Brain Domain

AFTER DARK HORRORFEST 1 (2006) Review

2020-10-01T19:08:00.002-05:00

The After Dark Horrorfest is affiliated with Lion’s Gate Films, who owes their complete success to the horror genre and I believe they know this. When they advertised the Horrorfest, I was promised films that were too disturbing and disgusting for regular theatrical viewing. I immediately figured this was a moneymaking ploy for movies that should be released as straight to video fare. I guessed that Lion’s Gate saw a way to add more money to features that they were afraid to back-up with advertising dollars. After all, you were getting “8 Films To Die For” and they only had to run one advertisement.

When the Horrorfest was released theatrically you got two bonus films, SNOOP DOGG’S HOOD OF HORROR and David Arquette’s recently released THE TRIPPER. The film I was extremely excited to see was Nacho Cerda’s THE ABANDONED, simply because I loved the director’s previous work and was anxious to see what he could do with a larger budget. On this home video release the movie company left THE ABANDONED out because it did receive mediocre financial and critical success. Currently, Lion’s Gate is busy milking it for all they can, thus, leaving it in theaters and having it missing from the boxed-set entirely. It does throw a wrench into their “8 Films To Die For” advertising tagline. The cover art for each title is effective and perhaps the most exciting posters for films released last year. The seven films available are ready to buy as a festival boxed-set or separately by title.

UNREST

This film is probably the reason for the advertising statement that the Horrorfest films are too disturbing for regular release. This title was filmed entirely in an actual hospital morgue and features real-life cadavers in supporting roles. To me, this could help or hinder the success of this film. I don’t think I would pump-up the fact that actual dead people soaked in skin-altering formaldehyde were featured in my movie. Once you learn this, it’s hard to get out of your mind. Especially when you see the decaying, pale film that forms over the dead extra’s eyes. However, this was one of the few films in this group that I totally enjoyed and the cast is quite good for a horror feature.

Destitute medical student Alison Blanchard is forced to live right down the hall from the hospital morgue while she awaits clearance for her financial aid. Her first day in class with teacher Dr. Blackwell goes horribly awry. The rest involves respect for the dead, demonic possession, Aztec theology and supernatural suspense that was quite effective. Irish actor Derrick O’Connor is a true highlight as the head of the gross anatomy class. This feature had potential to be shown by itself as a theatrical release and is worth seeing on its own. I’m looking forward to future horror films from director Ipson.

THE GRAVEDANCERS

Great horror film that falls apart at the end. The cast is excellent, the effects and cinematography are top form, but the resolution just goes to hell. Still, until the ending, the movie, as a horror feature, is quite disturbing and has some true style to it. Looking forward to this director’s future also.

Three friends from college attend a former alumni’s funeral. After the service, they head to a bar for a night of drinking and decide to visit their friend at the graveyard one last time While there, one of the trio finds a card at the base of a headstone that has a strange poem written on it. They sing the poem aloud while dancing upon a few grave plots. The poem is actually a curse that allows the dead to haunt whoever desecrates their graves.

The grave sites happen to be where that state’s government buries their undesirable derelicts and criminals, including, a psycho woman who axe-murdered her many husbands, a child pyromaniac, and a sexual degenerate. The disrespect shown to them is dished back in a terrifying showdown between good and evil. This was quite enjoyable, except for the last ten minutes. Istanbul-born actor, Tcheky Karyo, steals the whole film as a paranormal scientist.

WICKED LITTLE THINGS

An eerie spin on the zombie/ghost story. I was slightly reminded of John Carpenter’s THE FOG and, of course, the zombie films of George A. Romero. Plus, I was told that Tobe Hooper was originally attached to this feature, which could have gone either way with him directing. However, I like Mr. Hooper and would love to have seen his take on this title.

Karen Tunny moves her two young daughters to a home she inherited from her recently deceased husband. It’s located in a tiny town in Pennsylvania. The facts she doesn’t know is that back in 1913 a mining accident happened where twenty children (or more) were buried alive due to the uncaring mining foreman and various adults. It was a tragedy that could have been avoided had anybody cared. Now, at night, the dead children emerge to seek revenge on any poor bastard they wonder upon.

This film conveyed a genuine creepy feeling and Ben Cross was excellent as a local who knows exactly what he’s dealing with when it comes to the zombie children. He looks like a degenerate out of the film DELIVERANCE, but at least acts like one capable of having earned a GED.

DARK RIDE

This was a horrible waste of time. This would be the slasher film contribution to the Horrorfest. It was a rip-off of Bob Clark’s BLACK CHRISTMAS and Tobe Hooper’s FUNHOUSE, but that had nothing to do with why I hated it. The actors were deplorable and the characters they portrayed were even worse. The ending will make you want to destroy something. I’m looking forward to this director’s family talking him into taking up dental school.

Five college friends and a female hitchhiker go to an abandoned “Dark Ride” carnival attraction located at Asbury Park in New Jersey. A decade earlier two young girls were murdered there. The psycho that committed the killings escapes the looney bin and returns to his old stomping ground. Every single actor in this film is mind-numbingly annoying, but then again, their characters are written horribly. The writers give the murderer a name like Joshua and give him a semi-effective mask, but he’s NO Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. The surprise twist at the end is insulting. Terrible.

PENNY DREADFUL

This film had some terrific horror scenes and I loved the possibilities of the premise. It started up with an entertaining opening title sequence that wasn’t topped last year for a horror film. It falls apart right at the half-way point in running time. Great effort, but it doesn’t deliver.

Penny’s parents died in a violent car wreck. She remembers it. She’s developed a phobia of riding in automobiles ever since. Mimi Rogers portrays the shrink who is going to help Penny get over her terrifying anxiety. She takes Penny on a cross-country drive to a cabin in the mountains to get her used to the automobile experience. On the way, the psychologist accidentally slams a hitchhiker, and this guy is unique to say the least. Turns out he is a sadistic serial killer who takes pleasure in mentally torturing his potential victims. The whole movie practically takes place in an automobile. The filmmakers used horror icon Michael Berryman in a uniquely effective way. Great independent attempt, but has many flaws.

THE HAMILTONS

This was a disturbing film that is constantly compared to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The resemblance is more from the director’s use of the camera than the actual plot. This film has also been criticized for its surprise ending, which I enjoyed. The twist at the end solidified the actions of the characters for me. I was hating this movie entirely until the revealing conclusion. The film is cheaply shot, uses very little gore and has quick editing that contributed to the creepiness of it all. THE HAMILTONS is quite awful and you’ll either love or hate the ending.

The Hamilton siblings reside in a tiny suburban community located in California. They are trying to contend with the unexpected death of their parents while doing their best to seem like an everyday all-American family. The four Hamilton children are far from normal. The oldest, David, is attempting to step up and be the parental figure to the rest of his family. At night he picks up homosexuals to kill and bury in his basement. The sadistic Wendell enjoys kidnapping young girls and keeping them hostage for days at a time. Wendell has a twin sister and the twins enjoy sexual encounters with each other. The youngest brother, Francis, is doing his best to distance himself from his brothers and sister. He does everything he can to avoid Wendell’s wrath while contemplating turning his family into the social worker who visits once a week.

REINCARNATION

The last in a trilogy by Japanese filmmaker Shimizu. I’m not big on horror from Japan, so I was destined to dislike this title. It’s a supernatural thriller that had some frightening imagery throughout. Shimizu is responsible for the Americanized version of his Japanese films THE GRUDGE and its sequel, perhaps two of the worst horror films I’ve ever seen. He is capable of keeping my interest with his off-the-wall and eerie visuals. If it’s a Japanese horror film by anyone other than shock expert Takashi Miike, I’m not interested.

A horror director takes his cast and crew to a hotel where a mass murder took place. He intends to make a film about the grisly tragedy. The lead actress is haunted by visions of the murders and the rest of the cast is being killed in the same manner as the original catastrophe. Comparisons to THE SHINING are slightly warranted. Stylish film, but not recommended.

This article was originally published for Films In Review in 2007. Here's the link where the review remains to this day:

Films In Review - AFTER DARK HORRORFEST 2006 review

-All text is owned by MT Media.

-All images were taken from Google Images.If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

I SELL THE DEAD (2008) Film Review

2020-08-24T18:52:00.002-05:00

I SELL THE DEAD (2008) Film Review

FATHER DUFFY: “A corpse, is a corpse, is a corpse.”

ARTHUR: “Father, if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that you never, ever trust a corpse.”

Never has a truer declaration been uttered by one of the many characters that inhabit the squalid setting of I SELL THE DEAD. Every backdrop the action and dialogue revolve around seem to be muck covered graveyards or desolate pubs that serve ale in sullied steins. More to the point, the dead don’t stay so dead in this amusing tribute to the classic films of Britain’s Hammer Studios.

I SELL THE DEAD is Dublin-born director Glenn McQuaid’s debut full-length feature, which was based off his thirteen minute short film THE RESURRECTION APPRENTICE shot in 2005. It encompassed a similar premise together with much of the actors used in I SELL THE DEAD, including filmmaker Larry Fessenden who reprises his valuable role of Willie Grimes. Glenn McQuaid got his hands dirty in the world of film by creating CGI effects for movies like THE ROOST and Fessenden’s THE LAST WINTER. A long time friendship between Fessenden and McQuaid has been growing ever since. The two had known about the I SELL THE DEAD story for several years before they both could commit to it and bring it to life for the public. The movie has also turned out to be production companies Glass Eye Pix and Scareflix’s costliest film to date and the money was put beyond well use. The production values are astounding. The combined talents of the director, cast, art and wardrobe departments all deserve recognition and will leave a lasting impression on any viewer of this DVD; horror fan or not. Director McQuaid is a true talent to keep a lookout for and I’m impatiently waiting for his next project to hit the streets. Not only are there elements of horror, gore and explorations of the supernatural, there are infinite scenes of genuine humor that will truly having you chuckling. I also enjoyed the quick frame inserts of artwork reminiscent of the classic EC comics.

Larry Fessenden’s directorial efforts always produce great looking films, but the resolution to his movies have always let me down, excluding the brilliant SKIN AND BONES he provided for the NBC television show FEAR ITSELF. Having said that, the guy can act. He’s superb in front of the camera with his portrayal of Willie and I look forward to catching him in more leading roles and less supporting or uncredited cameos. His performance alone is a major reason to purchase the DVD, along with the production crew’s efforts. I can see potential for the character of Willie becoming a fan-favorite for the horror genre. His dim-witted and sleazy demeanor plays off nicely against Monaghan’s slightly straighter character. Within the world McQuaid has created, the situations Arthur and Willie could find themselves getting in and out of are virtually endless. Thus, I recognize a possibility for a successful film franchise.

I SELL THE DEAD is a daring and rare type of film. It’s a period piece. It’s a horror film. It’s a buddy film. It’s a scathing laugh-out-loud comedy about people who steal corpses.

When we first meet unhygienic alcoholic Willie Grimes he is on the verge of being beheaded via the Guillotine. Arthur Blake, Willie’s partner and best friend, is incarcerated in a dungeon and unleashes lengthy confessions of his grave robbing crimes to Father Duffy. Arthur and Willie had been providing corpses to the unscrupulous Biologist, Dr. Vernon Quint. When digging up a corpse for Quint they discover the body is wearing a necklace made of garlic, along with a wooden stake through its heart. When they remove both items they astonishingly discover it’s a vampire. They deliver the vampire’s corpse to Quint and when he removes the stake in its heart it kills him. Willie and Arthur are now free from Dr. Quint’s extortion attempts to get them to rob graves, but they decide to continue digging up the undead because the money is good. This leads to a conflict with The House Of Murphy Gang who have cornered the undead market for years. Their leader, Cornelius Murphy, snorts ground-up human skeletons and once strangled and devoured his pet rabbit just to spite his father. Word gets to all characters involved that there are three undeads stranded on an island not far away. The price on their heads is astronomical, and a violent quest begins to claim the bounty.

The true winning aspect of this feature is Glenn McQuaid’s seemingly flawless script. His ability to combine comedy with horror without letting either of the two genres overtake his story made the film fun from the first to the last frame. My favorite characteristic of the movie is the friendship between Willie and Arthur. These two truly do deserve each other and their banter is some of the wittiest I’ve heard in a horror film in years. It must be noted that this movie was mostly shot between New York’s Staten and Long Islands, yet had a remarkably believable 18th century setting. When considering this, along with the final budget McQuaid, Fessenden and Phok had to work with, I feel it speaks volumes for the talent involved. They have managed to make a modern day metropolis full of known landscapes and landmarks practically unrecognizable.

As of writing this, Scareflix Productions is planning a sequel for 2011. Myself, I’m impatiently counting down the days until I can see what McQuaid has planned for furthering the adventures of the two grave-robbing leads.

This article was originally published for Films In Review in 2010. Here's the link where the review remains to this day:

Films In Review - I SELL THE DEAD review

-All text is owned by MT Media.
-All images were taken from Google Images.If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

Adam Rockoff Talks Slasher Films

2020-08-15T14:48:00.006-05:00

In the eighties, the horror film took on a whole new level of animosity due entirely to an assortment of successful movies that were classified in a relatively new category. Parents and critics alike almost harmoniously detested a sub-genre of horror movies… the slasher film. Even the production companies that were financing these pictures often abandoned them after tallying their final box office receipts.

I like the slasher film. I understood it for what it was and I often found it futile for journalists to critique such a film. They just didn’t seem to get it. Not to say there weren’t some terrible stalker movies out there. They eventually got predictable and many of the main characters were underdeveloped with the antagonist often taking on more depth and popularity. Even during these times I never relinquished my fondness for the slasher film.

The slasher film returned thanks entirely to the man known as Wes Craven when he released the critically and financially successful SCREAM. The genre reached a whole new generation of horror seekers and seemed to put life back into a tired and forgotten concept.

In September of 2002, a co-worker slid the film reference book GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM across my desk as a gift. The author was Adam Rockoff and it was my first experience with his work. The book was good and it was one of the rare times that the slasher film was given its due by an author who appreciated and understood the genre. Four years later, GOING TO PIECES was made into a two-hour documentary for the Starz cable channel and was released on home video by ThinkFilm. It featured interviews with Wes Craven, Tony Timpone, Stan Winston, Tom Savini, and several other people involved with the genre—both behind and in front of the cameras. It was a perfect companion to the book Rockoff had written.

A New Yorker, who proudly calls Chicago his hometown, Rockoff recently secured a screenwriting deal with production company Fever Dreams. The first of these titles, WICKED LAKE, just had its world premiere at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. Adam is also a frequent guest on radio and television programs to discuss all things horror, including Bravo’s highly rated special, THE 100 SCARIEST MOVIE MOMENTS. He has also written for numerous horror periodicals and had a long-running column in VideoScope magazine.

As always, he is working on a variety of new horror projects, from scripts to documentaries. In the middle of July, I finally ran Adam Rockoff down and got him to discuss stalker films, the upcoming horror pictures he is involved with and I wanted to find out what has happened to his writing career since the release GOING TO PIECES.

Bryan Layne: I enjoyed your book GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM. Why explore the slasher film to the extent you did for the novel?

Adam Rockoff: Thank you. I certainly appreciate that. I wanted to explore the slasher film because a) These were the films that I grew up on, and b) It seemed that this was the one sub-genre of horror films that, to steal an over-used Rodney Dangerfield quote, “didn’t get no respect.”

BL: What makes a movie a slasher film?

AR: I guess I could spout out some academic BS, but really, I think that as long as you have a killer who murders people with sharp objects, and a few thematic and/or stylistic conventions that have become staples of the genre– the final girl or the killer’s POV, etc.– you’ve got yourself a slasher film.

BL: You wrote in your book of mainstream critics ripping the slasher film apart. Did any of these films receive favorable reviews at all or were they universally detested?

AR: I’m sure there were some exceptions, but overall they were universally detested. Roger Ebert, for example, was a big fan of HALLOWEEN and wrote a fairly complementary piece on LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. And of course, there were the underground fanzines, but their bag was usually zombies and European gore films. Slasher films really were thought of as one step above, and in some cases below, pornography.

BL: With the horribly sarcastic ways the critics describe slasher films in the documentary, was your book and the film met with the same scathing manner?

AR: Not at all and I guess I’m lucky in that if someone actually buys a book titled, GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM, they’re probably already a fan of the genre. Most of the reviews of my book were surprisingly, and somewhat undeservingly, effusive in their praise. There was one critic, however, who wrote, “There’s only one problem with GOING TO PIECES—the author.” For some reason, critics were tougher on the documentary. Although I always tell people that the film is actually better than my book. After all, these films were to be viewed, not read about.

BL: Without offending anyone who was kind enough to allow you to interview them for your book, which was your favorite personality?

AR: They were all great, but Armand Mastroianni and Joe Zito were probably my favorites. They had some really wonderful stories. Armand, for example, was on the set of THE GODFATHER when Coppola shot the wedding scene, and also spoke with Scorsese about HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE. It was a thrill for me to speak with John Carpenter and a lot of the other guys I’ve always admired, but it was almost more fun to talk with some of the more obscure people. Carpenter was great, but he probably gets tired of talking about how the idea for HALLOWEEN came together. He’s told that story a million times.

Guys like Herb Freed, who did GRADUATION DAY, and Fred Walton, who did WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and APRIL FOOL’S DAY—these are guys who weren’t very accustomed to receiving a lot of publicity, certainly not twenty years later. You have to remember, when they were making these movies, it wasn’t like you and I looking back at the whole genre or the whole slasher movement. These guys were just thinking about making a quick buck and then moving on to bigger and better things. So, that was actually a lot of fun for me to speak with some of the lesser-known filmmakers.

BL: Did you find the fact that the director of GRADUATION DAY, Herb Freed, became a rabbi all these years later a little surprising?

AR: Yes, I did find it surprising. I guess any type of religious man involved with a film that has naked teenagers getting killed is surprising because those types of people are generally considered straight arrows. I have to stress that Herb was a very, very interesting guy and he was willing to speak with me extensively about GRADUATION DAY. I think Herb’s wife was a relatively famous performer on the stages of theater and I believe she passed away at a young age. It was a sad story from what I can recall. He was, like most of the other guys I spoke with, quite a character.

BL: How’s the McFarland Publishing experience for you? They treat you well over there?

AR: I don’t really have much contact with McFarland anymore, other than that I buy a lot of their books for my own enjoyment. But I’ll certainly always be grateful to them for publishing GOING TO PIECES.

BL: Where can people purchase your book?

AR: Either directly from McFarland, www.mcfarlandpub.com, or on Amazon. You can also order it through any major bookstore.

BL: Why gravitate towards the horror genre?

AR: Horror films have always appealed to me, even when I was far too young to watch them. The names alone were alluring. Although I could barely read, I used to scan the cable guide and try to imagine the horrors that lurked behind titles like MY BLOODY VALENTINE and TERROR TRAIN. Somewhere in my parents’ house, there’s an essay that I wrote in 2nd grade in which, instructed to write about what I liked to do in my spare time, I proceeded to list about 50 horror films that I said I had seen.

I wasn’t, however, a brave kid. I was terrified of the children’s book Babar, as well as the Disney film THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. But like many other kids, I discovered that there was something enjoyable about being scared. And horror films were a very safe way to experience, and come to terms with, my myriad fears.

BL: What are a few of your all-time favorite films in the horror genre?

AR: Probably the same ones as 99% of horror fans out there: JAWS, HALLOWEEN, THE EXORCIST, PSYCHO, POLTERGEIST, THE WICKER MAN, and ROSEMARY’S BABY. But I’ll give you a few unsung ones that I really love. And believe me, I’m well aware that some of them aren’t exactly considered classics. I, MADMAN, THE TENANT, NIGHTMARE (the Hammer film, not the Scavolini one, although I do like that as well), THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, WHITE NOISE (I’m serious; I loved it), KOLOBOS, CURTAINS and, most recently, INSIDE.

BL: If you were going to introduce someone to the slasher genre, which three titles would you choose?

AR: Without a doubt, the big three—HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET—because they’re among the best and most representative of the genre. But not counting these, three others that are excellent examples of the traditional slasher film would be MY BLOODY VALENTINE, THE BURNING, and THE PROWLER.

BL: Which were the worst of the slasher genre?

AR: I would say it’s a toss-up between DON’T GO IN THE WOODS, NEW YEAR’S EVIL, and HOME SWEET HOME. But of course, they’re so mind-numbingly bad they’re almost good.

BL: The slasher film isn’t completely dead now, is it?

AR: Oh, no. Far from it. ROB ZOMBIE’S HALLOWEEN just came out and, despite what you may think of it, it was a bonafide blockbuster. FRIDAY THE 13TH and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET are both about to be remade—and I’d venture an educated guess they won’t stop at one installment. Dimension Extreme is also putting out some great slashers, many of them foreign. And while once “slasher’ was a dirty word, even in the genre, a lot of young and really talented directors are embracing this form. In fact, I’d say that the slasher genre is healthier than it’s been since the golden years of ‘80-83.

BL: Which new filmmaker is one to look out for in the horror genre?

AR: Oh, God. There are just so many talented directors out there. It really pisses me off when people pine for the “glory days” of the horror film. With all due respect to the giants of our genre like Romero, Carpenter, Craven, and Hooper, there are a bunch of young directors who are just as talented. You have the big guns like Rob Zombie and Eli Roth. James Wan who directed SAW and DEAD SILENCE. There are Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury who co-directed INSIDE, which I adore. It’s probably the best horror film I’ve seen in the past five years. I challenge anyone to find me someone who’s made a more accomplished and disturbing debut feature.

I’ve always thought Jamie Blanks, the Australian director of URBAN LEGEND and VALENTINE, never got the critical respect he deserves. He just finished LONG WEEKEND, a remake of a great nature-run-amok film from the ’70s, so hopefully, this will change. Jeremy Kasten, who’s done some great low-budget films like, THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS, THE THIRST, and ALL SOUL’S DAY and just finished Dimension’s WIZARD OF GORE remake, is a director whose work I really admire.

BL: I realize Hollywood is simply a big business, but how do you feel about the eighties slasher titles being remade?

AR: Like most horror fans, I’m ambivalent. On one hand, I don’t understand the urge to remake a perfect, or at least perfectly good, film. But on the other, I would have killed to write the remakes of FRIDAY THE 13TH and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. But as good, or as awful, as a remake may be, I don’t really think it has an effect on the original. I mean, is THE HAUNTING any less brilliant because of Jan de Bont’s remake?

BL: How do you feel about violence in the cinema?

AR: I’m probably biased since I’ve made a living exploiting violence in one way or another—whether writing about it or using it in my original scripts. I don’t think that violence in entertainment causes violence in real life if that’s what you mean. However, as the father of two young kids, I can tell you that I’m a big believer in age-appropriate entertainment. I can assure you, we don’t proudly display GOING TO PIECES on our mantle (but we also don’t have a mantle!)

BL: Would you consider films such as TAXI DRIVER, DELIVERANCE, or 8MM, for example, horror films? I remember feeling completely drained and experiencing emotions similar to some horror films the first time I viewed those films, as well as others.

AR: I would not consider them horror films. But that’s just my opinion, and it’s certainly no more valid than anyone else’s. However, I’ll concede that they’re exceptionally disturbing films. In fact, the movies that have upset me the most, the ones that really hit me right in the gut and knocked the wind out of me, weren’t what you would call horror films. For example, SALO OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM and more recently, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR.

BL: Has there been a violent image in a horror film that disturbed you enough that you may have felt the filmmaker went too far?

AR: As long as it’s in a fictional context, I don’t think you can go too far. And as I said before, there are numerous images in SALO that I find far more disturbing than those in the hardest horror films. But if I had to choose some horror scenes that pushed me to the limit of what I could take, there’s the staircase Caesarian section from INSIDE, the eyeball puncture in FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD (one of the GUINEA PIG films), and the scene in DAGON when the guy literally has his face pulled off over his head.

BL: Do violence and humor mix well in your opinion?

AR: I’m probably in the minority of horror fans here, but I’m not at all a fan of mixing humor and horror. I like my horror straight up. I never “got” films like AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING, and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, although I fully recognize that they’re among the most beloved films in the genre. APRIL FOOL’S DAY, however, is one of my all-time favorite horror movies—but that doesn’t really have much comedy until the final “twist.” I do have a soft spot for Peter Jackson’s DEAD ALIVE. It’s just so totally deranged.

BL: What are a few of your favorite films not in the horror genre?

AR: Oh, man, I could go on forever. I’m not really going out on a limb with a lot of these. THE GODFATHER, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, BIG WEDNESDAY, MEATBALLS, SCARFACE, THE GRADUATE, CASABLANCA, BUGSY, CINEMA PARADISO, MANHATTAN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

BL: While authoring GOING TO PIECES was there already a deal in the works for the made for the cable documentary?

AR: Nope. One of the film’s producers, Rudy Scalese, as big a slasher fan as you’ll ever find, optioned the book a couple of years after it was published. I actually had very little to do with the GOING TO PIECES documentary. I consulted with them a bit and I helped with putting them in touch with stars, but the film was done—for better or for worse—all by the production company.

I actually, and this is not false modesty, tell people all of the time that I feel the documentary is better than the book. I always joke around that I can state this without sounding like an asshole because I had nothing to do with the film—I can praise it all I want without sounding cocky. I saw the finished film just like you and everybody else when it came out. I’ve got to say that I was really happy with it, looking at it objectively; I thought they did a great job.

BL: The musical score for GOING TO PIECES was very well done and memorable. How cool was it to secure Harry Manfredini for the soundtrack?

AR: So cool. Of course, that was all Rudy Scalese’s doing. Most fans know Harry who, incidentally, is a very funny guy, from his classic scores for FRIDAY THE 13TH and SWAMP THING. However, I’m a huge fan of some of his lesser-known work on films like SLAUGHTER HIGH, its real unsettling stuff.

BL: What can you tell me about the script you wrote for the film WICKED LAKE?

AR: Only that it’s the greatest American film since CITIZEN KANE, or at the very least, since THE GODFATHER. Aside from that, it really was just a fabulous experience. I met and worked with a lot of extremely talented people who I know are going to do some great work in the future.

I guess it all started with John Quinn, the director of CHEERLEADER CAMP. I wrote the liner notes for the Anchor Bay DVD release of that title and while I was interviewing him, the subject of a CHEERLEADER CAMP sequel was mentioned. He sent me the script that was written and it went back and forth between us with ideas attached. I told him that from previous work I had done in the past, I knew a lot of these small distribution companies that wanted to get into original productions. Fever Dreams was one of those companies.

They showed some interest in doing the sequel, but ultimately they asked if I had anything else written that they could shoot really cheap. I told them about my script called WICKED LAKE, which I had already written.

I wrote WICKED LAKE in response to all of these films like SAW and HOSTEL that were coming out pretty regularly. The critics were calling them the most depraved things imaginable, or they would state that nothing could possibly be more hardcore than those kinds of horror films.

I was discussing it with my friend, Chris McKay, and it was kind of a joke to us because we were familiar with movies like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and the GUINEA PIG films; stuff that was much more extreme. I told Chris to let me write this script that is so ridiculously over-the-top, so offensive, so filled with blood and sex, that no one will believe it. At the same time, I wanted to make it very inexpensive to shoot.

The idea I had was similar to what Sean S. Cunningham and Wes Craven did with LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, just try to do something shocking and get it out there for the hell of it. So, low and behold, I sent the finished script over to Fever Dreams and they loved it. The producer there, John Carchietta, was one of the first ones to read it and something about it appealed to him. He purchased it right away and got it made.

BL: Is it available in theaters at the moment?

AR: It had its premiere in Los Angeles, which I went out to see, and then it’s going to be playing at some festivals. It will actually be playing in some theaters in July and if it does well, they’ll do a limited release in various major cities. Then, of course, it will be released on DVD.

BL: What are some new things you’re working on that your fans can look out for?

AR: Well, Fever Dreams commissioned me to write the sequel to their first original production, FLESH FOR THE BEAST. They also bought another screenplay of mine, TALES FOR SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, which is an anthology in the vein of CREEPSHOW. I’m also in the early stages of a project best described as an X-FILES for kids. Then I have a bunch of other horror scripts in various stages of development, including an old-fashioned slasher and one about a cult in a small town.

-All text is owned by MT Media.
-All images were taken from Google Images.If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

Media Interview: Getting DEEP RED with Chas. Balun

2020-07-09T15:37:00.003-05:00

In 2007, I was contacted by author and filmmaker Greg Lamberson about contributing to a new horror publication called FEAR ZONE. Lamberson and I briefly discussed five people that I was interested in interviewing that brought something unique to the genre of horror. The first name out of my mouth was Chas. Balun-- the guy was a journalistic legend in the eighties and his whole existence was shrouded in rumors and mystery. He started DEEP RED magazine, a publication that was responsible for turning me on to countless Italian exploitation films and numerous gore fests. He told it like it was in his articles and never held back, exercising his profound talent for profanity and sarcasm.

In the mid-eighties, his name appeared in the local magazine published in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. The bizarre article featured Charlie Sheen, the F.B.I., the MPAA, a snuff film, and a short movie called GUINEA PIG. There was never any resolution or follow-up and the rumors of Chas. Balun seemed to escalate. Was he directing snuff films? Was he responsible for distributing actual murder on videocassette? Was he to blame for Charlie Sheen's affinity for hookers, booze, and cocaine? Nobody seemed to know and twenty years later that part of Balun's life continued on as an urban legend, so to say.

I became quite friendly with Chas. in his final years. When this interview was conducted, I knew cancer had become the one big challenge in his life. We continued correspondence through emails. I still remember making his day by having my editor over at FILMS IN REVIEW, Roy Frumkes, send Balun a signed copy of STREET TRASH. That was a good day. Sadly, after battling oral cancer with tenacity-- Chas Balun passed away on December 18, 2009. He was 61 years old. He is continually missed. The world lost one of the true pioneers of published horror film journalism that day. Balun's work continues to live on through his art and published books. Here is a horror icon all fans of the genre should familiarize themselves with.

Bryan Layne: When did you realize that movies were going to be a big part of your life?

Chas Balun: Well, that's easy enough. Probably when I went to see a double-bill at the Anaheim Drive-In, as a kid, of JAILHOUSE ROCK and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH. So, there was a great introduction to both rock-and-roll and monster movies, which were true passions of mine, forever. I saw the magic of both of those mediums and they've sustained for decades and decades and decades. I still hold their appeal. I wish monster movies were better, but there's always great rock-and-roll to plow back into and it's hard to be disappointed by that. It's easier to be disappointed by the lack of progress in crap-ass monster and horror movies, but rock music seems to survive pretty well.

BL: I just watched 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH last week.

CB: Yeah, they just had the fiftieth anniversary for that one and I saw it when it first came out. I must have been about nine years old. What a killer combo of that and Elvis Presley. Being a young Catholic boy, JAILHOUSE ROCK was the first objectionable movie I ever saw. The Catholic Region of Decency was raiding it because Elvis played a killer, went to prison, and eventually got famous. You're not supposed to profit or gain any manner of fame or acceptance through a heinous act like murder. So, the fact that he rose above his convict status and became a rockstar was objectionable for all. That was my introduction to rock-and-roll, monster movies, and sin all at the same time.

BL: Where were you raised?

CB: I was born in Compton, home of N.W.A. and all the other hardcore rap groups. I was raised in southern California. You know, Huntington Beach. I moved to Anaheim before Disneyland was built, so that's where my roots are.

BL: When you started DEEP RED magazine, was that before FANGORIA came out or just before Anthony Timpone took over that publication?

CB: No, FANGORIA has been around forever, man. They've been around since before DAWN OF THE DEAD, which was 1978 or '79. I think the first issue of DEEP RED was probably July of 1986. DEEP RED was more in response to FANGORIA, as much as some of the other horror magazines. I didn't think they were covering the scene in a way that fans could respond to on a local grassroots sense. They were missing out on a lot of titles that fans knew about. We were based in Hollywood because one of my friends that helped co-found DEEP RED worked at Hollywood Book and Poster, so we had cool connections. You know with Hollywood if we could tap into that, why not? That's where they were making the movies. They weren't making them back in New York where FANGORIA was, they were making them out here. That's where all the directors and F/X artists and all that was.

We thought we could plug a few holes in the market and have a magazine that had some fucking attitude; that had a point-of-view. We were a magazine that wasn't just a bunch of press releases telling you how great HALLOWEEN "9" was going to be. We were opinionated all the way down the line. That's how I responded to things. I was a big fan of Rick Sullivan's GORE GAZETTE back in the old days. There was Craig Ledbetter's HI-TECH TERRORS, little fanzine stuff. I remember subscribing to both of those fanzines. I loved their attitude, their irreverent attitude about things, and how much they loved those particular films. Their attitude came shining through and I liked that a lot. I thought that was one of the fun points for reading their stuff, not only about information regarding the movies but their attitude about it.

BL: I'm guessing you got the magazine's title from the Dario Argento classic of the same name?

CB: That's a very good guess, but also like red alert. Red always seems to be associated with horror from the blood and it's just a good title. I mean, let's face it, it's a great title for a horror magazine and a horror film. That was back in the days when not everybody was familiar with Dario Argento. So, it wasn't naming it something obvious like E.T.- THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL or INDIANA JONES or something extremely common. It was more of a cult thing. It identified us as a cult item. It was based on Italian horror films and not everybody was familiar with those. If they were familiar with Argento, they're more familiar with SUSPIRIA than DEEP RED.

BL: You started the magazine with Chris Amouroux?

CB: She was really only involved with the first issue, that I can recall. It was mostly my thing after that. We both chipped in an equal amount of money to have the first issue printed. She was the one who worked at Hollywood Book and Poster. She got Joe Dante to write an article for our first issue because they were right on Hollywood Boulevard and all the directors and people were always stopping into the shop. So, that was an ideal connection for us. We were always hooking up with people there. She was mostly involved with the first issue and then I kind of did it on my own.

BL: How did the skull rating system and the gore score come about in DEEP RED?

CB: A lot of that was in answer to John McCarty's book VIDEO SCREAMS. Fantaco put that one out, the same people who eventually published a bunch of my stuff. He used, I think, screaming faces as a rating system. I thought that he was just way off on a whole lot of movies. He just didn't seem to get it. You had Leonard Maltin and all these other people talking about horror movies and they never really got what horror films were all about. I thought their ratings were really unfair. They had to take in a certain consideration about genre films. They seemed to give them a bomb or a half a star. I felt that the rating for horror films is where we were supplying part of the information.

A fan wants to know how wet, gory, and messy it is too. They want to know if it's just all talk and no-show. So, I thought they were being helpful, these ratings. You could find out a movie was a psychological horror film that gets three skulls, but a zero or a one on the gore score. You could find some Italian cannibal zombie movie that gets one and a half skulls, but it gets a ten on the gore score. It arms you with a little more information about what you're getting into. So, if you are renting a one-skull movie and it's a ten on the gore score, at least you know it's going to have something in it and it's not going to be a total dog. It's going to be a kind of dog with a lot of blood and gore in it, so that's saying something. I thought that was just an essential bit of information to help horror fans make a good decision about what they were watching.

BL: What film do you seem to watch over and over on your own time?

CB: Well, the one I seem to watch over and over is RING OF BRIGHT WATER, but that doesn't fit into many genres that people who take horror films seriously can relate to, but that's one of my favorites of all time. I've got the collectible Dell comic book from 1968 about it, the press book and all the collectible DVDs and videos; all kinds of stuff on that movie.

BL: What about genre film?

CB: I guess my favorite genre movie would have to be MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, the original one, with Terry Moore and the Ray Harryhausen effects. I've probably watched that one just dozens and dozens of times. They used to show those kinds of films out here on Million Dollar Movie, where there were only four or five stations out here in the 1950s and 1960s. They showed it every night at 7:30 and then two or three times on weekends. I would watch that one every time. When it gets to the part where the orphans get saved and they play "Beautiful Dreamer" at the end and he's waving, I mean, that's great stuff. There were going to be moist eyes every time. Guaranteed.

BL: How about a regular movie?

CB: THE WILD BUNCH. I'm a big Sam Peckinpah fan. I've seen that one so many times in revival houses and watched all the documentaries about it. The revival of the director's cut was so cool because you were in an audience with fellow aficionados. Peckinpah always placed his name in a really cool spot for his director's credit. When William Holden turns to that guy, while they're doing the bank robbery, and says, "If they move, kill 'em," the whole place just goes nuts. They were yelling and clapping and I just had to say, "Wow, I'm in the right audience."

BL: What happened between you, the F.B.I., and one of the GUINEA PIG films?

CB: A whole lot of that is just an apocryphal story. No one really knows the total source of it, except for me, I guess since I'm the horse's mouth.

BL: That whole thing actually made you more famous didn't it?

CB: ...or infamous, I guess. I never squelched any of the rumors. I just kind of let it play out.

BL: Was it DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT or FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD?

CB: It was GUINEA PIG 2: FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD. From my point of view, on a request from one of my DEEP RED staffers, who shall remain unnamed to avoid embarrassment, he was throwing a birthday party and he wanted me to put together the most disturbing, grotesque, and gory tape I could think of. He wanted to show the video to all the guests he was having over for this party. I went through my things and collectively put the usual stuff together, like the trailers for DR. BUTCHER, M.D., you know, a little of this and a little of that.

Somebody had sent me a couple of episodes from the GUINEA PIG series. I tacked on the FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD. I pulled out some video font that someone else had used on some other interview I had done and in type, on the screen, it said, "Anything worth doing... is worth overdoing," that was the quote and it had my name underneath it. That's how I formatted the GUINEA PIG stuff. So, my name was on the video and he showed it to his friends. It was a big hit at the party.

During this time, he was trying to write for some other magazines, I think FILM THREAT was one of them. I think he must have shown the video to Chris Gore at FILM THREAT and somehow it ended up getting into actor Charlie Sheen's hands. I imagine Charlie was all drunk and coked-out one night and he decided to watch the video, I suppose, without any context to what the video truly was. I would have to guess, to view it like that; it would be kind of alarming, given the subject matter. I think Charlie must have known somebody in the F.B.I., or whatever the fuck it was, and they thought it was a genuine snuff film.

It just kind of had me laughing at the ridiculous nature of the whole thing because one of the other GUINEA PIG episodes I had was the making of FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD. I always kept the making of episode separate from the actual movie. I had the attitude over GUINEA PIG 2 that if I heard any arguments about this movie, these fuck-wads who could possibly come up to me and say, "Oh yeah, I saw that, it's a snuff movie and she's really dead." I figured I would just put the making of tape in and not even have to say anything, just look at them like the idiots that they are, you know. Watch the actresses audition for the role because they wanted to do this. Watch the outtakes where they have bubbles in the blood tubing. Watch where they are cutting off the girl's hand and have to say "Cut" and then the actress gets up and she's laughing.

One day I came back to my house, it was on my birthday. I came in from having a good 'ole time. There was a call from the same DEEP RED staffer I made the video for and he told me not to be surprised if I received a call from an F.B.I. agent because they think GUINEA PIG is a snuff film. I was fine with it. I was hoping they would fly all the way out here to my office and spend endless amounts of taxpayer's money. I figured it would be just great to put that making of tape on and go, "You fuckin' morons, look at this. You're all idiots."

BL: So the F.B.I. never actually came to see you?

CB: No, they probably found somebody who was Japanese and got them to translate some of the dialogue. They also probably wondered why there were previews for coming attractions at the end of a supposed snuff film. You know, why is this guy's face shown fully, without a mask? Why are there sound effects, multiple camera angles, and different editing cuts? Why didn't the woman simply bleed to death? Seriously, how about asking the people who made the movie, instead of coming to me? It was all a moot point because I had the making of video, so all you had to really do was watch that; there's your answer and you can't refute that evidence.

BL: Have you seen the AUGUST UNDERGROUND movies that seem to take FLOWER OF FLESH AND BLOOD to the next level as far as simulated snuff films go?

CB: No. I've heard about those videos and the movie MURDER-SET PIECES and I have to say no thanks. To me, there's no skill in showing people tortured, butchered, and murdered in the most explicit form. That's for geeks. That's for guys that are twenty-eight years old, still living in their parent's basement without a job. They're getting off on that kind of stuff because they never had a girlfriend and they're like, "Oh good, I want to see this girl get her nipples cut off with a pair of pliers, have her hair set on fire and then have an ice pick shoved into her eyeball," or something to that effect. It's similar to pornography, is what it is to me. It's not scary. Stephen King always said that's the lowest form of horror, the gross-out genre. It's much easier to do that kind of film than it is to thrill or scare you. Anybody without skill at all can go, "Hey look, I'm going to torture this animal in front of the camera." Well, of course, it's going to gross you out, but does it scare or terrify you? No, it's just the lowest form of titillation. There's no drama, no dramatic art to those kinds of horror films.

BL: Do you think we'll ever see another Peter Jackson gorefest like BAD TASTE or DEAD-ALIVE again or is he simply Hollywood now?

CB: Oh, I seriously doubt it. Now he's doing THE LOVELY BONES, which is narrated by a fourteen-year-old that gets raped and murdered. She proceeds to view her own funeral and basically gets to see what life is like for her parents without her. He's talked about doing another independent horror feature before, but I just can't see him going back and doing something like that again.

BL: I'm looking at your website where you list over fifty horror titles that you feel people need to see. I'm just going to name some off the list and you go ahead and comment however you like on these titles. How about JACOB'S LADDER?

CB: I liked it. I thought it was troubling enough and I liked how it reminded me so much of The Twilight Zone episode An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which had such a profound impact on me when I was a kid. I used to watch that episode and just go, "Whoa!"

BL: That episode didn't have any dialogue at all, did it not?

CB: I don't think so. I think it was one of those episodes where you were just impressed by the profundity of what transpired and boy, what an ending. So, when they finally show you what's going on in JACOB'S LADDER, it's not quite as shocking because you've kind of been down that road before, at least if you saw that Twilight Zone episode. The same is true with THE SIXTH SENSE, even though it was a really well-done film, that theme had kind of been used before.

BL: How about STREET TRASH?

CB: I loved that movie. It was original and well made. The Steadicam work in it that Jim Muro did was great. It was way ahead of its time and I don't think a lot of people really got the point of that film. It also seemed like it never got a good distribution. We practically did a whole issue of DEEP RED on that film and I was just telling the truth about how I felt about that title. That's what our magazine, hopefully, did... found undiscovered gems. I got a lot of co-operation from Roy Frumkes on that one. He sent me a ton of stills from the movie. That movie still holds up because it's just a fun romp. It's a brave film. It's not so much a horror movie as it is a splatter film. It has some insane stuff in it and I don't think it ever really got its due.

BL: Is the EXORCIST still your favorite horror film?

CB: I have the highest regard for that one, but I don't know if it's my favorite. I probably have some other stupid movie like HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP that I consider my favorite, but I've always had the highest regard and respect for THE EXORCIST. Seeing the restored version in the biggest theater we have out here was great. That's such a powerful film. Even after all these years, it's one of the most disturbing movies ever made. It's also kind of uplifting, with the ending, where the priest sacrifices his own life to save the child. They are dealing with the major issues in life in that film. It's just a heavy movie all the way around.

BL: How about the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE?

CB: I saw that one numerous times when it first came out. That one always worked for me. I dragged so many people to go see that one. You would go see it at the drive-in and it would have all the scratches in it. I mean the film was in a complete mess when you saw it from the wear and tear of the projector, but it always seemed creepier because of the shape the film was in.

BL: What about JAWS?

CB: Now, that's a great monster movie. It's got to be one of the best monster movies ever made. I mean, that's what it boils down to, it's simple and direct. Here's a monster, here's the people, the monster eats the people, the people go after the monster and the people triumph over the monster. There's also that whole fear of the unknown thing going on where what you can't see is scarier than what you can see. That film is played out so expertly that you don't even realize you are being dragged through the recycled exploitation formula and I think it's because it is so masterfully done.

BL: You had some of the best horror films come out during your career as a journalist, from the early eighties on to about 1989.

CB: Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say from, maybe, 1974 to 1987, or so, there were some really great ones. I think DEAD-ALIVE was an anomaly that sort have just came from out of nowhere and nobody followed-up anything like that one. There was a summer when RE-ANIMATOR, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and DAY OF THE DEAD all came out around the same time. After that, I felt like there was nowhere else to go. They moved on to every slasher film over and over again. Those three titles opened up doors that got closed again, apparently right after they were made. It seemed to be kind of a last gasp.

BL: Which do you go with, EVIL DEAD or EVIL DEAD 2?

CB: I guess EVIL DEAD 2 because it was a little more fun and they used more effects, but they were both kind of stupid. From the era we were just talking about, if I had to pick the greatest, low-budget horror film, that still holds up today and I would heartily endorse to anybody as being as good as anything you're going to see, I would have to pick THE HOWLING. That film is one of the greatest werewolf movies ever made. The effects were great. That was one badass looking werewolf. THE HOWLING didn't cost that much to make, either. It was just so skillfully done. Joe Dante is a great movie fan, turned great director. I like just about all of his films.

BL: Which book was your last one published and do you have any new ones on the way?

CB: I feel like I have one more book inside of me somewhere. The last book I did was Beyond Horror Holocaust that Fantasma books out of Florida published. It was kind of a follow-up to another one I did called Horror Holocaust

BL: Did you ever want to write or direct a horror feature?

CB: Yeah, but that never happened. I was going to do something with Gunnar Hansen at one time and this lawyer was going to finance it. I wrote the story and was going to direct it. Gunnar was going to star in it and write the screenplay, but these things don't always pan out. I wrote some other scripts that they made the trailers for, but they never made the movie, so I optioned off. I basically just got tired of dealing with it.

BL: How's your graphic design and artwork going?

CB: I'm still designing stuff and I do just tons and tons of horror t-shirt art for Rotten Cotton mostly. I've been itching to get back into painting again. All my recent paintings were commissioned jobs that as soon as I finished them; they wound up hanging on somebody else's wall. I had some really good stuff that I did and now I don't have them anymore. I feel like I've got a masterpiece or two still hiding out inside of me that needs to get out.

-All text is owned by MT Media.
-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

Monster Musician: Dave Brockie--GWAR's Oderus Urungus

2020-04-06T19:47:00.001-05:00

Here goes an interview with Dave Brockie that was originally published for Fear Zone back on Halloween of 2007. The personality I've conducted the most interviews with was Oderus Urungus himself. It kind of started a tradition of having an interview ready to go on every Halloween since this first one. Brockie was one of the funniest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. That's not surprising to anyone who is familiar with his performances. He also took his charity work and beliefs incredibly serious. Sadly, on March 23, 2014- Brockie passed away from a drug overdose. He was fifty years old. He is continually missed.

Bryan Layne: How did the RUE MORGUE FESTIVAL OF FEAR go for you? Did they treat you well up there?

Dave Brockie: They treated me well. It was so much fun. I really think that Oderus, as a horror character, has really not gotten the credit he deserves. We tend to do a kind of comedic thing, but Oderus can be pretty damn horrible. I think he's destined to be right up there with Dracula and Frankenstein one day and for the people of RUE MORGUE to give me an opportunity to come up there without the band and do the Oderus thing was really, really fun.

I sat around and signed a ton of autographs mostly, but the most fun thing I did was judge the costume contest. I just tore-up anybody that I felt had a costume that was store-bought looking or unoriginal at all and basically just did stand-up for about an hour. It was really wonderful. I met a lot of really incredible people and everyone was completely respectful and awesome to me. I want to be doing more of those in the future. It would be very cool.

BL: Is it too early to know if they will invite you back?

DB: Well, unfortunately, they have a policy where they don't repeat any guests for three years or something like that, so there's always a fresh group of guests at the convention. So, I don't expect to go back to the RUE MORGUE one next year, but there are lots of other horror conventions out there, maybe we can get Oderus out to those.

BL: I imagine that wasn't your first convention.

DB: No, we used to do DRAGONCON all the time, but it really was kind of a pain in the ass because it wasn't well organized. We would play a show at DRAGONCON and we would end up not playing until four in the morning. It was just very unprofessional. I understand that DRAGONCON has gotten much better, so maybe we'll take another shot at them. I always had a great time there; it just seemed like they really didn't know what they were doing though. I mean, obviously, they know what they are doing to some extent because they've kept it going for so long.

I'm not really that aware of many other horror conventions. We've always wanted to do the San Diego COMIC-CON, but they are a little afraid of us. GWAR really requires a lot of pre-production and you've got to make sure everything is just right. I mean, we've got guys wearing big rubber suits, we need places to change, we need towels, we need drinks, etc. A lot of people at these conventions don't want to go through the hassle of it all. They'd just rather have their vendors and their easy to take care of celebrities. When you find the guy who's willing to go the extra mile to get GWAR involved, that's very cool.

BL: You're a Canadian, right?

DB: Yeah, actually I'm from Ottawa.

BL: Was it college that brought you to America?

DB: No, we moved here early. I grew up in America. I came to America at the age of four. So, even though I'm a Canadian citizen, I'm definitely an American just by nature and spirit, that's just how I came up. Let's not have any illusions about being a Benedict Arnold, here. Even though my passport says I'm from Canada, I'm an American, true and blue.

BL: How does a Canadian wind up in Virginia, which is considered to be southern America?

DB: Well, I grew up in the D.C. area and wanted to stay in-state because it's much cheaper to go to college if you do it in the state you live in. The best art school in Virginia is V.C.U. [Virginia Commonwealth University]. I wanted to study art and it was in Richmond, Virginia. It was a good thing I did that, too, because that's where I met all the other crazy people and we came up with GWAR. I was doing that while I was going to college, too, and it was, actually, twenty-three years ago.

BL: Does the South seem to give GWAR a harder time than anywhere else in America?

DB: No, no, not really. We would occasionally have problems. North Carolina was a huge problem for a while; they gave us some trouble in the early nineties around there, on the PHALLUS IN WONDERLAND tour. I actually got arrested and had obscenity charges against me for a short time, but we managed a plea bargain and groveled our way out of that predicament. We were actually banned from North Carolina for a few years.

You know, we get like the vice squad that comes out, but basically all they want to do is look at the props we use. They take one look at those and they are like, "Come on, this is a joke. It's a gross joke. It's a dirty joke, but it's just a joke. These people are not trying to do anything to hurt anybody." You know, we're not child pornographers; we're artists.

If you try to criticize GWAR in that way or you try to charge GWAR with breaking the law or anything like that, you're really running the risk of making yourself look like a complete idiot. It's similar to accusing Homer Simpson of being stupid. So, basically they've learned their lessons. They aren't going to waste their time trying to mess with GWAR. They know we don't have any money, anyway. If they are going to try to get somebody on an obscenity count, it's going to be somebody like Marilyn Manson, who's got millions of dollars, we're just little 'ole GWAR. One of these days, you know, what I just said is going to come back to haunt us.

BL: How did the splatter/horror element come into the live performance of GWAR?

DB: We wanted to just combine everything that really turned us on and put it into one experience. We loved rock and roll, we loved punk rock, we loved heavy metal, and we loved horror movies.

I, personally, was just a huge George Romero fan when I was coming up in high school. I'll never forget the day that the original DAWN OF THE DEAD movie came out. We waited in front of the theater all day, thinking there was a twelve o'clock show. We, of course, found out later that there wasn't going to be a showing until seven o'clock that night. We stayed out in that parking lot all freaking' day. It actually had an X-rating at first and we were only sixteen years old. We had all the fake college I.D.'s and we bought all these college T-shirts to wear; so they would think we were old enough to see the movie.

Basically, we took all of those influences and other people in the band brought other things to the GWAR mixture. Some of the other guys were into wrestling or comic books and all this other crap. We just kind of merged everybody's ideas all together and came up with this idea called GWAR. We just took all the kinds of art that we really enjoyed in our own lives and put it in a context where we could actually perform that kind of thing and damn if it didn't work.

BL: Well, Oderus is brutally funny and I was wondering where that dark sense of humor came from, for you, performing as Oderus. Was it your family, friends, the media, etc.?

DB: It was the family thing, definitely, I think. I grew up in a house where my mom was very liberal and never tried to stop me from doing anything I wanted to do. My older brother was a very big influence on my life. He had all kinds of crazy tastes and was just a few years older than I. He basically just pointed the way and I started to get into stuff that he was into.

It started with, like, Monty Python and then moved onto punk rock. Horror movies were also a continual part of the whole aspect. I was always encouraged to nurture my muse. The dark part of my own and GWAR's sense of humor partially came from my parents' experiences in World War Two. My mom and my father were both English and they actually adopted me in their late thirties. So, they were young people during the war and whatever happened to my father, during that time, was so horrible that I never got the full story. The stories that my mother told me about World War Two, living in London during the blitz, freaked me out so bad that I think that's where all the darkness in my sense of humor came from. To think that people did those kinds of things to each other was a mind-blowing experience for a five-year-old kid.

As I grew up and my sense of humor started to develop, I always knew that no matter how funny, how bright or how beautiful something might be, right on the other side of the wall, there was something horrible. Death, destruction, disease, or war, you know. So, it's a little like a balancing act, you know? I wanted to somehow take both sides of the fence and merge them into one thing. As I got older, I found myself gravitating more toward the dark comics. People like, George Carlin and Richard Pryor, and in the later years, guys like Bill Hicks. I started to realize there were artists out there that did that kind of stuff. I drew a ton of inspiration from them. To answer your question . . . I blame World War Two (laughing).

BL: Would that also explain your attraction to World War Two things; such as the song and short story WARGOUL and certain aspects of Oderus' costume?

DB: Yeah, I touch on it constantly in my art. I don't think we learned a goddamn thing. I feel that World War Two made more problems than solving them. Just look at all the problems we're having in the Middle East right now because of the borders that were drawn at the end of that war, without any concern for the people who lived there. The United States and Britain drew up a new map of who gets what in the Middle East, without any concern for people who have been living there for thousands of years.

As a result of that, we have this thing called the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which is the root cause of this whole war on terror. There is this whole religious war that is going on between the Muslim world and the Christian world and, to me, it seems like people don't see or know that's what the whole thing boils down to; they seem to just go ahead and believe whatever bullshit that the government is telling them.

I take what I do damn seriously, of course, it's presented in a humorous context, but GWAR, one of the things we are here to do is teach and because of my interests and sense of knowledge on a lot of these things, GWAR gives me a platform to broadcast from and I realize there are people out there listening. Hopefully, GWAR is having the same effect on young people that artists had on me when I was young because that's where you figure out what kind of a person you're going to be your whole life.

BL: Let's touch on, really quick, THE X-COPS. At the time it came out and, really, today, that was one of the funniest metal CD's that ever came out. Did that whole concept come from some of your encounters with law enforcement?

DB: (Laughing) Not really, you know how that exactly happened? We were filming the GWAR movie SKULHEDFACE and there was this scene where we were doing a fake commercial for a horror movie called "Lawn Jockey." It was all about a lawn jockey that came to life and started killing people. There's a scene in there where the guitar player from GWAR and I play cops and we are just kind of in the background dressed in full cop uniforms. Pete, the guitar player for GWAR at the time, said we should do a band where we dress up like cops and it was born right then and there, to be quite honest.

The funny thing about X-COPS is we always played down the GWAR connection. It was like, let's not tell people we are in GWAR. We went out and we opened up for GWAR on a tour. To this day, I don't know how I survived two sets a night physically, but I did it somehow. We figured all the fans would get the joke and realize that we were in GWAR. We wound up with five to ten people showing up for the X-COPS when we opened for GWAR (laughing). It was absolutely terrible. It was such a complete failure, but, to this day, people make comments about how funny that CD was and it was funny. It was also a great, tight heavy metal outfit and I had a hell of a great time playing in that band, but a reunion? Impossible.

BL: It may be too early to ask, but how is your new tour, VIVA LA BANDS, going for you?

DB: They're great. One of the first things we did on this tour was, from a suggestion by Bam Margera, was to make a Don Vito [Bam Margera's uncle] character that gets mauled on stage by GWAR. We were into the idea and so we went ahead and made this horrible Don Vito character and we have this hideous Bam baby that comes out of his giant belly. Unfortunately, they get abused and murdered horribly. Far from being offended, Bam and Don Vito actually recorded dialogue lines for us to use in the live show.

This tour and all of the bands on the tour are a lot of fun. Having the main support slot, for us, is really exciting because there's not as much riding on us. We're set up, we do our soundcheck and we wind up with a lot more time to indulge in other projects and work on my art, hang around the bus and drink beer. Next thing you know, we do our set, it's about fifty minutes, we take everyone's head off, and then we can hang around and steal CRADLE OF FILTH's beer while they are on stage. It's a perfect way to end the whole "Beyond Hell" touring cycle. It's been about two years straight of touring for us. We got more shows in the United States and Europe off this album than we've gotten off any album since "Scumdogs of the Universe."

When GWAR is touring, GWAR is happy, because GWAR is reaching the people and making the money. This really brings a big year for us to a big close. I can't say enough good things about Bam and his people in general. They are awesome and Bam is truly a great guy. He's a lot of fun. He keeps popping up in the weirdest places. I'll just be out in the parking lot of a show and all of a sudden he'll just come around going, "Hey! What's up?" He's just a big kid. What I really dig about Bam the most, I really didn't know shit about him, is that he's a fucking great skater. I'm an old school skater, but man, he is really, really good. I have to say that everyone has got to come out, and everyone has got to see this tour. Every single one of the bands is great. I know you hear that all the time, but this really is a special group of people, all the bands are different.

You've got these complete weirdos from Europe, VEINS OF JENNA, I guess they're like the GUNS AND ROSES of Europe or something and they are great fuckin' guys. They love America and are just freakin' out because they are on this tour. You've got CKY, and they play with a lot of heart. I had never really listened to them that much and then on this tour, I really started to pay attention to this particular band. They are on this tour because they are a kick-ass band, not because the drummer is Bam's brother. That's the stupid way of looking at CKY. They have a lot more to offer than that aspect and they really play with a lot of heart and soul. Then you have GWAR, of course, we rule. Then you have CRADLE OF FILTH, the freaks from England, you know. So, you've got four, very different groups playing on the same bill and everyone seems to get along great.

BL: How about your latest CD, "Beyond Hell?" Is it doing as well as you hoped?

DB: Well, albums never do as well as you'd hoped because you always figure every one of them is going to be like, the magic bullet; that all of a sudden you're going to sell 500,000 copies and everyone is going to get rich. I mean that would be wonderful." Beyond Hell" certainly hasn't done that, but it didn't tank either. It's done good business and it's given us the opportunity to do good business by touring a lot.

The album is very strong and we are very proud of it. We have done story and concept albums before, but this is the one that consistently carries through really well. The story of GWAR's descent into Hell, fighting all of the monsters down there, and finally confronting the Lord of Hell himself is exciting. Every song is like a chapter in that story and we are really proud of it. Devon Townsend, our producer on that album, helped us get that together.

We've had the Hell idea for a long time, but we just hadn't been sure about how to approach it and then we went on the first SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUNDS tour, which also featured Devon's band, and we spent a lot of time joking around with each other. He's a huge GWAR fan from way back and he just got us going on that Hell idea again. He's a maniac. He's a great producer and a great guy who had the vision and ability to see that project through.

I'm really satisfied with "Beyond Hell." It's always great to sell more records, but it was definitely a critical success and people weren't tearing us apart for releasing a shitty record. Our last three records have been very solid musically and "Beyond Hell," was actually the culmination of all the ideas we kind of got going on the last two records, "War Party" and "Violence Has Arrived." I think the latest one is our strongest album . . . period.

BL: What are some of your favorite horror films?

DB: I would have to say that my most watched horror movie is the original DAWN OF THE DEAD. I've probably seen that title more than a hundred times on video and about thirty times when it was released at the theaters. I loved both of the NOSFERATU movies, not just the silent version with Max Schreck, but also the Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski remake. They're both fuckin' great.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON is another big favorite of mine. It's kind of an obscure film that was made in 1957, but it features this demon that finally appears at the end and if you look closely at it, it looks a lot like Oderus. It's kind of where I stole the Oderus look from (laughing); the horns, the pig nose, and the big pointy ears. All those elements came from the monster in NIGHT OF THE DEMON. It stars Dana Andrews and was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who also did the original CAT PEOPLE film.

As far as contemporary classics, I'd have to say the first HALLOWEEN movie. That film scared the shit out of me, you know? It's an amazing movie. A film I discovered recently was Clive Barker's LORD OF ILLUSIONS. It's a great horror film and I didn't know much about it when it first came out.

The one movie that terrified me as a child was the bizarre trilogy of stories in BLACK SABBATH. I would actually stop watching that film because I was afraid of what was going to happen next on my television screen. I found only one of the stories to be worth mentioning. It was based on a story by Russian author Ivan Checkhov called "The Drop of Water" and it's about an undertaker who is called upon to prepare the corpse of a spiritual medium for burial who died in the middle of a seance. Stupidly, she steals a ring from the body and, of course, the ghost comes back to haunt her. I don't know if you are familiar with that one, but it's one of the scariest twenty minutes of cinema ever. So, if you get a chance, check that one out. But, those are a few of my favorites.

BL: How do you feel about playing in outside amphitheaters, like you did with The Sounds of the Underground festival tours? Is it a different element for you? I always liked seeing GWAR in a dank, dark club with a massive bar.

DB: It's cool. I like playing outdoors when it's dark. The daytime thing doesn't work so well for GWAR. I think it turned out to work better for us than we thought it was going to because it was very colorful. You really could see the costumes very well, but GWAR does look better when it's murky, dark, black, and horrible. We don't mind playing outdoors, but I'd rather have GWAR playing in a big, dark nasty hall any day.

BL: I recently caught the punk rock documentary AMERICAN HARDCORE and was glad to see you made it into that film. Did you like the way that one turned out?

DB: Actually, I haven't seen that one yet. It's this weird habit I have where if I'm in the movie, I'll never watch it. I don't know why that is. It took me years to watch EMPIRE RECORDS. I think we even have AMERICAN HARDCORE here on the bus somewhere, but I haven't checked that one out yet. I heard it was really good, but I also heard that they left out a lot of important bands, especially the ones from the San Francisco scene, like the Dead Kennedys. So, I don't really know what's up with that.

BL: Yeah, they also left FEAR completely out of the film.

DB: Right. How can you leave FEAR out of a punk rock documentary? They were one of the best punk rock bands ever. I mean, they were one of the only punk rock bands that actually sounded good. They were so over the top, also. Lee Ving and FEAR were one of my favorite bands ever and to leave them out of that movie sucks, but hey, you can't put everybody in it.

BL: How did you hook up with Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker of the industrial-metal band MINISTRY when you recorded "Scumdogs of the Universe?"

DB: They produced and mixed the song "Horror of Yig." It was pretty much Jourgensen who did the whole thing for that song. He rode a motorcycle into the recording studio, took this huge bindle of cocaine out of his pocket, chopped up the word "Fugazi" in coke, snorted it all, and then worked for three days straight on that one song. He was just tapping it out on the mixing board.

When he was done, Paul Barker came in and mixed the "Black and Huge" track on the same album, which compared to "Horror of Yig," it was nothing. The thing about all of that is that I wasn't even there. I was back in Richmond and had sent the guys up to Chicago to do that because I had some other shit I had to take care of. I was kind of glad I didn't go.

BL: How's Chuck Varga [The Sexecutioner] doing?

DB: He's doing great. He's still living in New York and doing a lot of work for Broadway theaters. Every time I talk to him he's doing some really crazy stuff. He's got a really great girlfriend who is a performing artist. We miss him. We miss The Sexecutioner. There's even been some talk about having The Sexecutioner come back for a tour, but every time we see Chuck we're very happy, also.

He never died or was going blind, either. There was some weird rumor going around that he was almost dead, he had some crazy disease and he had to quit his job of building props because he was going blind. We heard all of this very alarming stuff about him. Then we were playing in New York and he appeared at the show. He looked healthy as a horse and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked him about his health.

BL: Well, Mr. Brockie, I think I have enough to work with here. Is there anything you'd like to discuss that I never touched upon?

DB: Just that everyone continues to support GWAR. We are probably going to take a little break after this tour and go back to Antarctica. We'll start thinking about what the next chapter of GWAR's storied evolution is going to be. So, you're going to have to deal without us for a little while. You're going to be left to your own devices, so play nicely and GWAR will return soon and make all of your nightmares come true.

-All text is owned by MT Media.
-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

Actor Interview With Stacy Keach

2020-04-02T20:53:00.001-05:00

Stacy Keach is a great actor. He’s been in front of the camera for well over fifty years. He’s performed in the all-time highs of Shakespearean dramas, as well as the lowbrow humor of Cheech and Chong. He’s made mistakes in his past and paid for those mistakes respectfully. He’s worked for some of the greats, including directors John Huston and Robert Altman, as well as playwright Arthur Miller. His charity work garners his full attention. He’s also kept his feet loosely planted in genre pictures. Three of my favorite cult films feature Stacy Keach in leading roles.

In 1980, he and brother James co-wrote, produced, and stared in Walter Hill’s The Long Riders. That film was the fast-paced and violent tale of The Younger-James Gang and it was brilliantly cast, filmed and directed. I was introduced to a lot of things from repeatedly viewing The Long Riders in my youth, among them, the western genre in itself, which wasn’t exactly popular at the time. I also discovered the guitar and scoring talents of Ry Cooder and the fact that actors had brothers from that film. Over time, The Long Riders has become a classic western, but when first released, it was considered a cult film to fans and critics alike.

The very same year, Keach was cast in the lead role for writer/director William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration; a bizarre little film that blew me away and excelled in great dialogue, outstanding locations and brilliant casting decisions. Keach portrayed Kane, the new psychiatrist with controversial methods for dealing with psychosis. The setting was a massive gothic castle hidden among the thick forests of the Pacific Northwest. But what’s the deal with Keach’s character? And which of the soldiers/patients are truly mentally ill and which are simply faking it? Blatty’s script is funny, smart, and suspenseful. You never know for sure what’s going to happen next. He was lucky enough to be able to surround Keach with some of the greatest character actors working at that time. Scott Wilson, Jason Miller, Ed Flanders and Robert Loggia are a few of the actors rounding out the cast. The Ninth Configuration always seemed an under-appreciated masterpiece that lived on through fans of The Exorcist and cult movie aficionados.

In 1981, he took on one of my favorite Keach characters to date, that of Quid from Richard Franklin’s Road Games. There’s nothing to dislike about the character of Quid. He’s funny, intelligent, brave, and vulnerable. Keach’s physical appearance for this film is noteworthy. His chiseled chin and broad shoulders give the similarity to that of an NFL quarterback at peak form and popularity. When he brandishes fan blades and tire irons to use as weapons, you believe he could do some major damage. Quid is a truck driver hauling meat from Melbourne to Perth down Australia’s desolate outback. He passes the time and retains his sanity by playing a series of road games with his silent sidekick, Boswell the pet dingo. There’s a murderer of young women sharing the same stretch of highway and Quid suspects the owner of a van he can’t seem to shake. Road Games co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and was released on a special edition DVD through Anchor Bay recently.

In 2000, a whole new generation of fans, much younger than I, discovered Stacy Keach on Fox television’s sitcom Titus. He portrayed Ken Titus– the real-life father of comic Christopher Titus. Every week Keach got to tear it up as an alcoholic whipping post with a bleak philosophy on life. When the real Ken Titus passed away, Keach was honored to give his eulogy. A few years later, Keach returned to the Fox Network appearing as Henry Pope; the blunt, yet fair warden at The Fox River State Penitentiary on the hit series Prison Break.

While at his office, busy at work, Stacy Keach was gracious enough to set aside a few minutes and answer some of my questions about the past and future of his remarkable acting career and during this time, I never forgot what a privilege it was to be speaking with him.

Bryan Layne: Do you have some new things coming out your fans can look for?

Stacy Keach: I just finished a movie in San Francisco called Imbued. It was a small, independent film written and directed by Rob Nilsson. He wrote Northern Lights, a wonderful film that came out many, many years ago. He’s sort of this astonishing, artistic, guerrilla filmmaker that lives out in San Francisco. I also wrote the theme song for that film. I’m very excited about that. On April 24th, I’m going off to Pittsburgh to do a weekend of readings for Elizabeth and Robert Browning’s poetry. It’s sort of an esoteric way to spend a weekend in Pittsburgh (laughing). Nevertheless, I’m looking very forward to it. Then, I’m off to New York to do a cameo as Merlin in The New York Philharmonic’s presentation of Camelot with Gabriel Byrne and Christopher Lloyd. In mid-May, I’ll be back in Los Angeles to do a movie called The Assistance, another small, independent film. So, I’m busy.

BL: You seem to stay quite busy and never appear to be out of work.

SK: Well, that’s true, but in an actor’s life there are those moments where you wish the phone were ringing a little more. I’m on the other end of the spectrum, at the moment, and I’m very grateful and happy about that. When the fall season comes around, I’ll be touring the United States in Peter Morgan’s Tony award-winning play Frost/Nixon as Richard Nixon. In June of 2009, I’m going back to Washington, D.C. to reprise King Lear, which I did at the Goodman Theater in 2006. Robert Falls directed this assembly and we’re going to reprise that production for The Shakespeare Theater at the new Harman Canter for the Arts in Washington, D.C. for 2009. Then, I’m going to take a long vacation.

BL: What got you into acting? Would it have been your father, Stacy Sr.?

SK: Yes, I think dad had a lot to do with that decision. He, of course, didn’t want the acting business for either my brother James or myself. He was determined that we would be doctors or lawyers. He wanted us to do something that had some financial security, but it was not to be. I think, even though he tried to disguise his passion and his love for theater and films, it was impossible. You know, it was contagious. I think it was the same for my brother James. Dad was our inspiration.

BL: Do you remember an early role in a film that gave you the feeling you could accomplish something with a career in acting?

SK: I think it started in high school. A group of us got together and we made our own little film with a 16mm camera called Strange Reflection. We put this together and we showed it to the students. There was such an overwhelming response to the film afterward that I said, “Wow, this is good. I like this.” Sometime later, I guess– into my early professional career– you remember those first movies you did. Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, I certainly remember. That was a very important film for me because I learned so much. It was my first time in front of a movie camera and that whole environment. I came from the theater, so it was a huge shock at first, being in front of those cameras.

BL: Let’s talk about The Long Riders. How was that experience?

SK: We worked for nine years to get that one into production. My brother and I had just portrayed the Wright brothers; Jimmy played Orville and I played Wilbur. We were trying to think of another project for both of us. We said, “We’ve played the Wright brothers, how about doing the wrong brothers?” It was just out of a pun and then we began to take it seriously. What about outlaws? What about brothers portraying brothers in something like Frank and Jesse James? That’s what really got the ball rolling.

Originally, that film was penned as a musical and was done in New York off-Broadway in the early seventies. It took us a very long time to get that one started. We received a lot of yellow lights and got close to green light, but we’d never get a full go-ahead on that film. My brother went to do a film titled Hurricane and Tim Zinneman was a producer on that one. He suggested we find a director for The Long Riders because he felt we really had something there and could put the film together. So, we got Walter Hill and that’s what launched the movie. In order to get Walter, we had to prove that we could get all of the brothers together in one location.

We took a photograph to prove to the studios that it was possible. In that photograph, it’s a rare and special photograph, it contains Jimmy and I, the Carradine boys– David, Keith, and Bobby– and the Bridges brothers, Jeff and Beau. The Bridges brothers were originally cast to do the movie, but they both got busy doing other things. So, we got Randy and Dennis Quaid. The Long Riders was one of Dennis’ first movies, if not his first.

BL: How was Walter Hill as a director? I love his films.

SK: It was fabulous. He’s simply a great director. He was cut in the same mold as Sam Peckinpah. A lot of people do not realize it, but Walter was originally a continuity person for Sam Peckinpah on The Getaway.

BL: That’s interesting because I’ve always compared him to Peckinpah. He’s always involved with these testosterone-filled, male-driven movies.

SK: That’s correct. That’s exactly right.

BL: One of my favorite films of all time featured you in the leading role and that was William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration.

SK: Oh yes, that’s one of my favorites as well.

BL: It always seemed that film was a hit with critics, but audiences stayed away.

SK: The Ninth Configuration was not a box office success… AT ALL. I think the story itself was so strange and bizarre that audiences were afraid of it. It was one of my favorite pictures I was attached to and one of my favorite characters to portray, as well. That film had a great cast and, while it was full of creepy, mysterious plot developments, it also contained a lot of humor. You had Jason Miller in that film holding auditions for his adaptation of Hamlet for canines; stuff like that was just so much fun.

BL: Jason Miller was a favorite of mine. Did you spend a lot of time with him?

SK: I spent a lot of time with Jason, God Bless him. I miss Jason. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about him just the other day. I acted in That Championship Season with another great guy, Robert Mitchum, who played the coach. Bruce Dern, Marty Sheen, Paul Sorvino and myself were on the basketball team. Jason directed that film. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for the original play he adapted into the film.

BL: Was the castle in The Ninth Configuration a true, existing location?

SK: Well, strangely enough, that film took on many locations. It was, of course, set in Northern California, but that castle doesn’t exist in California. The long shots of the castle were in Germany. The courtyard was in Vienna. Every single interior shot was done in Budapest, Hungary, during the communist regime. That film was financed by part of the Pepsi-Cola Company, oddly enough.

BL: I love the character you played in Road Games, Patrick Quid. You seemed to be having a blast making that movie.

SK: I loved Road Games. I had so much fun. I loved being in Australia and it was great working with Jamie Lee Curtis. There was this crazy stuntman, Grant Page, and it was a kick being around him. He also played Mr. Smith/Mr. Jones, the bad guy that drove the van just ahead of me in the truck. Richard Franklin was a marvelous director. He knew everything there was about Alfred Hitchcock. He knew every single frame of every title Hitchcock put to film and he made his movies very much in that vein, particularly that one.

BL: It seemed that Quid might have mirrored your true personality, is that correct or am I way off?

SK: Yeah, I guess so. I know I felt very comfortable in his skin. I don’t know…that was then and now is now. It’s hard to know, but at the time, maybe so.

BL: I imagine you knew Mickey Spillane quite well, right?

SK: I spent a lot of time with Mickey and I loved just being around him. I’m still spending time with Mickey in spirit, as well as reality because we are getting ready to do a radio series with the Mike Hammer character. We are designing it with Carl Amari in Chicago. I host The Twilight Zone, which is taking the old television series and making radio shows out of them. I also did another project with him called The Word of Promise and it was an audio version of The New Testament. It was done with this amazing audio. It truly does sounds like you’re listening to it over the soundtrack for a movie. There’s wall-to-wall music and sound effects that support the text. When we completed that one, Carl asked me about doing radio shows of Mike Hammer. Jane Spillane, Mickey’s widow, made a deal and it looks like we’re going to do it.

BL: Where can we look for that?

SK: I think it will be at least six months before we get things completed, but I believe you’ll be able to purchase CD’s and it may be available on Sirius radio, also.

BL: How was working on Escape from L.A. with director John Carpenter?

SK: Well, it was fantastic to work with Kurt Russell and John on Escape from L.A., but I honestly enjoyed this crazy little movie I did with John before Escape from L.A. called Hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it was for his Body Bags anthology. In it, David Warner plays this demented frontman for a hair restoration clinic and he convinces me to buy all this stuff he’s selling to cure baldness. The resolution at the end is a disturbing one where it turns out I’m harvesting aliens in my body from this stuff he gave me. It’s a great study of vanity. The character is going bald and he just hates it. I identified with that because in my early career I wore a lot of hairpieces. John has a very macabre personality.

BL: I’m familiar with Christopher Titus’ act, but I never had much time to catch many episodes of the Fox show…

SK: Oh, you can get them on DVD now. There is some funny stuff in there. It was a very well written show.

BL: How exaggerated were the things they wrote for your portrayal of Ken Titus, Christopher’s father?

SK: Well, that’s a very good question. I asked that question of both Ken and Christopher, but neither one of them would cop to it. He was exaggerated, of course. I met Ken and I dearly loved him. I asked him one time, how he could possibly allow his son to take him down the way he does every night. Ken simply said, “Just as long as it’s funny.” He was a loving father and I think they all had an understanding. I went to Ken’s funeral in Northern California when he passed away and Christopher, as well as the rest of his family, was just devastated. There was a lot of love there, even though he was a crazy guy and liked to live in the fast lane. The Titus show was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing a main character. I had more fun playing Ken Titus than just about anything I’ve ever done for television, including Mike Hammer and Ernest Hemingway.

BL: Are we going to see Henry Pope back in action for Fox’s Prison Break?

SK: I don’t know for sure. I actually called the producers over at Prison Break and I said that the guys are all on the run again…What’s happening with Henry Pope? They said, “Stacy, as long as you’re breathing your character will still be available because we could always bring you back to kill you (laughing). I said to myself, “Well, that’s a refreshing thought.” It’s an unknown factor at this moment, but I’m still alive though.

BL: Did you realize that Prison Break was going to be as successful and popular as it turned out to be?

SK: I don’t think anybody really realized the extent of it all. I knew that Fox had high hopes for it because in the beginning they really, really got behind it. I think that was all because of Brett Ratner. He was the architect of that series and he made it all happen. I, myself, loved the first season– not because I was in it– but the intensity of the writing was so good. I felt that once they broke out of prison, the air came out of the tires, so to say.

BL: How about the fans getting behind three of the most despicable main characters to ever be featured on a series?

SK: I think part of that is because bad guys are always more fun, in every aspect than good guys. I think there might be a little bit of bad in everybody that can be expressed by vicarious identification with the Prison Break characters. Also, we love to hate our villains. We want the villains to really, really be bad so we can really hate them. It’s like taking a ride on a roller coaster. It’s the thrill of being scared. The great thing about a movie or a television show is that you are experiencing those feelings, but you are perfectly safe.

BL: How’s working with Bruce Campbell on Man with the Screaming Brain?

SK: Oh, Bruce (laughing). He’s a great guy and I love working with Bruce Campbell. He was excellent as a director. I always love working with good actors who decide to try their hands at directing. Generally speaking, they’re the best because they understand the process. He knew his way around the camera and he’s a great storyteller. Bruce is an extremely talented guy and I’m so very happy for all of his success.

BL: I think I have plenty to work with here, Mr. Keach and I look forward to all of your future work.

SK: Well, thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed this and I’d like to wish you good luck and continued success.

-All text is owned by MT Media
-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns on images please contact the owner of this blog.

Filmmaker Interview With Larry Cohen

2020-03-31T17:40:00.001-05:00

Over a year ago, I started gaining the rights back to a ton of published interviews and articles I did several years back. The majority of these fall into the horror genre. I started at a humor magazine during my college years that gained a momentous following. The graphic designer slowly gained notoriety for the covers of these humor publications. Truly some of the most creative magazine covers going around at that time. It started citywide and then he started gaining notice nationwide. While people wrote praise about his design-work, they would also single out a piece I had published in the very same issue.

Over time, I got contacted by Roy Frumkes. He is the creator of THE SUBSTITUTE movie franchise and writer/producer of STREET TRASH. He's also the editor-in-chief of the longest-running movie publication still in existence, Films In Review. Upon his request, I started writing for FIR and it opened many, many doors for me. Not long after joining FIR, Greg Lamberson (author of Personal Demons and director of SLIME CITY) contacted me about writing for a new horror publication called Fear Zone. This led to many affiliations with new publications on film, most now defunct. But these interviews are still relevant, I think.

The following interview is a conversation I had with the late Larry Cohen. A true maverick filmmaker and one of the true masters of horror. I remember this one happening in my home office and Mr. Cohen was willing to discuss just about anything. He was an incredibly nice man and a testament to independent filmmaking.

Although he now lives in Hollywood, you just can’t think of a Larry Cohen film without synonymously thinking of New York City. His insurgent style of filmmaking has helped to capture the best and worst of the greatest city in the world to the point where the city itself became an essential character in many of Cohen’s films. Born in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, Cohen got his education in film from the City College of New York, as well as New York University.

Cohen has virtually spent his entire life working in show business. A career that began in the 1950s as a page for NBC. There he witnessed how teleplays were brought to life by cast and crew alike, most shot live- an aspect of television that’s not been practiced in prime time for decades.

He quickly broke into writing and developing television shows, such as THE DEFENDERS, BRANDED, and ARREST AND TRIAL, to name a few. He conceived THE INVADERS series from the ground up and CBS just recently released the DVD set, for which Cohen contributed new supplemental content.

His first film as director was 1972’s BONE and featured Yaphet Kotto in a brilliant performance in the leading role. Cohen’s screenplay included his trademark penchant for satire. The combination of those factors did earn BONE a momentous following. Cohen secured his spot in the history of the blaxploitation genre a year later with BLACK CAESAR, which ultimately led to its sequel HELL UP IN HARLEM. That same year, Cohen simultaneously shot the film that made him a contender in the independent horror genre with IT’S ALIVE. It was the story of a mutated baby born into an ordinary family and continues to be the one film of Cohen’s that garners him the most recognition. IT’S ALIVE is also well-noted as being the film on which he employed legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann to create the film’s score.

Cohen continued to write, direct and produce numerous noteworthy films, including the two sequels to IT’S ALIVE, GOD TOLD ME TO, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT, MANIAC COP, THE STUFF, I, THE JURY, and A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT.

In 1989, he directed screen superstar Bette Davis in her final film, WICKED STEPMOTHER, which was released as direct-to-video fare due to Davis’ ailing presence in the film. In 2002 and 2004, Cohen possibly reached a whole new and much wider audience to date with the screenplays to PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR, both released by major studios and directed by established filmmakers.

His last directorial effort was for the MASTERS OF HORROR cable network series, entitled PICK ME UP, and stood out as one of the best from both seasons. It was an artist at the top of his game. The story of competing serial killers, and sports Cohen regular Michael Moriarty in the leading role, as well as Cohen’s unmistakable sense of humor.

In 2017, Steve Mitchell released KING COHEN, a documentary on Cohen's life and maverick style of filmmaking. Sadly, Cohen died on March 23, 2019. He was 82 years old.

Cohen’s remarkable power to remain a valuable name in show business for over fifty years is proof enough of his ability and talents to tell a story, both on paper and on the big screen. He is steadily having his body of work rediscovered by new contemporaries of moviegoers and filmmakers. And despite the fact that he feels that his pictures aren’t “horror” films, being included with a mere handful of directors considered to be Masters of Horror isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Bryan Layne: Do you remember any early films that might have influenced your decision to enter the entertainment field?

Larry Cohen: When I was a kid we went to the movies at least twice a week. It was always a double feature, so I usually caught four movies during that week. There was no television back then, just radio programs. I always looked forward to seeing a movie and tried to sit through the feature a second time before the manager threw me out of the theater. I particularly loved The Warner Brothers movies. They were hard-boiled, fast-moving, very swiftly edited and they had high-energy actors like Bogart, Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. They were usually very gritty stories and that’s the kind of movies I tended to like.

I also liked the movies with Errol Flynn: ROBIN HOOD, THE SEA HAWK and THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON. I liked YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, also with James Cagney. That’s probably one of my favorites. They were all directed by Michael Curtiz. I always found that most of the pictures I enjoyed were directed by Curtiz. He’s not too well-remembered today, but he directed CASABLANCA and won an Oscar for that title. He was the number-one director on the Warner’s lot for a number of years. Those were the kind of films I liked and later on, when I made BLACK CAESAR, it was kind of an homage to the Warner Brothers gangster movies.

B.L.: You got your start writing and developing television programs in the 1960s. Is there anything about television you preferred back then as opposed to the way the television business is run today?

L.C.: When I worked in television, you usually only dealt with two people – there was a head of development, and somebody else would be present. When you went in to pitch an idea, you usually only pitched it to two people.

Today, when you go to a network, you go into a room and they bring eleven people into that room, all with yellow legal pads. The notes you will receive come from so many different people. Also, very often when you are pitching an idea today, you’re pitching it to people who do not have the authority to buy it. They simply write down their version of what you tell them, then they go down the hall and attempt to retell the story to their bosses in a capsulized version.

You can imagine how accurate the similarities between what you pitch and what the studio executive, who is the only one who can buy the property, finally hears. It’s only coincidental, at best. It’s harder to sell something because you’re not pitching ideas to the people who can buy it, and you’re having too many cooks spoil the broth.

B.L.: I’ve always been a big fan of your very first film, BONE. Any memories come up when I mention that title?

L.C.: I did that one because it had a very small cast and a limited number of locations. I saw it as a way to break into the business as a director and take the time to learn my craft. I actually think it’s one of the best pictures I’ve ever made because the script was so good. I was lucky to get a wonderful cast, as well. It was a pleasure to work on that film.

B.L.: How did your blaxploitation films come about?

L.C.: I did two pictures back in the 1970s and then another one in the 1990’s called ORIGINAL GANGSTERS. It was a reunion picture of all the black exploitation stars. The first one, as I said before, was an homage to the Warner Brothers gangster movies and it was called BLACK CAESAR. It was similar to LITTLE CAESAR, only it had a black cast.

I got involved with that one when I was approached by the manager of Sammy Davis, Jr., who was tired of playing stooge to Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in their pictures. He wanted to do something on his own. He asked me if I had any ideas for Sammy and I suggested redoing LITTLE CAESAR as an all-black gangster movie. The gangsters in the Warner Brother films, like Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson – these were little guys, like Sammy, yet they were able to play tough guys. So, we agreed to do a BLACK CAESAR treatment and they were going to pay me $10,000. I went ahead and wrote that.

It wound up that Sammy didn’t have the money to pay me. They claimed he’d gotten in trouble with the IRS and didn’t have the dough anymore. I got stuck with the treatment and later on, I ran into Sam Arkoff, who was the head of American International Pictures. He told me that he was looking for something in the genre of SUPER FLY and SHAFT; a black action film. I just happened to have that treatment ready to go. We showed it to him and made a deal right on the spot. That’s how that one all came about, really.

B.L.: Those films were massive hits financially for you and the studios, correct?

L.C.: Yeah, we all made a lot of money on those pictures. I honestly feel that the first one was an extremely good picture and the second one [HELL UP IN HARLEM] was fair. We really only made the second one to kind of cash-in on the first one because it was such a big hit. I think Sam Arkoff thought, “Larry Cohen can handle that film because he directed Yaphet Kotto in BONE and got such a good performance out of him.” As if there is any difference directing a black actor from a white actor – which there isn’t. I went ahead and did the project and BLACK CAESAR was my first box-office hit.

B.L.: Did you learn anything from your earliest work in television that you still apply to filmmaking today?

L.C.: When I first started working it was in live television and it really has become a lost art form. With live television, the writer was around all of the time. He’d be there for the reading with all of the actors and then you’d come to rehearsals, as well as the day of the show. That was all because sometimes you had to write an additional scene or delete some things to account for the running time of the show. The program had to be an hour-long and sometimes they’d run too long or short in rehearsals. You’d work like this and an hour or two later the show went on the air across the country. So, you were involved with every phase of the production in live television.

Then, when filmed television came along, the writer became less involved. In the early days, I got a chance to work with actors and witness the characters being developed. I also picked up the way the directors were staging those shows. I thought I learned a lot from that, but basically you do it all from your own instinct. I find that to be particularly true if you’ve written the script, because you already have in your mind what the scene is supposed to look like, and when you direct it, you just bring it to life.

I did find out that I was good with actors – that I could talk to the actors. I could relax them and make them feel comfortable on the set. I could make them feel appreciated. I always felt that was the best way to get a great performance; not to try to intimidate them or to throw your authority around, but rather to just make them feel like you are having a wonderful time watching them work. It gets them to relax and they try things that they may not try otherwise. You wind up getting surprisingly good performances.

B.L.: When you started filming the sequel to BLACK CAESAR, HELL UP IN HARLEM, you also started filming IT’S ALIVE simultaneously, correct?

L.C.: Yes. AIP wanted the sequel for immediate release to cash-in on the success of BLACK CAESAR. Fred Williamson, the star, was tied up with projects for six months. I said to him, “What are you guys doing on Saturdays and Sundays?” He agreed to do my film on the weekends. I had the crew shooting IT’S ALIVE already, so I kept them on for Saturdays and Sundays to shoot HELL UP IN HARLEM.

B.L.: How did you find the experience of shooting two films simultaneously?

L.C.: I knew what was going on. Everybody else was kind of dazed. They weren’t exactly sure which picture they were shooting. I had the film editor piecing one picture together for three days a week and then the other picture the remaining days. So, half of the time he wouldn’t know what the hell picture he was going to be working on that day. We all got through it though.

B.L.: Would you film like that again?

L.C.: No. I guess I could do it again if I had to. You’re only doing it for a limited period of time, maybe four weeks. I think you can do anything for four or five weeks, as long as you realize it’s going to be over. If it was going to be a picture that took six months to shoot, then it would be a different story. Once you’ve begun to shoot the first couple of days on a film that consists of an eighteen or twenty-four-day shooting schedule, you start to realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You know it’s going to be over soon.

B.L.: How did the concept for your classic horror film IT’S ALIVE come together?

L.C.: The period in which that film was made, which was the early 1970’s, was a period of big change for family life in America. Teenage kids were growing up wearing their hair long and they were listening to music that was kind of alien to their parents. They were using drugs – they were doing a lot of things that separated them from the normal family life. The parents were starting to feel like they had a stranger living under their roof. I had read in the paper that one father actually shot his son with a shotgun because he felt his kid had turned into a monster. I said, “How about a movie where people in a normal family give birth to a monster as an allegory for what was going on here.”

B.L.: Is IT’S ALIVE the film of yours that gets the most recognition?

L.C.: Yes, it’s well-remembered and it was a big hit. It made a lot of money and it still continues to bring in a great deal of revenue. Then there is the remake that was recently released.

B.L.: Have you seen that version of your original film?

L.C.: It’s a terrible picture. It’s just beyond awful.

B.L.: I take it you were not involved with the remake?

L.C.: Not at all. I did give them a script and they, more or less, ignored what I gave them completely. I did make a lot of money on the deal, so I really can’t complain. I certainly didn’t want to give them their money back, so I’ll just have to live with it. I would advise anybody who likes my film to cross the street and avoid seeing the new enchilada.

B.L.: How about your film GOD TOLD ME TO? That’s a great film. What inspired that story and film?

L.C.: I have no idea. That was one of those films that I just sat down and wrote from scratch. I didn’t really ever know where it was going or what I was going to do next with the story.

B.L.: It is a unique film.

L.C.: Yes, it was very different and special. We used documentary production values to tell a kind of science fiction fantasy story and nobody else did that before us. I guess things like THE X-FILES owe a little bit to that picture when it comes down to the style we used.

B.L.: That film is also well-known for featuring comic Andy Kaufman in a bit role. I have to ask you about his involvement.

L.C.: Andy Kaufman was a performing comic at The Improv in New York and I went in one night to see him. I thought, “This kid is terrific.” I wanted him to be in my movie because I could just tell that someday he was going to be a star. I offered him the role of a cop at a St. Patrick’s Day parade and Andy was anxious to do it. I remember saying to him, “I’ve got to get you a policeman’s uniform, so tell me what size shirt and jacket you wear.” He said, “I don’t know. I wear my father’s old clothes.” I figured he was probably about my size, so we got stuff that would fit me and we directed him down to the St. Patrick’s Day parade on 5th Avenue. We got him dressed as the cop in a bathroom of one of the luncheonettes that was right off the street there. Then we put him into the parade. He was thrown into the ranks of the actual cops that were marching. We just moved him into formation with all of the other officers. They all thought we had permission to be there with all of the cameras. There were four crews covering the parade like a news event. We were actually just winging it and didn’t have any permission to be there at all. Today, with Homeland Security, we’d all be thrown in jail for doing something like that.

Andy only had one line of dialogue at the end of the movie. We didn’t have any microphones or sound recording equipment at the parade. So, there wasn’t any way to record his voice and he just mouthed his line. Later on, when we got into the mix, I did the line myself. That’s actually my voice coming out of him. Andy saw the picture and he said, “How did you get my voice?’ I told him that it wasn’t his voice and he said, “No, I know my own voice when I hear it. Don’t tell me that. That’s me.” I said, “Andy, how could it be you? We didn’t have any microphones.” He said, “Well, I don’t know how you did it, but that’s me.” For years after that, every time we’d run into each other, he’d get into an argument with me again about whether it was him or me that did that line in GOD TOLD ME TO. I did speak with him a few weeks before he died and he was still demanding to know how I got his voice.

B.L.: How often did you film in New York without permits and is that something you would still do today?

L.C.: Not anymore. What has happened is that the whole world has become too litigious. Nowadays, if you do anything, you’re subject to getting sued by somebody. With the things we used to do and get away with – I just wouldn’t try to do those things anymore because there are just too many legalities and too many lawyers running around trying to file a lawsuit against you.

Today, if you shoot something and somebody is standing in the background who is recognizable, there is always the possibility that you are going to get a lawsuit. So, I just don’t do that kind of thing anymore. Maybe I’m just too comfortable now and I don’t want to put myself at risk. In those early days, we could get away with a lot more. There weren’t a lot of lawyers running around, and people just didn’t seem to care as much.

We did shoot a lot of stuff without permits, and I usually did it in New York because the city is so teeming with life and character that you only need to hide the camera and point it because you are guaranteed to see something interesting. It’s a living backlot. You just don’t want to bring in a bunch of professional extras and close down the streets when you film in New York because you don’t get the same feeling of reality as if you shoot on the real streets. I mean real life and real action is going on before you. We got a lot of that for BLACK CAESAR and we got a lot of that for GOD TOLD ME TO, as well as THE AMBULANCE which was probably the last film of mine I shot on the sidewalks of New York City.

B.L.: Do you have problems with the crew shooting in that manner?

L.C.: No, they do what I ask them to do. They get used to it after a couple of days. I’ve had to dispense with a couple of cameramen who didn’t understand the way I work, but then I was able to get somebody else to step right in who went with the flow. After they get used to it, they start to like the way I run a film shoot. At first, I’m sure it scares them because they’re used to getting a shot list before they come to work. I just can’t do that. I want to see the actors performing and then decide where I want to put the cameras.

B.L.: In 1977 you filmed THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER. What did you think of the man himself and your finished film?

L.C.: Well, that picture tells both sides of the story, much like the film PATTON did years earlier. I tried to show the good side of the man, as well as his bad side. He was certainly far from perfect. He hurt a lot of people and did a lot of damage, but he also did a lot of good. He did a great job of keeping the FBI free from political influence; neither the Republicans nor the Democrats could control the FBI. You didn’t have the kind of scandals with the FBI while he was in control that you’re having nowadays. It seems that every week there’s some other public official who’s being outed. He managed to control that, keep it quiet and keep the government rolling at the same time. He had the whole town of Washington wired, and he knew everything that was going on.

B.L.: To the extent where he was getting away with doing things the FBI just can’t get away with today.

L.C.: Absolutely. The FBI can’t do anything like they did during Hoover’s administration. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, necessarily. I think we’d be better off if the FBI did have a little more leeway to operate. Today everything is in the newspapers, everything is subject to scrutiny and criticism.

You’ve got to remember that Hoover was in there for forty-eight years. That’s an amazing amount of time for anybody to stay in power without any real challenge toward his job. If he hadn’t died at the age of seventy-seven, he probably would have lasted another two or three years. As soon as he was gone, what happened? The administration collapsed completely. The attorney general was indicted, key members of the President’s staff were indicted, the President himself had to resign and narrowly escaped being prosecuted. The entire seat of government collapsed with J. Edgar Hoover’s death.

So, for example, if he had been around, there probably wouldn’t have been any Watergate. As far as the film goes, it’s one of my films that I’m the proudest of and we just had a great reception to it at The New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles, where we played it about a year ago for three weeks. It was received very well by recent film-goers, so I was happy about that.

B.L.: Do you prefer to shoot on the lot when you deal with major studios?

L.C.: Well, many of my pictures were financed by Warner Brothers, American International, or New Line – they were studio pictures, but they weren’t shot on the lot. It was just way too expensive. By the time you build the sets, pay the overhead and all the other things that they lay on you when you shoot on their studio lot, you’re paying for the guards at the gate and everything else like that. It doesn’t make any sense to shoot there if you can get the real set someplace else.

I like to shoot on practical locations and real places, rather than go in and construct a set. Many of my movies were financed and approved in advance by the studios. We did RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT for Warner Brothers, as well as IT’S ALIVE 3: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE. Even ORIGINAL GANGSTERS was done for Orion Studios and we shot the whole thing in Gary, Indiana. So, I’ve done a lot of films for the major studios even though I may make my films with an independent mentality.

B.L.: How do you feel about dealing with the major studios?

L.C.: I’ve never had any problems. We’ve gotten paid profits on quite a few pictures; some not. I’d say at least half of the movies I’ve made have gone into profits and everybody got paid. They are thieves of the worst kind, but if you make a low budget picture the profits do come in. They probably only pay you a fraction of what you should be getting, but you do get paid and you’re making pictures. The nice thing about it is that if the picture is a flop and they don’t make any money, nobody calls you up and asks you to give back the money that you were paid. You get to keep it anyway. Even if the picture is a failure, you keep the money. So, that’s not such a bad deal.

B.L.: How about distribution? Any problems concerning your films in that respect?

L.C.: Oh, yes. Absolutely. THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER received very, very limited distribution in America because the company was afraid of promoting a picture that was critical of the FBI. They thought they’d have some sort of repercussion – that the Bureau would take it out on them in some way. The movie companies rely upon the Bureau to police the copyrights that are at the beginning of every DVD and VHS cassette. So who’s going to want a dispute with the FBI?

We ended up playing that film at The London Film Festival where it had the highest attendance and then they picked it up for distribution in England. It played at a wonderful theater for eight weeks. Eventually, the BBC bought it and we wound up getting a lot of exposure from it being televised. They also didn’t have any axe to grind over there politically. They could care less about the FBI in England.

There also weren’t any Democrats who felt offended because of the way we portrayed Kennedy or Republicans who felt offended because we mistreated Nixon. In America, everybody had a vested interest, one way or another, in being negative about the picture because we were not kind to anybody in the film. Everybody got the shaft, but they deserved it.

B.L.: Why explore horror so much in your films?

L.C.: Well, I’ve never made the so-called slasher movie like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or titles like that. I try to make suspense movies; thrillers. I don’t consider them to be 100% horror films, or what you’d consider to be the traditional horror film. I like to make my own type of picture. What I like is for people to say, “Hey, I saw a picture the other night on television and I missed the beginning of it, but by the time I watched it for fifteen minutes I knew it had to be a Larry Cohen movie.” That’s the best compliment I could get if somebody can identify one of my movies without seeing the title. Where people would say, “This looks like something Larry Cohen would do.” Q: THE WINGED SERPENT certainly isn’t a horror film. It’s got some of the elements of a horror movie, but it’s much, much more than that to me.

B.L.: Any possibility that you might update a remake Q: THE WINGED SERPENT?

L.C.: I hope not. I don’t think I could make it as good as my first attempt. I wouldn’t doubt that somebody else may want to attempt a remake of that title, but most of these remakes of classic horror films are not very good. They are done just by the numbers or title alone and are usually completed as a botched job. I realize that sometimes you can’t resist the money being offered, but I’m done with that title and don’t really see the point of anyone re-filming that picture.

B.L.: I really dug Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and can’t see the Chrysler Building anymore without thinking of that film.

L.C.: Yeah, I thought the Chrysler Building was a very beautiful structure and that it needed its very own monster movie, much in the way that Kong had The Empire State Building. We shot that way up at the top of the building – about eighty-eight floors above the street. The entire cast and crew were hanging on by our fingernails to keep from getting blown off the building. There were no protective rails and it really was like standing on a platform that was eighty-eight stories high. You could have gone off of it at any second, but nobody did.

B.L.: It has seemed to me that mainstream critics didn’t appreciate some of your films upon their initial release, but came around years later and gave you the praise you deserved. Do you feel that’s accurate and what are your feelings toward critics in general?

L.C.: Well, we did get very good reviews on THE STUFF from top critics and we got some on THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER, as well. The reviews in America for J. EDGAR HOOVER were very, very good and were even better in England. If you were to read some of those you’d have thought that they were writing about LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

The problem with all of that is not so much that you get the reviews, but that the movie company is willing to go ahead and take out the advertisements in the newspapers to reproduce the reviews. The review is only effective if the studio goes ahead and promotes it by taking out a big, full-page ad.

We got very nice reviews on ORIGINAL GANGSTERS, but the company didn’t want to spend the money to take out those big ads that are necessary to reproduce the reviews and create some buzz on the picture. So, after a while, people are not aware that the picture was well-reviewed. I’ve got posters on my walls with all the quotes and if you looked at those you’d think, “Wow, every one of these movies got rave reviews.” And they did, but you wouldn’t know about it because they weren’t carried in the newspapers. They thought that those types of films are not so-called “review pictures.”

Gene Siskel gave Q: THE WINGED SERPENT a terrific review. It was one of his favorite films of that year, but that really doesn’t make much of a difference if you don’t promote that fact. Every time I’ve had a movie that’s been properly advertised and promoted it’s turned into a hit. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for every title.

B.L.: I love the way you handle humor in your films and I was wondering where that dark sense of humor might have come from?

L.C.: Oh, I think that’s one of the trademarks of my films – that balance of humor against suspense. The humor can only be attributed to me, meaning that’s just my own personal sense of humor up there on the screen.

B.L.: You cast legendary superstar Bette Davis in your film WICKED STEPMOTHER during the last years of her life. How was that experience?

L.C.: I always loved Bette Davis and I saw her at a Golden Globes award show one year. She was very crippled and frail. She just looked terrible. After that, I started to see her making the rounds on various talk shows and I realized this poor woman wanted to work more than anything else in the world. She was doing all of these appearances hoping somebody would give her a role in a film. She was getting a lot of dinners and honorary things thrown for her to celebrate her past, but nobody was hiring her. I decided I was going to write a script for her.

So, I wrote WICKED STEPMOTHER and we sent it to her. She eventually called me up on the phone and said, “You wrote this just for me, didn’t you? I’m very flattered.” I told her we needed to meet and I went over to her house. She was in terrible condition and my agent thought I was crazy for wanting to do this picture with her. I said, “Yeah, but when she starts talking you realize that it’s Bette Davis. It all comes through and as long as we keep her talking…she’s Bette Davis.”

So, I took a chance and, of course, it was a mistake because she really wasn’t well enough to do the picture. It was mainly her dentures that gave out on her; not her body. I guess anybody at any age can have dental problems. When her bridge broke, she couldn’t talk anymore, so that was the end of her being in the film.

B.L.: I love filmmakers who will constantly reuse the same actors in their films and a lot of my favorite horror directors seem to have a “go-to” actor for just that in their films. Yours seems to be Michael Moriarty. How did you two guys wind up working together so many times?

L.C.: I had seen him on Broadway and on television with HOLOCAUST. I also saw him in BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY. I considered him to be a superior actor. One day we were sitting in the same restaurant at adjoining tables and I pointed him out to someone who was with me. I was telling my friend how great an actor I felt he was and Michael overheard all of it. So, he came over and we chatted. I said, “I’ve got a movie that I’m going to be starting in a week or two. Maybe you’d like to be in it.” I sent him over the script to Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and he said he’d love to do it. That was it and we’ve been in business ever since.

B.L.: How about his eccentricities?

L.C.: Well, Michael is a very strange fellow and he has a wonderful sense of humor. I love to be around him, but every once in a while he’ll go off on a tangent about some fantasy concerning some kind of conspiracy or the problems of American politics. One time he decided he was going to leave America and move to Canada because he couldn’t stand Janet Reno. It was that kind of stupid thing that really may have damaged his career. He quit his role on the hit television show LAW & ORDER, went off to Canada, and ran a big ad in Variety.

The problem with Michael is that he’s one of those people who can be very happy when he’s in terrible financial difficulties, but when he becomes successful and has a huge bank account balance, then suddenly he becomes miserable. He has to destroy it all. As long as he was struggling, he was happy. As soon as he became financially stable and he had success, he’d have to destroy that somehow. He had to only exist in a state of chaos.

Some people are like that – especially people in show business. It’s like they have to be in a chaotic situation. They just can’t be comfortable and live a peaceful life. They have to have this churning madness going on and that’s Michael. I wish him the best and we always have a great time working together. He’s wonderful at improvisation, which is what I go for, but there’s no way you can alter his life by using common sense towards him and what he believes.

Also, to be quite honest, maybe he’s right and I’m completely wrong about his beliefs, you know? A lot of people think I’m crazy because of the way I go out and make movies – shooting without permits, shooting without schedules, without production managers, without a board, and just basically making the entire picture in my head. People react to that by saying, “Well, this guy is crazy.” That’s probably why somebody like Andy Kaufman liked me because he thought I was just as crazy as he was.

This article was originally published for Films In Review in 2009. Here's the link where the interview remains to this day:

Films In Review-Larry Cohen Interview 2009

-All text is owned by MT Media

-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns on images please contact the owner of this blog.

Filmmaker Interview With Eli Roth

2020-03-30T17:52:00.002-05:00

Here's an interview with Eli Roth that was originally published in January 2008, I believe. It was for Fear Zone, a horror publication out of Manhattan and Buffalo, New York. Director of SLIME CITY, Greg Lamberson ran that one. A good person to have to edit your material. It was always a pleasure to deal with Lamberson and Fear Zone.

I remember being late getting back to the office to speak with the creator of the HOSTEL films. Luckily, Roth was running ten minutes behind me and I was silently relieved that I didn't have to apologize. I also remember he was at his home because a refrigerator repairman interrupted the interview for a few minutes.

This was the first time I spoke with Eli Roth and this one got a huge reaction from readers. I'm here to tell you that Eli Roth is/was hated. Even twelve tears later, this article was the one that generated the most responses by moviegoers. And I'm not exactly sure why that was the case. I'm not sure if people just didn't like the three films Roth had completed back then. Or if it was the fact they felt his success and popularity were undeserving based on CABIN FEVER and the two HOSTEL films. It was simply a reaction to the fact that I devoted print space and time to Eli Roth.

Over time, people seemed to ease up on him. Probably due to his performance in front of the camera for Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, where he portrayed Sgt. Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz. He also eventually branched-out into different genres in 2018 with action films (DEATH WISH) and family-oriented fantasy/horror (THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS).

In 2002, a new filmmaker released a horror film and it seemed to come from out of nowhere. It was called CABIN FEVER and revolved around a contagious flesh-eating disease and the paranoia related to catching the virus. Before being released nationally, CABIN FEVER started a violent bidding war after being shown successfully at several film festivals. Independent film company Lion's Gate acquired the film and brought to the table millions of dollars to go towards publicity.

CABIN FEVER went on to be the most successful horror film released in 2002 and, along with SAW, became the sole reason for Lion's Gate's financial success. Eli Roth truly became "THE" filmmaking talent to watch out for and from an independent view, it was honestly a deserving description of the young horror director.

The word around the office following CABIN FEVER was that Quentin Tarantino was set to produce Eli Roth's second journey as a director and that fact helped up the ante on excitement towards his second feature. HOSTEL was released and became a huge success story for the horror genre.

On the heels of the DVD release of HOSTEL 2, I was lucky enough to secure a quick conversation with Mr. Roth.

Bryan Layne: What have you been up to since your work on GRINDHOUSE and HOSTEL 2?

Eli Roth: I've been working on a project called TRAILER TRASH, which is going to be more of an expanded version of what I did for GRINDHOUSE. It was really inspired by the trailer I did for that film. I had so much fun doing that and I had a bunch of ideas for others. Instead of waiting for GRINDHOUSE 2, I just figured we'd do a whole movie of these and we'll call it TRAILER TRASH, something really silly and fun; totally absurd. So, I've been busy working on that. I'm planning on shooting it in the spring, so I'm just sort of figuring out the logistics of the production because I've got to shoot a bunch of fake trailers and make them all look like real movies. It's a bit of a challenge to figure out how to do it.

BL: Didn't the studio release GRINDHOUSE separately on DVD, minus all the trailers including the THANKSGIVING one you directed?

ER: Yes. They're planning to do a GRINDHOUSE double DVD at some point. I'm not sure when, but those guys have that figured out. I don't really know what the whole story is as far as their plans for releasing it, but it is true that they released them separately on DVD without the trailers. I think eventually there will be a GRINDHOUSE DVD that has both of the movies combined with the trailers on it.

BL: How's your production company Raw Nerve going for you?

ER: Well, with Raw Nerve the first movie we did was HOSTEL and then HOSTEL 2. Truthfully, I'm really focusing on directing now more than producing. If I'm going to produce anything it's only going to be movies that I direct from now on. I just feel like as much as I enjoy it there's only so much time that I have to do things and I really want to put all of my energy into projects that I direct myself.

BL: I just talked with Herschel Gordon Lewis the other day and felt that he's never gotten the credit he deserves for being one of the first directors to exploit violence in cinema. Journalists and critics seem to list BONNIE AND CLYDE or THE WILD BUNCH as the first depictions of violence. I don't know if you consulted Mr. Lewis during your involvement with 2001 MANIACS, but I wondered how you felt about that?

ER: I've never spoken with H.G. Lewis. I'm a big fan of his, of course, but that was something the director of 2001 MANIACS, Tim Sullivan, had arranged prior to my getting involved in that film. As far as bypassing his films, I mean, that's always been the case with horror. Horror has always been treated like a second-class citizen and people don't treat horror films like real movies. If you make a horror movie, suddenly it's not a real film. They don't get considered for Oscar nominations and I think part of the problem is that for so long people just weren't putting a lot of effort into horror films. Horror never gets the respect it deserves and that's always the way it's been. People's natural reaction is to be horrified by something. If a scary movie effectively does its job people feel repulsed and very disturbed. They generally don't want to reward films like that.

The H.G. Lewis movies... these were B-movies. These were drive-in movies and BONNIE AND CLYDE and THE WILD BUNCH were mainstream films. So, a lot of America didn't even know about Lewis' films. I think horror fans give them the respect they deserve. H.G. Lewis is the Godfather of Gore. He's the one who created splatter movies and the fans know that. The mainstream presses, I mean, just look at what they say about my films. I've never got coverage. I've never gotten a single interview.

When Premiere magazine was in existence, I never got an interview with them. Entertainment Weekly has never once written a single feature on me. They've put a couple of reviews of my films in their publication, but the mainstream press has largely and completely ignored me. It's really only been the internet press and alternative press that have supported me, as strange as that seems, and it's basically because they just don't take horror films seriously. They are not real movies in their opinion -they're horror movies. It's like they view them as being one step away from pornography and that's just by the nature of what they are and the things these films provoke. That's just how it is and you have to be comfortable living in that zone. We aren't really making these movies to win Oscars or get great reviews. We are making movies that thirty years from now kids are still going to watch at a sleepover. That's what matters to me.

BL: How do you feel about violence in film?

ER: I like violence in movies if it is appropriate to the story. I like it just as I enjoy anything else in film. I like it as well as drama in film, sex in film or comedy in film. To me, it's just another element of storytelling and there just happens to be a lot of stories out there that are very violent. The first few films I've told have been very violent stories. I grew up loving gore films, you know. The more violent the better, but I think it's like anything, sometimes you can feel like a filmmaker is trying to be shocking for shocking's sake and it actually becomes boring. It loses its power. I think it's like any element of a film, whether it's music or camera tricks, etc. The director really has to understand how and when to use violence to make it effective. You can't just put up violent images and expect it to be effective because they are violent.

BL: Do you feel it is possible to go too far with violence?

ER: No, not really. I think if you go too far it gets boring. It's still an image. It's just an image. It's make-up effects or a magic trick and it really doesn't matter what the image is. There's nothing where I go, "Gosh, they've really gone too far this time," because it's only a movie. You know that it's fake. I think that anything that takes you out of the story, for me, is too much. If you are suddenly too aware of the effect and you don't care about what happens next, then I think it just comes across as not as interesting. I don't get morally outraged at cinema violence because there's no violence you can put in a movie that's worse than what's happening in the real world.

BL: Well, would it all boil down to great characterization in the shooting script?

ER: Not necessarily. I feel that it all depends on who's directing and there is actually a lot of things that matter. You can tell, generally from the beginning of the film, whether you are going to be watching a good movie or not. Also, whether or not you are interested in the characters and the story. I think that violence and blood, that's just another element in the storytelling. I don't think you can boil it down to any one thing that makes a film successful. The only thing that really matters is if the audience is into what happens next on the screen. If you are making a scary movie the audience has to be scared also or at least care about the characters and interested in what's going to happen to these characters next. That's the viewer's sense of jeopardy.

BL: How difficult was it for you to get CABIN FEVER made?

ER: It took six years of my life. It was impossible and I wrote it back when I was twenty-two. I didn't get it made until I was thirty and in between was years and years of actively raising the money to film it. We were eventually shut down by the union and they took all of our money. You know, people put up their houses to make that movie. We risked absolutely everything and I would have been completely ruined financially for the rest of my life, as would have all of the investors, and miraculously we got a huge sale at a festival. It went on to be the highest-grossing film from 2002 for Lions Gate and helped launch their new wave of horror. It was one of those things that were trial by fire. If I'd known how difficult and stressful it was going to be, I probably wouldn't have done it. The thing is, you can't know how difficult it's going to be. You just have to make yourself do it and then once you've gone too far, you can't stop. You have to find a way to make it work. It was extremely stressful and we never had the money... EVER. We were raising the money right through the sound mixing and editing of the film. I talk about it extensively on the CABIN FEVER DVD director's commentary.

BL: What are some of your favorite films that aren't in the horror genre?

ER: Well, I like films like YELLOW SUBMARINE and WILLY WONKA, kids movies that have a little bit of a darker edge. The Tim Burton films. Lately, I've been watching a bunch of old Italian films. Films like Vittorio DeSica's BICYCLE THIEVES and the films of Michelangelo Antonioni. There is this Fellini film called TOBY DAMMIT, which is a short film he made based on an Edgar Allen Poe short story and I've been watching that a lot lately. That's the kind of stuff I've been currently watching. I love those movies. I also enjoy Paul Thomas Anderson's films. So, I don't always just sit around watching horror movies. You can get tired of doing that.

BL: I like character actor Rick Hoffman. How did he wind up playing the American client in your first HOSTEL movie?

ER: I've been a fan of Rick Hoffman's and he's a friend of my producer, Chris Briggs. Chris has known Rick for many years and it was actually his suggestion to cast Rick. We saved that role for the last few days of shooting because we hadn't cast it yet. There were a number of people we were considering, but Rick was perfect. I was really excited that he became available and we could get him. It was really all Chris' suggestion. He brought him in and Rick just nailed it. We knew that if we got the right person for the role the actor could potentially come in and just steal the whole movie. Rick is that guy. Rick is the type of actor who can appear in one scene of a film and steal the whole movie and you never forget him.

Many people tell me that, for them, his role and performance was the most disturbing thing in HOSTEL. The look on Rick Hoffman's face, having a character that is just so excited to kill somebody, was far more disturbing than any of the violence I put in the film. I also learned a huge lesson by doing that scene. You don't need music or lighting to make the scene scary. It's the situation that is scary and that scene is a perfect example where there is no on-screen violence. It's just two people in a room talking to each other and was filmed in daylight without any fancy camera work. There's nothing spooky or creepy about it. It's just the subject matter and the nature of the conversation that's disturbing. So, that's why in HOSTEL 2 I really tried to make that the model for the tone of that film.

BL: Do you find that the fear of a foreign place to be a universal one?

ER: Yes, it's a very human feeling called xenophobia. I've experienced that with all of my films going back to CABIN FEVER. The whole we're not in Kansas any more sensation. I feel that everybody has had that experience of going to another place that's not their home where they are not secure, they don't know anybody and you need help. Suddenly, people are talking about you in a language that you don't understand and you don't know who to trust. It happens to everybody.

It happens right here in this country when people from the north drive to the south and vice versa. There are many, many stories that are kind of fish out of water stories. It's a very natural thing to both be afraid of other cultures and to be afraid of outsiders coming into your own culture. So, xenophobia was one of the things that I really wanted to explore. I've traveled a lot. I love going into other cultures by traveling. I've lived in France, Iceland, and most recently, Prague and if you are generally receptive to the other culture and you want to be a part of it to the extent where you make an attempt to learn a couple of phrases, people are very warm and receptive back to you. If you come in with an attitude that your culture is better than theirs, then it can get very scary, very quickly.

BL: Why did you choose the horror genre to explore for your films, so far?

ER: I wish I had a simple explanation for it, but I've just always loved horror. When I was a kid it was before cable television. So, if a movie came to the theaters, like GATES OF HELL or MOTHER'S DAY, you'd see the ads in the newspaper, but then it was gone forever because it was never going to come to television.

I always wondered what it was about these movies that were so forbidden that we weren't allowed to see them. There was always some kid's older brother in the neighborhood that had seen the movie and you would get them to graphically describe all the kills for you. I remember one kid's older brother that had seen THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and all he had to do was describe it to us. I just built it up in my mind. It was that forbidden thing I wasn't allowed to see and I just always loved horror films.

I always enjoyed being scared at the movies. I don't like being scared in real life, but scary movies were just the most fun thing in the world to me. It was the greatest thrill, as a kid, to be up late at night and you're watching a scary movie. So, it was my dream to make horror movies. I mean, I want to make all kinds of films, but first and foremost I felt that horror had lost its way and people forgot what was fun about these films, what was interesting about horror, and why people wanted to see horror movies.

Now, thankfully, there's a whole wave of directors that are in power and we finally got to make our dream movies and the fans really responded. I feel like it's a new golden age of horror with directors like Neil Marshall, James Wan, Darren Bousman, Rob Zombie, and Alex Aja. These are directors who really, really care about making great horror movies. Now you see guys like Frank Darabont making horror films again. It's really exciting to see A-list directors making horror movies because that's what the genre has been missing. We need directors to embrace the genre, to love it, and really take it seriously so we can try to make great movies.

BL: Was it easier to get a horror film made in the eighties?

ER: I was a kid back then, so I can't really speak from experience. I can tell you that by talking with these directors, those masters of horror from that era, they say that it was much easier to make a movie and get it in theaters back then because there were so many different theater chains and theater bookers. There was also a whole drive-in circuit. The theaters weren't all multiplexes owned by corporations. Even in the nineties, there were like twenty different independent studios that you could go and take your film to. It was possible to get weirder, more offbeat movies made.

Now, The Weinstein Company and Lion's Gate are the only independents left. Everything else has been bought up and it's very competitive out there. Just look at HOSTEL 2, which got released up against PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3 and SHREK 3 and you are fighting for the same seats. It's an extremely, extremely competitive landscape. It is very difficult to get your film in cinemas and the DVD business is dying out. So, it's not quite what it used to be and it's all moving towards on-line. I just think it was a different time back then. I really can only speak from the era in which I've worked, but it's extremely difficult to not only make a film but to then get it into theaters is next to impossible. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can do that.

BL: Do you feel that people furthest away from the film industry focus their attention too much on how much money a title brings in?

ER: It's amazing that whatever is Number One at the box office is bigger news than U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq. It makes me sick. Everybody, now with the Internet, has access to this information and people obsess over it, harp on it and everybody wants to be a part of it. It's the first time in our culture that fans have had direct access to the actors and stars through things like MySpace, Facebook, and various other websites. Before all of that, you had to sit down and write a letter to a fan club.

Back then, if the public did know how much money a film made it was usually something huge like Tim Burton's BATMAN. Now, it's on every news station, it's written about in daily newspapers and it's broadcast on morning radio reports. I think it's all part of the gossip culture in general that we've fostered in the last five years. Publications like Star magazine, US Weekly, and In Touch are extremely popular. We've become similar to the ways the British cultures obsess with gossip and tabloids. American culture seems to be obsessing over movie box office results. It's just incredible how people come up to me and... I don't know one other business where people will just come off the street and know exactly how much money someone makes and what their last business venture made. When my last film opened, people everywhere knew how much money I was making. It's kind of strange.

BL: Is there anything you would like to add before we wrap this thing up?

No, I just want to say that for me the greatest thing is that I feel so lucky that I've gotten to do what I've done so far. Every step along the way I've had that temptation to take some offers on a Hollywood studio film and even after CABIN FEVER, HOSTEL and HOSTEL 2, I've really kind of stuck to my guns to do my own thing and the fans have really supported me. I want to thank them because I wouldn't be able to have a choice on what films I wanted to do if the fans didn't come out and support my films, both in the theaters and on DVD. I consider it a privilege every time I get behind the camera to direct and I give it my all.

-All text is owned by MT Media.
-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns please contact the owner of this blog.

Filmmaker Interview With Stuart Gordon

2020-03-26T16:57:00.002-05:00

In 1985, at a particularly young age, I was introduced to Stuart Gordon by way of a rental from a local video store in Memphis, Tennessee. The film was Re-Animator and the production value on the whole title knocked me out. It was one of the first times I realized that films without mass theatrical distribution could be as good (if not better than) as movies showing at your local multiplex. Jeffrey Combs' portrayal of Dr. Herbert West in that film created fans and made it one of the most beloved characters from the horror genre. From then on, I was constantly on the lookout for projects that had Gordon's name attached.

Gordon's early roots are firmly planted in the stages of Chicago theater. There he met and befriended Pulitzer play-writer (Glengarry Glen Ross) David Mamet, who wrote aggressive male-driven stories that raised profanity to the level of classic art. Horror fans everywhere respect Stuart Gordon- from the many films he did with Charles Band and frequent collaborator Brian Yuzna to his recent work for NBC's Fear Itself.

The following interview was the first one I ever conducted with Mr. Gordon. It was published back in May of 2008 for Oddity Cinema- a now-defunct publication out of Edmonton, Canada. It's not the best one I did with Gordon, but I think the article still has value.

What can I say about this documented moment in time? I can tell you Stuart Gordon was one of the nicest people from the movie business. He always came across calm and polite every time we spoke. He enjoyed meeting his fans and answering a few questions about his work, as well as the work of other filmmakers. My pal, the late Chas. Balun- who created Deep Red Magazine and wrote for Fangoria, always said out of all the people from the horror genre he'd dealt with, Stuart Gordon was his favorite. That statement wasn't based solely on his work but on the man himself.

One thing I do remember about this first interview that went down over a decade ago was that I conducted it from my home office. That particular day, I was having trouble with the cable service and my telephone disconnected four times in the forty minutes I spoke with Mr. Gordon. Yet, through all of my communication troubles- Mr. Gordon remained good-natured and comical about it all.

Sadly, on March 24, 2020- Stuart Gordon died in Los Angeles. The cause of death is listed as multi-organ failure. He was 72 years old. He will continually be missed. He IS one of the true Masters Of Horror.

Bryan Layne: Do you remember a specific film that might have influenced your decision to get into filmmaking?

Stuart Gordon: Well, you know, there are a bunch of them, but one of them that really got me excited was 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Stanley Kubrick movie. That movie was like a religious experience for me.

BL: That one changed everything, didn’t it?

SG: It sure did. It’s still the greatest science fiction movie ever made.

BL: You got your start in stage productions and theater?

SG: Yes, I did. I did theater for a number of years before I did films.

BL: How did you find the theater experience to be?

SG: I really enjoyed it. I was the director of a theater company in Chicago. We had some great people in the company. We performed on and off-Broadway and we toured Europe. We did original plays and adaptations. We were the first to do the professional production of David Mamet’s work. We actually had a fantastic time with the whole thing.

BL: So David Mamet was part of that troupe?

SG: Yes he was. He worked with all of us.

BL: Was Jeffery Combs a part of that early troupe also?

SG: No, actually he wasn’t, but he certainly could have been. I met Jeffery when I was auditioning for Re-Animator, which was my first film. He comes from a theater background and because of that we really hit it off.

BL: I noticed a long time ago that he seems to be your go-to man for projects.

SG: Yes, absolutely and it all goes back to those theater days, which was a repertoire company. When you find people whose work you admire and everybody can, sort of, understand wavelengths you hang on to him or her as long as you can. You wind up wanting to do as much work with them as possible.

BL: Are you single-handedly responsible for directors constantly casting him in nutty roles most of the time?

SG: (Laughing) Well, you know, Jeffery is like a chameleon. He can be anybody and that’s what's so cool about him. I’ve seen him play just about every kind of role imaginable. A lot of the time, the public doesn’t even recognize him when they are seeing him on screen. He’s in a film I did recently called Edmond and he plays a desk clerk in a hotel. It seemed to me that nobody realized it was him for the longest time.

BL: That’s right, he was eating chicken in that scene, correct?

SG: Yeah, that’s right. That was all his idea, actually. His fans seem to be genuinely amazed at all the various characters he’s capable of portraying. We just did a thing together for Masters of Horror where he played Edgar Allan Poe. He really did channel Poe. He became him and it was quite a thing to witness.

BL: Did he wear a prosthetic nose for that one?

SG: Yes, he did. He had a fake nose and that was about it, except for a wig.

BL: He sure did look a lot like him.

SG: Yeah, one of the things I realized was that Jeffery has wanted to play Poe for a very long time. When I began reading about Edgar Allan Poe, I found out that he and Jeffery are almost identical in terms of looks and build. The color of their eyes is even similar.

BL: How do you explain your relationship with H.P. Lovecraft? You seem to adapt a lot of his work.

SG: I first started reading Lovecraft as a teenager and his stuff used to just scare the crap out of me. Nobody can write like he can. It amazed me that very few people had adapted his work to film. I discovered early on that all of his stories are public domain. In a way, it was like a treasure trove. It’s available for anybody who wants it. As a matter of fact, there’s a Lovecraft film festival every year in Portland, Oregon and all of these amateur filmmakers do various versions of his stories.

BL: Have you been a part of that film festival?

SG: I’ve been there a couple of times and I’ve always had a great time. A lot of these fans are very, very serious about Lovecraft and are often much more knowledgeable about him than I am.

BL: Did you discover, other than the classical sense, any similarities between the writings of Poe and Lovecraft?

SG: Well, Lovecraft was a huge admirer of Poe. He even tried to imitate his style of writing. There would have been no Lovecraft without Poe, but I believe Lovecraft wound up going in his own direction. What’s great about Lovecraft’s work is that all of his stories are kind of connected together and they form this thing that people call the Cthulhu Mythos; which is kind of this Lovecraftian mythology. It all revolves around these various worlds and creatures.

BL: Tell me about your involvement with Disney for the family film, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

SG: Brian Yuzna and I came up with the idea for that one and it was right around the time we were doing all these movies for Charlie Band. We had completed Re-Animator and From Beyond and none of those films were suitable for children. We really started to focus on an idea that could be turned into a family film and came up with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. We wound up taking it to Disney and they liked the concept.

BL: It was a smash for you, wasn’t it?

SG: Yeah, it turned into a huge hit and then we worked on the sequel, as well.

BL: Is that the closest you’ve ever worked with a major studio?

SG: It really was and it was my biggest success, as well. I think more people know that movie than any other I’ve been involved with. When I meet people and they ask me what I’ve done, that’s the one they seem to recognize immediately because it really did reach such a wide audience.

It was interesting at the time, Disney had just been taken over by Michael Eisner and they were kind of leery about doing family films. The Disney studio had almost been completely bankrupted by a series of bad family movies. They were kind of afraid to do a new family film. The week that Honey, I Shrunk the Kids came out, Jeffery Katzenberg did an interview for The New York Times. He adamantly said Honey was NOT a family film because he didn’t want to get branded in that genre that was killing Disney’s studio.

BL: How do you feel about dealing with major studios?

SG: Lately I’ve been doing mainly independent films. The problem with studio pictures is that you have a lot less control. You get involved with everybody from the creative executive to the marketing department. Everybody seems to have a say in what the final film is going to be and sometimes that can be a good thing. The kinds of things I tend to do are so strange and quirky that I think it’s probably better that I keep it independent.

BL: How about the film you wrote, The Dentist?

SG: I worked on that one with Brian and Dennis Paoli, who is my writing partner.

BL: Do you enjoy watching other directors translating your written work to the screen?

SG: Yes, sometimes it’s great because they will come up with things you never even thought of during the writing process. I’ve always found it kind of fun to sit back and witness how the story is going to be interpreted. With Brian, we’ve done so much work together we are on the same wavelength, almost to a point where we can sometimes finish each other’s sentences.

BL: How did King of the Ants come about? That was a bizarre little film.

SG: That started out from a novel that actor George Wendt brought to my attention. He’s an old friend of mine from my days in Chicago. He had met Charlie Higson, the author, at some point in time. He gave George a copy of his book and he had read it. George brought the novel to me and told me he felt the content was right up my alley. He suggested that if I liked it he would option the rights to put it to film. It was such an extraordinary book, very shocking and a great page-turner. I believe I read the whole thing in a day.

Getting that movie made was not an easy thing because it’s the story of a guy who basically discovers that his talents lay in killing people. It’s actually a very immoral story. I had tons of meetings with studios and they all insisted that the main character had to get caught at the end. You know, we couldn’t just let him go. The most shocking thing is that the character is hired to kill an innocent man and he goes ahead and does it, knowing this fact. When I was reading the book, I kept thinking that something was going to happen that would stop him from doing this, but when he goes ahead and does it, the reader just can’t believe it. Yet, the amazing thing about the writing is that you still like this character. He does these terrible things, but you still care about him.

BL: George Wendt was in that feature as well wasn’t he?

SG: Yeah, George ended up playing one of the best roles in it. It was kind of funny because, up until that character, people sort of thought of him as Norm from Cheers. What’s cool about that role for George is that it kind of starts out a lot like Norm, a really funny and very friendly guy. He winds up being a true nasty bastard and that turn completely freaked people out. George was telling me when his wife saw that movie for the first time, she said to him, "I don’t know who you are anymore."

BL: What can we expect from House of Re-Animator?

SG: Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that film is going to be made. It’s really kind of sad. I think we missed our chance. The plot was very much about the Bush administration. We couldn’t get anyone brave enough to get behind that concept and provide the financing to put it to film. Everybody was afraid of offending that administration, so because of that it doesn’t look like that film will ever go into production.

The main setting of the script is, of course, The White House and all of the characters are based directly on the Bush administration. I mean it starts out with Dr. Herbert West re-animating the Vice President, Dick Cheney. It’s amazing to me how few movies there are that have taken the Bush administration to task. The one that’s coming out now about Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay that’s like, only the third movie that’s been done that is critical of George W. Bush.

BL: Well, I was looking forward to that film and I hate to hear it’s not going to be made.

SG: I know, it’s a drag. I’ve gotten so much interest in it and it seems to be the one everybody asks me about. Unfortunately, the people who finance these things were just scared to death of it for the wrong reasons. I’ve basically given up on the whole thing because I think it’s just way too late to get it out there. If we started filming now, by the time it got released, I feel it would be old news.

BL: How do you feel about filming on digital video?

SG: I, myself, have never shot a film on digital. I have produced one called Deathbed and found it to be quite interesting. I do think that’s where everything is heading. It really is a great technology and it allows films to be made very inexpensively. It used to be that you had to have close to a million dollars to make a movie. Now you can do it on your credit card. For the one I produced, I worked alongside these young guys who edited the film on their Macs at home and they did the mixes there as well. It was incredible how much they could do and how sophisticated a product they wound up creating for very little money.

BL: Edmond was a wild film. How long ago had David Mamet written that one?

SG: I believe it was written in 1982. It’s a pretty old piece, but it still manages to completely shock audiences. I saw that original production back in '82 and I was just knocked out by it. I had never seen anything that was that frank and had a main character that says things to people most of society may think but are always afraid to say out loud. Edmond was also another one of my films that was very hard to get made.

BL: Was William H. Macy a part of your early theater troupe?

SG: He was not in my theater company, but I knew him back then. After David Mamet worked with us, he started his own theater company and he brought Bill Macy into it. We all knew each other, but filming Edmond was the first time I got to work with Bill. It was a wonderful pleasure to work with him and he’s a great actor.

BL: Yes, I remember pulling for him to win the award for Fargo and was disappointed when he didn’t win.

SG: Yeah, I think just getting nominated is an honor in itself. Sometimes people win and they never work again. It’s kind of weird. It’s sort of like a curse or something. So, I think the best thing is to just get nominated.

BL: How did you enjoy filming in Spain for your film Dagon?

SG: I enjoyed working there and stayed in Spain for about a year completing that film. It started with Brian Yuzna and he was working with a company called Filmax. He branched that company off into another division called Fantastic Factory and it was to specialize in horror films for an international market. Dagon had been another project of mine I wanted to do for a very long time.

It was originally going to be my follow-up to Re-Animator, but we could never get people interested in the concept because the premise was so strange. You know, this fishing village where the inhabitants were turning into fish. When I would get to that point while pitching the film, everyone in the room would wind up laughing and that would be the end of it.

Brian eventually contacted me and decided we could finally make Dagon, but he informed me we would have to film it in Spain. He brought me to a section of Spain called Galicia, which is located on the Northwest coast. It actually is very, very similar to New England. It was fog-shrouded and the city has all of these legends about witches and monsters, a very supernatural area full of superstitious people. It seemed very ideal for me to be filming there.

BL: Dagon was your first time collaborating with actor Ezra Godden, correct?

SG: Yes, it was. Ezra is great and later on, I used him in an episode of Masters of Horror that I directed. He’s a wonderful actor that fits into that Lovecraftian world really well.

BL: What’s new coming out that you are involved with?

SG: I’ve got a new movie coming out at the end of May called Stuck and it stars Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea. It’s written by the guy who wrote Deathbed, John Strysik. That one is based on a true story about a woman who hits a homeless man and he goes through the windshield of her car. Instead of taking the guy to the emergency room, she panics and puts him in her garage while he’s still stuck in her windshield. This actually happened about seven years ago.

The guy was alive in this woman’s garage for several days, begging for help. She kept going out there to apologize and told him help was on the way. Basically, she was waiting for him to bleed to death. When I read that story, I thought it was much more horrifying than anything I could dream up on my own. So, that’s completed and it will be available on May 30th.

I also just finished an episode for a new television series that is kind of a spin-off of Masters of Horror called Fear Itself. That series will be broadcast on NBC on June 5th and it should wind up reaching a very wide audience. It features several people involved in the horror genre, so be sure to look for that one.

-All text is owned by MT Media

-All images were taken from Google Images. If there are any copyright concerns on images please contact the owner of this blog.