Mike Davis is an American screenwriter. He was born and raised in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and optioned his first

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

, the story of

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

returning from the grave to become President, shortly after graduating NYU's

Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...

. In 2004 he formed Stag Films, writing and co-producing the independent feature film, ''

Pervert! ''Pervert!'' is a 2005 American comedy horror film directed by Jonathan Yudis. It is mainly a tribute to the films of Russ Meyer. Plot College student James (Andrews) arrives from New Orleans at a desert ranch owned by his father, Hezekiah ( San ...

'' starring Mary Carey, an homage to

Russ Meyer Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that fea ...

, 1970s

sexploitation A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit s ...

and

grindhouse A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film ...

horror films. Davis has worked with writer/director

Matt Piedmont Matt Piedmont (born 1970) is an American film director and writer. Career At age 25 he secured a job as a writer for ''Saturday Night Live'', a position he held for six years, earning an Emmy in the process. Known for writing absurdist sketches ...

, contributing to comedy segments created by Piedmont for Bud TV,

Funny or Die Funny or Die is a comedy video website and film/television production company owned by Henry R. Muñoz III that was founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Mark Kvamme, and Chris Henchy in 2007. The website contained exclusive material from a reg ...

and

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

. Davis's directorial debut ''Sex Galaxy'' was created entirely out of recycled

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

and

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

footage, primarily from the 1968 film ''

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women ''Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women'' is a 1968 American science fiction film, one of two films whose footage was taken from the 1962 Soviet SF film ''Planeta Bur'' (''Planet of Storms'') for producer Roger Corman. The original film was ...

'', which in turned borrowed heavily from ''

Planeta Bur ''Planeta Bur'' (russian: Планета бурь) is a 1962 Sovcolor Soviet science fiction film scripted by Alexander Kazantsev from his novel, and co-scripted and directed by Pavel Klushantsev. In English, the film is often informally refe ...

.'' It screened on the international

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

circuit, winning two "Best Feature" awards and one for "Best Drinking Movie," and was released by Breaking Glass Pictures and

Unearthed Films Unearthed Films is a U.S. film distribution and production company that imports exploitation films primarily from Eastern Asia. History The company was created by Stephen Biro, Paul White and Rhett Rushing. Their initial releases were the first o ...

in 2008. Due to its "recycling" of copyright-free stock footage, Davis has dubbed it the world's first 'green movie'. Davis followed with another 'green' film, the horror/comedy/political satire ''President Wolfman'', about the U.S. President being bitten by a

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or ...

and terrorizing the streets of Washington. ''President Wolfman'' culled much of its footage from ''

The Werewolf of Washington ''The Werewolf of Washington'' is a 1973 horror comedy film written and directed by Milton Moses Ginsberg and starring Dean Stockwell. Produced by Nina Schulman, it satirizes several individuals in the Richard Nixon administration. Plot summary ...

'' starring

Dean Stockwell Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including ''Anchors A ...

, in addition to over one hundred other film sources. The movie won many festival awards, including Best Feature, Audience Choice and Best Script, and is distributed by Wild Eye Releasing on VHS and DVD, released in 2014. He also wrote the screenplay for the film '' Aloha Santa''.

References

External links

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Stag FilmsAddictedtohorrormovies.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Mike American male screenwriters Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Tisch School of the Arts alumni Writers from Philadelphia