MIDNIGHT MOVIE hit the Indie Horror circuit by storm back in 2008, and now, director Jack Messitt has brought the evil Radford back to DVD in the ultimate fan edition of the film. Jack dropped by I Like Horror Movies to give us the low down on the bigger, badder, and bloodier MIDNIGHT MOVIE: THE KILLER CUT!
ILHM: Jack, thanks for stopping by! Let's jump back to the beginning. What were the major inspirations behind the first cut of MIDNIGHT MOVIE?
JM: Overall, I wanted Midnight Movie to be the fun ride I remember the 80s slasher films to be. I think that we tried to update that formula to work today, but you can’t help but see both the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series in our film.
When it came to the violence and gore level of Midnight Movie, I wanted the kills to get better as the movie went on. If the movie’s marquee kill starts the film, it makes it tough because you have little place to go from there.
So I decided to set up the kills in the movie to mirror the history of horror. In the beginning, you see just before and just after, like early Hollywood. But as the decades moved on, Hollywood’s kills got more and more gory. So do the kills in Midnight Movie.
And we get all the way to the “torture porn” level… And while it is by far the creepiest scene in the movie, there is a surprisingly small amount of gore. Just goes to show you that the mind will fill in the blanks in a far worse way than a filmmaker can.
ILHM: The "film within a film" concept had been used before, but never with a supernatural killer like Radford. How did Radford's character evolve through the production?
JM: From the first draft of the script, Radford was always a supernatural killer. But his motivation was something that definitely changed over the course of the project.
Originally, the movie in the movie was a just mish-mash of images - like the video tape in The Ring. But I thought that in order to have the audience in the movie stay in the theater for any length of time, there needed to be a story – So after a long process, The Dark Beneath was born.
The movie in the movie was hugely important because it was the backbone of the entire film. The Dark Beneath was Radford’s back story. He was a man so obsessed with his movie scaring people that he embedded his soul into the film itself – in a quest to become the killer from his film.
Radford’s film needed to be something worth that obsession. So when crafting The Dark Beneath, we wanted to create the mythology of a horror movie that, while failing in its own box-office results, influenced a new wave of horror films.
Supposedly shot in 1964, Radford’s film was hugely influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. When he started The Dark Beneath, Radford set out to do what Hitchcock could not. His goal was to completely disregard the Hays Code as only an independent film could do.
In doing so, Ted Radford’s one and only film was a box office failure, mainly because only a handful of theaters would show it. Radford’s incarceration soon after finishing the film did not help much either.
But The Dark Beneath would go on to be a huge influence of the films of the late 60s and early 70s. Traces of The Dark Beneath can surely be found in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other horror classics.
Even the trailer for The Dark Beneath was influential.
http://www.TheDarkBeneath.com
Compare its trailer with that of 1972’s horror hit The Last House on the Left:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W9KPhmYYtg
With the mysterious disappearance of the inmates from the Newhaven Psych Hospital in 2006, a new interest in The Dark Beneath emerged. With this renewed interest, it was picked up by Inquisition Film, a low budget film distributer, and somehow made its way to the Avenue Theater.
And thus, Midnight Movie and Radford as a supernatural villain were born…
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The killer in the original script was even more supernatural. He thrust his hands into his victim’s head and they turned to dust. I was worried about pulling off this effect well on our limited budget. And I thought that the repetition of the same kill over and over would get stale as the movie went on…
We needed a weapon.
Everything out there has been used in a horror film. We've seen the chainsaw, we've seen the butcher knife. You name it. So coming up with something that could be instantly identified with Midnight Movie was the challenge.
When we were toying with the movie in the movie being a 1930s style film, the killer used a fire poker. But when I switched gears on the style of the movie in the movie, the fire poker was lost and the search began anew.
One day, in a flurry of emails, one of the Producers suggested a corkscrew knife. That’s when the lightbulb went on in my head! In college, I had written a serial killer novel where the killer had this implement that was this metal cone with a handle. You could puncture into someone's chest with it, and as you pulled it out, it had razor sharp edges that would pull out this chunk of flesh. So I took this 15 year-old idea and combined it with the corkscrew knife idea and our killer’s signature weapon was born.
From the first draft of the script, Radford always had a mask. But its design was something we really struggled with. Masks have been done to death in horror movies. To come up with something that is unique and scary was a huge challenge. So, we went through a lot of ideas and a lot of failed designs.
One night when I was really frustrated, I starting scouring the internet for ideas. I kept coming back to two iconic images. One is the Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn poster: the skull and eyes. That image has stuck with me since that movie came out. The other image I kept going back to was Hannibal Lector’s restraint mask in Silence of the Lambs. So I started playing around with them and cobbled together the basic design of our killer. Lunar Effects took my ideas and defined them with a lot of the small details. In the end, I was really happy with how it came together.
ILHM: Few directors have the chance to go back and re-cut their film. Even fewer have the chance to actually re-shoot after an initial release to create an entirely new product. How did The Killer Cut come about?
JM: Because the original film was successful, Bigfoot Entertainment came to me and asked if I would be willing to put together a director’s cut of the film.
There isn’t a filmmaker out there that looks back at their movies and doesn’t see a better way to do things. Look at Spielberg and Lucas – they have retouched classic films. Hindsight is always 20/20, even with cinematic geniuses that had pretty good budgets to work with at the time.
With Midnight Movie, many of the limitations to my original vision were purely budgetary. The ideas were there, just not the means to execute them. So when Bigfoot gave me the opportunity to overcome some of those limitations, I jumped at the chance.
ILHM: What can fans of the original look to expect in The Killer Cut?
JM: I’ve seen a lot of director’s cuts that weren’t better versions of the movie. They were longer, yes, but not better. So when I started The Killer Cut, I didn’t want to make the same mistake. I didn’t want to shove in a bunch of scenes that didn’t belong there in the first place. My goal was to enhance an experience that people already liked. That meant a lot more than just re-cutting the film.
From the start of the original production, I made sure that every penny of our limited budget made it onto the screen – and I think it shows. But there were a few things in the original version that just fell a little flat for me because of those budgetary limitations. The biggest was Radford himself.
I had a lot of ideas on how Radford should move through his environment, but they just weren’t within our budget. With The Killer Cut, we were able to utilize a lot of those original ideas to go back and make Radford a much more menacing villain. Believe me, the visual effects in The Killer Cut help create a totally different mood and feel for the film.
The other goal of The Killer Cut was to streamline a few areas that I felt just weren’t as tight as they could be. So I took the editing room scalpel to the film and made a lot of changes that you won’t notice, but the feel of those areas will be a lot better. And I made a lot of cuts. Even though we added several minutes of new material, the running time of the two films is about the same.
Much of the new footage we added was shot specifically for this version of the film. It was designed to fill in a few holes that myself, and the fans of the original, felt were missing. We really made an effort to enhance the mythology of Radford with the new footage. And the scenes that we extended with footage from the original shoot were enhanced with the new visual effects, making them a completely new experience.
Really, The Killer Cut is a totally different movie - much closer to my original vision. So if you haven’t seen the movie before, this is the version to watch. And if you think you have already seen Midnight Movie, I guarantee that you haven’t seen it like this.
ILHM: How much influence did fans and reviewers have on the revamped version of the film?
JM: The original cut of Midnight Movie fared pretty well with horror critics and fans of the genre, but it was not universally liked – few films are. But I looked long and hard at the negative reviews when I started The Killer Cut. They gave me a place to begin. I really looked at the parts of the film that were mentioned the most in a negative way and did what I could to address the fans/critics specific issues.
If you listen to The Killer Cut‘s director’s commentary, I point out a lot of these specific fixes.
ILHM: Fans will agree that this is the definitive version of the film. Does this version reflect your true vision as you had first intended, or are there still bigger and better sequences that we might look forward to in a sequel?
JM: Without going back and starting from scratch, The Killer Cut is as close as I can get to my original vision for the film.
Yes, I had a lot of bigger ideas for the original script - bigger and better chase sequences, more elaborate kills, lots of things. But a huge part of directing is allocating your resources to make the most out of what you have available.
With our original budget, a lot of my ideas had to be cut or modified to be sure we were able to finish the film. Budget was our biggest obstacle.
Sure, a sequel would still have budgetary limitations. But now that I have a few more years of experience under my belt, I know even more ways of pushing the budget to the limit to get the most out of every dollar. We did a good job the first time - but given the chance at a sequel, I can guarantee that it will be even better.
ILHM: The new additions to the film are seamlessly integrated back into the existing footage. How did you go about re-shooting so that the new material would be so indistinguishable from the original cut?
JM: I was pretty much a one man band in creating The Killer Cut. Yes, I was the writer/director, but I was also the Editor, Cameraman and Producer. It was a major undertaking, but I wanted to make sure that everything was done right.
The reshoots were where my years as a Director of Photography really became a major asset. I had already worked on both the MTV Movie Awards short films as well as Billy Crystal’s Oscar films. So I already had experience in shooting new footage to seamlessly integrate into existing scenes.
ILHM: How have fans received The Killer Cut in the three weeks since its DVD release?
JM: I really couldn’t be happier with the reaction.
My goal was to give fans of the original cut a much better experience. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive that we accomplished that.
But in achieving that goal, we have actually been able to convert more than a few people that did not like the original Midnight Movie into fans of The Killer Cut. In the end, I think that is what I’ll be most proud of.
ILHM: Are there any current sequel plans, and can you divulge where you would like to take the character of Radford?
JM: A Midnight Movie sequel??? That is totally up to the horror fans out there. Bigfoot is actually testing the sequel waters with The Killer Cut. If it does well, I think that the sequel will happen.
So if you want to see Radford back again, you need to start spreading the word that The Killer Cut is available exclusively on Amazon. I have some great ideas of where to take the story, so I hope I get the chance.
ILHM: What other projects do you have lined up next?
JM: For the past few years, my time has been carefully split between screenwriting and working on the television show Bones as a Camera Operator and Second Unit Director of Photography.
As a screenwriter, I have a thriller that is just about to go into production in China – Remote Control. It is like Eagle Eye meets The Usual Suspects. There are a lot of kick ass moments in this one and I can’t wait to see how they pull them off. And since that movie will be for the Chinese market, I’m hoping that the English language version of this script will be my next directing project.
I also have several other scripts that are about to go out, and they cover a wide array of genres. My personal favorite is a big sci-fi movie about the Telepatrol - a crack and hush-hush security team that is sent to catch mutations created by the new mass-transit marvel. Sort of Aliens meets The Fly.
Of course, I have a few horror scripts and I am really excited about a rewrite I just finished - Friday, Bloody Friday. I learned a lot from Midnight Movie‘s single location and this script really takes that concept to a new level. It’s about a small town Sheriff's station that turns into a night of terror when a group of college kids are trapped inside with a psycho cop picking them off one by one. It has a pretty high gore quotient and should be a great time for the effects crew.
Really, with all these potential projects in the works, even I don’t know which one will be next for me.
ILHM: In your opinion, where do the Horror and Slasher genres stand in today's cinema?
JM: Unfortunately, horror is rarely timeless. What scares an audience today will most likely not scare them tomorrow.
Unlike a lot of other genres, horror movies speak to the fears of today. They are scary because of the world we live in. In the 50s, we were afraid of communism. The movies of the time speak to those fears. Do they play the same today? No. Some have stood the test of time, but they are the rare exception.
Really, horror movies have always been hit or miss. For every good one, there have always been a slew of bad ones. And when there is a successful horror film, it spawns dozens of imitations trying to ride its coat tails. Today is certainly no exception. You have to watch out.
While the onslaught of horror remakes is a bit disconcerting, you have to realize that it isn’t just with horror movies. The studios are looking back in the archives to find any kind of a brand. Making old tv shows into movies or remaking an old movie is working because people are going to see them.
Sure, some of them are good and deserve to be rewarded, But too many of them were not thought out enough or needed a few more rewrites. Really, the only way to stop this trend, to get original stories back to the forefront, is to vote with your wallet.
The success of films like Paranormal Activity are great. Not only was it an original story, it did not have the gloss of the recent horror remakes. And whether or not you liked it, it really touched a nerve with audiences.
I hope that served as a wake up call for the studios. There is a market for new stories and the next great horror film is probably going to come from another unknown.
One bright spot in horror is that television seems to have embraced the genre in a big way – The Walking Dead, True Blood, The Killing. Really, that is where I see the real creativity happening. As fans of the genre, we have to make sure to support good horror wherever it is…
ILHM: Where can fans find out more about your upcoming projects and purchase MIDNIGHT MOVIE: THE KILLER CUT?
JM: Midnight Movie: The Killer Cut is on sale exclusively at Amazon.com
DVD
Amazon Instant Video
As for my future projects… Fans can keep clicking onto ILikeHorrorMovies.com - I’ll definitely keep you posted!
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A very special thanks to Jack Messitt once again for taking the time to speak with us tonight! Fans of MIDNIGHT MOVIE are sure to love the revamped new edition, but like Jack said, this version is likely to turn anyone who disliked the original! Stop by Amazon.com to get your copy today:
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