INTERVIEW: LUCIFER VALENTINE (Englisches Original)

Lucifer Valentine is one of these artists, whose work seems inseparable from the person behind it. His Vomit Gore films are horrific, artistic, pornographic, violent nightmares, which are admired by some and despised by others.

Valentine, an extremely well-spoken and friendly fellow, gave one of the most thorough interviews of his career and answered many questions about himself, his films, his satanic beliefs and his new movie VG4. Without further ado, I present here the 100% uncut, unedited and unrevised interview.

TM: Greetings, Lucifer! First of all thanks for the interview. For those who don’t know you already, who are you and what’s there to know about you?

LV: Haha, hello ! ummm . . . well I’m Lucifer Valentine and I’m a filmmaker and artist ! I like making drawings and movies and sound design.

TM: VG 4 was announced some time ago. Has the process of filming been completed? Are you currently in the middle of post-production, maybe? Can you estimate when your fans will be able to hold the new installment in their hands?

LV: Yes I have completed filming VG4, and I am right in the middle of post production on it; I have been traveling a lot in the last year to a lot of remote places so I haven’t been able to sit down at a proper computer desk and edit the movie on a regular basis until just recently so I am happy to be able to complete it now ! I hope fans can have VG4 in their in the hands in about 6 months or less. 

TM: So far, every installment of the Vomit Gore trilogy has had its own kind of identity and artistic style. What will the fourth film be like? Will you follow the path you set with “Slow Torture Puke Chamber” or maybe go into another direction?

LV: Haha yes well I can’t say too much specifically about VG4 just yet, but I would say for sure it has its own artistic identity within my body of work and within the Vomit Gore movies. VG4 continues plummeting through the horrifying  and hellishly shattered dimensions and realms of the Death of “the lost girl” as we uncover more and more ghostly pieces of the puzzle of Angela Aberdeen. 

TM:  Until now, the Vomit Gore saga has been seen as a trilogy. Is this trilogy simply enhanced by the new film or do you see the first three as one circle and the fourth one as a beginning of a new era?

LV: I see VG4 as one of the parallel dimensions within and growing out of the Vomit Gore Trilogy. The occurrences in VG4 happened at the same time as everything in the Trilogy, and yet it seems chronologically to have mutated as an outgrowth of the Trilogy as I am releasing it “after” the first three movies, however, everything happened at the exact same time regardless of time, date and location.

TM: Your first film “Slaughtered Vomit Dolls” could be seen as the most realistic Vomit Gore film, meaning that it is a documentation of the time you and Ameara LaVey spent together. In retrospect, what can you say about this time? Do you have fond memories?

LV: Yes I definitely have fond memories of the time I spent as Ameara LaVey’s boyfriend and Domination Master, she and I cared very deeply for each other and still have a very strong bond to this day as our crossing paths was a life changing and profoundly emotional experience.

TM: SVD shows a lot of despair, rough sex and emotion. How much of this is staged? Is it all absolutely genuine?

LV: None of the despair, rough sex and emotion was staged in SVD.

TM: “ReGOREgitated Sacrifce” is a tour de force of absolutely vile, depraved imagery. Did you choose this style to deliberately set it apart from the first one?

LV: Thank you ! Well, in all my movies I don’t really choose a style, as there’s no “me” making those kinds of “filmmaker” decisions, the movies actually make themselves in whatever way they need to manifest and I am definitely there to help guide and shape the movie, but, my movies are combinations and a culmination of many, many intersecting circumstances and relationships I have with my friends and the deeply felt emotions and contexts, usually defined by inner sadness and darkness and self-destruction, and I am there to capture the spirit of that on camera.

TM: What was your motivation to make a sequel to SVD? It seems like you wanted to portray the concept of SVD in another (more intense) light. Was this the case?

LV: I happened to meet the twins the Black Angels of Hell through a friend and I was still very close friends with Ameara and Hank Skinny, and I also had other friends at the time in the hardcore porn industry such as Isabelle Styles, Honey, JJ, and Amy Lee and I began to see and feel various characters emerge based on our conversations and their actual lives and I could see similarities and how these things tied into the character and themes of Angela Aberdeen and so naturally scenarios that I could shoot on camera grew from there. But my movies are really based on “chance meetings” and my pre-existing friendships and how we are all naturally drawn together based on primal and unconscious connections of loss sadness and darkness.

TM: RS follows a very surreal approach. What kind of effect did you have in mind when putting the film together? Some may see it as a mixture between the most eccentric visual art and modern day internet pornography.

LV: Well I think that’s a really cool compliment as my art is known to be very eccentric and I grew up in the age of hardcore internet porn so that makes a lot of sense ! In reality there was no conscious approach whatsoever and I had nothing in mind haha except I have awesome very understanding and talented friends who are willing to dig down deep within themselves and really “go there” with me in their performances and so as always we all get together and just let it happen as I film.

TM: What made you choose to mention Kurt Cobain?

LV: Kurt Cobain is a character in all my movies; which started when I was standing outside his home in Seattle several years ago after his death and during the time in which I had just begun dating Ameara Lavey and filming her (although I didn’t know that filming her would turn into SVD) and I was transfixed, staring at his house in a state of deep sadness when Ameara LaVey called me on my cel phone from Canada to ask me when I’d be coming home to see her and continue filming and I suddenly could feel a real connection between Ameara and the spirit of the Death of Cobain and at that moment the character of Angela Aberdeen was born as Aberdeen, Washington is Cobain’s hometown so it’s the “Angel of Aberdeen”.

TM: “Slow Torture Puke Chamber” seemed to be more focused on its backstory and main character. What drove you to this? Did you feel that RS was not to be outdone when it comes to graphic imagery?

LV: I met the amazing Hope Likens as she had contacted me online to tell me she was a fan of SVD and she and I connected very deeply on themes, ideas and experiences regarding child abuse and incest based on the character of Angela Aberdeen, and since Hope was also an extreme bulimic she literally was an embodiment of Angela and STPC just grew from there, Hope would come to visit me and I would just film whatever we did together. I never compare the level of gore and extremity in my movies to each other, although my movies are interrelated, each one has its own individual context  and the level of extremity of content and subject matter arises on its own as is applicable to the circumstances in which I am filming my relationships to my performers.

TM: There is only one real gore scene in STPC. This is, however, pretty controversial and proved to be too much for some viewers. What was the idea behind it?

LV: Well the foetus massacre scene represents the infinite life cycle of abuse of Angela Aberdeen as she is ripped form the womb, mutilated, raped, tortured, devoured, obliterated and regoregitated back to the womb to repeat the cycle. We see Angela is butchered and destroyed from the first breath of her horrific life, to her gruesome and puke-covered Death. Shari Caruso, a brand new never-before-seen Angela carries the baby Angela that is ripped from her womb mirroring Ameara LaVey (actually pregnant) in RS carrying the next version of Angela and shows that “Angela” is an archetype and can be in any female body and represents a “lost girl”, meaning a girl who seemingly had no other possible fate but despair and pure extreme pain and suffering even before she was ever born repeating in an endless cycle.

TM: The backstory of Hope Likens’ character is somewhat laden with clichés (the father who abused her etc.), but kind of portrays them in a different way than usual. Was this play on clichés and conventional content intentional?

LV: Hope’s dialogue in STPC was based on many conversations between her and I about themes related to Angela, but her performance and delivery of her dialogue happened spontaneously as Hope beautifully channeled Angela on camera as I filmed her. 

TM: “Black Metal Veins” deals with a couple of heroin junkies and the lives they live. What made you choose this topic? Are you obsessed by drugs in general?

LV: I became friends with Brad Allen online after he contacted me to say he was a fan of SVD and through our conversations I learned he was a heroin junkie and it grew from there; the topic chose me.

TM: You chose to spice up BMV by using some scenes depicting sex and even the rape of a semi-unconscious woman. If I remember correctly, you said that these scenes are staged. Do you think that this is compatible with a documentary film? Do you even understand BMV as being a pure documentary?

LV: Nothing is staged as BMV is not intended to be a literal documentary at all. BMV takes viewers into the lives, hearts and minds of severe junkies and shows how very morbidly warped their realities can become physically, mentally and spiritually to the point of creating its own hellish pitch black void of suffering and sorrow where the movie takes place.

TM: You use the pseudonym Lucifer Valentine. What is the concept behind this name?

LV: Lucifer Valentine is a character in SVD which is Angela’s imaginary friend, played by me, and Angela/Ameara creates me in her heart to comfort her and help guide her along her path through hell, while also being a dominant father figure as well as an innocent childlike friend.

TM: As I have heard, you have received many threats and even death threats in the past. What kind of people threatened you and how serious did you take them?

LV: I’d rather not go into that, however, I will say in a couple of instances I was forced to take some death threats very seriously as I was being physically confronted in various places.

TM: You are a practicing Satanist. What kind of Satanism do you practice? Theistic? LaVeyan? Could you tell us about your satanic Weltanschauung, what it means to you and what role it plays in your art?

LV: Satan exists within a Satanist as the core essence of that person’s being; the Satanist is Satan and embodies a primal, animalistic beast-like instinct which is guided by dark spiritual energy and demonic magical forces much like the darkness that brews within and wells up in a thunderstorm or the darkness in the eyes of a wolf or a shark as it hunts its prey, however, it is a secret and often invisible world and this perspective can only be perceived and actually felt by others that are similarly predisposed.

TM: You oftentimes make use of blasphemous images in your films, for example the masturbation with a crucifix in STPC and much more. To what extent are you intolerant towards other religions? Do you hate Christians?

LV: Haha no I certainly don’t “hate” anyone or anything, in fact I don’t ever use words like that unless to quote a reference like now in writing this – no, in fact Hope and I created the crucifucking scene in STPC to continue and combine the same scene with Ameara from SVD showing what can often be seen as a “Siamese existence” of dual-Angelas (although there are infinite “Angelas” I often show two interacting as with Hope and Ameara in STPC), echoed in the more literal representation of Siamese twins joined at the head in RS with the Black Angels of Hell, in STPC I show that she is in “superposition” as in quantum physics, and the same occurrence is happening devoid of chronological time in multiple realms of existence representing a universal kind of energy. Originally in SVD Ameara/Angela did the crucifucking scene, since, “logically”, Angela, having been sexually abused by a priest as a child, wanted to perform a blasphemous yet self-destructive act with a crucifix as her young mind and soul could not yet deal with the pain of the sexual abuse, and Hope’s Angela did the exact same thing at the same time in STPC.

TM: You are an emetophile, meaning that you are sexually attracted to vomiting. In what way do you practice your sexuality in your private life? Do you have other fetishes? Do you find deviant sex more interesting/arousing than normal sex?

LV: In my private life I have girls puke on my cock usually caused by me ramming my cock down their throat, then I “puke-fuck” them ,meaning, I fuck the girl in her ass right after she just puked on my cock. I am an extreme Domination Master, so I am turned on by things to do with extreme humiliation of slaves. I wouldn’t really know much first hand about the differences between deviant and normal sex as I have never had a normal sex life.

TM: Oftentimes, the sex in your art is very violent, sometimes downright cruel. Would you define yourself as a sexual sadist? Do your films praise sexual violence? Are you kind of a libertine when it comes to these things?

LV: Well, in the context of an extreme master/slave relationship, the sex I have with consenting slaves who love and actually require a high level of humiliation and sexual punishment and debasement, can be seen as highly sadistic and it is; however, in the context of this agreed upon master/slave relationship in which the slave has signed contracts outlining her understanding of what we are doing and has stated that she willing wants to participate and has a safe word she can use to stop the action at any time, there is no negativity whatsoever to these mutually gratifying sexual acts and relationships between consenting adults.

TM: Your films show women in total despair, engaging in auto-aggressive behavior and submitted to every form of abuse. Are you a misanthrope who enjoys harming other people? A misogynist, maybe? How do you feel about violence that transgresses the consensual, sexual boundaries?

LV: Everything that I do in my movies and in my personal life is 100% absolutely consensual, and no haha, I wouldn’t say I’m a misanthrope and definitely not a misogynist or any other label of that nature, in fact I am usually described by people who know me as the most positive, happy cheerful person they have ever met, however, artistically, I definitely delve very deeply into extreme and dark subject matter as that seems to suit me stylistically and literally is just how I am, almost like how some people love hot spicy food and other extreme things such as movies or extreme sports etc. and others don’t its just a matter of personal taste at that point.

TM: What are your feelings on pornography? Are you an enthusiast? I recall you talking about one of your favourite porn films, which showed a pig having sex with a woman. What is so fascinating about extreme pornography? Do you view it as an art form or not?

LV: Ahh yes I definitely view porn as art, especially extreme porn; well I like perverted taboo extreme things since they inspire me especially if I am shown something haven’t seen before, I also like extreme porn such as vomit porn, scat and some bestiality such as eel porn and of course incest porn especially identical twins as it can cause me to have a physical reaction as a viewer and often by default one will find these kinds of things in the genre of porn for obvious reasons.

TM: Due to their extreme content, your films have provoked some pretty extreme reactions. Many people even despise your films (and you as an artist). Why is that? Is the provocation of “normal” people one of your goals? Does it give you pleasure when people feel offended by you or is it just a byproduct of making art?

LV: Well I just make the kind of art that I naturally gravitate to and it makes no difference to me if anyone likes it; however, it is definitely cool that I have some fans and I greatly value their support and appreciation of my work.

TM: Did you classify SVD as Vomit Gore or did the Vomit Gore concept exist before SVD? What was there first: concept or film?

LV: Well the idea of Vomit Gore came about early on in shooting Ameara LaVey in our 24/7 master/slave agreement: Ameara was my girlfriend and slave, and shortly after I met her and we got together she needed a place to stay as she got kicked out of her Dad’s place, so I told her she could stay with me as long a she allowed me to film her at any time doing anything and since she was already my slave that made it easy for her to agree. And during the time that Ameara stayed with me and I filmed her night and day, we naturally were doing many things, such as having emetophilic sex and engaging in master/slave domination and humiliation in our sex lives, that lent themselves to the beginnings of the first scenes of SVD, the creation of the character of Angela Aberdeen and the creation of what I then coined to be Vomit Gore.

TM: As written above, your films are very surrealistic. Are the viewers to decrypt the metaphorical meaning behind some of the images? Is that even possible?

LV: My movies are meant to function and affect viewers on many different levels depending on the inclination and interests of the individual viewer. My movies can be seen on one very simplistic level of simply extreme gore films, which may be all certain viewer are looking for and that’s fine, however, obviously with my movies, if one wants to go deeper into the emotional and symbolic metaphorical, psychological and spiritual levels (which I recommend), then one can enter a multidimensional labyrinth of deeper meanings, themes and stories within my movies and I provide a lot of supplemental extra feature material for that very purpose. 

TM: The relationship you had with your sister is, as you explained in the audio commentary of SVD, very important in your work. In what way does it influence your art? Do you want to speak about the relationship?

LV: My incest relationship with my sister Cinderella is the basis for all my work as it is the reason why I began filming and making movies in the first place. I would film my little sister in order to get her to come out of her shell due to her Autism Spectrum Disorder, and, since filming her was the only thing that worked, it became ingrained in me as my foremost means of expression and experiencing the world around me and is why I film my friends to this day.

TM: What is your opinion on drugs? Do you use any yourself? Any past experiences you would like to share?

LV: No in fact I have never used illegal drugs of any kind.

TM: What are your plans after VG4? Could you imagine doing something completely different? Will you continue making Vomit Gore?

LV: That’s a great question !  Well I have already shot enough footage for another two documentary-style movies from my travels and so I will begin to sift through that material. 

TM: That’s all for now. Thanks again for the interview. Any last words?

LV: Thanks so much this was fun !