anderswolleck

Mick Garris is a modern master of horror with such films as Sleepwalkers, The Stand and Riding the Bullet and hes a very nice guy. Thats why hes made so many friends in the horror film industry over the years. Those friendships eventually led to awesome pizza parties that included such classic horror creators as Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli and many up and comers like Lucky McKee. Those parties sparked the idea for a new anthology series created by Garris called Masters of Horror. Starting Halloween weekend Showtime will air 13 one hour movies directed and written by those mentioned above and a horror conventioneers wet dream of Dario Argento, Larry Cohen, Takashi Miike, John Landis, Garris himself and many more.

Check out the official website for Masters of Horror

Daniel Robert Epstein: First how did everything go with the theatrical release of Riding the Bullet?

Mick Garris: The release was a disaster. It did not do well. They only opened it in a couple of cities, but they opened it wide in those cities without any advertising. It was in 65 theaters in Southern California and not one TV spot. But its done very well on DVD.

DRE: Why did the distribution company do that?

MG: The company that produced it was not nearly as good at distribution. They tried to distribute it themselves and pretty much dropped the ball. But at least I got to make the movie the way I wanted to within certain budgetary limits. Im happy with the movie and it is out there for an audience to see. Its gotten very varied reactions, but its the movie I like.

DRE: Are the 13 episodes of Masters of Horror all done?

MG: Were actually shooting the last one in Vancouver right now and another one is still shooting in Tokyo. Those are the last two.

DRE: Im assuming the Tokyo one is the one Takashi Miike is directing?

MG: Thats right. I just came back the day before yesterday from Tokyo in fact.

DRE: You went to Tokyo?

MG: I did indeed. Its my baby so I had to. I was there for the first four days of production to hang out and help in any way that I can. Its his first English language film, but a lot of the actors in it are Japanese actors who are speaking English phonetically. So we had to make sure that it was understandable.

DRE: Thats so bizarre.

MG: It is. But thats one of the great things about this show is that its so varied and flexible. Every episode is completely different from every other.

DRE: Did Miike write his episode?

MG: He did not write it, but he oversaw the writing of the script, which is based on a popular novel in Japan called Bokkee Kyotee which literally translates as really scary.

DRE: What made you guys think of having him do an episode?

MG: We wanted this to be a varied series of films and so we definitely wanted Asian horror. Audition was one of the most shocking movies Id ever seen and it was so disturbing. So he was one of the first people we talked about and we were amazed to get him.

DRE: Whats the one thats shooting in Vancouver right now?

MG: Its a script I wrote based on Clive Barkers Haeckels Tale, which is being directed by John McNaughton.

DRE: Hows John doing up there?

MG: Ive seen a couple days of dailies and it looks great. It looks like a Hammer film. It was originally intended for Roger Corman to direct. But Corman had health issues and McNaughton came in and hes doing a fantastic job of it.

DRE: I thought McNaughton took over the George Romero one.

MG: Romero never committed to one in time and then his schedule got booked up. It may have been Romeros slot originally, but the script was originally developed for Corman and then Lucky McKee came in after Romero backed out and we filled that slot with Luckys show. When Cormans health issues became a problem, then McNaughton came in and hes making it very much his own. Its great to see. Its the first script Ive written thats been directed by somebody else since Amazing Stories. So its really fun to watch that happen.

DRE: I saw Coscarellis episode and I really liked it.

MG: It kicks ass. Hes a great guy. Bubba Ho-tep is such a classic.

DRE: Dons episode has a twist ending, are they all going to have twist endings?

MG: The point I tried to make when we were putting this all together was these are little movies. Id rather a feature shrunk into an hour than a Twilight Zone stretched to an hour. So what we dont want is the punchline. We want a movie that stands on its own with or without the punchline. If there is one, fine as long as the movie holds up all the way to it. Were not going for Oh Henry or a Twilight Zone or even a Tales from the Crypt sort of thing. But what youll find is each of them is incredibly different from each other. Dons is probably the most traditional, contemporary one. Its very much in the vein of the movies that have been in theaters recently. Tobe Hoopers is very Tobe Hooper. John Carpenters is very John Carpenter. It wasnt something where I was trying to guide it. Every week on Tales from the Crypt, you knew you were going to get a very campy, winky horror story. In this youre going to get a horror story thats smart and scary every week, but thats all they have in common.

DRE: William Malone told me that you sent him a few scripts and then he kind of chose the one he wanted to do.

MG: About half of them were that way. About half of them the directors developed themselves like John Landis wrote his with his son, Max, and Stuart Gordon developed an H.P. Lovecraft script with Dennis Paoli. Then we developed a Richard Matheson story that Richard Christian Matheson adapted and that was the one Tobe responded to.

DRE: Besides your Masters of Horror that are directing, youve got some Masters of Horror writing.

MG: Absolutely. Weve got Richard Matheson, Joe Lansdale, H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, and David J. Schow. Its a really great collection.

DRE: Also there are some great comic book writers as well, did Steve Niles end up writing one?

MG: He wrote one, but we arent shooting it this season. We hope to do it if we get our pickup to do another batch.

For the others, they would come and pitch stories to us and we really responded to the ones that would make great episodes. We developed 19 scripts for 13 shows. There are a few that have not been attacked yet.

DRE: Its great to see that Bernie Wrightson wrote one that Argento is directing.

MG: Its a great one. In Creepy magazine in the 70s Bernie Wrightson illustrated a story that Bruce Jones wrote. When we were shooting last year on Desperation, Steven Weber, came up with the idea of doing that story. I encouraged him and originally we were going to write it together. But I was too busy and he was too eager. He just sat down and wrote the first draft on his own and it kicked ass. Its really a good script and Argento loved it and then did some tweaking on it to make it his own. Its unbelievably rich with sex.

DRE: If someone told me 10 years ago someday Steven Weber was going to write something Dario Argento was going to direct

MG: Yeah, its pretty amazing and Weber stars in it as well. Steven is a big horror fan so he was thrilled to work with Argento as all of us were.

DRE: You must have met Dario Argento over the years.

MG: Ive met him briefly a couple of times. The first time I met him was at one of the Saturn Awards dinners right after I did The Stand and I was seated at his table. He spoke no English, but I was introduced to him as the director of The Stand. He goes, The Stand is big. That was my first conversation with Dario, but we got to be very good friends on the shoot. Everybody just loved him. Hes really funny and delightful to work with.

DRE: What about Drew McWeeny writing an episode?

MG: Id met Drew when he was working at Daves Video, the local laserdisc store that became the DVD store. Id read some stuff he had done. Hed written a play and a thing for Showtime. He and Scott Swan pitched us a few stories together and Cigarette Burns was great. We showed some stuff to John Carpenter and Cigarette Burns kept haunting him so he committed to that one.

DRE: As Moriarty on Aint It Cool News, did Drew ever pan one of your movies?

MG: Im sure he has but that doesnt have that much to do with it. I dont really read Aint It Cool that much. Ive enjoyed it at times, but I dont spend a whole lot of time surfing the site.

DRE: Was Larry Cohen always going to direct one?

MG: Yep. He always wanted to and we always wanted him to. I think you cant get better, more unique and original horror movies than Its Alive, God Told Me To and Q: The Winged Serpent.

DRE: So the series is called Masters of Horror. Im sure on the Internet somewhere there might be people saying Theres a guy or two in there that is a horror guy, but maybe not so much a master. What would you say to something like that?

MG: Everybody whos involved has proven himself as more than capable in the genre. Even Lucky McKee has only made two movies, but all of us were really impressed by May. Bill Malone has done some really good work. He did a Tales from the Crypt thats one of the best ones I ever saw. My work has included a lot of the Stephen King things that have been seen by giant audiences and the like. Basically we had an obligation to fulfill with the financiers because they had to approve people as being brand names in the world of horror. We knew because of the nature of the show and because all of these guys are feature directors, that things would change. But schedules and health issues came up and all that so we had to make some alterations. But I think we got a pretty damned impressive group of 13 people that I wouldve thought were impossible to commit to something like this. I know on the Internet there will be those complainers, but go make your own show.

DRE: Is there any running theme through the episodes?

MG: Theres no host. Theres no running theme. There is a generic opening title sequence. Then it just goes right into these little, self-contained movies.

DRE: Are you guys committed for a second season yet?

MG: Its not official, but lets just say that theres a very strong chance that there will be another 13.

DRE: I think theres no reason it wont. Im sure itll do very well on Showtime and then the DVDs will sell like gangbusters.

MG: Well see. As soon as you assume somethings going to be successful, thats when it sets out to prove you wrong. All we can do is make the best movies we can under the time and budget and hope for the best.

DRE: Besides you wanting to do a great series, did you want to reenergize some these guys careers?

MG: Exactly, I wanted to get the best people working in the genre to tell a story they wanted to tell and tell it the way they wanted to tell it. Basically we just wanted to give them the opportunity to work at the peak of their powers for what we could afford and to not have to do movies that are all about teenagers that are test marketed at a mall in the San Fernando Valley.

DRE: With your lineup of directors, every single one of them has had their own Hollywood horror stories.

MG: Yeah and the great thing is theyve all had a great time doing it. Weve got a really good crew, much better than youd expect for a television series because were not treating it like a television series. Were not shooting it like TV, were shooting it 16 x 9 the same way wed shoot a feature film.

DRE: Lets talk about your episode, Chocolate. Did you write it by yourself?

MG: Yeah, its actually based on a short story that I had done over 20 years ago also called Chocolate. It has almost been made as a feature film several times over the years. The story and the feature script are both in my first book, Life in the Cinema because I thought, Oh, its never going to get made. I may as well just show the progression from fiction to script. Its a nice personal piece Ive been wanting to film for a long time. Theres nothing thats better than working with Stephen King on a project, but it was really fun to do something entirely my own.

DRE: Did doing Riding the Bullet have an influence on you wanting to do more personal stories?

MG: It was that I was able to do whatever I wanted and Chocolate is a story I wanted to tell. A lot of my fiction and a lot of my work is really personal, its just I dont often get an opportunity to choose something of my own. Obviously Stephen Kings work is going to get an easier nod than an original by Mick Garris. A lot of my stuff is a little unconventional. Riding the Bullet was certainly an unconventional horror ghost story and Chocolate is also a very unconventional film for Masters of Horror.

DRE: When will Desperation air?

MG: It will be on in May.

DRE: After Chocolate and Psycho IV that movie will be another collaboration between you and Henry Thomas. How do the two of you connect?

MG: When he was 18, he was the perfect young Tony Perkins when we did Psycho IV. When we did Desperation it was a great casting idea to bring him in as the Janet Leigh of Desperation, which youll understand when you see it.

DRE: Oh so he gets killed.

MG: There you go. Or not. That just renewed our friendship and work relationship so he was the first guy I thought of for Chocolate. He really does a great job in it. Its a very moody, atmospheric and unusual performance.

DRE: When are the Masters of Horror DVDs coming out?

MG: Anchor Bay will start releasing them two at a time in February 2006. Each one will have its own disc with an hour of supplemental materials.

DRE: Will there be directors cuts?

MG: These are pretty much the directors cuts. There may be some stuff we might have to add some materials for overseas for the shows that run a little bit short, but those will be done by the directors.

DRE: How did you guys decide on the bands who did original music for Masters of Horror?

MG: Immortal Music handles most of the music and the bands are either represented by them or on their label. We made a deal with them. They provide us a ton of material and then the directors choose from whats available there. Some of the songs are inspired by Masters of Horror as well.

DRE: Which bands are in yours?

MG: Mudvayne has a really great tune in mine.

DRE: I would imagine the Buckethead song is in the Carpenter episode.

MG: Actually hes in the Tobe Hooper episode.

DRE: What directors do you think will come back for season two?

MG: Im hoping that most of them will, but we hope to have some others who we werent able to work it into their schedules. Im hopeful that well have Hooper, Carpenter and Landis and a bunch of the guys back. Im hoping this time well be able to get Guillermo Del Toro, George Romero, Roger Corman and people like that.

DRE: Will you ask another Asian director like Park Chan-Wook or someone like that?

MG: The Pang Brothers is somebody Id love to have. There would be a bunch of people who would be great for us.

DRE: Whats the next movie youve got planned?

MG: Im not sure yet. I hate remakes but yet Im talking to people about doing a remake of an Australian film almost nobody saw called Thirst. Its a great, weird kind of vampire movie. Theres a bunch of stuff in the works, but if season two goes, thatll be keeping me busy as well.

DRE: Is it hard to get anything made but remakes now?

MG: Those are easier, but I would love to not have to travel that route unless its something that really could be an improvement in something thats not overly familiar to an audience.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck