Here is my interview with writer/producer Brian Patrick O’Toole. If you haven’t had the chance, check out some of his films like Evilution, Basement Jack, Cemetery Gates, or Dog Soldiers. It’ll make the interview more interesting for sure.’

Read on to check out the interview:

The Vocabulariast: Can you give us a little us a little background on who you are and why the readers should give a shit about who you are?

Brian Patrick O’Toole: I’ve been a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood for actually twenty years in July. I started off as a literary agent at two agencies, and then around 1993, I met Luigi Cingolani. He and I formed a company called Intrazone, and we did a film called Sleepstalker: The Sandman’s Last Rites, which was one of the first films to actually use a computer generated character. This was like 1994 so… it actually looked like a rubberman. It was supposed to be made of sand, but we were one of the first to do that. We also made two video games, Speed Racer and Radical Rick, and then that company sort of closed and I went on to join Kismet entertainment in 2000, and we did a film called Dog Soldiers. Then we did Death Valley, Neo Ned, Boo, Cemetery Gates. Then I left that company, and I joined with my current partner Eric Peter-Kaiser. We started Black Ink Entertainment; then we did Evilution and Basement Jack.

V: Sounds like you’ve had a pretty long career there.

B: Yeah, it’s been long… lot’s of experiences

V. You’ve produced mostly horror flicks it seems like…

B: Not by choice. Actually my training is in comedy. I used to live in the Second City of Chicago for a while, and, you know, comedy and horror have the same rhythms; it’s the outcome that’s different. It’s still surprise and release, and so I’ve always loved horror films. When I was five-years-old my parents took me to go see Night of the Living Dead at a drive-in… you’re probably too young to remember those.

V: I didn’t get to see it at a drive-in, no.

B: They put me on the roof of the car, and they put the speaker up there, and I guess they were doing whatever they were doing in the car, good parenting. So when you’re five-years-old, you can’t differentiate between what’s going on on the screen and the people shuffling around the car. So that put me in a coma for a couple of days. But I always remember that moment. I remember there were two people making out in a car ahead of me, but you know, I’m five-years-old; I think this guy’s attacking her. So I’m totally freaking out during this movie. I also got an opportunity to tell George Romero that story.

V: Sweet.

B: Yeah at one time we were involved with, when I was with Kismet, we were involved with Dead Reckoning, which ended up becoming Land of the Dead. So that was kind of cool that it came full-circle. I’ve been a huge horror fan; I have a huge collection of horror films. Also, as a producer, you have to make horror flick money, because comedy is very subjective. Some people think Airplane is genius, and some people think Airplane is the stupidest movie in the world. Drama is “dog get hits by a car” and everyone goes “awww.” You have to have casts, and so for an independent filmmaker, horror is really your only option in order to break into the field or break into distribution avenues or stuff like that. I’m obviously not doing this for the money; I really love horror films. My advice to anyone starting out is that you really want to do a horror film, because there’s such a global audience for it. A scare is a scare.

V: Since you’re operating on such an independent budget, what are some pieces of advice you would have for people who are thinking about breaking into the horror genre. What are some things you have to be aware of as an independent filmmaker?

B: Right now, it’s tough. In horror, what’s happened is the digital revolution has made it really hard for everyone. I mean, we’re using the same cameras that Johnny in Iowa can buy, and so anybody with ten friends is making a zombie movie. So that gets submitted along with films like ours. And so really the only way distributors and small agents can really separate that is by “Who’s in it?” If I say, “Let’s go see Pretty Woman,” you’re gonna go, “Oh! Who’s in it?” If I say, “Let’s go see Jaws,” you’re gonna say, “What’s it about?” Horror has never been about “Who’s in it?” Until now, and that’s sort of been the problem that we kind of ran into because I hired actors because I thought they were the best for the role. And I thought they were good names, but now they’re telling me that Kim Basinger is doing little horror films now, because they can get pre-sales, filmmakers can get money for that, for her name. You have to have cast now; you have to make yourself stand out. That’s why we’re doing The Necropolitan, the third movie in the trilogy, in 3-D.

V: Oh no… you’re doing it in 3-D?

B: Yeah, we’ve actually done a lot of research, because there are going to be 3-D televisions. By the end of 2010, Sony, Toshiba, they’re all going to have 3-D televisions, and they’re going to need material. And I’m speaking strictly as a producer, as a creative person I understand your trepidation. 3-D never works, but I think it’s because you have to know how to tell the story, and use it as an element and not use it as a gimmick. And since The Necropolitan was going to be basically a monster movie, it naturally lends itself to some 3-D elements. It’s come a long way, as far as a format. You have to do something to make yourself stand out. In the 1950’s, movies were in 3-D because they had to fight against television, and then they went with the big widescreen. Every so often the industry changes, and you have to adapt or die. So we’re a small independent company, so we have to adapt… but keep it creative, and hopefully that’s something that stems through all of my films. They may not be classics, but they’re entertaining hopefully. I try to give the fans what they want, because I’m a fan and I know what I want to sit through and what I don’t.

V: For the 3-D movie, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Half the time, it’s a gimmick, and the story sucks and the characters suck. What types of things are you doing with The Necropolitan to make it not just a 3-D movie?

B: Well, you don’t start out to make a 3-D movie. You don’t say, “Oh, this would be great if we put the stick here!” The Necropolitan was written long before we had the idea of 3-D. But after I did some research, I thought, “Why not?” There will be a 2-D version and there will be a 3-D version, so people can choose. I know a lot of people don’t like 3-D; they don’t like it because it gives them a headache and stuff like that. So the most important thing that I’m doing is making sure the story stays the same. It was written before it was 3-D, but we are able to exploit some elements that will help the storytelling. I’m looking at something like Revenge of the Creature, that ‘50s 3-D movie, and Touch o Evil, the Orson Welles film, which they used that as part of the storytelling and not a gimmick. They used that as part of the storytelling, not a gimmick. That’s very important; I’m not using it as a gimmick.

V: That’s what I like to hear.

B: I don’t like to sit there and have the eyeball shown to you. Like Jaws 3-D is an example of what not to do. Oh, let’s blow up the shark and then have the teeth just float there for a minute.

I think if you do some research on 3-D that’s coming up, it’s pretty cool. It’s gonna be done without glasses. The televisions are gonna… you won’t need glasses. I know Sony and Toshiba are putting a lot of money into the 3-D televisions. If you look at the HD/Blu-Ray war, Sony was not going to let HD win. They just weren’t. So they put it inside of the Playstation 3, and they marketed the hell out of it. Obviously Blu-Ray won, although I have about 40 HD DVD discs now that I can’t do anything with. Well, I put a little glue and glitter and they’re now on my screen. That’s the best I could do. I wouldn’t do anything that, as a fan, I wouldn’t enjoy.

V: That’s good to hear. Can you give me a little bit of the story of The Necropolitan. Ever since I saw Evilution and Basement Jack, I’ve been fascinated by that building and The Manager.

B: Right. It’s going to be mostly about The Manager, who The Manager is, those hints in the other two films. Unfortunately, it being low-budget and under time restraints, some things didn’t get shot that I kind of needed to link the films. Which, for good or bad, may have worked or may not. Some things weren’t set up, so I have a tougher time now with the third film. Basically, it’s about the building, who The Manager is, and what he’s afraid of. I think it’s pretty unique. I don’t want to give too much away, obviously. The answer I usually give is “All answers will be questions.

V: That’s like some zen shit.

B: Nathan Bexton brought a lot to that role. Usually when you write a script, it’s handed off and you go away. Pretty much, everything you see on the screen was in the scripts. I’ve been lucky to have that control. Evilution I would have liked to have edited a little more. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough footage. The dinner scene, after seeing it, the movie is kind of slowing down, and I’d like to pick it up, but we didn’t have anything. You have to deliver a 90-minute movie, so sometimes you’re kind of stuck with what you have.

I think, especially with Evilution, the film was really made in editing. Brian Cavanaugh did a really good job editing that film. I’ve always wanted to do like the old Hollywood movies, use the same cast here and there. It will all tie it up. If you look at the opening of Basement Jack and the opening of Evilution, there something that’s sort of the same in both that will be explained in The Necropolitan. There’s a plan there.

Again, I just want to make very clear that the movie will be stand-alone. It’s like you didn’t have to see both movies. It’ll be the same way with The Necropolitan; it’ll be a stand-alone movie. There’s that thin line that hopefully people who enjoyed the movie will get a kick out of, discovering “Oh, is that what that was?” Again, we’re just trying to be different in a very crowded marketplace.

V: So when you were writing Evilution and Basement Jack, did you have any idea that the whole Necropolitan elements within those films would be turning into the third film? Was that always the plan?

B: It actually came together when I joined Eric and we created Black Ink Entertainment. We knew we wanted to do a trilogy and we knew we wanted to have a link to the films. So we decided we wanted to do a zombie movie, a slasher movie, and a monster movie. From the beginning we knew those were the three films we wanted to do. That’s how that sort of developed. We knew all along.

Coming up with the link was hard. At first, it was going to be sort of a Cryptkeeper character that sort of opened and closed the movie, and I was just like, “Aw that’s so lame. I don’t want to do that.” I want to make him part of this universe, sort of a puppet master to this universe.

It actually, this is going to sound weird, I actually got the idea from watching Deal or No Deal. This is how my mind works. I’m watching the show, and there’s this person who is standing at these heavenly stairs, and there’s a bunch of people who don’t know what’s in these cases. And they pick the cases, neither knowing what’s in them, and if it’s bad the person that opens the case feels really bad. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Bu they didn’t have any control at all over what was in that case. So I’m thinking, you know what? That’s like the universe… and being Irish Catholic, I have a lot of that pain. So basically that’s kind of what happened to God, isn’t it? He created this universe and then he forgot one thing… chance. He forgot the element of chance, that’s why he can’t step in and stop the World Trade Center from falling, because there’s that element of chance. You can’t predict that that’s going to happen…. Anyway, it’s a whole bunch of theological crap.

But anyway for the most part, I just kind of thought about and I go, “That’s The Manager. That’s who The Manager is… he’s Howie Mandel.” From there, I kind of built the character. To his credit Nathan Bexton really made that character come to life. In my films I always tell characters to ad-lib what you want to, as long as what needs to be done in that scene is done, the words should be the character’s and since you’re playing the character, go ahead. All the film we do, I let them ad-lib a lot. It makes editing kind of harder, but he really made that character.

V: Yeah, I think Nathan Bexton is amazing in those movies. I like the movies on their own, but those little bits of The Manager make them stand out from your typical low-budget horror movie.

B: I’m sure he would appreciate that. It’s like I said, it was there, but he brought that something extra to the part, just as Lynn Lowry in Basement Jack. It’s funny, when we were looking for an actress to play that role… I mean she’s not a nice person, there’s nothing redeeming about that character. So we went to a lot of actresses and they all turned us down. Peter Stickles, who had worked with me on Cemetery Gates, just did a movie with Lynn, and he said, “Well you should give Lynn a call and see if she’d be interested.” So I did. And she’s the sweetest lady; she has that grandma voice that’s really soft, sweet, and very healing, and Earth mother kind of thing, a very sweet lady. So I wasn’t sure, but then she called me back a couple of days later and did it in the voice, very stern, and I was like, “Oh my god. That is it. That is exactly who Mrs. Riley is.” She did a phenomenal job, I know she won best actress at one of the festivals. As a writer, you’re very fortunate when that happens, when an actor embodies your character. I was very grateful. I mean, you saw the movie right?

V: Yeah, she was awesome. Those scenes where she’s basically torturing Jack are amazing.

B: I don’t know what dark part of her soul she came up with that, but it was amazing. People were kind of shy on set with her, but she’s the sweetest woman you’d ever want to meet. That’s an actress; she’s an amazing person.

V: The funniest thing about that character is that even though she’s doing all this messed up stuff to Jack, you still kind of like her. That’s what’s really weird. I think it really works. One question I had for you was about the special effects in Evilution as compared to Basement Jack. Typically, in a low-budget movie, you want to have great special effects. How did you feel about the special effects in both of those movies?

B: My basic general answer is “I hate digital effects.” I hate them. They’re good for backgrounds. They’re good for creating worlds, but as far as part of the kills and stuff, they don’t work. However, that’s why in Evilution, there are no digital effects; they’re all practical blood splatter, rubber, and flesh kinds of things. However, when Michael Shelton directed Basement Jack, here’s this renowned digital effects artist. He’s worked on The Passion of the Christ, Invasion, the Friday the 13th… that bastardization, My Bloody Valentine, so we had basically the master of the studio film. It was nice to have a kill where you didn’t have to cut away to show the knife going through the skin and then come back. To that extent, I enjoyed having that freedom. But for the next film, for the most part, we’ll probably go back to mostly practical effects. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m just not a fan of digital blood. It’s just not organic. It just doesn’t look real.

V: I feel like the difference between the two movies for me is largely due to the realization of the special effects. In Evilution, I could tell they were mostly practical effects, which is what you should do with a zombie movie. But that gave it a more visceral feel as compared to Basement Jack, where things are more drawn in, and it doesn’t quite look natural when things are getting killed.

B: I agree very much. In digital effects, yeah, you save time on set, but the time you save is spent taking time to do the digital effects. You gotta do the 3-D, you gotta do the rotoscope, you know? And I just think, and nothing against Michael Shelton’s work, I think he did a fantastic job, it’s just not organic. And so we tried, and probably, for the most part, we’ll go back to mostly practical effects. We tried it, and it was o.k., but I agree with you, we’d rather go back to the latex and the Karo syrup.

V: The good old stuff.

B: Yes. And actually on the set it’s a lot more fun. Like when Tiffany Shepis gets gutted in Basement Jack. I mean everybody wanted to take pictures with her. That hallway was just coated with blood and footprints, and that’s fun you know? Horror films are a lot of fun to make, and that’s another reason why I make them.

V: Your credits on the film include producer and writer, but you’re more than that though. You’re on the set the whole time.

B: When you’re low budget, you have to wear every hat. I wrote them, just basically, because of economics. I don’t even have to pay a writer. I don’t have to pay me. My whole goal though is I like to give first-timers, I like to give people who wouldn’t otherwise get an opportunity to do what they want, a chance. With Dog Soldiers, Neil Marshall was an editor. He had Dog Soldiers for eight years. Nobody was biting, and I put my job on the line to get that movie made, because at the time, everyone was like “Werewolf movie? No one wants to see a werewolf movie. What?”

Then, it was even worse, because the film was done, and the day we have the showing, it was a couple of days or so after 9/11. So nobody wants soldiers, nobody wants werewolves, they don’t want anything. They don’t want any violence. So that’s why Dog Soldiers showed theatrically all over the world except the U.S. It actually ended up being a Sy-Fy Original. Nobody wanted it at the time.

V: Well, I’ve got a copy of Dog Soldiers in my DVD collection, so I think it’s found its way.

B: Which cover do you have?

V: I got the one with the dog’s faces on it. The more cartoony one.

B: Oh, the dog guerillas with like the laser dot on their heads?

V: No, that’s not it.

B: OK, good. You have the first one then, the first release.

V: Yeah.

B: Yeah, that film has gone through a lot. And it just came out on Blu-Ray and I get all these emails from people going, “Aw, it looks like crap. It’s so grainy,” and I say, “Dude, it was shot in super 16. Of course it looks grainy.” It was a creative decision at the time. People don’t understand film grade, I don’t think.

V: I don’t think so either. People are amazed that a movie from the ‘80s is on Blu-Ray and it doesn’t look like it’s a Blu-Ray. They clearly have no idea how it works.

B: Yeah, people want that clean look of Transformers and stuff. They don’t understand that matter cannot be created nor destroyed. It is what it is. You can shine it up, but it is what it is. Although, I think they could have done better with Ghostbusters. Did you see that Blu-Ray?

V: I actually have uhh… they sent me a copy of it. I have it sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be watched.

B: I mean that and The Omen. I thought The Omen looked better on the DVD than it did on the Blu-Ray. It may be because of the film grain. It’s kind of weird. Black and white always looks better on the Blu-Ray. I have over 6000 DVD’s, so it’s like, “Am I gonna replace all of them?” No. I’m gonna start from now. Whatever movies come out, come out on Blu-Ray I’m gonna get.

But as far as going back, it’s so hit or miss, like Dawn of the Dead… the original, not that Yawn of the Dead… don’t even get me started on that. When I first put that in and I saw the detail in the carpeting at the beginning, I was blown away. That’s better than it was at the movie theater.

V: So as a Dawn of the Dead fan, you would recommend getting the Blu-Ray of that?

B: Yeah. I think it looks great. I love the shots of his blood, that bright red paint. I love that blood. Now you’ve gotta take it to a doctor and have them look at it. Is this right? Does this look like blood? But the fact that it was bright red Hammer horror, I love that. I love that blood. Obviously, if I did that I would get people saying, “Oh, the blood looks unrealistic.” I would like to copy that, but I have to use pig’s blood. I know on Cemetery Gates the guy had his own special formula of blood. It was copyrighted.

V: Really?

B: It looks good. I mean we used a lot of it. I think in Cemetery Gates we used 80 gallons of blood. I love that movie. I love monster movies. That’s why The Necropolitan is gonna rock. I will not let that movie fail, because I love monster movies. But you have to be careful though, because look at Ginger Snaps. Great movie, but once they show the werewolf… it was like… you shouldn’t have showed it. I remember on Cemetery Gates, we were doing a test of the creature, the mutated Tasmanian devil. We weren’t sure if it looked right or something, and all of the sudden we were at this ranch where they make porno films. We were testing it out, and all of the sudden the horses in the corral started running in a circle. It was really weird, and we were like, “Why are they doing that?” Then we figured it out, and it was because the creature was in their eyeline, and I’m like, “If it creeped out the horses, then it’s fine.”

V: So let’s talk about the future of Black Ink Entertainment here. You say you’ve written these last few films out of necessity. Are you planning on taking a step back in the future, depending on the success of these things, or what’s your ultimate goal here?

B: The company’s going to grow. We’re not just going to do horror films. Black Ink Entertainment is the horror division of Island Gateway Films. Island Gateway Films, before I joined, had done a documentary on a wrestler who was going blind called Veritas, a beautiful movie. Someone should snatch that up to do a Lifetime movie or something. It’s such an encouraging story of a high school wrestler who is going blind and if he gets hit one more time he could go blind. He wants to wrestle, and it’s really an encouraging story.

They did a comedy called Tripping Forward, which I believe is coming out on DVD soon, but I don’t know. Right now we’re working on a romantic comedy about a musician and his girlfriend, or a girl that he meets. We’re doing that, and then, of course, The Necropolitan. Then we have another movie called Necessary Evil, which is sort of a modern-telling of the Elizabeth Bathory story, the blood countess who killed all the virgins. Then, after that, we’re doing sort of a ghost story called Outside the Eye of God. Then I’ve finished treatments for Evilution 2, and then I’m working on the Basement Jack sequel. I want to call it A Basement Jack Christmas. Everyone’s giving me grief, and I’m like “But it makes sense!” So that may not be the title, but I would really like it to be. Silent Night, Deadly Night is one of my favorite movies. That scene where they’re yelling at that Santa Claus and they shoot him, and this nun comes out and yells “He’s def.” That’s classic. That’s like the best thing ever in my twisted little mind. He’s def. He didn’t hear you… and they shot him. That’s kind of the spirit that I bring to the films too.

Like Evilution. Evilution was really tough because it was a bigger movie. Most people compare it to 28 Days Later, which I think is just from the beginning, because of the style that it was shot. But it wasn’t really supposed to be that. In fact, I kind of based the movie on The Poseidon Adventure. So if you look at the movie, it’s basically they need to get out of the building, and they have to do it by going from the top to the bottom. Meanwhile all these disastrous things happen. There were a lot more tenants that were fighting, and then they had to team up at one point. It was epic. It was tough to cut that down for the budget. It was a huge. It was much bigger; the ending was much bigger. And one thing that I want to tell young filmmakers is to never shoot your ending on the last day. Always shoot your nudity and shoot your ending towards the beginning, because if something goes wrong, you have time to fix it. The ending of Evilution is not the ending that was in the script, for the most part, because we ran out of time.

V: How is it different?

B: Well it was much more… the zombies well… and that’s another thing I’m getting a lot of flack for too. It’s not a zombie movie. It was never meant to be. Basically what happened was that we were told the market was glutted with zombie movies. We don’t wanna make a zombie movie. So I thought… well, I love zombie movies, so how do I make this not a zombie movie? So really they’re not zombies; they’re alien-possessed. The creature is trying to find someone it can communicate through, but since man has not evolved to the state where it can communicate, man sort of de-evolves into this Neanderthal-state basically. So for me, it’s like this creatures possessing, and when it finds out it can’t work inside that body, it has to infect another. It bites, so through the blood it can enter another body. So they were APLS (pronounced Apples), Alien Possessed Lifeforms. After the re-writes and everything, that sort of got lost. At the end Sandra Ramirez, her character is one and she isn’t able to communicate through her. Dr. Collins had a soldier on the table, during one of the film clips, that Dr. Collins talks about and he says, “Well, we did find someone, but it learned to hate us.” They were trying to weaponize it. They were trying to train it. I think all of that got lost a little bit, that’s why I understand a little bit when people say they didn’t quite get it. But basically, it was the Frankenstein story too. What was the original zombie? Frankenstein was the original zombie, brought back to life, trying to find understanding… so that’s kind of the inspiration for Evilution was that.

Here’s an alien that’s been abused, it gets out, it’s trying to communicate, but it’s so abused, that it’s grown to hate us. So Darren Hall takes it out and hopes to try and save it, and hopes to try and re-establish something with it. That’s what happened with the rat and stuff like that. That kind of gets lost. I should write a novelization. Hopefully it was entertaining. It was gruesome. It was funny. I think all good horror films have good humor. You can’t have a constant barrage of gore and terror.

So Jimmy Duval and Guillermo Diaz did a wonderful job with those characters. Unfortunately, the whole gangster thing that was supposed to be a metaphor for the sense of universal family. Gang members really create a family, and they stick together. But then, when you start cutting, things get lost. My only regret is that I didn’t develop the characters a little more for the gangsters, but I think Jimmy and Guillermo did a great job with what they had.

V: The other person I liked in Evilution was Noel G. I’ve seen him in so many movies and he never gets that starring role. He’s always like the thug and the gangster, so it was actually kind of nice to see him not play that role in Basement Jack.

B: Yeah. That’s why we also had him in Basement Jack, because while we were making Evilution, he was saying, “I only get hired for these gangster roles, and I’d like to play something different.” So when we were casting for Basement Jack, we were like, “What’s more different than a cop? So we gave him that opportunity. He’s a great guy. I’m surprised he’s not bigger than he is.

V: Same here.

B: Because he’s a great actor. He’s got range. It’s just that Hollywood is such a factory. They pigeonhole you. You! Gangster roles. Rapper. That’s why when I do films, like I was saying earlier I try to find people who… like Michael Shelton was a digital effects artist. I worked with him on another film and I know he’s able to tell a story. All of his effects had sort of a story to them. So when I got the opportunity, I wanted to work with him directing. I like to give first-timers a break, because I know how it is. I worked my way up through the system as well. I didn’t know anybody. Let me tell you. This is a town where you have to know somebody. I didn’t know anybody. I just knew I wanted to make movies. I worked my ass off.

And every movie is a small miracle. Like the movie or hate the movie, you can have that opinion, but just to have gotten it made is such a small miracle… especially now, economically and with the competition. We’re very grateful. The fan’s have been great, the people at Fangoria. We showed the movies last year to standing room only audiences. Very kind. Because I’m a horror fan and I’m the first one… I mean I walked out of Friday the 13th the remake. I was just like, “What is this?” They really don’t get it. They don’t understand that those films were of their time. You can’t remake those. There’s so much original material out there. But then I have to put the producer hat on and I have to go, “Well, you have ten million dollars.” And I said, “Would you like to put your money into my original film or Friday the 13th part 20?” Where are you going to put your money? Friday the 13th part 20. You know you’re going to get it back. There’s not much of a chance there. It’s going to make x amount of money.

It’s hard. I understand why they’re remaking everything and they’re re-imagining everything. Superhero movies are big because they already have a target audience. That’s how studios do the math. They go, OK, Iron man has a subscription of 300,000… at 20 dollars a crack, that’s this much money. That’s how they look at it. They don’t really look at the property or the artform of it anymore. So I’m very lucky to work in independent film, because I can, at least, see my imagination come to life. It’s not creativity by committee. You have a single vision and you’re able to see it out to the end. That’s a luxury, and I’m very appreciative of that.

V: So uhh… is there anything else you want to say?

B: Yeah, but you don’t have enough tape.

V: Oh… no. This thing actually records 40 hours worth of stuff.

B: (Laughing) No,no no. I don’t have 40 hours worth of stuff. Where I would like to go eventually though is, “What was the last scary movie that you saw?”

V: It was probably when I was like seven and I saw The Excorcist.

B: Right. So it’s been a while. So I think where the real scares are right now is actually in video games. I write the video game column for Fangoria. I’m a huge video game fan. I mean we all remember what happened when, I don’t know if you played the game or not, but everyone remembers when that dog crashed through the window in…

V: Resident Evil.

B: Right. Everyone shit themselves. I’m sorry. Tell me what person did not shit themselves after that happened? But games like Condemned and Silent Hill and all this stuff, there’s so much imagination. They do what all horror fans have always wanted to do, and that’s be the hero. So you’re immersed in this world of a horror movie, and that intrigues me. I would love to see movies get back to that, and I think that’s why Paranormal Activity did so well. There was no gore. There was no plot. It had some very honest chills, because you wanted to believe the situation. I mean I didn’t see the movie, but I think Blair Witch Project was made on its ad campaign. I think people like that. I think if you’re honest with them, and you give them a believable world, then you have them. Did you see The Strangers?

V: Yeah.

B: A lot of people thought that was the most recent scary movie. It’s like the basic premise for all of my films. Dog Soldiers, Evilution, it’s a group of people trapped in a house, and something wants to get in and get them. I think down the line everyone can agree with that, relate to that. So video games, they’re in a darkened room, and there’s so much imagination in these games. That, I think, is the true horror experience now. For video games, there are so many things being done that I think Hollywood should take a look. They need to re-imagine. Then look at Resident Evil the game and Resident Evil the movie. They disappoint. Video games like Resident Evil 5, I think they jumped the shark. I think they lost… it became an action game. It longer… it didn’t take the time. The Deep Space video game, they take the time. They lead you. They give you false scares. They really make a great experience. I really think that movies need to step up a little, because the video games are awesome. That’s a horror fan’s dream. And, like I said, I think 3-D’s gonna help that, if it’s done right. I mean, we don’t go in to make a disaster. Anyways, I’m babbling.

V: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

B: Oh well, thanks for watching the movies. I appreciate that.

Tags: 2009, basement jack, briant patrick o'toole interview, cemetery gates, dog soldiers, evilution, interview