LANDIS TALKS MASTERS OF HORROR
After the lensing the Independent Film Channel documentary SLASHER (about a used car salesman), director John Landis is going back to horror. ‘Im doing two films next year; actually, one is made for television,’ Landis told Fango during his visit to Spains Sitges film festival this month. ‘Its really funny the way these projects began. There was this television documentary called MASTERS OF HORROR, and it was about George Romero, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Guillermo del Toro and myself, and a whole bunch of horror movie directors. Mick Garris called everybody and said, Hey, we should have a dinner and call it the ‘Masters of Horror Dinner!’ So we met in the Valley last year: Guillermo, Tobe, myself, Sam Raimi and Carpenter, David Cronenberg was there oncea whole bunch of people, and it was very fun, because we got very silly and it was like: The Masters of Horror have coffee! or The Masters of Horror order dessert!
‘Weve done that four or five times now, with different people every time,’ Landis continues. ‘But the good thing Garris did was he put together a deal with this company [IDT, which owns Anchor Bay Entertainment] to make a series of movies called MASTERS OF HORRORwhich I think is a really stupid labelwhere each one of us is supposed to direct a movie, so now we are doing it. They are giving us a budget of $1.5 million for each film, and with that money we can basically do anything we want, as long as its shot in Vancouver, with the same crew. And it has to be scary, somehow!
‘Im doing the first one,’ Landis continues, ‘and John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi, George Romero and Hideo [RINGU] Nakata are all doing one. Theyre trying to make it much more international now. Its an interesting deal because Anchor Bay owns the DVD rights only for the United States, so we are free to do whatever we want on everything else. So we might do a feature, cutting together two or three episodes, or something for cable television. Whats fun is that because its DVD, theres no censorship at all, so MASTERS OF HORROR is going to be pretty gruesome and outrageous.’
Landis offers a few more tidbits about his MASTERS movie, as well as another theatrical terror picture on tap: ‘I am shooting my horrible one in February, and it should reach the DVD shelves by next summer. The second project I am working on is a movie for Dark Horse, for [owner/producer] Michael Richardson, titled GONE. Its really silly and really scary. Its a foolish story, but you know most scary movies are foolish. Thats what I like, because you have to overcome reality.’
Courtesy of Fangoria
For over 20 years the Horror Asylum has continued to bring you the very best genre news, reviews, giveaways and interviews in the horror world.