By Daniel Robert Epstein

Gordon recently sat down with Really Scary to talk about his MoH work and upcoming second episode, as well as his passion for all things Lovecraft, his latest movie Edmond starring William H. Macy, and how much sicker the new uncut release of From Beyond will be.

Really Scary: Did you come into Masters of Horror the same way everyone else did?

Stuart Gordon: Yes I was at the very first dinner.

RS: What impressed you about the idea of doing an episode?

Gordon: They were basically giving us a chance to do whatever we wanted to do. As long as we could do it on budget and on schedule there was going to be no interference or censorship or anything. That was a wonderful opportunity. You don’t get too many of those.

RS: I heard rumors that the budgets were a little tighter than people expected.

Gordon: Yeah, but it was a pretty healthy budget for an hour long show.

RS: What is it that keeps bringing you back to adapting Lovecraft?

Gordon: With Lovecraft, there are so many wonderful stories. It’s like a treasure trove. If I lived to be 200, I wouldn’t be able to do them all. They’re just fantastic and the other thing about Lovecraft work is they’re all public domain.

RS: How long have you wanted to adapt Dreams in the Witch House?

Gordon: I think this might have been the first Lovecraft story I ever read. It scared the crap out of me and it’s one of those things that you don’t forget. Dennis and I have been talking about it for years and years and because of the subject matter its one of the things that was a very difficult thing to set up. The story’s worldview is one that I think people are starting to be able to relate to a lot more than they used to. That is the idea that man is lucky to be as ignorant as he is because if he knows the truth it would drive him insane. The idea that we are victims of forces that are beyond our control is something that we’re all feeling these days.

RS: So you felt that this was especially current?

Gordon: Pardon me?

RS: You felt that this story was especially current right now?

Gordon: I think that is true of all of Lovecraft’s work. His audience has been growing by leaps and bounds, not only are they developing movies, but there are role playing games and videogames and all these other things are based on his writing. We’re legion now.

RS: When I interviewed you for Dagon I mentioned that Ezra Godden looks quite a bit like Jeffrey Combs. You said that you didn’t see it at all.

Gordon: Right, it’s funny because other people have commented on it since then. At the time I cast him, I never thought of him as being like Jeffrey. Although what I’m looking for with a Lovecraft hero is you want someone who seems really intelligent and sensitive that is on the edge of madness. I think that both Jeffrey and Ezra can project that image.

RS: When I spoke to Jeffrey about a year after we spoke, he said, “Yeah, I heard that too” [laughs].

Gordon: [laughs] Well I finally was able to introduce the two of them which was funny because originally Jeffrey was supposed to be in Dreams in the Witch House as the old man that lives across the hall from him. Unfortunately the scheduling didn’t work out, although the guy that did end up playing the part, Campbell Lane, was fantastic.

RS: Was the hotel a set you built?

Gordon: Yes the whole second floor was on a stage, yeah. The downstairs was in a real house and the exterior is actually an existing house.

RS: How was it working with the crew in Vancouver?

Gordon: I was real impressed with them. We had a really great production designer, David Fischer and my DP was amazing. A lot of the effects were created on stage live because of the lighting work.

RS: I spoke to Don Coscarelli and he said that [executive producer] Mick Garris said to make it scary and sick.

Gordon: Yeah that was it. The other thing that was going on was that even though the directors are all friends there was this certain rivalry of who was going to do the scariest episode and completely freak everybody else out. That was fun too.

RS: Have they come to a consensus that it was Takashi Miike’s episode?

Gordon: Well, yeah, I think Miike won [laughs] because he freaked out Showtime.

RS: Have you seen the Miike one?

Gordon: I have.

RS: How is it?

Gordon: It’s pretty strong. But I don’t think it’s that much more extreme than the other ones. It was funny because people were writing in going, “Wait a minute, you can kill babies, but you can’t show abortions?” But anyone who’s seen any of Miike’s work knows that he’s going to push things as far as he can push them. Not only did his episode involve abortion but it involved a torture sequence that seemed to go on for about half an hour. It’s very extreme.

RS: You came out of a time when people were making pretty extreme films. What do you think when you see Japanese horror filmmakers’ work?

Gordon: It’s inspiring because it’s you’re going “Why didn’t I think of that? That’s fantastic.” Miike is great at coming up with these images that really stay with you. He is a true master and I feel the same way about Dario Argento. His work is really extraordinary and I remember when I went to see The Stendhal Syndrome a few years ago it got so intense that I had to get up and walk out of the theater.

RS: How do you think these episodes all hang together?

Gordon: Well, I think, the thing that’s kind of cool about the series is that each director’s episode is really so personal and incredibly different. There are some threads that go through a lot of them but each one is a completely different animal in terms of tone and style.

RS: Your frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli wrote Dreams in the Witch House, how has your guys relationship changed and advanced over the years?

Gordon: It’s so funny because we get into kind of a shorthand now because we met when we were 14 years old. Now it’s almost like we could read each other’s minds. It’s scary.

RS: I know you shot little bits for Showtime and the DVDs where you and the other directors were hanging out, what does mixing with these other guys do for you?

Gordon: First of all it’s fun because everybody really likes each other and they’re really bright and funny people. The dinners always have a lot of laughter. But the things that was very comforting was realizing that we’re all in the same boat and the problems that I’m having are no different than those that anyone else is having. There’s strength in numbers and that’s the idea behind Masters of Horror.

RS: It’s the Masters of Hollywood Horror because how all of you have been treated.

Gordon: Well, it’s always easy when you’re the flavor of the month. But staying in the game is infinitely more difficult.

RS: Are you doing an episode for season two?

Gordon: I am. Dennis and I are working on our episode now.

RS: Is it another Lovecraft?

Gordon: No it isn’t. We’re doing [Edgar Allan] Poe’s The Black Cat. Our plan is to have Jeffrey Combs play Edgar Allen Poe.

RS: I know the King of the Ants release got really muffed up. I didn’t see it until it was on cable.

Gordon: I know, it didn’t make it into the theaters but people are just discovering it now. It’s cool.

RS: That’s a pretty rough movie.

Gordon: It is very strong.

RS: When I interviewed William H. Macy not too long ago he said that Edmond is going to be even rougher.

Gordon: Yeah, Edmond is freaking people out. Unfortunately it’s freaking out the studios and distributors too. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and now it’s doing the festival rounds. I’m heading off tomorrow to Buenos Aires Film Festival in Argentina and I just got a call this morning from the Istanbul Film Festival, where it’s going to be screening.

RS: Are you guys going to hold out for theatrical or is there going to be a time where you will put it out to DVD?

Gordon: No it’s going to get a theatrical release but it will be a small one.

RS: When will it be released?

Gordon: I think they’re talking about July.

RS: What was your take on Edmond?

Gordon: Well [David] Mamet is an old friend of mine because I directed the very first professional production of his work, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. I saw the play Edmond when it was first performed and it completely blew me away. We’ve been talking about making a film of it for almost 15 years.

RS: How much has it changed from the stage play?

Gordon: Mamet wrote the screenplay and he added some things to the screenplay which I think were ingenious. It encapsulates a lot of the play but it goes beyond it as well.

RS: What is it about?

Gordon: It’s about a guy having a midlife crisis. He ends up leaving his wife and goes off to get laid and ends up murdering a young waitress played by Julia Stiles.

RS: Wow!

Do you hope that Edmond will open up more non-horror pictures for you?

Gordon: I think so, although I suspect that Edmond is pretty horrifying in its own right. It’s just a different kind of horror. It’s not creatures from a different dimension, its people living in New York City and it doesn’t get any scarier than that.

RS: I did an interview with Neal Adams a couple years ago. He had just released the book Neal Adams Monsters which had some designs he did for your movie of From Beyond. I didn’t realize that you and he did so much work together.

Gordon: We’re old friends and he’s amazing. There are so many people that work around him that just get inspired.

RS: What did his images do for you guys when you making From Beyond?

Gordon: The images were too horrifying to describe but obviously when you’re making a movie you have to show something on screen and Neil was able to translate that into images that were really disturbing and surreal.

RS: He designed a play for you, right?

Gordon: Yes, that’s how I met him. We did a play based on comic books called Warp. It involved inter-dimensional travel and all these creatures from other dimensional planes and superheroes and so forth. Neal came and saw a production and redesigned the whole thing before we took it to New York. John Heard played Lord Cumulus Avenger of the Universe.

RS: My favorite movie of yours, From Beyond, is finally coming out on DVD this year.

Gordon: Yeah, it is coming out and it’s a new director’s cut. We were able to find the material that the MPAA made us cut out and we put it all back in.

RS: I read that the uncut footage was just in a film can sitting in some warehouse.

Gordon: Yeah, that’s right. I had been told that it was thrown out. But it turned out that MGM found it. One of the happiest days I’ve had in a long time was opening up that film can and finding all those little trims.

RS: Is it standalone scenes or will it lengthen certain scenes?

Gordon: It’s really lengthening existing scenes. The MPAA was getting revenge from Re-Animator which was released unrated. They really did a hatchet to From Beyond. So this was a chance to put back everything they had cut.

RS: It doesn’t get any sicker than when Barbara Crampton bites off that pineal gland.

Gordon: But it does get sicker than that, far sicker. The one that caused the most trouble, which was the scene where my wife [Carolyn Purdy-Gordon], who played the character Dr. Bloch, has her brain sucked through her eye sockets.

RS: What else is coming up?

Gordon: Yeah, I’m going to be doing a film called Stuck, which is based on a true story about the woman who hit a homeless guy with her car and he goes through the windshield of her car. Then rather than take him to the emergency room, she drives him home and puts him in her garage and is waiting for him to die.

RS: Yeah, I know that story quite well. I hope I’m not bursting a bubble, but you do know there was a CSI episode of that?

Gordon: Yeah, I do.

RS: Oh ok, good. [laughs]

Gordon: But this gets us into areas that CSI couldn’t go.

RS: Are you using real names?

Gordon: No, we’re taking some liberties with it but it’s based on that true story.

RS: Who’s writing that with you?

Gordon: A guy named John Strysik who used to write for Tales from the Darkside. I produced a movie that he wrote that was called Deathbed.