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INSTAGRAM:
Pillow Fright Podcast - @pillowfrightpod
Elissa - @elissawag
Kay - @scareotoninboost
Ama - @missamalea
Original music by Bruce Vayn
Pillow Fright theme by Brandon Scullion
Find us on YouTube and Letterboxd
Join our Patreon for uncut episodes, bonus content and more!
INSTAGRAM:
Pillow Fright Podcast - @pillowfrightpod
Elissa - @elissawag
Kay - @scareotoninboost
Ama - @missamalea
Original music by Bruce Vayn
Pillow Fright theme by Brandon Scullion
Welcome, everyone, to the Pillow Fright Podcast.
Do you know what time it is, Pillow Frighters?
I'm Elissa.
I'm Kay.
And I'm Ama.
We're back with our second episode of Mystic May.
So, as you can tell, things are a little bit more Y2 goth around here this evening.
And that's keeping up with our theme of tonight's movie.
We are about to check out one of the greatest movies of the 2000s.
And that movie is Thir13en Ghosts.
Woo.
So let's get into it.
So this movie is, like this movie is in my top five.
Like top five ever?
Yeah.
Like this is in my top five horror movies.
This is, I really love Thir13en Ghosts.
Like this movie.
So you guys talk about 80s horror in the same way that I talk about this movie.
And I love that because that gives us dynamic.
That gives us a nice, well-rounded appreciation.
For me, I didn't get to grow up with the movie.
So when I finally am making my own movie choices, it was closer to this time.
Like this movie was released.
This movie was on DVD.
I rented this movie from my local library so I could watch it.
And I, I mean, I fell in love.
I actually watched this while I was on bed rest.
When I was in high school, I got put on bed rest for three months because I was super, super sick.
I couldn't go outside.
And I spent that entire time watching horror movies and catching up on all the movies that I didn't get to watch and I wasn't allowed to watch because I was at my grandparents' house.
But I watched this movie.
I watched this movie again.
I went and I watched on my little laptop screen, I'm watching all the ghost stories and I'm falling in love with these characters.
So this movie, this is my sick movie.
This is my, I'm homesick and I watched this movie again.
I mean, I love everything about this film.
So yeah, it is in my top five.
This movie is amazing to me.
Not just because of Matthew Lillard, because everyone loves him.
Well, we don't even need to talk about it.
He's on our stand board.
He's on the stand already.
Now, I love this because I watched this for the first time years, years back, never again until tonight.
So it was really interesting watching it with those eyes as well.
And it was just, it really does hold up.
It really does hold up.
And I think it holds up because of, we've talked about it before, the heavy use of practical effects and the using visual effects to enhance practical effects.
I mean, I didn't even think about from a filmmaker standpoint, just like from loving the movie, it wasn't until watching it with you that I'm realizing this is a house that they blew up.
But maybe it's because, you know, when you're watching it when you're younger, you're like, yeah, explosion, like a five minute explosion from every single angle.
But as an adult, they blew up a house.
I couldn't live there.
But no, and the care that they put into this, making it so it holds up because it is literally an architectural masterpiece.
The film turns out to be, I'm going to say masterpiece.
I think it's a masterpiece.
Do it, do it, it is.
I had a really great first experience with this film.
I think I was like, I want to say a freshman in high school when this came out.
There was this like second run theater, like where I grew up that had dollar movie nights.
I saw that that way at like a late night screening, like nine or 10 PM, like on a Friday night with a sold out crowd.
And it was so rowdy.
And it was like, I think that was like my first rowdy, like film screening I ever went to.
And I loved it.
And like, I think the nostalgia of that cemented this film for me is like, you know, a horror classic.
Of all of the horror that came out in that sweet, awkward time of 2000, 2001, where it didn't know what the hell they wanted to be yet.
I think of all those films, this is probably the one that stands the test of time the most, I think.
And I think it is because of the practical cult effects, cause CGI was, it was all the rage.
People wanted to play around with that a lot.
She was messy.
And this one, you don't even in the, we didn't watch it in 4K, did we?
No, it wasn't.
We did.
We did.
It still looked great.
Yeah.
Thank you Shout Factory.
Thanks Shout Factory.
Well, I think a part of a lot of that does have to do with a really great makeup team.
And Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero have worked together on Jennifer's body, you know, they both come from a very long line of horror films.
And so having to make 12 iconic characters and make each one different.
And so that is one of the reasons, like when we first saw the, when we were watching it and we saw the Pilgrimus and she still looks great in her wrinkles.
You can see the wrinkles.
And I think we've also mentioned that I didn't even notice his like the sweat dripping when I watched the movie on, you know, a slightly blurry version.
I just kept saying, they're very moist.
And I don't like that word, but that describes it perfectly.
They're very moist in this movie.
I don't think this glass house has air conditioning.
Okay.
Well, still, they're just, they're so glowy and just shiny.
And that's obviously the talking point of the whole movie.
It's only about being sweaty.
Being very wet.
You know, I just really hope that there was an insurance policy on that house that Tony Shalhoub and his family get to collect.
Cause like at the beginning of the movie, they're like, they've gone through this hardship.
They've lost their mom.
They've lost their home.
They're living in this tiny apartment.
It seems like they're really struggling.
And then they get, yay, an inheritance.
And it's like, just kidding.
You get ghosts.
Which they don't talk about what happens after.
I know, I'm like, I just really hope good things happen for them.
Yeah.
You know, speaking of Tony Shalhoub in the cast, he's not who you would expect to be a leading, a lead in your horror movie in the year 2001.
But he has so much heart and he brings so much, just he makes me cry.
I love Tony Shalhoub.
Like you and I are like ugly crying watching this.
That's why I was like, can do we have to do the commentary on film because my makeup's like, we're like crying in between you and you're just like, happily enjoying my film.
I mean, it's not just the, of course, you know, Tony Shalhoub is amazing.
Matthew Lillard brings like, brings such a fun energy and he goes all out with all of his characters.
And then of course, you have, you know, Bobby being like, my mom burned to death.
They found a hat behind Ducodotas.
Bobby is us in 2000.
No, we were too old at that point, but Bobby was ahead of his time.
He was a podcaster.
And I mentioned it when we were watching it.
He reminds me so much of the kid in Wet Hot American Summer.
That's just, hey, campers.
And then what's his face?
Something black.
I totally forgot his name.
It's like, you're gonna take a shower today, right?
Yeah.
Michael Ian Black.
Just like Michael Ian Black.
And then he's just like flies all over him.
That was what this kid reminded me of.
He went to camp the next year.
Now, but I think if that kid was a real person, we would probably be listening to his horror podcast.
His like true crime podcast.
But it's not just the actors.
I mean, all of the ghosts, none of them had lines besides like, Bobby, come follow, which has done voiceover.
So every single one of those ghosts had to emote and had to portray their character and not just their character, for some of them, their character and the malicious intent of like, I want to destroy you because I was destroyed.
And it came across so well.
We loved the hammer and how he had so many emotions without saying a word.
The Angry Princess made us, I mean, I don't know a single person who watched that movie, my age, a single girl, my age, and the Angry Princess wasn't like their favorite.
I just remember being like, boops, like every time, I'm sure everybody thought that, but that was at the time when it came out where it's like, oh, you've watched rated R movies kind of now and there's boobies in it.
But she was, I love her.
The way that she looks and just, she literally just stares blankly, but there's so much behind that stare.
I think her sadness comes through really well, which they focus of course on the sadness of the mom, especially when she gets to be around her kids or he's saying, I miss you, and she's just having, it looks like she's gonna cry, but she's not, she can't, she's dead.
But yeah, but all the ghosts, they did an amazing job with the physicality behind, with the, they're essentially being creature actors.
And I mean, you have the Jackal who is, I mean, he's the number one ghost I see cosplayed.
So he is definitely a fan favorite.
I didn't know it was a dude.
I was gonna say, I didn't know until today.
I thought it was a woman they typed.
But then again, I didn't watch this as often.
I wasn't as familiar with it.
You didn't read the ghost files, okay.
Sorry, I missed it, okay?
I also felt really, I don't know.
I just, watching it again, I felt kind of sad for all the ghosts.
Even the scary ones.
Well, they're prisoners.
Yeah, even the juggernaut.
But you guys, I would go to Ghost Zoo.
The ghost zoo?
The ghost zoo?
Click.
The ghost zoo, they're in captivity.
But they do tricks at Sea World.
No, Sea World is a bad place.
There's a wet zone.
Well, the wet zone.
The wet zone, the wet zone.
Tony Shalhoub and his family clearly were in the wet zone.
They did not bring their parkas to where, or their splash.
I was about to say, blue, the whale.
Wait, what's the whale's name?
Nevermind, we're not gonna talk about the Sea World.
I don't either.
Didn't you say that the hammer, why am I calling him the hammerhead?
Hammer was not the original actor.
I believe it was a hammer was, I believe I read that he was the like stand-in, like, you know, the lighting test guy, whatever the make up test.
And the other, the real actor didn't show up.
So they're like, you're rolled out, bro.
That's so cool.
I know, right?
Sometimes you just gotta be there.
And he was so effective.
He had so much attitude.
And I think he was the most excited to murder.
I think he was the one, he was a performer, which is, like his ghost was a performer.
And his backstory was really tragic because some of these ghosts had really sad backstories.
It was giving Candyman a little bit.
Yes.
It's a, I mean, as far as the ghost backstories go, what you, we want to be scared of them, but we also want to feel with them.
And as much as we're feeling for this family that's put in this situation, as much as we're feeling for Matthew Lillard's character, who's like, I'm a freak.
What else am I going to do with my life?
I have, I can't, I can't exist in the real world.
I have to do this.
And these ghosts can't exist in the real world because they're dangerous, but they're not even locked up for that reason.
They're locked up so some guy can make money.
But you have tragic backstories and you, for every single one of them, no matter how much of a monster they are.
It's true.
No, it's true.
And they are, the way that they are filmed, too, I just, I always get drawn to the slow motion down the hall.
I will never forget the only image that I always think about when I think of this movie is the juggernaut, how he's introduced, just slowly that menacing, and then the glamour fan that they have on them.
It's just, I love the way they're introduced.
I mean, that's another iconic opening, though, with the juggernaut because he gets to roll in with his monster truck sprouting blood from the-
That's pretty badass.
He has one of the best openers.
I mean, Steve Beck and his openers.
Yeah, Steve Beck is a master of catching you from the get, which I think probably has a lot to do with his commercial, his history in commercials.
You only have 30 seconds to capture the attention.
Like his commercials look like something that should have been like in Hackers or The Matrix or something.
They're really cool.
Oh, that's great.
A question for you guys, though, because maybe I'm a dumb dumb, but what was the motivation for Cyrus to open the Black Zodiac to create the ghost machine?
So they said that the Blacks, essentially the ghost machine was built by a man.
It was designed, like in the book, it was designed by someone who was possessed.
So then what she says is it was a machine that was designed by the devil and powered by the dead.
And essentially it was that he was going to be able to see the future.
Oh, so it was like a fortune telling thing?
Well, basically what they were saying, like in the beginning, he's hinting that like, you know, money's not going to be a problem later.
So essentially he was just going to use to, you know, see the future so he could create his own wealth.
So he was going to like back to the future too and get that almanac.
He really just wanted the almanac.
He had the book.
He let it get smooshed.
He wanted to become president.
But I mean, essentially probably wanted money and power.
And what is every villain of almost every movie end up wanting?
They want money and power and to destroy things for fun.
And they don't care who gets in their way, including their nephew's family.
He's like, oh my God, it's so great that your wife died.
Because I was looking for a sad lady ghost to add to my menagerie.
I'm wondering if they make this series that they're talking about.
Are they using those origin stories?
Are they going to create new ones?
Like, what is canon here?
The monsters were there.
The monsters were first.
The stories came second.
So, but they were able to create these stories that in my head, like, that is, that is canon because these stories were inspired by the monsters.
In the same way that you have vampire bats became, or people with, you know, the blood drinking disease became what Dracula is.
So I think the monsters inspired the story.
And that story is going to inspire a whole series or a whole episode, essentially.
So I think that they are canon because of the original creation, not that the story had to exist for the monster to exist.
I think they're fan fiction.
And I am interested.
I mean, we'll see.
I didn't even know a show was coming out.
I'm always the last to know of everyone.
And that's fine.
No, fans have been championing for this series forever.
I have seen so many people.
I've said it before of just being like, I mean, I only get 12 minutes and that's not fair because I want, I want each of them to have their own movie.
I want to know about the Pilgrimist because that's a crazy story that, you know, Witchcraft has been done in Salem.
But and the Jackal being, you know, of course they're going to have to make changes because the Jackal is very close to Jack the Ripper.
But so they're going to have to make changes.
And a lot of our word.
Yes.
There is a lot of that.
But I mean, even the ghost that didn't get featured as much like the Bound Woman who is looks crazy.
And it's just being like, well, she was kind of a bitch, so I killed her.
Yeah, right.
Which he literally said, the bitch broke my heart, so I broke her neck.
So I broke her neck.
But didn't you say that you read they were associated with a zodiac sign?
But that's not canon, right?
That was something that an article that came out that could be.
So I, their slashfilm.com basically put together a list of all of the ghosts.
And as they call it the Black Zodiac.
And when you're looking at the pages, she'll say the Juggernaut, but the book will say like Titan.
But essentially it is, you know, they have their own variation.
So what slashfilm did is they put together based on the ghosts, like attributes of like who the ghost was, not in the movie, but this backstory.
I want to think.
You want to guess?
I want to guess.
I'm going to be wrong on all of them, but I want to guess.
Well, I'll go with, I'll give you the first one because it's me.
I'm an Aries and the first born son, little kid with the arrow.
So he is an Aries.
What they say is this is the ghost that exemplifies the negative traits of the zodiac.
So it's like the, well, the entero terms.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say that anyway.
Well, it's the reverse.
It's all the downside.
So for the first born son, the negative traits of the Aries are being stubborn, a reckless daredevil, and a sense of youthful immaturity, which, yeah, I'm actually pretty sure, check, check, check.
So if you know me, you know, I've broken like 11 bones and I'm five.
And then, I mean, another one, you wouldn't really be able to guess this.
This definitely for me becomes from these backstories because you don't get to know the torso except for the fact that he looks so gruesome for like five seconds.
I think of Taurus Torso.
Yeah, greed, laziness and desire for material.
My rising sign is a Taurus.
I mean, let's say some of the other favorites, the Torn Prince.
He seems like a fire sign.
He seems like he's no, he seems like a Gemini or a Leo, but probably Sagittarius.
You were actually right with Leo.
I'm a Leo.
Leo, you're the Torn Prince.
You are the Torn Prince.
He has self-centered, egotistical, possessive and impatience.
I'm such an ego monster and I'm an asshole.
It's all true.
I mean, another fan favorite of the ghost, the Angry Princess.
What are her traits again?
Well, if I say the traits, you're gonna know.
Didn't I say she was a Virgo?
Didn't I earlier?
Didn't I guess Virgo?
Is she a Virgo?
She is a Virgo.
Oh my God.
Overly critical, insecure and perfectionist to a fault, which led to her demise, is that she was performing.
She could not see how beautiful she was, and she kept on trying to fix problems that weren't there.
I'm gonna go with, let's see, the sad, the heartbreaking ghost, the withered lover.
I would already say that's cancer, probably.
Either a water sign.
Pisces or cancer.
Cancer.
Motherly, intuitive, compassionate, sensitive.
I relate with the withered.
Emotional nature.
Motherly, home, body, family, family first.
They're not saying the negative signs of her, but I guess that's because she's, she's nice.
If you're not watching this, Ama just broke the tension with the killer clown's gun.
She doesn't like the emotions, just kidding.
She's like, no emotions, I'm out.
But also, I swear, I'm not reading these.
I'm guessing based on my best intuition.
Now they're gonna be wrong.
No, well, then we're just gonna do, we're not gonna do all of them, but we will do the last one, because obviously we talk about him, people cosplay him, he's scary as all hell.
And he, I, probably he gets the most screen time out of all, besides Juggernaut, I think, in the house.
The princess, I think, and him get the most in-house screen time.
I think, yeah.
So the jackal, of course.
I would say the jackal is either a Sagittarius or a Gemini.
Ooh, ooh, ending, ending on a miss.
Final answer.
Libra?
No, that's why we couldn't go through all of them.
You're just gonna name all the rest.
He is said to represent Aquarius's extremism, rebellion, and lack of empathy.
And I like that they say, but it feels cruel to associate any sign with someone as viciously evil as the jackal.
I don't see him as an Aquarius.
But I, you know, obviously, if these articles are coming out and we have people that, just based on their stories, I think that the ghosts are a fan favorite.
A lot of the movies of the time, we talked about the haunting.
We talked about Hill House, which I love.
I always want to say Hill House.
Haunting on Hill House.
Haunting, no.
House on Haunted Hill.
Which one is Prisketan?
That's that one.
Yeah, I like that one better.
Who do you think is the hottest 2000s actor?
It depends on what you consider hot.
I always go with Mary Fuckkill.
That's my meter for the early 2000s.
I'm gonna say Devin Sawa.
I mean, Devin Sawa was my 90s, my 90s dream.
He was my 90s dream, but not 2000s.
I actually, why can't I think of her name?
Because I still think she's super hot now.
American Mary.
Oh, Catherine Isabel.
I love her.
God, anything she's in, as soon as she's on the screen, I'm just like swoon.
She has so much presence.
She could freaking be in Tarot and I would have loved it.
I mean, 2000's Horror is hard because I think everyone looked atrocious.
It's the poor fashion of the decade.
And no fault of their own.
I mean, that decade, that the turn of the century was just not kind to us.
But I mean, House on Haunted Hill and The Haunting, they were remakes and so many movies that we love or hate are remakes.
But this one, as well as Ghost Ship, are remakes in a rift sense on much older films from the 1950s and they're all William Castle, right?
Well, Dark Castle kind of started with the idea to remake William Castle movies.
And it's interesting because what I think William Castle movies, I think things to get people very immersive.
I would say, I don't know about you guys, but I would pay to go to see a movie like that now.
I didn't get to go to movie theaters at the time.
So I don't even know, very, very rarely.
I was not allowed culture, but I will say one thing that my family did allow me to do was go to Six Flags and Six Flags had those little mini movies and I did love those.
And that's kind of what I thought 40X was going to be.
And I was like, 40X is too much.
It's what it honestly kind of gives me motion sickness.
I never, I don't think I've ever been to one before.
Cause well, okay, fine.
I'll go in a lake for you if you go to a 40X movie for me.
I'm going to do both.
I'm not going to go to a lake.
I'm sorry.
Lucky for you, I won second and third place in the swim competitions in middle school and elementary school.
So if I drown, it's her fault.
You can first place come with me.
When I was growing up, my family would be like, oh, she's not a strong swimmer.
So don't let her go in the lake by herself.
So I got to save it.
So it's going to be, here I go with the Friday 13th reference again, nevermind.
When in part eight, when that sleazy uncle pushes her and he's like, I'm teaching you how to swim.
We went to the lake every summer and he grabbed me by the back of my bathing suit, which gave me a wedgie in all directions.
And like carried me to the dock and just tossed me in.
He was like, I'm just going to learn some now.
He probably saw Friday the 13th part eight and got inspired.
Oh, I'm sure that my dad totally watched Friday the 13th part eight.
He's like, this is a great idea.
That's how I picture your dad talking.
He's like, I'm learning the work.
So what did you guys think of the creatures from Tarot versus the creatures from Thir13en Ghosts?
They are very similar, not the creatures themselves, but it's just, it's crazy how you watch Tarot and you can't not think of Thir13en Ghosts if you've seen it.
I think the main difference, it's not hard why one is superior over the other, in my opinion.
Thir13en Ghosts had the practical effects.
It had the technicality there.
It had just all the elements put together, just came together so nicely.
Tarot had a great idea.
The execution just wasn't quite there the way that I would have loved to be.
And also everything was shot in the fucking dark.
You can't see the work that was put into it, which was a travesty, in my opinion.
I mean, for me, it's the fact that I don't believe the ghosts are, they don't have heart, they don't have a story.
I don't think any of them had a story behind them.
They existed in the sense of being kind of in the same way that the insidious ghosts existed.
They existed to be a scare.
If these glasses were real, would you wear them?
For me personally, knowing because I can already, I already have seen my, like, I've seen my fair share of ghosts, but I already have a sense, and I don't need to actually see because the shit that you'd probably see.
Hoof, woof, no, I would not.
No, I would not.
I have, like, a lot of, like, nightmares about ghosts.
Ever since I was a little kid, I have this distinct memory of being, like, three or four years old, looking down the hallway from my bedroom and, like, seeing a dude who looks like he's, like, burnt to a crisp and has one arm longer than the other.
And I told my parents, and they, my mom was just like, no, like, Don't tell her about the history of the burned house.
What's crazy is, a year or two later, our house burned down.
Oh my gosh.
I know.
I had this, like, nightmare, like, a few months ago of, like, having to get up to go to the bathroom, but a little boy ghost just, like, crouched down by my bedroom door, and I was too scared to pass him, so I just stayed in bed.
So, yeah, fuck that.
I don't want those glasses.
I mean, if you had, like, a nice house ghost, like, you know, Beetlejuice house ghost.
It's that thing of we love, a lot of people love horror because it gives a face to what we perceive to be the unknown.
And I don't know if given the opportunity, because there's so many people who is like, I want to know, I want to know, I want to know.
But a lot of times you want to know something and then you regret finding out.
I think that would be one thing where if I was given the opportunity, I would not be able to turn it down.
But I feel like I would I would regret it.
Yeah, I think the world.
Yeah, I think sometimes we're better off maybe not knowing how the world works.
Don't worry though.
I have my my rosemary everywhere.
The place is protected.
So the ghosts that are around us are friendly.
Don't worry.
No jackals.
No jackals here.
Hello?
Hey, you will never guess who I have on the phone.
We've snagged none other than the godfather of 2000s horror.
He's a visual effects legend who worked on movies such as James Cameron's Abyss and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
He's designed theme park attractions, created Super Bowl ad campaigns for some of the biggest companies in the world, and he directed one of the most iconic openings in all of horror history with his movie Ghost Ship.
And he joins us tonight to chat about his masterpiece, Thir13en Ghosts.
Welcome Steve Beck.
Hey.
Of course, we want to talk to you all night about Thir13en Ghosts, but I kind of want to talk to you about your start in the industry.
So what was it like working with Industrial Lights and Magic?
I joined in 1988, I joined ILM and I kind of had two, two responsibilities.
The first one was, first one was I was, I rebuilt their art department cause Dave Carson, who was the reigning sort of art department supervisor, was moving on and up into becoming a full-fledged visual effects supervisor.
And so he was exiting the department and so they needed somebody to take over the art department.
So I was doing anything and everything I could to get into ILM at the time.
So that combined with the commercial directing skills that I had accomplished down at Robert Abel, so it just kind of got me in the door.
And then once we got the art department kind of settled, a number of feature films came in and I kind of had my pick of the litter, frankly.
And so working on things like Indiana Jones of the Last Crusade, The Abyss, Unforbred October, that kind of stuff.
I sunk my teeth into it, but I quickly realized at the end of the day, for a person who wants to be a director, that job as being a visual effects art director, which is what it required, you're kind of babysitting the work more than anything.
And I don't mean to degrade the accomplishments of art directors in the visual effects society or the effects community, but by that, I mean, a lot of the look and the work and the establishment of what has to happen in each shot, that generally speaking, happens in pre-production with the director someplace else entirely.
And so what your job is as a visual effects art director primarily is to make sure that vision gets executed.
And for my take, I wanted to do more than just, you know, make sure everybody's eggs were done the right way.
So instead I went back into doing commercial directing in ILM, then opened up ILM CP, which was ILM commercial productions and went full, you know, full fledgling to that.
And that was our tent pole director for about 10 years.
Did you get to work with James Cameron or George Lucas in like any sort of capacity?
On the Abyss, yeah, we worked with Jim, and that was a trip because what was going on with our work on the pseudopod for Jim is he was testing out computer graphics, the technology to see if it would work to his satisfaction.
A very demanding guy, extremely talented as everybody knows.
In this case, the pseudopod sequence was a test case scenario for T2.
So he felt that he could get the look in the way he wanted things to act and everything else under the sun to happen in the abyss.
Then he would move ahead and move on T2, and then he could come up with that character in T2.
So working for Jim was, and I opened it, but again, I was one circle outside, removed from directly working with him day to day.
He spent most of his time in the Carolinas doing the production, doing all those principal filming down there, and we were in San Rafael.
Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
You directed a series of Superbowl commercials for First Union Bank, and those commercials got the attention of Dark Castle.
So that kind of propelled you into working on not just a feature film, but like an iconic legacy remake with heavy hitters like Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis.
What was it like working with them?
Well, it was kind of like I said, it was an interesting transition.
The First Union Bank campaigns, we did several of them actually.
They came out of Hal Reiny in San Francisco, and he was very trusting of what we were able to do with the material, to the point where he would just send a script and there was no storyboards or anything.
He was like, okay, I think you established the vision, just keep rolling with it and keep making it more and more inventive.
And so over the course of like three Super Bowls, we did some, I think, phenomenal work for a bank of all places.
And to your point, it did catch the eye of folks down in Hollywood.
And I just simply got a phone call one day and it was, Joel Silver on the line says, get down here, you start on Monday.
And I wasn't auditioning for anything, I was told to report for duty kind of thing.
And I just figured out at the end of the day, you're always curious about this stuff, can I do it, do I have the chops?
Can I succeed in this medium?
Because I never actually intended to.
The beauty of doing commercial production, for me at least, is that, it's a short burst of really intense creativity and then it's over.
And as you well know, that I'm making a feature is a slog.
It's all consuming, it's 24 seven, you sleep with it, it never gets out of your mind any way, shape or form.
Didn't interest me that kind of existence, but I figured if this guy calls, this is the biggest shark in the deepest end of the pool.
If I can't survive that, then I just, I could never survive it.
So I figured, okay, let's give this a try.
And so, I had no inkling of who William Castle was, just didn't know.
And so I got a crash course on not only him, but also his body of work and met his daughter, Terry, and kind of got a crash course in how Hollywood works.
And it was like, oh, okay.
So that's how you jump on a moving vehicle going 75 from a standstill.
So it was entertaining.
It was interesting.
Joel was, for the first film, was comfortably absent because he was in the middle of the Matrix.
So he was busy.
He was completely consumed with that stuff.
There had been House, I think it was House on Haunted Hill was the first one.
And then Thir13en Ghosts was the second.
Ghost Ship was the third, which wasn't a William Castle film because I think they wanted to actually do their own things.
And then after that, you know, he moved on to somebody else.
So you were hired right off the bat and you took your own DP and cinematographer with you?
On the first one, yes.
That's so cool.
Cause usually on your first feature, they give you a crew that kind of babysits you.
So how did you convince them to take on your own crew?
Well, luckily for me, the DP was a gentleman by the name of Gail Tattersall.
And Gail and I had worked extensively, but Gail also had shot several feature films.
So he had, you know, he passed muster rather quickly.
One of his more famous pieces was The Commitments, for example.
He just, he knew his bathroom hold the ground when it comes to cinematography.
Was an amazing, and still is an amazing photographer.
And he was also, he did the, he did most of the work on the First Union Bank commercials.
So it was an easy transition to accept him.
Sean Hargraves, who was the production designer, I kind of insisted he be part of the package, because if they liked the way it looked on the First Union Bank commercials, just get the same guy.
Just get the same guy.
And to their point, then they surrounded Sean with art directors and prop designers and that kind of stuff that they approved of.
And that kind of cushioned that one too.
But the other one, Ghost Ship, on the other hand, I kept Gale, but we went down to Australia to film that.
And the reason we were in Australia was because your money just stretched that much further.
So basically everybody from crew on, it was all Australian.
So Sean got left alone at the dock, unfortunately, for that one.
So you're saying you're not a horror fan.
What did you have to do to prep for that?
And did you find any inspirations along the way?
That's a great question.
We did, we dived into, at least on the Thir13en Ghosts sites, we dived into the ghost design fairly deeply.
And I think that kind of helped me kind of immerse my thinking into what that could be and the possibilities thereof.
And then the rest of it, to be perfectly honest with you, I just treated it as a missing person's story.
The circumstances were obviously supernatural, but at the end of the day, I wanted it to be almost as everyday as it could possibly be and just let the horror of the situation drive you there, but also in the same vein, we found comedy, we found humanity, we found a few things within the storyline that helped, you know, helped make it a little bit different than just your basic, you know, horror film.
And I do have to thank people like Tony Shalhoub who brought heart to the film, for example.
You know, he's just Tony.
He was just wonderful.
And there wasn't a lot of scares that we needed to throw in there.
It was just this poor man was just searching for a lost child in a house that nobody could figure out where everybody disappeared to because it was glass.
So it was kind of like a wonderful combination of things.
And I've never thought of it as being a horror film to be honest with you.
To me, it was always more of a suspense film, more of a suspense thriller than anything, but that's just me.
With William Castle movies, there was always a gimmick that was thrown in, like the seat tingling or the 3D glasses.
Was there ever a plan to incorporate any of those immersive gimmicks into Thir13en Ghosts?
No, it's a great question.
To answer, yes, we thought of it quite a bit.
Now, keeping in mind when this film was made, it really kind of preceded a lot of what then became very standard 3D in cinematic projection.
The problem was those projectors weren't installed yet at all these theaters.
So for us to do anything in 3D, for example, was going to be extremely costly.
We went down those roads, and at the end of the day, the studio just decided for the budget and for the expectations, it just wasn't worth it.
Just keep it within film.
So, you know, unfortunately, it didn't happen, but it was certainly tempting.
You mentioned that it was your actors that really brought the heart to the film.
Besides F.
Murray Abram, most of your actors were TV actors or character actors or, I mean, even first timers.
So how did you know that they were going to be the right ones?
Yeah, well, that's again another great question.
At the time, these pictures, this Dark Castle kind of label, if you will, its brand, they kind of just, they threw ensembles at it, to be perfectly honest, and they just kept doing that.
Every film was like, the formula for the projects were always the same.
Get a bunch of people, put them in a box, one location, shake, shake, shake, and then at the end of the movie dump them out.
And that was it.
You got them there, you kept them there, you did the filming, and then you got rid of them.
And they would play a lot with stunt casting.
Like, for example, Rod Digger was stunt casting.
She just kind of showed up one day.
I didn't meet her until she came walking out on the trailer.
There was no casting, nothing.
The only person I actually spent a little bit of time talking to was Tony Shalhoub, and at the time, I think he was just doing Monk, or maybe he hadn't even done Monk then.
But I just thought he was perfect for that role because he was a little different than expected.
And then attaching him to F.
Murray Abram, you couldn't go wrong with F.
Murray.
He's just an acting god no matter what.
And then everybody else kind of came in bits and pieces.
And Beth Davis came from Schindler's List.
She had done before Thir13en Ghosts.
She did Schindler's List.
So you kind of went like, huh.
So you just kind of went wherever it was going.
And then, and to your point as well, you know, Matthew Lillard, you know, he had Scream written all over him.
Well, and Matthew Lillard was known as being a big energy on set and he improvised a lot.
Did he do any improv on set or did he stick to the script?
You know, for the most part, he was spot on.
You know, he and I still communicate today.
We still exchange Christmas cards.
You know, he went all in on it.
Everybody actually did Shanna Elizabeth the same way she was coming off, I think, American Pie.
You know, and that was, everybody was kind of dragging all that stuff into this thing, too.
So, you know, it just, you kind of pulled all over the box and just kind of started shaking to see what happened, and that's kind of what happened.
But again, given the constraints, you weren't going to get an A player.
You weren't going to get somebody who was going to, oh, I don't know, give it a different tone entirely, but give it the depth if you were searching for depth.
But everybody kind of figured the same thing.
It was a fun B movie, and just stay with it.
Don't polish it too much, because it's not going to change a whole lot.
Oh, that's awesome.
You said that there was a lot of playing around on set.
Was that mostly with the dialogue, or was that story points?
A little bit.
And you know this as well.
Sometimes you just got to let the camera roll, or sometimes you see something or say something, or somebody says something that's not in the script, and you go like, we got to get that line because it just really works.
In our situation, we're in a glass house, so we would start Monday on one end of it, and run around the house by Friday.
We were back at the same place we started with, and you kind of run out of lines going like, well, you know, why can't we find this kid if it's a glass house?
Then you have to just start making fun of the situation just to take some of the air out of the horror, and then let things kind of propel themselves.
And you find people like Matthew did his fair share lifting, Tony did, and Beth did, frankly.
Rod Diggins came up with stuff that just made people laugh left and right.
And that kind of stuff, I think, is what added to the film's heart that wasn't really there in the second film.
Speaking of glass houses, it felt like this really modern take on the old Victorian haunted mansion, and that is so cool.
But, you know, looking at it, especially from a filmmaking point of view, I got to assume that there were challenges, like reflections or, you know, light angle of incidences or things like that.
Did you have any issues technically filming it?
Well, to, again, your point, we were fearful of that from day one.
That was the biggest concern, is how is this going to react to us?
And the irony of ironies, we only saw ourselves in one shot.
After all that time, and you're talking about a hallway full of equipment, people, booms, you know, you name it.
And in only one shot did we catch our reflection.
And I don't know how that happened.
It's just just the angle of the camera, the lens, whatever was working in our favor.
It was just weird.
Now, Joel Silver, he's the one who came up with the concept.
It was completely his original idea because he, to his point, and to your point, he didn't want it to be an old haunted house.
He wanted to be something upscale, something nobody had ever seen before.
And Joel has this huge appreciation for architecture.
He's a huge architecture and designer fan.
So he was really hot to do something completely different.
And I think Thir13en Ghosts kind of delivered in that fashion.
But it wasn't easy.
It was easier to be sort of intimidated by it, certainly.
So we just kind of made the best of it and turned it into kind of this little jewel box.
Did you have to use safety glass throughout the entire set?
Oh, yeah, it was all safety glass.
Now, to your point, the safety glass, as you know, safety glass weighs a ton.
So all of that safety glass, it was actually built on steel superstructure.
So we kind of built the entire set was literally a skyscraper architecture just to hold up all that safety glass.
We couldn't do it with, you know, just normal set construction.
We actually had to do heavy steel lifting, heavy steel welding.
It was a serious, serious construction.
And then we only had one set, so obviously we blew it up and then we came back after the reset and it became the downstairs of the place.
That was the second half of the production.
So for myself and like so many other physical media collectors, one of the best parts of the DVD is all the behind the scenes, the extras, and especially the backstory of all 13 ghosts.
Well, 12.
But was that part of the production Bible or was that like marketing?
Where did that come from?
Well, it was again, kind of during the glory days of the Blu-ray.
So they had to come up with something.
Luckily for us in our situation, we had done so much design work on the ghosts.
There was tons of artwork to plummet with and to fill these things with.
So doing it and all this extra stuff, that was kind of no-brainer.
And the big question afterwards, and it has been for years, is like, how come you didn't do a series just on each ghost?
Right?
I've gotten word that Sony is going to be doing just that.
They're going to be doing the Thir13en Ghosts series and examining each ghost as an episode.
Speaking of the ghosts, can you tell us a little more about the design process and directing their performances?
Yeah, they were one-liners on the script, so you kind of just had this blank page to work with for the most part.
We kept looking for source material that served as inspiration for the ghosts.
So when you're wandering through this glass house, you would see something, go like, well, wait a minute, isn't that...
For example, there's the African American ghost with all the nails in him, for example.
Now, it's actually a...
And we found art of it.
It's a West African tribe that makes these sculptures that have nails in them.
And it was like, oh, we got to put that in the house somewhere, you know?
So they came all sort of from some source of inspiration to a certain degree, I guess.
But again, the rest was just imagination and a bunch of knuckleheads with a thumb on the head.
I'm gonna draw that stuff.
It wasn't me.
In directing the actual horror and jump scare scenes, how did you approach creating those?
Because those are the hardest things to direct in a horror movie.
What was your thought process there?
Again, not being well schooled in that stuff, I kind of had to trust other people to say, did that scare you?
Because you're on set, you do it, nobody's frightened of anything.
So you kind of have to just sort of understand the editorial process to get to the fright, and make sure you cover all your bases, and then do the redirect when the actual moment comes.
And then you also have to have something behind that kind of helps pay it off.
So we looked at every single one of them and just try to come up with enough there.
The problem that I had with the whole thing is that I never felt scared enough.
And so I was never sure it was working.
So we just kind of found it in the end.
I know that the ghost ship, you had a lot of hurdles that you were jumping through, and I know in the end, it wasn't the movie that you had set out to make, but you composed one of the best opening scenes in the history of horror with one scene.
I gotta tell my grandchildren that, don't I?
You say something I found very interesting on your website.
You talk about story versus image and finding art between the brushstrokes, and that really resonated with me.
Yeah, I mean, Thir13en Ghosts could have been this like cheesy Halloween movie, but instead it has a subtext of grief that I think really comes through from Tony Shalhoub's performance.
Was that something that came from you two working together?
You know, I think it was more just discovering it on set and just discovering the sincerity of the people involved.
You know, even on the ghosts themselves, the people that were portraying the ghosts, there was this sense that a man loses his wife in the opening titles.
You know, you get that right away, so you know what this film is saddled with emotionally, and you can't just walk away from that.
And so I think everybody just said, hey, that's what this story is actually about.
It's about somebody, to your point, dealing with their grief and then finding somebody who was actually so diabolical to take advantage of that, deserves to die the way that he dies at the end.
But don't ever lose the heart of the man who suffered the grief to begin with, because if you do that, you dump that off to the side, it becomes just people running around screaming.
And I think everybody kind of finally just sort of said, this is more than just running around in a screaming story.
And that's what we kind of actually salvaged from it.
And I don't think Joel was ready for that.
When the studio saw the first cut, what was their reaction to it?
I wasn't invited.
Did you get final cut?
No, no, no.
I did not.
I had my cut.
The eventual, the final final cut was pretty close to our cut because we didn't shoot a lot of other stuff.
But Joel had his editor come in and chop away at things.
And I wasn't a fan of that guy because he came up with storylines that just wasn't fucking there.
And you kind of go like, you're ruining it.
You're actually, you're disassembling the spirit of this piece and you're not helping.
You're just trying to make it different.
So don't stop, knock it off.
Will you please?
So luckily, luckily Joel saw it for what it was too.
And it's like, no, we don't need to go that route.
We don't need to go those roads.
But yeah, that's the way that Joel worked.
You know, you kind of did the work, gave it to him, and he gave you a check.
So thank you.
I'll see you later.
23 years later, and I'm not sure how aware you are of this, but Thir13en Ghosts is more popular now than ever.
It's a bona fide cult classic at this point.
I know.
I was invited to speak at some screening last year down in LA in Los Feliz.
Yeah, my husband and I were there.
I had no idea.
It was sold out.
I know.
I just take that as a compliment.
That's when you're just going, how lucky can you be?
And so I'm just grateful.
That was the first time I had actually seen it in theater and seen it 23 years later.
It actually surprised me that it held up.
I was like really cringing, wondering whether or not this was going to work.
But it actually, it still held together.
The performances were still there.
The humanity was still there.
And I think that's what people still resonate with, is the humanity involved.
What was it like watching the audience respond?
It was very, it was cool.
No, it was definitely cool.
Because you're not like that, as you well know from last night.
It's not like that at the debut, right?
It's a whole other world is going on, and your emotions are ping ponging all around the place.
And you're just trying to figure out, you know, what in the hell is happening?
No, that was much more gratifying than what it was feeling.
You know, if I were you, I would be looking up some of those critics from back in the day and be like, told you so, jerk.
Oh, I would have liked to talk to a couple of them.
So you're a multi-faceted artist.
I mean, you're a sculptor, you're a visual effects artist, you're a director.
So what was your favorite part about the filmmaking process?
It's, pre-production is that sort of wonderful time right before the sun comes up, where the sky is beautiful.
You start to hear the birds, and there's a sense of serenity that you have to be able to think and dream about what you can do with something.
And you can play around a lot.
And then once that sun comes over the horizon, it's, as you well know, it's a race every day just to get done what you really shouldn't be able to get done.
And so you don't even have time to think about it anymore.
You just hope that what you were doing in pre-production pays off.
So I think for any dreamer, that period of time just to think and imagine is the most precious of our existence.
And then after the films start rolling and after you're going through the schedule, it's just a marathon to get to the end and hopefully you live through it.
I don't know how some of these people still do it.
I really don't.
I just don't.
I guess they just...
So we'd love to know what advice do you have for up-and-coming filmmakers who want to do what you've done?
Advice?
You just have to be tenacious.
And then you have to...
Well, a couple of things.
You have to find the right people to help champion your cause, and then you have to give them a reason to believe in you.
You have to give them the ammunition to say, hey, this person knows what they're doing.
They've got a different vision you've never seen before.
They're not just cookie cutter.
They know what they're talking about.
They want to do things differently.
They're thinkers.
You have to give them the ability to sell you.
And at the same time, you have to make sure that they live up to their end of the bargain too.
And it's just an endless snake eating itself.
You just have to be able to have thick skin and keep going.
Just keep going.
Just keep going.
Just believe in yourself.
You have to champion your own cause.
Nobody else is going to do it.
And then have a good story.
Have a good story and tell.
That's the other thing.
I mean, so many great scripts just are stuffed in somebody's closet.
But somebody told them.
Somebody wrote it down.
Somebody got paid for it.
So it's just you got to be tenacious.
You got to believe in yourself.
You got to make a mark for yourself.
You got to have a banner that is crafted a certain way where people will see it above others.
That's one route.
And then just kind of try not to be egotistical because people will see through that pretty quickly.
But believe in yourself.
Believe that you can do something that other people can't and be able to project that in any meeting that you have to go to, whether it's for coffee, lunch or drinks afterwards, whatever it might be.
You just have to have this, I don't want to say swagger, but belief in yourself that this is what it is all about.
Because there are only a handful of human beings that get to do this.
And you got to really have a case for yourself and make it right.
And also, just respect people who have got on before you.
Because they worked their asses off too.
And they worked hard.
They deserve the accolades.
Yeah, the criticisms as well, but still, they sat in that chair and did the work.
It's a game, but you can play it if you put on extra heavy pads and just bust it up and bruise, but you can make it through.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to call us and talk with us.
You really had some great things to say.
That really resonated.
You're welcome.
Anytime.
Take care.
Well, there you have it, guys.
Another successful slumber party.
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And whatever you do, don't fall asleep first.
Oh, oh, I get it.
Are you fucking serious?
Now you get it?
Get it?