Interview with Kerry Prior [091218]

Who doesn’t remember the flying metal orbs that pierced heads and limbs in the Phantasm series? Or those damned cockroaches in Bubba Ho-Tep? Or The Hell Fire Pit in Nightmare on Elm Street? FX guy D. Kerry Prior is the magician behind those famous horror tricks. During the 80s and 90s he worked on several of the classics in the horror genre, and now he has traded in special effects for directing. Prior recently visited the Stockholm Film Festival with his zombie vampire movie The Revenant, a film he wrote, produced, and directed himself. Rysarnytt had a little chat with Kerry before the screening at Skandia.

Stefan Särnefält (translation support: Karl Shinn)
There’s a little bit of a Tarantino feeling with Kerry Prior. Not the same motormouth leather jacket style but some of the same Hollywood star quality. The tall Kerry traded sunny and glittering Las Vegas for the dark polar metropolis of Stockholm to show off his new movie The Revenant. The film is a kind of black horror comedy in which the main character Bart was killed under mysterious circumstances in Iraq and is sent home in a coffin. He wakes up undead, however, with an insatiable craving for blood and looks up his old pal Joey. They embark on a blood-stained odyssey through Los Angeles’ trashy neighborhoods in search of the vampire's favorite food. This doesn’t go without hitch, as Bart's emotional self remains unaltered; being forced to deprive someone of their life every night creates problems for the conscientious bloodsucker. The Revenant is a multifaceted, mixed-genre film with superb effects. It is Kerry's second movie. In 1996, he shot Roadkill, a film about a pair of outlaws who are persecuted and harassed by a mysterious driver. The film was released but never reached the market, although Kerry hopes for the film to get distribution in time.

Kerry received his film education at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) back in the 80s. He has been involved in most of the best parts of the filmmaking process: special effects, cinematography, editing, costume, and makeup. But FX have always had a special place in his heart. His FX debut came in 1987 with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, which can very well be considered a respectable opportunity with which to practice his kill skills. The work continued with giants such as The Lost Boys, Phantasm (2-4) and The Abyss. He is inspired by filmmakers such as Kubrick, Scorsese, Haneke and Polanski. But it was his old classmate Gerald Hughs from UCLA that got him into directing. Hughs passed away tragically a few years ago under mysterious circumstances, says Kerry. His death affected him when he made The Revenant, and in the opening sequence we watch Bart's funeral set to Albioni’s s somber Adagio In Sol Minore. The film is shot in California and Iran and received awards for best special effects and makeup at the LA Scream Fest in October this year. At the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, the movie brought home the silver prize in the independent category.

RN:
Was The Revenant a difficult film to make?

KP:
Yes, it was really difficult. We had neither enough money nor time to do what I had in mind. A lot of the team was superb but very green due to the low budget.

RN:
It’s not at all easy to work as an independent director in Hollywood, it sounds like.

KP:
No, but there have always been different types of problems with the projects I've worked on. Roadkill went painlessly, and we even had a much smaller budget then. We were a small and enthusiastic team and the filming went on longer. But each film has its problems; sometimes related to financing, sometimes it’s the actual production and distribution.

Kerry tried to keep his FX comments to himself during the making of The Revenant because he had people at his disposal who mastered the area even better than he did, but he had opinions on how to do some things, such as makeup effects.

RN:
There is a bit of a Taxi Driver feeling to The Revenant. For example if you look at Joey and Bart when they go around LA searching for suitable victims among society's dregs. No direct comparisons, but the film has a bit of that dirty feeling.

KP:
Well, you could say that Taxi Driver was one of the inspirations. But all filmmakers could say the same. I love Taxi Driver and Scorsese is one of my favorite directors. When I’m feeling down, I can put on Taxi Driver and watch it. I don’t know why actually -- it's not exactly an uplifting movie, haha.

RN:
The film offers no explanation as to why the lead character Bart is resurrected from the dead. Based on the final scenes, one could interpret his death as part of a secret military project. In the bar scene after the funeral, there is also a discussion about Wicca and witchcraft.

KP:
That’s true, that is not explained. Sure, it could have something to do with the military. There was originally a long discussion in the bar as to why the military sent home the body only after three weeks, which was related to the Wicca religion. But I didn’t want to give any direct explanation for the resurrection.

RN:
Is it a strength of horror movies to not offer too much explanation?

KP:
It depends on the film. In this movie, it was a choice I made. We cut out some scenes that would have offered certain clues as to what happened. For example, we had scenes with Bart when he was killed in the desert that we chose to cut.

RN:
What is the moral message of the movie?

KP:
First and foremost, it's a story about Bart, friendship, and his journey -- any political overtones are just dressing. The idea was that if this undead thing were to escalate to its ultimate logical conclusion, the military would see if there was some application for it. I'm certain that there has already been a meeting in the Pentagon exploring the potential military uses for Swine Flu -- that meeting has happened.

RN:
Can one interpret The Revenant as a veiled criticism of George W. Bush’s policies?

KP:
That would suggest I had a partisan agenda, which I absolutely don't; the movie arguably takes place now, during the Obama Administration. I was as unhappy with the Bush administration as anyone, but it's important to note that Obama has not overturned any of Bush's most egregious policies; he hasn't done anything about the Patriot Act, or the Military Commissions Act, and he is now escalating the war in Afghanistan -- a war that is generally considered un-winnable and likely to last another ten to fifteen years, and cost untold trillions of dollars. And people seem to forget that Bill Clinton bombed Baghdad on the eve of his impeachment trial. So, no, this is not a partisan critique.

Kerry says that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld should be thrown in jail for state-condoned torture, for crimes against the Geneva Convention, for profiting from war, and for treason. But that it will not happen because of one reason: apathy. People can complain about Bush stealing his first election, but the second time he was voted in legitimately. This was after his lies to start a war in Iraq, recalls Kerry -- after the oil company Halliburton began withdrawing billions to the United States, long after Americans started being shipped home in boxes. But most Americans do not care, says Kerry, returning to the moral message of the film:

There is a reason that Bart's driving personality trait is apathy (if that's not an oxymoron.) The guy is given a second chance at "life" (kind of), but blows it basically because he is too apathetic to act. So if there is a criticism here, it is leveled at the American public. That's really where the coda of the movie comes from. I bet my sister-in-law, who is a staunch apologist for the Obama Administration, that Obama will have standing troops in Iran before he leaves office. She argued with me about it a long time, but in the end, she didn't put any money down.

RN:
The final scene seems to set up for a sequel a bit.

KP:
Yes, some who have observed that. But the idea with the ending was not to keep the door open for a sequel, but rather that Bart ends up in hell. The hell is to be forced to return to military service.

RN:
Is Bart a vampire or zombie?

KP:
I see him more as a vampire. But if it that which happens in the film were real, it would have nothing to do with the vampires portrayed in literature or Bram Stoker's novel.

"If This One Doesn’t Kill You, You're Already Dead"
Perhaps one of the most delectable horror taglines ever written. We enter into the world of the Phantasm films and the wonderfully diabolical character The Tall Man. Brilliantly played by Angus Scrimm (his real name is Rory Guy, editor’s notes). Kerry lavishes praise on Scrimm and explains that Scrimm went to USC (University of Southern California) with Sam Peckinpah in the late 40s and worked with him in theater. But after Phantasm he became synonymous with The Tall Man and thus one of the great horror icons of the genre. The Tall Man had an arsenal of deadly spheres at his disposal, which pierced heads and limbs with surgical precision when cast at victims. Surely you remember the yellow bodily fluids (blood red if they were still human) that wouldn’t stop spewing from their pierced skulls? It was Kerry who pulled the strings in the third film. Phantasm was filmed over a 20-year period but Kerry says he doesn’t know if director Don Coscarelli had a master plan for the series. He's still has occasional contact with him.

RN:
What was it like working with Phantasm?

KP:
It was wonderful. Don was easy to work with but at the same time demanding. He was open to different ways to do effects and scenes, but he also knew what he wanted. We developed a great friendship and I like talking to him. I have learned a lot from Don.

RN:
You were the supervisor of the spheres during Phantasm 3. Not only are they equipped with small mini-brains and personalities, in one scene we can also see hundreds of flying globes that appear to be CGI creations.

KP:
It was Don who determined that the balls would be more like people. I didn’t do the scenes with the hundreds of balls. I really don’t know when Don did those scenes. They weren’t in the first cut that I saw.

RN:
When you work with computers and CGI effects you always get the result that you program into the computer; nothing is left to chance. But when you work with classic FX-effects, such as a car crash, things can happen that you didn’t plan, which ideally can improve the final result.

KP:
Absolutely. That’s true in the case of CGI. But when you compose it all together, it’s just like it was previously. I didn’t work with CGI effects in my time but I wish I could.

RN:
Which FX job are you the most proud of?

KP:
Good question. I have to say the effects we made in The Revenant, hehe ...

RN:
You also did some stuff in two of the Elm Street movies, including the Renny Harlin film in 1988.

KP:
Yeah, but it was a while ago. I didn’t work directly with Harlin but I remember that we did some skulls, bones and other gadgets and built models, including the hell fire pit. We built up everything in a parking lot behind Dream Quest. I was pretty young then but I learned quite a lot of the work during that period.

RN:
What do you think about doing a remake of Elm Street without Robert Englund as Krueger?

KP:
It was pretty surprising, I must say. The guy who plays the new Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley from Watchmen, is a spectacular actor. They couldn’t have picked a better choice for the role. I understand those who think it's strange to replace Robert. But one must not forget the movie itself. I think that Haley can bring a new dimension to it.

RN:
Any general remarks on all the remakes that Hollywood has been churning out?

KP:
Overall, I think remakes are not as good as the originals. But the originals reflect a culture that existed for perhaps 20-30 years ago. The whole idea that they do a remake is anachronistic, since we live with completely different types of problems today than they did for example in the 70s. One reason why I like the new zombie movies is that they are good at reflecting our time. They shot Night of the Living Dead (-68) during the Vietnam War and the film was also a kind of commentary on the war. Now we have Iraq and we have a lot of zombie movies. I don’t see it as a coincidence. All films are a reflection of their time.

RN:
You have in an interview said that two of your absolute horror favorites are The Shining and Rosemary's Baby. Do you also consider them to be the scariest movies?

KP:
That is a trickier question. I was definitely terrified of The Shining when I saw it the first time but it doesn’t scare me in the same way today. But a scary movie I saw recently is a documentary about Enron, hehe ... (the mega-major U.S. power company that went bankrupt in 2001, editors notes) called The Smartest Guys in The Room. It scared me pretty good. Another documentary that scared me was Loose Change 9/11 (a film argues that the attack on the WTC had links to the U.S. Government, editors note). A strong film otherwise is Michael Haneke’s Funny Games.

RN:
Do you consider yourself a horror director?

KP:
I love horror! But I definitely have other ideas that are not horror. I don’t know if I am particularly interested in movies with "bad guys". If people do not perceive The Revenant as a horror film, it's because there is no "bad guy" in the film, like Freddy Krueger. What I love about horror is that it can make use of more universal styles that other genres can’t, such as allusions and metaphors. You don’t see that kind of stuff in a romantic comedy, for example. They don’t explore the depths of the human psyche in a romantic comedy or many of the other Hollywood films for that matter. That’s the stuff that makes attracts me to horror films.

RN:
What is your favorite horror period?

KP:
I would say that it is the 70s. Not just horror films, but American cinema in general. The 70s clearly had an A team of brilliant American filmmaking. The 60s, 70s, and 80s were strong horror periods. But in the 90s, the genre suddenly derailed. It was very difficult for filmmakers to find something new to say.

RN:
Have you seen the Swedish movie Let the Right One In?

KP:
Yes, it was an impressive movie. I saw it six months ago when it came out in theaters in the U.S. and I loved it.

I say that Sweden has no tradition of making horror movies but that the interest in horror has increased recently, largely due to Let the Right One In. But we are good at angst and drama. Finally, we reach the subject of demon director Bergman, which Kerry seems to like.

KP:
How many horror movies have not been inspired by Bergman?