Tum Tum Tree Films: Bios and Links

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Basil Belfry's Bio

picture of Basil Belfry

Basil Belfry

Professional: Oldest Belfry brother Basil started his career in erotic musical theatre, writing and performing in various cabaret shows while travelling across Europe. His first review, “Je Voudrais Avoir une Table pre de la Piste (de Danse)” (“I’d Like a Table Near the Dance Floor”), was a bomb with paying audiences, while critics loved the story of a transvestite waitress who falls in love with all her patrons, but it wasn’t until his fourth review, “Ou dois-je descendre?” (“Where do I get off?”), that finally got people in the seats. The story was of a lonely old man that, through a magical spell, could watch people through the eyes of the portraits that hung in his castle Bed and Breakfast. The sexual content (voyeurism) alone was a selling point, but what stood out to his audiences and critics was the use of suspense and violence (the many murder scenes) and the amount of joyous imagination (eleven dream-sequences in all) that went into it. Long-time family friend and collaborator Ferval Hill wrote the music, while Belfry was in top form both behind the scenes and performing (as in all his plays) as the musical narrator, Madame Charmalique, in Joel Greyesque semi-drag.

Upon moving back to his native Toronto, Canada, he joined up with younger brother Robyn, who had gone to film school and already had a few films under his belt. The two collaborated on a number of scripts, including an English film version of “Where Do I Get Off?” which didn’t see the light of day... rejections stating it was too strange a cross between “A Picture of Dorian Grey,” a “Scooby-doo” cartoon, and x-rated musical “Let My People Cum.”

However, his first collaborations with Robyn on the horror films “The Humidity” (1989), “Dr. Mouth” (1989), “To Kill Again and Again and Again” (1989), “Candy From a Baby” (1989) and “Ring Once For Death, Twice for More Death” (also 1992) helped to place him alongside his brother as a writer and director of the macabre in the eyes of already established Robyn Belfry fans. They followed up with the werewolf/flesh-eating acid picture “Monster in La La Land” (1989), “Hillybilly Deathmatch” (1989), “Flowers for Dracula” (1989), and the Christmas holiday classic “Robot Death Olympics.” (1989)

He and Robyn had a falling out during the summer of 1996, in which he made his first (and only) film without Robyn: the artistic mish-mash “What If Mermaids Could Drown?” The “what if” story dealt with the idea “what if” mermaids could drown. It was a flop.

After he and Robyn were both critically panned for their 1997 sci-fi horror android romance “Flesh Haters” (1996), and scoffed by critics for never having any of their vast library of films ever shown in a North American theatre (in the USA, Canada and Mexico these were only released on video, a few of the later titles even on DVD) they took a hiatus to recollect, rejuvenate their creative juices, and work other jobs that would pay off their debts.

2008 marks their comeback with the release (in 2008) of their new film, and first film in nine years, “The Screamening”, though Basil dreams of one day finally getting the go ahead to finally film his macabre musical “Where Do I Get Off?”

He still lives in Toronto with his body-builder wife Pleasance Kuebler-Belfry.