The producer of The Evil Dead, 30 Days of Night, and Sam Raimi’s 2009 release, Drag Me To Hell, sat down to talk with us about the joys of foreign-language horror, the focus of his new DVD label, Ghost House Underground. We also got around to topics such as the place of the PG-13 rating in the genre, why J-horror’s moment in the sun may have come and gone, and even the upcoming TV series The Legend of the Seeker…

Firefox News: Have you seen this movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN? I just saw it last night—the Swedish vampire movie—and it just blew me away.

Rob Tapert: I did.

It’s hardly a popcorn flick, but would something like that have been considered for Ghost House Underground?

Yes, it would’ve been, but somebody else had it.

I wasn’t sure if you were you shying away from titles like that, more film festival fare, purposely going for a more populist feel.

Not really. We had a long conversation about that and then somebody else took it.

Okay, so that answers that.

I enjoyed that movie, but what’s interesting is that it came to us actually as a movie [property]: “Would you guys want to make the American version of it?” And I wasn’t certain that— while as a horror fan I truly enjoyed it—that it had all the components easily identifiable to expand out into a theatrical movie for a big audience.

You’re probably right. And of course, there’d be tons of people asking, “Why are they remaking it? They’ll ruin it. It’s a uniquely Swedish film in the snow” and so forth. But let’s stay on this for a second because Ghost House’s version of THE GRUDGE is easily my favorite of all the Western J-horror adaptations. More recently, though, American remakes have gotten such poor critical and fan reception that I’m wondering how that’s affected interest in foreign horror. Are audiences now thinking, “I’ll go seek out the original, the authentic stuff,” which is what Ghost House Underground is providing them? Where’s the market trending?

I don’t think that the audience as a whole, the larger audience who goes to the film on opening weekend, is aware of the remakes. For example, this weekend QUARANTINE opened, which is a remake of [REC], a Spanish movie.

Right.

I’ll bet less than half of one percent knew it was a remake.

And that’s probably true of something like MIRRORS and a lot of other films out there.

You know, when we remade THE GRUDGE, Sam’s whole reason was, "Nobody is going to see the original movie ever because American audiences [don't go for that sort of thing]." And we’re not saying dyed-in-the-wool cinema fans, horror fans who track things down all over the world, but the average “punter,” as they call them, who goes on Friday nights with his friends to see a movie—they just wouldn’t ever go see a movie in a foreign language. Horror, action, it doesn’t really matter.

They’re not really tracking the provenance of the films they do see.

No.

So when you’re talking about big budget remakes, the eye isn’t on that small group of horror fans that’s really into international horror. Which makes sense, but it’s nice when films like THE GRUDGE can kind of please everyone. So how do you stay on top of all these overseas releases of merit?

We have gentleman who has worked for us for a number of years who’s named David Powelson, and he scours the world every day to find new movies that are being made, that are coming out. And he used to do it for me because in addition to being a horror fan, I was a huge Asian action movie junkie, horror movie junkie. So David watches all those movies, [and] passes onto me those that he thinks have merit. Also, in Ghost House Underground we are partnered with people. And then on some of our movies that we’ve done, like THE GRUDGE—the incredible Roy Lee came to us because it doesn’t matter who finds them, Roy Lee seems to have the underlying rights faster. So I have to give Roy and his team—Doug Davison and those guys—a great deal of credit [for] legally being the first ones to do it. It’s one thing to see it, watch it, like it, say you want it—and somehow they’ve already had a deal with Roy in place, so I think he gets it before the movie’s ever made.

Yeah, he has that reputation. But while we’re on the topic of Roy Lee and Asian horror in general, what about its absence in Ghost House Underground? Was it that North American audiences are already familiar with Asian horror, or that you personally wanted to find some new territories to explore, that sort of thing?

I think that what Asian horror once had to offer is, it felt new and fresh and it was no longer a slasher movie or what had been the kind of bread-and-butter of American horror. So it felt different and it was a new roller coaster ride.

Which regions, then, to use a very reductive metaphor, might be picking up the torch? In the last year or two I would’ve said Spain. Now I’m thinking Scandinavia. What are your thoughts on that?

I think certainly Spain, you’d have to say that, but [otherwise] I don’t know. We just have to look. It would be easy to say Spain or Denmark or even Russia.

Yep.

What I think it is, is that—I saw that crazy Pakistani horror film…

Right, right. I know the one you mean. [Hell’s Ground]

And so there’s people who want to make movies, horror movies, that entertain audiences that are now getting an opportunity around the world. And I think we’ll see it come from more and more places. The thing about Japanese horror was that it had its own internal market and it always kind of worked there. And that it caught on outside of Japan—and outside of Korea—and was able to be Anglicized—

Yes.

That kind of spread it so that everyone could see it and appreciate it and also kind of led to the death knell of it ‘cause now we’ve seen it, we’ve experienced it, and it doesn’t feel fresh and new anymore.

Maybe only in small doses. But here’s a sort of horror koan for you: what surprises you more when you watch foreign horror—how similar it is to U.S. horror or how different it is?

At its core, at the very nature of what it’s trying to do, it’s trying to scare people, so that’s the similarity. The devices that they use and the storytelling, I have to admit there are times that I scratch my head, and I go, “Huh?” I don’t exactly get it, or I don’t actually understand why that person was thinking that. I would have to be part of that culture to get it.

But that’s true of film culture in general, horror or otherwise, right?

Yeah.

That’s part of the nature of having different regional cultures.

But I don’t know that that’s true of love story, though.

[Laughing] Yeah, you’re probably right. Now I know we’ve only got a couple more minutes, but I’m not going to be forgiven if I don’t insert a couple of quick THE LEGEND OF THE SEEKER questions from my colleague Tracy Morris. Is that okay with you?

Yeah, please do. I arrived from New Zealand a little over four hours ago. So I just flew back from being in New Zealand overseeing the mix on the two-hour pilot.

Great, then this is probably more on your mind. Now, the syndication market has changed so dramatically since XENA and HERCULES were launched. And in the past you’ve expressed dissatisfaction with the way things have changed, so why jump back into syndication now?

Everybody said it was dead, and because they all said it was dead and there is not a single show in the genre, in the fantasy genre, or in first-run syndicated action, we believe that there is still an audience who has just been mis-served over time. And I have to give a huge amount of credit to our partners at ABC Studios for taking the leap of faith in financing, in these very troubled and difficult times, a first-run syndicated action series.

I know so many people are looking forward to this series. But the second question is, Why Wizard’s First Rule?In other words, what is it that drew you and Sam Raimi to the novel, and do you see that essence in this finished product so far?

All right, so first the book came to Sam from his partner and my partner, Josh Donen who’s involved in this project, the son of Stanley Donen. Sam gave the book to me. Eventually through another person, we got into Tribune, [and] they said they wanted to do it. And what we all loved creatively about Wizard’s First Rule was the world Terry Goodkind created, the characters within that world. Richard, Rahl, and Kahlan Amnell and their relationships, so that’s what we liked. We liked Zedd.

So we liked the characters, we liked aspects of the world, but there was subject matter in the book that just don’t lend itself to television. They had to be changed to downplayed or played with a little bit. But the unrequited romance, the story of a young hero finding out who he was, the story of a beautiful young woman who could never experienced the full joys of sex without terrible repercussions, that all had an appeal to us and to our partners at ABC. In terms of what the series is on a weekly basis, we are taking threads in this first season from the Wizard’s First Rule and the villain, Darken Rahl, and his henchmen and some of the events that happened there. And then [we’re] just doing stand-alone versions of stories that have nothing to do [anything] within the book but are true to the nature of the heroes and the characters that Terry Goodkind created in his universe.

Great, and I’ve got one last question here just to finish up with horror. Can you talk to me about how “PG-13” got such a bad name in the horror community? I understand the cynicism of those who think that horror is toned down for mass consumption, but other than that, as an epithet, it’s kind of silly to me. Because if you’re going to look at most horror movies made before, say, 1970, wouldn’t they be PG-13 in today’s terms?

Myself being one of those people who is often jaded by that PG-13 “studio rating,” as I called it, and before that I think it was just a PG—I remember John Frankenheimer’s PROPHECY—

Sure.

Why would I ever go see that? I want hardcore. I want it, too. So I think it has to do with people’s expectation as to how much of a wild ride will they experience from the movie. And that they think that PG-13 can’t deliver the chills and spills without hard-hitting blood-and-guts. Some people just need the blood-and-guts in order to get there. And other people don’t need it. The simple suspense or the, what I call the “one frame away from an R rating” that you kind of go for with a PG-13, sometimes that just doesn’t do it for some people. And I think they’re two entirely different audiences. I think one is an audience dominated by 12 to 17 year old kids who want to buy their ticket to go on the wild ride. And there’s a second group of individuals who want the R-rating and who are probably more guy-dominated and true fans of all aspects of the genre and will still see a good PG-13 movie but, by and large, want their horror to deliver the full splatter shots.

Am I wrong, then, in thinking that your personal tastes are somewhat across the whole canvas, that you equally enjoy quiet horror and maybe some of these PG-13 films, but also a well-done movie with much harder elements in it?

Yeah, I like most things. I just like being entertained.

Me, too.

So whether it’s PG-13—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen TREMORS with my son—

Of course. That’s a great example.

A favorite movie. So it’s perfect for a different type of experience, and that said, he and I both really like ALIENS, which is yet a different horror experience. So there’s many different ways to be entertained in the horror thing, and in my youth I equated it to a rating, and I no longer do.

Very well put. And with that, thank you so much for your time today. I love Ghost House Underground, especially the ambition and guiding rationale behind it, so good luck with it, and I hope we get to see more releases under this label.