THE FANTASIST

Hi, and welcome to my shiny new blog.

Let’s kick things off with a John Landis interview:

I caught up with legendary director John Landis (Animal House, Blues Brothers, American Werewolf in London, Trading Places) a while back during his promotion for Master of Horror and Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project.
Landis struck me immediately as feverishly enthusiastic about the topic of film. No. About the topic of movies. Landis is a movie-maker, through and through, and although he has seen his share of personal and career lows, it is also abundantly clear that he is a survivor.
He recently signed on to direct and develop (with Joel Eisenberg) Ghoulishly Yours, William M. Gaines, a biopic based on the life of the publisher of EC Comics and Mad Magazine. Considering Gaines was a pioneer in the merging of horror and comedy, and was himself no stranger to controversy (he was a first amendment figurehead who was vilified for “morally bankrupting” the youth of yesteryear through the subversive medium of the Comic Book) it is perhaps a bit providential that our conversation centered around the parallels of comedy and horror.

Lucien Spelman: You have directed some of the most successful American comedy films in history. Would you like me to list your credits for you?

John Landis: No Thank you.

Lucien: Also horror films – you’ve more than dabbled there – this idea that both laughter and terror are knee-jerk reactions, Lizard Brain reactions….

Landis (laughs): Lizard Brain….

Lucien: Does that make comedy or horror more or less difficult?

Landis: Well, that depends on what you mean difficult.  Comedy is the most unforgiving. In other words, you either laugh or you don’t. The quality is not the issue. I mean you can laugh at Noel Coward or you can laugh at Curly. No matter how high or low the comedy the result is the same. Horror is an awkward name because, you know, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, those guys always objected to being called Horror stars, because to horrify someone is easy. To horrify just means to repulse. To scare someone is not hard either. (Landis jumps) Boo! (laughs) It’s not hard!
To horrify, you show a dead child, or anything horrific. That’s not hard. That’s really not hard. To really frighten someone, profoundly, is hard. Because you need to care about the characters involved. To make a really good suspense film, that’s something else, and that requires skill. A lot of these splatter movies and stuff, I mean that’s just brainless crap, y’know?

Lucien: Why is it so popular?

Landis: Why is projectile vomiting so popular? Because people drink too much, that’s why it’s so popular. I mean, splatter itself is not reprehensible or disreputable; it just depends on how it’s done or what it’s for. For instance, you remember when Animal House came out; the critics were all up in arms about how vulgar it was? How gross and disgusting a movie it was? I mean it’s fairly tame now, but at the time it was so radical. But you look at something like Mr. Creosote, Monty Python, you know, and you cannot be more scatological than that. I mean it’s impossible! Shit, fart, vomit jokes! But… that Oxford/Cambridge patina gave them some kind of Golden Fleece; some kind of protection. An Invisible Seal so they weren’t called Lowbrow Scum. It’s very interesting. It’s a very fine line. Whereas the Three Stooges do the same gags, literally, and they are déclassé. So it’s very difficult to navigate those waters. The same thing in horror. For instance, my wife is very…. any film like Silence of the Lambs or Texas Chainsaw Massacre where you have people killing people, because it’s true. People kill people all the time, and the world is full of crazy people. She can see anything with a vampire or a monster, or werewolf, ghost; you name it. No problem. Doesn’t bother her at all. She can see people being hacked to pieces. I remember when we saw Peter Jackson’s movie, Dead Alive, she laughed her ass off, because there was a real intelligence and wit behind it. It was data, you know? And it was funny! Whereas in lesser hands it would just be stupid.
Lucien: Manipulation. In lesser hands it would be overt manipulation. In more refined hands….

Landis: In lesser hands it would be clumsy. Again The Pythons. You know The Black Night? That was really funny!

Lucien: Come back here and take what’s coming to you. I’ll bite your legs off!

Landis: (laughs) Right! The point is your talking about which is harder, they are both unforgiving, but it depends on what you want to get out of it. If you just want an experience where you just laugh your ass off, there are a lot of films I can show you that will make you truly laugh. Are they good films? Not necessarily. I can show you a lot of films that will just scare the shit out of you, but are they really good films? Not necessarily. I can also show you some really fine films that will really scare you. On many different levels. I remember when I went to see The Exorcist, and I still think The Exorcist is one of the better…. not the bullshit re-release let’s fuck with it for money so people will buy it again DVD, but the original theatrical release cut of The Exorcist. First of all, The Vatican should have paid Bill Friedkin for that movie, second of all, I saw it with O’Rourke and George Folsey, two Catholic boys who were altar boys, one Irish one God knows what — they’ve both long ago fallen from the church — but we went to see that movie and I remember it so well, because it was great! We really enjoyed it and it scared the shit out of us. But I went home and slept like a baby, and they went home and had nightmares for weeks, because it really touched that primal fear that had been installed very neatly by all those scary priests for all those years. And I just think that film is brilliant – brilliantly put together.

Lucien: Your making me want to watch it again. I haven’t seen it in years.

Landis: Make sure you see the original cut. The trouble is even, like, E.T. or Star Wars, it’s hard to get good copies of the originals, but they are much better than the fucked with re-releases. It’s weird. It’s like what George did with the original THX 1138, the original was a great movie but the re-release is a piece of shit.

Lucien: (laughs) I don’t want you to hold back here! You had a chance to work with your son Max in Deer Woman (in Masters of Horror)….

Landis: Yeah, he wrote Deer Woman.

Lucien: Are you thinking of doing that in the future, maybe for season two?

Landis: I don’t know, Max tends to be – well, most of his stuff is too gruesome for me – I mean he really is a different generation I guess. Although, he pointed out correctly to me that — I hadn’t seen American Werewolf in many, many years and they had just done the high def transfer, and it looks really extraordinary now. I had to supervise to approve it, and I made them darken it quite a bit — it is much more violent than I ever remembered and it is really gory, I mean whoa, but at least it was in the service of the plot. I mean you see a movie like 300, and first of all it’s overtly homoerotic. I mean there is a lot of very strange sexuality going on in that movie, but it looked great….

Lucien: It’s very Greek.

Landis (laughs): Yeah. In every way. I mean if you’re into bulging muscles. It’s like those old Steve Reeves…. Where you’re like, hmmm – oil up the actors! But it’s impressive and really, really, really violent, but silly. I though it was really silly. Full of testosterone silly. Sin City was at least a cartoon, this presented itself as being “serious”.

Lucien: Talk a little about Mr. Warmth. I’m a huge Don Rickles guy.

Landis: Well I met Don Rickles when I was seventeen. I was a gopher on a movie called Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia, so I’ve known him a long time. Don’s eighty and still headlining in Vegas and stuff, and I was at his eightieth birthday about 6 months ago and I just realized I don’t think people realize his place in The Business. They don’t get it. So I said, “Don, I want to make a feature documentary on you,” and he said (squinting), “What?” you know. I shot a show at the Stardust Hotel, we really shot it well, high def and everything, and we really did it correctly. We’ve done many hours (of interviews) with Don, and everyone from Jack Carter to Chris Rock. I mean it’s the most eclectic – Sidney Poitier, Clint Eastwood, Debbie Reynolds, Sara Silverman, I mean it is the wildest group of people – Robin Williams – It’s a very, very unusual, and I’m very happy with it.

Lucien: It’s great to expose Don Rickles to a new generation.

Landis: And I’ve got all kinds of stuff you’ve never seen. Real interesting stuff.

Lucien: You know – I have to tell you – I sat behind you and Frank Oz in the old Academy building during a lecture that Jim Henson was giving about Labyrinth. I was about fourteen and it was one of the highlights of my teen years having three of my idols so close by.

Landis: (laughs) Well, two of the three of us are still here!

Lucien: Thanks for your time!

Landis: Thank you.

Tags: Interview, John Landis, Masters of Horror   Posted Interviews |