It was with honour and trepidation that I went to the press room at the San Diego Comic-Con to do our very first interviews for the Horror Film Compendium.
I had tried to be prepared, writing down a list of questions and trying to think of something that would be interesting to talk about, but the truth is, not having seen either of the films I'd be doing interviews about, there wasn't really that much I could say.
I found the area for the press, a little conference room curtained-off to give privacy, where several tables had been set up and small clusters of people sat talking or videotaping. Among them were director McG and actress Missy Peregrym, and different groups of interviewers were talking to their subjects, and when they finished, the interviewees would get up and move to the next table for more interviews. A press junket, they call it in the biz.
Yes, Wendy, just like in Notting Hill.
Well, I enjoyed the few minutes I had just sitting and resting my legs (there was free water there too!), and took the opportunity to talk to Ms. Peregrym while waiting my turn, asking her about "Heroes," and her new show "Reaper." I've mentioned it a lot, but my fake interview with her was a lot easier than my real interviews that were about to start, maybe because it was so casual.
Before that happened, I saw a heavyset guy around my age sitting in the corner, plugging a microphone into a laptop, and went over and introduced myself. His name was Kevin Carr, the erstwhile host of a podcast called "Fat Guys At the Movies," and he was an old pro at this. I told him I was nervous, what he thought of the movies, and asked him how many questions he had prepared. He told me he hadn't seen the movie and had no questions in mind (he just liked to wing it, having done so many of these in the past), but that if the interviewees were professional, they'd talk about their projects with a minimum of prodding.
I was a bit relieved at that, since my first interview was with Dan Myrick, the co-director of The Blair Witch Project,* there to talk about his film, The Believers (which just barely hit DVD this week). Luckily, he was exactly what Kevin was talking about, and could've filled up a half hour interview, without me saying a word.
The professional-sounding questions came from Kevin, and the crappy ones? All mine, baby.
QUESTION: How much do you like being associated with Blair Witch, and how do you strike the balance between being associated with it and trying to put out something different?
ANSWER: That's a good word, "balance." You know, Blair Witch was the best thing to happen to me. It certainly helped my career, and I feel extremely fortunate that I was a part of that whole process and how big it got, and I think that's fantastic. But as an artist, quote-unquote, you want to be known for a body of work eventually. So, as much as I love Blair Witch, and using (it) as an example of what I can do and what it's taught me, ultimately you want to be known for other things as well. So it's a balance, because I love Blair Witch, it's like my firstborn, you know? But movies like Believers and this other film I just did, called The Objective, you hope they can stand on their own merits as well. We'll just see. I don't think I'll ever have another movie like Blair Witch, it's just physically impossible, but I hope someday instead of people just saying, "Dan (Blair Witch)," they'll say, "Dan (Blair Witch and Believers and this and that) Myrick."
(Myrick, oddly enough, is pronounced just like it's spelled, as in "My Rick Springfield collection has filled two CD shelves.")
Q. Can you give us a real brief synopsis of The Believers?
A.The Believers basically revolves around these two guys, they're a couple of paramedics that are on this call, and they find themselves kidnapped by this local cult. And they soon realise that this is a doomsday cult and they're getting ready to "off" themselves, like, the following Monday. So one of the paramedics is doing his best to get out of there and save anyone else he can, while his partner starts to buy into the cult's ideology.
Toward the end . . . I hope the film challenges our preconceptions on what cults are. It's a good old fashioned Psychological Thriller that makes you think a little bit about what makes cults tick and why people join up with them. It's definitely different than anything I've done in the past.
Q. Did you draw from any kind of personal experience? Why cults?
A.Well, I think cults are kind of interesting. This particular cult is a blend of psychologists and mathematicians, that believe that there's empirical evidence that proves God exists. So they're a scientific cult that believe in the spirituality of numbers. So rather than science and religion being mutually exclusive, these guys think it's one in the same. So it makes them different than your typical wacky cult. And that just fascinates me, and hopefully it challenges our conventions of what religion is and what math is, and that they might be the same if you dig deep enough.
And this Formula that these guys talk about is this number that proves God exists, at least according to them. Whether you believe them or not, remains to be seen. I think that's an interesting approach, and I like films that make you think a little bit once you leave the theatre.
QUESTION: In the Seventies, there was a lot of Religious Horror. Would you classify this as a religious horror film? You said Psychological Thriller before, but–
ANSWER: I wouldn't say religious horror film. Definitely in the Seventies, in the post-Vietnam era, a lot of these cults sprung up as kind of a rebellion against the status quo and government organisations, and they formed their own enclaves. Jim Jones is a perfect example. So there's a need, I think, for people to be accepted and to feel loved and to feel a part of something. I think that's the initial attraction to a lot of these cults, and this one's no different. But what makes this cult in The Believers a little bit different than the other ones is that they've got evidence that proves their ideology, which has always been the failing of most cults. I mean, when you really put their feet to the fire, they always find a way to slip out, like politicians, they find a way to avoid the real questions.
Q.Was this a difficult film to get made in today's social/political climate?
A.Well, it probably would have, had it been a stand-alone movie. But because it was part of our Raw Feed brand that I'm working with Tony Kranz ("24," "Wonderland") and John Shiban ("The X-Files," "Enterprise") on . . . We're partnered with Warners Home Video on these things, and they've totally embraced this kind of indie filmmaking approach to an ongoing brand for their DVD library. It's like the best of both worlds, where you've got a studio behind you, but keeping these budgets low, they give you free creative control.
We're hoping to establish an ongoing release of these Raw Feed films that are smart, challenging films that come out on DVD, but aren't your typical DVD fare. Kind of like modern-day "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits," but in feature-length form, in that kind of indie spirit.
Q.The other Raw Feed releases were Rest Stop and Sublime, right?
A. Right.
Q.I've got to ask you: sex and violence. I notice the "Unrated" symbol on the DVD. What can we expect from that, and at what level?
A Well, on Believers, there's not a lot. There is some sex, and there is a little bit of violence, but it's more about what goes on up here (points to Kevin's bald cranium). I hope it's no less scary, and no less engaging, but not relying on cliches to get that across. It has its share, definitely, but it does that in the context that I'd like to think is a little bit more sophisticated than your typical horror movie.
Q. Do you want to do films outside of the Horror genre? Er, the Thriller genre?
A Oh, yeah. I've got ideas for Comedies, ideas for Dramas . . . But for me, the way I define "Horror" is like the movies I grew up on, like The Shining , and Rosemary's Baby, and The Exorcist. Those were just great films. Great stories, great characters, great execution, that just happened to be horror movies. So I don't think Horror in terms of it being marginalised. I like to think of Horror as a smart genre that smart people embrace, so I have a lot of fun doing these kinds of movies. I certainly have a lot of films I would like to make that are outside this genre, but we'll see if I get the opportunity to make those. We'll see.
QUESTION: The third film you mentioned. What was that?
ANSWER A film called The Objective, which I'm editing right now. I shot it Morocco, and it revolves around a group of Special Forces guys that are in Afganistan, looking for this cleric on a mission for the CIA. And they end up running into this supernatural presence in the mountains that they're just not trained to deal with. It's timely, because it takes place post-9/11 and before the Afghan invasion, but it's also a good old fashioned Supernatural Thriller. I think it's gonna be really cool when it comes out, hopefully spring/early summer.
Q. What are the things that scare you in a film?
A.That's a good question because sometimes the things that scare me the most I don't anticipate. But it's usually subtle things. Kubrick was a master at creeping me out. He just did things in a subtle way that worked on your nervous system, that wasn't overt, necessarily. A mood and a sense of atmosphere and foreboding and dread just really gets under my skin. I keep referencing The Shining because it did that in a wonderful way.
There's a lot of films that resort to overt, jump-out-at-your-seat stuff, which is fine; there's a market for that, but I like it when it works on you psychologically. Later on, when you're back home, in bed, you're looking behind every door. Jaws did that for me. Not seeing the shark was as bad as actually seeing the shark. So those kinds of things really worked on me when I was growing up.
(At this point, I interrupted, which was the one thing Kevin told me not to do.)
Q. Blair Witch was totally like that. I remember talking with my friends afterwards and they were talking about the scene where they were running through the woods and the camera was goin' all over the place and they were saying, "I saw something–a figure–a face–a creature–in the woods!" And then, when it came out on DVD, we slowed it down . . . and there was nothing there.
We imagined we'd seen something–a witch or a child–standing in the woods. And that freaked me out more than if . . . I'm not sure if that was intentional, or just a lucky accident.
A. Well, one thing: we didn't have the money to build a monster. And so, you've gotta work with what you've got. But it's all about your imagination. There's nothing I could've created that could've topped what you had in your head, and that's the bottom line. Unless I had the budget to do it later on down the road, we'll see.
But I think that's where horror takes root, where it really gets its claws into you: what you imagine what might be around the corner. That's the scariest part for me, right before you go around the corner. And when you see it, it's never quite as good as you envision it. And that's all that Blair Witch is. It's coming up to that corner and never going around it. (Laughs) The entire movie is that.
QUESTION: Blair Witch Project generated so much hype, and it went up that ramp so fast. Did you at any point go, "Oh, this is just getting silly"?
ANSWER: Oh yeah. Pretty early on, we thought it was ridiculous. You have to keep in mind that when Ed and I did the movie, we shot this thing on Hi-8. It was twelve Hi-8 tapes that was our movie. And we shot it for $35,000. And even ten years ago or twenty years ago, that's not a lot of movie to shoot a movie, obviously. So when it got sold at Sundance, that was as good as it got for us. What happened after Sundance, when it really took off and went crazy, we were just along for the ride by that time. It blew everyone's expectations out of the water.
I remember we were at Sundance me and Ed made a bet with Artisan that if Blair Witch broke ten million dollars at the box office . . . Because Artisan did Pi the year before, which had made three million, and that was pretty huge for an independent film. So they were setting the bar pretty high, and they said, "If it breaks ten million, we'll buy you a competition grade foosball table," since we were all into foosball at the time. And we were, like, "You're on!"
Q. And did they give you ten tables?
A. Oh, I should've asked them to give us ten tables, now that I think about it. ‘Cause in the first weekend it made, like, thirty-two, it was out of control. And I've gotta give Artisan credit: they rolled that foosball table right up, and they were all to happy to do it.
Q. Did you have to split it two ways?
A. No, no. But we got a lot of use out of it. Too much use out of it.
Q. You mentioned Pi. Pi had that whole mathematical/spiritual thing in it. Was that an inspiration to you (in doing Believers)?
A. I think there probably was a little bit. I really loved that movie and I think it taps into a lot of different organisations out there that kind of believe in that. And that's what inspired the cult in Believers in a lot of ways. I've always subscribed to that. I can't say there's not a God or there is a God, however, I'm open to the idea that if you dig deep enough into the evidence, whether it's on the atomic scale or mathematics or what have you, there may be some sign of a grand design. There may be a formula sitting there right under our noses, and has been, just waiting for us to be smart enough to get it. So we may not have evolved to that point yet, but this Believers cult has. And I think Pi kind of taps into a little bit of that and I've seen that idea played around with in the past, and I think it's a cool concept.
At this point, we were told that our time was not only up, it had been up sometime during the Reagan administration, so Dan stood up and we shook his hand and thanked him.
The Believers, is now available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
And all this talk reminds me of a girl I knew, and got pretty close to, actually, who
I used to talk about movies with quite a bit, and I was telling her about a cult film I'd
seen when she shuddered. "I really hate cult films," she told me.
"All of them?"
"Yes. They just scare me so much."
"Cult films?" I asked, a bit confused.
"All of that stuff with the devil and possession and Satanic symbols and that . . . it
just gives me chills even thinking about it."
The poor lass thought that cult movies were movies about cults.
Just this week, I realised that she probably was just mistaking the word "cult" for
"occult." After all, she was Canadian.
Rish Outfield
July/October 2007
*I've made it no secret that I very much disliked Blair Witch, but never mentioned it to Dan Myrick. I feel I sold out like a pro.
