FILM INTERVIEW: SAM RAIMI & GRANT CURTIS
Sam Raimi And Grant Curtis Bring Blood And Guts Back To The Big Screen
Spiderman director Sam Raimi is back to horror as director and writer of Drag Me To Hell. He took some time to sit down with Buzzine, along with the film’s producer Grant Curtis, to discuss the adventure of filming a horror movie on a small budget and having fun playing with the audience…oh, and he also gave us an update on Spiderman 4.
Emmanuel Itier: How is it being back to horror movies?
Sam Raimi: It’s like stepping into a nice warm bath of blood. It’s nice, familiar territory. I really liked, on the set, for instance, working with a lot of the people that I’ve worked with in the past, like Greg Nicotero from KNB EFX who did all the makeup and creature effects in the picture. I liked working with Peter Deming, who I had worked with on Evil Dead 2 before. So it was a reunion of sorts, and Grant Curtis, who I’ve worked with on the Spiderman films as my producer, and Simple Plan and The Gift and other projects. So it was a homecoming, and it was great to build sequences of suspense again. I really enjoyed doing that — playing that guessing game with the audience thinking, “Oh here they’re going to think there is a monster waiting behind this particular door, and we’ll lead them to believe that until this moment when there won’t be anything, and then we’ll hit them…”
EI: You like torturing people? [Laughs]
SR: That’s right.
EI: It was very long in the making because you wrote the story a long time ago. Why did it take so long?
SR: We wrote that story, but we weren’t expecting to make it into anything — my brother and I. It just sat on the shelf. And then, years later, when we were stuck on another script, we wrote it into a short film. These are just things we do on the weekends when we’re in between writing other projects. Then we wrote it into a screenplay some years after that. At that time, after I had formed a company called Ghost House Pictures, we wrote it into a screenplay to make as one of those films, to produce really, not for me to direct. I tried to get another director to direct it — a friend of mine, Jeff Lynch. I took it around to the studios, but we couldn’t quite get the financing to make the movie. They said, “We’d give you 6/8ths” — something like that — “7/8ths of the money you need to make the movie.” So they said, “Sam, if you cut these scenes, Jeff can direct the movie.” I thought, “This is not really why I’m in the business; I don’t want to be cutting the script.” It is more of a B-horror movie. It just wants to be left alone, basically.
SR: So at that point, the project didn’t go because they couldn’t quite get the money to let Jeff direct it because I didn’t want to make all these cuts. I got a call from my partner, who said, “Sam, if you direct the movie, we can keep all those scenes that we’d have to cut out budgetarily, because we can get you a little more money because you’re directing it and you’ve got a reputation as a director.” So Grant and I, at that point, embarked on making a picture.
EI: Did the producer wish for a bigger budget, or was it the same for you?
Grant Curtis: My goal is always just to get Sam what he needs, regardless of what the budget is, but always being mindful of the budget. So I think on this one, we had the money we needed to make the movie that was in his head, so in that area, we were very successful.
EI: You just said you and your brother are writing these little stories on the weekends. When you were children, did you act out horror fantasies in your house?
SR: We didn’t act [laughs], no. We weren’t really into horror films back then. I would make Super 8 comedy movies, and that was a great training ground for learning how to make a dramatic story or a comedy. And then in college, when my partner and my roommate at the time, Robert Tapert, and actually my brother, Ivan — when we were going to drop out of college to make our first feature film, Robert said to me, “You have to make a horror film, because if we’re going to break into the business, that seems to be the only type of film that distributors ever show that’s made with a super low budget.”
SR: We were trying to make a movie good enough that they would show it at the drive-in. In fact, that was my partner’s question. He said, “Can you make a movie good enough to show in a drive-in?” I said, “I don’t know. Let’s see what they’re showing.” At the time, we saw Halloween, and he said to me, “Well?” And I said, “I don’t think I can make a movie that good.” But then, I started to make little Super 8 horror movies and learned how, and then I said to him, “I don’t know if I can make a movie that good, but I feel confident enough to try at least.”
EI: I’d like to know about how you cast Alison Lohman and Justin Long. They’re obviously the glue of this story.
SR: We found all actors through our casting director that Grant found, John Papsidera. He has got great taste and a real good sense when he reads a script, I think — I’ve only worked with him once — of what’s needed as far as the actor that can satisfy those requirements, and he suggested Alison. Universal Pictures, who was one of the distributors, approved Alison — they liked her very much from her work. I loved Matchstick Men; I thought she was really bright and brilliant in that picture. And for me, she satisfied a desire to have somebody in the lead who you really could root for, who was positive and sweet and put forth a real positive charisma. The character, really, is so detestable — the things that she does. With the more and more intense it gets, the more cowardly and weak we see her spirit is, so I wanted someone that the audience would root for, despite all these shortcomings. I wanted the audience to sin right along with her and to be with her every miserable degrading step she took for her own soul, and I wanted the ending to be fitting. Not that she isn’t [overly] punished; she is, and I pity the poor girl for that. But I didn’t want her to be an absolutely good girl who gets such an outrageous punishment. I wouldn’t have punished her like that, personally.
EI: I really like the fact that she goes from meek and mild, and by the time she’s in the grave, she’s really sexy because she’s calling her a bitch and she’s found herself. Do you think she’s quite sexy in that scene?
GC: Very sexy in that scene. I think it goes back to speak about when you asked the casting question about how we came about Alison and Justin. For Alison in particular, you had to hire that actress who could take you on that journey that you just described. So when you see her as a kind of meek and mild woman in the beginning, practicing her vowel sounds and stuff like that, and then at the very end, you see this kick-ass woman in a grave battling this old corpse — I think that’s what was so key about hiring her in particular, because she took the audience on that journey. But yes, at the end, I find her very sexy, as a single man in a rainstorm.
EI: Is this original movie like an anecdote to like all those remakes, like Friday the 13th and Last House On The Left — those kinds of movies?
SR: It wasn’t ever made with any other pictures in mind or to buck any trends, or to say anything about those films. It was really just a horror story that we really liked and tried to make really funny and surprising, and kind of goofy and gross the audience out at times, and give them as many scares as we could. That was really all that was in our minds, and we’re still hoping the audience likes the thing when it comes out.
EI: Can you talk a little bit about the fact that it’s not very CGI and it’s kind of B-movie in that everything there is real, which I love…?
GC: I think when you approach these movies, you always want to do it real if you can, and you use CG as an alternate. This was just one of those opportunities where we could still tell the story with the real effects. Like Sam mentioned, we had the genius of Greg Nicotero at KNB, and so why not take advantage of his skills? Plus, Sam’s filmmaking style and his shocks and his use of the camera also really lent itself to working hand-in-hand with Greg and making those awesome effects.
EI: It feels more real to me. How much CG did you use?
GC: As good as CG is and as beautiful it is, it’s a part of every filmmaker’s toolkit. It’s still beautiful to see the effect actually on the set and let the actors react from it, and you get those better reactions as well when the blood is really flowing at them, rather than, “Okay, the blood is coming at you now.” I think it helps a lot of different departments tell the best story possible.
EI: Have you got a thing about liquid and mouths? There is a lot of liquid going from one mouth to another.
SR: I’m just trying to give the audience what they want. Perhaps you should ask that of your readers. What is wrong with them? [Laughs]
EI: Can you talk a little bit about some of the smaller things in this movie? It’s so huge, but I noticed like the license plate was 99951, which flipped around could be IS 666. How important are those little subliminal things to an audience as opposed to these huge set pieces that you also have?
GC: I can’t speak about the license plate in particular. Our production designer was Steve Saklad and our costume designer was Isis Mussenden, and our property master was Ellen Froin, and they’re all great craftsmen and artists in their own right. When you walk onto a set like the séance or the wake, it was just not necessarily a license plate, but you see all the knickknacks and stuff that they would decorate their set with and they would create that world with. I think it was so essential, from the biggest prop in the movie to the smallest picture off in the corner, to create that environment for our actors, especially Alison and Bojana Novakovic in the wake scene, to come into that insane bizarre world of this wake and be comfortable and really act that scene to its fullest. One of the things I always love to do on the set, and particularly on this movie, is just before we start shooting, just go sneak around and look at those little things.
SR: Is that where you were? [Laughs]
GC: That’s what I was always doing.
SR: I couldn’t find the guy.
GC: I was actually in the hot tub in the trailer. [Laughs] It’s those little things that I think make the movie, and I think if you take that particular form of the art out, then you feel it. I think the actors feel it first, and I think the audience feels it second.
EI: In terms of Drag Me To Hell, you said before it needed to be a certain level — PG-13 sort of thing. In your own head, were you ever thinking, “I could push it to an R”? Could it be an R and still maintain the storytelling you wanted it to have?
SR: Yes, it could, but the thing was written, and it wasn’t really about violence. That wasn’t the thrust of the thing, although there is a really intense fight scene in a car. Most of it is trying to be spooky and fun, basically…and trying to gross the audience out at times for fun. So it naturally seemed to be more PG-13 than not.
EI: Is it true you really held the fly on a reel?
SR: How dare you suggest such a thing. [Laughs] Yes…but anybody would do that because you have to have a reference for the actor to watch it and to know what it would be like to be tortured by this thing and for an eye-line, so they know where to look — that kind of thing.
EI: Even on the Evil Dead movies, though, you always had your sets just dressed to the nth degree. I think that really sets the audience up to feel more like they’re in an organic experience.
SR: I agree with you, and yes, with our limited budget, we did everything we could to create the most subtly, nightmarishly rustic cabin in the woods we could. Fortunately, it was easy because those were very easy materials, so we simply had to build a lamp stand out of planks that was a little off kilter, or an imbalanced dresser that was wrong in the dimensions a little bit. But they were such cheap materials that it was very doable on that budget. There was a lot of attention paid to detail there.
EI: How could you not have a Bruce Campbell (who has appeared in the Spiderman and Evil Dead films) cameo? I was expecting, waiting and hoping…
SR: Why didn’t you get Bruce? [Laughs]
GC: It was my fault.
SR: We did try halfheartedly. I think he was in that series, though, right?
EI: That series is so good, Burn Notice. He’s great on that.
SR: He is great, and I think he had a full docket of work. If he was available, we would have written a role. The truth is we didn’t really have a role. We would have written something for him to perform in, but he was busy.
EI: When you wrote this, did you ever think of making the man to be the main character?
SR: I thought about it many times — that very same thing with the expressed idea of how could I make Bruce star in this picture. [Laughs] That’s really why I was thinking about it. But every time I ran it into my head…I would have to make compromises that I thought would hurt the story. So even though I really wanted to write it for a man so Bruce could star in it, I couldn’t quite make it work.
EI: The ending would suggest that there will be a sequel or maybe there is another trilogy in the making.
SR: Oh! I thought it would leave you with a different impression. I don’t want to spoil it for your readers.
EI: Any plans for a sequel?
SR: I don’t have any plans. How soon can you start on the screenplay? [Laughs] I currently don’t have any plans, but that’s interesting that it left you with that reaction. I didn’t expect you to think that, but maybe that’s the producer in you. [Laughs]
EI: What about Evil Dead 4? I know you’re kind of writing that. How far along is that, and do you have an overreaching arc for the storyline?
SR: We wrote Part One thinking that was the end. I guess it’s kind of like I think this is the end, where it was over. And because we couldn’t get any other job in Hollywood, somehow Bruce Campbell survived into the next Evil Dead 2. So we made Evil Dead 2 and that one was written with the knowledge that we want to make a third one. I’m sorry…what did you ask me?
EI: What about your rocking storyline for the fourth one? Do you know what that is yet?
SR: I don’t have that — just some ideas written down, but I’ve said that last month and it was a very negative reaction from the fans. “Why does he keep talking about that movie? Where is that movie?” It’s just because people ask me, but I’m not really working on it right now.
EI: But there are some ideas?
SR: Yeah, we were talking about some ideas as to what could happen to the main character, exactly.
EI: Is it more fun to work on a tight budget than a really big Spiderman budget for creativity?
SR: It is. It’s much more viscerally exciting as a director to work on a lower budget picture like this — this one particularly. I mean, everyone came at it with so much love and attention to detail versus a much more professional top-of-the-line…big-game approach, which is great because it’s like conducting a big orchestra — the Spiderman picture — the best orchestra in the world, and this is like playing in a jazz band, and each has their own rewards.
EI: Is it an option to make Spiderman 4 with less money than the other ones before?
SR: It’s how we’re going to try to do it. We’re going to try to make it for less money, on a much tighter, controlled budget and really focus on the story and the characters as the primary thrust of the piece.
EI: There is talk that you’re going edgier, darker on Spiderman 4. True?
SR: Whatever it is, I think will be a direct result of the best style to bring about our writer’s screenplay, and as soon as I read that, I’ll know what that is. Edgy could be a direction, but I don’t think it will be applied without really understanding the character’s journey from the inside out first, and then figuring out the best way to bring that about. I hope we just dig even deeper into the truth of who Peter Parker really is as a human being and unique character, and celebrate that in this next picture, which is a lot of the reason why I want to make this next picture. I still believe I have an understanding of Peter Parker as a character that I have not quite put onto the screen yet. I’m not talking about Toby McGuire’s performance, which I very much love. I’m talking about my understanding of the character; I feel sometimes like a kid at the piano recital, and I know this piece really well. I know it by heart. But I sometimes get it right and sometimes I don’t, but I want a chance to really play it the way I feel it, so I’m hoping it’s a really good screenplay and I can express the character through that. I’ve got a really good writer.
EI: Like a virtuoso.
SR: That would be nice. That would just take getting all the right notes [laughs], but I’ll take that. That’s a good goal.
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