but not because it was a kiss--it was freezing on a fire escape, and they were both nearly naked and sticky with blood. They were freezing!

AE: The image of the DEVIL with the sling blade... where'd that come from?
PEO: I knew we needed a costume killer. But I didn’t want the killer to be an old, ugly disfigured version of evil. I wanted it to be appealing, one that the young guys found attractive and beguiling, and not be aware of danger. The devil is classically evil and this costume was very sexual. As far as the sickle, I didn’t want to go for the typical knife. The sickle made me think of a talon, something animalistic.

AE: How did you get some of those effects? Did you have body castes made?
PEO: That was pulling in a lot of favors. Had we paid for the effects in real life the cost of them would have dwarfed the whole film. I got help from people I knew Stan Winston and Dreamworks to do digital effects. And there are lots of digital stuff you wouldn’t be aware of either--set extensions, wire removal, and so on.

AE: There’s plenty of gore in the film too…
PEO: That was strange. When I wrote the script, I had planned to go the Hitchcock route and not show blood. I think I was nervous about making a slasher pic and having gore up stage characters. We had couple weeks before the gore work so I felt comfortable enough that we could play with gore. The make up artist said “Can’t we use a few drops of blood?” Before long, we got out the paint brushes and slung blood around everywhere. It’s a gas to play with. I don’t know if it’s to make fun of death, turning our nose up at our own mortality.

AE: What did you use for blood?
PEO: The expensive stuff. The $50 dollars a gallon stuff.

AE: What other movies did you look to for inspiration?
PEO: I watched a lot of slasher films in prep to how they’re structured. I watched Halloween a bunch. Black Christmas was also one of my favorites. Suspiria. Then I watched a bunch of the 80’s slasher films but they don’t do anything for me.

AE: What's next for you? More in this genre?
PEO: I think the next film will be a horror film, but I do have something in works. I can’t really talk about it. But actually the reason I got HellBent was because a producer read a romantic comedy I wrote. I certainly didn’t start off in horror.

AE: Was coming out at 14 difficult?
PEO: It was effortless. My coming out process lasted two minutes. My parents just asked. I was raised by lesbians, so being gay was not unusual. They asked if I could be gay and I said yeah, I might be. The next day in school I stood up on a table and told everybody. And in high school, everybody else is going to know by the end of the day. I think because I didn’t have any issues with it, nobody else had issues with it. The gay kids who feel shame or are very uncomfortable, they are the ones who get teased. High school kids are looking for any kind of weakness.

AE: Do you find the entertainment world very gay friendly?
PEO: I don’t think of it as being friendly or not… Hollywood is pretty much interested in how much money you can make people. Other than that, your personal life is immaterial…

AE: Tell us a little more about yourself. Your own personal life…
PEO: I live in Hollywood proper. West Hollywood is just is too intense. I’m very career oriented right now. So I don’t have a life. That makes me sound like such a loser. When I lived in New York, it wasn’t like that. I had friends and hobbies. Now, I just love my dog and my partner John of 5 ½ years. My manager says I’m supposed to say I’m single. For the mystic. But anyone who knows me knows John. We’re very happy. I just turned 37 too. I’m very happy right now. Hopefully things are happening.