July 5, 2024

Reflections on Friday, July 5th, 2024 to coincide with the release of MaXXXine! On April 12th, 2008, just before dusk, I got in my car and made the trek from Lawrence, New York on Long Island to Limerock, Connecticut; a good 2 and a half drive, on what was to be my second ever “set visit” representing FANGORIA magazine.

The funny thing was… I had no idea what I was supposed to do on a set visit. No one ever explained to me how I was supposed to approach doing these. But thankfully, when I rolled up, I saw a familiar face, AJ Bowen, and was immediately set at ease. We’d already struck up a friendship online at this point, primarily because Mike C and I were among the earliest advocates for The Signal. But really, this was my first time actually hanging out with AJ! And even though I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, I just stuck close to him! That’s why the majority of the final article was mostly from his vantage point. He joked that Tom Noonan, who played his Satanic father in the movie, still hadn’t properly acknowledged him and probably thought he was a crew member, rather than playing his cinematic son! (Me introducing them to each other in the article is one of it’s funniest bits!)

With a lot of time to kill in between set-ups, I do remember him walking me through the house, pointing out Jade Healy’s incredibly authentic 80’s style set design, and eventually hanging out with the FX crew, Ozzy Alvarez and Danielle Noe as they were applying a face mask on her to portray the mysterious “Mother” in the attic. I snapped these few photos, one of which got me in a lot of trouble at the time.

After the set visit, it would be several months before my actual article would appear in the pages of FANGORIA magazine. Wanting to deliver something for the website and not disappoint Tony Timpone who was kind enough to give me this opportunity, I sent him over one of these stills and said, “you could probably run this as a tease if you get permission from the producers.” (Which, at the time, FANGORIA was notorious for never getting permission. And they didn’t in this case either!) So they ran it on the web, and withing mere minutes, my understanding is Ti was really, really pissed. (Rightfully so!)

Just for context, because random behind-the-scenes personal photos can never do justice to what something will actually look like on film, below is what Danielle looks like as the finished “Mother.” (Side note: I still, to this day, have no idea what Danielle actually looks like! She is forever embedded in my brain as Mother!)

I did get to watch them shoot the “sacrifice” scene from the finale in the basement, and the on-set photographer took a photo of me sitting in the center of the pentagram, but alas, I never got a copy of that photo, no doubt due to my blunder with sharing an early photo on the FANGO site.

Regardless, the experience got me warmed up for how to approach these assignments on the fly. How to just wing an interview and go with the flow. Especially when the very nature of shooting a movie is hectic and you never know how much time you’ll get with any given cast member or the director. In my case, I was lucky that for the final piece, I did get to sit in the living room with AJ, Mary Woronov, and Tom Noonan. I only got, maybe, 5-10 minutes with Ti in between set ups, but I just re-read the finished article before writing this up, and I’m super proud of how it came out.

The House Of The Devil went on to become a much celebrated cult classic movie, and it’s probably the biggest film I got to cover for FANGORIA. So, I’m so humbled that this got to be my small contribution to the preservation of a bit of horror history in the magazine. It also feels like a great book-end to revisit The House Of The Devil now with Ti wrapping up his XXX trilogy this weekend with MaXXXine; both of which touch upon that “Satanic Panic” era of the 80s that seems to continue to intrigue and inspire Ti as an artist.

You can read the final FANGORIA ARTICLE RIGHT HERE or by clicking the teaser page below.

By the time the movie came out, I was writing for Shock Till You Drop, and did all new interviews with Ti West, star Jocelin Donahue, and another chat with AJ Bowen, this time in front of the infamous Michael Myers house in South Pasadena. Those are all linked below!

STYD Ti West Interview
STYD Jocelin Donahue Interview
STYD AJ Bowen Interview

This was now 16 years ago (!) but I’m so thankful to be here to share these experiences, and the work with all of you. Hats off to Ti West for the incredible body of work he’s amassed since then as one of our modern “Masters of Horror.” (PS: I love his Western In The Valley Of Violence too!)