TIM
SULLIVAN

Tim Sullivan is quickly becoming a name to know in the horror community, or HorrorWood as he likes to call it. A lifelong horror fan, Tim delivered wth his directorial debut in 2001 MANIACS, an homage to the Herschell Gordon Lewis classic that delivered in pure comic gore and goodness..

What to do for a follow-up? Stay in the genre but instead of the "splatstick" nature of MANIACS, make a moody, atmosphere chiller set in the confines of reality in DRIFTWOOD. Add to this a writing credit in the unapologetic and the title says it all SNOOP DOGG'S HOOD OF HORROR and Tim has established that he is a mainstay in the world, or hood, of all things splattered.

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak with Tim on a variety of subjects including DRIFTWOOD, the upcoming MANIACS sequel, and tips on independent filmmaking:

Colonel's Crypt: Hi Tim, first off I’d like to say that I really enjoyed DRIFTWOOD.

TIM SULLIVAN: That means a lot to me man. I did put a snippet of your review on the DRIFTWOOD Myspace page with a link to the full review.

CC: Awesome, thanks. What inspired you to create DRIFTWOOD?

TS: Interestingly enough, that feeling of being different. All my life I have felt like David Forrester. David is haunted by death, and death can mean many things. In the film it’s the literal death of his older brother, who was like Jim Morrison was your older brother and imagine what it would be like losing him. We experience symbolic death every day. As a little kid, you come home and you’re excited that you drew a picture of Frankenstein. You show it to your dad and your dad looks at you and says “Why are you drawing monsters, monsters are no good for you” and he just walks away. And that lack of validation is the same as death. It’s a death of who you are. It’s a death of your identity. Then you grow up and you’re reading “Werewolf By Night” in class and the teacher takes it away from you and says you should be reading Shakespeare, and there’s nothing wrong with reading Shakespeare, but it’s all about balance. We experience little deaths every day. We experience the death of dreams. Death of goals. Death of our sense of self, and I refused to let my dreams die, I always have. Ever since I was a little kid, I fiercely thought those who tried to kill my dreams, kill my identity. Whether it’s being a horror fan, whether it’s being gay, which I am, anybody who tried to tell you who you are inherently, unless you were Jeffrey Dahmer or Adolf Hitler, nobody should never tell you who you are and what you enjoy is wrong and ostracize you.

We don’t have to be thrown into DRIFTWOOD to feel in prison, and that has been a through line in my life. It was great force of will to overcome all the obstacles, the naysayers of my little town and the naysayers of Hollywood to finally get to the point where at age 39 I directed my first film 2001 MANIACS. I may be youthful but I’m not some kid who just came out of film school that made a film and became the toast of the town. I worked my ass off. I graduated from NYU and whether I was parking cars on COMING TO AMERICA or scouting locations for TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, I have worked every dirty job in the industry starting at the bottom of the totem pole all the way to the top, finally making my first film, 2001 MANIACS, which was a Valentine to the type of exploitation pictures that rocked my world when I was a teenager in the 80s. After I did that, and even then I make a film and I achieve a goal, then all I get is “Oh, in a world with 9/11 and serious things going on, do we really need a horror film?” and “Why remake Herschel Gordon Lewis’ classic?” and again you’re still faced with the people who want to destroy your dreams.

So I needed to express that in a film. I needed to say to the world what it’s like that the worst horror isn’t a bunch of Southern cannibals on a detour road. It’s not Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers. It’s the person next door who sends their kid to a place like DRIFTWOOD. It’s a person like Captain Kennedy who makes money off the imprisonment of young people’s dreams. So having felt like David Forrester, Ricky Ullman’s character, and also knowing a young kid who was literally sent to one of these places, a kid who was in a youth group I once taught, I knew I had to make DRIFTWOOD. And just like Kiss who can make a song like “Shout It Out Loud,” they can also make a ballad like “Beth,” they’re both Kiss, they’re just different expressions of that band. I decided that I have different expressions in what I would want to say as a horror filmmaker and I just hoped that people who were used to the splatstick of MANIACS would take a different type of journey with me with DRIFTWOOD.

CC: You mentioned about Ricky Ullman in the lead, and of course Diamond Dallas Page plays Captain Kennedy. They’re very interesting casting choices and I was wondering what you saw in them to cast them in these roles.

TS: Ricky and DDP both know, and I’m going to include Talan Torriero on this list, that I am a huge film fan. I know everything about film but when it comes to television and sports, I’m a little ignorant. I had no idea who any of them were. I had never heard of LAGUNA BEACH, I had never heard of PHIL OF THE FUTURE, and I had never heard of Diamond Dallas Page. I apologize to all three of those guys, but I think if I had known, I would never had cast them. If you say, “Let’s make DRIFTWOOD with a Disney kid, a wrestler, and a reality star,  I would’ve been like “You’re out of your mind.” I would’ve been guilty of the same type of judgment that I don’t like. I admit my shortcoming in that area. What happened was I wrote the script with Chris Kobin, my writing partner, and unlike MANIACS, where I knew Robert Englund was going to be in it, and Lin Shaye was going to be in it so I wrote it for them, I didn’t know who was going to be in DRIFTWOOD. I just created characters that I sort of had an idea what they looked like but I didn’t know. Then it came time to cast, so one of my producers, Barry Levine, he and I produced DETROIT ROCK CITY together, he’s also a manager. He said to me “I got a guy who should be in this movie named Diamond Dallas Page. He’s my bro, he’s my best friend, he’s amazing.” Then he tells me he’s a wrestler. I’m like “He’s a wrestler, is he right?” Barry told me to meet him and I figured he’d be Norris, the character that David Seidenberg from “SEX IN THE CITY” plays, the sidekick to Kennedy. So I figured as a favor to my producer, I will consider him for the sidekick role. We get together, and I bring a DVD of MANIACS, and there’s DDP, and the guy immediately puts off this vibe of real. There’s no bullshit. There’s no fawning over “I really wanna be in your movie.” There’s a real Jersey guy, you know what I mean? A bro, kind of guy you wanna have a few beers with. We instantly bond, talking about New Jersey and Springsteen and Bon Jovi and he tells me his story. Dude, the guy had ADD, he couldn’t read till he was 20. He wanted to be a wrestler when people told him he couldn’t, then at 35 when most wrestlers are quitting, he became a wrestler. Then he broke his back and they said he would never wrestle again. Not only did he wrestle again, he won the title. Then he decides at 45, he wants to act. He takes acting classes and gets DEVIL’S REJECTS and GALLOW WALKERS with Wesley Snipes and he’s on fire. Then when he’s told he can’t walk right, he investigates and starts his own brand of yoga called YRG, Yoga for Regular Guys, and now at age 50 is more nimble and lean than most major athletes. This is a guy who thrived on people telling him no. So I’m looking at him and I said “You know what, he could be the Captain. I know if gave him this role, this opportunity, he is going to give a hundred and ten percent into this.” So after we hung out that night, I called him the next day. I told him that I don’t see him as Norris, and he’s like “It’s alright, nice to meet you, we’ll get together and do some YRG.” I tell him “No, no, no. I want you to play the Captain.” He was stunned like “What?” I told him I wanted him to play the Captain, and I swear to God Colonel, everybody was like “You’re a fool, he’s a wrestler, you better cut his dialogue.” I’m like “You think I’m gonna jeopardize my film,” and sure enough that guy worked his butt off. He BECAME the Captain. You had to call him The Captain while we were filming. He would call me at 3am going “It’s Captain. Do you have my dialogue for tomorrow? No excuses, do you or do you not have the dialogue?!” I’m frantic going “I’ll have it for you first thing in the morning.” He’s like “It is first thing in the morning. I’m coming in an hour and I want it!” Then in an hour there’s a knock on the door and there’s the Captain. It was great that he became it and the most amazing thing to me is whenever you make a film, whenever you have a villain, you run the risk of being one note, and I didn’t want any of the people in DRIFTWOOD to be one note. Even the parents, who initially I vilified and made them very evil, we bought a texture of sadness and tragedy to them that they really think they’re doing the best of their kid and are really victims of Kennedy’s propaganda. Now with Captain, you know he’s a fucking son of a bitch, but that scene in the church where he tries to give inspiration. All he can give to the kids is a story of how he beat the crap out of some kids in a football game, but then it’s like, he looks up for validation from a brute of a father who taught him that violence is a true test of manhood, and he cracks a vertebrae in a game. He looks up and his father’s not there. You realize that the Captain is an abandoned little boy even at the age of 50, and I love that he brought that texture and layer to the character.

Talan is another one who Frankie Levangie, who played Boyle, the really bad kid, he lives in Venice near me and he tells me he knows this kid named Talan that was on this MTV show that was very popular. He’s looking to do his first movie and he really wants to show that he’s not some reality star asshole that couldn’t really act. I met with him and he was willing to do anything. I thought he would ask for the lead, and he wanted to play Graves, DDP’s sidekick, and he was willing to show me an audition. A lot of kids in Hollywood don’t feel they need to audition and “I’m an MTV star, you should put me in the movie.” He came in, he had his hair cut and he was wearing a military costume and he was amazing. When he did the scene where he had to burn the kids, originally the character was one dimensional, just a fucking asshole. But then he starts crying during the scene asking why he’s doing it as he’s ready to burn them and you can tell he doesn’t really want to do it and he goes “I don’t know where else to go.” When he did that in the audition and showed that sadness, we felt “Holy shit, that’s a dimension we didn’t expect.” He earned the part.

As far as Ricky goes, I needed a kid who could be a teenage Steve McQueen. The character of Forrester doesn’t say a hell of a lot, but he sits and listens and absorbs. If you look at ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEXT, Jack Nicholson doesn’t talk a lot, a lot of scenes are him sitting there taking it in. Same thing with McQueen in THE GREAT ESCAPE, he’s just watching it all. But they say that one line at the end of a scene they finally say something and that sentence has more weight than he had been talking throughout the entire scene. I needed someone tough and vulnerable. We met with a lot of actors and they were all great but they were missing something, the haunted nature of the character. I had finished writing the script Labor Day weekend of 2004 and I needed a break, it was Sunday night and I needed to get out. There was no movie playing I wanted to see but there was a play called DEAD END, it’s a famous play from the 30s, and they made it into a movie with Humphrey Bogart. They were doing a revival of this play and I hadn’t seen a play in a while so I went with my sister. The play opens up and there’s this big recreation of beautiful sets in creating the docks of New York. The kid literally runs onstage and does a cannonball in this pool made to look like the East River. The kid comes out and he’s amazing, just full of energy. In the intermission, I start going through the program to find out who this kid is. I look and see my sister is doing the same and we find out it’s Ricky Ullman. My sister starts laughing because she knew exactly what I was thinking: that’s our kid. Now I had no idea that this was some big teen idol on the cover of every magazine in the supermarket and PHIL OF THE FUTURE was the number one show on Disney, I had no clue. I just knew this was a kid who knocked me out. That was Sunday. I Monday I find out who his manager was and I call him up and they’re like “You’re kidding me, you’re asking him to be in an R rated, adult, serious role?” I go “Yeah” and they go “Well quite honestly, we don’t get offers like this. Ricky has been looking for a part like this but all he gets is SHE’S THE MAN 2,” and I felt it was a good thing I didn’t know because I would’ve been thinking he’d never do a film like this, twelve year old girls adore him. So I met with him and people just give Ricky Ullman parts but he said to me “Let me audition. Let me show what I can do for you. This is a big thing for me. I love your script, I love what it’s about. I feel like that.” His real name is Raviv, he’s from Israel. He came over here when he was five years old. A lot of people told him he wouldn’t make it. He comes out here, he does THE KING & I, a lot of theater, and again another person who everyone tells him he’s not gonna make it. Then Disney comes along and they wanna put him in a show but they wanna change his name to Ricky. He’s 18 years old and he’s playing a 14 year old, he felt like a puppet. He felt like Pinocchio at Disney and he wanted to be a real boy and DRIFTWOOD would be his opportunity for that. I felt “Not only are you amazing in this play, but you’re perfect for the kid.” He worked for scale. I’d say the entire budget of DRIFTWOOD is probably what he gets working on an episode of PHIL OF THE FUTURE, and Disney said they had to approve every project he does. They went “Are you kidding me? He shoots a gun, he’s hosed down naked in a shower, he’s getting beaten, having sex, he curses, says the F word, NO WAY!” They said if he did this movie, no more PHIL OF THE FUTURE. Well we know what happened, don’t we? He basically gave the bird to Disney and came to do DRIFTWOOD. He’s known for his killer smile and in the entire movie, we decided he would never smile except for the one time in the flashback with his brother. That was the one time we see him happy, smiling, and laughing. I pray to God that Hollywood notices this kid because he is the most talented motherfucker I’ve ever worked with. He can do anything. He carries this film, so much of it is about what he doesn’t say. He’s the most professional actor I’ve ever worked with, and I’m also happy to say that originally it Ricky Ullman but now that he’s done other movies as Raviv, we went back in and changed the credits to reflect his real name of Raviv so it’s very symbolic that some screenings the film said Ricky, but now we changed all that, so any artwork and print of the film from now on will say Raviv Ullman, so thanks to DRIFTWOOD, Ricky has become a real boy, or a man rather.

CC: That’s pretty cool. I wanted to ask this as an independent filmmaker and I want to direct this question towards you in terms of answering it to all filmmakers regarding shooting on such a short schedule. If you can, discuss how it is to work on a film for 15 days with a million dollar budget.

TS: It’s not easy, and it wasn’t easy doing MANIACS in 18 days with the same type of budget, but I’ve become a master at it and I’m about to do it again with the sequel to MANIACS which I’m shooting in about two weeks with the same type of schedule and budget. I have to say preparation is a must. Being surrounded by great producers in DRIFTWOOD, Bob Engleman, who produced films like MASK and BLADE and is used to having big budgets, well he was able to really get production value out of a small budget. I think the key is passion. If people sense that you are doing something for passion, and it’s not for making a buck, they will lower their price to work with you. I believe as a director, you’re the pied piper and you gotta get people to follow you because they a, like working with you, and b, believe in you, and if everyone’s on the same page, they will follow you into battle and be the death soldiers. Every film I have made is a battle and I have tried very hard to inspire my troops and I think I’ve done a good job of it because every crew I’ve worked with has been magnificent and have gone above and beyond from the actors to the PA’s to the lighting crew. It’s a miracle that we get these things done. One of the keys is to have a film completely storyboarded so you know going in what you have to shoot. My cinematographer on both films, Steve Adcock, is amazing. We’re synchronistic on our thoughts. At this point, I can go and he’ll know how many angles we’ll need to tell the story, break each scene down, what we need to tell the story, and once that’s all done we’ll put a little cherry on top to give it a stylistic spin, but the key is to tell the story in a stylistic way but you can’t afford to spend a lot of time on style. You can have a lot of pretty angles and some cool visuals but you have no story. It’s serving the story with as much style as possible. Knowing what are the most important scenes you need, being willing to let go of some things, on a practical manner always having two cameras going at all times with a second unit cameraman. Every time we would do a scene, we would get two angles, sometimes three. Have one guy doing a wide shot while the other guy would do fishing, which is close ups of different actors for certain lines we felt were important. Location is a key. Because DRIFTWOOD took place on one location, we were able to camp there for all fifteen days. You lose time when you move to another location. Same with MANIACS, we were at one location, a Civil War re-enactment town. If you want to be an independent filmmaker, write a script that is contained in one area. FRIDAY THE 13^Th was contained at a camp, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was contained in that house, and especially in horror films, the location is as much of a character as the actors themselves.

I also have to say that rehearsal with the actors a lot so that when they get on the set it’s automatic, but I think the most important thing is knowing what you want, being so sure of your vision, that if something comes out of the blue that you don’t plan for like rain or an actor sprains his ankle, that you just know “Alright well we were gonna tell it this way but we can tell it that way.” You have to be sure of yourself. And I have to say that any independent filmmaker who can tell his story on a budget restraint and a time restraint are actually better filmmakers because honestly if you have a hundred days and a hundred million dollars to shoot X-MEN 5, you can just sit there and shoot every scene from twenty different angles and then spend a year in the editing room while you’re sitting  on a couch drinking champagne. OK, I’m exaggerating there but they have all the time. The thing is time constraints force you to be creative, and some of the best creative decisions were made my limitation. And the key is to take your challenges and make them appear to be choices. I remember talking to Roger Corman about a shot in MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and I asked why he framed it that way, cause it was so brilliant and so symbolic and he responded “If I moved the camera to the left, you would’ve seen an industrial building that had nothing to do with that time period.” There were so many choices he made just based on that. So that’s my answer.

CC: On to the MANIACS sequel, who is returning from the original?

TS: Everybody.

CC: Everybody?

TS: All the MANIACS.

CC: That’s gonna be cool.

TS: We got some new ones. All the maniacs are returning in this one and all new fresh victims ready for the slaughter (laughs).

CC: The subtitle is very humorous, Beverly Hellbillys?

TS: Beverly Hellbellys, B-E-L-L-Y-S, cause they don’t know how to spell.

CC: Rumor has it there’s a cameo by Rod Stewart. That can’t be true, can it?

TS: Well ya never know (laughs).  This whole Rod Stewart thing has gotten a little out of control. It’s become a bit of an urban legend. I guess the only answer I’ll say to it is when the legend overshadows the truth, print the legend.

CC: Ah, OK. I know you make interesting casting choices but- 

TS: Actually, I’ll tell you about it, I’m just being coy, this is very funny.  I know in the credits to MANIACS.

CC: Yeah, he’s listed in the thanks?

TS: I’ll set the record straight once and for all. Here we go. When we were doing MANIACS, there was a producer who will remain nameless who had a bit of an issue with exaggeration. The type of guy if a Who song came on the radio he’d be like “Yeah, I did karaoke with Roger Daltrey last week” and if I say I saw BRAVEHEART last week he’d go “Yeah, I was an extra in a kilt” and so forth. I mean Jesus Christ.  You say they caught Saddam Hussein he’d be “Yeah, I was one of the soldiers who held him down.” Jesus Christ!

CC: Guy’s been everywhere.

TS: And the guy was involved with some of the music and we would call him to ask “OK, you golf with Alice Cooper and you chase girls with Mick Jagger. You know everybody, can you help us with the music?”  He’d be like “Yeah, I think I can get but I can’t” and such. We had a session scheduled where we would record some of the songs and he tells at the last minute he can’t show up because he’s hanging out with Rod Stewart. He’s the fucking producer of the movie and we tell him if you don’t up, you’re fired. “Oh, let me call up Rod.” So we made this overture about Rod on the cell phone and we hear him “Yeah Rod? Yeah, I still think you’re sexy! Yeah, maybe you should give up rock and roll and do showtunes, might work out for you. Listen, do you mind if I hang out with you and Billy Joel some other time, I have to do this movie? Thanks man, I’ll thank you in the credits.” And we’re like “Oh god.” He took this lie so far, so we’re just finally the day comes where we’re watching the film for the first time in its finished form and the credits come on and the special thanks and it’s Mick Garris, John Landis, Forrest Ackerman and then Rod Stewart comes up and we all look at each other and go “Rod fucking Stewart, what the fuck?” You know, WHAT THE FUCK? It somehow gets on IMDB and shows up on Rod Stewart’s IMDB. While we were filming DRIFTWOOD, Talon was actually dating Rod Stewart’s daughter. He dropped her off on the set to say hi to Talon and we maybe saw the back of his hair for two seconds, and then this whole rumor started about Rod Stewart being a big fan of Tim Sullivan’s films and wanting to be in the MANIACS sequel.

Then, the film comes out in fucking Denmark and I have nothing to do with the foreign releases of my film. There’s this trippy, psychedelic artwork that looks nothing like horror. It has Robert Englund Photoshopped on a cartoon background that looks like Uncle Reemus in SONG OF THE SOUTH, dancing with rabbits. And it’s like what the hell, and it’s 2001 MANIACS starring Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, and Rod Stewart, and it’s right on the box art. So you probably figure you got this guy in Denmark, they get the rights to MANIACS, they don’t even watch the film and it’s their job to do the artwork, and they think “Oh Pleasant Valley’s like OKLAHOMA. Rod Stewart’s listed in the IMDB.” They can’t read English so they don’t see that he’s listed in the special thanks and not a cast member. They think it’s a musical, so next thing you know, according to Denmark, MANIACS is a musical that stars Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, and Rod Stewart.

CC: Bet the kids were surprised on that one.

TS: We just tell people he’s one of the minstrels, he’s wearing a beard. For the sequel, I said that as a joke in an interview, and someone puts it on IMDB that he’s gonna be one of the minstrels and I’m just like if that’s what people think, then fine, let’s go for it, leave it up there. So there you go, that’s the first and only time I’m gonna talk about that. That’s the truth.

CC: I felt kinda bad to bring it up but now I’m glad I did.

TS: Funny story.

CC: I kept on saying to myself that can’t be real.

TS: You say that and look, we got Travis Tritt for the first one and that is real so you never know.

CC: Do you have any plans after you wrap the MANIACS sequel, any writing or directing projects?

TS: Yeah, I have a couple of things lined up. A rock and roll comedy I’m gonna direct that was written by Carl Dupre, who wrote DETROIT ROCK CITY, called BATTLE OF THE BANDS. It’s funny as hell and I always wanted to just do an edgy, over the top comedy, so that’s up next. After that, my passion project that will return to the DRIFTWOOD type of filmmaking, it’s a supernatural romance that’s called BROTHERS OF THE BLOOD that’s a vampire film in the vein, pardon the pun, of something that Anne Rice might do but modern. That’s my passion project, that one I can’t do in 15 days for a million dollars. I’m gonna need 30 days and about three million dollars.

CC: Anything you can tell me about Snoop Dogg’s HOOD OF HORROR, which just screened at the Two Boots Pioneer?

TS: It was a lot of fun. That was done in between MANIACS and DRIFTWOOD. As a kid, I always loved soul cinema, BLACULA and SHAFT. I also loved TALES FROM THE CRYPT and HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD. I was approached by Jonathan McHugh of Jive Samba Record, and he was in charge of finding film projects for music labels, and he asked me if I was interested in creating a hip hop horror movie for Snoop. At first I thought what do I know about hip hop, but horror is horror. It’s not black, white, yellow. So I loved the idea of creating morality tales in the style of EC Comics where people do really bad things and bad things happen to them. I thought it’d be really cool if we told the story in an urban environment. In one case, it’s about graffiti taggers, and another about racism in the projects. Wow, this could be really cool. So Jonathan, my writing partner Chris Kobin, and my storyboard artist Jacob Hair, who is an incredible screenwriter, we all got together and pounded it out, these three tales. We presented it to Snoop and we were nervous because if he had said no we had wasted our time because I don’t think Bow Wow’s HOOD OF HORROR or Queen Latifah’s HOOD OF HORROR would’ve cut it. Luckily, Snoop dug it. He’s a huge comic fan, he’s a huge horror fan, and he made it a go. Once the movie started going, McHugh and my producer Chris Tuffin, he was a producer on MANIACS, they kind ran with it and I went on to do DRIFTWOOD. They were pleased with it. It’s a lot of fun, it’s a crowd pleaser. It’s GHOULS GONE WILD. I don’t know what more you really expect from a title like SNOOP DOGG’S HOOD OF HORROR. There’s a great anime scene in it, Stacy Title did a great job directing it. True chick of horror, she’s awesome. Great acting and great actors, and it’s fun.

CC: DRIFTWOOD had its New York Premiere last month at the Two Boots Pioneer. Was that the first screening?

TS: Actually it was the second, the first was at Screamfest. We’re showing it at Haunt X and most of the cast will be there, Diamond Dallas Page and Lin Shaye, Connor Ross, who played the ghost in the film. I’m hoping Ravid and Talon will be there. Talan, by the way, will be in the MANIACS sequel. He’s playing a character named Falcon who’s sort of a spoof of his LAGUNA BEACH persona, and I think it’s going to be really cool that Talan is going to mock his MTV persona, I admire that. It takes balls to do that. We’re gonna kill him off real good (laughs).

CC: Well that’s a spoiler alert.

TS: Let’s just say we’re gonna give BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN a new meaning (laughs).

CC: That’s all I have here. Thanks for your time.

TS: Thanks man, you guys have been so kind to me and my films and the pleasure was all mine.

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