This interview originally appeared in the October issue of the print mag HALLOWEEN MACHINE. As my favorite horror film of the year, I thought it might be nice to commemorate the VOD release of TALES OF HALLOWEEN by giving more people a chance to read it via internet. Here it is in it's entirety, from mid-September 2015, both of these talented and likable gentlemen in FINE form talking about their projects and the holiday that inspired their segment for that wonderful film.
AH, HorrorHound Weekend. The place where dreams come
true.
Not only did we meet a bunch of horror’s most awesome
celebrities at this past September’s annual meeting of the ghoulish and spooky,
but we caught a few really fun movies in the HHW screening room. We saw Nathan
Thomas Milliner’s Confessions of Fred
Krueger, which was cool, and we got to watch the original A Nightmare on Elm Street as introduced
by Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, and others from the ANOES cast. It was a
fitting and cathartic tribute to Wes Craven.
Aside from the Elm Street goodies, we got to see an
early screening of what is DESTINED to be the next cult horror that will be
playing in living rooms all over the world every Halloween season, and that is
the frenetic, energetic 10 segment anthology Tales of Halloween. One of the segments, the home haunt fueled
“This Means War”, is sure to be a favorite of Halloween Machine readers for its
content, dealing with the more nostalgic, moody haunt setup vs. the modern,
gory stuff.
It’s directed by two absolute vets of the horror
scene, Andrew Kasch and John Skipp, and I had the absolute pleasure of getting
to chat with both of these spooky cool dudes about their TOH piece and a few
other subjects, including Halloween memories.
First up is Kasch, who co-directed and edited the
JAWDROPPING Elm Street documentary Never
Sleep Again, an ambitious feat that ranks among the very best horror
documentaries ever made.
For my money, it’s at #1 so far.
Paul Counelis: The crowd that I saw the Tales of Halloween screening with was
just HOWLING with laughter at the segment you did with John Skipp, ‘This Means
War’. Were either of you home haunters or was there any type of memory
associated with Halloween haunts that led to this idea?
Andrew Kasch: I'm so glad they loved it! I have a huge
admiration for home haunters and I think part of the allure was that it's
something I could never do myself, largely because of a strict religious
upbringing and the fact that I just didn't have the resources. And now that I'm
a full grown adult, I just don't have the time.
But my favorite thing about the Halloween season is
checking out local haunted attractions and neighborhood displays. In the San
Fernando Valley, people really go crazy on their lawns and the passion they put
behind them is infectious. There are local places like Boney Island, The
Backwoods and the Rotten Apple where it feels like these guys spend all year
planning for their haunts. They're super elaborate!
After shooting our segment, I have an even greater
respect for these guys because pulling off a basic yard display (especially in
the two days we had) is a massive challenge!
Was there a conscious decision to kind of
stay away from the more orthodox Halloween story we often see in Halloween
oriented films and TV shows? I felt like the whole amazing film had a more
modern, almost cynical take, but retained the Halloween-y mood and feel.
I don't think it was conscious because the movie is
really a mix of filmmakers following their own interests. Some segments are
wildly unconventional and others are very traditional. But we all felt that
capturing the atmosphere of Halloween was essential to make the movie work as a
whole. For our segment, Skipp and I were less concerned about doing something
around a particular horror trope and more about exploring fandom itself. At the
end of the day, we're all just a bunch of Halloween and horror geeks and it's
always fun to playfully poke fun of ourselves.
Are you on either side of the home haunt
styles as shown in your segment? Do you gravitate more toward the traditional
stuff, or the gorier type of stuff?
We love 'em both! To us, they're like peanut butter
and chocolate - two great tastes that taste great together! And in our segment,
clashing the styles in a bloody fight on the lawn is ironically the thing that
the neighbors love the most.
It's funny because this is a divide you see in the
L.A. horror community too. We all get along great but there's definitely the
clique of the "Famous Monsters" generation (Joe Dante, John Landis,
Bill Malone, Bob Burns, etc) when compared to the filmmakers of my generation.
And Dana Gould is definitely an old-school monster kid, which is why he was so
appropriate to play Boris, the classical neighbor. You can't fake that kind of
love for something.
How did you get involved with Tales of Halloween?
It all started at a friend's birthday party last
summer. I was drinking with Axelle Carolyn and Adam Gierasch and we were
talking about how much fun it would be to make an anthology with the whole
horror community. I had an idea of doing an anthology where each segment tackled a different holiday, and Axelle said "No,
it should just be about Halloween." The next morning, the three of us met
for coffee at the Jumpcut Cafe (RIP) and started throwing filmmaker names
together. A few weeks later, Mike Mendez came on and got Epic Pictures in the
mix. Within less than a month, we were in full development. It came together
ridiculously fast!
While I have you here, I just gotta
comment on the documentaries you have been a part of. First off, for me, Never Sleep Again is easily the best
horror doc I have ever seen. But it occurs to me that there is some absolutely
HERCULEAN editing going on in both the Never
Sleep Again and Crystal Lake
films. What was it like to direct and edit those? I’m sure there was a
painstaking amount of work going on.
Thanks! Never Sleep Again was an amazing experience
and something I'm immensely proud of, but making it almost killed me. Dan
Farrands and I started out doing a ninety-minute doc with whoever we could get,
and it turned into 4-hours with over 100 interviews! Making a regular
documentary takes years and we had an accelerated schedule because of the
remake hitting theaters, so it was like compressing five years of work into six
months.
By the time it was over, I was so mentally and
physically beat down that it took about a month to adjust back to society and
not wake up with panic attacks. It was all worth it in the end, but at the time
we didn't know what the hell we had made or if anyone would watch it.
Crystal Lake was definitely Dan's baby and a way to do
what he originally wanted with His Name Was Jason. I wasn't much involved with
it beyond editing, which seemed like old hat since we had done all the bonus
features for the Paramount releases. But I was happy to help him realize his
ultimate love letter to Jason, which is his favorite boogeyman. Dan's such a
lovely human being, so anytime he needs help with something, I'm there.
I am a horror doc junkie, and I also love
the Scream doc and both of the
smaller features you did for the Halloween
4 and 5 releases. Any plans on a sprawling Halloween
doc in the manner of the Elm Street and Friday ones? Please say yes.
Glad you enjoyed them. The smaller Blu-Ray docs have
been fun to do, but I personally don't have an interest in making another big
franchise doc. I loved Elm Street because there was an entire story of the rise
and fall of New Line Cinema behind it, and you were dealing with a film series
that changed pop culture in huge and bizarre way. Plus, even the bad
installments had a lot of thematically dense material you could dive into. I
don't think you can get that kind of meat exploring other horror franchises. I
love how Never Sleep Again ignited
the fan community to want to see all their favorite monsters get the Ken Burns
treatment, but if I did another one, it would just feel obligatory.
Also, the problem with doing an epic Halloween doc is that Trancas
International is incredibly protective of that franchise, you really couldn't
do one without their involvement. And if made one, you couldn't be candid like
we were on Never Sleep Again.
My teenaged son Zak’s favorite show is The Flash, especially the “Nuclear Man”
episode. Will you be involved at all with season 2, and what is working on that
show like?
That's so cool! I actually cut a lot of that episode.
I just wrapped up my work on Season 2 (which is gonna be AMAZING) and now I'm
on to DC's Legends of Tomorrow -
which is an even bigger and crazier show!
Lastly, any treasured memories from
Halloween nights past?
The first time I was allowed to go trick or
treating...which was age 8. I made up for lost times by going out all the way
through high school. I had to stop when the neighbors became too afraid to open
their doors. What can you do?
__________________________________________________________
NEXT UP is director John Skipp, who is a legendary “Splatterpunk” author and
who wrote a script for the ill-fated A Nightmare
on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child that wound up being developed with other
writers and changed drastically. He and Kasch worked together for Skipp’s Never Sleep Again interviews and are now
developing several other projects together aside from their Tales of Halloween segment.
Paul
Counelis: Being a home haunter, I really got a huge kick out of the “This Means
War” segment from Tales of Halloween.
Both sides of the spectrum seemed pretty realistic and joyously accurate. Did
you have any previous experience with those types of haunts? How much research
went into making it feel authentic?
John Skipp: Andrew goes to every single haunt in
Southern California, every year. And I've been scaring little kids with
monsterific trick or treat visuals ever since I was one! We went to a
lot of great haunts in prep for the shoot, and talked up tons of amazing people
at Scare L.A. (Which is where we met Mr. Bones, Dana Gould's animatronic
sidekick.) But we've spent our whole lives soaking up that atmosphere. So it
wasn't a terrible stretch.
Do
you tend to gravitate toward either “side”, meaning the more traditional vs.
the gorier modern Halloween haunts? I would guess with the splatterpunk
background, but I don’t want to assume, because you guys had plenty of that
orthodox Halloween-y atmosphere in “This Means War”.
No, it's all great! That's the funniest thing
about the Great Horror Culture Divide. From the moment I landed in the scene, I
was nipple-deep in the seething war between "loud" and
"quiet". But to me, they're two great tastes that taste great
together, and fighting about it is incredibly silly, albeit utterly human. And
that's pretty much how our story winds up! (laughs)
Curious
if you had Dana Gould in mind for this film while writing? He was wonderful. If
not, how did he get involved?
Actually, I originally wrote the role for Doug Jones.
We'd just done a talk show together, and he mentioned playing Nosferatu as his
dream role. So the second I dreamed up Boris and Dante, and set their bitter
rivalry in motion, I wrote Boris as a gaunt, seven-foot vampire. But it turns
out, Doug already had his Nosferatu lined up, and was just being cagey.
Which is awesome. Can't wait to see it!
That's when Andrew brought up Dana, who's an avid
old-school horror enthusiast as well as a comedy genius. I'm an enormous fan,
from his earliest days of Comedy Central (our careers took off at roughly the
same time). And the minute we sat down to talk, it was clear just how much he
would bring to the party. He understood Boris from the inside. Reworking the
role for him was easy. And some of his best lines are on-the-spot
improvs.
So in the end, we couldn't be luckier or happier. He
and Jimmy Duval kill it together. They were both a dream. The whole cast was
amazing. (Including all sixty members of the supporting cast!)
I’m
a huge Elm Street fan and I think Never Sleep Again is THE best horror doc of
all time. I really enjoyed hearing you talk about Nightmare 5. What were some
of the things you had in your original story that they didn’t wind up using?
Oooch! It's still painful to think about. But real
quick, in a nutshell:
1) we showed how Freddy became a monster --
abused by cruel nuns as the bastard child of said thousand maniacs and one poor
nun whose life was ruined as well -- thereby underscoring themes of parental
neglect and the sins of the fathers that are the secret power behind the ELM
ST. films;
2) we made the dreams of our teens reflect their hopes
for their lives -- to get out of this town, to not grow up like their parents
-- and then had Freddy cruelly dash them, in deeply personal ways that
reflected their terror of growing up;
3) we described the collective unconscious of humanity
as a vast Dream Pool, and pegged the evil behind Freddy as a toxic oil slick on
said collective unconscious. Which is how he gets into our dreams. And how we
(i.e. Alice) can get into his, and fight him on his own dream turf. Which would
have actually made the end of the movie make sense.
There's other stuff, but f$@% it. Water under the
bridge. The big thing is that Never Sleep
Again is the best thing that ever happened for me, vis a vis the whole Nightmare
5 experience, because Andrew and I have been working together ever since. So in
the end, no matter how hosed I felt, it totally worked out. (Except for
everybody who had to sit through Nightmare 5. To whom all I can say is I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.)
What’s
next on the film projects list?
Well, we're developing a new TV series called Clowntown; and the pilot episode is
playing festivals while we shop it around. It's a love project Cody Goodfellow
and I have been nursing for nearly a decade, hopefully poised to explode at
last. Clowns fighting monsters. Let's just leave it right there.
Past that, I'm working on three new feature scripts.
Two with brilliant Fungasm author Laura Lee Bahr (Haunt, Long-Form Religious
Form), another with Shane McKenzie, whose El Gigante (as directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero and the LuchaGore
team) is sweeping the festival circuit right now. One way or another, it's time
for Skipp & Kasch to make a feature. We're workin' on it!
Do
you have any favorite memories of celebrating Halloween?
TOO MANY! I loved monstering up in my teens, twenties,
and thirties. But trick-or-treating with my daughters was the best. And I think
my favorite life-long costume is slapping devil horns on my head, wearing a
flame-based Hawaiian shirt, and sporting a name tag on my chest that says,
"Hello. My Name Is Stan." Which means they either misspelled Satan,
or I'm his lame second cousin. Either way works for me! (laughs)
By
the way, just wanted to tell you, the crowd just LOVED the film and your
segment at HorrorHound. People were literally howling. Thanks a bunch!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Can't tell you how much that
means to us! We had such a great time making it. And are really proud of Tales of Halloween, in its entirety.
It's a super-fun party film that I hope people will be enjoying for years to
come.
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