STUART
    GORDON

Stuart Gordon is a true Master of Horror with a career that over the past two plus decades has created some of the most influential and entertaining horror films of all time.

From his breakthrough in 1985 with RE-ANIMATOR, Gordon established himself as a filmmaker to look out for while simultaneously drawing interest into the film's original writer, H.P. Lovecraft, to a new generation of fans. In addition to his many adaptations of Lovecraft stories, Gordon has shifted gears in recent years to deliver some of the most realistically brutal portrayals of violence on screen, from the crime thriller KING OF THE ANTS to the David Mamet adaptation EDMOND to his most recent film STUCK. His two contributions to the MASTERS OF HORROR series , H.P. Lovecraft's DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE and Edgar Allan Poe's THE BLACK CAT, are amongst the most popular of the series.

Hot on the heels of the world premiere of STUCK at the Toronto International Film Festival, Gordon stopped by the Crypt to talk about his latest release, adapting literary classics, and his thoughts on the horror scene today in this Colonel's Crypt exclusive!

COLONEL'S CRYPT: Thank you for your time.

STUART GORDON: My pleasure.

CC: Your current film STUCK just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. What is STUCK about and what inspired you to make it your recent film?

SG: It's based on a true story about a woman who hits a homeless man with her car and instead of taking him to the emergency room, she puts him in her garage while the man is still alive. When I was reading about  it in the newspapers, I couldn't believe it. It was a shocking story especially since this woman worked as a caregiver in a senior citizen's home. I was wondering what would make this woman do this, for that matter what would make any person do this to your fellow man. That was really the question that inspired the whole movie.

CC: Casting Mena Suvari who was in EDMOND and Stephen Rea, what was it like working with both on this picture?

SG: It was great, they were both fantastic actors. They really liked the script. It was not easy for either one of them. Stephen literally had to be in that windshield for three weeks shooting, it must of been a nightmare for him. Mena had to go through all kinds of really difficult things, and she was extremely brave. She even ended up doing a lot of her own stunt work.

CC: How was the reception at Toronto?

SG: It was phenomenal, it was a great response, the audience really liked the movie. Someone described it as being at a hockey game, there was so much screaming, laughing, and yelling going on in the audience. It was kind of hard to hear the dialogue during the screening.

CC: Is there a release date for STUCK in the United States yet?

SG: No, there's not a release yet but it will probably be next year. That would be my guess.

CC: You started off with a satirical, over the top style of violence in your career and now there seems to be a more realistically brutal tone in your recent films, STUCK, EDMOND, and KING OF THE ANTS. What is with this change, is this a reflection of today's times do you feel?

SG: In a way I guess it is. We live in very violent times unfortunately, realizing the things that people really do to each other are much more horrifying than anything you can dream up.

CC: You started in the theater, forming the Organic Theater. What are the differences in putting a play together as opposed to putting a movie together?

SG: They're pretty similar. In both cases you're trying to tell a story. A good script is always the most important thing, and of course the right actors. I think theater is sometimes more demanding because ultimately unlike a movie you can't stop and do it over again. Once you put up a play for an audience, you have to be able to go two hours or more without stopping. Shooting a movie, you're lucky if you get a take that was over a minute long.

CC: One of the first plays you directed was David Mamet's SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO?

SG: It was an early play, I don't know if it was one of the first. It was the first professional production of David Mamet's work, and it was a thrill to work with him.

CC: How was it working with him again on EDMOND?

SG: It's funny because Mamet hasn't changed a lot. When I first met him we were both in our twenties. We came back to work with each other again when we were in our fifties. He says a lot of the same things he said then. It's funny when you asked "What is this David?" and he would say "It's good writing, that's what it is" and he still says the same thing. David even back then knew who he was and I remember him handing me a script once saying "You have to read this right away, it's going to win the Pulitzer Prize." I laughed because I thought the idea was absurd, but a few years later he actually did win the Pulitzer Prize. I think he's our generation's greatest playwright. EDMOND is my favorite play of his. I had seen it performed on stage back in the eighties and I never forgot it. I had been pasturing him about doing it into a movie for years and years.

CC: Being inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, were they what began your fascination with the horror genre?

SG: One of the earliest horror films I ever saw were the Roger Corman Poe adaptations, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, and so forth. We were trying to do the same thing with Lovecraft that Corman did with Poe, make a series of films based on Lovecraft's writings. I read Lovecraft when I was a teenager, and seeing the movies made me read Poe in the first place. It always makes me feel good when I run into young kids who tell me they started reading Lovecraft beacuse they saw one of my films.

CC: Count me as one of them. RE-ANIMATOR introduced me to Lovecraft.

SG: Ah good (laughs). At the time the story RE-ANIMATOR was out of print, it was really hard to find it. I'm glad because of the movie's success, the story had come back into the public eye. I had to find it in a rare book at a library. They only had one copy, I had to xerox it. It was a story Lovecraft wrote as a serial. I think because he was paid to write it, he didn't think much of it. I think it's one of his best stories.

CC: I'm sorry to say I haven't read the Lovecraft story yet.

SG: It's kind of cool. It's written in six tiny segments for a serial, to be continued each month I guess. Each one is pretty punchy, it's got a lot of action. There's a lot of humor too. A lot of people attribute the humor to me but it really came from Lovecraft.

CC: You adapted one of my favorite Lovecraft stories for MASTERS OF HORROR, DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE.

SG: Yeah, that was the very first Lovecraft story I ever read. That one is really a great story.

CC: How were you approached for MASTERS OF HORROR and why did you choose to adapt from literary works for your two segments?

SG: It started as a series of dinners that we had where all of the horror movie directors were invited. We had done a documentary called MASTERS OF HORROR, but nobody had a chance to meet each other because we were all interviewed separately. Mick Garris said "You know what, we should all get together and have dinner, we never had a chance to meet each other." And it was so much fun we started doing it on a regular basis. It's called "The Gathering of the Masters of Horror" in the documentary. Mick was able to set up a TV project called MASTERS OF HORROR in which each of us would be able to direct a one hour show without interference or censorship. DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE was a Lovecraft story I had wanted to do for a long time, but I was always having problems because it's very disturbing and it involves a child sacrifice. It was a very hard sell to find financing, but with MASTERS OF HORROR, they pretty much let us have carte blanche.

CC: What made you decide to do THE BLACK CAT from the point of view of Poe himself?

SG: Well that came about because my daughter is a high school English teacher, and every Halloween she invites me to come in and talk to her classes about Poe. Last year I read them THE BLACK CAT and it scared the crap out of them. Then it occurred to me I thought "What a great story, I should really do that for MASTERS OF HORROR." The idea of weaving Poe's life into the story struck me. Jeffrey Combs, who's been in a bunch of my films and an old friend, had been wanting to play Poe for years, and all of a sudden everything fell into place and I thought that here was an opportunity to accomplish all of these things.

CC: It's one of my favorite episodes.

SG: Thank you. I was very proud of it and I thought Jeffrey was amazing. It was like really hanging with Edgar Allan Poe.

CC: For a lot of young filmmakers, what advice would you give them starting out?

SG: It's corny but I think the most important one is don't give up. It's hard to get that first one going. It could take years. You really have to want it badly. One of the things that young filmmakers have going for them that we didn't have is the ability to make films themselves without having it cost them a fortune. The technology that's available now where you can shoot it on a digital camera, edit it on your Mac, and even do the mixing yourself, it will turn out very good and professional. It's just a great opportunity. I would say just go out and do your own movie.

CC: Have you shot on a digital format?

SG: I haven't, I've never shot on digital format yet, though I'd like to. I think it's a great opportunity. It's always been those little movies that have been the scariest. TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, those were all done for tiny budgets. Something like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT cost literally nothing to make.

CC: That movie had the best marketing campaign behind it.

SG: Everybody thought it was a true story and it's hard to do that again because the audience gets wise to it. There have been movies shot on a digital medium that have been good like 28 DAYS LATER. It's inevitable that digital will take over film.

CC: I have to ask about HOUSE OF RE-ANIMATOR. One rumor has that it will be in the next season of MASTERS OF HORROR.

SG: I don't think it's going to be in MASTERS OF HORROR.

CC: What is the current status?

SG: We're still trying to get financing for it. I wish I had better news. I get so many people asking me about it. Of all the things I've ever done, it's got the most interest of any project, but I'm having a hell of a time getting someone to come up with the money to pay for it.

CC: I'm surprised by that.

SG: I think it's because of the political nature of it.

CC: A lot of people think our president is brain dead to begin with.

SG: Well they do but they're afraid to say so because he's a scary dude and a lot of people have gotten into a lot of trouble. I think that's what stopping it, people are afraid of him. Even our Congressmen.

CC: That's a whole other topic for a whole other day.

SG: Yeah (laughs).

CC: What would you say would be the state of horror today?

SG: I don't think horror's ever been more popular. I think a lot of it is the result of 9/11 and what's been going on in the world. The world is so full of fear right now that people need ways to get it out of their system and that's what horror movies do.

CC: Where do you see horror within the next few years?

SG: Every generation kind of redefines itself. What's interesting to me is I see a lot of movies I call "plague movies." There's a lot of movies about bio-engineered plague, where it may turn people into zombies, or like the recent INVASION film. There are all these sort of bio-terrorism movies which I think will be the sub-genre. Definitely zombies, there are more zombie movies than ever.

CC: What is next for Stuart Gordon?

SG: It is possible there may be another Lovecraft adaptation, a story called THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP, which I've been working on with my writing partner Dennis Paoli for a number of years. Dennis and I met when we were in high school. We've known each other since we were 14 years old, so we've been boyhood friends most of our lives. He's a professor writing at Hunter College.

CC: That's not too far from me.

SG: Where do you live?

CC: I live in Amityville.

SG: (Laughs) You do?

CC: Yeah.

SG: Wow. Is that where your interest in horror started?

CC: Yeah. It's funny because growing up we couldn't talk about the house and in my case I couldn't talk about the horror films I had just seen because it was deemed inappropriate but meanwhile we're all reading THE TELL TALE HEART and THE BLACK CAT in class.

SG: (Laughs) They're pretty horrific by themselves.

CC: That they are, but they are timeless.

SG: Yes they are.

CC: That pretty much wraps it up.

SG: That was painless.

CC: Mr. Gordon, thank you so much.

SG: Call me Stuart.

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