Eutrusca
28-10-2005, 14:39
COMMENTARY: For reasons known only to someone in my far distant past, I have always loved horror films. The very first one I remember was about a disembodied hand that, among other things, played the piano. I wanted to cover my eyes, but couldn't stand the resulting suspense! This series below I gotta see! :D
The Horror Tales You Haven't Seen (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/arts/television/28horr.html?th&emc=th)
By MARILYN STASIO
Published: October 28, 2005
It was a dark and stormy night when the Masters of Horror convened to work their demonic arts. Well, actually, it was a soft summer evening in the San Fernando Valley, and these horror movie directors were only getting together for dinner at Cafe Bijou. All the same, once the creators of films like "Halloween," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Howling," "It's Alive," "Suspiria" and "An American Werewolf in London" started meeting regularly, something fiendish was born - and it begins tonight at 10 on Showtime as "Masters of Horror."
An anthology series of 13 one-hour films to be broadcast on Friday nights, "Masters of Horror" showcases the original work of 13 veteran genre directors: Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, William Malone, Lucky McKee, John McNaughton and Takashi Miike. The project grew out of several informal dinners organized two years ago by Mr. Garris as a way of extending the peculiar bonhomie that exists among "those of us who toil in the gutters of horror," as he put it in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
"Whenever our paths would cross at horror conventions and screenings, we would always talk about getting together for dinner, but no one made a move," he recalled. "After a few years of this, I decided to play Dorothy Parker and organize the Algonquin Round Table West."
Mr. Carpenter, the director of genre classics like "The Thing" and "Halloween," remembers being struck by the "amazing lack of bitterness" among the dozen or so filmmakers who attended that first dinner. "The camaraderie among horror directors is special," he said. "We have all been beaten up in our careers, because horror is viewed as a low-rent genre, just a notch or two above pornography. And while it's true that we traffic in dark areas of violence and horror in our profession, because we get everything out on the screen and don't carry it around with us, we really are mostly nice guys."
The conversation that night was so convivial that the directors decided to meet again at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard and make the dinners a regular event. On nights when their ranks swelled to more than a dozen - including drop-in auteurs like David Cronenberg and young Turks like Eli Roth and Mr. McKee - the restaurant would give the filmmakers their own back room. And at some point, no one really remembers when, they began to refer to themselves as the Masters of Horror.
"That was self-deprecating humor, intended ironically," Mr. Garris said, "and John Landis turned it into a gag. Every so often, he would stand up and announce, 'The Masters of Horror order dessert,' or 'The Masters of Horror leave to go bowling.' It became a running joke."
Not that professional matters weren't discussed at these bimonthly gatherings. Mr. Coscarelli, who directed "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," the rhapsodically grisly episode that opens the series tonight, said that whenever technology-minded directors got together, there was sure to be shoptalk about "exposure indexes and film stock and the latest in-vogue thing, like hand-cranked cameras." But for Mr. Coscarelli, the real pleasure of meeting the "living legends" of his profession was his discovery that "they were such horror geeks themselves, all they wanted to talk about were the horror movies that had inspired them."
Mr. Garris gave them something else to discuss when he suggested that they exercise their dark arts in a series of one-hour television dramas that would both reveal and challenge their distinctive directorial styles. "We were aiming for pure auteurism with 'Masters of Horror,' " said Mr. Garris, who is an executive producer on the show, as well as the writer and director of an episode called "Chocolate."
"The idea was not to have a producer's fingerprints all over the place, but to have each director's fingerprints all over his own episode," he explained. "Joe Dante is very political, so his episode, 'Homecoming,' is a political satire dressed as a zombie movie. Dario Argento is very sexual and twisted, so 'Jenifer,' which is based on a 1970's comic book, is very sexual and twisted. John Landis is known more for his comedy than his horror, so 'Deer Woman' is a very comedic take on a horror story."
Despite the free-fall design and daunting budget constraints of the project, which allowed for only 10-day shoots in Vancouver and two-day sound mixes, masters like Mr. Hooper, the director of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Poltergeist," took the bait.
"This is the first director-driven television show that I personally know of," said Mr. Hooper, whose series contribution is a post-apocalyptic nightmare called "Dance of the Dead." "Not having to worry about tempering your work or appealing to anyone but yourself, and knowing that your work was not going to be synthesized and homogenized after you completed it, was totally wonderful. As an artist, you just fly when you have that kind of freedom."
The promise of artistic freedom also hooked Mr. Carpenter, who contributed "Cigarette Burns," a supernatural thriller about an underground movie that drives anyone who watches it into a killing frenzy.
"There was no real censorship involved, which is a tantalizing draw," said Mr. Carpenter, who frets about the artistic constraints of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system and "dilution of horror" that is inevitable when commercial producers insist on chasing the lucrative PG-13 market. "I think that horror should be horrifying and taken seriously," he said. "That's the point of horror. All horror movies make a moral point."
The one-hour format was another enticement for the directors, who found it more suitable than the standard feature length for working with horror material drawn from novellas and short stories, which concentrate their horrific effect in short, strong doses.
"I really got excited when I heard about the format," Mr. Coscarelli said, "because it allowed me to put on film one of my favorite short stories." The director already owned the rights to "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," a short story by Joe R. Lansdale. "But there was no way to make this 16-page story into a 90-minute feature film," he said, "and I didn't think I would ever be able to do it."
In giving the directors carte blanche to choose their source material, Mr. Garris said, "Masters of Horror" also offered them their chance to go for the throat. "By its very definition, horror is transgressive, so we're not afraid to cross the line," he said. "Not everybody is going to love this show, but it is definitely for an adult audience. We're not here to raise your kids."
The Horror Tales You Haven't Seen (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/arts/television/28horr.html?th&emc=th)
By MARILYN STASIO
Published: October 28, 2005
It was a dark and stormy night when the Masters of Horror convened to work their demonic arts. Well, actually, it was a soft summer evening in the San Fernando Valley, and these horror movie directors were only getting together for dinner at Cafe Bijou. All the same, once the creators of films like "Halloween," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Howling," "It's Alive," "Suspiria" and "An American Werewolf in London" started meeting regularly, something fiendish was born - and it begins tonight at 10 on Showtime as "Masters of Horror."
An anthology series of 13 one-hour films to be broadcast on Friday nights, "Masters of Horror" showcases the original work of 13 veteran genre directors: Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, William Malone, Lucky McKee, John McNaughton and Takashi Miike. The project grew out of several informal dinners organized two years ago by Mr. Garris as a way of extending the peculiar bonhomie that exists among "those of us who toil in the gutters of horror," as he put it in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
"Whenever our paths would cross at horror conventions and screenings, we would always talk about getting together for dinner, but no one made a move," he recalled. "After a few years of this, I decided to play Dorothy Parker and organize the Algonquin Round Table West."
Mr. Carpenter, the director of genre classics like "The Thing" and "Halloween," remembers being struck by the "amazing lack of bitterness" among the dozen or so filmmakers who attended that first dinner. "The camaraderie among horror directors is special," he said. "We have all been beaten up in our careers, because horror is viewed as a low-rent genre, just a notch or two above pornography. And while it's true that we traffic in dark areas of violence and horror in our profession, because we get everything out on the screen and don't carry it around with us, we really are mostly nice guys."
The conversation that night was so convivial that the directors decided to meet again at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard and make the dinners a regular event. On nights when their ranks swelled to more than a dozen - including drop-in auteurs like David Cronenberg and young Turks like Eli Roth and Mr. McKee - the restaurant would give the filmmakers their own back room. And at some point, no one really remembers when, they began to refer to themselves as the Masters of Horror.
"That was self-deprecating humor, intended ironically," Mr. Garris said, "and John Landis turned it into a gag. Every so often, he would stand up and announce, 'The Masters of Horror order dessert,' or 'The Masters of Horror leave to go bowling.' It became a running joke."
Not that professional matters weren't discussed at these bimonthly gatherings. Mr. Coscarelli, who directed "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," the rhapsodically grisly episode that opens the series tonight, said that whenever technology-minded directors got together, there was sure to be shoptalk about "exposure indexes and film stock and the latest in-vogue thing, like hand-cranked cameras." But for Mr. Coscarelli, the real pleasure of meeting the "living legends" of his profession was his discovery that "they were such horror geeks themselves, all they wanted to talk about were the horror movies that had inspired them."
Mr. Garris gave them something else to discuss when he suggested that they exercise their dark arts in a series of one-hour television dramas that would both reveal and challenge their distinctive directorial styles. "We were aiming for pure auteurism with 'Masters of Horror,' " said Mr. Garris, who is an executive producer on the show, as well as the writer and director of an episode called "Chocolate."
"The idea was not to have a producer's fingerprints all over the place, but to have each director's fingerprints all over his own episode," he explained. "Joe Dante is very political, so his episode, 'Homecoming,' is a political satire dressed as a zombie movie. Dario Argento is very sexual and twisted, so 'Jenifer,' which is based on a 1970's comic book, is very sexual and twisted. John Landis is known more for his comedy than his horror, so 'Deer Woman' is a very comedic take on a horror story."
Despite the free-fall design and daunting budget constraints of the project, which allowed for only 10-day shoots in Vancouver and two-day sound mixes, masters like Mr. Hooper, the director of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Poltergeist," took the bait.
"This is the first director-driven television show that I personally know of," said Mr. Hooper, whose series contribution is a post-apocalyptic nightmare called "Dance of the Dead." "Not having to worry about tempering your work or appealing to anyone but yourself, and knowing that your work was not going to be synthesized and homogenized after you completed it, was totally wonderful. As an artist, you just fly when you have that kind of freedom."
The promise of artistic freedom also hooked Mr. Carpenter, who contributed "Cigarette Burns," a supernatural thriller about an underground movie that drives anyone who watches it into a killing frenzy.
"There was no real censorship involved, which is a tantalizing draw," said Mr. Carpenter, who frets about the artistic constraints of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system and "dilution of horror" that is inevitable when commercial producers insist on chasing the lucrative PG-13 market. "I think that horror should be horrifying and taken seriously," he said. "That's the point of horror. All horror movies make a moral point."
The one-hour format was another enticement for the directors, who found it more suitable than the standard feature length for working with horror material drawn from novellas and short stories, which concentrate their horrific effect in short, strong doses.
"I really got excited when I heard about the format," Mr. Coscarelli said, "because it allowed me to put on film one of my favorite short stories." The director already owned the rights to "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," a short story by Joe R. Lansdale. "But there was no way to make this 16-page story into a 90-minute feature film," he said, "and I didn't think I would ever be able to do it."
In giving the directors carte blanche to choose their source material, Mr. Garris said, "Masters of Horror" also offered them their chance to go for the throat. "By its very definition, horror is transgressive, so we're not afraid to cross the line," he said. "Not everybody is going to love this show, but it is definitely for an adult audience. We're not here to raise your kids."