Chris Morrissey(I)
- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Born in Hollywood, California to an actress/poet
mother and screenwriter father, Chris left school at age 16 through a
work experience program to pursue a career in acting. After a few small
indie movie roles and some brief work on David Lynch's quirky television
series Twin Peaks, Chris worked as a production secretary at Concorde
Pictures, the infamous film studio owned by movie king Roger Corman.
"Their style of filmmaking really impressed me. It was like a factory.
They would come up with an idea and a few months later they
had a completed film. Here I was, 17 years old and surrounded in this
whole high-paced "just do it" atmosphere. It totally made me realize
that you can pretty much achieve anything if you just put your mind to
it." A few months after his 18th birthday, Chris left Concorde, and
spent the next 6 years working at Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine. "It
was such a great learning experience. I got to learn practically every
aspect of the entertainment industry and I loved every minute of it."
During this time, Chris began filming a black & white short film called
Hollywood Grind A look at 60's go-go girls, prostitutes, and female
criminals set to crazy beatnik go-go music. After finishing his short
film, Chris decided to focus completely on making movies. He left the
magazine to form his own production company and continued to act in independent film projects in his spare time.
He began shooting the feature film Superstar Female Serial Killer in late 1998.
"The movie turned out very crazy and funny. It was intended to be a really dark drama,
but we had so much fun laughing and being silly during filming, the
movie just formed into a total comedy soap opera. I would have it no
other way now." Superstar was released theatrically in Los Angeles and New York and has since become a cult classic. The film also had a successful run as a "Midnight Movie" at various Los Angeles and New York theaters.
Chris finished filming his second feature "Lipgloss Explosion!" A glossy Science-Fiction comedy in September of the year
2000. After the theatrical release of Lipgloss, Chris shot the 1970's themed murder mystery Fashion Murder Groove. The film remains unreleased due to music licensing rights. In 2010, Chris teamed up with producer Share Cherrie to create the award-winning supernatural horror film Trick of the Witch. The film is about a group of fashion models fighting a witchcraft curse during a photo shoot. The film won Best Horror Film and the Audience Award at the New York International Film Festival. He followed Witch with the twisted Hollywood thriller Heavy Makeup. The film centers on a group of aspiring actresses being stalked by a serial killer. Heavy Makeup premiered in October 2015 at the Rip Horror Film Festival and won the Audience Favorite Award. The film is scheduled to complete a theatrical tour in 2017. In 2016, Chris was invited to be the "Featured Spotlight Director" of the Rip Horror Film Festival and scheduled three of his films to screen during the week-long festival. Chris is in the process of developing two new feature films and has also stepped back into the world of acting between film projects.