You can’t make this stuff up … but Jeff Stewart has
By Scott Morgan
So there’s Velvis, who wants nothing more than to make it as an entertainer, but is handcuffed by certain … let’s call them obligations.
There’s Samael, his partner and friend in carrying out the duties required by those obligations, and who is Velvis’ opposite in almost every way.
And there are Seth and Lamia, two of the kind of otherworldly evil scum that Velvis is obligated to wipe off the face of the earth when not gigging in dives as a quite-literal black velvet Elvis impersonator.
Life for Velvis in writer-director Jeff Stewart’s wild-ride indie film “The Velvet Elvis” is tough. He has no money, no girlfriend, no fan base, and no way to pay down a mysterious debt except to mow down demons where they stand (and run) in a gritty urban dystopia on the tattered fringes of the American dream. In other words, Hollywood.
But Velvis is a good guy at heart, even if much of the good that he does is an offshoot of his obligations. Mr. Stewart refers to Velvis as a non-antihero, “a man forced to do what’s right,” who learns that life demands more than the music of the King, no matter how much he loves it.
Shot in Trenton (where Mr. Stewart grew up and still lives), “The Velvet Elvis” is part of a grand experiment possible only in the Internet Age. It was funded entirely by Amazon as part of its burgeoning Amazon Studios brand. Amazon Studios, the online retailer’s bid to enter the Netflix/Hulu arena and one-up them both by producing original film content for online distribution, runs contests, and “The Velvet Elvis” project was awarded a $50,000 budget to produce what Amazon calls a “test film.”
Mr. Stewart did not devise the idea for the film, but his pitch — he told Amazon that “The Velvet Elvis” has the potential to be the next “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — was the one Amazon liked best.
The plan was to shoot in October and a little into November, then do post-production and deliver the completed film by Jan. 5. But, says Mr. Stewart, “if you want God to laugh, tell him your plans.” The film did get submitted by its deadline and it did stay within budget, but the shooting went on into late December, and the project was slathered with a hefty dose of industry-standard late nights, long hours, and on-the-fly innovations.
The resulting amalgamation of horror, comedy, and action-adventure is a genre-bender that Mr. Stewart says is too broad to put an easy label on. “It’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ meets ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ and ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ (the television series, not the movie) meets ‘Superfly,’” he says. It’s biggest influence, “Buffy,” is “where the DNA comes from.”
”The Velvet Elvis” is Mr. Stewart’s second feature film and his second collaboration with leading man Kirk Ponton, who plays Velvis. Mr. Stewart’s first feature was 2011’s “The Reunion,” a horror film about two friends who end up in the drug trade. Also shot in Trenton, “The Reunion” was summed up by one reviewer as “ ‘The Wire’ meets ‘Dawn of the Dead.’”
”The Reunion” also was the first collaboration Mr. Stewart had as a director with Michael Markiewicz, who produced that film and stars as Seth in “The Velvet Elvis.” Seth, much to Mr. Stewart’s admitted own chagrin, is the character he identifies most with in “The Velvet Elvis,” even more so than the smooth, gentlemanly Velvis. Mr. Stewart sees Seth — a demon on a particularly lofty evil quest — as “a bad dude, but sort of childish.” Someone being manipulated by external forces who, if not being led astray, actually could have been an all-right guy.
Mr. Stewart, a graduate of Temple University’s Film and Media Arts department, thinks of himself as a film geek. He has been a comic book writer, a radio show host, and a photographer. It is his eye for photographic art, in fact, that he says he wants noticed most. “I’m most concerned with how beautiful it is,” he says of his film. “I want the images to not just ‘be there’ but to add something to the film. I want people to say ‘all right, that’s a Jeff Stewart shot.’”
Ultimately, “The Velvet Elvis” is “sort of a love letter to my cinematic heroes,” Mr. Stewart says — Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Sam Raimi, and Ridley and Tony Scott, a set of filmmakers known for their visual punch.
The film will be screened for free at the Trenton Marriott Downtown, 1 West Lafayette St., on Thursday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Stewart does not own the film, so he cannot make any money on it. He just wants to show it to the world and let as many people as possible see it — and that includes movie industry insiders, whom Mr. Stewart hopes are impressed enough with his talents to offer him a feature film with a more reasonable (for the film world) budget of $1 million or more.
But if you miss the watch party at the Marriott, don’t fret. You can still catch “The Velvet Elvis online at http://studios.amazon.com/movies/13731, for free, anytime.

