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From HouseofHorrors.com Interviews Read on and meet the man that is going to scare the crap out of you this weekend, John Gulager. DD: Well, I finally got to see the movie on Tuesday night. JG: Oh, good, good. DD: And I have to tell you, it really blew me away. The Project Greenlight show really didn’t do the film any justice. JG: Yeah, yeah DD: So, what are your thoughts on this night before your big opening weekend? JG: Well, you know, it is pretty wild. You get mixed thoughts you can’t help but think it would be better if it opened wider but then again I am able to walk down to my local theater here, just around the corner from my house, have a bite to eat before the show and then watch a movie that I directed which ya know, is not to shabby. And invite all my pals and hopefully people will go and see it across the country. It’s playing in about 150 theatres and it’s pretty exciting, pretty daunting. DD: It has to be. I mean you come across as a pretty average guy, you know, a fan. When you were on the show I got very defensive of you. You became like the water cooler discussion at work. People were like “what a fool” and shit and I found myself defending you. JG: Laughs. Well in real life I’m hoping I’m not really that much of an idiot, I mean I’m not that heroic or anything but I guess part of that is true, I guess I am a bit of an idiot (laughs) DD: It’s pretty much obvious to me that the show was edited in such a fashion to make you look that way, you know these are the bad people and here is poor John. JG: Yeah, they do that; make a story out of your life. I mean, everything was real, we actually do it but they do, well you know you can make someone look anyway you want, I know that as a film maker, I can make someone look angelic or make them look satanic with the same material just depending on what I choose to highlight. But at the same time nothing is made up. DD: I just want to state right here and now, anyone who sees this film will know John Gulager is no idiot because this film is masterful. JG: Well thank you, you’re very kind (laughs) DD: The over the top gore in the film is great, I loved it, but for me it was the little things that made the biggest difference. (I don’t want to give away anything, we at this point discuss one of the scenes in the film) that was sweet. ( Laughs) JG: ( Laughs) Yeah, that was a nice little sound there too….. DD: Little things like that just made the film fantastic. Now correct me if I’m wrong here but you guys actually went back and shot more after the PG show was over, right? JG: Yeah, we shot a few more days just a couple of months ago. The film just kind of laid dormant for a while. The company kind of reformed and then they were like, hey you need to finish the movie so we swung into gear and shot about 3 days worth of pick up, some stuff in front of the bar and some stuff with Christa and we got to shoot an explosion out in the desert. DD: Anytime you get to blow something up, you know you’re in good shape. (laughs) JG: Yeah, that’s always good. DD: The cast was fantastic, Kudos to your father by the way. He was awesome and it was so great to see him on screen again. And Judah Friedlander, man he was awesome. JG: Yeah, Judah’s great DD: He was great. I laughed from the moment he walked on screen until the end. Just loved his performance. He is going to come out of this film smelling like a rose I think. JG: Hopefully several of the stars will. JG: Did you know that our worm wrangler was also the snake handler from Snakes on a Plane. We had Jules the worm wrangler and he went on to be Jules the snake handler. DD: So, he is moving on to bigger productions huh? JG: Yeah, well actually I had seen him before, on TV. He showed up on set with maggots and worms and I was like, hey, I know you. (laughs) DD: So, you planning on staying in the horror genre, I mean you have to be getting offers right? JG: You see, I like horror films; it was a great match up. There’s a little bit of serendipity with a contest where you’re taking a script and then picking a director and then hoping it all works out and in this case, I think it did so I think the next thing will end up being a horror thing. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, there is no second rate genres only second rate writers and you have to got to take that to heart. A lot of people put down the horror genre and I think that is totally bogus because you can make great films in any genre and you can make stinkers in any genre and I enjoy horror so….. there will be touches of horror in anything I do even if it is not an out an out monster movie like this. DD: Let’s discuss this whole midnight screening thing. What’s the thinking behind this? JG: I would love to be able to tell you it’s all about reviving the midnight movie tradition but to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. I used to go to midnight screenings when I was a kid here in LA. On Friday nights they would play Eraserhead and on Sat. nights they would play Pink Flamingoes and they were considered dangerous cult films at the time. It was before the Rocky Horror Show started with the midnight shows. It was probably before Rocky Horror was even made. (laughs) It was early 70’s. So it’s kind of like that I guess. DD: I think it’s a great idea. JG: People have to go, go, go, go. I want people to see this movie. I go see midnight movies all the time, show up, sit in the front row. I’m hoping that people in Ohio and all across the country will go to a midnight screening. In some places it’s 10 PM. The last showing of the night but in most places it is going to be a full on midnight screening. DD: It is here in the Cleveland area it’s an actual midnight showing and I’m hoping to see a nice crowd there. JG: Good, good. People will show up, that’s what I am hoping for. DD: Any chance it might get an extended play if it has a strong two days? JG: This is the way I look at it. The theatres are going to have the prints and I know of a few theatres said that they are going to keep playing it. I know a theatre in Little Rock said they were going to play it every weekend till Halloween and a theatre in Denver called me and said that they might show it again and I told them if they did I would drive to their theatre. That was before my car broke down again, but I am going to try and get there. So a few places are talking about trying to keep it going. Some of the theatres do have a little bit of leeway and if they want to take advantage of it, they can. They’ll have the prints and if they want to do, that’s great. DD: It’s all going to come down to the fans demanding it. If the interest is there, they’ll play it. JG: If no one goes, then that is going to be it. It’ll be the two days and I will be grateful for that. If people show up, I think it’s a great Halloween movie myself, then that will keep it going. DD: The DVD is slated to come out right before Halloween right? JG: October 17th the DVD comes out. DD: Did you do a commentary track for that? JG: Yeah but the commentary got a little rowdy. There was a whole bunch of us there and I don’t know what happened but things just got kind of rowdy and I’m not sure how much we actually talked about the film. We just had a hoot and we all just tried to top each other and then every now and then Marcus would have a note, kind of a serous thing he wanted to say, you know, thank somebody and his voice would drop lower (begins laughing) and it’s pretty funny. After it was all done it was like what, it’s over? Should we try that again? It should be pretty fun. DD: I’m hoping the horror community really embraces this film. You hear so much bitching about lame films and not having enough gore and FEAST has it all. I can’t imagine what more the fans could ask for. JG: Thank you. We decided when we made it we were just going to go for it and people will either love it or hate it. We tried not to hold back and were hoping that the horror community will appreciate that. Marcus, Patrick and I, we’re all horror guys. That’s what we like, so…. © Copyright by HouseofHorrors.com |
