‘Night of the Demons’ Interview: Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson
Interview conducted by Marc Patterson on September 22, 2010
Images above courtesy of Ain’t It Cool News
Adam Gierasch’s remake of 1988’s cult favorite Night of the Demons hit shelves this week. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk to Adam and his wife Jace Anderson, who co-wrote the script with Adam about their approach to the remake, and what fans could expect. After some chit chatting about various odds and ends, Jace jumped on the line and with everyone ready to go we hit it up full scale. Moving into the conversation it was obvious both Adam and Jace are big fans of the genre and poured a lot of heart and soul into this fun throwback film. It’s a long interview, but a lot of fun, so go grab a drink, kick back and enjoy. And when you’re done, you can read my apparently controversial review HERE.
Brutal As Hell: Why don’t we just dive into some of the questions about the film, ‘cause I’m kinda really psyched about it. You know usually horror sites like mine, and we try to stay away from it a little bit, but sites get involved in a lot of remake bashing. I don’t know if you’ve read any articles we’ve done for your film, but we’re pretty supportive of this one. Piranha was another one that came out this year that was like…
Adam Gierasch: Piranha was cool, because it was a remake of a remake of a rip off!
Brutal As Hell: Right, right! So it was like: “Who cares?” But from what I see of your trailers and stuff it seems like you guys took a different approach to the film, so I kind of want to talk a little bit about that. So, what was the original attraction to this film that you guys said “Okay, Night of the Demons is the film we want to do?”
Adam Gierasch: Well it’s always interesting because we were sort of in between projects. We had just finished up our first film Autopsy, which was our first film. And you know, you spend your whole time sort of learning making it. We had written a lot before that, and more and more I began to think: Well, I like directing as well. I love writing. Writing’s always going to be our big love and our big thing we use to support ourselves, writing scripts and stuff. But I got a phone call saying, “Adam, are you interested in directing Night of the Demons?” I think the guy actually said Night of the Demon, and I was like, “You mean ‘Curse of the Demon’, that 1958 Jacques Tournier film?” And they’re like, “No, no, this is an eighties film”, and I said Oh! Night of the Demons! Of course I remember that, only because I remember renting it on VHS back in the eighties.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, I actually have a copy on VHS! It’s fantastic.
Adam Gierasch: And I was all like Yeah! Okay. Can I think about that? So I got off the phone and I was like really going, okay, we have written a quote unquote “remake” before, but not too many people have seen the original Toolbox Murders, and we never watched the original before we did that. We just said, “Okay, can we just take the title and do something entirely different?” and they said, “Cool.” But on this one, it was very clear that it had to be more of a remake and first of all, I was like, “Do I want to step into that bear trap? Do I want to be one of them?” I remember succinctly at a Fangoria convention when I was speaking about something, standing up on stage going, “And I swear to you, I will never do a…” you know, making a total ass out of myself, and a year later I have to remove my foot from my mouth. And you know what? The thing with the original Night of the Demons is, I didn’t feel like it was as sacred ground as, say Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street or Dawn of the Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I felt like it was a fun movie that I could do something interesting with, and there were certain things in it that I was like, wow, I could really sort of take that and really go farther with it to a certain degree, and I’m not even necessarily talking in terms of gore or anything like that. But I had this memory of when the kids drove up to the party in the beginning, and they all have these cool punk stickers on their cars for like Fear and all these other cool eighties punk bands and I was like, shit, this is going to be a cool fucking movie, I’ve never seen a horror movie with Fear in it! And then they didn’t play it. And I was all What the fuck? You have these cool stickers, play me the fucking music!
Brutal As Hell: Right!
Adam Gierasch: And I was like, so maybe it’s like a cool party where they’re playing horror punk, which I love! And I liked what Return of the Living Dead did with that, and I said I want to take that even farther, because I want to make a true horror punk rock hootenanny, a type of a movie that my sort of horny, punk rock, seventeen year old self would want to see.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, and that’s one thing that I actually noticed about it from the trailer. I have to admit up to this point that I haven’t seen the film, but one thing immediately stood out because you have that first cut of the house itself and there’s tons of people there, and you remember that original and it was a small ensemble cast, I think there was maybe eight people in the house…
Adam Gierasch: There were ten people in the original movie.
Brutal As Hell: Right, okay, there you go. So it was a very small ensemble cast, there were no extras to speak of, everyone had a bit part, a role to play and you know, it was really “Let’s dive into this old, dilapidated thing,” and yours, it’s packed. It looks like a…
Adam Gierasch: It looks like a party you’d want to go to.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah!
Jace Anderson: Yeah, and that’s what we wanted, because even in the movie, the original, the characters sort of complain that it’s a lame party. We wanted it to be a party you’d want to go to.
Brutal As Hell: Right! It was a little bit of a lame party in the original. I’ve actually been on the record saying that I enjoyed the second one, Night of the Demons 2, more than the first one.
Adam Gierasch: They all have their own sort of almost intentionally funny, campy style, and that was the one thing that we realized we could not do, at all. I didn’t really want to duplicate anything. That acting style that they do, is something that I can’t do. It’s just not in me. I want the people to just talk fairly normally, and I just want them to be people that I would want to be at a party with. And some of them are, and some of them aren’t, in our movie, some of the characters are more pleasant than other ones. And then the big challenge was, because it’s a big party, how do you do it? How do you get most of the people out of the house? And so we started to put challenges like that in front of ourselves. You know, it’s like, “Well, big party, cool house, get busted by the cops!” You know, if we do that we can then leave a certain number of people that would stay for various different reasons. We can leave them in there and that’s supposed to be where the hijinks ensue after that. And then we also, there was some really sort of funny, perverted gross stuff that I really, really wanted to put in the film, that was just sort of my own typical, weird sensibilities. You’ll notice when you see the film that there’s some pretty startling physical jokes.
Brutal As Hell: Well, I don’t want to spoil anything for the readers, but one of the things in prepping for this interview was I always avoid reading reviews before I see a film. I just won’t do it. But I was like, “I gotta have some questions to ask too!” I can’t base all of my questions off a couple of trailers, so I started reading some reviews and I don’t know if this will make the interview but someone mentioned “demon anal rape” or something and I was like,“WHAT?!”
Adam Gierasch: It’s not rape! It’s not rape!
Jace Anderson: It’s totally consensual!
Adam Gierasch: It’s demon anal sex, which we all know is much different than demon anal rape. It’s one hundred percent consensual butt sex.
Brutal As Hell: I love it.
Jace Anderson: It’s just maybe not done in the most comfortable way.
(everybody laughing)
Adam Gierasch: At all.
Jace Anderson: We wanted it to be…you know, we didn’t want the virginal girl. The characters are young adults, they hook up, they have sex, they fool around. We didn’t want the bimbo or the slut or anything like that, and you know, the demons have their own healthy sexual appetite.
Brutal As Hell: Nice! So, we’re on the subject, why don’t we talk about the gore because I think that’s what a lot of folks are going to be interested in, and again the trailer shows some pretty impressive stuff. I think I saw a tit getting ripped off, a face getting ripped off…
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, there’s a decent amount of gore, there’s a LOT of blood, like gallons and gallons and gallons of blood!
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, and I think that’s what’s going to make people happy.
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, I think a lot of stuff bleeds. Everything from bath tubs to walls to, you know…
Jace Anderson: It’s a LOT of blood!
Adam Gierasch: I think there was one night where we pumped so much out in that room that we couldn’t go in it anymore. It was so sticky and everything. But it’s not all necessarily coming from people. So, we have a decent amount of gore. It’s not as extreme as Autopsy was, which is uber, uber gory. But there should be enough to make people happy. We’ve got everything from shotguns to face rippings to intestinal tearing and stuff like that.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, and what I liked is, I’m a big fan of practical effects, I don’t care for CGI too much, and you’re using, dominantly, practical effects in the film. So, was there a choice for that?
Adam Gierasch: Predominantly, yes. There will be some times where you’ll go “Oh, that’s digital” and you’ll probably be right, but that’s the minority. There’s also some digital stuff that I challenge you to call me back when you’re done seeing it and point out all the digital stuff in the film because there’s plenty of digital stuff that looks one hundred percent photo-real and you will never ever ever know it’s digital.
Brutal As Hell: That’s actually very cool. One film I’d point to is Midnight Meat Train, and it got so much hype that it was using so much gore and blood, and then when we finally got to see the film and, you know, Clive Barker’s Book of Blood were some of my favorites, and here’s Vinnie Jones with CGI blood everywhere, and it was obviously CGI blood, and I was like, “Wow, what a wasted opportunity!” But again, lets talk about some of the effects, in terms of the choice to go with practical effects to such a degree.
Adam Gierasch: See, the thing with obviously practical effects, where there’s really something there, is always the first priority. I mean, you always, always go for that. I do, at any rate. You do get into situations where, what you want to do is just, either A: too expensive or B: just not possible to do. A good example of that would be Blade. If they wanted their vampires to disintegrate into just bits of smoke and ember, you can’t do that practically. And you certainly can’t do it practically with that many. So oftentimes, the decision is really sort of like: “I want this in the movie, I need this in the movie, how do I do it, how can it be done, first practically?” And then: “Okay, it can’t be done practically, can we do it digitally and not have it look horrible?” It’s generally less of a problem in movies like this where I’d say ninety percent of the effects are totally practical. But when you have actual monsters that are real big and stuff? When you try to do that shit practically, it just doesn’t work. No matter how animatronic you make your Tyrannosaurus Rex, it just can’t run after somebody. So, it’s really just a basic decision of practicality.
Brutal As Hell: Well, we’re glad to see it in there, just being big fans of the older style of filmmaking. I think it really…
Adam Gierasch: Do me a favor, Call me when you see the movie, and you won’t be able to point stuff out, and I’m going to tell you stuff and you’re gonna go: “Holy shit!”
Brutal As Hell: Yeah! Alright! I’m gonna watch it. I’ll have a notepad!
Adam Gierasch: It’s gonna be very funny. I wonder what you’ll catch? Cool.
Brutal As Hell: So, one of the things I did notice in a lot of the write ups is that you changed the name of the house from Hull House to Broussard.
Adam Gierasch: Yes, Broussard Mansion. When you’re shooting a movie in New Orleans, you take advantage of the city you’re in. I didn’t want to do Hull House because Hull House doesn’t sound like a place in New Orleans. Broussard Mansion does. Plus, we were shooting it in a house and in the original, Hull House is a mausoleum or a funeral home or something like that.
Brutal As Hell: Correct, there were coffins and so forth.
Adam Gierasch: And we weren’t going to do that. We just wanted it to be a mansion with a party in it. So really, what we did was we looked for the best house we could find, and boy did we find a cool looking house!
Brutal As Hell: Yeah! It looks pretty impressive.
Adam Gierasch: And it’s big, too. We shot, I’d say, over half the movie in that house.
Brutal As Hell: I was about to ask if it was on location, or if you were doing a lot of stage sets.
Adam Gierasch: There’s also stuff, once more, that would never ever be in a house, but it’s in the film, so you’ll be able to figure that stuff out.
Brutal As Hell: So you also have a nice Who’s Who roster of leading ladies to be in the film. Bobbi Sue Luther, Linnea Quigley is in there, Shannon Elizabeth, Tiffany Shepis. Did you guys know you wanted to work with them? How did that work out?
Adam Gierasch: Some of them just came about through the normal casting process, like Monica Keena just came in one day and auditioned, and I was like, “Damn, she’s good!” She really is. She’s fantastic in the movie, too. She really is, she holds the thing together like glue. She deserves all the credit, her part was not easy. And then there were other people I had met before or were just around like Bobbi Sue Luther, because we definitely had the same circle of friends. The same with Tiffany Shepis. I have Tiffany come in and read on every single film that I do, and every single film that I will ever do. She’s a great actress, a great person, and a great friend.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, and I’m one of the few out there…well, maybe not “few”…I’ve really watched her progress throughout the years. I remember back when she did Scarecrow, one of her first films. And, not to say her acting was rough, but she immediately stood out as someone in the horror film scene that was going to do something. And then she started working with Rolfe Kanefsky and did The Hazing. And so it’s really been pretty awesome to see her go through almost, I think it’s almost fifteen years of horror.
Adam Gierasch: She’s such a good person. I really have nothing but kind things to say about Miss Shepis. She’s a good person and a dear, dear, dear friend. So the rest of the cast is really just through the normal casting process. I mean, people brought up names and it was like, “Cool.” And there were some people who were really surprising. There’s an actor, John Beach, that people, when they see the movie, might never have seen him before. But he’s great in it, and he’s also very, very funny in an adorable kind of way. It’s a very, very strong cast.
Brutal As Hell: That’s awesome. And you’re keeping the lipstick scene in, I hear?
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, it’s in there, it’s just a little different.
Brutal As Hell: Okay, alright. I don’t want to spoil it. So it sounds like we got a lot to look forward to and it’s going to DVD on the 28th, right?
Adam Gierasch: No, the 19th.
Brutal As Hell: Oh, even better! Right in time for Halloween parties!
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, exactly. And we’re also making sure to try to do screenings for people where they actually get to see the movie. We shot it on film which is so rare these days.
Brutal As Hell: I’m glad you mentioned that.
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, we shot it on film, on really good ratty, colorful looking sixteen millimeter. We want to project it as much as we can. We’re definitely doing one in L.A., one in New York, and then we’re also talking about going down to Louisiana and bringing it to people down there, so we’ll definitely be traveling with prints and stuff.
Brutal As Hell: Was that hard to sell the producers on, the fact that you were going to try and shoot it in sixteen millimeter?
Adam Gierasch: Nope! Not at all!
Brutal As Hell: That’s awesome. A lot of times, when you’re approached to do a remake like this, you don’t really get the artistic flexibility, if you will, that, you know…it’s got to be newer cameras and the flashier tricks…
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, we didn’t use anything like that. We used film, and there’s a lot of cool slow motion kinda shit…
Jace Anderson: And there’s a lot of steadycam and there’s a section that’s done with…what was the camera you used?
Adam Gierasch: Oh yeah, we did stuff with a hand crank camera, like how they made movies in the twenties.
Brutal As Hell: Oh, that’s cool.
Adam Gierasch: And people will recognize that immediately, they’ll go: that’s pretty rad looking. Everybody’s always like, “How did you get them to move like that?” And I’m like: “How do you THINK?” I mean, we’re not tricking anybody, this isn’t a digital effect, this is cranking a camera to move the film through it.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, exactly, and to someone who watches and really understands the film, I think that’s a detail that stands out. It can’t be replicated digitally. It just can’t be. You know film when you see it, and it’s got a warm vibe to it…
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, and we had worked with Dario Argento…
Brutal As Hell: That’s right, you did Mother Of Tears with him.
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, that’s right. And we have always been really, really influenced in using as many cool colors as we can so it’s a very colorful movie. It’s full of beautiful, saturated colors. It’s not Argento-ish in the same way that, say, my first movie Autopsy was, but… you know, we’re making a movie, Night of the Demons, and we know that the history of demon movies, you know, we wanted to be able to pay homage to other cool “demon in the house” movies, so we did some homages to the original, to Umberto Bava’s Demons and Demons 2, and then also some Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond and City of the Living Dead. I think The Beyond had more demons in it, it’s really kind of hard to tell what they are. But we definitely wanted to have some Fulci-esque stuff in there too.
Brutal As Hell: That’s awesome. And I think in the synopsis somewhere, I actually picked up on that. It was a very simple synopsis, but it was a minor detail where they talked about how the lead character, the girl, I was going to say “Andrea” but it’s not Andrea.
Adam Gierasch: Angela?
Brutal As Hell: Angela! Thank you. How she, you know, in the original film I think she became possessed by this foggish air, and in the synopsis for your film, it mentioned that she got cut.
Adam Gierasch: She was bit.
Brutal As Hell: Bit! Which I thought hinted towards Bava’s Demons where, she put that mask on and was cut on the face, and I was like: “Oh!”
Adam Gierasch: This is definitely a little different. It’s very funny how she gets possessed, actually.
Brutal As Hell: Very cool. So I’m looking forward to that, too.
Adam Gierasch: It’s a very amusing moment. It’s definitely not the weird spiritual thing rushing through the house and hitting her in the face. Because when Kevin Tenney did that, I think Kevin was probably paying homage to Evil Dead.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, definitely. When I re-watched it recently, I was like, “These camera shots are totally Evil Dead inspired.” That kind of stood out to the original film. Yeah, I’d agree.
Adam Gierasch: Kevin’s a good guy, by the way. He was very helpful to the process.
Brutal As Hell: Very cool. Well listen, it sounds like, in terms of talking about it, I don’t really want to say too much more because I feel like…
Adam Gierasch: Yeah, we’re on the verge of giving stuff away that we don’t want to.
Brutal As Hell: Yeah, so I really appreciate the call. You both have been awesome.
Adam Gierasch: Cool! Thank you so much!
Jace Anderson: Yeah, thank you!
Brutal As Hell: And I’ll be in touch about those digital effects!
Adam Gierasch: Like I said, we went as practical as we could go!
Brutal As Hell: Thanks again, Adam and Jace.
