by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

Corin Nemec wrote, produced, and costars in Deadly Justice, an efficient and effective B-movie thriller about Holly Powell (Kelly Sullivan), a prosecutor whose life goes sideways after appearing on Dale Jones’ (Brian Krause) true crime TV show. First, Holly is tasered outside her home. Then her paralegal, Carla (Christiana Leucas), is kidnapped. Her office is also ransacked. Holly senses she is being stalked. Is Theo (Nemec), the “likeable but mysterious” new stranger in town behind all this mayhem? As Deadly Justice unfolds, there may be evidence that Holly is not as innocent as she appears.

Nemec, who was Emmy nominated for I Know My First Name is Steven in 1989 and played the title character on TV’s Parker Lewis Can’t Lose in the 90’s, wrote the screenplay for Deadly Justice. The actor turned screenwriter spoke with MovieJawn about his new film, which marries true crime and the wrongly accused plot.

You have worked for decades in front of and behind the camera, both acting and producing and sometimes directing and writing. What inspired you to write Deadly Justice and why tell this story?

I have had other films I’ve written come out, but I couldn’t put my name on them. They used a fantom name. or the director’s name only. Those are some of the things you deal with in industry, because of backend deals.

One of the actors in Deadly Justice, Billy Miller, is an actual lawyer in Biloxi, where we shot. He’s a fantastic trial layer and defense attorney and he enjoys acting on the side. He worked on a TV pilot, Blackwater Blues, and we became very close friends. In discussions with him about cases and what ifs, and because of that relationship, I thought what if one of these powerful judges was corrupted and what kind of story can we wrap around that?

You seem to have made a number of B-Movies. What is the appeal of making a B-movie?

Structuring the story tightly and keeping characters very tight. It’s like a Seinfeld episode. You have main cast and settings, and you need to go back and forth between those settings with the right rhythm and the right storyline, so you feel like you are moving around a lot as a viewer, even though you keep going to not that many places. You don’t [need] all of the ancillary characters most stories include. They are totally unnecessary to make life seem more vivid in the moment. That is fun thing to write. Keeping that element—there is a bit of breathability to the characters and transitioning of the storyline. You see Holly and Dale on a date and what should be a romantic situation includes a red herring. You feel something is amiss, and I hope the whodunnit factor is not too obvious. You can be so confusing with the story or have a huge “Aha!” at the end. It’s a fine line I have to walk as a writer to stick with a genre that is getting distribution.

But I also think B-movies are the opportunity, to create something yourself.

For the most part I’ve been doing that since 2008. Even though most people might not be aware of it. The greater part of my career has been self-achieved by partnering up with people as a ghostwriter, to help facilitate actors, or the production itself. I have starred in sci-fi movies where I have had to rewrite the script because the original version was unreadable.

It’s about how can I get my friends I want to see working. Brian Krause, Jason London, Kelly Sullivan, and Christiana Leucas should be working all the time. David Faustino and I did several films together and were marketed as comedy team. If you want survivability, you cannot think of it in terms of success, fame, and fortune. It’s more: am I willing to pursue dream in the long run by teaching acting in a small town to spark the light in your area and share what you learned with others. That has to be a possibility. You can’t be a one-trick-pony. You can’t just act. You are only an actor when you’re acting. If you are not acting, you need to learn how to write, direct, do hair and makeup, and be a prop master and learn all those things. If you want a career in the industry, you have to have a longterm objective. It’s what else can I do? How else can I deliver?

There is very little violence and no real bloodshed in Deadly Justice. The villain mostly uses a taser to subdue folks. What decisions did you make with the plot, characters, and topics? And is the tone meant to be cynical?

Myself, as a writer, even though I have had to lean in that direction and write for other people, I think it is completely unnecessary to include the gratuitous scenes thinking that’s what the movie needs for viewership or will help it sell. Putting gratuitous sex and violence in there because it says that they need that on page whatever, or the studio or network needs to have it in their for distribution, or we want an R rating, or it will help our sales—all those [decisions] that go on behind the scenes to produce a film. But having the opportunity to have creative control was the great blessing. We’re going to tell a story and we don’t need all that stuff; it’s unnecessary. I was going for suspense mystery whodunnit and character building. How those elements were crafted was fun. Who is the bad guy? Is this a red herring? It’s a battle of wits. Who is right and who is caught in the middle? It’s more of a psychological thriller. The story is boiled down to the barest essentials necessary. I learned in boot camp about how to structure things and how the story needs to unfold to keep the viewer’s attention.

I like how you layered the film from the movie-within-a-movie and the true crime show as a backdrop/character. Can you talk about leaning into the tropes of these kinds of thrillers?

The opening scene was longer. It was supposed to poke fun at the more obvious writing style and shooting style and melodramatic acting of that [true crime reenactment] genre. It puts you in that space for a moment before you pull out. I wish we could have left the bigger, more plot-oriented version.

Are you obsessed with true crime like Dale Jones and his show’s fans?

My wife Sabrina loves the true crime stuff, and we watch a lot of the documentaries. I’m more of a murder mystery fan. That’s where all these true crime shows come from, but I’m old school. They are fun for me to write. Trying to create an original whodunnit is tough. If you want to keep it completely hidden and have fingers pointing in all the different directions and do it right is very tough. Clue was a gem in that respect.

Theo is supportive but possibly sinister, he is likeable but mysterious. How did you approach his character and why did you want to play that role? Brian Krause was great as Dale, especially in the opening scene, but I thought you might have taken that part.

You would think, but I always separate myself from the project I’m working on. When I put producer’s hat on, there is a lot required of me, especially with this small of a production. You’re directly involved in all the locations, plus I was writing it, so I was responsible for rewrites and location changes and wardrobe and budget and everything. It’s pretty all consuming, so I did not want to overexert myself. I don’t reach for the limelight. Taking a back seat to the lead male role felt right. I totally pictured Brian as the character, even in the writing process. It freed me up to do a lot of things I was responsible for.

I was playing Theo to be “that guy.” The coincidences filled in the blanks. Theo knows Holly’s dad; they work together at the golf course. Theo is here and then he’s there. Holly thinks, why do I keep seeing this guy everywhere when all this strange stuff is going on?  I wanted it to be simple and that viewers would react the same way. In these small towns, that’s how it works.

Theo says he has done everything he has set out to do but does have a passion project with his boat. What is your passion project? Are you looking to write more, direct more, take your career to the next level?

I’m working with a group of fellows in the industry in the Gulf Coast of Florida and we are putting together The Urban Liberal Arts Foundations, that will hopefully launch later this year, or early next year. I am already doing some workshops. It is going to be a trade school experience for film and television—the nuts-and-bolts experience from production to delivery. It’s a nonprofit. I want to engage the community and get people learning how to make films and deliver them.

Deadly Justice is available on VOD April 16.