Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Brandy Rainey aka B Amstel Bio for Viscera Film Festival

In Late 1974 Brandy was found by Texas Ranger Malachi Matson. He found her at a Ranch Camp between Marfa, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico. She was the sole survivor of the Family Reunion Massacre. Brandy for those three days alone, survived on scraps from the picnic table and was befriended by a pack of feral dogs.

Ranger Matson went to the camp when a Border Patrol station reported smoke. He was so shocked at the scene when he arrived that he let his guard down and was nearly killed by the feral dogs, and in the ensuing fight Brandy saw yet another family of hers killed before her eyes, her new now deceased four-legged family. Still clutching her mother’s locket and a tuft of fur from the pack leader, the ranger lifted her with his remaining good arm and carried her to the pickup.

During the nearly two hour ride back to the main road, Brandy sat silently rocking back and forth with the motion of the truck as she braided the fur into the locket Chain then put it on her neck. On and off all the while she was humming the tune, Waiting Around to Die By: Townes Van Zandt.

Having spent time in Austin, the ranger knew the song and found it unsettling and dangerous such a young girl would know such brutal lyrics and wondered what kind of upbringing she must have had to be familiar with those lyrics. That coupled with the bloody horrific sight of the Family Reunion was not a good combination and he knew it would be difficult for anyone to get past, much less a child at such a tender age.

Young Brandy nearly killed Ranger Matson four years later, after overhearing him laughing about how he had found her to a colleague. She fled the small town of Marathon and lived off the desert for the next 9 years. All the while collecting the dark things from that desolate place... …And saving them to be unleashed upon the world; a world that had taken so much from her and replaced it with the hot desert sun, snake venom, and desire for the finer things like peeling the skin from a Ranch hand’s body or roasting a pack mule alive.

Years later, Brandy has managed to find ways to repress her anger and has learned to mingle and blend with society. The emergence of the love for the horror genre has given her an outlet for her darkness and a new audience to appreciate her torment. She is now in Austin, Texas working as a producer/writer/director with numerous projects in various stages of development unleashing her stories to the world one by one. You can find out more about Brandy and her work by visiting Set It Off! Productions.

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