Mick Garris, the man responsible for so successfully bringing many of Stephen King’s most popular works to the small screen, is at it again. In July of this year, Desperation, the story of a group of strangers who become stranded in a deserted Nevada mining town by a psychotic sheriff, comes to ABC for your viewing pleasure. The cast includes Tom Skerritt (Alien), Steven Weber (The Shining), Annabeth Gish (The X-Files), Henry Thomas (Dead Birds), Matt Frewer (Dawn of the Dead) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy).

In addition to finishing up Desperation, Mr. Garris has also taken on the enviable task of bringing together as many of the masters of both writing and cinematic horror as he could for a Showtime cable series entitled Masters of Horror. The list of talent will have many horror fans calling their cable company immediately to order Showtime, just to see this. Tobe Hooper, George Romero, Joe Dante, Joe R. Lansdale, John Landis, Richard Christian Matheson, H.P. Lovecraft, Don Coscarelli and Clive Barker are just SOME of the names involved in this historic project.

ReallyScary recently spoke with Mick Garris as he was traveling between cities, trying to organize all the details of these projects.

Really Scary: First, thank you for taking time out with us! On IMdb, it says that you once did a lot of “Behind the Scenes” featurettes on films like “The Fog”, “Videodrome” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” as well as working as a PA for Avco Embassy. Where did you get your very first industry job? And where did you study filmmaking?

Mick Garris: I started out as a journalist, first in music and later in film, as well as being a musician in a rock band. But Avco Embassy was probably my first industry job, in that I worked it full-time and it paid the rent. I was hired to specialize in marketing and publicity on genre films: SF, fantasy and horror; first was THE FOG, then THE HOWLING, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and SCANNERS. Which led to me hosting an interview show on the local Los Angeles pay-TV station, the Z Channel, called the Fantasy Film Festival.

RS: Your name is inextricably linked with Stephen King's as, to date, you have directed something like six of his works. What is your collaborative relationship like?

MG: I'm a huge fan of his work, and have been since the seventies when I first read THE SHINING. We are good friends, and working with him is all fun and enthusiasm. He has not been around as much as he was on THE STAND and THE SHINING, but he is an incredibly supportive collaborator, who loves when anybody gets a good idea. He is brilliantly smart, but also wonderfully playful. He is a very generous man (creatively and otherwise), with a great sense of humor. The collaborative machine changes from project to project, but he's always there as a resource for ideas.

RS: Do you find that your background in journalism, and as a writer, helps you in establishing a good working relationship with other writers?

MG: I hope so. I know the roadblocks we all bump up against, and when I'm producing or directing from someone else's script, I can provide a sympathetic ear.

Mick Garris at the recent World Horror Convention in NYC

MG: Nothing is scheduled, but nothing would make me happier.

RS: Is there a horror work out there (by King or anyone else) that you say to yourself 'someday, I must make that into a movie'?

RS: Desperation seems like a pretty daunting book - almost like "The Stand" with such a large cast of characters and almost epic feel. Did you head into it aiming for a faithful screen adaptation? Were there specific areas that you thought this just won't work on film?

MG: And don't forget Matt Frewer! For the most part, it was a great experience. I'd worked with most of the cast before, and they were great collaborators. The locations were fantastic. But it's one of the most difficult shoots of my life, second only to THE STAND, because it was only a third as long a production. The network was difficult at times, and forced us to work six-day weeks, which are very, very onerous on a crew.

The money was tight, and every day was filled with the most difficult things you can do in filmmaking: stunts, animals, physical effects, visual effects, driving, night shoots, difficult locations and the like. And near the end, we had a set burn down in the heart of the Tucson Convention Center, which was disastrous and incredibly dangerous. It's amazing no one was badly hurt.

But the cast and crew were really a great family. I worked with all new people on the crew, save for a couple, so there wasn't the usual shorthand, other than with the actors. So it was both trying and gratifying at the same time.

RS: The mine in Bisbee AZ is almost surreal in real life. Did you use effects for the massive mine shot that we see in the first 15 minutes or were you able to shoot it as is?

MG: The shot in the early scenes of the film is the unadulterated, actual mine in Bisbee.

RS: KNB EFX Group did your special effects on “Desperation”. You mentioned at the World Horror Con that ABC agreed to run the film you turned in 'as is.' Since the book was pretty gruesome – how did KNB remain faithful while keeping ABC happy as well?

MG: I was sure that we'd have to make cuts, but I tried to be economical about it. I wanted us to maintain everything we could from the book, and it can be conveyed potently without going over the top. Well, we stood at the precipice, and recreated as much of the book as possible. I don't think any complaints will be that we backed down on the violence. That said, we didn't revel in the bloodshed, either.

But THE STAND broke a lot of rules that ABC had laid out for us, and THE SHINING miniseries, at least in its last half-hour, would certainly have gotten an R rating had it been a theatrical feature.

RS: You are also heavily involved in the much-anticipated “Masters of Horror” series for Showtime as a writer, director AND producer. How long did it take to get such an enormous project off the ground? When can viewers expect to see it?

MG: It's a long story. But a couple years ago, I organized informal gatherings of genre directors for the occasional dinner together. They have been great fun. I had been trying to create a horror anthology with they guys who really know how to make scary movies, and I went to several of the veterans and asked if they would be interested. To my amazement, we got fully financed without even having a network attached, and the guys were enthusiastic about it. And then Showtime signed on, and it just suddenly came alive, thanks to my agent at CAA making the introduction to the company that provided the financing, and my producing partners, Andrew Deane and Keith Addis and Industry Entertainment, who really brought the business end all together. They have been particularly tenacious in driving the deal-making part.

RS: On looking at all the people involved in “MOH”, it's hard to find any horror industry omissions. Were there people you wanted who were unable to participate and if so, who are they? Off-hand, I only spot Wes Craven.

MG: Wes has been incredibly busy with his features, and we haven't even been able to discuss it with him. Guillermo del Toro was an early part of it, but he's doing a feature in Spain while we're in production, and won't be available. I'd been talking to King about directing for a long time, but he's not ready, at least not for this. And we still have yet to lock in one of the great Asian directors, but we might be close.

RS: KNB is also doing the SFX on “MOH”. As it is going to be on cable, which is much less restrictive than the networks, is the horror going to be much more explicit in either the writing or the effects? Any specifics we can look forward to?

MG: This is a "no-rules" show. It's being produced completely independently, and as long as it can be done on time and on budget, the creative issues are in the hands of the directors. There are no commercials, and there is no real censorship. I don't really want to get into specifics at this point, but some of them even go too far for me!

RS: Can you tell us a bit about what Stephen King, Kim Henkel, Lawrence Cohen and Clive Barker have contributed? And whose works will Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper and George Romero be directing?

MG: King actually is not involved in this one. Kim Henkel has been working with Tobe Hooper on his episode, though it looks like Tobe is going to be directing an adaptation of Richard Matheson's "Dance of the Dead", from a screenplay by Richard Christian Matheson. Larry Cohen will be directing David Schow's "Pick Me Up"; Roger Corman will shoot Clive Barker's "Haeckel's Tale", which I'm adapting; Joe Dante is also working from a short story, but I forget the author's name at the moment. We're not sure which one Romero is doing, but Don Coscarelli is do Joe Lansdale's "Incident On and Off a Country Road".

RS: For those without Showtime, are there plans for a DVD release of the series? More often nowadays, we see filmmakers planning for DVD extras at the outset of shooting. Do those sorts of things cross your mind when you're putting something like this together?

MG: Actually, the show is financed by the company that owns the Anchor Bay DVD company. You will see those DVDs sometime after the Showtime debuts. We're shooting plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff on each episode.

RS: A good many horror or dark-themed TV anthology series have tried to repeat the unprecedented success that Rod Serling created with “The Twilight Zone”. One of the aspects of your series that is generating a lot of excitement is the importance you place on the writers. These are writers that are legends in their own right, similar to Serling's use of Matheson, Beaumont and others. Was it difficult to get Showtime to back a series that wasn't going with the known stable of Hollywood writers? Do you think it's possible to make a good genre antho series with writers that might not come from that background?

MG: We put together the show. Showtime was eager to buy into the distribution of it. Even though a lot of tension and horror in films comes from the filmmaking, it takes a special kind of writer, with the right kind of instincts and interests to write horror cinema well. We hope we are working with the masters.

RS: Any chance for book tie-ins with the series such as a collection of the stories?

MG: There are book and graphic novel deals in the works.

RS: How were you able to gather this amazing group of literal masters of horror for this project? What sold them on it?

MG: I think they all liked the idea of doing their own movies their own way, and have more creative control than they usually get. And because a lot of them are friends, and it sounded like something that would be a lot of fun.

RS: Have you always been a fan of horror movies? What are a couple of top ones for you and what about them make them stand out in your mind as great horror?

MG: Yes, always. I'm not really a list-keeper. But great horror works first as great drama, whether it's FRANKENSTEIN or DEAD RINGERS or whatever.

RS: Can you catch us up on where “Desperation” is now? Has post-production completed?

MG: It will be completely finished on Monday. [May 23]

RS: The first Masters of Horror, directed by John Landis, is complete now? John Carpenter mentioned somewhere that Landis took it completely over budget and now everyone's out of money but he also sounded like he might be joking. Has this been a tough show from the outset to keep on schedule/budget? Can you tell us roughly what your budget is for each episode?

MG: It was a joke; we're right on schedule. I don't know if I'm able to tell the budget, but it's reasonable, if not huge, but tight in the realm of films that require a lot of effects and makeup and the like. Which is why we're shooting in Vancouver.

RS: Is the second MOH episode still being filmed or has that wrapped up too? That one's based on a Joe Lansdale story? Can you tell us who's directing it?

MG: Dario Argento will finish shooting episode two on Friday [May 20]. It's based on the CREEPY Magazine story, "Jenifer", by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson. Steven Weber is the star, and actually wrote the script. He's a huge horror fan.

RS: Can you give us details regarding writer/director teams for the next several episodes? Showtime will launch it this summer?

MG: Number three is Coscarelli's, based on the Lansdale story. Mine's number four, based on my short story, "Chocolate". Then comes Stuart Gordon's adaptation of HP Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch House". Then John Carpenter with an original by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan called "Cigarette Burns".

RS: Are you already planning a second season or do you have to wait until Showtime decides whether it's pulling in strong numbers?

MG: I hear that we might be on the verge of ordering more scripts.

RS: Not that your hands aren't full enough with “Masters of Horror”, but now that “Desperation” is complete or nearly complete, are you beginning or looking at any other work you can tell us about?

MG: I barely have time to breathe. But there's stuff floating around; I just don't want to concentrate on anything until we're much deeper into MOH.

RS: Thanks again Mick and best of luck with your upcoming projects - we're really looking forward to them!

MG: Thanks right back. Hope this is what you need.