Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 2 Page 6

  Again, thank God for video.

  Yeah. The thing about video is that it is really the great equalizer. At the very end, all films, no matter how big their budgets or their advertising campaigns or whatever, are all there next to each other on the shelf. They’re all equal and I kind of like that.

  It’s nice that someone can pick up a film like that and also grab Citizen Kane for ninety-nine cents.

  Exactly, to me it is a huge revolution. I remember when I was a kid, if you missed a movie at the movie theater, that was it for you.

  You were left to scour the TV Guide at two in the morning to get to see some of the stuff you may have missed.

  Exactly.

  Tell me a little about Robot Jox. Was that a good experience? Was the release and reception of it something that you expected?

  It was a very “unlucky” movie in a lot of ways. I mean, everything that could go wrong, did. Ultimately, I think of it as a good experience and I’m very proud of the movie. We completed the live action of the film and Empire, the company who had produced it, went bust and the movie just languished for about six months while the new owners of the company decided whether they wanted to complete it or not. Then, after looking at footage, they said, “Yes, we do.” We then had to complete all of the Special FX which were shot in the Mojave Desert. Normally FX are shot in a very controlled situation, on a stage, with a blue screen, everything very neat and clean. The idea was, since we couldn’t afford to use a lot of blue screens and processed shots, a lot of the shots were done in camera by using real backgrounds, real mountains, and real skies. They were actually out there in the desert doing forced perspective, using sunlight to create these unlimited vistas. Because they were out there, they were exposed to the weather and all kinds of physical hardships. What was supposed to have been a six month shoot, ended up taking over a year. The movie was released two and a half years later than it was intended to be. By that time, everything had changed. The world had changed. There was no longer the big cold war going on with the super powers. The Berlin Wall had come down. The Transformer toys which had inspired the movie were now considered to be passé. So, the film, when it was released theatrically, did not do particularly well, which was disappointing after every one had been, literally, sweating blood to get that movie completed. What saved it, again, was the video release. There was a while there where it was on every week for a year on HBO. It developed a huge following among kids, particularly ten year old boys, which was really the audience we were shooting for originally.

  How different would Honey, I Shrunk the Kids have been if they would have allowed you to shoot the script you originally wrote?

  It wouldn’t have been all that different because when I dropped out of the movie there were literally a few weeks before principal photography was supposed to begin. They were pretty much stuck with the game plan that I had devised, in terms of the FX and so forth. What really changed was the casting of the movie and the approach to the characters, which was a little different in our version of it. It’s really some minor stuff, but I had intended the relationship between the teenage girl and the teenage boy to be just the reversed from what’s in the film. In my version of the script, the girl was kind of an ugly duckling, very shy. The guy next door was the big football hero. They would have never had anything to do with each other if they hadn’t been thrown together into this adventure. During the course of it, they become romantically entwined. The ugly duckling becomes the swan, I guess you could say. The powers that be at Disney were nervous about that and felt that they wanted all of the kids to be cute, fresh faced, stars of their class, and prom queens and so forth.

  This brings up something I was curious about. I know that you are working on the Disney lot. The fact that the man who made films like Re-Animator and From Beyond is working at Disney seems like a long strange trip.

  It really is. People are amazed when they walk into my office sometimes and see all of these posters, all these horrific monsters on the walls and they just walked past Snow White to get to my office. It, in a way, keeps me sane to be able to bounce back and forth between doing family films and the kind of disturbing Horror movies that I am known for. You have to able to stretch both sides of your personality, not get too boxed-in to one area. You suffer personally and your work suffers.

  The question I would have is, it seems like a publicist’s nightmare to be able to approach the market place with a very family-oriented film and then have “from the maker of Re-Animator” on the poster.

  I think I am the kid in the attic. I am, in a sense, the Castle Freak of Disney. They sort of want to keep me in the background a little bit. In the past, they have not been too keen on my directing Disney films. As long as my name is on it as a producer or a writer, that’s ok, but I think they want to keep that distance there for that reason.

  I had recently read an interesting review of Castle Freak and it compared the film to some of the Italian giallo films made famous by Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Was doing a film of this type something that you set out to do or did it merely happen because you were in this big castle and you used a lot of shots from the “point of view” of the Freak?

  Several things contributed to it. I am a huge fan of those guys’ work, so I think that was in the back of my mind. This was the fifth movie that I did in Italy. In all of the other films, we had to pretend we were somewhere else. In Dolls, we were in England, in From Beyond we were in Massachusetts, Pit and the Pendulum we were in Spain. This was the first time where we could admit that we were in Italy and have the actors speak and be Italian. I saw this as a movie where I could let the experiences that I had in Italy finally end up on screen. I would look at it as my Italian movie.

  How much input did you have on the script of The Dentist?

  I had a lot. The story was the idea of myself and Dennis Paoli, who is my writing partner, and we did several drafts of it. The re-writes that were done were fairly minimal. I would say eighty or eighty-five per cent of what’s in the movie is ours.

  You mention your writing partner. Do you find that you work best with someone there to act as a sounding board?

  Definitely. I think the idea of sitting down yourself in front of a typewriter is one of the hardest things there is to do. Having someone else to bounce things off of and try to top each other is great fun. Dennis Paoli and I have been friends since high school, so we are on the same wavelength. It really is a great way to work.

  There was a time when you expressed interest in doing a version of Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth. Is that still something still on the back burner?

  It’s a dream project. It’s one of these things I would love to do.

  What’s holding that back? Is it just money?

  Again, it’s one of these things where it’s just too weird. I would go in and have these meetings with these studios and then I would say, “These people are turning into fish.” As soon as I would say that, the meeting was over. [Their response] was like, “Fish?” I had lots of people say, “Look, if you can just change this and make it about werewolves or vampires, we would do it in a minute, but, fish? Come on…” I even started changing the way I described it. I started referring to them as amphibious creatures. [laughs] I think that is the problem. It’s just so different from anything else.

  Fangoria ran some production sketches that Berni Wrightson had done and they were so beautiful. His work was great. Dick Smith even got involved and did some fantastic sculptures based on Berni’s drawings. We were really close to getting it done.

  So, the future of that is…

  I’m still trying to get it made. We shot Space Truckers in Ireland and I had a really good time working there. It struck me that maybe that would be the place to make Shadow Over Innsmouth and use one of these little Irish fishing villages for Innsmouth. I’m exploring that now.

  What can you tell me about Space Truckers?

  Space Truckers is completed. It’s going to be opening in Londo
n in February. It will be opening throughout the rest of the world shortly after that. We are in the process of finding a domestic distributor for it, so, we are showing it for the studios. This was a chance for me to really have a good budget. Dennis Hopper stars in it. It was a dream to do a space movie. In Robot Jox, we had one short little sequence where they went into space. With Space Truckers, the whole movie takes place in space and we really had a chance to use computer generated FX, some wonderful miniature work, and great art direction. It’s a twenty-five million dollar movie that, I think, looks like it cost two or three times that.

  Wow, all that and Debi Mazar!

  And Debi Mazar. She was fantastic.

  Didn’t Screaming Mad George have something to do with this film?

  Yeah, he did. He created the monsters for the movie which were called Bio Mechanical Warriors or BMWs for short. They were designed by [Hajime] Sorayama, the Japanese designer, and he came up with this fantastic design, but it seemed like it was impossible to actually make it in three dimensions as a costume for someone to wear. Screaming Mad George came in and, with the help of some six foot tall women dancers, he was able to bring Sorayama’s drawings to life. In the immediate future, [there are] a couple of other projects that I am working on now. One is for Disney which is a Ray Bradbury story that we did as a play many years back when I was doing theater called The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit which would be a change of pace for me. It is, in a sense, a fantasy piece about five down and out Mexican-Americans who each chip in their last twenty bucks to buy a white suit that they can share. When they put on the suit it makes their dreams come true. It’s a touching and very funny piece because the fifth member of the group they’ve had to let him in out of desperation because they needed his money. He’s a complete slob. He’s sort of a Mexican equivalent to [Peanuts’] Pigpen, with flies literally buzzing around him. They are convinced that he is going to destroy the suit and he almost does. I am also working on a couple of other things. I have some science fiction projects that I am developing. There’s a piece that I have been trying to get made which is called King of the Ants, although it sounds like a sci-fi film, it’s a lot closer in tone to something like Reservoir Dogs. A very tough and very suspenseful story about a kid who is a house painter who ends up becoming a hit man.

  I’m there!

  David J. Schow

  As a fledgling writer, David Schow was someone I looked up to. His writing style is a literal “How-to” for writers looking to craft effective and evocative prose. Later, I religiously read his “Raving & Drooling” columns for Fango. He was another person I was nervous about talking to. Luckily, we conducted the interview via email and I was able to keep the “fawning fan” thing to a minimum. David is a terrific guy and an exemplary interview subject. After reading this, I’m sure you’ll agree.

  Look Out He’s Got a Knife! – Volume IV, Issue 1

  The first time I saw David J. Schow speak was at Fangoria Weekend of Horrors. He was a guest there scheduled to give out one of their Chainsaw Awards. As fate would have it, Brandon Lee won the Best Actor award for his role in The Crow film. Being a friend of Brandon’s, David accepted the award for the late actor and, in an emotionally charged speech, expressed his (and our) dismay at the thought of Miramax/Dimension’s plans to go ahead with a sequel to the film. During his short speech, the author stated his thoughts so eloquently that the entire room was left in hushed silence as he stalked off the stage. As first impressions go, this was one of the best. David J. Schow is a gifted, outspoken, viciously original writer who expresses himself first and considers the political ramifications of his statements later. He neither caters to public opinion nor does he bend to the sheep-like mentality displayed by other writers in the horror field. My kinda guy…

  What is your educational background and what drew you to writing as a profession?

  I’m a university drop-out. Three semesters and gone. I always wanted to write, so I wrote; the trick was getting people to pay money for what was getting written anyway. The irony of my brief fling with higher education is that, today, I get paid to lecture at universities about writing – I get paid more for one night than my original scholarship/grant had been to go to school for an entire semester, in the first place. Plus lodging and meals.

  Do you recommend that anyone who has the desire to write should just get on with it and forego the getting of, say, a degree in English or literature?

  An English degree might help you counter certain deficiencies of grammar, which haunt me to this day. Otherwise, I’d forego writing classes and workshops, in college or anywhere else. By the time people with whom I’d gone to college acquired their degrees, I had sold both fiction and nonfiction professionally. My “diploma” was a check and an acceptance letter that I treasure still; how do you feel about your diplomas? A literature degree might help you read, but it certainly won’t help you write, and shouldn’t you be reading without professional help? When I see how many writers have to make ends meet by teaching writing, it depresses me. What do you do with a workshop story? Curry the approval of an instructor whom you essentially pay to critique at your material, then, if you’re lucky and you dare, submit it to an editor. I say cut directly to the editor, since the editor is the person with the power to buy your story or book, and the rest is just coddling, salve for your ego that costs you money. Don’t worry about joining clubs, or ferreting out “tricks” or shortcuts. Don’t even listen to me. Just write.

  Do you believe that Horror, as a genre, is dead?

  Dead? No. How could it be? Horror has been with us since before the written word, before literature, and before schools of criticism that try to declare something as broad and fundamental as horror dead. Horror can easily weather a market slump because it’s primal, it transcends genre. It teaches us our shape. If you say, “Gee, sci-fi’s in a slump,” people know immediately what you mean. If you say speculative fiction is in decline, they’ll look at you like you’re nuts. As opposed to what other kind of fiction? The horror version of sci-fi is HOO-ROR – dark, fantastical literature rendered down into a consumer category. By its stench you shall know it: good vs. evil parables that function as advertisements for one outmoded religion or another. Xerographic bullshit in which families with possessed children move into new digs in sinister New England towns, above old Indian burial grounds, and awaken ancient naughtiness. Virtually any novel that begins with a prologue set in another century. Or copycat writing by people whose entire prep is slasher movies and the Stephen King Library. Say it loud: HOO-ROR. Then shoot it in the head. Aim for the wallet.

  You’ve said “every writer of any worth writes for an imaginary group of about ten readers in his or her head that coterie who will understand every layer of story at whatever depth you care to veneer the writing.” My question is, do you think that most writers feel this way? Are these ten people the type that you would ever invite to your house for dinner?

  As for other writers, you’d have to ask them. But make no mistake – writing is still primarily an act of ego, upon which you gild other considerations as you go. You need a strong ego to armor yourself against constant rejection of your work and of you as a writer (not to mention you as a human being) so among those ten imaginary people in your head are folks you invent for the purposes of testing your work. Attacking it, to see if it holds water in ways that matter to you. But would you want to sit at a table with ten people picking apart every nuance of your work? No again. That’s why they’re strictly imaginary. Besides, if they were real, I’d never give them my street address, and even if I did, it’s really hard to find my house.

  Are you ever completely pleased with a story once you decide to let it go so it can be published?

  About 50%. Copyedit and proofs can craze you, because the urge to tinker is always there and you’ve got to learn to lock the lid down and get on with the next job. I do believe that once a story is published, you shouldn’t mess with it except to amend an outright factual error,
or scotch something that will irritate you for the rest of time because it rings sourly. Other than obvious corrections, you’ve just got to learn to leave it alone. When I was on the brink of my first story collection, I rewrote some of the stories front-to-back. That’s not a good idea. Stories are of their time. Should I go back to a story ten years from now and cycle in replacement slang? Make the characters hew to some future concept of political correctness? Or incorrectness? If they’re infinitely malleable, why bother committing to any single version at all? That’s where your story morphs into a video game, and it’s a potential pitfall of word processing – all changes are equally easy. That, to me, confuses typesetting with writing. If you want to make a change in fiction, it should be a change you are willing to work to achieve. And if you know that, then the ease of word processing becomes an advantage and not a hazard. Now I’ll contradict myself, proving that there is no one answer for anything. Necronomicon Press will publish (in April 1997) a chapbook version of a short story that has already appeared in Dark Terrors 2. The chapbook version is slightly expanded. After I sold it to Dark Terrors, I “wrote on it” some more. I wanted a US version of a new story that I could hand to people who ask what I’ve been doing lately – one that didn’t force them to cough up the scratch for an entire imported anthology. It’s the same story, but different. The chapbook version has extra stuff.