If there's been a breakout talent in horror movies over the past year, it is Adam Green.  So who better to discuss the current state of the art?  Read on to find out why mutants who eat afterbirth are not impressive, what to expect from Green's new film, and the surprising reason we're living in "the most unforgivable decade in the history of horror."

Hatchet, which Green wrote and directed, started wowing audiences back in 2006 when it generated buzz at, of all places, New York’s Tribeca Film Festival.  Indeed, after earning hugely positive word-of-mouth and several festival awards, Hatchet was ready for a theatrical release in the early fall of 2007.  It must have seemed like a good news/bad news scenario to Green, who labored hard on every aspect of his film, from recruiting the actors to promoting it tirelessly at conventions:  Hatchet would enjoy a big screen release, but in an MPAA-truncated version and with little chance of standing up to the marketing clout of Halloween and the latest Saw installment.  However, just last week Anchor Bay released an uncut version on DVD, so now you can enjoy all the comedy and all the gore the way they were meant to be experienced—juxtaposed so effectively that you are practically guaranteed to suffer aesthetic, if not emotional, whiplash.    

In many ways, Green's down-to-earth emphasis on entertainment and giving the audience its money’s worth recalls no one so much as Herschell Gordon Lewis.  Lewis, in fact, makes a distinction between "viewers" and "audiences" that could be instructive in examining Green's career to date.  A viewer, according to Lewis, is someone who sits rather passively and experiences a movie primarily with the eyes and perhaps secondarily with the brain.  An audience, on the other hand, is completely engaged, both in sensory and affective terms—and, more importantly, it is the filmmaker's responsibility to turn viewers into audiences.  Green might be a living exemplar of this credo.  With his work on Hatchet, he was not out to impress moviegoers, to show how clever he was, or to push buttons just to prove that he could.  Instead, he wanted to recreate the fearlessly dark humor that thrilled him in the films of his youth and in so doing have folks leave theaters with lingering smiles and shivers.  It's no wonder, then, that many horror fans are fiercely loyal both to Hatchet and the man who created it.  At the end of what has been a tumultuous and unpredictable year in horror, we asked Green what was next for him… and for the genre.

Firefox News:  One reason I found Hatchet so engaging wasn't just its humor, but how funny the movie was away from the peril-and-gore black comedy.  For instance, some of dialogue on the bus is laugh-out-loud even after multiple viewings.  I know you have a background in romantic comedies and your new film, Spiral, seems more like a psychological thriller.  To me, part of what makes a Hawks or Scorsese so great is their range—you see all kinds of genres on their resumes.  If you had to blue-sky it, whose career, in terms of reputation and versatility, would you model yours on over the next couple of decades?  

Adam Green: I suppose if I could blue sky it, I'd try my hardest to model my career after Steven Spielberg.  He's always been my idol, not only as a director but as a human being.  So many of his films have literally become part of who I am, especially E.T., which was the movie that made me want to make movies.  Tonally, I am very influenced by John Landis and I admire his choices of projects in the '80s as they were all so fun and entertaining.  AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON was easily my biggest inspiration in writing HATCHET.  It's funny because there are so many horror critics and wannabe-fans who really don't know all that much about horror, and so when they saw that HATCHET was a slasher film with Kane Hodder playing a monster, they instantly went to the "FRIDAY THE 13TH rip-off" place.  But if you've ever seen a FRIDAY movie, they were nothing like this.  Sure, the formula of a stranded group being killed off is there in every film of this sub-genre, but what makes HATCHET isn't the set-up or formula.  It's not even the over-the-top special effects.  It's the comedy and the fun integrated with more gore than we've seen since 1985 that makes it an entertaining ride.  And I guess that is the reputation I would most like to have as a filmmaker.  To be someone, regardless of genre, who delivers a satisfying ride every time.

You've cited the influence of late '70s/early '80s horror flicks on Hatchet, which seems well-timed in terms of the recent popular interest in such movies.  Given that this trend shows no signs of slowing down, with several major remakes on their way over the next year or so, what do you think is driving it?  Are these old cult movies that are ripe for cynical market exploitation, hallowed icons to be paid artistic homage to, or maybe just vehicles for filmmakers to indulge in cultural nostalgia? 

Thankfully, Hollywood is almost out of movies to remake so their well is running dry.  What drives the remake trend is not the actual films they are remaking or even the concepts behind them.  It's the marketing.  Think about it.  How much easier is it to market a pre-packaged title that everyone has already heard and seen on the video shelves for two decades?  You put out a movie like TEXAS CHAINSAW or HALLOWEEN and no matter what, it is going to make bank at the box office.  I'm not anti-remake at all.  In fact, two of my favorite movies are John Carpenter's THE THING and the recent DAWN OF THE DEAD remake.  My problem is that the 2000's are going to be remembered for remakes, PG-13, and torture porn... and that makes this the most unforgivable decade in the history of horror.  Sure, there have been a handful of gems that have slipped through the cracks of the Hollywood Remake Machine—but the development executives at the studios need to start having some balls and actually doing their jobs again.  I guess it's just easier to snatch up the rights to PROM NIGHT than to read three or four hundred scripts looking for one that you want to take a chance on.   But the fans are also responsible for this.  For all of their war cries against remakes at the conventions, where were they for GRINDHOUSE?  Hollywood doesn't remake horror movies because they feel they need to do the original film justice, they do it because they can appeal to an even broader scope of ticket buyers who might not normally buy a ticket for a horror film.  Trust me, if the fans turned their back on it, Hollywood would start scrambling to find the next "thing."  I only hope that some day remakes find their place within the cycle of originals, the way it used to be.  I'll have had two original films come out theatrically in the past six months—so I'm due for a remake.  Bring me BLAIR WITCH!  I'm gonna do a shot-for-shot remake... except this time it will all be recorded on cell phone video captures.  It'll be my own social commentary on communication in the 21st century.  And then, you know... witches.

The sad thing is, you're kidding, but you just came up with a more original premise than a lot of actual films out there these days.  And what's sadder still is that the horror genre going back nearly a century now—Caligari, Vampyr, Psycho, Kwaidan—has a history of innovation in terms of narrative film itself.  Yet now it enjoys a reputation of being a mostly uninspired crank-'em-out field, even with receipts way up.  I know that making quickie trash movies has always been part of the genre, but to me there's a big difference between low-budget trash and big-budget trash.  So the question is, when did things change?  When was there no longer a premium put on imagination?  Or does finger-pointing do more harm than good?  In a recently published book* about the genre that I admire greatly I came across this quote that stopped me dead in my tracks:  "The horror movies I fell in love with as a child were films about dread, free-floating fear, and abstract ideas...

I could be wrong, but I think that statement was just a way of saying that horror used to be about atmosphere, dark fantasy, and the macabre... whereas lately, horror movies have been reduced to being strapped in a chair and tortured to death.  Gone are the mythological villains and monsters... replaced by human monsters hurting each other in very real ways.  I guess my thoughts on this are that it is all a matter of opinion.  I certainly agree that I miss the stuff I fell in love with as a child (I mean, look at HATCHET), but at the same time, the torture films of today reflect the times and they do have their place.  For instance, I don't care whether you like the torture genre or not, you can't tell me that the concepts behind movies like HOSTEL or SAW were not great concepts.  They were very frightening situations to begin with and that was why they worked.  SAW especially was such a great mystery in how it unfolded.  The problem has been the knock-offs who merely want to out-deprave each other in their advertising to try and sell tickets.  But that's always been the trend.  Something works... so let's beat it to death and ruin it for everyone.  Whether it was glam rock bands in the '80s or torture films in the 2000's... eventually they eat themselves up.  Tuff had to have bigger hair than Poison who had to wear more make-up than Motley Crue, etc.  Remember the TV commercial for the THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2?  "Critics and audiences were appalled by how far we went with last years THE HILLS HAVE EYES...wait 'til you see what we did this time."  F**k off.  What the world needs now is Clive Barker.  What we need is another HELLRAISER-type of film.  Give us a new world.  Give us a new villain.  Give us new rules.  And keep your mutants eating afterbirth and anally raping women to yourself.  I'm not impressed.

I know exactly what you mean, which is why despite my lifelong love of the genre, I've stopped making a point of watching all the American films as they come out.  It means that maybe I'm not up on the latest Hills Have Eyes sequel, but I no longer care, I'll go watch a recent Korean import or a Val Lewton movie or something similarly old and full of atmosphere, as you mentioned.  Speaking of vintage approaches to the genre, I should have clarified that the book I was citing was actually talking about old-school slasher films from a generation ago, not today's hits.  And although Victor Crowley uses weapons and Hatchet follows the picking-off-victims-one-by-one template, as you point out, I think it's arguably an old-style monster movie, not really a slasher flick.  In any case, it's a horror movie and society as a whole has been very hard on horror movies lately.  As a subculture of filmmakers, fans, publicists and journalists, how should horror watch out for itself—by being more self-critical, by taking care how it markets certain films?  Or should it not even concern itself with how it’s perceived by the mainstream?

Horror has always been about drawing lines in the sand and then crossing them.  I am a big fan of free expression and I agree that sometimes a horror film really has to go there to fully get where it is going.  A great example is the recent THE GIRL NEXT DOOR.  An amazingly well done film and absolutely heartbreaking and devastating, especially knowing that it is based on true events.  Would I watch it again?  Never.  But did I appreciate what it was?  Yes.  That was the story being told.  And those horrors needed to unfold in order to tell the story.  If the horror community starts policing itself or slapping standards around it will become a weak and convoluted nation.  Much like the PG-13 "teen who done it" horror films of the '90s... it will become too vanilla.  That's why the independent films have always been what push horror forward to the next level.  Filmmakers, fans, critics, journalists... they take chances and they want to see and feel something new.  Some will hit and some will miss, but it's important that the shots be taken.  Personally speaking, there are certain things that I just don't enjoy watching.  One of which is gratuitous rape sequences.  I understand that sometimes in a story, that horrific act needs to happen and that it needs to be graphic.  Who knows?  I may find myself having to shoot a rape scene someday.  But nothing takes me out of a horror film quicker than when I see shocking moments that are heartlessly thrown in just to be shocking or when I can feel the mean spirit and anger behind the filmmaker who is just desperately trying to shout "look at me!  I can be more f**ked up than the last guy!"  That's not what it's about, man.  We're horror fans and we like the dark side... but we're not animals.  Call me old-fashioned.  Call me a wuss.  But some of these attention-seeking "filmmakers" need to go back and watch the original HALLOWEEN and absorb some class.  I am proud to say that never have I heard of someone being offended or disturbed by HATCHET.  As violent and gory as it is, its heart is in the right place and you can clearly see that it is all in good fun.  It was refreshing to sit in the theater and hear the audiences erupt in applause and cheers and laughter around the screams.  So I guess my answer to your question is... we don't need to be careful, we need to take risks... but I'm not afraid to call someone out on their bulls**t of just trying to be shocking.  That isn't talent and it isn't entertainment.  It just gives us all a bad reputation.  So for all of us in the horror world... do whatever you want, but do it with class.

Very well put.  Now, we're both big fans of Behind the Mask.  And what I've noticed is that smart, original films like that often don't get the support of genre fans, who sometimes seem to respond to marketing hype more than anything else.  What do you want the fan base you established with Hatchet to know about Spiral as its release approaches, or do you not see many fans of your work "crossing over" to a PG-13 film? 

I don't think that fans didn't support BEHIND THE MASK in theaters because it was smart and original.  They just didn't know it was out there or where to find it because it didn't have a marketing campaign or release size that could compete with the huge Hollywood films that were out there.  For guys like you and me who immerse ourselves in knowing all that we can about film, of course we were aware of BEHIND THE MASK.  But for general Joe-moviegoer, they base their ticket purchases on how many billboards they saw and how many times they saw the TV commercial break during their favorite network shows.  It was a similar deal for HATCHET.  We had the reviews, awards, and good word of mouth that most studio films never have... but we didn't have prints in every theater and we didn't have a campaign that could force it down everyone's throats in mainstream America.  Horror fans were so angry that when it opened it was only in a handful of theaters and that they had to search to find it.  Sadly, that's just the way the industry works.  Which is why when a movie like NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE comes around that really breaks through against all odds, you have to applaud what it has accomplished.  SPIRAL will be in theaters in a few major cities in early February.  With our cast, Joel David Moore (HATCHET), Zachary Levi (CHUCK) and Amber Tamblyn (SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS)... it is a very marketable film, but we aren't with a distributor who takes risks on theatrical.  They play it very safe as (for every film) theatrical is really just an advertisement for your DVD.  SPIRAL is very arthouse in the fact that it is a dark character study and a very deliberately paced psychodrama, so when we did the festival circuit I was very apprehensive as to how fans of HATCHET would respond.  I mean, it's nothing like HATCHET at all.  Yet the same fans and critics fell in love with it, which makes me so, so happy.  It's nice to see that you can do something so radically different and have it be accepted by the same fan base.  When the first cut of SPIRAL was done I showed a close friend who is a huge fan of HATCHET.  When he liked it, I was surprised.  He said to me, "Just because I like fun guts and gore doesn't mean I can't also enjoy a good film."  I learned right then and there never to underestimate my fans or my audience.  All I can do is the best I can and they'll support it if it's good, no matter what genre it is in.  I think so long as I stay true to myself and make the movies I want to see, they'll stick with me for the ride.  I know people say it all the time, but my fans really are better than the rest.  I'm a lucky, lucky guy.

Spiral!



*J-Horror, The Definitive Guide to The Ring, The Grudge and Beyond by David Kalat, Vertical, 2007.