September 22, 2010

For such a nice guy, Marcus Dunstan sure has written some of the most disturbing, disgusting and deranged movies that we’ve seen in the horror genre over the course of the last decade! With his writing partner Patrick Melton, the screenwriting duo got their big break on the 3rd Season of Project Greenlight which chronicled the making of FEAST.

That project became an instant cult classic and went on to spawn 2 FEAST sequels. The pair followed it up with THE COLLECTOR (a riff on THIEF meets MANHUNTER), which marked Dunstan’s directorial debut, but not before tackling the SAW series starting with SAW IV and carrying on with each subsequent sequel.

Marcus met up with MH for lunch at our favorite Burbank diner where we talked about everything from his grandparent’s influence on him to the making of the FEAST trilogy right through to the challenges of crafting the SAW movies. He even dropped a few hints on the upcoming SAW 3D. Sit back and check out this epic exclusive interview! Read on!

What are your earliest recollections of the horror genre? What were the first things that really scared and had an impact on you?

The first movie I watched through my fingers was SUSPERIA. The first horror movie I saw in the theaters was CREEPSHOW 2 and my grandmother took me. And the first horror movie that I sought, that I absolutely had to see was the first CREEPSHOW. And that was in a Hollidome during a snow storm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. And I begged and begged and begged to get the illustrated CREEPSHOW comic, which I had read so much that the spine completely broke and I had all the brightly colored Bernie Wrighston pages all over my lap. So on this night, my sister, my mom, my dad and I all piled into this bed and up came the show and I’d turn the pages with it to match along. I kept saying “this is coming up!” And our family lived up to the tagline, “You’ll never have more fun being scared”. That was it! It was just wonderful. I luckily fought and fought and was able to convince them to let us watch CREEPSHOW.

How old were you around this time?

Well, CREEPSHOW came out in 82, so I was 7. By the time it hit HBO, this was probably 83? For the second one, I was definitely a little older and my grandmother was an ER nurse in the Iron Ranges of Minnesota and she and my grandfather were a wonderful couple. We would bond watching The Avengers late at night or The Night Stalker and make popcorn. If I had an overnight with my grandma, that meant we could go to the video store. I saw DIRTY HARRY for the first time with her. So now it came time for us to go to the movies and I told her, “Grandma! We have to see CREEPSHOW 2!” She was like, “You’re right. We do have to see CREEPSHOW 2!” (Laughs) This is a woman that was just so wonderful. When I would go get Fangoria magazine, I had to get permission from an adult to buy it from the local comic shop and she had walked me in and issued said permission. The same to get this old comic book called Gore Shriek, which I think had about 6 issues. Talk about shaping someone and giving them a chance, she gave me my first still camera and ultimately out of nowhere on my 16th birthday, she presented me with my first camcorder. We didn’t have a lot of bucks to go around, but this was amazing. It was a really good one! And I loved it. So then all of a sudden I wasn’t just in front of my friend’s camcorder, I had one too so we could start doing shots from two angles. And before I knew it, I just started to sit behind it and watch. It all spiraled beautifully out of control from there – with Fangoria again, I was able to get all those rubber body parts from the ads in the back of that courtesy of my grandmother, yet again. She said “you should probably have these for your battle scene!” (Laughs) The last conversation I had with her, she knew that FEAST was getting made, so that was great. It was one of those relationships where I think every hope of our macabre dark humored shapened days came into sharp focus in that moment. She bowed out from our plane of existence, but knowing I was about to make my first horror movie. That bizarre violent strangeness that was about to happen (FEAST) was one of the best things that could have ever happened and she was so tickled by it. She’d chuckle and say “Oh Marcus! How’d you ever think of that…” She’d stop herself before saying “…stuff!” (Laughs) We quoted her many times in the script for FEAST. Her way of cursing, which was so staccato and hilarious. That was it, the iron range of Minnesota probably did more to shape me than several years I spent in Illinois. My grandparents, people with an open mind and a great sense of humor.

You mentioned getting your first camcorder at 16. It’s always interesting to me when you realize as a film viewer “wow, somebody made this”. When did you realize what went into films and when did you decide that you wanted to try to do that?

When holding that camera and actually shooting things, there was a delight, an absolute delight in becoming something else and that just evolved the more I did it. When I was a kid, I had terrible acne, so with filmmaking, I could put on a mask and stand behind the camera. But I still could exist because what I made could exist. I was very shy about standing up in front of any classroom. But there was this wonderful teacher, Sue Ellen Rickelman of World History who said to me, “ya know, you could turn in a video for your history report.” Not only would I not have to stand in front of anybody but we can hit the lights off in the class and they’d have to watch a world that I helped influence? I knew that she loved the CONAN soundtrack, so everything I did had the CONAN soundtrack on it. And the more violent, the better! They were weird twist movies where like Cleopatra would have an affair with Ramses. (Laughs)

You’ve been writing with Patrick Melton now for quite a while. What were the origins behind that working relationship? When did you guys meet and decide to become collaborators?

Well, we met when we were both in school at the University of Iowa. It just so happens we had a ton of things in common, besides proximity. We both were projectionists at the movie theater. We both had a love for these puffy VHS box movies that we’d sneak and watch all through our formative years in high school. And while Patrick was definitely on the writing track there, I was getting my hands on new cameras. I was still trying to blow things up and make things that were violent, yet entertaining with a twist hopefully. Those years went on by, and suddenly we were no longer under the wing of a University that gave us a curriculum and structure for our life. Now you either pick your parents basement or an adventure. Patrick was heading on out to California and a year later I showed up, ended up staying in North Hollywood. In under a year, I ended up moving into his old apartment while he moved right upstairs. By Halloween weekend, I had completely run out of money, I had nothing left. I was shooting the last of the super 8 cartridges that I had to make trailers for things that I wanted to do. I was lucky to get a hold of a computer, one that I borrowed from Pat, and I had a ream of paper left and that was it. Patrick had the idea, why don’t we try to do one of these low budget movies? We’ve seen ‘em all. Why don’t we write the one that is familiar enough to rope them in but different enough to be something that we wanted to see? And on Halloween weekend, the first words of FEAST started to be written… That was 1999. The movie wasn’t made for another 5 or 6 years, but that was it. It’s been 10 years now, and since then we’ve been trying to gross each other out and make each other laugh and shock a few folks along the way, hoping that some night, our little window of the world is going to keep some kid up and maybe he’ll watch it through his fingers and be inspired to come up with the next great idea. The next great horror movie always stems from someone who stayed up a little too late watching something they shouldn’t have before they were mature enough. Their mind is so fertile that they’ll just take it in directions that we could never dream.

Well, that’s the funny thing, right now on cable, kids are catching things like FEAST and THE SIGNAL and HATCHET and all the SAW movies. Movies that you and a lot of young filmmakers are making now. So the cycle is definitely continuing.

I’ve had a number of odd occurrences just based on the slightest affiliation with SAW. And it’s amazing, it became a shared representation of something frightening and shocking and whatnot. When James Wan and Leigh Whannell were concocting it, it seemed to be a reaction to – a dissatisfaction with horror movies at the time. And it was angry and mean and seriously wanted to hurt, but be clever and reward the mind. And now, wouldn’t you know it, old Ghostface from SCREAM will be staring at us again this April. (Laughs) So now that the blood and sincerity and the earnest nature and the twists & turns from the detective stories with adults is offering it’s final chapter with SAW 3D, the clever one about the young folks and the adults and the one with the acknowledgment of a pattern from the decades prior, is back and giving it a new voice. I like that statute of justice, one pot always filling another forming some semblance of equilibrium.

Well, the thing about SCREAM 4 is that you have to assume that they’re going to acknowledge everything that’s happened in horror in the last decade, the same way the first one did. It’ll be interesting to see them pull off that balance.

Oh yeah.

Just to give you an idea of how much I love FEAST – My favorite film of all time is EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN. Hands down. Everything about it. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s brilliant and innovative. It made me aware of the camera and storytelling and how movies were made. I didn’t follow Project Greenlight, so I didn’t know FEAST from that. I heard about FEAST because I was at a Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in New York and they showed the opening scene and it blew me away. So with that said, FEAST became my favorite horror movie since EVIL DEAD 2. It’s just got the same manic energy, the same humor, the same vibe. I can tell you guys were EVIL DEAD 2 fans! What was the kernel of the idea, the seed that set that one off?

What John Gulager was definitely able to do, the lineage of his family – yeah there was a lot of EVIL DEAD 2 in it, but there was also a lot of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD in it. And both films knew when to be serious. RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD let the threat be humorous a little bit, but fortunately in a bizarre way. For example the “send more cops” line. It was serious for the threat at least, but amusing for us the audience because we knew what was going to happen! Henrietta in the basement in EVIL DEAD 2 was terrifying! She was delighted with what she/he was doing, but there was an unapologetic glee to that mayhem. And what was missing from those movies, if I went back to what Pat and I were thinking when we wrote FEAST, was that nobody reacts the way that people would to these things. If this happened in my little home town of 8000 year round residents, if it was last call at the local bar? It’d be hilarious. It’d be tragic! But how people would deal with that is the way they’d deal with somebody that just looked at their woman! Oh, and now her head’s gone. What are you going to do now? All your weaponry is in your truck and you’re too drunk to open it. What are you going to do now? Just that simple scenario, an ape-shit scenario befalling a mid-Western reaction; that was it for us. That was its course. If we wanted to go really deep, we could say it’s actually a metaphor for the creatures being Republicans literally devouring the middle and lower class. I mentioned that to one actor and they were like, “Why am I doing this movie?” (Laughs) It’s actually bigger than that! I reached deep for that explanation. It’s about the fun of the shock and the awe. That’s where our idea for it stemmed from, and what Gulager was able to do was keep it serious so the laughs could be funny, and the adrenaline intense. The kernel? Where’d it come from? Just the idea of a guy kicking the door open and saying “hey everybody’s about the get their ass kicked!” And then his head’s gone. Then it’s a submarine movie and it’s just about getting peeks of everything outside of that. That one scene where he comes in and gives that whole speech, that was the one scene that was never touched. It was like OK, if we have a dollar to make this thing, if this scene takes .90 cents, spend it! We’ll figure everything else out. Instead we’ll chase an extension cord attached to a body. We’ve already seen enough of the creature to know it’s nasty. So OK, when we’re chasing an extension cord, we already know what’s at the end of it. That whole movie was a wonderful experience. For Pat and I, there was also a delight in being naïve enough to not have a boundary. There could’ve been another instinct that was applied when we wrote that. We could’ve been looking at the remakes of Japanese movies and thought “we probably shouldn’t do creatures, let’s do something like that.”

But you didn’t cater to what was going on in horror then, and I appreciate that you opted to make a creature feature instead. When FEAST came out, it definitely felt like its own thing.

And yet if you look at the plot, it’s FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. It takes place in a bar! When we first wrote it, it was supposed to be in a casino. It was supposed to have an entire micmac burial ground vibe, which would’ve been way more expensive. I thought OK, you can try to run from it and try to tell people that it isn’t similar to that other film, or you embrace it and make examples of why it’s different. So what we wanted to do was start to build a universe out from that. FEAST is what happens when EVIL DEAD 2 hits your bar. THE COLLECTOR was about what happens when a few Dario Argento slashers get loose in a house. So we’re hugging what we love, the movies that kept us up so late and hoping to put enough originality on a spin while acknowledging a frame work. The jokes in FEAST are all about familiar set-ups, but with “I didn’t see that coming” pay-offs. So the advantage of having something similar to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN was you already know what this is. This is people that are going to be stuck, they’ll have some flashy personalities and they’ll probably all die one by one. You start to set it up so you’re like “oh, he’s the cocky guy. I know he’s going to go last – Oh, his head’s gone!” “She’s the hot one so she’s – what? She’s smart?” (Laughs) We assumed that you’d see it because it’s a monster movie, but now you’ll really enjoy it if you’ve seen all these other horror movies, because we’re playing on what you know. FEAST was a great first movie because it was powered by a lot of enthusiasm for everybody that was on that. There was something happening everyday that was vulgar, humorous, dangerous or exciting. Everyday there was something going on and it kept getting crazier and what a wonderful cast. They were sticky from head to toe everyday, but it was a delight to be there. Since then, Pat and I have been fortunate enough to observe other kinds of horror movies being made, I don’t know if there’s ever that mad glee like that first time, when that well endowed creature comes running through the room. That doesn’t happen often, and that even brought the most jaded folks over to take a look. (Laughs)

One of the most humorous aspects of FEAST is the opening character stats. Letting you know right off the bat exactly who everyone is, what their probability of survival was in a few lines of text. Was that always in the script from the beginning?

Yes. And at the time, that influence was plucked really from what I loved about THREE KINGS. It had these rapid fire intros to characters, which were great. They’d define themselves through actions anyways, but I thought we’d never seen that in a horror film. And you know what you can do with a horror film? You could acknowledge the stereotypes and then lie! Totally acknowledge them and play with it. I love giving all this detail into a character that’s dead 2 seconds later. (Laughs) That’s funny. And it’s also a tough joke to sell to the actor! The studio’s like “Why do we need to know all this about this person?” That’s the point. No one ever knows dick about victim number one, but we’re going to tell you everything. His hopes, his dreams, he was college bound. He was going to invent the post-it note, BUT unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out.

You mentioned the cast before. Judah Friedlander, Henry Rollins, Krista Allen, Balthazar Getty, Sean Penn’s mom Eileen Ryan; all terrific actors. As the writer’s, how was it for you and Pat to see these people embodying the characters from this script you guys started back in 1999?

Oh it was wonderful. They exceeded what we ever could’ve imagined.

Was Jason Mewes in there the whole time?

That character’s name at one point was Sniff. And he was really, really foul, but then all of a sudden, they cast it and it was Jason Mewes. And it was so unmistakingly Jason Mewes. You can’t hide that. So there was a round table discussion and there was Ben Affleck, Chris Moore, Roger Nygard, Patrick, myself and I believe Mike Leahy and the topic of discussion was punching up the character cards at the beginning. When we got to Sniff. “Sniff’s Jason Mewes, right?” I think it was Melton that said “Why don’t we just say it’s Jason Mewes?” (Laughs) And the whole table doubled over and turned bright red, because all of a sudden it told what the rest of the joke was going to be. Occupation: Actor. Life Expectancy: Has already exceeded life expectancy. So that was a bit of fun when that came together. To think, here’s a contest put together product through Project Greenlight. And here I was, the guy who went to see CREEPSHOW 2 with his grandma, surrounded by icons of humor and Oscar winners and my buddy from college and we couldn’t believe that they were focusing their massive pull and talent, taking time out of their careers that were miles beyond our wildest dreams, to make a down and dirty offensive creature feature. That was just one of the many charms.

Through that experience on the first FEAST, you and Patrick have had a wonderful relationship with the Gulagers. What can you say about your initial introduction with them and how your relationship flourished into practically family?

Well, we were honored to learn from them. My first pretty darned serious relationship, I was talking through the rough beats of it with them. Because as a family unit, they’re so unique and wonderful and bonded. They’re lives I see as a reaction and an existence because of art. The idea of the film, the shoot, the edit, the production, that’s when they’re at their most alive. That isn’t the grind, that’s the reward for them. It all boiled down to one moment. During FEAST, at the end of a pretty rough and tumble schedule, there were 3 stages up and running. You had the closet here, the corner bar here and the main hallway for where Judah was going to get vomited on. John was running between all three. At one point, I showed up just to see what was going on and John was in a different room. And the reason nobody could find the entire Gulager family is because they were working, shooting stuff that is in the film, in complete silence, only with a few gestures. No bullhorn, no command. I walked in and saw John holding his own camera, Diane holding the light, I think his brother Tom was pumping fake smoke, and Clu was using his cowboy hat to wave it as John drifted over the Dias De Les Mortes elements of set décor that were provided by Clark Hunter. And I think they even brought in some from their own kitchen. Sure enough, that shot is in the movie. Sure the flick’s got these good actors in it, but there’s this shot that starts to tell us we might be in a horror movie and that’s how it was created. And what it represented was like, wow, no one can find them because they’re so into it, pulling it off with gentle hand gestures and whispers. I’m endlessly fascinated by how that family’s vision sees the world and how they live and thrive in art. It’s great. The world is a hell of a lot more interesting with their films in it.

The FEAST sequels, FEAST 2 and FEAST 3 seemed like a lot more of a collaborative effort, especially with the Gulagers. So what were your thoughts when the prospect of doing a sequel, let alone two came up?

That happened at a party. Maybe it was the Goldon Globes? A representative from the DVD company came up to us and was like “I gotta tell you, FEAST made a shitload.” We were like “yeah, thanks!” We walked around the room and sure enough, another executive from Dimension came over and was like “Guess what? We’re making two more!” And the deal was made in two weeks. The thing is, financially those budgets were very low and at this point, there’s gotta be a reason to do it. And there were still some middle fingers we had there. By this point, the serious horror movie was still out there, dominating. The PG-13 horror was just getting limp and more limp. So we thought… well… no one’s killed a baby yet. (Laughs)

And so the true origin of FEAST 2! (Laughs) Because the follow-up FEAST movies were done back to back and on a limited budget, were there things you guys wanted to do that became impossible to pull off? For example, did you ever have a definitive origin for the creatures?

Oh yeah, the creative freedom on the FEAST sequels was wonderful. The problem with creative freedom and small resources is that something’s gotta give. The scripts were created and we worked all the way up to the writer’s strike, and then our hands were tied. I could not do anything about it as the budget’s for two already low budget movies were evaporating. That was hard. Yeah, lots of ideas and concepts, but thanks to Gulager’s passion and his ability to literally pull magic out of thin air, he was always able to deliver those beats no matter what they were. I love that the crew build this actual school bus on a hydraulic lift to simulate the bus actually driving out, but ultimately the completed shots after all was said and done – Gulager bought a miniature school bus on eBay, sand from a putt-putt course, and straws with two home consumer cameras slightly slowed down. I tell ya, you watch them all together and you think “that’s awesome”. The miniature looks better than the real thing. I just don’t know of any other director that would do that! Because the process of seeing your written material delivered and then all of a sudden you lose the resources to make it happen, it can be agonizingly defeating, but no, he went rogue and did it. He made it happen. It was thrilling to watch him do his thing.

Well, John seems to be the type of filmmaker that really cares for the material and is willing to go the extra mile. For example, I love that opening Super 8 footage for the first FEAST.

And the second two as well. Something like that, so beautiful, so classic and so unique to that project. You write that into the script that we’re going to start off with this Super 8 footage, and you’ll hear, “Nah, we don’t need that.” So he goes and does it anyways and those same people are like, “Now, I love that beginning!” Of course you do. What does a guy have to do? Directors essentially have to go out and pre-make the movie, show it to you and hope that you’ll still give them permission to do it again. It’s hard. You’re always in a fight for creating imagination with people. But at the same time, when there’s more and more money at stake, you have to. The act of pre-creating helps you get it right.

Would there ever be a FEAST 4?

(Laughs) Well…there’s so many things that we could never get to, so yeah, we’d love to. FEAST 4: ON THE FLOOR was our title! And by that point, it’s to embrace literally where no man or beast has ever gone before. The level of offensive would be through the roof.

Were Krista Allen and Balthazar Getty characters ever in your script for FEAST 2?

Yes and it was an awesome scene. There was literally another 10 minutes of the first FEAST where those characters were all supposed to come back. Hot Wheels, Bozo and Heroine 2 as she was left named, and it was key scene, we really wanted to do it. But when you approach actors and say “hey, remember that movie you guys did for 2 bucks? Guess what, we’re going to do another one and now we can offer you .50 cents! Oh yeah! It’s going to be twice as hot and hurt like hell! Come on board!” Unfortunately everybody involved to my knowledge was willing to make it work, but honestly I think scheduling really just f-ed it up. You could have one person donating their time here, and another donating their time there, but you really need them all in the same car!

Have you every heard from Ben Affleck or Matt Damon or Wes Craven on their thoughts on the sequels considering they had such a hand in the first one? Do they even know they exist?

Haven’t heard what they thought of the sequels. I think they know they exist? But I don’t know so! Talk about directors, Ben Affleck’s an amazing director. GONE BABY GONE is amazing. I can’t wait for THE TOWN. When one looks back at the roaster of talent that was helping out on that first movie, its just mind boggling. You could not find more nice, genuine people. They weren’t just offering lip service, they really got in there and helped and that was just so cool.

So, THE COLLECTOR was something that you and Patrick had had for a long time. What was it about that story that made it be what you chose as your directorial debut?

In 1999, it was just a short film called THE MIDNIGHT MAN and it was very, very simple. A thief breaks into this killer’s house. At that point, it was the killer’s house and with the killer, it was just a cat and mouse element. So, when FEAST happened and it opened on 50 screens, played once at Midnight and slowly but surely picked up fans. On its initial release, it was tough to then come out with another script that blended humor and horror and was based on observations of other movies. Serious horror was winning. So we thought ‘do we have anything that we’re passionate about that’s in that vein? What about the story of that guy that breaks into the wrong house? Oh that’s cool.’ That’s not a big budget thing and these movies getting a shot are pretty low budget. It just so happens when we were talking about that idea, Pat and I were on a panel showing clips from FEAST with a company that was looking to do 1-2 million dollar horror movies. We met with them the next week and that was that. In fact, the Project Greenlight show captured the first meeting regarding elements of it. We all look like we’re 9 years old in it now, but that was the humble beginnings. What ultimately became the motif for the killer, the traps and the methods and all that, our initial look for the killer was always based on the Italian giallo slashers. I love that. The black gloves, the sleek exterior. A high sense of fashion for such a depraved mind!

It definitely has that Argento influence.

That’s exactly what we were going for, hence the gratuitous shots of hands and eyes and lips. I think there’s something almost erotic about something that depraved.

Can you talk about the irony that here you have this story about an Argento-style killer who sets up traps, and then you guys simultaneously start working on the SAW sequels?

Yep. Serendipity at it’s best! That’s what allowed us to have a chance to work on SAW was our script for THE COLLECTOR. That script was making the rounds before SAW III came out and there was a chance that it would be considered as a potential spin-off or an origin tale or something like that.

In the same way Darren Bousman’s THE DESPERATE script eventually became SAW II?

Yep. Absolutely. But ultimately that wasn’t the direction those guys opted to go in because they had a storyline that we could still pick up with this killer. What it did was this – If we walked in with just our script for FEAST, and said “hey we’d like to do a SAW movie!” They’d read it and be like “what the hell? This is a little monster humping a deer head. SAW is about adults and crisis and vices and devices!” When you have a script about a killer late one night who breaks into a house with traps, then you think ok, these guys can probably do a SAW movie. So that script helped immensely. But after the fact, THE COLLECTOR script was alright, so Dimension said they’d like to make that! Because of its modest scale, that allowed me to get a shot at directing, which was great. You can’t imagine, having the good fortune to have a few films get made and then as a writer to get a chance to direct something. That just worked out beautifully.

How much did the influence of working on the FEAST films have when it came time for you to direct THE COLLECTOR?

Tom Gulager was my second unit director on THE COLLECTOR and was in it. John helped shoot it. He’s a great DP. Diane’s in it. Clu did some marvelous recordings for us. They were completely infused with us because they too came from a very grounded, serious place with their filmmaking. John’s reel at the time contained some very serious stuff, which was actor friendly but also cool and punk. That mixed with a creature feature worked wonderfully. So it was a no-brainer when I said I’m trying to do something serious and character motivated here. Those aesthetics work wonderfully. The idea was a lot of preparation, which battles you select on which days you feel strong. I learned priceless life lessons from the Gulagers.

I’m always fascinated by the process of director’s working with actors. For THE COLLECTOR you had Madeline Zima, Andrea Roth from RESCUE ME, you had Michael Reilly Burke who once played Ted Bundy! What was your working relationship like with all these people and how difficult was it to get them all?

The casting window was accelerated and we were lucky. Fortunately it comes down to having a great casting director and we had Monika Mikkelsen. 9 times out of 10, I went with her first choice. And if I didn’t go with her first choice, it was because the person was busy and couldn’t do it. But it was phenomenal. I was very open with Monica and told here, “This is my first time. I’m probably going to do a lot of things wrong. Hopefully get some things right too. Hopefully it’ll look pretty cool. Would you mind getting me some actors that get that? And won’t mind if I stammer a little bit or respond with a curt ‘I don’t know’”. (Laughs) These folks were great, Madeline Zima in particular. I had never orchestrated a sex/death scene before. She had to be absolutely vulnerable and she was so cool. To help that moment out, I cast a friend of mine that I knew was married and wasn’t going to be a sleaze ball. I think everyone we auditioned for that other part was just a groper. It’s not about that! I wanted people who understood the chorography and what the moment was actually about. This was our version of the big car explosion but we were going to try to do that with suspense.

Being a fan of this stuff, you know how pivotal the killer is…

The thing is when you see the killer in the film, there are several people playing him. Gary Tunnicliffe plays the killer. Tom Gulager plays the killer. Our great stunt man Steve is the killer a lot. The DP, Patrick Melton is the killer in one of the most iconic shots of the whole show! When our camera pans up and we find the thief and the killer on opposing sides of the same door, that’s Melton! We had to tuck his shag underneath the mask but that’s him. We shot 24 hours a day so actors couldn’t always be there, so it was very helpful to have friends don the mask. It could be anybody and we could tell more story in less time.

Did you do the Argento thing and let your hands be the killer’s for any shots?

Oh absolutely! Actually, I went ahead and did a more masochistic version of that. When Argento shows his hand, it’s beautiful and lovely in these great black gloves. In THE COLLECTOR, my hand is the one that gets burned in the car! I didn’t have a fake hand to do it. The scene needed a little more tension, a different thrust. You have to stay in this house, you have to steal this item OR… and the or reason was there, but the person that was threatening harm I felt should inflict just a bit. So seeing a thief keep his cool while his hand was on fire was kind of awesome. And the vulnerability to his instrument. So we had the tightest lenses we could find. I got real close and we burned my hand for a little while. Sure, it was bandaged up for a couple of months, but we got it! (Laughs)

You have to bleed and burn for your art, I guess!

Yes, that was my contribution to the hand mythos of the killer.

I’m a big music fan and I love Nine Inch Nails. You’ve got Charlie Clouser on the SAW movies, but for THE COLLECTOR, you were able to get former Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome Dillon to compose your score. How’d that come about?

I straight up pursued, begged, used manipulation, whatever it took! I’m a big Nine Inch Nails fan. That was it. I thought what was dated about some of the films I liked such as the Italian slashers was sometimes the music would take you out a little bit. Sometimes it’s so iconic and perfect that it would burn in and stick with you forever, like the SUSPERIA music. But I wanted to update the soundscape and not the visual. Meaning, let’s go back to a time when the camera was predatory and the music provided (in this case) an industrial heartbeat. Because there’s something about that first really iconic cue from Charlie Clouser in SAW, “Hello Zep” – it almost sounded like there was a machine turning on when you listen to it and that added an auditory sense of dread. So with Jerome, I was hoping to achieve something that had 20-30 minutes of silence, and I wanted the music to help us tell a story and I wanted something we hadn’t quite seen or heard before. The closest I could come up with as a reference was RUN LOLA RUN. It takes a very simple map and complicates it with beautiful character developments, life making decisions and that in itself is an art film, but then it added this bold wonderful soundtrack. At the time, I was like ‘I kinda want to dance to this movie!’ (Laughs) Watching this vibrant woman kick some ass through town. So, I thought OK, let’s pull from that, and pull from the industrial and my love of all things Nine Inch Nails and see if we can give this thief and killer some personality audio-wise, meaning whenever the killer is at work, it’s string based instruments, whenever the thief is at work, it’s synth. So it’s electronic. It’s his tech versus this other guy’s tech. And just another way to help build the instincts that the killer’s supposed to represent, which were threads and silks and all these things and devices and traps that make metallic sounds, but his process was always stuck in strings. Whereas with the thief, the first thing he breaks out is this high tech equipment and he’s from a thriller and most thrillers have synth soundtracks. The slashers I like often have strings, even the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies. It’s so good and creepy. Plus to mention, the soundtrack itself, Jermone was mixing existing cues beautifully. Another person to call out is Andrew Reed who’s band PATIENT 113 has a song we used in total innocence as first heard in the beginning and then Jerome’s retake on it when it’s a montage of the deceased added such a sinister vibe to it. I love that mix of raw and polish. Then to have Depeche Mode was a dream for me, because I love that sleazy guitar riff and it didn’t betray anything in the soundscape to have that. Sometimes a pop song in a movie can be so loud and brash in comparison to everything else. OPERA had some pretty heavy metal cues in it. The pacing and the way we were constructing this, if all of a sudden a death metal beat kicked in, the imagery just couldn’t keep up with that at all. That works better in comedy because it’s an unexpected element that enhances what you’re seeing. If you saw two octogenarians racing for the bathroom and you play death metal, it’s different than classical music. Death metal would make us all laugh at that scenario I think. This was the opposite. Here’s a guy that’s bleeding from a bear trap, there’s a woman with her shirt off, what if we played something kind of sexy? That’s disturbing. OK, I’ve done my job!

You’ve talked about doing a sequel to that film, but as of right now, how serious is THE COLLECTOR 2?

It’s being budgeted right now to be shot this fall with myself returning as director. I believe it’s definitely happening.

I remember when SAW IV was going into production a lot of writers were pitching multiple takes for what would inevitably be the next SAW movie. The task ended up falling to you and Patrick, not only for SAW IV, but SAW V, SAW VI and now the upcoming SAW 3D. You had THE COLLECTOR script floating around, but what was the initial idea that you and Patrick pitched to Twisted that convinced them that you were the guys to write the next few SAW movies?

Going back to Project Greenlight, it’s your script against 1200 others. That was a big, big chance. That was the golden ticket, maybe we could do it. We were lucky. That process was down to two horror scripts. One was ours and the other, this other gentleman’s. Each of us knew we were going to be getting notes on how to augment our material. We were given 20 notes. We elected to change 21 things. The other writer? Was given probably about 20 notes as well. He wrote back and asked for all the people that distributed those notes to justify each note. That script was gone. So, that’s important lesson number one. Important lesson number two was that the existence of THE MIDNIGHT MAN script was an example of tone that made it a possibility for us to have a legitimate chance. By the time we walked in for the SAW gig, I know it was down to 3. This is after we’d written them. Once again we were in a contest. Our script versus two others.

So you and Patrick had already written SAW IV before officially getting the gig?

Well this was after several hoops. What I liked about the audacity of that chance – are you kidding me? We can go from 6 months ago trying to figure out which bill to pay to now having a chance to work on this movie? That’ll be out in theaters? The SAW franchise? So the answer is we went overboard. We didn’t just walk in with SAW IV. We walked in with SAW IV, SAW V and SAW VI. We had this wall painted red, and Pat and I shingled it with index cards taking every character from the past trilogy, every character that we’d like to create and every question that we’d like to answer and built a narrative and a new thrust, which was complete with twists, turns, demises, ideas for traps and whatnot. Whether any of that ever existed beyond that day or that chance, that’s just what we were willing to put into it. This was 3 days of coffee and Mountain Dew, and gum, and borrowed food – whatever we had to do to stay up and take that shot. So then, we finished that first draft and it’s a behemoth. It was too expensive. It’s too long, it’s got all this stuff in it. Same quote as with that FEAST script, we entered a contest for a million dollar production budget with a script that was budgeted at $40 million dollars. (Laughs) So we did the same thing. It was like “we asked for SAW IV and you gave us LETHAL WEAPON!” (Laughs) Oh, alright, from that point, what it did have and I think only dissecting the process now, I think we had a really cool hook, and that was the motivator for the plot, meaning a guy’s on a block of ice, he’s dead in 90 minutes, his friend will do anything for him. That was enough of an engine and not only that, but those 3 shots (from SAW III) with Jigsaw and a woman, maybe that was his love? Maybe that was his wife? We came in with “guess what we can do with your flashbacks here? What if you told what happened with that person?” All of a sudden an entire movie was filling out with all new characters. And then, one thing that we were really, really proud of and that just worked out beautifully was the intimacy of the killer in the SAW films at that point, it was on tapes, there was some distance. There was a tape, now he’s long gone, and it was a great irony. We thought, wouldn’t it be nice to see a healthy, living breathing John Kramer face to face with someone where it wasn’t all about punishment, but it was a little bit about anger. He was testing his own moral. Can I not cross the line and deliver or destroy this person? Yeah I can do that. But they’re going to have to go through hell to get back at me. And I loved that. That was a cool thing too to strive for. Once that engine began, it was really neat that characters that could represent – it was such fertile ground. Every single one of us has a vice whether we care to admit it or not. And the fact that this kind of philosopher fellow, who’s terminal, would like to strap us into a device version of our flaw and set it to a timer and ask us to survive the worst in ourselves, it’s terrific! It’s like a new age killer and really cool. Plus that irony that it’s a killer that doesn’t kill you. He puts you into a bind!

Was there any criteria going in? Because if you look at SAW III, you see little tidbits and hints to future installments. Were they always prepping Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) to be the next Jigsaw? Was that mysterious woman (Betsy Russell) always meant to be Jigsaw’s wife? How far in advance were they thinking when you guys came on board?

Well, what’s interesting once again is the interpretation of a shot. In SAW III, Costas Mandylor walks into a room, picks something up and puts it in his pocket. That’s it. It’s not like he winked at the camera, it’s not like he stabbed someone on the way out. Simply, with music and tone and the juxtaposition of imagery in that room, maybe he’s good? Maybe he’s bad? Either way, we’re interested in what his motive is. And that was cool. The universe was left to spin that in any which direction which was really nice. Um, and as a movie viewer, I knew who Costas Mandylor was. I’m a big fan of that film THE PLEDGE. He’s a bad-ass actor. Really? We get to invent something for that guy? Way cool. There was a bible that we would work from, but otherwise, we really were able to stretch, create and push, because ultimately everything would come back into place. At that point, 3 films in, they really knew what they were doing.

As far of the trilogy you guys did, I like SAW IV a lot because it’s SAW 3.5! The interesting thing is I revisited SAW III and you just expected the next entry to be about Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) looking for his little girl. When you guys first came in to do SAW IV, was that ever considered as the potential story, the conclusion to finding that little girl? Obviously, we see what’s happened to her through SAW V and the post credits scene in SAW VI, but I expected a whole movie about that!

A lot of those things are attempted, but again, it’s all out of respect to a time line. How long has it been since the last one? How vital a component could this character really be to keep the plot going? So it’s one of those elements that – well, actually may be hinted at in things to come. It just might.

Because of the speed of which these films are put together, how stressful is it on you and Pat in terms of not knowing if certain actors or characters are going to be able to come back? Because I know on SAW IV, it was really undecided up until the last minute if Donnie Wahlberg was going to come back. There was a good chance he was not going to do it. So as writers, do you guys plan for that?

I remember at one point we had 3 different drafts going for SAW IV. We’ve got Donnie for 2 days, 3 days, or 2 weeks. Or potentially the lead and that was really interesting, because the version where we had him for 2-3 days, Detective Matthews, there was emotional resonance to him. You wanted to see what happened, because he had so much to lose and so much to fight for and it was Darren’s brilliant scene how he outsmarts the shackle in the opening of SAW III. It’s such a Rambo moment! You want that guy to have his day and have his big bad-ass moment. And I think that it was one of those things that I legitimately prayed he’d come back. I don’t think it could’ve had the same impact without that person. For some fans, I think it was a surprise that he showed up again. I think it was the best version of that. That situation you mentioned could’ve happened. You wouldn’t have had the exact same movie had he not come back, and we would’ve had to change things so that it’d hit in the same way emotionally. That was a challenge and fortunately it worked out. I don’t want to think about if he didn’t come back. (Laughs)

Just from watching the SAW films, listening to the commentaries or seeing publicity stills, sometimes trap ideas don’t get used until later entries, or sometimes there will be a still of one that never shows up in the actual film. Have there ever been any traps you guys came up with from the trilogy you did that didn’t make it into the film?

Well the one thing that I do remember being an augmentation and it’s never come up so I guess it worked out just fine, but we really wanted to castrate a rapist. So in SAW IV, we have this guy surrounded by all these assorted photos he’s taken with all the horrible tapes playing and his choices are to gouge out his eyes or lose his limbs. Well, it was supposed to be stick your junk in a deli slicer or lose your limbs, but HOSTEL PART 2 had just come out that summer. And they owned the removal of shlong. You can’t do better than that! That bit had to change. So we thought, well we can’t see that so let’s take… eyes? (Laughs)

As far as SAW VI, I think you guys capped out the series so perfectly. So I’m intrigued by where you can go next with it. The thing I loved about the ending of SAW VI, you guys ended it with Jigsaw finally being a full-on villain. Because John Kramer to me, I never really saw as a villain. He was a strong philosopher, he tested people, but he never actually killed them, he thought he was doing the right thing. Amanda was bordering on being a masochistic serial killer, not letting people fairly overcome their traps and was not a likely successor for Jigsaw. But Costas as Hoffman shines in SAW VI and he is a bad, bad guy. He’s a real villain. So I love that literally by the end of it, after all the terrible things he does, there is no doubt that that guy is a villain, and you left him with his jaw literally hanging off! I thought wow, the new Jigsaw is totally a horror villain now.

The groundwork was laid out. Where his twist came and what happened to him and how he became in line with the Jigsaw philosophy and how Amanda went off the rails, but it all comes down to this. Hoffman was the cruelest of both worlds. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, liked the idea of the punishment element, but really wanted to focus on using personal elements. That’s what was fun. Seeing someone with a very interesting yet dangerous philosophy, now being executed by someone (like Hoffman) with no moral code.

There’s that one creepy moment in SAW VI where he’s listening back to one of the torture traps, and you know he’s listening to it strictly because he enjoys it. I’m curious to see how you’ll carry that on. Speaking of the seventh SAW, SAW 3D, it’s not a secret that finally after 6 films and all these fan rumors and speculation, Cary Elwis is back as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. In what capacity has yet to be determined. Did you guys ever attempt to incorporate that character into SAW IV, SAW V or SAW VI?

Well, I think that character represents one of the great unanswered questions of that whole series, and so with this installment, it’s time to answer it. And… the answer’s awesome. (Laughs)

There were rumors that you guys had mapped out a potential new trilogy of SAW films kicking off with SAW 7, but now this one is being called the last of the series. Is this a combination of all the ideas that maybe at one point could’ve been a new trilogy?

We were just given the shot to make the wicked go for broke conclusion.

But we’ve learned from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER! So is this really the final chapter?

(Laughs) I believe so.

Last year, SAW was a big part of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. They did an amazing maze that encompassed things from all the SAW movies. It was funny, I was walking out of the maze as you and Patrick were walking in. What was that like for you guys, just a few short years after being a part of this world to see it literally at an amusement park?

The best part was that my parents were there! And so, we walked through and they were like, “did you write that? What is wrong with you? Oh my God!” (Laughs) Just hearing that over and over was so funny. That was really cool. It still doesn’t feel real! It was double cool to walk behind the director of another house of horrors that he had something to do with too. It was so awesome. As a kid, it would be like opening that awesome present that makes you jump up and down and you don’t realize you’re clapping. Then when you’re an adult and something that awesome happens, you just kind of go slack, because you’re trying hard to not show how excited you are. Here I am with my parents who put up with a lot of stuff when I was a kid. Everyone else was playing baseball and basketball, and I was in the basement with Fangoria watching FRIDAY THE 13th movies on USA network where they cut out the nudity but kept in the gore, so I could study the FX at least. While other kids were asking for subscriptions to Sports Illustrated, I wanted Tom Savini’s Grand Illusions Book 2. It was a lot to accept, but they did, but here’s my parents, at Universal where there’s an hour and a half line where all these little macabre creations that I had something to do with were coming alive and scaring people. That felt good. (Huge laughs)

SAW 3D is in theaters on October 29th, 2010!