Tales of Halloween Interview Spotlight: Andrew Kasch and John Skipp
Horror hits like V/H/S and The ABCs of Death have proven that the anthology film format has been revived, and so a new omnibus is afoot for 2015 – assembling the likes of Neil Marshall (The Descent), Darren Bousman (The Devil’s Carnival), and Lucky McKee (The Call) behind their collective cameras.
Epic Pictures Group financed and produced Tales of Halloween, which brings together ten segments from different directors into one unified series of stories, all set in an Anytown, USA, suburb terrorized by ghouls, ghosts, and slashers on one, er, epic Halloween night.
We had a chance to chat with co-directors Andrew Kasch and John Skipp to get the skinny on their super-special segment in the spooky series…
Dread Central: What’s the name of your story, who wrote it, and who is in it?
Andrew Kasch: Our segment is called “This Means War,” and it was an idea I conceived when we were throwing out various pitches. I’m a massive fan of haunted attractions and really wanted to do something in that world. Our first pitch was set in a Christian fundamentalist Hell House, which scared people for a variety of reasons. So we ran with the idea of dueling suburban home haunters, and Skipp came up with the brilliant notion of having it be a generational “old vs. new” clash of horror styles – so we have Dana Gould playing the classy Universal/silent film lover and James Duval as the Rob Zombie gore-loving metalhead.
John Skipp: I rode into horror as part of the splatterpunk wave of the 80s and was immediately swept up in the “loud vs. quiet horror” debate. Which always cracked me up because – while I’m a big fan of deliberately shocking content and overt, crazy-ass imagery – I also love the artistry of atmosphere and mood, subtlety, and suspense in the classic works.
So I came up with Boris and Dante: two guys at very opposite ends of the spectrum, whose yard displays exemplify those extremes. Boris (Dana) does his yard up almost entirely in black-and-white mode, with German expressionist trees and a graveyard/mausoleum set; whereas, Dante (Jimmy) has an explosion of garish color washing over his ramshackle gorehound assembly of mutilated bodies and hot chicks and such.
To me, these are two great tastes that taste great together. And having them fight to the death over which one is “better” struck us as a hilarious way to address this huge rift in the horror community in a way that’s both lampooning and loving. In that sense, we’re trying to do what GALAXYQUEST did with the Star Trek community: showing the absurdity, while embracing the contradictions and having a laugh at ourselves in the process. All in the spirit of fun.
DC: How were you approached to do this project, and what about it made you say ‘Yes’?
AK: The whole thing happened during a dead-celebrity party several of us were at. Axelle, Gierasch, and I were talking about always wanting to do an anthology film, and Axelle tossed out the idea of something Halloween-themed. The three of us met the next morning for coffee and jotted down a wishlist of filmmaker friends. Once our pal Mike Mendez brought on Epic Pictures, it all just snowballed from there. The idea of working with so many people who I respect and the fact that we were given carte blanche to run wild was hugely appealing. The challenge was pulling off an ambitious script on a small budget and two-day shooting schedule, which was pretty grueling.
JS: I totally rode in on Andrew’s tail feathers with this. We’re always dying to create cool new cinematic weirdness. So when the opportunity came up, we jumped.
DC: What were some of the guidelines given to you by producers? What was the most challenging aspect?
AK: The big thing that I think everyone wanted to do was build in connective tissue for the film, which meant throwing in a lot of fun bits with reoccurring characters so that it all feels like one big cohesive movie. For example, you’ll see several main characters from other segments in the background of our scenes. It makes the movie one giant fun Easter Egg hunt!
JS: I ain’t gonna lie. This whole thing has been a tussle from beginning to end, which is what you get with this many master chefs in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure I wrote eight thousand drafts of a 10-page script before Andrew jumped in and helped smooth it all out. But I like what we got and love what we shot.
DC: Dip into your story a little bit, and tell us what we can expect…
AK: We wanted our segment to be fast and fun, while lovingly poking fun at the extreme parts of horror fandom. We’re all opinionated genre geeks who live and breathe this stuff, so crafting a movie where two eccentric fans declare war on each other over their tastes was a chance to take our daily Facebook and Twitter debates to the next level. And our hope is that all horror fans can relate and identify with these guys on some level… cause at the end of the day, they’re both doing it for the love of the game.
JS: Yep! Past that, I think people will have fun with how much we whipped this all into a fucking frenzy. Dana and Jimmy are amazing. Absolutely love what they did. And once the crowd starts gathering to watch these two goofballs slam into each other, the energy blasts off the screen. We had, like, SIXTY PEOPLE lined up on the sidewalk in this nice suburban neighborhood, alternately cheering and cringing at the mayhem unspooling, giving the whole thing a weirdly epic feel far exceeding our modest budget.
And for people who care about oddball cameos, we got oodles. Lombardo Boyar (BIG ASS SPIDER!) is, as always, one trillion percent hilarious. Elissa Dowling (CHEAP THRILLS) is, as always, both hotter and cooler than hell. Felissa Rose (SLEEPAWAY CAMP) screams like nobody’s business. Ricky Grove (ARMY OF DARKNESS) tries to call the cops. Adam Green (HATCHET) plays the vomiting cop. Caroline Williams (TEXAS CHAINSAW 2) cheers wildly. And rising star Graham Denman (THE DIVINE TRAGEDIES) and Thomas Blake (POINT BREAK LIVE) utterly kill as Dante’s roadies.
Speaking of L.A. theater, we’ve got the stars of both of the greatest H.P. Lovecraft plays ever staged on Earth: Graham Skipper (RE-ANIMATOR: THE MUSICAL) and Frank Blocker (THE CALL OF CTHULHU).
On the literary end, our frequent genius collaborator Cody Goodfellow (REPO SHARK), the brilliant Laura Lee Bahr (HAUNT), and Lisa Morton – president of the HWA (Horror Writers’ Association) and an awesome writer herself – staked out their claim. Our STAY AT HOME DAD star, Alisha Seaton, is there. You won’t see Andy Merrill (the voice of Adult Swim’s THE BRAK SHOW), but he’s there. As is cult director Charles Pinion (RED SPIRIT LAKE) and Brian Bubonic of L.A.’s outsider art-fave, The Hyaena Gallery. The list goes on and on.
Bottom line, though: I think what horror fans will dig most is watching Boris and Dante kick the shit out of each other. Everything else is gravy.
DC: What are some of the upsides of an anthology, as opposed to a feature length one-plot film?
AK: The upside is that you get to cut right to the core of a story without the fat. Way too many horror films don’t have enough ideas to sustain a feature runtime, but when you can make the same statement in a short format, it can be tremendously effective.
JS: I’ve always loved anthologies. Have edited a shitload of ’em in book form. And what I love most is the diversity of angles of attack. You get a bunch of artists staring at the same thing – in this case, Halloween – and riffing with all their heart and skill at something they care about deeply. It’s the juxtaposition that knocks me out. The fly’s eye view.
Every single writer/director on this thing took their own take on the subject. The result, I suspect, will be a panorama. And I’m deeply excited to see it all cut together into one giant love letter to the horror field and cinema at large.
DC: What’s your favorite Halloween movie?
AK: Aside from the obvious (John Carpenter), I adore Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat.
JS: Mine is Creepshow, flat-out. It’s the only one I watch religiously, every year. The stories don’t take place on the holiday proper, but the setup with the pumpkin in the window totally places us there. And honestly, I’m hoping that Tales of Halloween is gonna become a party favorite for years to come. The movie I’d annually watch, as a tradition, even if I wasn’t part of it. That’s what we’re all shooting for. And dearly hope people love it as much as we do.
DC: What was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid? Do you dress up as an adult on the night of 10/31?
AK: I went as a battle-scarred Terminator one year and really freaked out the neighbors. And I haven’t stopped dressing up for Halloween. This year, I was Will Graham from “Hannibal,” and my best friend, Buz, was the Stagman. We were such a cute couple!
JS: Honestly? I loved being a zombie back in the 70s, long before it was popular, mostly because constantly refreshing my head wound with blood kept it nice and shiny. But my favorite Halloween costume ever was going in bloody Goth leather drag, as a grown-up, taking my kids out trick-or-treating. The fact that nobody knew I was a man until I said, in basso-profundo, “THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” at the end was hilarious.
You learn a lot about your neighbors that way!
Andrew Kasch and John Skipp
Tales of Halloween will showcase the following ten short stories:
- “TRICK” Directed by Adam Gierasch
- “BAD SEED” Directed by Neil Marshall
- “GRIMM GRINNING GHOST” Directed by Axelle Carolyn
- “THE WEAK AND THE WICKED” Directed by Paul Solet
- “FRIDAY THE 31st” Directed by Mike Mendez
- “THE RANSOM OF RUSTY REX” Directed by Ryan Schifrin
- “THIS MEANS WAR” Directed by Andrew Kasch and John Skipp
- “THE NIGHT BILLY RAISED HELL” Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
- “SWEET TOOTH” Directed by Dave Parker
- “DING DONG” Directed by Lucky McKee
The film has an ensemble cast including Pat Healy, Barry Bostwick, Noah Segan, Booboo Stewart, Greg Grunberg, Clare Kramer, Alex Essoe, Lin Shaye, Dana Gould, James Duval, Elissa Dowling, Grace Phipps, Pollyana McIntosh, Marc Senter, Tiffany Shepis, John F. Beach, Trent Haaga, Casey Ruggieri, Kristina Klebe, Cerina Vincent, John Savage, Keir Gilchrist, Nick Principe, Amanda Moyer, Jennifer Wenger, Sam Witwer, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Ben Woolf, Caroline Williams, Robert Rusler, Cameron Easton, Austin Falk, Madison Iseman, Daniel Dimaggio, Natalie Castillo, Ben Stillwell, and Hunter Smit.
Cameos include Joe Dante, John Landis, Adam Green, Adam Pascal, Adrianne Curry, Mick Garris, Lombardo Boyer, Graham Skipper, Stuart Gordon, Greg Mclean, Spooky Dan Walker, and Adrienne Barbeau.
Axelle Carolyn created the concept and brought the filmmakers together for this unique production. Tales of Halloween is being produced by Patrick Ewald and Shaked Berenson of Epic Pictures Group along with Mike Mendez and Axelle Carolyn. Composers Frank Ilfman (Big Bad Wolves) and Joseph Bishara (The Conjuring) are both attached to the project.
Synopsis:
Ten stories are woven together by their shared theme of Halloween night in an American suburb, where ghouls, imps, aliens, and axe murderers appear for one night only to terrorize unsuspecting residents.
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