Interview with Don Coscarelli

On Monday, February 3rd, I was able to have a short interview with Don Coscarelli.  I had planned to record the interview, but there were a few problems with the conferencing system.  Needless to say, time was very limited, so, I scribbled as fast as I could and tried to be accurate.  I must say I am still pretty excited about it while I write this.  Anyway, sorry I couldn't provide a recording.  

So, here it is:

ASV: What originally got you interested in films?

DC: That is an interesting question.  I guess I had a natural gravitation towards it.  It was biologically implanted in me.

ASV: Were your parents interested?

DC: Sort of.  They used to take me to movies, for sure.  But, they tried to actively dissuade me from science-fiction and horror.  On Saturday nights, if they went out, they would definitely tell the baby-sitter to not let me watch the Saturday night horror movie.  But, she was pretty great at just talking to her boy-friend on the phone and letting me do whatever I wanted.  My parents were super helpful in making movies.  They had an 8mm camera that they would let me use. I would get together with the neighbor kids and at first we started with simple projects and then we moved on to make backyard epics.  

ASV: At All-Star Video we are devoting the whole month to your movies, so I just rewatched Kenny & Company.  Both Kenny & Company and Phantasm have such a sweet patience with characters.  Were these based on people in your own childhood?

DC: Absolutely. They were pretty much right out of my childhood. I also took some stories from kids that I knew. But, it was really just true life.

ASV: Like the scene with the dog.

DC: That was pretty much exactly how it happened. I took a recent memory and just put it in.

ASV: It felt so real. I feel like every kid has a memory like that.

DC: Yep. That's what I was trying to do. The pacing wasn't so demanding back then either. I was thinking about all the movies that I loved and just trying to emulate them. There was a real sense of trying to create a slice of life. It was a different period for kids. They weren't consumed by online content all the time. It was a more relaxed pace. I took a ton of my early memories and then tried to emulate great films. I was looking at The Last Picture Show and french films like 400 Blows. The real question now is, does the audience have the patience it did back then to watch something like that. If I wanted to make a movie like that, would I be willing to take a chance? I mean, that's why John Dies at the End is edited the way it is.

ASV: But, I wouldn't say it's poorly edited. It doesn't look like MTV or something.

DC: No, but the pacing is very quick.

ASV: With Phantasm, you started to create your own style. It’s not exactly horror or science-fiction, but “Coscarelli-esque.” How have you cultivated that style? How would you describe it?

 DC: You know, it's hard for me to answer that. I think that's what critics are for. I would say that the movies I have been making lately have been an attempt to embrace the unexpected. I try to make them different, surprising. I don't want to talk badly about other filmmakers, but so many movies now are completely predictable. We've all seen so many movies, that you know what's going to happen next. Sometimes you even know what they are going to say, and then they say it. I want to try and make something different.  

ASV: So many of your films are extremely ambitious, both in scope and idea. How do you find funding while keeping creative control?

DC:  Truthfully, I don't know.  The business is changing so rapidly.  When I started shooting this movie, I expected it to be projected in 35mm in theaters.  Instead we worked out this deal with Magnolia, having it put on Video on Demand for a short time and then a very limited theatrical run.  It's always been hard to make films independently, but now I look back and think it used to be so easy.  Before the DVD market started to go down, we could make a movie with Bruce Campbell and get it put on DVD.  With the Video On Demand stuff, there are benefits and downsides.  The benefits are that it's instantaneous and that lots of people get to see it.  The downside is that it is so easily pirated.  There are all kinds of people from around the world that are sending me messages saying they loved the movie, but I know they didn't buy it.  I really don't know how independent movies are going to survive.  I don't know what to tell young filmmakers.  It's hard out there.  I wish I could be more positive.

ASV:  With that in mind, how did digital filmmaking change how you approached John Dies at the End?

DC:  It really didn't change that much.  It's not that much cheaper.  The one thing that I liked is that you are able to take longer takes.  You can go a long time without cutting.  You don't have to capture some effects directly, you can do stuff after.  The major difference I notice is that film looked better.  But, I'm a realist.  I understand that no one will be shooting on film in ten years.  

ASV:  For our site, we always share a recipe or particular food that we believe goes great with watching that particular film.  What do you think would be the ideal meal to eat while watching John Dies at the End?

DC:  That's great.  I actually already have a recipe for Soy Sauce Cupcakes up on the website for John Dies at the End.  So, check out the website, www.johndies.com and get that recipe.

ASV:  Thanks Don, I really appreciate it.

DC:  Thanks for the kind words.

ASV:  Best of luck.

Review: JOHN DIES AT THE END

Directed by Don Coscarelli
2012
100 mins.  Color.
Available On Demand and in Select Theaters.

I first heard about John Dies at the End about two years ago.  I have been waiting expectedly since.  I wouldn't say it's brilliant or deep.  But, it's fun, original and entertaining and I loved it.

This is a film about fighting evil, drugs, a sweet dog named Bark Lee, giant insects and monsters made out of frozen meats.  Coscarelli saw the fun in two friends taking on an evil that could destroy the world.  Directly in the vein of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep, John Dies is about the heroes who come out of obscurity, and who can only rely on each other.

Like all of Coscarelli's films, this is a hard one to summarize. It's hard to talk about what the film is really "about" without just doing a play-by-play of each scene in the film and trying to make something out of the madness.  (I won't dothat to you, though) It's told out of order, jumping back and forth, at times is seemingly episodic and leaves you in the lurch.  Feels about right.  Phantasmesque in story-telling, Bubba Ho-Tepesque in style and humor.   The thing that feels different about these heroes is that they are completely apathetic.

As much as I hate to say it, I could see this as a dorm room movie that will get huge with dudes who have the munchies.  I only say that as I think it would be a shame if this movie were relegated to college stoner status.  It deserves better than that.

The Set-Up:

The film opens with a riddle involving an axe handle and a large decapitated undead dude with a swastika tattoo on his tongue.

Arnie Blondestone (the always great Paul Giamatti) shows up to a chinese restaurant to interview David Wong (a very deadpan Chase Williamson).  Inexplicably, Dave explains that he knows exactly how many grains of rice are on the plate that the waitress is carrying, he knows where it came from and who grew it.  The first statement, luckily, from Blondestone is "You don't look Asian."  My first thought, exactly.  Dave's response, "I'm not.  I changed it to be harder to find.  Wong is the most common name on the planet."  Fair enough.  Blondestone is a reporter and Dave explains that he wants to get the truth out.  He wants to share the exploits of him and his friend John.

In an internal monologue to the audience, Dave relays what he doesn't think Arnie could handle.  The fight he and John had with a monster made out of the meat in the freezer, a penis door-handle, a girl that turns to snakes...  Yep, we're in Coscarelli territory here.

Dave is currently high on The Soy Sauce, a sentient other-dimension mystery drug that causes the user to know things that otherwise would be impossible and "bend" reality.  It heightens senses.  He knows the exact change in Arnie's pocket and the dream he had last night.  As John will later tell Dave, "I'm remembering stuff that hasn't happened yet."

And then we start at the beginning, and the prospect that John may help bring about the end of the world.

The Evaluation:

The film is crazy, yes.  There is a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure feeling to it all.  (That is not a bad thing)  But, just as Phantasm was surreal and existential, so here Coscarelli refuses to make a simple stupid story.  Playing with the notion of time and reality, he calls into question fate and self-determinism.  For instance, take this monologue from the Detective (played by the awesome Glynn Turman, aka Mayor Royce from The Wire)

"There are some very dark things happening.
And, I've got this lonely feeling like I'm the only one who knows, the only one who can do anything about it.
Everybody's got a ghost story.  UFO or Bigfoot.
You know what I think?  I think there's both real and not real at the same time.
I'm not a Star Trek fan.  I don't know much about other dimensions and all that.
I'm an old school Catholic.  I believe in hell.  I believe it's more than just murders and rapists.
I believe in Demons.  Worms.  Vile Shit.  The grease trap of the universe.  The more I think about it, the more I think it's just not down there.  That it's right here.  With us.  That we just can't perceive it.
It's kind of like a country music station.  It's out there.  In the air.  Even if you don't tune into it."

There are so many elements here that are fun to watch, it's hard to not just tell you everything.  The great cameos and outstanding story-telling. But, it seems that something like this should just be watched to be enjoyed.

Trivia:

• Coscarelli originally heard of the novel based on a recommendation from Amazon.
• Chase Williamson's first movie.
• David Wong, the name of the author of the book and main character, is actually a pseudonym for Jason Pargin, author on Cracked.com

Set Yourself Up:

• I think Stir-Fry is the way to go here.  Make up some rice and vegetables.  Then, cover it some Soy Sauce.

You can watch it by renting it on iTunes, VUDU, Amazon, XBOX, Playstation, Direct TV, etc....
You can also find theaters that are playing it here: http://www.johndies.com/watch.html

Opens at the Lagoon Cinema in Minneapolis on March 8th.

-J. Moret

Review: INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD

Directed by Don Coscarelli
2005
51 mins.  Color.
Masters of Horror DVD, 2005


I’ll start this off by saying I am not a huge fan of the Masters of Horror series.  I think that first season with Dario Argento’s Jenifer and John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns was better than the later ones, but still not great.  I think the real problem is the format.  One hour micro-budget for “TV” that all had a digital look with that horrible new horror editing.  (You know exactly what I’m saying.  Super slick.  Fast cuts.  Lots of bad CGI.)  

Coscarelli’s entry, Incident on and off a Mountain Road, was the first episode in the first season of Masters and doesn't start extremely strong, but ends well.  It starts with Ellen (Bree Turner, known for lots of TV, looks a bit like Jennifer Love Hewitt...) driving down a deserted dark curvy road in the mountains.  She is spacing out listening to music and comes upon a car that is parked in the middle of the road.  She crashes into the car.  

It then cuts to Ellen having lunch with Bruce (Ethan Embry of Can’t Hardly Wait, that Jennifer Love Hewitt movie that you loved as a thirteen year old because you got to look at JLW for 90 minutes) and their relationship is established as weird and awkward.  Bruce says all kinds of weird crap like “I’d like to shoot those scumbags” and etc, but Ellen seems to find him charming (because he was in Can’t Hardly Wait, of course).  The dialogue is also very strange.  For instance:
E: “I just love the rain.”
B: “Well, you look really good in it.”
They then have a weird MTV style sex scene that seems strange in a Coscarelli movie.  Otherwise when I’ve seen him approach sexuality it tends to involve Reggie Bannister and be funny.  This one is done with flashes of lightning (which is a trope that portrays most of the chase shots as well).  

It then cuts back to Bree on the dark road.  She is unconscious at the wheel and when she comes to she tries to start her car.  It won’t start and she heads out to look at the other car.  No one is in the other car and blood covers the front seat.  She sees that a trail of blood heads off the road and she follows it.  At the other end she sees a dark hooded figure, and calls out to see if he’s okay.  She then sees that the hooded figure is dragging a woman, she calls out for help.  The hooded figure takes off his hood to show that he’s a hacked out bald giant with bad teeth.  We will later find out that he’s called Moonface.

It then cuts back to Ellen and Bruce, now they are taking a run together.  Bruce is going on like a weird creep talking about how Ellen needs to be ready to do the unexpected if someone attacks her.  He describes how to shove a stick in someone’s eye if needed.  It starts to become clear that this guy is obsessed with self-defense.

 
Moonface chases Ellen through the woods, and the style does not feel Coscarelli-esque.  Here’s where the Masters of Horror production pushes in.  They all feel and look like this.  Pseudo slick and without soul.  But, just as I was getting frustrated, it gets interesting.  Ellen stops and makes a booby trap with a pair of scissors that stab Moonface in the eye.  She then finds a six foot hole, and quickly breaks a branch, making a punji stick.  She pulls herself out and then removes her underwear.  She uses the elastic and fabric to make a slingshot type booby trap.  She waits.  The other woman who had been screaming for help comes down the hill, and Ellen tries to stop her but she falls onto the punji stick.  It impales her leg.  Moonface uses Ellen’s booby-trap against her.

In the midst of this action, the film keeps cutting to survival training Ellen has with Bruce.  And, he keeps getting creepier.  He is increasingly critical of her and she eventually tells him she is going to leave him.

Ellen is dragged to Moonface’s house.  Its a very Texas Chainsaw-esque scene.  Then, we get Angus Scrimm.  Man, I love that guy.  Here, he provides a much needed different character.  He is tied up in the basement and explains to Ellen that she is one of many.  He points out two other skeletons behind her.  Ellen witnesses Moonface drilling out the eyes out of the other woman who was impaled by her punji booby-trap.  She then sees that that all the bodies had their eyes drilled out.  

Now, I’m going to ruin the end for you because it is the best part of the movie and made the movie worthwhile for me.  Scrimm helps Ellen escape and she uses the skeleton of a baby as a weapon (!).  She then kicks Moonface out a window and he falls into a waterfall.  She heads up to her car, gets it started and then goes to the trunk.  She opens it to reveal Bruce’s dead body.  There is a flashback of Bruce beating and then raping Ellen, with her replying by strangling Bruce to death.  It then comes back to the car, Ellen drags his body to Moonface’s house, and then drills out his eyes.  She also kills Scrimm.  (that seemed unnecessary to me)

I understand what Coscarelli saw in this story.  The tough woman who makes booby-traps and ends up killing her creepy abusive husband and a serial killer is pretty awesome.  The possibility to work within the same TV series as Argento, Tobe Hooper, Joe Dante, Takashii Miike and John Carpenter would definitely be attractive.  Likewise, he had never really done a straight-forward horror film.  Everything else he has done is much more genre-melding.  He had wanted to work with Joe R. Lansdale’s short story after doing so well with Bubba Ho-Tep.  It also plays into Coscarelli’s fear of the wilderness, ie: Survival Quest.  All that being said, It doesn’t exactly work.  But, there are great moments and it’s worth watching because of them.  

The Trivia:

• Shot in just 12 days
• Coscarelli says he wasn’t interested in the blood and mayhem (as is usual), but upped the ante on the drilling of the eye when he heard what Dante and Argento were doing in their episodes

Set Yourself Up:

• Set your expectations for a Masters of Horror episode.  This isn’t a feature, and is probably best if considered a short and followed up by Bubba Ho-Tep.  
• Buy some gummy eyeballs from www.orientaltrading.com

The Hype:

• It’s Coscarelli.  

The Goods:
There are quite a few good features on the disk.  There is a short documentary about Coscarelli’s career, a featurette with interviews about working with him, on the set interviews with John DeSantis (Moonface) and Ethan Embry.  There are also trailers, commentaries, etc..

-J. Moret

YES THE ACADEMY AWARDS ARE IRRELEVANT AND I'M GOING TO WATCH ANYWAY

Academy Award Winner, Norbit

We're in the midst of a month devoted to Don Coscarelli, a decidedly non-Oscar director, so it may seem strange to do a post about an organization that celebrates itself once a year while we watch.  Well, it is.  But I'm doing it anyway.

I'm obviously not one of the first people to say that the Academy Awards are mostly irrelevant.  I say mostly, because the smaller films that they nominate for best picture do get a big jump.  Films like Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook, for instance, had very minimal exposure until their best picture nods.  Subsequently, they have gained a completely new audience.

By pretending that America makes the best films, (outside of Amour, one of a very very small group of foreign language films to ever be nominated) the Academy has basically made it clear that they do not want the best films that came out in a single year to win.

In fact, in the last twenty years they have nominated Avatar, The Gladiator, Juno, Dances with Wolves, Ghost, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Babe, Titanic, The Lord of the Rings (all 3), Chicago, Seabiscuit, and The Blind Side, just to name a few embarrassing titles.  What does it even matter if you win best picture when you share it with Titanic?  I can name about fifteen films from 1990 that are more deserving than Ghost.  In fact, I would say most films that came out in 1990 were better than Ghost.  For instance, Days of Being Wild would have been a nice addition.  And, if you're going to nominate a Swayze movie, Road House or Next of Kin would have been better.

Likewise, the Academy may nominate some very good films, but they have a long history of picking mediocre safe films to win.  For instance, in 1976, a fantastic year for film, they picked Rocky.  Now, I like Rocky, but I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that it's more important than Network, Taxi Driver, or All the President's Men.

At the same time, a science fiction film has never won (2001: A Space Odyssey, I'm looking your way), a horror film has basically no chance (The Exorcist was nominated and Silence of the Lambs won, no other horror films have ever been nominated) while biopics (A Beautiful Mind, really?), musicals (Les Miserables) and epics (Lord of the Rings) mop up.  If you're not Woody Allen, you won't win for a comedy either.

Best Picture Nominee, 1995

Amour may be the best film (personally haven't seen it yet), but it has no chance of winning.  I would argue that The Master is probably the most important and will be the one that will be discussed in years to come.  However, you can count on Argo or maybe Lincoln.  I am going to make my bet now and say Argo wins best picture.  It seems to me that the Academy is on a self love fest.  They will nominate any movie that is about the love of movies or the worthwhile nature of movies (The Artist, Hugo..).  In Argo, Hollywood comes off as the hero and they love that crap.

This year, films like The Master, Bernie and Moonrise Kingdom were snubbed for the likes of very very mediocre Les Miserables and Life of Pi. Likewise, where is the very deserving Matthew McConaughey for best supporting actor for Magic Mike?

Really, I don't even care that much.

So, why am I going to watch?  For the same reason I watch the World Series even when the Twins stink.  I love movies.  There is only one night a year that is set aside to celebrate film.  Perhaps I'll get a quick shot of Lawrence of Arabia or a moment of Christopher Nolan on the set of the Dark Knight Rises smashing that plane apart.  If we're lucky we'll get to see Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell.  It's a chance to yell at the screen and discuss the merits of a certain film while denigrating another.

So, with that in mind, I'm hoping Django Unchained wins Best Picture (The Master is not nominated), Roger Deakins wins for Skyfall (damn, that movie was beautiful looking), Joaquin Phoenix for Best Actor and NO for best Foreign Film.

-J. Moret

Review: BUBBA HO-TEP

Directed by: Don Coscarelli
2002, 92 Minutes

This is what people say about BUBBA HO-TEP: It's a crazy movie about an Elvis Impersonator and a Mummy.

Crazy is a word people use when they don't understand something. I'm not saying that some of what occurs in the film is not "crazy." I'm not saying I don't use the word "crazy." But BUBBA HO-TEP takes a wild premise and truly turns it into something human and very poignant (yes, I said it).

BUBBA HO-TEP is based on a novella by Joe Lansdale.

Screenwriter/Director Don Coscarelli is in my estimation, the only person on the planet that could have taken this story and given it the care, heart, and passion necessary for it to work. Coscarelli is most famous for the PHANTASM series. A series of films that is widely known for it's creative twists on a tired genre.

BUBBA HO-TEP does the same. The film takes what would be an absolutely ridiculous premise and turns it into something completely unexpected.

THE PLOT:

Our Hero

The story primarily takes place in a run down, filthy Texas funeral home (which with color timing, looks like a dingy pyramid chamber). The main character in our story is Sebastian Haff (Played by Bruce Campbell). Sebastian is wicked old. He looks like Elvis. He also claims to BE Elvis Presley. Sebastian is like most old men. Angry and ready to die.

Sebastian tells his Nurse, (Played by television veteran Ella Joyce) the whole story. He is Elvis. He found a great impersonator named Sebastian Haff. They traded identities. The new Elvis couldn't handle the temptations of fame and ended up dead on a toilet. While the real Elvis moved to a trailer park and opted for the simple life.

Elvis/Sebastian finds there is another famous resident in his nursing home. JFK (Played by the incomparable Ossie Davis). JFK's story is that the government dyed him black and put him into hiding.

The most bizarre part of all this is that it works. Campbell and how he explains his story makes for the most believable of Elvis conspiracies. Davis plays JFK with an heir of royalty. He doesn't try to BS a ridiculous Boston accent. He plays the role with the regality it deserves.

Enter Bubba Ho-Tep. The lazy redneck mummy. He looks like Billy Jack in mummy form. He's come to the nursing home as a path of least resistance. It's easier to steal souls from the old and feeble than the strong.

Elvis and JFK join forces to stop the mummy onslaught.

WHAT?

Yes. This is an absurd premise. While I have never read the novella upon which this movie is based, the story takes all of the wackiness and more than manages to represent a very mature and and complex story about one's will to survive and what it means to grow old.

Coscarelli somehow took a premise about Elvis, JFK, and a mummy that sucks souls from assholes and turned it into something meaningful on the screen.

While I am focusing on the more serious aspects of the film, there are quite a few jokes and funny moments. The humor and tone of the film remain light and entertaining. There is certainly a comedic edge to the film that ties everything together.

This review is extremely biased. BUBBA HO-TEP is one of my favorite movies of all time. I will be the first to admit, the premise got me in the door, but the outcome of the story and the heart this movie displays changed my view of what a movie could portray and how a movie could make me feel.

My final comment will be that this is certainly not for everyone. Fair warning: this is not an action movie. The premise is out there, but it is a much more "real" feeling movie than most will expect. It has something to say. This isn't Elvis with a machine gun shooting hordes of mummies. If you are looking for a romp, best look elsewhere. This is more arthouse than summer blockbuster or horror romp. The movie is totally "crazy" for not being what anyone expected from the premise and it's all the better for it.

We don't give ratings here at ASV. But I give BUBBA HO-TEP my highest recommendation. 10/10. A+. Thumbs Up. Doggie wearing a spaceman suit. 5 Stars. Best movie ever man.


-M. McSlam