Dylan Bank - Interview
DYLAN BANK: In NIGHTMARE we strip away everything from our main character, played by Jason Scott Campbell – his friends, his sanity, his future, and, as you pointed out, his identity. You’re quick, though. A lot of people never realize he doesn’t have a name.
RR: Nightmare is a movie with lots of nudity in it. For one thing this means that you didn't go for a PG 13 rating so many movies go for these days, aren't you afraid it will offend people on both side of the oceans?
DB: If you don’t piss anyone off, you’re not doing anything interesting. As you watch any of this new breed of PG-13 horror movies that surrounds us today, you know the whole time that the lead actress is already contracted for the sequel. How can you be scared for her if you know she’ll be in the sequel? NIGHTMARE is a movie that obeys no rules, follows no comfortable expectations, both mentally and physically.
RR: Did you encounter any problems on that part by people or organizations that rejected the movie? And what market are you aiming at besides the fantastic movie festivals?
DB: Actually, everyone’s been really receptive to our movie, but most of all, we made NIGHTMARE to satisfy real horror fans. It’s been gratifying to see people who like the same types of films I do, responding so positively to NIGHTMARE. We’ve played in six festivals so far, and won at least one award at each one.
RR: Jason Scott Campbell & Nicole Roderick are both rather new in the movie scene. As far as I know Jason did only 2 other movies & Nicole was debuting here. Was it hard to cast them and were they the first choice? Did you have to persuade one or more of the actors, because of the nudity & sex scenes?
DB: All of our leads, Jason Scott Campbell, Nicole Roderick and Amin Joseph were our first choices, and none of them had a problem with the nudity. The nudity is a part of the horror in NIGHTMARE, a part of the plot. I’d seen Amin Joseph, who plays “Omar”, when I worked as a crewmember on a Roger Corman-produced flick. The very first day of shooting was Amin’s death scene, and they filmed at least fifteen takes, but every time the camera ran, he died the most amazingly intense death I’d ever seen. I thought, “I gotta work with this guy”.
RR: The movie as presented on the screener is about 2 hours long. As far as I know this is also the length the movie/DVD is presented to the audience, aren't you afraid that this is bit on the long side for common movie watcher? And what if you have to make a Directors Cut would it become significantly longer? Did you lose some big (important) scene that should be in the movie but that was cut?
DB: There’s no director’s cut. This is a completely independent movie, and what you see on screen is virtually word-for-word the script I wrote with the film’s producer, Morgan Pehme. So, no, there’s no scenes cut. As far as the length, NIGHTMARE’s actually an hour 47, with five minutes of
credits (man, it takes a lot of people to make a movie), and most of the top movies right now are much longer than that.
RR: Nightmare isn't a straight in your face movie full of answers, yet the images are quite direct. During the movie very often, the name Jesus Franco popped up in my mind. Is he (or the European seventies horror/sexploitation scene if you want) an influence to you? Any other directors who might have influenced you during the years?
DB :I love European film in general, and visually wanted NIGHTMARE to be in the same league as “Fellini’s Satyricon” or Bertolluci’s “The Conformist”. Our cinematographer, Valentina Caniglia is Italian, and she helped give NIGHTMARE its own look, but still with that level of color-density we wanted.
RR: One of the big problems in making movies is money, I guess. Was it the same with Nightmare?
DB: When Morgan and I first wrote NIGHTMARE, we didn’t have anything. We set out to write a film that would be potent psychologically, and work with just a camera and a few actors. But after we shopped around the treatment, we got such a strong response from a few investors that we were able to make the movie exactly as we had dreamed.
RR: If you have a smaller budget you have to cut on many things and the art of improvising is very important, I suppose you can tell us some interesting or funny moments as well as some very big setbacks caused by these improvisations?
DB: There are a few funny lines here and there that the actors came up with that made it into the film, but in general, everything is line-by-line the script (but I think your question is a compliment to the actors). My favorite improv moment, though, is with the character “Leon”, played by J. Bloomrosen. J. had to fill some time in the background, and gab to our lead Jason, and in the script was like one line or something, but we needed a lot more. J. had to talk about things that had happened previously in his character’s apartment that required him cleaning it, and J., take after take, improved the most outrageous things no one but him has ever said out loud. Everyone was in stitches, including Jason, who was on camera, so it ruined every take. We would do it
again, and he would come up with something new every time, so I had to force him to repeat himself so Jason would stop laughing on camera. I’d tell you what he says, but it’s one of the funniest moments in the movie, so I’m not blowing my load now.
RR: The movie inside the movie (the one Jason and Nicole discover the morning after on camcorder) holds some elements of snuff movies. The 1976 Snuff was one of the biggest scams in film history and started an urban legend. When you were directing this, did you think or have any thoughts on this kind of Snuff legend?
DB: What kind of sicko is against snuff movies? Every horror fan at one point ends up seeing a tape of real death, and we looked into it a bit before making NIGHTMARE too. Real violence is horrible, and we needed that for NIGHTMARE, unlike a lot of horror movies where violence is presented as funny. When Freddy kills someone, it’s in a wacky, exhilarating way. But a snuff movie is a different experience – really, a much more powerful one. NIGHTMARE aims to tap
into that.
RR: As you might be aware Razor Reel is all about cult, camp, bizarre, horror & sci-fi. Can you name our readers some 'must-see' features (or movies that were a big influence)?
DB: I saw a movie called “Confessions of a Psycho Cat” at Coney Island this summer. It’s about a crazy woman killing people Safari-style in the streets of New York City, and one of the victims is the real Jake La Motta (who Raging Bull was about - he’s no DeNiro). That’s great, in a “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” kinda vein. I also love Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films like “Holy Mountain”, “El Topo” and “Santa Sangre”. My two biggest influences as a director are Stanley Kubrick and Werner Herzog.
Ok, so now I’m going to try and impress you with a list of some of my favorite movies that are either bizarre, cult, sub-cult or just hard to find. If you haven’t seen any of these, you die having never truly lived: “Cry Uncle”, “Baxter”, “The 4th Man”, “Leolo”, “Rosie”, “A Question Of Silence”, “Bloodsucking Freaks”, “From Beyond”, “Stroyzek”, “Exist”, “Phantom of the Paradise”, “Baraka”, “American Astronaut”, “Abel Raises Cain”, “Gay By Dawn” (a short), “Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity”, “Duel To The Death”, “The Weekend”, “God Told Me To”, “La Amore De Molesto”, “The
Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb”, and maybe the best of the lot, “Whore 2”.
RR: Morgan Pehme mentioned us that Nightmare was accepted for BIFFF 2006 and that both you & Morgan (and possibly Nicole) would come over to Brussels. How do you feel about that?
DB: I’m fucking psyched! Maybe I should put that more tactfully: we are very excited about taking part in what may be the largest and most prestigious Horror and Fantasy festival in Europe. Fuck yeah!
RR: Thank you very much for your time and before we leave you we have one more question for you. Do you have new plans, new ideas or things that you really want to do in the near future? Can you tell us something about them?
DB: Next is a sci-fi film called “Genesis” about the end of the world, but it takes place almost exclusively in the woods. Call me crazy, but I think it just might change the world.