From The ComicBookBin.com

Interviews
Adam Green Brings Horror Back From The Dead
By Al Kratina
Sep 6, 2007 - 10:46:21 PM

Let’s face it. “Old school horror” doesn’t really mean anything. Back in the day, whenever that day happens to be, there were good horror films, there were bad horror films, and there were horror films made solely to turn a quick profit, just like today. There were horror films that tried to say something, and horror films that existed because the Internet didn’t have free porn organized by fetish quite yet, and a brief flash of PJ Soles’ left tit was all you had to get you through the night. But the term “old school horror” gets bandied about quite a bit by horror filmmakers looking to promote their film, and can mean mean anything from “retro” to “derivative” to “please God I hope this movie is better than Hostel 2”. But in Adam Green’s case, it may be the perfect term to describe Hatchet, his new slasher he wrote and directed released in theatres today.

Hatchet (read the Comic Book Bin review here), is not shockingly original. But that’s not its purpose. It’s a throwback to the great slashers films of the 80s, and updates them by building on their weaker elements. Films like Friday the 13 ^th had great, creepy villains, but terribly performances and dialogue that served only to further the plot to the next kill. Hatchet ’s villain, Victor Crowley, was created by Green during summer camp while a child, and though he’s got the bloodlust and facial deformity that identifies villainy in horror films and stupider Chuck Norris movies, the film is more than just its monster. Engaging actors Joel David Moore, Tamara Feldman, and Deon Richmond deliver the sharp and funny dialogue effectively, and the heart of the film is full of fun instead of the malice that infects the recent torture porn wave like rotten meat in an open sore. Put bluntly, the film is a lot of fun.

Green was inspired to make the film in order to counteract the recent glut of films he felt took the fun out of mass murder and impalement. Also Twisted Sister. He was inspired by Twisted Sister. I was inspired by Twisted Sister to stop listening to rock music and now I spend $30 and upwards on imported CDs from Norwegian murderers, but Adam Green decided to make a movie instead. It’s an great story, one that’s certainly more inspiring when heard rather than read, so I’ll leave it to others to transcribe how a series of encounters with Green’s idol, Dee Snider led to Hatchet. But there’s a lot more Green has to say about the state of horror. He took the time to answer some questions about the state of modern horror, and some of his favourite films. Excerpts from the chat follow.

CBB: What does “Old School Horror” mean to you.

AG: It basically means, to me, that this is the stuff that I grew up on. In the eighties you had, like unstoppable monsters and villains and killers, and like Freddy and Michael Myers and Jason and then that sort of beat itself to death and it stopped, and there were still slasher films in the 90s, but it was all these teen who-done it, Scooby Doo things, and now, in this new decade of horror, it’s all remakes and torture films. And, not that I haven’t enjoyed a lot of those, but I just wanted to kind of go back into why I fell in love with it in the first place. And that was for the villains. You know, way back in the day you had Dracula and the Wolf Man and Frankenstein, and then in the eighties we had the new generation of that, was the Jason and Freddy. Um, and I just, I kind of feel like, and kind of wonder, what’s next. And it’s not so much it’s a step backwards, as it is kind of taking what was good about it in the first place and bringing that back.

CBB: So, it’s kind of updating it for the new audience.

AG: Yeah. Um, one of the ways I described it was… when I saw Scream, I was so impressed, because for the first time, there was actually a good script in a slasher film. And it was, massively entertaining, and well-acted, there just was no more monster or gore. Um, so this is sort of merging the best of both worlds, sort of doing my sort of spin on it, since I come from a comedy background. But I love horror movies, and this is sort of how it all ended up. So, I don’t know if Hatchet necessarily re-invents the wheel, that’s not really what we were out to do, we were just sort of trying to make the movie that we wanted to see.

CBB : What are some of your favourites from that era?

AG: The Halloween franchise was probably my favourite, because their sequels sucked the least. Um, and uh, I love the original Nightmare On Elm Street. I think that’s still, to this day one of the most brilliant concepts ever. John Carpenter’s The Thing remake, and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, are two of my other absolute favourites. Another is actually a Troma film called Mother’s Day um, and I think, one of my favourite things about eighties horror was actually the mythology, it’s usually a quick story that tells who they are, and what happened to them, and why they’re still here, and that was what was so exciting about them. It made them kind of anti-superheroes, or rock stars.

CBB: Modern horror, you’ve mentioned that you see them as mainly remakes—

AG: And that’s not really a way of slamming them. Because some of the best films this decade I think were remakes. I think the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake is one of the best looking films I’ve ever seen, and I went in there wanting to hate it… and I liked it. I also really liked the Dawn of the Dead remake, um, but what’s discouraging is being somebody working in Hollywood, and you know, you get called into the studios all the time, and they want to hear your ideas, and they want to know, and literally, the tagline for Hatchet that said “It’s not a remake, it’s not a sequel, it’s not based on a Japanese one”, when I first showing the pitch to people, there was an executive that actually wrote that to me in an email.

CBB: Is there any other modern horror films that you think are worthy of mention?

AG: Oh man, The Descent, I haven’t actually been scared in a movie in so long, and that one really got me. I think it’s great. And I don’t, some people say that Pan’s Labyrinth is a horror movie, I don’t really think it’s a horror movie, but that’s probably the best movie so far this decade, I think.

CBB: Hatchet’s a really fun movie…

AG: One of the usual suspects, one of the bigger distributors, their note was that the movie just “didn’t get there”. And I said, can you describe what you mean by “get there”, so I can understand this? And they said, well, it’s not sadistic enough, and today’s audiences, they want to be repulsed, and this is more fun, and nobody really wants this right now. But oddly enough, in the year I've taken to campaign this thing all around the world, they're finding that the torture isn’t really working anymore, and they’re out of remakes because they’ve remade everything. And they’re sort of scrambling, because where’s horror going to go? And I don’t know if Hatchet’s the direction, or the answer to that, but the timing really couldn’t be better for a movie like this to come out, because this whole decade started off with 9/11, and now this whole War on Terror, it’s very depressing times, and the movies really reflected that, but people are ready to have fun again. When you pay that much money to go to a movie theatre with your friends, you want to eat popcorn and you want to enjoy yourself, and you want to walk out of there smiling, saying “that was cool.” You don’t want to walk out, feeling that your eyes got raped, and you want to throw up.

Thanks go to Adam Green for taking the time to talk to us at the Bin. Hatchet received a limited release today. It won’t make you throw up, I promise.

alkratina@comicbookbin.com

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