Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 2

by Carnell, Thom

  Uh...no. [laughs] If I did, I would be dead. The thing is I had a very good time after this, because it was making a dream come true, just making some kind of short film and being more relaxed in this sense. I’ve been three years without directing. I’ve just been producing and this anxiety that I’ve been creating in my insides is, again, making me feel bad. It’s getting me scared and I’m having all this anxiety lately because of this. I need to do something else. So, it’s like getting all of this energy out of your system. And that is why I am preparing a new short film that we are going to be shooting very, very soon.

  I understand thematically what you were striving for, but most people that I’ve ever met who have worked around death and dying have been people of great humor. I realize that it wouldn’t have fit…

  I understand what your point is. I think that it is a way to escape from this. Again, it’s cowardice. Come on, face the whole thing. Face it. Don’t use the humor. Be a man. Once you do this, then you can laugh. Don’t try to stick your head under the ground.

  I think that, for the audience, most people that will see your film have never been exposed to that situation. So, I agree with you that to have inserted any humor into your film would have cheapened it and not made it as powerful.

  I agree with you. When you’re talking about autopsies, you’re talking about everyday life. You’re talking about a hospital that’s next to your house. If you do that in a humorous way, it’s not going make a difference. People have enough problems without even thinking about this. What I wanted to do was to disturb them, disturb them as I am by this subject and make them think about it for 30 minutes out of their lives. I want them to feel the way they are going to be feeling when they’re eighty. It’s like, “Wake up!”

  In America at least, people are bound legally to allow the medical examiner to do his business, but to most of them the word ‘autopsy’ is so ethereal that they don’t know the nuts and bolts of what happens during one. And if they did, I don’t think they would be as glib about allowing them to take place.

  Right, that’s why I wanted to get a scientific approach. I wanted to really document it, to give them knowledge of how an autopsy is done, because I’ve never seen a fiction film that talked about this subject. I said, “We’re going to show the real thing to the people who don’t know what is going on there. So, I’m going to take notes of everything.” In fact, some of the stuff that I showed appeared to be, for some people, unbelievable. It was funny, I had some conversations and a press conference here and there, where I would say, “I never invented anything. In the first half of the film, it’s completely real.” Those were the real knives. I never had any props from outside the autopsy room. Those were the same knives that I saw the doctors cutting with. I’m not kidding.

  Wow, because I’ve only ever seen and used scalpels. I was about to comment on the fact that those were some big ass knives.

  They’re butcher’s knives. The thing that they apply on the head to open up the skull, those pliers were real and I saw them used on real bodies. I never invented anything. So, people were thinking of me as a psychopath of something. I’d tell them, “No, I’m just shooting a documentary.” One of the details that people were very impressed with was that they put all the insides…

  …into the chest. The horrible thing is, in America, it’s even worse. As the forensic surgeons take out the organs and weigh and measure them, they’ll toss them into these garbage bag lined pails and that bag is later pulled out and just set into the chest cavity.

  Jesus…

  Yeah. I remember being so shocked when I saw that for the first time because they were taking such an important part of someone and they were treating it like garbage down to the point that they were placing it into a garbage bag.

  Jesus Christ…wow. That is very disturbing for me. You know, the towel in the head and the brain in the stomach, those were things people didn’t believe.

  And then modern day people look at the embalming practices of ancient Egypt or the burial rites of the American Indian as so barbaric and it’s like, “Hey, wait a minute… Look at what is happening today. It’s virtually the same thing only you’re calling it science.” Anyway… In the beginning of the Aftermath Special Edition, you are quoted as saying, “Aftermath is a nightmare that no one will wake up from, what I wanted to do with this picture was to keep the audience uneasy from here to the rest of their lives.” Do you think that you’ve succeeded in this goal?

  One of the best reactions that I had from two or three people after watching this film was that they walked up to me and said, “I want to be cremated.” So, in this regard, I think we were successful.

  I agree. You don’t walk away from Aftermath munching your popcorn and going back to your normal life. I know people who were talking about it weeks later.

  It just sticks in your mind. It’s like a virus. I consider this film to be a very lethal virus. [laughs]

  That’s why I consider your film to be so important, and why I think you’ve succeeded so brilliantly. I don’t think it’s possible to walk away from it and retain the same outlook you had before seeing it.

  Thank you. That was the whole point of making this film. This is not a film about violence. It’s not a film about rape. It’s not a misogynist’s movie or anything like that. It’s about a real fear. It’s about death.

  The interesting thing is that, at one point, you spoke about the loneliness of the forensic surgeon’s character, and here was this man taking out whatever his emotions were on this person that was unable to defend herself and then he goes home and all he has is his dog and it still seems, for him, to be a very lonely existence.

  I think that everyone is alone. We’re born alone and we’ll die alone. Just two days ago, I was driving and looking at the people on the streets and I thought, “Oh, this couple, they are in love and everything, but they will never be able to merge into one body.” You have to face your own reality and even though you can have your family, you can have your wife, you can have everything, but there is this boundary, this flesh boundary that you will never be able to cross. And if something happens to you, you’re alone there.

  I totally agree. I mean, birth, even though you’re coming from another person, it’s still a solitary experience. And as we lead what Henry David Thoreau once called these ‘lives of quiet desperation’ unto the eventuality of death, that’s something that is so uniquely an individual’s.

  Three hundred people can go down in a plane and for every single one of them the death experience is uniquely their own, uniquely different. So, I think you’re right. Most people spend their lives trying to get past that boundary of flesh and the frustration lies with the fact that they’re unable to do that.

  You know what I think is that sometimes the sex experience is something close to death. It’s something close to merging. This is just why sex and death are so…

  …inextricably linked. Again, that’s where the frustration comes in because here you have this moment of joining on both a spiritual level and a physical one and then you can only return back behind that boundary of flesh. And no matter how great the sex is, you’re still faced with that inevitability at the end of it. It’s very strange.

  In the Aftermath Special Edition, you are shown being interviewed by Jorg Buttgereit who directed Nekromantik. What was that experience like? It seemed like the two of you were on the same level, but coming from two very different perspectives.

  Yes. Have you seen his film?

  Yes, I have.

  Even though I would not say it was about the same subject, but you have the temptation of thinking that it is. They’re two different films. But when I first approached them, they said to me that they would be willing to distribute the film in Germany, so they invited me over to their house and we did this interview on the set. He’s probably more obsessive with the subject than I am. I’m not obsessive with necrophilia. I have no obsession at all with this subject. I do have an obsession wit
h death. I think his films are always about the same things.

  I agree. Where his films are obsessive about necrophilia, your film uses that, as we said before, as this metaphor for something bigger than that, something more celestial.

  Very spiritual. In Nekromantik 1 & 2, they’re distant films. They don’t really make you feel involved with what is going on and I don’t know why.

  From my side of the fence, I see it that with Nekromantik, it’s more of an “Oh, wow man, how gross!” kind of a film. Where Aftermath goes much deeper and hits you so much harder, hits you where you live…and die…and therein lies the difference. And if I had to label one of them as exploitative, Nekromantik is a completely exploitative series of films.

  I agree with you completely. Aftermath is a film that is talking about human nature and all things rather than just necrophilia. Whereas in Nekromantik, it’s more of an average horror film with a lot more explicit sex and violence.

  Are there any plans at present for a distribution deal for Aftermath in the US?

  Yeah, I was very, very happy that I got a call a week ago from the people at Troma.

  Really?

  Yeah, that’s very odd, but that’s the way it is.

  Well, the thing of it is that they have a great distribution network so more people will see your film.

  I’m very happy about this. I got a call from them and I know Lloyd Kaufman was very interested in watching the film because it was recommended to him in Canada at Fant-Asia. In fact, I think he was there right after I left. So, I got a call and they wanted me to send them a tape and if they liked it, then they would probably release either a tape like you’ve seen or have a compilation of shorts, which would include Aftermath, and then distribute the whole thing in the US, which would be very, very helpful for me.

  Tell me a little about your next project, Genesis. It’s a comedy, right? [laughs]

  No. No. [laughs] You know that’s probably the hardest genre to do.

  I believe it was Sir Edmund Kean who said, ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard.’

  I agree. But, anyhow, Genesis is, I hope, the last short before a feature, that doesn’t mean that I will never make a short again, I would like to. You probably saw my first film The Awakening. That was a student film made at USC with no money at all. We had three people in the crew. We were twenty years old and didn’t have much experience, but at this moment, I wanted to make a film about death, death from a spiritual point of view. So, the second chapter in the trilogy was Aftermath, which was death from the point of view of the flesh and the decay of the flesh. This one now, Genesis, is like the title, the genesis of life. I’m, again, getting inspiration from classical music pieces. It’s about an artist, a sculptor, who’s obsessed with his wife’s death, his lover’s death. He’s been there four-five-six years trying to do the same figure, the same sculpture again and again and again. So, he’s living in this workshop, this little place where he constructs everything. And one day, when he’s cleaning up the last figure, the last big sculpture, he happens to break a part of the rock, which starts to bleed. It just scares the hell out of him and he cleans it up, cleans the wound and then finds human tissue under there. As the days go by, the human tissue starts to grow and press the rock off the sculpture as if it was like a big egg. The thing is growing, growing, growing, but, at the same time, he starts to exhibit a weird disease, some kind of weird cancer that begins to make him solid. So, it’s like the transformation in reverse. He realizes that his wife is coming to life again, but he cannot do anything to prevent himself from dying. So, what he decides to do is stay there and see the whole process and have the time, the moment, the second where the two of them will intersect through their eyes and then they will lose each other again. Again, it’s a film about death from the point of view of people who have lost someone else.

  That’s a great story.

  Very romantic.

  Again, it’s like what we were just talking about. The moment in sex where there will be that intersection and then they have to return or go on to whatever awaits them. Brilliant stuff.

  It’s like, in order to live, you have to die. It’s again this boundary between one human being and another. This flesh boundary. For me, it’s the perfect closing chapter for the whole thing. It’s like a life is born and someone else dies.

  Tom Rainone

  Tom Rainone is a guy who makes an impression. When I met him - again at a Fango Weekend of Horrors - he was loud, boisterous, and stood with the biggest cigar I’d ever seen clenched in his teeth. I immediately liked him. When it came time for our interview, he continued in the same manner, exhibiting the kind of love for the genre that is infectious. About a month after this interview ran, I received a VHS tape in the mail. Across its spine was the word “Scum.” When I popped the tape into my player, what flickered across my television screen was a veritable “mix tape” of short films (one featuring Rainone as a child riffing on Halloween) and oddities. Since this interview ran, I sort of lost track of Tom and I’m the lesser for it. He’s a good guy whose genre knowledge-base is matched by very few people working in the industry. A good guy… and a helluva lot of fun.

  The Maestro and the Quest for “The Eye” – Volume IV, Issue 3

  To whom it may concern,

  Tom Rainone is a worthy individual.

  If you are sick, he will sustain you.

  If you don’t like guns, he will disdain you.

  If you don’t like him, he will profane you.

  He is a pretty good filmmaker, too.

  - Lemmy of Motorhead

  In the world of horror films there are those who can appreciate the thrill of being frightened and those who live for it. Some are so compelled by the imagery they see flickering on the screen that they dedicate their lives to the creation, fabrication and presentation of their own vision of these images. In essence, they give their lives to pushing the envelope and legitimization of the horror genre. Tom Rainone is just such a person. His work on films like Bride of Reanimator, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 4, Children of the Corn III, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, Freaked, Return of the Living Dead 3, Lord of Illusions, and the recently released Wishmaster have set a new standard for the horror genre and raised the bar for what these films are capable of. It is his love and passion for this genre that has helped to make him something of a commodity in the film business. He is a man, much like his mentor, Lucio Fulci, who throws himself into each project giving one hundred and ten per cent – and it shows in the finished product. Tom Rainone is a horror fan, a gifted artist, and a contributor to something that he believes in with all of his heart: the horror genre.

  As a kid, were you always into playing with makeup and trying to figure out how things worked?

  Yeah, it was always on a primitive level, working with wig heads, putting clay on them, and painting them. I’ve pretty much been into horror since I was a fetus. Dad would drop me off or go with me to go all the Hammer pictures, which were always recirculated as children’s matinees. [laughs] It was totally cool. There was a special spark ignited in 1971 in particular with stuff like The Omega Man, Diamonds Are Forever, and Dirty Harry. Those were probably what did the final cleansing of the young soul. I’ve been imitating Andy Robinson [actor who played The Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry] since I was eight years old. [laughs] I bought a red ski mask at K-Mart when I was nine.

  You talk about going to these old theaters. Was this your classic double bill, matinee short film and cartoon kind of place?

  It was. It was cool as hell. It was joyous and I really pity the kids today who can’t experience that. That experience not being there for kids anymore is helping to spawn all the problems we have today. I remember like it was yesterday, the marquee saying PETER CUSHING IN THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN for the matinee, and the other side would have the current release. The irony is that by today’s Tipper Gore/Bill Clinton standards, Curse of Frankenstein would have to be cut before it could even play for adults.

&n
bsp; When I was growing up, there was a theater very much like that in our town and I can still remember going to double bills of Omega Man and THX 1138 and that was so cool! You’d spend the afternoon there and feast on really shitty food and nothing could ever taste that good again.

  Exactly. It’s an age that’s lost. Everyone in our age bracket should have experienced this. I remember in the 70s at the [drive-in] they had a line-up of Blood Feast, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, an Andy Milligan film called Blood, and something else amazing. I remember when he’s cutting off her leg at the beginning of Blood Feast, just looking and being mesmerized by the fact that children were playing in those playgrounds right beneath those wonderful images of mutilation.

  We’re going to sound like a couple of old men here, but I remember my mom taking me and my two older sisters to a drive-in to see what they thought was a comedy and the film turned out to be Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. I can remember peeking between the two seats and being scared blind, but that has always stuck with me. It was one of those seminal experiences.

  It is, man, and it’s just sad that it’s gone. I hope to finish a rather Herculean task that I started a year and a half ago called Uncle Tom’s Trailers from the Crypt which is an assembly of 35mm trailers. Side A is Horror, Exploitation, and Gore. Side B is Sexploitation, Bikers and Barbarians. I could release it tomorrow if I wanted, but I’m sticking to my guns with my clients that it’s going to be everything that I promised, meaning that it’s totally released correctly and the amount of stuff that I’ve indicated which has been quite a task to say the least. They’ve all been digitally transferred with meticulous care and color correction, which has never been done before. I filmed several rotting drive-ins that is intercut with William Smith driving my black ‘59 Cadillac through them, a Camel is consumed as he’s reminiscing about the old days. He drives through several of them and it’s smoky and he’s reflecting. He pulls up to this one screen which, ironically, is the same drive-in where they shot the shoot-out in Heat, and he sees a pile of speaker poles, trash ending with the ol’ 70’s famed Iron-Eyes Cody routine where he walks out and a tear comes down his cheek. After that, Smith of course, shoots the finger and raises a fist sending the blank drive-in screen to life with the title Uncle Tom’s Trailers from the Crypt. Then, it rips loose with A Taste of Blood. The whole idea was to get this on laser disc and, unfortunately, when you cross that ‘legitimate’ level all of a sudden copyright became a real big issue. So, I’m still fighting that and it’s been real hideous. I made sure that all my clients have been totally updated and anyone who needs to be reimbursed has been reimbursed or anybody who wanted the Blood Feast laserdisc received that. It’s still in the works and it will be finished. The opening is scored by Mike Scaccia of Ministry and Smith also reads a poem he wrote about the great American drive-in era. Chris Warren of Fantasy II Visual Effects was my D.P.