Johnny Terris

About me:

Before creating Terfer Productions in 2004, Italian/Dutch filmmaker and actor Johnny Terris started out doing guerrilla style short films in the late 80's/early 90’s in Nova Scotia Canada.

Starting at 16 years of age leaving home at with a videocamera and a foot high mohawk, his films viciously delve into the blood-soaked/shock-slicked combo of transgressive punk-styled nihilistic violence, horror and complete annihilation of family values and structure.

His first directorial debuts, "The Stardust Memory" and "The Whores", were passed around through various colleges and parties and started to pick up a small following in the early 90’s with the younger punk and indie crowds.

"The Stardust Memory" (which follows an unstable plot of a mother and daughter team who go insane after drinking contaminated tap water) as well as the trailer trash comedy "The Whores", had been for a limited time, recently released uncut on the DVD "The Underground Collection" with directors commentary.

His next film, the transgressive "Room 405" strayed away from the trashy black comedy of his previous films and edged into darker cinematography and tone. The first version saw his very first use of heavy metal music; a style that would follow in most of his later work.

He shot the film "Dominos" next in the mid/late 90's, about a mentally unstable underground film director and his horde of backstabbing misfit actors. To this day "Dominos" remains incomplete, missing the last 5 minutes, and has not been released on DVD.

In 2004, he released "Sordid"; a grotesque horror experiment through death and rebirth which sold out the first 200 copies within a 24 hour period

The uncut version of "Sordid" was first released on his second DVD release; "Scruff", a collection of short films done for the new millennium.

The DVD is rounded out with the horror short "Inside Inoxia"; a film loosely about the effects the chemical warfare and radiation poisoning.

Heavily influenced by and often described as an underground Dario Argento by peers in regards to his stylized imagery and cinematography, his films have been compared to both Japanese and Italian/European horror cinema as well as likened and compared to early John Waters and the Cinema of Transgression underground film movement.

He is currently living in Toronto and working on brand new projects for 2009.