Festival Of Fear 2013: Joe Dante

The guest of honour at the Festival Of Fear this year was filmmaker Joe Dante. The director of such seminal genre pictures as Gremlins, The Howling and most recently The Hole, was in town for the entire weekend greeting fans and talking about his career. I've always felt that Dante is one of the best in the biz at creating kid-friendly genre pictures. As Gremlins served as a gateway drug to horror, so to did The Explorers into science fiction. I also feel The Hole, which has criminally denied a decent release here, was one of the best attempts at recapturing eighties-style filmmaking. I'm not talking about aesthetic, which is the more popular thing to do these days, I'm talking about actual storytelling. The Hole was a marvel, and proof positive that Dante is still as talented a filmmaker as he always was.

On the Thursday, Rue Morgue screened the 1989 Tom Hanks vehicle The 'Burbs at the Lightbox. It had been a long time since I'd seen it and it held up beautifully. Dante was on hand for a Q&A, which Kurt Halfyard graciously decided to post on RowThree. Here it is below.

A few days later, he did another Q&A at the Fan Expo. Here are some highlights.

Dante on working with Roger Corman;

“If it wasn't for Roger Corman, I wouldn't be sitting here. Roger realized that the cheaper you could make a movie, the more money you could make from them. There was still a big drive-in market and then turned into the VHS market later. So, we were making pictures for a third of what it would cost anybody else, and they were the same subject matter (as our competitors). They were, you know, sex, drugs, rock n' roll, motorcycles, monsters, whatever would play on the drive-in circuit. I was one of the few people that worked for him that had seen all his old movies, so I had an advantage that a lot of other people didn't have. And also I liked these kind of movies. A number of the people who worked for Roger really thought they were slumming. They thought 'okay, I'll make one of these women in prison pictures, and then I'll make my magnum opus about the blind jazz man from New Orleans who wants to find his long lost brother' or whatever. Those pictures never got made because the movies they made for Roger were not very good because they didn't care about them. They just thought it was a means to an end. Whereas some of us wanted to make the best women in cages movie they could possibly make and Roger learned to differentiate between those people. Who wanted to really stay in the business and who just thought this was a stopping ground onto their way to stardom. Most of those people didn't get very far. The ones who really shined, and you know all their names, were people who really did try to do their best work under the circumstances and make movies that were just a little bit better than the movies these other people were making.”

“The way it worked there was that my first movie was co-directed by Alan Arkush and we had been in the trailer department. Some of those trailers had been very educational because you'd look at a movie that was just dreadful and think 'how can we make this seem better.' We would re-edit them in certain ways to look flashier or spiffier than they actually were. We would also learn a lot of things about film grammar and about how many shots you needed to make an idea work. So, when you finally got onto a set you realized there were certain shots you didn't need because you'd already done the short version. It saved us a lot of time, so when we got our first movie, we were able to do it in ten days for sixty thousand dollars and have it turn out because we knew what we were doing. The movie was Hollywood Boulevard and I wouldn't say it was any kind of classic, but it's almost a documentary of what it was really like making movies at that time under those circumstances. As a result, Alan got to do Rock N' Roll High School and I got a chance to do Piranha. Those were solo pictures that, as Roger often said, 'if you do two good pictures for me, you'll never have to work for me again'”

Director Joe Dante.

Dante on The Howling;

“There hadn't been any werewolf movies in some time, and I think they were generally being considered old hat. We wanted to go back to the classics that we loved, but sort of bring it into the modern world and not have villagers and torches and such. As far as the designs go, we didn't want to do the standard thing where you just have the hands & head because that's all you can afford. So, Rick Baker, who had long wanted to do a werewolf movie, had these ideas for what we call 'change-o-heads' where it allows you to change a puppet head from one thing to another on camera. So our goal was to do a werewolf transformation all in one shot. Ultimately, as soon as John Landis found out I was doing this picture, he called Rick and said 'you can't do The Howling because you have to do American Werewolf In London' and Rick said 'you've been saying you're going to do that movie for years'. John said 'I'm gonna do it!' and by God within a week he had the financing for American Werewolf. So, Rick said he'd always promised John he'd do that movie, so he couldn't do mine. But Rob Bottin who'd worked on Piranha and was sort of Rick's protege came on instead. Rob did a fantastic job with not much money. We tried a few things. We put people in suits, but they kind of ended up looking like bears, so that didn't work. We ended up building werewolves in pieces, top halves, bottom halves and separate legs and such. It gave the illusion that there was a wolf-like creature that was standing on its hind legs. It worked great. But I think the main contribution to the genre that movie gave was that it was the first self-reflective werewolf picture where the characters in the movie already know what the audience knows. Instead of having to go to the library, or a doctor to find out what a werewolf is, these characters already know what they are because they've seen The Wolfman. That later became quite a popular trend in movies, but I think this was the first time that was done.”

Dante on Gremlins;

“One day at my ratty office in Hollywood, this script appeared for Gremlins. I was sure it had gone to the wrong address, I couldn't figure out why I would be getting a script from Steven Spielberg. It was a horror film that Chris Columbus had written as a spec script. Spielberg had found it, he'd seen my last two pictures and wanted to start his new company Amblin, and open with a low budget horror film. Initially, it was a much darker version of the movie, the Gremlins kill his dog and eat it, they kill the mom and bounce her head down the stairs. It was really pretty grim, which is why he came to me. Because it was a Spielberg picture it was not subject to the kind of scrutiny most films would be, so later when the film was done and the studio saw it they were just horrified. They just couldn't figure it out. They said, 'these gremlins are just so disgusting, do we need to have so many of them?' so Spielberg said 'well, we can cut them all out and call it People!' We finished the movie and took it to a preview. And because nobody knew what it was, nobody expected it, it was the right movie at the right time, the preview was amazing. It was so successful. Now, all of a sudden the studio thought the movie was terrific. It was a huge movie that summer and the reason I'm still in the business.”

Dante on Masters of Horror;

“Masters of Horror was a great deal for us guys because we were promised no money, but also promised total creative control. There was a list from Showtime of things you couldn't do like rape nuns and shoot the genitals of children, obvious things you don't wanna do, but for the most part they really did leave us alone. It was an opportunity for a lot of people who were tired of being told what to do, to be able to choose what they wanted. Because I was pissed off about politics at the time and unhappy about the current administration, what was going on in Iraq and how nobody was saying anything. They were all just cheering and saying everything was great. I chose to be a counterpoint to that and did this very obvious propaganda Anti-Bush movie, because I could. And I knew that once it was done I could send it to every right-wing pundit I knew and get them upset. The other one I did, The Screwfly Solution was a story that I'd wanted to do for a long time as a feature. After I done it for Masters, it was odd because it was the first thing I'd ever done with absolutely no humour, because it's just not a funny story. I realized then that if I'd done it as a feature it would've been a complete disaster because nobody would pay to be as depressed as people were after seeing that. It was lot of fun, and would've liked to have done more. There is another project that Mick Garris is working on called Nightmare Cinema, which is a similar thing, but with a series of features. If that happens, I'd love to do one of those.”

Both talks were spectacular, and among the most informative I've seen, mainly because Dante has worked in both the independent and studio systems. He concluded by saying that this fall he is shooting a zombie comedy called Burying The Ex, which he “hopes is going to be funny, because I know it's going to be cheap.” I'm sure with Dante at the helm, it'll turn out just fine.

Festival Of Fear 2013: Reunion(?)

In addition to the Joe Dante appearance, Rue Morgue had also planned a very special reunion.

Unfortunately, it kind of fell apart at the zero hour, as Jeffrey Combs took on a last-minute acting gig, and Charles Band, who was at the show, disappeared mysteriously - actually it's not a mystery, but that's an entirely different story. Regardless, the remaining members of the reunion soldiered on and provided some great anecdotes. I have to say that Barbara Crampton was especially lovely, showing a wonderful affinity for public speaking. Crampton & Bruce Abbott talked to fans at length about Stuart Gordon's classic 1985 film Re-Animator. Here are some highlights.

Crampton on Re-Animator being Gordon's first film;

“This was Stuart Gordon's first movie that he directed, he had been in stage in Chicago for a very long time. He'd always loved H.P. Lovecraft and he was working with Dennis Paoli, his writer, and they formulated this script bringing together some isolated stories about Herbert West. He hired a DP by the name of Mac Ahlberg and they worked really closely together. He was really instrumental in helping Stuart actually know how to frame a shot, where the camera should be and how to orchestrate a scene. We also, because Stuart was a theatre director, had the advantage of rehearsing for about three weeks before we started shooting the movie. That doesn't often happen with an independent film, you just get the script, you read it and sometimes you meet your co-actors the day you show up for your first scene. So, we all met each other at the audition process and then, I happened to have the biggest living room at the time, so we worked out the scenes in my living room. I got to hang out with these guys beforehand, so when we got to the set we were really prepared.”

Abbott on his initial reaction to Re-Animator;

“I didn't like the script when I read it. It was bizarre and I didn't really know if I wanted to do it. It was so out of bounds. I was asking my agent if there was anything else I could audition for. My agent talked me into it. And there was massive competition for the audition, there was like fourty guys that looked just like me. I couldn't get it, I was like 'what do they see in this?' So it was a big surprise for me. But when we saw dailies, there was something undeniably energetic and visceral about it. Stuart's excesses, we used to call him 'more blood Gordon'. I just remember being mesmerized by what I was seeing in dailies. I was always 'God damn, that really works.' It was a shock.”

On working with Jeffrey Combs;

BC: “He really kind of what you might expect, mercurial, really intelligent and a very feeling person. He's somewhat nicely tortured just enough to play some odd characters. He's able to totally put himself into another person where you just don't see Jeff at all.”

BA: “I think that's a beautiful assessment of him. I think the words that come to mind for me are really quick, and physical. Jeff is one of the most physical actors. He did this incredible one man show in Los Angeles called Nevermore that Stuart directed, that God, it was Edgar Allen Poe, and he just killed it. And that's very dry stuff and part of his magic is that he inhabits his body so amazingly through his characters. He's a live wire, man.”

Re-Animator's Bruce Abbott & Barbara Crampton

Moderator Andrea Subissati asked if there was any truth to the rumour that Charles Band out the kibosh on Stuart Gordon's desire to do Dagon following Re-Animator. Here's what Crampton had to say about it;

“I don't think Charles really liked that movie so much, and I know that Stuart was trying to pitch that around to different studios. He also brought it to Disney, and they were like 'fish? Scary? I don't think so.' Originally, he wanted Jeff and I to be the leads in Dagon, but it just took so long that he decided to do From Beyond. Then, by the time it went ahead we were too old to do it, although the guy that is in Dagon they got looks a lot like Jeffrey. Actually, I think those fish, if you've seen Dagon, those fish creatures are really scary. I love that movie, after Re-Animator it's probably my favourite thing that he's done.”

I was glad that Crampton brought up her involvement in the newly released home invasion slasher You're Next;

“I was in kind of semi-retirement. I live just outside San Francisco with my family, I have two children. I got a call out of the blue a couple of years ago and was in offered this role as the mom in You’re Next. I thought to myself, well, who wants me to be in a movie? Who remembers me? I asked my agent, who thankfully still hadn’t dropped me in the ten years I wasn’t working, 'do they want to see me? Do they want to audition me?' And he said 'no, they just want you for the movie, they’re big fans of Re-Animator and they want someone older for the mom, who’s also a horror actress. They want you!' I read the script and it was really good. It was really fortunate for me to be asked to do this movie because it just turned out to be an amazing thing.”

Crampton in You're Next.

As the Q&A was wrapping up, someone asked Abbott about Bride of Re-Animator, and Crampton why she wasn't in it;

BC: “When they asked me to be in it, it was Brian Yuzna who was taking over for Stuart and doing his own movie, and they said you're only going to have a teeny part in it and then you won't exist anymore. So, at the time, I think my agent said 'just don't do it.' So that was really the only reason, it just wasn't enough for me to do.”

BA: “She was afraid of the six hours of make-up (laughs). My God that woman (Kathleen Kinmont) spent many hours in the morning and so many hours at night getting that stuff off. She was an animal that woman. But, you know it was the gothic sort of homage to Frankenstein and with the Herbert West preoccupation with hearts, it seemed like a logical fit. I never really thought about it because Jeff was doing it, and he was just so much fun to work with. It was a great opportunity to revisit this thing. I had no idea how that would turn out either, but I was like 'well, you struck gold once...' I don't think it was quite as effective as the first one was, but we gave it a good shot.”

The day before, I had also seen Crampton and Ken Foree talk about their experiences working on Gordon's follow-up to Re-Animator, From Beyond. Here's some bits from that.

Crampton on the shoot's locale;

“We shot From Beyond in Italy and what an experience that was. It was the first time I was ever in Europe. After we did Re-Animator, which we made for a million dollars, it did so well that we had five million dollars, thirty years ago, to make From Beyond. That was a lot of money, you know? So, we had a long shooting schedule. These days you're lucky if you have three weeks for an independent movie, we had almost two months. And we were living at the Parioli House, and it was awesome.”

Crampton on From Beyond's signature slime;

“Does anyone wanna know what the From Beyond slime was actually made of? I don't even know if they still use it, but it was something called methylcellulose, which is the thickener in McDonald's milkshakes. And I had it all over my body and it was really cold in the studio we were shooting in. It was the old Dino De Laurentis studios and Dino had gone bankrupt and couldn't pay a lot of his bills, so some collectors had come and taken the heating elements out of the building. So, we shot I think it was March and April, and it was chilly in Rome at that time. They brought in some heaters, but they were really loud, so we could only use them when we weren't shooting. So, we were always cold and I had to be in that leather skimpy thing, and every time the Beyond came to be, they put this methylcellulose all over us. One day I just had it one day and I said 'it's freezing in here, you need to heat that stuff up.' I remember Stuart getting really mad at me, but we'd done a movie before at this point, so I said, 'yeah, I want it heated up, I can't act, I'm fucking freezing.' So he did.”

On the effects;

“Those (the floating creatures) were all CGI, those little fish things swimming around, we had to react to that, as there was nothing there. But definitely they were heavy on special effects in From Beyond. I think that was the era of that. And a lot of those guys went on to do a lot of great things. Mark Shostrom and John Buechler, you know, we had like three or four separate special effects teams.”

From Beyond's Ken Foree & Barbara Crampton

Moderator Andrea Subissati asked Ken Foree what it was like to die in a movie after kicking so much ass in Dawn of the Dead;

“Well, here’s a story just to show you how interesting me dying in films would become. I did Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and I had the fight with R.A. Mihailoff in the pool of water where he puts the chainsaw through my head. Ok, so that was the end of me. We wrapped and a few months later they screened it for audiences, and they called me and said they had to reshoot. I said, ‘Reshoot what?’. They told me that I was going to be in some scenes at the end because the audience didn’t like that I died. So, I came back and reshot it with a scar on my head. Moving forward a bit, I worked with Rob Zombie on Devil’s Rejects. When I read the script I told Rob ‘hey, there’s a problem here, the audience doesn’t like it when I die, so we can’t have me die in the film’ Rob said ‘No, Ken, you’re gonna die.’ So I said, ‘No, you don’t quite understand, people don’t like to see me die.’ This went on for a month, where I’d call him and he’d just hang up on me. So, first day on the set. What scene do we shoot? My death scene!”

Crampton on her “wardrobe” in From Beyond;

“Stuart actually went shopping with me for that leather outfit, because they'd bought a few things and I'd tried them on, and he didn't like anything, so we spent a long day laughing and carrying on, with me trying on all this bondage stuff and saying 'whaddaya think, boss, how's this?' He still said 'no, it's not good enough', so we had something made for me. And you know, a lot of these movies that Ken & I have both been in, sometimes when they come out, people like them, but they don't become the cult classics that they are today. So, maybe five or eight years after the movie I had a yard sale, and I sold that bondage outfit at the yard sale for probably like ten bucks. I look back now and wonder how much I could've gotten for that on Ebay.”

So, despite the reunion being a little short in bodies, it didn't make it any less enjoyable. I can see a revisit to those old Gordon-Lovecraftian tales in my near future. Thanks for reading everyone!

Festival Of Fear 2013

Fan Expo has once again come & gone, and here's a rundown of what took place at this year's Festival of Fear.

I'd like to say that the weekend went smoothly, but that would be a lie. Hobby Star continues to struggle managing the traffic that flows through their event each year. While it is true they figured out how to keep the outside lines short - a problem that has plagued them for years - that's where the positives end. It was fortunate that, due to the addition of a Sports section this year, they were able to utilize both buildings of the Metro Convention Centre, but this also made moving around the event a huge hassle. Getting between the North & South buildings was a twenty-minute ordeal, and just using the escalator - yes, that is escalator, as in singular - to get from the show floor to the Q&A panels took almost as long at peak times.

It's a busy event. I get it. But there's gotta be a better way to do this. The volunteers are told nothing, the security guards won't soon win any awards for congeniality and when is said and done, Hobby Star's attitude in the aftermath is essentially, oh well... Mainly, I'm just annoyed that due to this organizational snafu, I missed several panels, one of which was down to a last minute-schedule change. 

That said, there was still lots of stuff to see and do. Here's my weekend in pictures.

Anchor Bay in fine form.

Cracked & Indiecan's upcoming horror comedy at the Unstable Ground booth.

Flyer for Tal Zimerman's upcoming doc.

Undead Waldo

Fight!!!

Don (Coscarelli) & Audrey II

I'm not sure how I feel about this...

Both Evil Dead and this coming back for return engagements this fall!

Pretty cool creatures from a movie I'll likely never watch.

Sadly, I AGAIN missed out on the free masks!

Sold out. Phooey!

Bottoms Up!

Issue #1. Get 'em while they're hot!

My FOF trade haul.

So, what I did see was pretty great. There were also a lot of people I knew manning various booths, so there was a lot of mingling, as well. Tomorrow, I'll finish things up by talking about some of the Q&A's I attended during the weekend.

Trailer Tuesdays: X-Ray

I watched the 1982 slasher X-Ray aka Hospital Massacre last night, so I felt compelled to put it up here today. I couldn't find a trailer, but there are plenty of clips and I think the one below perfectly encapsulates what you'd be in for.

Clip courtesy of TaylorHamKid

I know what you're thinking. “Huh???”, right? During the first half-hour of this movie, I wasn't sure if this movie was actually supposed to be a spoof. X-Ray is utterly ridiculous, but oh my God was it a blast!

I fully encourage you all to grab a few buddies, many more alcoholic beverages and revel in this movie's inherent implausibility. You'll be glad you did.

The Animals...

...come out to play tonight!

Go see You're Next, in theatres now!

Click here for the trailer.

Click here for my review from 2011.

Fear...

Once again, Rue Morgue's Festival of Fear - the tenth edition, wow! - is upon us. I'll be braving the crowds as per usual, then returning next week with news of my exploits. Until then, enjoy your weekend!  

It Came From The Archives 21!

After recently seeing Monster Brains' awesome post about Pachimon Kaiju Cards, it reminded me that I fished out some playing cards during my last archives excursion.

I'm not sure where I picked these up, but I'd wager it was a prize bag at a past Cinemacabre, or perhaps a merch table during Festival of Fear. I'm the first to admit these card-sized ads pushing Fox Home Video's horror catalogue are nowhere near as cool as Aeron Alfrey's Kaiju cards, but hey... you gotta play the hand you're dealt.

Trailer Tuesdays: Blue Sunshine

Here's the trailer for the 1978 horror film Blue Sunshine. Just 'cause Jeff Lieberman is the shit!

Trailer courtesy of Jeffrey Lebowski.

What I love about this trailer is that it is over two minutes long, yet still doesn't really give you a sense as to what the hell is really going on. Remember when trailers weren't just the entire movie's narrative shrunk down to ninety-seconds? Good times.

DKTM 191

While I'm basking in some Northern Ontario sunshine of a rare cottage weekend, here's your weekly splash of horror.

Precious Cargo.

Here below is a pretty wonderful zombie short submitted to this year's Tropfest called Cargo. I know what you're thinking? Oh, great ANOTHER zombie short, but just watch it.

You see what I mean? The most successful zombie shorts are the ones that are actually about something else and this is a prime example. Even the signature item - something the organizers make the filmmakers insert into the story - of a balloon is implemented beautifully. Being a short filmmaker myself, engineering a payoff that feels both meaningful and earned is kind of the Holy Grail. Congrats to Australian directors Ben Howling & Yolanda Ramke on a job well done.

Another Go Round.

Drafthouse Films' ABC's of Death 2 is now in full swing as the contest for the letter "M" was unveiled earlier this week. The Great White North is already well represented with the Soska sisters (American Mary), Steve Kostanski (Manborg) and Chris Nash (Skinfections & last year's ABC's of Death contest submission T is For Thread), but it's time for everyone to step up and own this thing. Here's a promo video below.

I'm really looking forward to this. With the inaugural experiment over, I think the new crop of filmmakers are now aware of what worked and what didn't. For more info on ABC's, click here.

Front Line Assemblage.

If you know me, you know I love the combination of horror and industrial music. A friend recently sent me a link to this awesome little video melding Front Line Assembly with Hellraiser and the best thing about the first ABC's, D is for Dogfight. It may seem like a weird mix on paper, but...

Horror On The Tube: British Invasion!

I’ve been spending a lot of time watching British television programming over the last little while, so in the interest of broadening horizons, here’s a rundown of what has been occupying small screens across the pond.

While it is true this was actually a co-production between BBC Two, Australia, New Zealand and the United States (it actually premiered as a four-hour screening at this year’s Sundance Film Festival), I say close enough because I want to include it here. Top of the Lake excels beyond the usual restraints of the television medium in a number of ways. Being shot in New Zealand, the filmmakers smartly used the locale to its full potential, often simultaneously displaying both the beauty and danger of the surroundings.

However, as striking as all that was, nature took a back seat to some wonderfully skillful performances. It was great to see Elizabeth Moss outside of Mad Men as Det. Robin Griffin. Her character was one we’ve seen before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it played with such tragic depth as it was here. Peter Mullan was perfectly cast as townie Matt Mitcham, whose wild and unpredictable temperament threatened to leap through the screen. There were some threads that I didn’t feel clicked with the rest of the narrative, namely Holly Hunter’s character, GJ. She never seemed more than a quirky diversion, but fortunately never detracted from the power of the whole. The story continued to darken as it moved forward, leading to an almost inevitable conclusion.

Top of the Lake was a fearless, self-contained story from an under-seen corner of the world.

As solid as Top of the Lake was, I found Broadchurch to be even more affecting and well rounded. This show beared more than a few resemblances to AMC’s The Killing, with a similar partner dynamic between Detectives Miller and Hardy (Olivia Colman & David Tennant), but felt more efficient as it didn’t need almost thirty episodes to wrap up its mystery.

By focusing on more than just the mourning family and the inspectors, I really felt got a sense of Broadchurch’s tight knit community. The tragedy that befalls the town permeates the people and environment within. And also like The Killing, it was rife with several emotionally gruelling moments.

This eight-part arc was fairly flawless and captivated me as much as it did British audiences earlier this year.

It’s been a great year for Gillian Anderson! Not only is she appearing in the new cult hit Hannibal, but also fronting the new Irish police drama The Fall. I love her in this show, as it is quite a departure from her role as Agent Scully on The X-Files. Her new demeanor as an icy man-eater chasing a serial killer loose in Belfast was very compelling.

Also, after several whodunnits, I found the format of The Fall’s two parallel storylines of cop & killer refreshing. Speaking of which, Jamie Dornan was equal parts creepy and calculated as serial killer Paul Spector. This show was a brisk five episodes and its conclusion on a psuedo-cliffhanger was bittersweet.

As I was absorbing those three shows, I discovered that the third season of Luther happened right under my nose. This series is the cream of the crop and basically the reason that British television is now on my radar – well, save for Jekyll maybe.

The production value of this show has become incredible and now that it is unfolding in two-hour arcs, I’d say it now rivals – even surpasses – most genre features. Idris Elba as DCI John Luther continues to play the best “grey” character on TV and the show still somehow succeeds in conceiving the most evil, vile & insane characters to butt up against him. The prowler storyline had some legitimately terrifying sequences, and the following vigilante arc evoked real high-stakes escalation.

I was also very happy with the new additions this season. Sienna Guillory was terrific as Luther’s new love interest Mary and David O’Hara was inspired casting as George Stark, a man out to expose Luther’s more nefarious deeds. Most importantly, this season saw the return of the devilish Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) to the show. I wouldn’t call that a spoiler, as I reckon Luther fans would’ve rioted if she hadn’t shown up in some capacity. She was as vibrant as ever and was the icing on the cake of this fantastic season.

So, if you’re looking for something to do before the big domestics like The Walking Dead & American Horror Story start up again, I highly recommend you check out these gooduns’.  You won’t regret it.