Interview: Tad Sallee & Jason Sikorsky (Going Postal: The Legacy Foretold)
Directors Tad Sallee and Jason Sikorsky have made their feature directorial debut with Going Postal: The Legacy Foretold, a documentary that looks at the infamous ultra-violent Postal series of video games created by Running with Scissors. In addition to covering the games, the doc also looks at the Postal feature film by Uwe Boll, the media’s outrage at the first Postal game, and just how passionate the legions of Postal fans really are.
Tad and Jason both studied Film at the University of Arizona, although their paths didn’t cross at the time. “We were both eventing at a Clinique gig that had nothing to do with film, and we realized we both were film nerds who loved video games. We ended up becoming roommates! Tad owns a wedding videography business, so I did some shooting for him. I was a producer of Canna Cribs, a series on YouTube. Tad was our AD for some of the episodes. We kind of dabbled around each other, but it wasn’t until we conceptualized this movie living together that it we decided to make it a full-on production marriage of best friends, Postal, and everything in between,” Jason recalled.
The original Postal video game, released on Mac and Windows in 1997, let players control the Postal Dude who has a bone to pick with society. The game got a lot of mainstream media coverage because of how the game lets you kill civilians indiscriminately. “The first Postal game is tame compared to games that came out today. I think of the ESRB had rated Postal today, it would be rated T. I can’t imagine it’d be rated M! Times have changed, and we just become a little bit more desensitized to more violent things. That’s something Jason and and I would maybe love to explore for a potential future documentary is how people nowadays are more desensitized to not just games, but movies, music, and television shows,” Tad said.
Jason delved a bit deeper into why Postal might have been thought of as so taboo at the time. “When I go back to play Postal, the sound design is what does it for me; the sound of the real guns, the people dying sounded real… You'd hear people crawling on the ground and begging for their life! The imagery is as real as it could have gotten for the time, but you take away the sound, you could make it sound like very goofy, fun, or silly. If you add in the real creepy sound design and make it as realistic as possible, that’s what made it a game change in my opinion. The sound design is definitely a deal breaker for some people when they start the game, when they hear start hearing the realism along with seeing it.”
The upcoming Blu-ray release of Postal: The Legacy Foretold has some special features, one of which features Running with Scissors CEO Vince Desi who received a surprise package from a fan. “There’s a thing that Vince showed us very early on when we started production. It’s a Postal themed dildo from around when Postal III came out that a fan sent him. It was pretty erotic, and the fan sent pictures of it showing him using it on his girlfriend at the time. We asked Vince what should go into the film. He said, ‘I think this Postal dildo would make a great fit into the film!’ We just couldn’t figure out how to make it work!” Tad revealed.
The back half of the documentary has a nice focus on Postal’s robust fan community. “As I dug deeper, and I started chatting with these fans of the Postal games, it became not just about their reasons for liking Postal, but about how Postal in a way saved their lives or helped them get through some really tough times. There was a lot of fan interviews that we had to cut from the film because of the length. We were at a three-hour time for the first cut, and then we had to cut it down to what it is, which a little over two hours. I think it's my favorite segment of the film because it's kind of a moment where up to this point you see it from the filmmakers’ perspective, how the game is huge and you’re taking our word for it. Suddenly, you see all the fans talking about how the Postal game changed their lives, and then it becomes real!” Tad beamed.
There’s also a lot of hidden references to the Postal games in the documentary, some of which only flash onscreen for a second. “Tad did a really good job of trying to make the Postal fans feel like they're a part of something more with our documentary. It’s not just a movie watching experience! You can pause on frames and find things. There's a lot like newspaper clippings. If you read some of them, maybe you'll catch up on some Postal news!” Jason said.
Going Postal: The Legacy Foretold is currently playing at select film festivals and is coming out soon on digital platforms and Blu-ray.