SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. — Harry Sparks’ killer-clown horror thriller “Scissors,” starring Jill Kassidy and Tommy Pistol, had its star-studded red-carpet premiere on Tuesday at the Regal Sherman Oaks Galleria.
“Scissors,” Spark’s homage to the slasher genre he grew up with, is a mainstream project featuring a cast comprised mostly of adult performers.
The movie features well-known porn pros Avery Jane, Lilly Bell, Alex Coal, Blake Blossom, Katie Morgan, Misty Stone and Isiah Maxwell. Rounding out the ensemble are industry veteran James Bartholet — who also co-produces — as well as model Annie Cruz and mainstream actor Scott Schwartz.
Pistol, Bell, Coal, Blossom, Stone and Maxwell all attended the screening and took part in an informative Q&A session afterward, answering fan questions.
“If you’re a big fan of slasher movies from the ’70s and ’80s, you’ll like this movie,” Sparks told XBIZ at the event. “It’s about sex workers. As you know, the adult industry is under assault right now from people like the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, so ‘Scissors’ is very timely.”
Sparks said he focused on a serial-killer clown who goes after content creators and OnlyFans models, because “that’s a fear most people have for some reason, because clowns are weird and creepy.”
“I like clowns most of the time — except when they’re slashing people!” he offered.
“Scissors” is the third mainstream project from Sparks, who is also known for helming ambitious, innovative adult features.
“I made two mainstream features already,” he said. “In 2007, I made ‘All Hallow’s Eve,’ an anthology movie. The second one, in 2009, was a modern-day update of “Little Red Riding Hood.” It was adult-oriented but it wasn’t an actual adult movie.”
Sparks said that “Scissors,” though titillating, had to be mainstream because “in order to do justice to a slasher movie, there’s a certain amount of violence and blood you just have to have to do it right — and nowadays you are not allowed to mix that with sex in an actual adult movie, for distribution and monetization.”
Sparks also said his casting choices were determined by the fact that he wanted actual sex workers to play sex workers.
“I got to play Scissors!” Pistol enthused, providing a not-too-spoilery spoiler, although a particularly effective plot twist may complicate that revelation. “I’ve got to admit, I’ve never played a character like this where I didn’t have to talk, which was hard for me to do. It was really fun and what I really enjoyed about this whole thing was how James and Harry have been able to put this together and have it screened in a real cinema. For me, this means a lot.”
Pistol added that in the years since he has been working in adult, he has always hoped that more people would take advantage of all the industry talent and equipment at hand, like the “Scissors” team did.
“We can do all these things, we can do indie features,” Pistol told the audience during the Q&A. “We should do many more projects like ‘Scissors’!”
Maxwell and Blossom, playing an ill-fated doctor-nurse couple, brought some randy, funny eroticism to their salacious interactions.
“We were improvising such fun conversations on set,” Maxwell reminisced.
The always hilarious Blossom — whose signature bare bosom was made for the big screen, giving her authentic ’70s slasher “scream queen” vibes — told the audience, “I’m so glad I could represent the nurses out there in the world who work really hard. So sad she had to die, but Nurse Jenny will live on in our hearts.”
Bell added, “It’s so cool to go to a mainstream theater and see the movie poster with all our names there and on a big screen.”
Coal shared that her favorite part of “Scissors” was the camaraderie among the sex worker characters.
“They came into the hospital room and said, ‘Oh, yeah — we’re family,’” she said. “It really showed how we all band together in times of trouble, and I liked that because sex workers are not often portrayed in media as we really are, and that was really nice. It felt good.”
The irrepressible, ebullient Stone then thanked Sparks for making her look so good.
“I love doing mainstream,” she declared. “More so, I love doing mainstream with my co-workers, who I usually have lovely sex with. Let’s start doing indie films more often, guys! Let’s start working on scripts and getting them done.”
Bartholet concurred.
“There is so much talent here, and these folks are wonderful actors and it’s so great we had a chance to show their acting abilities in a genre that is so popular right now like horror is,” he concluded.
The “Scissors” producers are currently discussing distribution arrangements. Sparks and Bartholet said at the screening, “If enough people like this one, we’ll do another one.”
“But Scissors killed Nurse Jenny!” Blossom bemoaned.
“Stay tuned,” Bartholet comforted her. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll get to see her twin…”
“I want to come back — as a ghost!” Stone quipped, to uproarious laughter.
