interview: Simon Hunter (2006)

I first met Simon Hunter at Fantasporto in 2000 where he was introducing his first feature, the enjoyable serial killer movie Lighthouse (released in the USA as Dead of Night). Six years later, and with only two weeks to go before the start of principal photography on his second feature Mutant Chronicles, Simon very kindly answered some e-mail questions for me.


I remember writing about The Mutant Chronicles back in the 1990s when I was working on SFX. Why has it taken so many years to get to this point?
“I never really know with projects. A combination of things but the stars seem to have come together for us this year. We have really worked hard on the script and have a distinct vision for the film which I hope people will find fresh and exciting.”

Apart from obvious technical advances in special effects and the contribution of your good self, how will the 2006 film differ from the version that was in development in the 1990s?
“The title is the same! I wanted to try and take the movie in a radically different direction. There is nothing left of the original draft, it's just my vision and I hope people will like that.”

What have you learned from your experiences with Lighthouse that you can apply to this film?
“Lighthouse was not a pleasant experience for me. It has some good moments but I think the story wasn't fresh enough. I have been directing commercials since then and learned so much. We are trying to make Mutant a war picture rather than a horror picture.”


What are you most worried about as the start date looms?
“It's a massive undertaking. Millions of elements. Most of all I want to focus on telling a tight story and getting good performances. That's what I want to do most of all. We should have had a lot more rehearsal time on Lighthouse and I really regret that. It's not good for the movie and unfair to the actors. In Neil Marshall’s The Descent you really care for the characters - that, combined with the danger of the creatures and the set pieces, made it an excellent film. But you have to care!”

And what are you most confident about?
“Technically we are breaking a lot of new ground. It's something I know quite a bit about and I am very confident we can make everything work. The film is an almost virtual shoot and we are recording everything onto huge data drives. It’s a totally tapeless digital workflow. Editing, sound and visual effects will be totally integrated. We have a great crew, Tim Dennison is a superb producer and Ed Pressman has been 100 per cent supportive all the way along. So we are in good hands.”

What one piece of information can you tell me about the film which has not yet been made public?
“Ummmm. Not sure I can help on this. But head to Mutantchroniclesthemovie.com and I'll try and post some stuff up soon! It's a smaller movie than people might imagine but all the better for it. A tough ‘men on a mission’ film, not a sprawling sci-fi and ten thousand Mutants versus ten thousand humans! The Mutants will be prosthetic not CG. Paul Hyett is in charge. He did The Descent but he also did Lighthouse for me years earlier!”

website: SimonHunter.com
interview originally posted 15th May 2006

interview: Pat Higgins (2010)

Pat Higgins is a major player in the British horror revival of the 21st century. As of this interview in summer 2010 he had directed 4.33 movies: TrashHouse, KillerKiller, HellBride, The Devil’s Music and one third of the anthology Bordello Death Tales, with James Eaves and Al Ronald helming the other two segments.


How did the Bordello Death Tales project come about and what appealed to you about it?
“Jim and I were sitting having a beer after the cast and crew screening of Bane, and he suggested that an anthology might be a fun project. We chatted for a while about it and resolved to get a proper plan together at a later date. I suggested the addition of Al Ronald, and frankly the whole thing fell together ridiculously easily. I'm still amazed by how smooth it was. It fit perfectly into everyone's schedules, and we were up and running within a few months. I already had the germ of the idea for my segment lurking in the back of my head (except at that point the story was called 'Wanking the Id') and this seemed the perfect vehicle for it.”

How much contact was there between the three of you during the process?
“An awful lot of e-mails, a fair amount of phone calls and surprisingly little time when we were all actually in the same room together. We all saw each other's shooting scripts before any footage was shot, and we had one day in Southampton when we all filmed on the same set.”

Tell me honestly what you think about the other two segments.
“Jim's has a shine and a polish that I've never been able to quite manage, and it moves like lightning. It's a beautiful, slick, sick piece of indie cinema. Al's is pure artistry, with its own little world where the look of every object fits the design scheme. It's also absolutely nuts. The first time I saw the music sequence I think my jaw actually dropped. I love both of the other segments and I'm extremely proud to have been able to add my own one to the project.”


What was the origin of the fake trailers, and where do you think they might end up?
“God, I can't remember who mentioned it first. After we'd actually locked the movie, someone said something like ‘people keep asking if we're going to do fake trailers’ and we all coughed and snorted and said how derivative that would be. Then we thought how much fun it would be as well, and eventually just thought 'screw it, we'll do them anyway' and work out where they'll end up at a later date. My gut feeling is that they'll end up on the DVD somewhere, but probably not before the film starts. Or maybe we'll just put them online. We'll see.”

What is your own favourite anthology film and why?
“Oh, good question. I remember my mum, who has no interest in horror whatsoever, watching Dead of Night on TV when I was a kid. I only saw glimpses of the movie from peeking round the corner, and that was definitely the first seed. I also used to read the reprints of EC comics when I was a teenager, which of course tied into Creepshow rather wonderfully. They came out in an omnibus comic every month and I loved them. Hell, I even have a soft spot for Twilight Zone: The Movie, particularly the intro and the final two stories. I haven't seen any of the Amicus movies since my teens, but they all went into the mix too. You'll notice that I've failed to state a favourite!”

How did you get involved with producer Jonathan Sothcott and what can we expect from your next project Strippers vs Werewolves?
“I think that Jonathan and Black & Blue Films been achieving fantastic things over the last few years. It was actually the brilliant and talented Eleanor James who suggested that Jonathan and I should talk to each other about potential projects; we met up and chatted for a while, and were evidently very much on the same page as far as influences and the direction in which we might take a project. Jonathan has a real love of the genre, and instantly 'got' the Strippers vs Werewolves screenplay.


“I'm really delighted with the screenplay, which has hopefully got the knockabout vibe of stuff like the original Fright Night and The Lost Boys. We're determined to make the movie fun; I'm pretty tired of the whole 'watch people suffer slowly' vibe that seems to have dominated horror over the last few years. I want to get back to horrible monsters, gorgeous girls, good jokes, thrills, chills and unbridled entertainment. The cast is falling into place brilliantly; we've already announced that the wonderful Adele Silva will be one of our leads, and there are more announcements just around the corner. Can't wait to start shooting.”

website: www.jinx.co.uk
interview originally posted 10th September 2010

Stalled

Director: Christian James
Writer: Dan Palmer
Producer: Richard Kerrigan
Cast: Dan Palmer, Tamaryn Payne, Mark Holden
Country: UK
Year of release: 2013
Reviewed from: festival screening (Day of the Undead)
Website: http://stalledmovie.com

Stalled is the eagerly awaited (and long awaited!) second feature from the Freak Out team of Christian James and Dan Palmer. Palmer wrote this script solo and stars in the film, which James directs. It’s a zombie comedy. It’s very clever and very, very, very funny. It’s also slicker, more mature and more professional than Freak Out, although I appreciate the irony of using the term ‘mature’ to describe a film with this many toilet jokes.

Where their first feature succeeded despite its microscopic budget, for their sophomore effort Palmer and James have cannily embraced and even utilised their limitations, so that almost all the film takes place on one set and large parts of it consist of nothing but Dan Palmer on his own in one self-contained part of that set.

And that set is a toilet.

It is Christmas Eve - oh yes, you should also know that this is a very festive horror film - and the office party is in full swing on the seventh floor of an unspecified office block. Palmer is a never-named maintenance technician (his character is listed in the credits as ‘WC’!) called to fix a problem in the ladies loo, which has three stalls. He is forced to hide when a couple of scantily clad lovelies enter, who indulge in a little lipstick lesbianism before one of them bites a chunk out of the other’s neck. You saw this bit in the trailer.

Before long, the room is filling up with undead office workers, some of them in festive fancy dress, and our hero is trapped in his stall. He’s safe as long as he stays there, but he can’t get out. And he doesn’t even have his toolbox with him, which he has left over on the sinks. Not that it has many tools in it tonight, because this is his last day on the job and the toolbox is stuffed with money which he really, really wants to take with him if and when he affects an escape.

Of course, none of the zombies have any dialogue so in order to have some sort of character interplay the script introduces Evie, a lady trapped in the stall at the other end of the row (the middle one contains a dead zombie). We never see Evie, but in a clever conceit the film has ‘WC’ draw a picture of her in marker pen on the toilet wall and this allows Christian James to direct the conversations in a (slightly) more conventional way.

The plot of the film is our hero’s various attempts to reach his toolbox and escape, and it is here where Palmer’s script really shines. On paper, this could have just been a feature-length Road Runner cartoon with Wile E Coyote (hey: WC!) hatching a series of plans, each of which fails miserably and knocks him back to square one. But actually what we get is a well-plotted film with narrative development throughout the three acts. This is a film of cause and effect as each of the various schemes - to hit the fire alarm, to distract the zombies, to reach the toolbox and so on - is based around the current situation and available resources as they stand after the failure (or incomplete success) of the previous effort. Particularly hilarious is a possible rescue which is derailed due to a terrible miscalculation, and I’ll say no more than that.

Stalled is a movie of constant surprises which make it a delight to watch (as long as you’re not averse to crude gags, cleverly delivered). Palmer is absolutely terrific in the lead role, bringing real pathos and depth to the character, and his dialogues with Evie (Hollyoaks' Tamaryn Payne, also in Small Town Folk) open up both their characters, yet leave more to be discovered. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that near the end of the film the action finally moves out of the ladies loo; as indeed it does briefly earlier during a very funny musical fantasy sequence. The whole thing builds to a climax which is moving, ironic, clever and satisfying.

‘Moving’ is another odd word to use here, where one would expect to see more uses of ‘movement’. But this is a heart-warming film which never forgets that it’s set at Christmas. Stalled could well become a staple of horror fans’ festive parties, a sort of zombie It’s a Wonderful Life. Freak Out also had a real sense of warmth and compassion in its central relationship and this second film confirms that Palmer and James have the skill to hit all three targets: good horror films which are not only also good comedy films but actually just ‘good films’ in the purest sense.

The supporting cast (which does include a few non-zombie characters) features several notable names: Giles Alderson (Night Junkies, The Harsh Light of Day, Till Sunset), Victoria Broom (Zombie Women of Satan, Three’s a Shroud, Umbrage: The First Vampire), Canadian actor Mark Holden (Final Destination 1 and 5, World War Z, Nightmare Street), Chris R Wright and Peter Stanley-Ward (Small Town Folk), Steve McCarten (Season of the Witch, Harsh Light of Day), TV presenter Rick Edwards and comedian Dave Fulton. Stanley-Ward was associate producer on the film (which reminds me of an old joke: What’s the definition of an associate producer? The only person who’ll associate with a producer. Thank you, remember to tip the waitresses.)

Cinematographer Sashi Kissoon, making his feature debut after a number of shorts (including some for Dave Fulton) does an absolutely stonking job of keeping the camera-work fluid and natural within this small set - and often just within the one stall - without ever becoming staid or repetitive. He has previously been part of the camera crew on features including Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and something called Alien Uprising which turns out to be Dominic Burns’ UFO under a new title. Credit for the look and feel of the film must also go to the fine work of editor Mark Gilleece and production designer Antony Haylock. The special effects make-up is credited to ‘Snowy Ramone’ whom I suspect to be a pseudonym. And of course, Christian James’ adroit direction holds the whole thing together, creating what is instantly one of the best zombie comedies ever made.

More than that, what I really dug about Stalled was its very British parochialism and the way that it put a comedy spin on the ‘corporate horror’ subgenre which has been explored previously in films like Fired and London Voodoo. Severance put a blackly comic spin on corporate horror but Stalled is much less subtle and works absolutely bloody brilliantly. If you like zombies, if you like horror-comedies, if you like films where characters try to fish mobile phones out of toilets full of mashed zombie brain, you owe it to yourself to watch Stalled at the earliest opportunity, whether or not it’s actually Christmas.

MJS rating: A-

interview: James Hickox

James (DR) Hickox was born into a film-making family. His father Douglas Hickox directed Behemoth the Sea Monster, Theatre of Blood and Zulu Dawn. His mother is Oscar-winning editor Anne Coates, whose credits include Lawrence of Arabia, The Eagle Has Landed, Erin Brockovich and The Golden Compass. Brother Anthony Hickox directed Waxwork I and II, Hellraiser III, Prince Valiant and Jill the Ripper, while sister Emma Hickox followed her mother into the cutting room, editing Blue Crush, Kinky Boots and The Boat that Rocked.

I interviewed editor-turned director James Hickox at the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica in 1998 where he was promoting Death Do Us Part and The Gardener. Since then he has gone on to helm the likes of Sabretooth, Krocodylus aka Blood Surf and Girls Gone Psycho. The Gardener was released as Garden of Evil. Death Do Us Part never got made, as far as I can tell.


With being part of this film-making family, was it automatic that you would work in movies?
"Actually, no. Well, yes of course it was totally natural - since I was this high. But my parents tried to talk us out of it always: ‘Why can’t we have a lawyer or a nice doctor in the family or something?’ But we all got hooked. My elder brother actually didn’t do anything in the business till he was 28, and then just went off and did Waxwork which was his first movie. And my sister, inbetween my brother and me, is an editor. She’s taking a leave of absence in Vienna at the moment with her boyfriend, but she’s an up-and-coming young editor. So yes, all of us."

Is editor a natural step up towards being a director?
"I think so, yes. My mom actually said she wanted to be a director but she found when she started having children she got into editing. But yes, I worked with great directors like Larry Kasdan and Frank Oz. Watching them work… and especially on the budget movies I’m doing at the moment, it’s really useful to have the editing experience because then you know what to shoot and what you don’t have to shoot. So I kind of cut in the camera a lot. I’m actually shooting something at the moment. I’m doing the first ever internet television series."

Can you explain that a bit more?
"Well, I’m not too technical. I’m working with these two guys who, when they were 20 years old, brought the internet into people’s homes and became multi-billionaires. [Marc Collins-Rector and Brock Pierce, founders of Digital Entertainment Network - MJS] They’re now about 30 and they’re bored so they’ve spent the last two years coming up with technology that can basically shoot on digital film, and then you put it straight into the computer. You can manipulate the frame any way you want. We’re doing the experiment, we’re doing the pilot. I’m shooting at the moment; it’s called Chad’s World."

So you’ll get this over the internet?
"Yes, you just sit there and you download it for half an hour on your little computer, and if you’re in class and you’re bored - these kids can watch it at school. Or anywhere; it’s incredible the technology now."

Is that a sitcom or a drama?
"It’s a drama series and I’ve added a little bit of comedy, I like to think. It’s amazing. What they’re talking about, in the next few years, they’re going to start building their own studios, these guys, and making their own movies: $3-5 million movies within ten years or even less. It’ll take over from videos because you can download them on your computer and then you have a little bit rather than a big tape. That’s really interesting."

We’d better get on to this film, Death Do Us Part.
"I’ve actually been on for three years; I’d only made one movie then. Julia Vernon I’ve known for years, just out here. It’s been through various rewrites and changes and various people and it hasn’t gone and hasn’t gone. I don’t know if you know the story exactly, but it’s basically a Green Card gone wrong. Angie Everhart plays the old friend of Sammi Davis and she accidentally meets C Thomas Howell who charms her and she gets married for a green card, because she’s run away from home.

“Of course Angie is the bad girl because she’s got lots of money and basically they’re planning to scam her out of her money. So it’s a very Hitchcock-ian tale and that’s why I’m interested in it. It really plays on your head and you really feel for this poor girl as she’s taken through hell by these two."

How did you become attached to this project?
"Just through Julia Vernon, who’s producing it. We always wanted to work together and she gave me the script to read. Like I say, since then it’s been through many rewrites over the last three years. But it’s actually come back: the latest write of it has come back to how it was originally. I’m looking forward to doing it actually. We’re going to have to shoot it pretty fast; it’s not that big a budget."

So it’s not been shot yet.
"No, this is in the future. The Gardener which I just did, that’s the one that I’ve just finished. They’re selling that now."

What’s that about?
"A quick run-down on The Gardener. Again, a psychological thriller. Malcolm McDowell plays a guy who is actually only 36 years old but has an ageing disorder -which obviously made his childhood hell at school - and he decides that he’s going to love plants and flowers and spend his time in the garden. He also has a little bit of vengeance in him.

“I don’t know if you know that they use cattle for soil to grow plants. So he decides to use women instead and grow them ‘more pure than they were before’ as he puts it. So he’s a serial killer and he uses women; he basically chops them up and uses them as soil and grows them into beautiful, special plants of his own. And each of them has the name of the woman he killed, etcetera. And Angie Everhart’s partner disappears."

She’s in that as well?
"Yes, she is. I can’t get away from her. Not that I want to. So she’s in it, and also Richard Grieco, who we didn’t have until we were two weeks into shooting. We were trying to write this part out but then he got hold of the script and said he’d love to come and play the chief of police, Angie’s boss, throughout it. So we then built it up in the last two weeks. It was a great shoot. I think it’s a fun movie. It’s a weird movie."

Destined to be a cult film?
"Yes. definitely. Much more of a culty film but it’s not for everybody. It’s very subtly done, but basically what he does is cut them up and eat them then shit them out. We don’t go into that at all, but you do see him eating these women. But it’s not done like a horror movie, they’ve done it more like a mystery thriller. There’s a lot of dialogue. We actually like Malcolm McDowell throughout the movie, which is great. We actually like the guy then he suddenly turns on us. That’s the most interesting part of it for me; getting into the mind of this guy. Malcolm McDowell can pull it off so well."

With The Gardener, Children of the Corn III and going right back to being a PA on Little Shop of Horrors, there seems to be a death/plant theme to your work.
"Yes, I know. And this: Death Do Us Part. It’s something to do with my dad’s sense of humour. He did Theatre Of Blood, which I have a poster of in my house, the original poster with this great, great old English cast. Ever since then, we’ve always had a sense of humour for black comedy, and I always try to put a little bit of comedy in my movies. Because when you’re trying to scare people, you have to make them laugh first, and then they relax - and then you grab ‘em!"

When you were a kid and your dad was making films, did you go on set?
"Oh, completely. I was so lucky. I met John Wayne as a kid, I met Richard Burton, I met Vincent Price. I had a great childhood actually, it was great fun."

Is there any rivalry between you and your brother?
"Tony’s been incredibly helpful, actually. There always was, growing up. I always just used to try and be like my older brother. But Tony’s really supportive and I love him. We always put each other in our movies. And actually I worked with him, shooting second unit on Prince Valiant which he’s just made last year in Wales. So we work together, and we like different subjects actually. So we’re okay. Even though we both have done horror, we’re now moving in two different directions, I’m moving in a different one."

Would you like to get away from horror?
"You know what? I like to do both: I like scaring people and I like getting into people’s hearts as well. So yes, I’d like to do everything in a Kubrick kind of way: a space movie and…"

One film every ten years?
"Well, no. I’d like to do at least one film every year but on different subjects. But I love horror, I always have. My brother used to wake me up on Saturday nights, after Mum had gone to bed, and drag me down to watch two o’clock Hammer horror movies, which we loved. I was six and he was 13 or whatever. So he’d go to bed and he’d be fine, and I’d be lying there, awake in my bed, terrified. And he always used to tell horror stories: he’d always come round my door with a hairy hand glove or something like that. It was a nightmare growing up with my brother!"

Gerry Lively was here yesterday.
"Yes, I spoke with him yesterday. He worked on a lot of my brother’s films and he DPed Children of the Corn. I love Gerry, he’s a great guy. I heard his movie’s really good."

Have you got any pet projects?
"Yeti, but keep it quiet. I have got the best script. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call it. This one’s called Yeti. We’re talking like a Jaws script, an incredible script, and we’re looking to make that this year. We’ve got a lot of interest, but I don’t want a lot of people to know about it. But this is a great script and there I can really have fun. It’s a much bigger budget."

Do you tend to write your own scripts?
"No. I’ve written some. Which Way to Oz I wrote. I get very much involved with the writing but I don’t normally take a credit. On Children of the Corn I did a lot of that, but I couldn’t have done it without the writer. But yes, I do. Another project I’ve got is Lord Byron which we’re scheduled to shoot in January next year and that is an incredible script. That is where I do want to be heading with my career. I don’t know if you know the story of his life. I thought I did, until I read the script. He died at my age, 32, but he’d lived a whole life that we’d all want to have done: travelling around the world, getting involved in wars, writing poetry, having love affairs. An incredible life, and it’s a great script and we’ve got a really good cast."

That interests me because I’m a Mary Shelley obsessive.
"It’s not like Gothic, but there is that weekend where Shelley actually went off and disappeared on the boat. There’s a great scene where they all wave goodbye and it’s a bit rough, but everyone’s having fun. That and another one called Villa de Rizzi. I love to make movies in England, although I’ve been eleven years now. This is a kind of English Leaving Las Vegas, about a British ex-spy drinking himself to death because he lives in sin with his sister, written by Piers Paul Read who wrote the book Alive and also the script for the movie. A very British man: I went and had tea with him.”

interview originally posted 2nd January 2010

interview: Marc Hershon

I did an e-mail interview with writer Marc Hershon in September 2003 about a TV movie called Monster Makers, shown a few weeks later on Halloween, which starred Linda Blair (The Exorcist, Hell Night), George Kennedy (The Naked Gun, Demonwarp, The Uninvited) and Adam Baldwin (Predator 2, Independence Day and, um, Mind Breakers). This was Marc’s third holiday-related fantasy comedy after Santa Jr. and Miss Cupid’s Beau. Marc was incredibly generous in his answers and I was only able to use a tiny amount of this in the piece which I wrote for fangoria.com, so here is the full interview.


How did Santa Jr. come to be made, and how instrumental was that in getting Monster Makers made?
“I was introduced to Wendy Winks, an independent producer, who had read Santa Jr. and liked it enough to option it to try to get it set up somewhere. (I had written Santa Jr. about five years before and there had been some interest at the time, but nothing ever happened with it.) Our original intention was to try to get a feature film deal, but when all was said and done, both The Hallmark Channel and Larry Levinson Productions (who produced the film) both liked it - a pretty rare occurence! Once they agreed that they wanted to buy it, the deal moved pretty fast, because they were coming up against the wall in terms of having a Christmas movie ready in time. They bought the script in May of last year (2002) and we were in production by August.

“When the executives at the Hallmark Channel saw a rough cut of Santa Jr. it suddenly struck them that they were missing the boat on an entire range of movies: comedies. Most made-for-TV and cable movies are heavy dramas, ‘disease-of-the-week’, romances, adapted from historic novels, etc. You just don't see a lot of long form comedies being made these days. Based on the excitement of that realization, I pitched them a Valentine's Day comedy with a similar theme, called Miss Cupid's Beau, about the college-age daughter of Cupid.

(Originally, I had pitched the concept as a sequel for Santa Jr., with the son of Santa falling in love with the daughter of Cupid. That was pushing the envelope too far for the folks at Hallmark - they're not keen on mixing their holidays.)

“I wrote Miss Cupid's Beau in about six weeks and then last November (this was still before Santa Jr. had aired), one of the producers at Larry Levinson Productions, Steven Squillante, asked if I had any ideas for a Halloween movie while I was sitting around in his office. This was my chance to put my 20 years of performing improvisational comedy to use and I literally cobbled together the main concept for Monster Makers on the spot: a kid finds an old black and white monster movie that was produced on experimental film stock. When he watches it on Halloween, the monsters in the movie and the hero sheriff from the film get out when there's a power surge. The kid teams up with the sheriff to track down the monsters.

“(Lesson to starting screenwriters: be ready to think on your feet! Sometimes you only get one shot.)”


From what I've seen and read, this seems to be a family movie, aimed at what I would call '14-year-olds of all ages'. Who is your actual target audience?
“The final version of the script ended up losing several layers of richness, mostly due to budgetary considerations. As a result it ended up losing some of the older demographic appeal, I think. Nonetheless, there's still a lot of ‘inside’ jokes and references for those fans of '50s monster movies. While the main character is a 12-year-old kid, it's really the 12-year-old kid that I remember being, who couldn't get enough of monster movies. So, in that regard, I think the movie has tremendous appeal for those who remember those old movies fondly. In fact, my favorite parts of the movie are the glimpses of Monsters on the Loose, the 1951 black and white movie - it was fun to write the really stilted dialogue from back then, where the characters use each other's names every other sentence and so forth.

“I really tried to steer clear of what had gone before - when you sit down and consider the amount of spoofage eaten up by comedy classics like Young Frankenstein and even Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, it gets tricky to find the gags that haven't been used.”

You've obviously had fun with the character names, with homages to Lon Chaney Jr., Forry Ackerman, Bram Stoker and others. Are there other in-jokes in the movie that monster fans will spot? And is there a danger of getting too self-indulgent with this sort of thing?
“Good question. I think there's a fine line. While you can go on and do it throughout the movie, it has to be clever and not terribly obvious to any but real aficionados. I think the director at one point named an offscreen character ‘Dr Karloff’, which isn't keeping in the spirit of what I'd established. Slightly more subtle but still spottable was the name of the street that George Kennedy's character lives on: Oarlock Street. Intentionally misspelled, it isn't until you hear it that you realize that Count Orlok was the name of the vampire in Nosferatu. And the Lon Chaney reference you mention is that one of the monsters, Verman, is actually a guy named Creighton Talbot, who turns into a vicious ‘rat-man’ whenever he smells garbage. ‘Creighton’ was Lon Chaney Jr.'s given first name and, of course, Lyle Talbot was the name of the tortured soul he played who turned into The Wolf Man.

“I really enjoy burying those little things in the script. I did the same thing in Santa Jr. At one point when the son of Santa isn't sure what he wants to do with his life, he laments that maybe he ought to just become a dentist, which was reference to Hermy the elf in the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And we found a street sign on the block we were shooting at where someone had spray-painted a black circle and a slash over the ‘L’ in ‘L Street’, making it ‘No L'. I pointed it out to Kevin and it ended up in the final cut of the movie.


“Then there's a whole realm of audience members who have no idea what the nods are all about. The actors playing our two main kids generally had no clue about most of the references and had no idea why Linda Blair was such a great casting decision - until they got to see The Exorcist while we were filming! Again, it was very cool, in that Linda was about the same age as our kids when she made that movie!

“There's more little hidden references (or there should be - I haven't seen the final edit yet ) but I'd prefer to let the fans of the genre pick them out.”

I'm guessing you're a big monster fan yourself. What movies inspired you when you were young, and what are your favourites now?
“I was a huge monster movie fan. All the classics, of course, were inspirational with this project, along with all of the really terrible ones. Back when I was a kid, the monsters were often people who had unleashed some horrible hidden side of themselves or else creatures exposed to radiation, the big mystery catalyst. (I use that hoary old device in Monster Makers, as we learn the original print of Monsters on the Loose was developed on something called ‘Radium Acetate’.)

“Nowadays I'd be hard pressed to point at monster movies per se and choose a favorite. Part of the problem is what constitutes a monster these days? Alien is a terrific monster movie with science fiction trappings. So is the Terminator series. But what about the Nightmare on Elm Street movies? Are Freddy and Jason monsters? I guess so, but the principles that guide those movies feel different to me. The monster in Frankenstein is this poor soul who is truly not responsible for his predicament. Freddy, on the other hand, seems to delight in the pain and torment he brings people.”

Your three monsters are all completely original. Was any thought given to using generic monsters like Dracula or the Mummy?
“Well, I steered away from the ‘classic’ monsters for two practical reasons: one is that most are trademarked characters, with Universal Studios holding the rights to them. The second reason is that they've been used to death. But even in coming up with the idea, the fun challenge to me was to create three completely new monsters that still had to feel as if they could have come from the ‘50s. And each of the monsters is, in and of itself, both an homage to some the greats and a reflection of the main character in the movie (a technique they used on Buffy the Vampire Slayer all the time.


“For example, Manikin, being made up of mismatched mannequin parts, was my attempt to get into the mindset of a ‘50s movie-maker who wanted to create his own Frankenstein's monster. I was able to shortcut a lot of detail in that the trailer for Monsters on the Loose explains that Manikin was created by ‘an accident of science.’ In addition, Manikin is trying to replace his mannequin parts with human parts, kind of a hideous take on Pinocchio. Regarding the main character of Tim, Manikin represents the awkwardness of the physicality of entering one's teen years - gawky, awkward, etc. This wasn't played up as much as I'd like in the execution, so I'm glad I got a chance to talk about it!

“Verman, of course, is an analog for the Wolfman, while Revenant, ‘The Living Ghost’ is part nod to both Dracula and the Invisible Man. He's also a nod to a low budget - the producers were delighted that I could deliver a ‘three-monster’ movie with only two monsters we actually see on screen. Revenant possesses the bodies of the living, so it's all through acting, camera angles, a special lens and a voice harmonizer that he appears.”

How did you approach writing the scenes from the 1950s movie Monsters on the Loose? Are you spoofing 1950s monster flicks or paying homage to them? And where does Monsters on the Loose fit on a scale from, say, Them! to The Giant Claw?
“I mentioned this earlier but these were my favorite scenes to write. They are both spoof and homage. From the cliches that the characters spout to the wooden acting (most of it intentional), these play really well. The first two days of production is when we shot these scenes, because we needed the footage during the course of the rest of the movie. When the footage came back to the set, everyone kept watching it over and over because it was so funny. In particular, Larry Minetti (Magnum PI) who plays ‘Spats’ Lonnegan, a gangster; and great character actor Tracy Walters as Morley Todd, an undertaker, were terrific.

“As far as where on the scale Monsters on the Loose falls, I'd have to say somewhere between Dracula vs Billy the Kid and The Crawling Eye.”


How close is the finished movie to what you originally envisioned? Is there anything that you wanted to include but couldn't because of budget, schedule, or family viewing considerations?
“I think I may have mentioned some elements earlier. I lost a lot of locations because of the budget, as well as a big fire scene I wanted to do. There were also a bunch of sight gags with the monsters that had to be cut, mainly for time. Since I was purposely aiming this at the Hallmark Channel audience and it was my third script for them, I don't think I ever had anything objectionable from a ‘family viewing’ perspective. The monsters are too inept to create anything grotesque, visually - Manikin, for instance, keeps tugging on people's arms in his ongoing attempt to replace his mannequin parts. Only problem is that he was never actually given the facility to accomplish this. And since Verman was never alive until the moment he stepped out of the movie, he's not used to the fact he has a 12-foot long tail - it keeps getting caught in everything. The scary parts that I hope will linger will be things like Manikin's grinning head and the neck and knuckle cracking that Revenant does whenever he steps into a new host.”

What are your thoughts on the cast and director?
“I wish we'd had more time for casting. One of the pitfalls of the speed at which these projects get done is that the cart is frequently ahead of the horse. The production team was assembled and locations were being scouted without a single casting choice being made, nor with a director onboard. (Actually, Kevin Connor was slated to direct then got pulled off my project and put on directing Just Desserts, a romantic comedy which has just knocked my Miss Cupid's Beau out of the 2004 Valentine's slot.)

“I love the fact we got Linda Blair. (Ironically, she's one of the only characters in the movie not to get possessed by Revenant!) And George Kennedy, a real last minute pick to play Dexter Brisbane, the director of the Monsters on the Loose movie-within-the-movie, was a joy to hang around. I thought one of the best casting choices was Adam Baldwin as Sheriff Jay Forrest. I've always loved his work, from My Bodyguard and Full Metal Jacket to last TV season's Firefly. The guy has never played a comedic role, always getting cast as heavies and thugs. But Adam is hilarious, and completely nails both the confusion and stereotype movie hero persona of the hero from the black and white film.”


Were you on set for a reason or just hanging around to see your movie made? Did you get to play a cameo like you did in Santa Jr.?
“The producers, with Kevin Connor's permission, let me be on the set of Santa Jr. the whole time, although I had to pay my own way. It was worth it - to me there's nothing as exciting as watching your words on paper come to life.

“I really did lend some help, in terms of offering opinions about characters and scenes when asked and so when Monster Makers came up, the folks at Larry Levinson Productions offered to foot the bill this time. Because of last-minute location changes and such, I ended up tweaking the script a bit as we went. One of the problems with the timetable the movie was on was that I had to rush my first and final drafts so I was glad for the time to fix some things. The last three days of shooting, we discovered we might be a little short, time-wise, so I had to write four additional scenes utilizing just the sets we still had up and the actors we still had on call. A couple of those scenes might be some of the funniest in the film, from what I've seen so far.

“I got to play an alarm technician in Santa Jr., who installs the alarm system in the house where Santa's son is under arrest. I sort of finagled my way into it, but then they discovered I actually knew how to act. So when I made a bid for a role in Monster Makers, it was just a matter of choosing which role. I almost ended up with a pretty beefy part, thanks to director David Cass Sr., but instead I still have fun as a bank janitor who gets possessed by Revenant and robs a bank. Now I'm in the Screen Actors Guild in addition to the Writers Guild of America! (Playing service roles seems to be my lot in life - I just shot a small scene as an electrician in a feature film, The Californians, starring Noah ‘ER’ Wyle and Ileana Douglas.)”

What was your involvement with Frankenstein: The College Years? And how pleased were you with it?
“While my involvement was fun - I was doing ‘speed rewrites’ with director Tom Shadyac (pre Ace Ventura), which meant I was rewriting the script based on notes we'd do together, then I'd shunt the pages over to his computer for polishing while I stayed about 10 pages ahead of him - it was ultimately aggravating. We had managed to craft a fairly decent spoof of Frankenstein movies while avoiding all of the jokes that Mel Brooks had used in Young Frankenstein - no easy task. But the executives at Fox TV didn't appreciate it and Tom ended up pretty much doing the lame script he'd been handed when the project was still My Friend Frank, about two college kids who inherit a dead professor's belongings, including a freezer containing the body of Frankenstein's monster.”

Just as a personal aside: F:TCY has a superficially similar plot to Encino Man (which we called California Man over here) which would have been in production around the same time. I know sometimes TV movies are made to take advantage of similarly themed theatrical movies. Was this any sort of consideration, or am I misjudging the situation?
“Sometimes it works the other way - I just read in the trades yesterday that David Spade is slated to start in a Christmas movie about Santa's son in a movie that Adam Sandler's comedy is producing. But in terms of F:TCY, I don't recall having any sense of that. You might be correct, but it certainly wasn't part of the directives we had in doing the rewrite we embarked on.”

What are you working on at the moment, and what is likely to be the next script of yours that gets made?
“ I am collaborating on a feature film comedy with Dana Carvey which we are hoping to take out soon. In addition, I have two features I wrote solo, both high concept comedies. One already has keen interest from a major production company and the other is just starting to make the rounds. As far as what gets made next, your guess is as good as mine!”

interview originally posted 11th January 2005