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Interview with dante tomaselli - 01.18.09
Heya Freaks and Minx! Dai here with Dante Tomaselli and we're talking about his films, inspirations, and what he has coming up! So sit back, relax, and observe the awesomeness of Dante Tomaselli!
Thank you so much for hanging out with me for a bit!
You're welcome. Very happy to be here.
How did you get your start in the film business?
Well, I started off fantasizing...about being a filmmaker ...specifically a
horror director...when I was around 3yearsold. That was the year The
Exorcist and Don't Look Now came out. 1973. My mother will tell you this too. Horror
imagery ...those kinds of visions were just etched in my psyche. And sounds.
I loved creating eerie sounds ...especially on an electronic organ we had in
the dining room. I remember I'd sit there for hours and go into a trance.
I'd draw graveyards while playing gloomy, low pitched music. I was a morbid kid
(laughs)! Also, I would hallucinate a lot. And I didn't take drugs. In
fact, I didn't even smoke my first joint until I was about 24 (laughs)! I was
always trying to be good Catholic boy growing up; I didn't do anything ...I
barely ever got in trouble in school. I was afraid I'd go to hell! The idea of
this place ...underneath me, this hole, frightened me so much. I felt it ...I
sensed it. Sometimes I'd imagine the landscape would shift, the earth would open
up...and I'd drop into it. These are paranoid fantasies, and I'm
sure ...metaphors for emotional problems I had, but for me, at the time, they were very
real. I also saw multicolored streaks in the atmosphere.
Sounds ...certain
sounds would trigger colors. Sometimes that color would be in the blackness of
my vision, peeking through. Like when you're lying on the beach on your back
and you're looking up at the sun. And other times...the colors were
projected ...right in front of me. I'd see shapes and designs too. Circles. For
example, during school, whenever the alarm would go off, not the bell, the
alarm ...I'd see spirals going up...They looked like mini tornadoes. I'd see them! I'd
ask some other kids, 'You don't see those?' Nope. After a while I told people
I was seeing ghosts! I truly thought I was! The alarms brought them! When
I'd reach out to touch...my hands would go right through. The same kind of
thing would happen if it was raining outside, it didn't matter if I was inside
or outside. The sounds of the rain would trigger these little pinpoints of
light, almost like fiber optics ...little floating dots ...Anyhow, I eventually
went to art school at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn...and majored in Film. Then
I transferred to the New York School of Visual Arts and eventually graduated
with a B.F.A. in Advertising Copywriting.
When I graduated, I continued to
take film courses and I placed an Ad in the back of the Village Voice looking
for a film crew to work on a horror film. With the people I got from that
Ad, I shot my first ambitious short film, Mama's Boy. Throughout my early and
mid twenties I made a series of experimental shorts. I was living in NYC and
absorbing everything, good and bad...I was a vessel. During this time one
thing was constantly nagging at me...I had throbbing pain in my shoulders and
neck. Ahhhh. The pain was so horrible it was causing my eyes to ache. It was
really distracting. I made it a goal to get rid of it. I visited different
chiropractors ...massage therapists, but that didn't work. Nothing worked. Then I
met an acupuncturist in Chinatown; he was an Herbalist who believed in
holistic healing. We tried acupuncture, which I was a little fearful of, I hate
needles...The pain went away for while...sort of...but then it came back,
slowly but steadily...and then worse than ever! One day I came to him, desperate
for help. He had a twinkle in his eye, I remember and then he did something
that shocked me. I'll never forget it. He burned my back in three spots...with
a fiery coal. I screamed out in pain. It hurt! But then it didn't. It felt
kind of numb, yet tingly. He told me he had to do it and that I had an energy
blockage. An energy blockage?!
A side of me wanted to sue him. I looked at the
mirror and I had three ugly burn marks. Then my mood suddenly changed ...I
walked out of his Chinatown office almost floating, I quickly felt all the pain
drain away. My eyes opened up. I felt like I could see, really see. I felt
no pain. There was some kind of powerful energy surging through me. I went
home and started writing. Faceless nuns...my childhood...old
neighborhoods ...anything that popped into my mind. I didn't sleep that night. I didn't need to
sleep. I didn't sleep for three nights straight! It was during this period, I
was about 26, that I wrote the screenplay for the feature length
DESECRATION. It poured out of me. I kept writing and writing. I eventually shot the full
length film and it made its World Premiere at the 1999 Fantafestival in
Rome, Italy. After that screening, Image Entertainment picked it up for DVD
distribution.
It was released in 2000 and it developed a cult following...With
the attention DESECRATION got me, I was able to secure funding for my second
feature film, HORROR. That was released in 2003 by Elite Entertainment...And
then a few years later I shot SATAN'S PLAYGROUND...which was released by
Anchor Bay in August 2006.
You have a cousin who made a pretty popular horror film quite a few years back. Was he one of your influences?
Yes ...Alfred Sole's ALICE, SWEET ALICE. It's one of my biggest influences. I
was just talking to Alfred on the phone a little while ago. He's definitely
been a mentor throughout the years. I'm not sure how much he realizes it. We
can both relate to each other very well, especially as cult filmmakers.
Plus, he's family...blood. We've been planning a remake of ALICE, SWEET ALICE. I
am directing, scoring and cowriting. Alfred is Production Designer. He
doesn't want a producer credit, he just feels strongly that he has to be the
Production Designer. That's great for me and should comfort ALICE, SWEET ALICE
fans, because we can have faith that the sets will come from the imagination of
the original director. Also, ultimately he has to give his blessing on the
screenplay. That's when financing will come together. Only then. He should
approve it and be satisfied with it. Some others have tried to write the
screenplay but they have failed. There has not been a satisfactory screenplay yet.
Michael Gingold...managing editor of Fangoria Magazine is my writing partner.
We are currently writing a remake that is faithful to the original. I know
I want to have the ever present...almost subliminal ...Catholic iconography
intact. Alice is still a Bad Seed type girl. And her sister, Karen, is a
beautiful, spoiled princess. Jealousy between sisters...intact...The remake should
have the same New Jersey Paterson type settings as the original. Of course
there should be a centerpiece church ...Rectory...Paterson apartments, creepy
abandoned buildings, the Paterson Falls...It will be a faithful remake, in
my hands. Plotwise, probably the only thing that will be different
is...after the brutal stabbing of Alice's Aunt Annie, Alice is sent to a strict
all girls Catholic Boarding School. The film is in development, but it's coming...
What were some of the films that influenced you to become a filmmaker?
John Carpenter's Halloween, David Cronenberg's The Brood, William
Friedkin's The Exorcist, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now,
George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Ridley Scott's Alien, Roman
Polanki's Rosemary's Baby, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Pete Walker's Frightmare,
Tourist Trap, The Sentinel, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Evil Dead,
Burnt Offerings, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, The Omen, Suspiria...I can
go on and on...
You have made three films now and are in preproduction with another, not including the documentary being made about you which we will cover in a bit. Can you tell us a little about each?
My first film is DESECRATION. The tagline is...Should all sinners be damned?
DESECRATION is an interior journey told through a series of dreams,
flashbacks...and hallucinations. It's about a boy haunted by his mother's death.
Only his religious grandmother understands what's happening. He's going to Hell.
It's a guilt trip.
My second film ...HORROR is a sequel to DESECRATION. I
wasn't through exploring that universe ...A group of runaway addicts lead
by...the damned boy from DESECRATION ...escape from a drug rehab and encounter
demonic forces in a rural farmhouse. The Amazing Kreskin plays a diabolical
preacher with hypnotic powers...
My third film...SATAN'S PLAYGROUND...is about a
vacationing family lost in the woods with the Jersey Devil lurking in the Pine
Barrens. Yes...Christopher Garetano is creating a documentary on me called
THE HORROR OF DANTE TOMASELLI. I have a feeling it will be
hallucinatory...and macabre. He's shown me some clips and it's like an outofbodyexperience.
I have had the pleasure to watch SATANS PLAYGROUND and HORROR. Very psychedelic films Dante! I really enjoyed them! Your story concepts seem to somehow involve religion in deeply seated undertones. Why is that?
I'm no theologian but I feel that religion will be the death of all of us.
It scares me...how one group feels the other is wrong...the only solution is
war...death. That's frightening. I'm not even speaking specifically about any
current situation. This has gone on forever, since the beginning of time.
It's so odd because God...whatever it is...is a ghost.
Also, I have noticed that you kept a lot of the same cast members in each film i.e.: Christie Sanford and Raine Brown to name a few. Tell us a bit of why that is and do you plan to keep bringing them back other films?
Oh I love Christie Sanford. I was 23 when she starred in my first short. She
starred in practically every one of my shorts in fact! That's why she's been
in every one of my full length movies. Christie's totally loyal and magical
to be with. She's a malleable actress who really delivers. Danny Lopes is
like that...Irma St. Paule...Rest in Peace...Ellen Sandweiss...Raine
Brown...Sal Piro...I love the idea of interlocking so I will continue to weave my
favorite performers in and out of most all my films.
Who have been some of the best people to work with in your opinion?
I'd say definitely those actors I just mentioned.
What is the name of your next movie and can you tell us a bit about it?
TORTURE CHAMBER. It has an all encompassing sense of gloom throughout.
Children are not what they seem. A crumbling abandoned castle with an underground
medieval torture chamber is the film's main setting. Cobwebbed
catacombs ...mysterious trapdoors...erie dungeon imagery galore. To anchor the
psychedelia, there's a small New England town called Smithville. The residents are
disappearing.
At the core is a religious family in deep psychic pain. I illustrate family
sickness here. Strip away all the horror trappings...and it's a twisted
family psychodrama. The picture will be filled with electric blue and red tones
and a kind of hazy celestial white...Lots of refracted light, fog choked
landscapes...This will be my goriest film. An important visual motif in TORTURE
CHAMBER is the image of flickering flames. This is a film about eternal
damnation.
Inspired by The Exorcist, Halloween, and my own nightmares, TORTURE CHAMBER
aspires to be one of the most frightening horror films in recent memory.
Coming back to a subject we touched on, you also are the subject a Christopher Garetano documentary, 'The Horror Of Dante Tomaselli'. How did this project come about?
Well, right after my second film, HORROR, there was talk about a documentary
on me. At the time Chris had a magazine called Are You Going? And there was
an issue devoted to my films called THE HORROR OF DANTE TOMASELLI. We were
discussing the idea of working together in some capacity. All the while Chris
was actually filming a documentary called HORROR BUSINESS...An insightful look
into the indie horror world of pain. He invited me to be in it. We had a
phone conversation and I explained what was happening and it just seemed obvious
that he should direct a piece on me...then I was happy when it turned into a
full fledged documentary film. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns
out. HORROR BUSINESS was a DVD hit for Image. I know it got a lot of great
reviews. I loved its nonlinear style. Chris is an outstanding filmmaker. I've
personally known him since my college days in NYC.
What can we expect to see in this documentary?
It's really up to Chris. I believe it's going to play out like a dream...or
nightmare. It will probably be told in a streamofconsciousness way. For
example, one night I recorded myself sleeping. I didn't believe that I snored. I
needed proof. Boy, do I snore (laughs). I sounded like a hissing cobra. I gave Chris the audio and he immediately had some trippy idea.
What are some of your accomplishments in the film industry that you are most proud of?
The release of each of my films. It's like moving mountains getting all of
this going.
What do you think of the industry today and where it's heading?
Well, because of the horrendous economy, money has pretty much dried up in
the independent filmmaking world. We have to think of more creative ways to
finance our horror films. We should all try to come together. I know, for sure
when I make it big, when it's my time in the spotlight ...because right now
I'm a cult oddity ...I will give back to the independent horror community. I
understand its struggles. At some point I'd like to Executive Produce...not
Produce ...Executive Produce...low budget horror films, with new directors I
believe in. That's probably tens years from now. I'd be the Pied Piper, giving
away final cut like a stash of gold. I know how important that is...for an
independent filmmaker...it means everything ...final cut. There's a lot of
talent out there just waiting for a chance. Like I said, I have to accumulate
more power, snag a theatrical hit...but I can see it somewhere on the horizon. I
think we should really applaud the ballsy Horrorfest 2009. Even if you don't
love all the movies at least be supportive of the cause. I don't
understand why so many of these critics...these online critics...are so cynical. I
mean, really...There's such a harsh, judgmental tone...that goes beyond
constructive to just plain abuse sometimes. This happens to almost all independent
horror releases, really. More often than not they become punching bags.
Everyone lighten up. It feels like these Internet pundits are just waiting to
pounce on each new release with a sadistic smile. I'm not just talking about
the treatment of one of my own films...this is rampant. No one, no director is
immune. It's like, 'Have a little compassion folks.' Be critical, yes, be
demanding, yes, but have a heart. It's all about tone.
If you could ultimately accomplish one thing, what would be the most important one for you to do?
Hmmm...to leave a legacy of unique horror films.
Thank you Dante once again! Any last words for me and our readers?
Help keep independent horror alive.
For more info on Dante, visit:
http://horrorthemovie.com
Its been a pleasure talking with you Dante.
Thanks guys for stopping by and checking out our interview with Dante Tomaselli! Be sure to check out HORROR and SATANS PLAYGROUND and keep an eye out for THE HORROR OF DANTE TOMASELLI.
From all of us here at HorrorNews.net...
Stay twisted,
Dai
