Q: I had a lot of fun watching THE RAGE, it's definitely a movie for horror fans. What was your primary motivation for making the movie yourself?
John and I really wanted to make our first film at P13 to be like the drive-in films and movies we watched on late night horror host shows growing up.We basically decided we were going to get in a time machine and go back 20 years to make our first film. We wanted to do it in the spirit of films like EVIL DEAD , RE-ANIMATOR, and PHANTASM by raising our own funding outside of the studio system. It was a great learning experience for all of us because we all had to do multiple duties.
Q: Was the part of Viktor Vasilienko written specifically for Andrew Divoff? He's perfect in that role.
Oh yeah Andy was Dr.V from the first moment we came up with it. We wouldn't think of anyone else. Andrew was our mad doctor! We'd been talking for 10 years about doing something together again and and when we finally got Rage up and going and we walked on the set again it seemed like that time had never passed.
Q: Reggie was also quite good and "Uncle Ben" is a different role for him. It's the first time he's portrayed a monster, right?
Reggie was so excited to play a monster and he was such a trooper running around in the woods in 100 degree weather under all that rubber. Reg is a true professional and did everything with complete glee and madness. Everyone approached their roles the same way... nothing was to big or over the top... that's the kind of movie we were making and everyone got that and ran with it every day.
Q: Erin Brown, aka "Misty Mundae" is also cast in the movie as one of the leads. Why go with her?
Erin is our Scream Queen! Erin was all that and then some... She has this really incredible horror face when she's being tormented on screen... here eyes go all wide with insane terror and she has an awesome scream! All the girls did. The whole film is all screaming. At the end of shooting I don't think anyone had their voices intact.
We connected with Erin through a friend of Johns, Carl Morano of Media Blasters. Erin had just done Masters of Horror SICK GIRL and THE LOST and we were in need of a lead actress and Carl suggested her after working with her on SHADOW: DEAD RIOT.
When we first talked to her she was committed on another project and it wasn't going to work out... then a few weeks later the other project got pushed and Erin became available and jumped aboard. So it all worked out for the best.
Q: I've never seen killer mutant vultures in a movie before. Why vultures?
Why not? I'd gotten the idea after seeing a giant vulture display at the NY Natural History Museum. I'd never seen a film that incorporated vultures. So me and john started jamming on ideas. The original title for the film was "Vultures", but we started to incorporate other ideas and we felt the title was to SCI-FI channel sounding so it eventually changed to The RAGE because that's what was motivating Dr. V. He was unleashing his RAGE upon the world. That's why the film is called The RAGE.
It had nothing to do with 28 DAYS LATER as some may think... In fact we didn't even know that's what the virus in that film was called? I've read fans letters online saying they didn't want see the film because it was just a rip off of 28 DAYS which is just funny to me because 28 DAYS isn't an original premise itself... THE CRAZIES and WARNING SIGNS were made 20 years before that film came out?
The RAGE was more inspired by much older films like the Monogram & Sam Katzman films of the 40's and 50's and the B-Movies we'd grown up with from the 60's,70's and 80's. There are all kinds of little homage's to those films sprinkled throughout... THE AMAZING COLOSSAL BEAST, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, THE GIANT CLAW, RE-ANIMATOR and many more.
Q: What was the most difficult special effect to do?
The Vulture Puppets because of all the feather work.
Q: The RAGE seems like the perfect way to get a horror franchise going, as you've established that the virus is highly communicable to not only people but animals. Are there going to be more RAGE movies down the line?
John and I have been working on several new ideas for the sequel and hopefully we will be putting it together to make in the near future. We want to do it exactly the same way we did this one and make it guerilla style.
Q: I just finished watching BURIED ALIVE, which you directed and did the effects for. That's a different type of horror movie, all the way around. And it's a different situation, as it's produced and written by someone else. How does the experience of directing THE RAGE and directing BURIED ALIVE compare?
We had complete control on The RAGE so it was way more liberating than BURIED ALIVE. Buried was a film that I came on just as pre-production was starting and the film had to be re-tailored for the NM locations and reworked to fit into the 20 day shooting schedule we had. So it was a tough shoot in that sense but I had a great time working with Tobin and the cast and crew. BURIED was way more restrained than THE RAGE in tone and character and had more of a slow build in the suspense and the Rage was just an all out rocket ride from beginning to end.
Q: Tobin Bell was hilarious as Lester, a very different character than "Jigsaw". How was it working with him?
Tobin was great! He came to work and brought allot to the table. He's totally the opposite of his characters. He's soft spoken and gentleman and a complete pleasure to work with. I'm doing another film with him soon called "Bump" based on the Mark Kidwell comic series.
Q: What are the films you are working on right now?
I'm finishing sound and picture on TO LIVE AND DIE, which is an Action/Thriller for MGM. It stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Joe Panoliano. We shot it at end of last summer in NM. Dave Greathouse (BURIED ALIVE, EASY MONEY) produced it.
We are also finishing post on DEAD MATTER which is a film we produced at P13 with Ed Douglas of Midnight Syndicate who also directed. Ed is cutting the film now.
We just did some FX for Gary Jones on his film GHOULS and his latest project BOOGEYMAN 3 for GhostHouse.
Q: I had a lot of fun watching THE RAGE, it's definitely a movie for horror fans. What was your primary motivation for making the movie yourself?
