It was recently announced that Severin Films and Metaluna Productions would co-produce a horror anthology inspired by the 'Theatre du Grand Guignol' (a Paris theater that specialized in graphic horror shows) called The Theatre Bizarre! When completed, the anthology will feature six short films (between 10-20 minutes) directed by Richard Stanley, Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain (cinematographer on Richard Stanley's segment) and Tom Savini...
Unfilmable.com caught up with Richard Stanley, the African born director of Hardware and Dust Devil, to talk Lovecraft, Terra Umbra, Clark Ashton Smith's Mother of Toads and more! So check out our amazing interview below, complete with images from Richard's latest film, The Mother of Toads...
Unfilmable.com: Let's start with your latest project. How did you become involved with The Theatre Bizarre and why did you choose Clark Ashton Smith's story 'Mother of Toads' as the basis of your short?
Richard Stanley: I have always been a huge fan of Smith's work and as much of his fiction is now in the public domain it seemed to me that the time was ripe to produce a cinematic homage, based around the folkloric character of the 'Mother of Toads' herself and assimilating various elements of the Lovecraft canon such as the dreaded Necronomicon and the cult of the Old Ones. Smith's story was a grim fable recounting the erotic misadventures of an apothecary's apprentice in dark age France whereas I think you'll find that our similarly titled short is a rather different animal. The completed film is firmly rooted in the 21st century and concerns a young American anthropology student and his girlfriend who come into contact with the fictional sorceress's real life counterpart with bizarre and ultimately ghastly consequences. It would seem to have been a lucky choice as the original screenplay, co-written with my regular partner in crime, Scarlett Amaris and maverick, Italian film maker, Emiliano Ranzani, was picked up almost at once by David Gregory at Severin Films and Fabrice Lambot at Metaluna Productions who came on board as the project's Paris based producer. It proved to be a fortuitous combination. 'The Mother of Toads' is destined to form one of the episodes in David Gregory's brain child, the forthcoming anthology film, 'Theatre Bizarre', a portmanteau project loosely based on French Grand Guignol theatre, a medium to which a weird tale of this nature would seem ideally suited.
Unfilmable.com caught up with Richard Stanley, the African born director of Hardware and Dust Devil, to talk Lovecraft, Terra Umbra, Clark Ashton Smith's Mother of Toads and more! So check out our amazing interview below, complete with images from Richard's latest film, The Mother of Toads...
Unfilmable.com: Let's start with your latest project. How did you become involved with The Theatre Bizarre and why did you choose Clark Ashton Smith's story 'Mother of Toads' as the basis of your short?
Richard Stanley: I have always been a huge fan of Smith's work and as much of his fiction is now in the public domain it seemed to me that the time was ripe to produce a cinematic homage, based around the folkloric character of the 'Mother of Toads' herself and assimilating various elements of the Lovecraft canon such as the dreaded Necronomicon and the cult of the Old Ones. Smith's story was a grim fable recounting the erotic misadventures of an apothecary's apprentice in dark age France whereas I think you'll find that our similarly titled short is a rather different animal. The completed film is firmly rooted in the 21st century and concerns a young American anthropology student and his girlfriend who come into contact with the fictional sorceress's real life counterpart with bizarre and ultimately ghastly consequences. It would seem to have been a lucky choice as the original screenplay, co-written with my regular partner in crime, Scarlett Amaris and maverick, Italian film maker, Emiliano Ranzani, was picked up almost at once by David Gregory at Severin Films and Fabrice Lambot at Metaluna Productions who came on board as the project's Paris based producer. It proved to be a fortuitous combination. 'The Mother of Toads' is destined to form one of the episodes in David Gregory's brain child, the forthcoming anthology film, 'Theatre Bizarre', a portmanteau project loosely based on French Grand Guignol theatre, a medium to which a weird tale of this nature would seem ideally suited.
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| Victoria Maurette and Shane Woodward |
Richard Stanley: Working with Catriona was an electrifying experience and in all honesty one of the highlights of my professional career. She would seem to have been criminally underutilized as a screen actress of late and I think its safe to say that her chilling incarnation of the titular sorceress, 'Mere Antoinette – the Mother of Toads' , was both a revelation and an inspiration to us all. She succeeds in imbuing her character's every word and gesture with such an otherworldly malevolence and weird, unexpected pathos that I cannot help but wish that the film's running time were a good deal greater than its allotted 25 minutes. I do not doubt however that Mere Antoinette will be returning to our screens before too very long. You simply can't keep a good witch down, especially not one this balefully potent. It's no coincidence that 'The Beyond' contains a similar homage to Smith's stories in its prominent use of the 'Book of Eibon' which forms something of a narrative link between the films.
Unfilmable.com: Montsegur and Rennes-les-Chateau seem to have greatly influenced the screenplay for 'Mother of Toads', as many elements differ from those in the original story. How did these changes come about?
Richard Stanley: Ever since setting up headquarters in the area it has become increasingly obvious to me that I am essentially living in Lovecraft country so shooting a weird tale of this nature was a logical choice. The area between the Rennes plateau and the Cathar enclave of Montsegur, the heartland of medieval Occitania, that we affectionately refer to as 'the Zone', is undoubtedly one of the most haunted places on this planet – what some might term a 'window area' where the old ways still have currency - a black hole in consensus reality where almost anything can and does happen. While seemingly a far cry from Smith's native California it is essentially the closest real life counterpart to his fictional, woodland kingdom of Averoigne. Besides, the opportunity of shooting a film with Catriona McColl on a location reputed to conceal one of the seven dreaded gateways to hell seemed too far out to miss.
Richard Stanley: Ever since setting up headquarters in the area it has become increasingly obvious to me that I am essentially living in Lovecraft country so shooting a weird tale of this nature was a logical choice. The area between the Rennes plateau and the Cathar enclave of Montsegur, the heartland of medieval Occitania, that we affectionately refer to as 'the Zone', is undoubtedly one of the most haunted places on this planet – what some might term a 'window area' where the old ways still have currency - a black hole in consensus reality where almost anything can and does happen. While seemingly a far cry from Smith's native California it is essentially the closest real life counterpart to his fictional, woodland kingdom of Averoigne. Besides, the opportunity of shooting a film with Catriona McColl on a location reputed to conceal one of the seven dreaded gateways to hell seemed too far out to miss.
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| Catriona MacColl |
Richard Stanley: I was allowed to follow my instincts so long as I stayed within the confines of what effectively amounts to a hard R in the US ratings system. That doesn't mean I didn't try to push the envelope a little...
Unfilmable.com: How did you discover Victoria Maurette? She isn't that well known and has only been in a few Albert Pyun films. And Shane Woodward?
Richard Stanley: I had never worked with either Victoria or Shane before but I think they turned out to be the ideal choice for their respective roles. Victoria is a consummate professional with a background in Argentinean television whereas Shane, like Dylan McDermot on 'Hardware', is trained in the Meisner technique which I believe imbued his role with an authenticity that is all too rare in this sort of genre production. Despite their varying approaches the ensemble came together like a dream, an experience that I wouldn't hesitate to repeat.
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| Mere Antoinette – the Mother of Toads |
Richard Stanley: As you are doubtless aware Simon has worked with me on pretty much every project since 'Hardware' (1990). His music perfectly complements my visuals and over the years he has not only become a close friend but his scoring has grown to become a vital part of my creative process. On 'Mother of Toads' we sought to come up with a more organic approach to the soundtrack along the lines of what Argento achieved with Goblin on 'Suspiria' (1977) and 'Profondo Rosso' (1975) or Leone's celebrated partnership with Morricone by actually having Simon present on set during the shoot. Simon worked with the maestro himself on 'Phenomena' as well as with Michele Soavi on 'Stagefright' (1987) and we accordingly sought to come up with a completed score that would put a uniquely 21st century spin on the material while remaining richly evocative of the golden era of European gothic cinema, an approach in keeping with our story's concerns – the collision between the rational modern world and the timeless 'otherworld' of mythology and witchcraft. We have consistently sought to incorporate exotic elements in our previous collaborations, such as the Bulgarian vocals in 'Voice of the Moon' or the Mongolian Xumi in 'Dust Devil' so I took the opportunity to introduce Simon to the native folk music of old Occitania whose strange instruments, close harmonies and descants will, I believe, lend a chilling sense of foreign 'otherness' to the completed score. Once again this is closely linked to the plot of the film in which the sorceress, Mere Antoinette, is seen to be working from an Occitan edition of the 'Necronomicon' translated from the Latin original back in the 12th century.
Unfilmable.com: 'The Mother of Toads' seems to share some themes with the Nikolai Gogol story 'The Vij', something you thought about adapting a few years back. Any chance of revisiting that project?
Richard Stanley: I have always been a big fan of the Gogol story which haunted me as a child and which I believe has recently been remade in Russia. 'Vij' was conceived as the oldest vampire, the lord of the undead, a sort of uber-fiend described by Gogol as a 'colossal creation of the popular unconscious', inspired by a figure from Cossack mythology whose true origins are lost to us in the mists of time. I sought to update this folkloric character by resetting the events of Gogol's fable against the backdrop of ethnic tensions in the present day Balkans. I suspect that my take on the vampire myth, that it has its basis in an ancient blood libel dating back to a genocidal medieval conflict between Christianity and Islam, was perhaps a little too close to the bone for the backers as the project never managed to quite get off the drawing board, although a script I am currently working on for Catalan film director Nacho Cerda does reprise some of those motifs. 'Mother of Toads' is similarly concerned with the slide area between fiction and 'reality' with contemporary characters, hip to the anthropological and metatextual roots of the tradition confronted by the irrational, irreducible and ultimately terrifying reality of the myth itself.
Richard Stanley: I have always been a big fan of the Gogol story which haunted me as a child and which I believe has recently been remade in Russia. 'Vij' was conceived as the oldest vampire, the lord of the undead, a sort of uber-fiend described by Gogol as a 'colossal creation of the popular unconscious', inspired by a figure from Cossack mythology whose true origins are lost to us in the mists of time. I sought to update this folkloric character by resetting the events of Gogol's fable against the backdrop of ethnic tensions in the present day Balkans. I suspect that my take on the vampire myth, that it has its basis in an ancient blood libel dating back to a genocidal medieval conflict between Christianity and Islam, was perhaps a little too close to the bone for the backers as the project never managed to quite get off the drawing board, although a script I am currently working on for Catalan film director Nacho Cerda does reprise some of those motifs. 'Mother of Toads' is similarly concerned with the slide area between fiction and 'reality' with contemporary characters, hip to the anthropological and metatextual roots of the tradition confronted by the irrational, irreducible and ultimately terrifying reality of the myth itself.
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| Victoria Maurette |
Richard Stanley: Anthology films are notoriously difficult to pull off. Usually they end up being a bit of a curate's egg with one or two brilliant segments, at least one outright stinker and a whole lot of filler in between. Liberal recourse to the fast forward button would seem to be the norm. 'Spirits of the Dead' (1968), putatively based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, is a pretty good case in point. Vadim's 'Metzengerstein' is good, campy fun, Louis Malle's 'William Wilson' is a total waste of time whereas Fellini's 'Toby Dammit' is quite simply one of the best things I've ever seen and easily my favorite example of that particular director's work. On the whole anthologies helmed by a single director such as George Romero's 'Creepshow' (1982) or Freddie Francis ''Tales from the Crypt' (1972) tend to achieve a greater degree of stylistic and thematic unity. It's going to be interesting to see how 'Theatre Bizarre', which seeks to harness the respective talents of Doug Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain and Tom Savini among others, rises to meet this challenge.
Unfilmable.com: You have filmed in some far off locations over your career. How did shooting in the French Pyrenees compare?
Richard Stanley: It has always been my desire to bring the audience new stories and fresh images from places they have never heard of before and the remote village of Montsegur in the heart of the high Pyrenees is no exception, offering the chance to open a window on a virgin landscape never before captured on film and enabling Karim Hussain to give full rein to his lustrous scope photography. Working in the Pyrenees was pretty much a matter of working in my own backyard by comparison to shooting in Haiti, Iceland, Namibia or Afghanistan. Since the shooting of 'The Secret Glory' the tiny, Cathar enclave of Montsegur has become my adopted home and much of the good will that has been built up during my time in the area has fed into the production of 'Mother of Toads', enabling us to realize the dream of bringing 21st century technology to bear on what amounts to essentially medieval subject matter. I'm all too familiar with the area's attendant weather patterns by now and knew it was essential that we complete principal photography before the huge Pyrenean toads, who are very much the stars of this show, went into hibernation for the winter. We were encouraged by the degree of support shown to the production by both the Pyrenean Film Commission and the civic authorities in the villages of Montsegur, Mirepoix and Morenci where much of the location work took place. It was, of course, extremely important for our well being and continued survival in the Zone that the various secret societies and what you might call the invisible or even 'supernatural' presences that truly govern the area were on-side with what we were doing and I am most gratified that we were allowed to get away with as much as we did, given the arcane and often bizarre circumstances of the shoot.
Richard Stanley: It has always been my desire to bring the audience new stories and fresh images from places they have never heard of before and the remote village of Montsegur in the heart of the high Pyrenees is no exception, offering the chance to open a window on a virgin landscape never before captured on film and enabling Karim Hussain to give full rein to his lustrous scope photography. Working in the Pyrenees was pretty much a matter of working in my own backyard by comparison to shooting in Haiti, Iceland, Namibia or Afghanistan. Since the shooting of 'The Secret Glory' the tiny, Cathar enclave of Montsegur has become my adopted home and much of the good will that has been built up during my time in the area has fed into the production of 'Mother of Toads', enabling us to realize the dream of bringing 21st century technology to bear on what amounts to essentially medieval subject matter. I'm all too familiar with the area's attendant weather patterns by now and knew it was essential that we complete principal photography before the huge Pyrenean toads, who are very much the stars of this show, went into hibernation for the winter. We were encouraged by the degree of support shown to the production by both the Pyrenean Film Commission and the civic authorities in the villages of Montsegur, Mirepoix and Morenci where much of the location work took place. It was, of course, extremely important for our well being and continued survival in the Zone that the various secret societies and what you might call the invisible or even 'supernatural' presences that truly govern the area were on-side with what we were doing and I am most gratified that we were allowed to get away with as much as we did, given the arcane and often bizarre circumstances of the shoot.
Unfilmable.com: Tell us a little about 'Nemesis'. You've said that this is the closest you've ever come to adapting Lovecraft. How much did Lovecraft's poem influence this project?
Richard Stanley: 'Nemesis' was a lengthy, un-produced treatment written for Sam Raimi's company in the early nineties. It was really my first attempt to create a Lovecraftian pastiche loosely revolving around the eponymous poem and a series of unlikely events that took place during my stay in Amsterdam shortly after the release of 'Hardware'. The typically twisted saga involved the illegal trade in archeological plunder and an individual I had gotten to know at the time who was smuggling artifacts from the temple of Baal in the Bekaa valley for retail on the black market. Among these treasures were the ring I am currently wearing and a magical grimoire written in human blood and bound in human leather. The smuggler in question was in fact dyslexic and although he was a very intelligent man he had never read a book in his life and thus had no prior knowledge of either H.P.Lovecraft or the Necronomicon. My curiosity was naturally engaged and I wanted to find out not only where the book came from but who the hell wanted to buy the thing to begin with. The resulting story pitted the Cthulhu cult against the European underworld with suitably grisly, if not downright apocalyptic results.
Unfilmable.com: You've tackled Lovecraft in the past and now Clark Ashton Smith with 'The Mother of Toads'. Are there any more Lovecraft or weird fiction related projects in your future?
Richard Stanley: As it happens I am working on something along those lines at this very moment, what amounts to a feature length follow up to 'The Mother of Toads'. I have to play my cards very close to my chest for now as it is very much an active project although I can reveal that it firmly based in Lovecraft's mythos and expands on some of the themes we've already discussed, not the least of them being the real life provenance of the apparently fictional Necronomicon. As aforementioned this part of the world seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction and it never fails to amuse me just how many practicing sorcerers there are in the area who regularly use the black book in their rituals. This year we actually celebrated Yog Sothoth Day here in Montsegur, an event which culminated in the village's older inhabitants performing a time honored ceremony that resembled a kind of human centipede game. Some of the locals believe that Lovecraft's notorious tome was inspired by the sacred book of the Cathars, a long lost grimoire known as the 'Book of the Seven Seals' which is not supposed to be opened until judgement day and it is perhaps a little unsettling that the interior architecture of the village church in Montsegur corresponds so precisely with the lay-out of the stone circle shown in the so-called Hay 'Necronomicon'. In other words – keep watching this space!
Richard Stanley: As it happens I am working on something along those lines at this very moment, what amounts to a feature length follow up to 'The Mother of Toads'. I have to play my cards very close to my chest for now as it is very much an active project although I can reveal that it firmly based in Lovecraft's mythos and expands on some of the themes we've already discussed, not the least of them being the real life provenance of the apparently fictional Necronomicon. As aforementioned this part of the world seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction and it never fails to amuse me just how many practicing sorcerers there are in the area who regularly use the black book in their rituals. This year we actually celebrated Yog Sothoth Day here in Montsegur, an event which culminated in the village's older inhabitants performing a time honored ceremony that resembled a kind of human centipede game. Some of the locals believe that Lovecraft's notorious tome was inspired by the sacred book of the Cathars, a long lost grimoire known as the 'Book of the Seven Seals' which is not supposed to be opened until judgement day and it is perhaps a little unsettling that the interior architecture of the village church in Montsegur corresponds so precisely with the lay-out of the stone circle shown in the so-called Hay 'Necronomicon'. In other words – keep watching this space!
Unfilmable.com: You've directed some fascinating documentaries like 'The White Darkness' but I've always felt that they were building up to something much bigger. What can you tell us about your latest project, 'Terra Umbra'?
Richard Stanley: Much of my work over the years has concerned the notion that mythology is an active process rather some some relic of the antediluvian past. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and being of sound mind and relatively rational nature I've spent much of my life sitting on the fence, fascinated by tales of witchcraft and the invisible world whilst sorely lacking the material evidence necessary to believe in their existence. The 'supernatural' by definition is surely only the power of nature taken to its logical, terrifying extreme whereas any sufficiently advanced technology would undoubtedly appear to be 'magical' to those who are unaware of the science that underpins it. Recent discoveries in quantum mechanics have lead us closer to accepting the notion that not only is time travel seemingly within the bounds of theoretical possibility but that an infinite number of parallel universes may well exist alongside our own. Worse still, as both Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick hint, reality as we know it may well turn out to be little more than a simulation generated by forces that do not necessarily mean the best for us. In the summer of 2007 an event took place that shattered my former view of the world and my position in it, propelling me into a series of adventures so bizarre and unlikely that I realized I would never be able to place the facts before the public without first presenting the necessary evidence to support and contextualize my claims. The ongoing project known as 'Terra Umbra – Empire of Shadows' is an attempt to collate and organize the vast and unruly body of data gathered in over two decades of research into the ongoing events in the area we know as the 'Zone' and the physical reality of the so-called 'otherworld'. The sheer density of the material tends to deflect the casual reader's attention, making it into a form of self-censoring secret. It was my conclusion that the project lent itself to non-linear access, enabling us to put the information out there while allowing the public to gauge their own level of involvement in what is effectively an ongoing war between forces we can barely begin to comprehend. We plan to make the core data more widely available in a series of e-books culled from the existing website - a sort of rabbit hole in the wall of the infosphere ably co designed and updated by my research partner, Miss Scarlett Amaris, who is working on a server based in 13th century Occitania and web mistress par excellence, Melissa Saint Hilaire, who is currently operating out of present day (ie early 21st century) Los Angeles. The outer site, containing information that has already been placed before the public eye in one form or another, can be found at http://www.shadowtheatre13.com/ whilst the inner site, available to subscribers only, contains literally thousands of pages of text and high resolution stills as well as a very active forum area allowing direct access to both the ongoing events and the individuals involved. Be warned however - close examination of this material not only runs the risk of destabilizing your sense of reality but exposes you to the possibility of literally being sucked into the events themselves. Suffice to say the site goes a long way towards explaining my current presence in the Pyrenees and the true thinking behind 'The Mother of Toads'. As the man says – the truth is truly out there!
Richard Stanley: Much of my work over the years has concerned the notion that mythology is an active process rather some some relic of the antediluvian past. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and being of sound mind and relatively rational nature I've spent much of my life sitting on the fence, fascinated by tales of witchcraft and the invisible world whilst sorely lacking the material evidence necessary to believe in their existence. The 'supernatural' by definition is surely only the power of nature taken to its logical, terrifying extreme whereas any sufficiently advanced technology would undoubtedly appear to be 'magical' to those who are unaware of the science that underpins it. Recent discoveries in quantum mechanics have lead us closer to accepting the notion that not only is time travel seemingly within the bounds of theoretical possibility but that an infinite number of parallel universes may well exist alongside our own. Worse still, as both Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick hint, reality as we know it may well turn out to be little more than a simulation generated by forces that do not necessarily mean the best for us. In the summer of 2007 an event took place that shattered my former view of the world and my position in it, propelling me into a series of adventures so bizarre and unlikely that I realized I would never be able to place the facts before the public without first presenting the necessary evidence to support and contextualize my claims. The ongoing project known as 'Terra Umbra – Empire of Shadows' is an attempt to collate and organize the vast and unruly body of data gathered in over two decades of research into the ongoing events in the area we know as the 'Zone' and the physical reality of the so-called 'otherworld'. The sheer density of the material tends to deflect the casual reader's attention, making it into a form of self-censoring secret. It was my conclusion that the project lent itself to non-linear access, enabling us to put the information out there while allowing the public to gauge their own level of involvement in what is effectively an ongoing war between forces we can barely begin to comprehend. We plan to make the core data more widely available in a series of e-books culled from the existing website - a sort of rabbit hole in the wall of the infosphere ably co designed and updated by my research partner, Miss Scarlett Amaris, who is working on a server based in 13th century Occitania and web mistress par excellence, Melissa Saint Hilaire, who is currently operating out of present day (ie early 21st century) Los Angeles. The outer site, containing information that has already been placed before the public eye in one form or another, can be found at http://www.shadowtheatre13.com/ whilst the inner site, available to subscribers only, contains literally thousands of pages of text and high resolution stills as well as a very active forum area allowing direct access to both the ongoing events and the individuals involved. Be warned however - close examination of this material not only runs the risk of destabilizing your sense of reality but exposes you to the possibility of literally being sucked into the events themselves. Suffice to say the site goes a long way towards explaining my current presence in the Pyrenees and the true thinking behind 'The Mother of Toads'. As the man says – the truth is truly out there!
Unfilmable.com: The last few years have seen you focus primarily on short films such as 'The Sea of Perdition' or 'Black Tulips'. What appeals to you about this format?
Richard Stanley: Most of the recent shorts, including the titles you mention, were never really intended for public consumption. They were really accidents or experiments, rough sketches for sequences in projected features that never saw the light of day. I think you will find that 'The Mother of Toads' operates on a somewhat more sophisticated level.
Unfilmable.com: It was recently announced that 'Vacation', a film that Bruce Campbell was once attached to, will shoot in February of 2011. How did Dean Cain become involved and what is the current status of the project?
Richard Stanley: 'Vacation' has been in limbo for some years now, constantly threatening to go into production without ever quite making it off the launch pad. Once again the subject matter, an American couple left stranded in the third world after the cataclysmic collapse of western civilization , may be just a wee bit too provocative for these straightened times. Dean Cain remains attached to the project and as a former screen 'Superman' as well as a fine performer in his own right he seemed a logical choice to essay my ideologically challenged lead, ably stepping into the outsized shoes vacated by Bruce Campbell who was forced to leave the much delayed project in order to fulfill his obligations to 'Burn Notice'.
Richard Stanley: Most of the recent shorts, including the titles you mention, were never really intended for public consumption. They were really accidents or experiments, rough sketches for sequences in projected features that never saw the light of day. I think you will find that 'The Mother of Toads' operates on a somewhat more sophisticated level.
Unfilmable.com: It was recently announced that 'Vacation', a film that Bruce Campbell was once attached to, will shoot in February of 2011. How did Dean Cain become involved and what is the current status of the project?
Richard Stanley: 'Vacation' has been in limbo for some years now, constantly threatening to go into production without ever quite making it off the launch pad. Once again the subject matter, an American couple left stranded in the third world after the cataclysmic collapse of western civilization , may be just a wee bit too provocative for these straightened times. Dean Cain remains attached to the project and as a former screen 'Superman' as well as a fine performer in his own right he seemed a logical choice to essay my ideologically challenged lead, ably stepping into the outsized shoes vacated by Bruce Campbell who was forced to leave the much delayed project in order to fulfill his obligations to 'Burn Notice'.
Unfilmable.com: How did you become involved in writing Vincenzo Natali's 'High Rise' (based on the novel by J.G. Ballard)? You've also written screenplays for the 2006 film 'The Abandoned' and 'Imago Mortis' (2009). Is this something you plan to do more of in the future or are you going to concentrate on directing your own films?
Richard Stanley: I've been following Vincenzo's work for some years now and being a fan of the original novel I didn't hesitate to get involved when the project came my way. It's an extremely ambitious screenplay that re-imagines Ballard's book, positioning itself as a kind of near-future sequel to the events described in the novel which concerned complete and utter social breakdown in a new fangled seventies apartment building. Vincenzo's vision has the potential to make this nightmarish evocation of a post-environmental world something really special. It's a joy to have been able to nurture this particular project from its inception as my role on the other features you mention was really one of script doctor, coming in too late in the day to have been able to exert any real influence the material. While I have been keeping pretty busy over the last few years, turning out any number of scenarios that have yet to reach the screen, this has never really been anything more than a day job, a means to an end, providing the wherewithal for me to be able to pursue my own research. With luck and the grace of God, Inshallah, I hope to be back behind the camera as a fully fledged writer-director hyphenate before too very long.
Richard Stanley: I've been following Vincenzo's work for some years now and being a fan of the original novel I didn't hesitate to get involved when the project came my way. It's an extremely ambitious screenplay that re-imagines Ballard's book, positioning itself as a kind of near-future sequel to the events described in the novel which concerned complete and utter social breakdown in a new fangled seventies apartment building. Vincenzo's vision has the potential to make this nightmarish evocation of a post-environmental world something really special. It's a joy to have been able to nurture this particular project from its inception as my role on the other features you mention was really one of script doctor, coming in too late in the day to have been able to exert any real influence the material. While I have been keeping pretty busy over the last few years, turning out any number of scenarios that have yet to reach the screen, this has never really been anything more than a day job, a means to an end, providing the wherewithal for me to be able to pursue my own research. With luck and the grace of God, Inshallah, I hope to be back behind the camera as a fully fledged writer-director hyphenate before too very long.
Unfilmable.com: Not a lot of people know this but you did a personal treatment of Dario Argento's 'The Third Mother'. What was your story about? And what did you think of 'Mother of Tears'?
Richard Stanley: My treatment was probably conceived on a far too epic scale to have any real chance of making it to the screen. If only. 'Lachrymae' was set in a near future Rome inundated by an apocalyptic rainstorm apparently brought on by global warming, if not by the mother of tears herself. As the title implies rain, tears and bitter regret were to be ever present elements in the metatextual scenario which involved an American actress appearing in an underfunded Italian horror film who is viciously murdered after accidentally witnessing a pagan ritual taking place within the hallowed confines of the Vatican itself. The resulting investigation leads the good Christian copper on the case to uncover an ancient Goddess worshiping sect operating behind the facade of conventional Roman Catholicism. The Vatican is in fact built on the site of the Phrygianum, the principal temple to the Goddess in Roman Times. The original icon of the Magna Mater, graven from a black, meteoric aerolite still lies hidden in the partly submerged catacombs deep beneath Saint Peter's square, a basilica of darkness where the third mother lies in wait. As the flood waters rise the iron oxide in the tunnels literally causes the streets to bleed and the Tiber to turn red as if Rome itself is menstruating. The unfortunate detective finds that not only has his entire life and religion been a lie but that he is destined to become the next sacrifice in an chain of ritual murder intended to transform and rejuvenate the eternal city. Dario Argento remains both a friend and a mentor figure to me and at the end of the day I didn't feel I really had the right to trespass on his territory. Dario started this cycle and it was up to him to complete the circle. The final installment in his trilogy is certainly very different from the way I might have imagined it but its his mythos and as far as I'm concerned he can do what he likes with it. I did rather like the scene with the two alchemists though...
Unfilmable.com: What is the current status of 'The Bones of the Earth' and 'Hardware 2'? Are any of your other projects close to getting green lit?
Richard Stanley: 'The Bones of the Earth' and 'Hardware II Ground 0' are probably the two most exciting screenplays I have ever worked on and accordingly their chances of making it into production any time soon are pretty slim. I remain terribly attached to them and cannot help but hope that they eventually see the light of day in some form or another. At this point 'Vacation' and the aforementioned mythos project are much closer to the starting gate.
Unfilmable.com: Given how immigration is such a 'hot' topic nowadays (in the US at least), any chance of reconfiguring your 'Hardware 2' script, which deals with many of the issues, as something original to pitch to the studios?
Richard Stanley: Strangely enough, that thought had occurred to myself and some of the others here at Shadow Theatre Central. I've tried circulating the script under various alternative titles but it remains a big, expensive movie dealing with sensitive not to mention extremely down beat subject matter. The original draft was written almost twenty years ago now but still seems sadly prophetic in its depiction not only of events along the Rio Grande and the potential manner in which the drone soldiers might be deployed but in its portrayal of a Balkanized future America. The United States has only really been united in its current form for a little more than a hundred years now, since the treaty of San Jacinto, and it would seem more or less inevitable that the country will eventually be divided again, probably sooner rather than later judging by the current political climate. The situation in present day California is remarkably similar to apartheid era South Africa with the state wholly dependent on so-called 'illegal immigrants' for its labor force, despite the fact that it was actually part of Mexico only a century ago. You can only hold down a native population on their own turf for so long, as the white South Africans found to their chagrin. Adding to this dilemma is the uncomfortable fact that there are something like eight million fully armed nuclear warheads currently stored in silos across the south west along with enough potentially fissile material to turn the Earth into a second sun. Centralized Washington authority seems to believe that it will somehow be able to guard and keep track of all that ordinance for the next thousand years or more, at least until its active half life has expired. Given the history of the United States this would seem highly unlikely if not wholly impossible.
Unfilmable.com: Since this is a Lovecraft film site, I have to ask, what is your favorite Lovecraft story? Favorite Lovecraft film?
Richard Stanley: Of all the questions you have posed this is the toughest to answer. I mean how could any-one be forced to make such a choice? It very much depends on what time of day or time of the year you ask me. Just as I've succeeded in convincing myself that 'The Whisperer in Darkness', 'The Shadow out of Time' or 'The Call of Cthulhu' are major masterpieces I find myself falling in love all over again with haunting early vignettes like 'The Nameless City' or 'The Festival'. And then there's 'The Dunwich Horror', 'At the Mountains of Madness' and 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. What's a man to do?
As far as screen adaptations go I have been increasingly impressed by Stuart Gordon's contributions to the field. While 'Re-Animator' has aged pretty well and 'Dagon' works a lot better, especially in the second half, than most folk care to admit I feel a good deal of affection towards Stuart's retelling of 'Dreams in the Witch House' that appeared in the first season of 'Masters of Horror'. Brown Jenkin's entrance, scuttling up the spine of Walter Gilman's text book on string theory to whisper in the sleeping student's ear remains one of the most quintessentially Lovecraftian moments to have so far made it to the screen. I'm not convinced however that any of the existing adaptations of the great man's work have come any where close to evoking the mood of cosmic horror that Lovecraft seems to have been striving for. That particular brand of deranged cosmicism, evoking a bleak and humbling vision of mankind's true place in the universe, has thus far been best approached by art house directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman and even Andrej Zulawski. The Great Old Ones are about a whole lot more than just a writhing mass of rubber tentacles although I admit I'm still a sucker for anything involving giant squid, no matter how cheesy.
Unfilmable.com: Thoughts on the current status of horror cinema? Who or what has impressed you lately?
Richard Stanley: Most of the past masters of the genre have been turning in pretty mediocre work these last few years, Lars von Trier not withstanding, and like almost everyone else I've become increasingly tired of the tendency towards so-called 'torture porn' although I accept this has undoubtedly been a necessary phase in our cultural evolution, a sort of post-Abu Ghraib, post-Guantanamo need to explore mankind's (or in Lar's case womankind's) innate capacity for evil. There are signs however, in Vincenzo's work among others, that we are starting to grow out of this phase and look to new concerns for our chills. 'Splice' failed to live up to expectations at the box office and received an undue drubbing from the critics who seemed to single out the film's final scene for particular abuse, a subtle, understated conclusion that I, for one, found most effective.
With Del Toro's mega-budget adaptation of 'At the Mountains of Madness' finally winging its way towards us, in 3D no less, and most of the great man's work effectively in the public domain I like to imagine that we stand poised on the brink of a major renaissance in Lovecraftian cinema. The stars, it seems, may have finally come around to their right place...
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(Thanks to Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris, Emiliano Ranzani, Steve Hergina and William Wilson, who provided many of the questions used in this interview)
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That was a great interview. Richard Stanley is such a great film maker and an incredibly facinating individual. Craig, this blogger page is awesome. Keep up the fantastic work that you do here my good man :)
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