 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
Matthew Jason Walsh
Armaggedon ain't what it used to be: An Interview with Matthew Jason Walsh
by Allen RichardsWith almost 15 years in the industry, Matthew Jason Walsh has written for directors ranging from Witchhouse 3: Demonfire J.R. Bookwalter to Final Stabs' David DeCoteau, and most recently with Ice Crawlers' John Carl Buechler. His feature length directorial debut, Bloodletting, was recently given the special edition DVD treatment from Tempe Video. Allen: The standard stock question, "why film?"
Matt: I've probably loved movies since I was a little kid, especially Westerns and sci-fi flicks, but I almost fell into movies by accident -- I started out wanting to write books, then draw comics, then write and play music, then, act, then, et cetera, et cetera. I think movies won the luck of the ADD draw. I've done just about everything ... badly!
Allen : You once told me that Bloodletting was made because you wanted "to do a serial killer movie right. what does that mean?
Matt : Well, I think what I meant was, I wanted to see it done differently. Back in 1992, I was hired to play the lead in John Russo's Midnight 2: Sex, Death and Videotape and if you ever saw the movie (I'm hoping you didn't!), I felt it was riddled with cliches. I think the pop-eyed, sweaty dude with the butcher's knife has been done and done and done, and done a lot better than we were doing it. I kept suggesting to Russo that I improvise a few lines or a few actions, something to throw a curve ball to the audience and go in a different direction. That, I think is the thing I always get frustrated with when I work for someone else, when I get to that point where knowing that maybe one little thing could fix the whole gig, but my hands are tied and I have to do what I'm told. But I always thought the serial killer shouldn't be a bug-eyed, panting, sweating freak -- I mean, after all, you wouldn't go within twenty miles of a guy like that!
I thought, to make it scarier, more interesting, maybe the guy should be relaxed, likeable, that he looks at dead bodies like furniture or comedy props, that he's so desensitized to the act of killing or the idea of death that it's like just another daily routine to him. In the real world, "evil" people don't sit around tweaking their Snidely Whiplash moustaches and plan the deaths of innocent people. They see themselves as regular Joes. THAT seems a whole lot scarier, to me, than Jason or Leatherface. Something that's not so obvious.
Anyway, Russo was adamant about sticking to the script, but that idea, that you'd have this serial killer and he does these horrible things but amiably skips on through life and cracks jokes and views as what he's doing as just another day on the beach stuck with me. I remember, at some point after Midnight 2 was done and we'd all seen it, I kept fuming and going, "Man, I could have done this RIGHT!" So, I guess, I eventually had to put my money where my mouth was.
Allen: Did you ever thank Russo for motivating you to make the movie?
Matt: Actually, Russo and Bill Hinzman were intended to play the cops in the opening scene of the movie. I hit up Russo at a convention and asked him ifhe'd do it, and he replied, "I'm actually supposed to be on a cruise that month." I just stared at him for a moment and murmured, "Uh, I didn't tell you when I was gonna shoot it, yet ..." I have no idea if he ever saw the movie or not.
Allen: When you finally made Bloodletting, how much did you digress from the script? Did you allow for that organic process you felt cheated out of on Midnight 2?
Matt: I have a rule when I shoot: if somebody comes to me and presents me a better idea than the one I have written down, I ALWAYS let them do it. You have to be objective in that way. I believe that, when you hire actors or anFX guy or a competent DP, and any of them approach you and go, "Hey, what about if we did THIS?", you should at least consider it. They're there to do your bidding, but they bring their own unique take to the set. It goes right back to what I said about Midnight 2. I don't believe you lose ground as a director if you consider one of your artists' views on what's being done. Sadly, Bloodletting was the most-altered screenplay I'd ever written, and even more sadly, ninety-nine percent of what got changed was by my hand. The shooting draft of the script is included on the Special Edition DVD, and you'll be able to see the spots where we were forced to change things or remove things. As a writer, you wanna write with no restrictions, and as a director, you wanna get every last shot and location and FX in, but as a producer, you're the guy everybody yells at when the day drags on and on and on. I think every screenwriter out there should produce one movie, because then, they'll have a much better idea on what can and can't be done for a certain budget.
Allen: Your description of "scarier" mirrors conventions that have today become standard. You've basically described American Psycho.
Matt: American Psycho is a great example -- the book, anyway. I've read a ton of horror novels in my day, stuff most people consider pretty scary, and nothing ever messed me up as badly as reading that book did. I think that, the more jaded your audience becomes, the more creative you have to become to convey something like a shock or a gross-out. You have ninety minutes or so to emotionally kick somebody in the nuts as hard as you can, if it's a movie, or 100,000 words, if it's a book. And that's the trick: you have to get your audience on an emotional level. Otherwise, they're watching an FX reel.
Allen: What was your genesis for the Bloodletting?
Matt: Well, like I said, I had this core idea in my head for a while, about this bizarre serial killer, but there was nothing to attach it to. I had also written a short story called "Into The Black", which I loaned to Scream Queens Illustrated for their premier issue, about a scientist who uses a prostitute as a human guinea pig for an brain experiment and inadvertently creates this AKIRA-like monster. I think I was fascinated with the idea of somehow creating a Frankenstein's monster tale. Suddenly, I had my hook: the serial killer would somehow teach somebody the tricks of the trade ... only to wind up being wiped out by his own creation. Then, I decided to make the somebody a woman, which added a whole new level to it. That's how those things go down. You get a nucleus of an idea and start sticking puzzle pieces to it, see what fits.
After we'd shot The Sandman, back in 1995, there was a whole group of us sitting around, all this gear and nothing was happening. So, I decided I'd direct something real quick. I wrote I''ve Killed Before around stuff we knew we could get, things we could do, places we'd be allowed to shoot. I had just written a slew of stuff for David DeCoteau, like the script that eventually became Prison of the Dead and Bikini Goddesses and I felt I wanted to just go apeshit and come up with something I'd never done before.
I think we knew from the get-go that James L. Edwards would play the serial killer. He'd played leads in a couple of movies before that -- Chickboxer and Humanoids From Atlantis -- but I don't think he'd really ever gotten the chance to prove himself. And if there was anything like genius going on in either I''ve Killed Before or Bloodletting, it was putting him in that role. Essentially, that's what the script became: what if James L. Edwards -- Lonnie, as we know him -- were a serial killer? It kinda bolstered that core idea I had to the nth degree. It was such a twisted idea, I thought it would actually work. We actually auditioned people for the role of the serial killer's student, and I was almost all but sold on a former protegee of Wayne Harold's named Dyanne Williams (she wound up winning the role of one of the two victims in the short). But I felt someone with their own li'l edge was needed, and we settled on J.R. Bookwalter's then-girlfriend, Ariauna Albright. As it turned out, she was the perfect foil for Lonnie. I don't think any other actress could have kept up with him the way she did.
So we shot the short in a whopping four days for about $160. The actual shoot was great, even though I don't remember much sleep during the production. Other than my cinematographer/producer, Ron Bonk, who had already shot a feature and a couple of how-to videos, this was the first time we were doing something on our own, and we all had something to prove. So we'd go off and do the craziest shots, the craziest effects, we all felt like we were doing this amazing, incredible thing, regardless of how it turned out in the end.
Bonk wound up distributing the finished short on his Salt City Home Video label, and I think almost everybody involved got angry at each other at the end. We got accused of everything from purposely using bad takes to make the actors look bad to having the "Well, I put up half the money, so I should have half a say in the edit!" The problem with I''ve Killed Before is that we all decided we'd have an equal stake in it, which helped when it came time to rely on somebody for support, but was hell when it was time to put the finished short together. A film shoot should not be a democracy. A year later, I was in Akron, Ohio again. I got hired by Bookwalter to score and do the CGI work on Polymorph, and the experience turned out so well, I suggested to Bookwalter that he should let me direct something. I had a script I wanted to do, but Ariauna and Ariauna's credit card convinced J.R. that we should remake I''ve Killed Before, and this time, "do it right". So Bloodletting was born. And I'm still unsure whether or not we "did it right".
Allen: Did you come close?
Matt: If you asked me, I'd say "no". I think Lonnie and Ariauna save that movie from being a total piece of orangutan shit. I remember sitting with Bookwalter after the first cut was assembled and yelling at the screen "Why?!? Why?!?" Every time I fucked something else up. But you know, Every director thinks that way about their movie when it's done. So I couldn't say.
Allen: What would you do differently today?
Matt: Well, Bloodletting had no game plan. Some directors can do that. I can't. I'd definitely have planned the movie out better. And hired a killer DP, an FX artist, a basic crew and a producer. One time, somebody said to me, "Hey, not a lot of guys could have gone in and directed, produced, did the sound, make the props, do the FX ..." and I always reply, "Yeah, and I'm one of them!" If you asked me, I think the final product suffers from a severe lack of focus behind the wheel.
Allen: You said you knew James would play the lead, but he wasn 't always into the idea, was he?
Matt: Well, we had a momentary controversy with Bloodletting, because Lonnie had worked just a few months earlier on Polymorph with Ariauna, and he felt his script for Polymorph had been compromised, particularly the ending, which he may have believed was altered to showcase Ariauna as an action heroine. So, when he came to Bloodletting, I think he was afraid that, because it was Ariauna's credit card, that I had altered the script for Bloodletting to showcase Ariauna over him. Which I hadn't. And we had no backup plan in case Lonnie decided not to do it. I honestly don't think the movie could have been made without him.
Allen: What's it like going back 7 years and watching it today?
Matt: I wince. A lot. I can pick out something horrible I screwed up doing in just about every single frame of that flick. I remember watching the making-of (which you'll get to see on the DVD) and being pissed-off for a year afterwards because everybody who was interviewed trashed the flick, trashed me, were pretty unflinchingly critical of the whole thing. I think, at some point, I woke up and realized, hey, they're right! What the hell am I getting pissed off for? If you can't be objective about what you've done, you'll never be in a position to make it better the next time out.
Allen: Were you able to channel that criticism into other projects?
Matt: Absolutely. And the next time I direct a feature, I'll have a lotgreater understanding of how it should be done. But I think objectivity is ongoing -- you should always pay attention to what you did wrong. The first thing I did when we discussed remaking Kingdom of the Vampire was, go to all the people I thought I would have in it and pick their brains. I wanted to make sure we didn't have the same sorts of problems we had on Bloodletting.
Allen: It''s interesting that fans seem to really love the movie, but those involved has issues. Why do you thing that might be?
Matt: Well, to be honest, I think they had issues before a frame of Bloodletting was ever shot. It was the wrong group of people to make a movietogether, especially with me at the helm. Even J.R. admits now that it was probably a horrible idea from Day One. There was a lot of anger and resentment left over from the short, so it was already built into the Bloodletting set. And I've seen them go off on other directors before and since. You know, all I 'll say about it is, everybody did their job and did it well. Let 'em bitch about it now, if they want to. They don't have to work with me again.
Allen: What's your relationship like today with everyone involved in the movie's production? Do you still speak?
Matt: Well, Lonnie and I had been friends for years leading up to Bloodletting, and we've rapped a bit over the years since. Wayne Harold and Joe Daw were also friends of mine before Bloodletting, so I've kept in touch. And I have occasionally talked to a few others, like Tina Krause, Randy Rupp and Scooter McCrae. I'd definitely work with any one of those people again, if the opportunity presented itself.
Allen: I''m glad you brought up Tina and Scooter. Their scene with James in the movie is probably my favorite in the movie. It really exemplifies the relaxed nature of the killer you mentioned earlier.
Matt: That was my New York weekend! I had Tina Krause, Scooter and Sasha Graham, three people I really wanted to work with, and they were every bit as awesome as I thought they would be. Tina was excited because it was probably one of the first roles where she was getting to act, rather than strip. And working with Scooter was like Spielberg getting to work with Francois Truffaut on Close Encounters. . My review for Shatter Dead (written as "Art Weingardner") is what wound up on the back of the original Tempe video box. I was a huge fan! And I think the group just clicked on every conceivable level. A lot of that material got cut for running time, and unfortunately, we lost the original assembly, so it didn't end up as a bonus on the DVD. But there's probably a good five minutes of conversation in that scene that we didn't use. And all of it was pretty funny. That was the toughest scene in the movie to trim up.
Allen: You worked in Hollywood for a number of years and even showed Bloodletting to a few players. What was the response like?
Matt: Everyone in the biz I've ever shown it to pretty much dismissed it. And that's putting it nicely. Bear in mind, the last time I handed a screener to someone, Dogme 95 and the whole DV revolution hadn't really taken off yet. One big-time producer -- who shall remain nameless -- flat-out told me, "Kid, what am I supposed to do, tell you you're a director? I can't tell shit from this! I got a ten-year-old nephew who could have shot this in his back yard! I tell you YOU'RE a director, then, I gotta go tell HIM!" Though I've heard that rumor about Tarantino being a fan of the flick. You never know. I'll believe it when the Band Apart seed money check shows up in the mail.
Allen: Do you feel he was correct in his assessment?
Matt: Is it a movie? Some people treat it like it is. That always shocks me. Do I think it's a movie? More importantly, do I think it's my movie? No. I think it's more along the lines of a "nice try". It holds a place in my heart, like yeah, I achieved something, but I'm not sure what.
Allen: Since this predated the digi-revolution, do you think that producer''s opinion would be different today?
Matt: That's an interesting question. Bloodletting was, to the best of my knowledge, the second feature ever produced on Mini-DV -- the first being Polymorph. We actually had to order our tapes from Sony because they didn't sell them in stores yet! I think what the producer suggested was that it doesn't look or sound like a "real movie", and that's something I wholeheartedly agree with. Unfortunately, my belief is, nobody wants to see something they could have gone out in their backyard and shot better -- and I've seen stuff shot in the wake of Bloodletting that just totally kicks its ass. I mean, stuff shot by a couple of kids in a back yard! I hear a lot of people remark, "Well, Attack of the Clones and Session 9 were shot on video!" Yeah, but they all look and sound and feel like a movie. You still have to be a professional, no matter what medium you shoot on.
Allen: How do you see the indi-horror scene of today?
Matt: I recently did an interview for a book about Internet's relationship with today's filmmakers, and I was asked what I thought about online review sites. I think the same answers applies to today's indie scene (and let's be clear, because some people consider Jesus' Son an "indie flick" and some people consider The House That Screamed an indie flick): Anybody can make a movie now. That can be a good thing. The next potential Martin Scorcese, who would Never have gotten a chance to hone his craft back in 1973, even 1983 or '93, can now go out, shoot something, edit it on his home computer, add visual and sound FX up the yin-yang, burn it to DVD or dump it to tape, slap it in a box, and it's a movie. It's a great idea, even a romantic idea, especially if that kid goes out to Hollywood, parlays his DV experiences into a legitimate career, and goes on to make a hundred-million dollar blockbuster someday. But the problem is, not everybody out there shooting these things is gonna be the next Martin Scorcese. They go out and shoot something most sensible moviegoers would consider unwatchable, burn to DVD, slap it in a box and it's a movie. And it's sitting on the same shelf with the guy who made the great DV movie. Pretty soon, your average moviegoer is gonna be trained not to rent or watch either one of them, and rent out Two Weeks Notice again, instead.
I think without an objective, professional standard, the indie thing will backfire on itself. Movies like Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead offered up things we couldn't get from big-budget Hollywood crap, but the thing is, they were shot well, edited well, directed well -- they were low-budget, but you could still view them as movies, as somebody's vision. If the only alternative to Dracula 2000 that we have now is watching some fifteen year old auteur's kid brother shamble around the woods in a flannel shirt, some bad zombie greasepaint and red food coloring while the ""low battery" light winks in one corner of the screen, I think I'll take my chances with The Matrix Reloaded. The basic objectivity is gone.
Allen: Pretty strong words for the man who wrote The Killer Eye.
Matt: (groaning) I did two days work on The Killer Eye, mostly altering stuff that couldn't be shot in a four-day shooting schedule. Don't be deceived; I handed in the script and knew, upon handing it in, that this movie should not be made.
Allen: With your writer for hire gigs, you don't receive the freedom you do on your own projects. Is it hard to work under those confines?
Matt: J.R. and I recently had this conversation, where we both decided we really hated being told what to do, but we're both really good at faking it. When somebody gives you money to write a movie, everything you would do goes out the window. That's the hardest thing to swallow. Your opinion is not the final word. Your favorite movies aren't your client's favorite movies. That's when you have to weigh in how much you want to make money as a writer, and how much you want to go off, live on your parents' couch and write the movies you wanna write. But I've written a ton of stuff for other people, and many of them went off and made money. By the end of the run, I was getting tired of gritting my teeth and doing things that I just knew were wrong. I was veering too far off the track.
Allen: How do you approach these writer for hire gigs?
Matt: There was a time, I think, where I approached them as writing, which is to say, I would jump in and get enthusiastic about it and try to bring something to the project. The more of these I've done, the more I've come to realize that most of these guys just want a typist. Literally, the last gig I worked on, BROTHERHOOD IV, I not only went through the paces of doing something I knew the director and producers wanted, I did about fifteen drafts of their combined notes where any faint trace of the writing I'd actually done was removed. The credit should probably read "Screenplay by Committee". That can be very disheartening.
Allen: You sound discouraged about the entire filmmaking process.
Matt: I think a lot of people in my position are; we got into the business just as the DTV boom of the late Eighties was winding down, so we -- or at least, I -- got in with a lot of enthusiasm and optimism. I think a lot of filmmakers could tell you that you have to bite the bullet on many, many things, just to get your check and live to fight another day.
Allen: How did your relationship with J.R. Bookwalter come about?
Matt: I've told this story a million times, but I took out an ad in the back of Fangoria magazine back in 1989. At that time, I had this screenplay I'd written and was desperate to make it. I got a few replies, mainly because it was still at a time when nobody was really shooting movies in their backyard and the low-budget community was wide open. One of the people who responded was J.R., and even though he really couldn't help me with getting my project made, he seemed to like it enough to want to work with me on projects he was interested in getting made, mainly, what wound up being THE SANDMAN.
Allen: How did your relationship with David DeCoteau come about?
Matt: J.R. was just finishing up making ROBOT NINJA, SKINNED ALIVE and GHOUL SCHOOL for Dave's company when he and I started talking. I think a year or so later, I was in L.A., crashing on Bookwalter's couch, and had met Dave by default. J.R. had approached him about financing THE SANDMAN and Dave liked the script enough enough that he had me write material for him. I think, once you fall ass-backwards into something, you just keep falling.
Allen: How has your relationships with both men evolved through the years?
Matt: I'm not so sure it ever evolved! Both men taught me a great deal, and for me, that's a 24-hour-a-day job. I think it's tough to maintain those kinds of friendships when the basis for it is the business, and everyone has their own agenda; you wind up in different parts of the world and caring about completely different things. That being said, I still try and maintain friendships with both of 'em.
Allen: Both men are extremely prolific in the indi-horror field. Are they similar to work with? Do they utalize you differently from one another?
Matt: Well, J.R. has a completely different agenda than Dave does, obviously, but beyond that, when I'm working for Dave, I'm also working for the companies that hire Dave, and when I work for J.R., I'm working strictly for him. I definitely think I get more freedom with Bookwalter, because he's more likely to let me develop something on my own -- our tastes are probably a lot more similar.
Allen: A solid majority of your writer for hire gigs come from DeCoteau, a famously out-of-the closet gay director who makes many gay-themed pictures. As a straight writer, how do you approach the material you’re assigned?
I honestly don't take it into consideration -- whenever I work for a director, I try and do what the director asks, even if it's something that I just steadfastly don't agree with. Writing gay-themed material doesn't bother me; I'm probably too old and have had my ass clobbered by too many psychotic women in my life for me to finish writing a BROTHERHOOD movie and then sit around like Al Pacino at the end of CRUISING and wonder what it all means.
Allen: How succesful are these films?
Matt: Well, that's the rub -- most of them are very successful. Dave tapped into a specific audience that likes these films and continue to patronize them, and since their budgets are deceptively small, it's a relatively small gambit for a worthwhile payoff. They're up to four BROTHERHOODs now, they just made ANCIENT EVIL 2, and I get an e-mail about every other day about RING OF DARKNESS playing on Showtime Beyond. Trust me, the moment the formula no longer works, they'll move on to something else.
Allen: Horror fans, in general, have often flamed you publicly much of your rent output, how do you respond to that? Is there something the fans don’t understand?
At the end of the day, they're not my movies, they're Dave's movies or J.R.'s movies or Regent Entertainment's movies. I agree with about ninety percent of what gets said, and if that includes "The screenwriter is a total hack", then that's the risk you take for writing a movie. As a writer-for-hire, I have to worry about making the people who sign my paycheck happy. It should be THEIR job to make the audience happy -- the audience writes THEIR paychecks. To a vast degree, those guys all live in a very insular world, they watch rental numbers and how much Blockbuster Entertainment or what have you pay for the domestic video rights, they don't sit back and think "Wow, so-and-so in Duluth, Montana thinks FINAL STAB is a piece of corn-filled catshit!". Writing "Matt Walsh is a total asshole" in a review won't make BROTHERHOOD V any better, but if you wrote Regent and expressed your displeasure about it, or Dave, or any of those guys, it might change.
Allen: What's always impessed me about you is how you'll even help those who have outright flamed you and your work. That says a great deal about your character.
Matt: Thank you! When I was starting out, I got really, really lucky and met a few really good people who were willing to help out some dopey kid, so I figure it's a karma thing. If somebody should have a shot, I'm only too happy to do what I can to help. Er ... not that I'm all that sure my help is gonna do all that much!
Allen: How is your music coming along?
Matt: If anything, the music industry is probably in an even worse place than the movie industry, but I managed to get the album out there, and I'm remastering it all and sprucing up the packaging a bit and pushing to see if I can get it on the radio, or do it as a live show sometime within the next year. Unfortunately, I didn't do something where you could just slap together a band and play a set in a few clubs, I hadda run out and do the $1.98 version of "The Wall". So it's a complicated notion to do anything with it.
Allen: How different is the creative process when creating music and cinema?
Matt: It's all really not that different. Today, you can go out and buy a Mini Mac for about six hundred bucks with a combo drive and either post a low-budget DV movie on it with no extra outlay of cash ... or make an album on it. Any artistic medium has the same requirements: if you have something to say, go say it! Some of the songs on the album were written when I was fifteen, and the mindset was the same as it was for getting into movies, at that time, that I'd have to have millions of dollars to do what I wanted.
I think I got into the idea of making albums because it was something I could exert a lot more control over -- I did everything on the album myself except sing. Even on the lowest-budget movie, you still have to rely on some sort of group of people, and then, you have to sweat the distributor, etc. Doing an album means, I can fuck everything up all by myself, without any outside help!
Allen: What's next for Matt Walsh?
Matt: The taste of cold gun-metal in my mouth. Seriously, I think the movie thing is finally winding down for me, especially as I get deeper and deeper into trying to get the album out there in the world. There's probably one more movie project on the horizon, and I'm hoping I can go out on a high note with that one. If not, please send all "Matt Walsh is a total asshole!" reviews to ...
Learn more about Matthew Jason Walsh by visiting his personal website.
This interview originally appeared in a slightly different form in Hacker's Source issue 14.