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Ulli Lommel (born 21 December 1944) is a noted German actor and film director noted for his many horror films.

Career

Early Career

He began his career as a child actor in Germany in the 1960s and went on to become one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's closest collaborators as well as a leading actor of the German New Wave. Fassbinder produced Lommel's celebrated feature, Tenderness of the Wolves, starring Kurt Raab as Fritz Haarman, the serial killer whose crimes inspired Fritz Lang's M.

Coming to America

In 1978 Lommel moved to New York City, where he began working with Andy Warhol, who produced Lommel's first two American films, Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and Blank Generation (1980). The latter, which features Richard Hell and The Voidoids as well as a cameo by Warhol himself, is considered by many to be the first punk rock film and has become a cult classic.

In 1980 Lommel moved to Los Angeles, where he directed the surprise horror hit The Boogeyman (1980), launching a period during which he made approximately 35 films, an oeuvre that has yet to be described or even completely inventoried. Many of these films such as Olivia (1983), Brain Waves (1983), The Devonsville Terror (1983) and Boogeyman II (1983) starred his wife at the time, actress Suzanna Love. Love is also credited as a co-writer on many of the films she starred in.

The New Century

Applying the techniques of guerilla filmmaking that he had learned from Fassbinder, who also made films without stopping alongside a group of committed coworkers, Lommel in 2006 launched a production company called [[1] Hollywood House of Horror]. Based in Marina del Rey, Calif., Hollywood House of Horror is a production company and mini-studio through which Lommel is producing, writing and directing more than a dozen feature-length horror films in the span of only 18 months. Each film is shot in less than 4 weeks and on a budget of around $500,000, which is are financed through domestic and international sales and produced through Hollywood House of Horror.

Based loosely on real-life cases but re-imagined for the screen, Lommel's series of "reality horror" movies are being distributed directly to DVD through a deal with Lionsgate Films. In the first 10 months of 2006 Lommel completed 10 feature films: Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia, Angel of Death, BTK Killer, Dungeon Girl, HP Lovecraft's The Tomb, Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, Baseline Killer, Ulli Lommel's Zombie Nation, Zodiac Killer and Green River Killer. Lommel is also in pre-production on two features: City of the Dead and The Pit and the Pendulum, his take on the Edgar Allen Poe story, which will be his first $2 million production.

In September 2006, it was announced that Lommel planned to release Killer Pickton, a film that closely reflects the real case of Canadian pig farmer Robert Pickton, who was accused of murdering dozens of prostitutes in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. A petition to block the film in Canada gathered 1,200 signatures. The reasons for blocking the film are twofold: the content of the film is said to be "so disturbing, that even mention of it is banned in Canada," but there are also concerns that jurors in Mr. Pickton's trial could be influenced by the film. [2]

Lommel uses his films as a platform to deal with issues that concern him, such as the roots of serial killing, the portrayal of violence that is common in Hollywood movies and society's complicity in creating serial killers. Lommel continuously strives to depict violent acts as disturbing, horrible transgressions rather than slick entertainment.

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