Martin Cummins goes to Hell In a Handbag (2024)

Martin Cummins is more blunt than most actors.

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The Vancouver actor-director has a resume that includes lead roles opposite Jessica Alba in the series Dark Angel, his own long-running ghost-hunter series Poltergeist: The Legacy, and more recently ABC’s alien-invasion series V.

He’s always worked in indie film – his directing debut We All Fall Down was a little-seen gem in 2000, with Cummins as an eastside artist-druggie alongside a cast that included his friends Ryan Reynolds and Barry Pepper.

And lately Cummins has been drawn back to the indie side, directing and acting again, this time for the comedy horror flick Hell In a Handbag.

“I can’t do something I’m not proud of and don’t feel good about,” Cummins says, taking a break from editing the new movie over a coffee at a Commercial Drive patio. “Have a look at my resume, I’ve done enough of that.”

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He talks about a recent, unsatisfying audition.

“I was in a meeting the other day, I sat down for a while,” he says. “I got up and said, ‘you know what, I’m going home.’

“I don’t care to say a bunch of crap dialogue that I don’t really give a sh*t about for somebody else’s money. If I read it and I can’t spit the dialogue, I don’t care. I’m past the point of wanting to be a movie star.”

His new movie, which he co-wrote, blends his indie sensibilities with some over-the-top elements including exorcists, vampires and zombies, and he’s once again attracted a potent Vancouver cast including Ian Tracey, Brian Markinson, Callum Keith Rennie and Amanda Tapping, alongside newcomers Jarod Joseph and Keenan Tracey.

“It’s not really a movie about vampires and zombies but they happen to be there,” Cummins says. “It’s darkly comedic, we had a good time making it. I think something like that, if you don’t have fun making it then you’re probably doing it wrong.”

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Also starring is another newcomer, Christine Wallace, also Cummin’s fiancée. He acknowledges a long and complicated personal life of more than one past marriage.

“I have four kids, I’ve split my assets multiple times.”

That extended family life is one reason why it’s been more than a decade between this last indie directing project and this one – a guy’s got to make a living. It’s also why he never headed south like his famous friends. His kids, ranging in age from 17 to three, are all here.

Cummins worked on the story for Hell in a Handbag with writing partner Jessica Fairbanks, started seeing the possibilities for some smart genre fun, and the movie came to life when a friend with money approached Cummins about getting into filmmaking.

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“It’s about an exorcist priest and his sidekick, a nun,” Cummins explains.

He’s the priest, Wallace is the young nun, with Tapping as a tough-as-nails mother superior. Ian Tracey is a down-at-the-heels vampire with a gambling addiction, Rennie is a Russian cowboy, and Markinson is a pistol-packing rabbi.

“They’re all friends of mine,” Cummins says, adding that his movie had to work around their busy schedules – Markinson alone was working on the big-screen Godzilla, TV’s Continuum and a western in Alberta while the little indie project filmed.

“Everybody gets an opportunity to play characters they wouldn’t otherwise play. The whole thing is sideways and odd. We created these characters who are bigger than life and preposterous.”

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Also onboard as a producer and stunt co-ordinator is former stuntman Kirk Caouette, who made his own writing-directing debut with the recent busker romance Hit ’n Strum. The two became friends when Caouette was Cummins’ stunt double on Dark Angel.

For the new movie, Caouette orchestrated fight scenes with Capoiera-trained performers playing supernatural adversaries.

Cummins has done the serious, thoughtful Canadian indies and may do one of those again, but this movie harkens back to the kind of Canadian films made by Ivan Reitman and David Cronenberg at the beginning of their careers.

“I’m not a genre picture guy,” Cummins says. “I find often times the acting is sub-par, or the script is. Everything has to come together for it to be fun to watch.”

He’s being businesslike while he has his fun. His financial partners have more money available if this movie works out, so he wants them to make their money back.

“The math makes sense on it . . . international distribution on a genre film. I figure we’ll make another movie by the end of the year,” he says, adding cast and crew got paid got paid, just not as much as they usually would.

“If this thing by some freak of nature makes some money, then I’ll cut cheques to everybody, including the crew.”

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