Rusty Nails chats Life and Cinema of George A. Romero
Andy Mauro
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When you hear the words “Rusty Nails,” do you think woodshed and power tools? You shouldn’t. Rusty Nails is also the name of the up-and-coming Chicago filmmaker who was responsible for the disaffected teen zit-head zombie movie Acne as well as the in-production George Romero documentary Dead On. We had the chance to hook up with Rusty at the recent Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, where we learned some cool Hari Krishna handshakes and picked up the latest concerning his Romero documentary.
Andy Mauro: Most horror fans are going to be introduced to you through the new George Romero documentary you’re directing. Tell us a little about this project.
Rusty Nails: Dead On: The Life and Cinema of George A. Romero is going to be an overview of George’s work to date, his work process, as well as his own take on his films. It’s also going to deal with issues like the pros and cons of independent filmmaking and the political issues addressed by Romero’s films.
AM: How is Dead On going to distinguish itself from the various Romero documentaries that are already out there?
RN: We’re going to cover every one of his films. It’s also going to cover his work modes and thought processes when making a film, where he’s coming from when he makes his movies. I don’t think that’s been done before. We have photos and footage that nobody’s ever seen. We’re trying to make it the most complete overview of his work to date. And not just as horror films, but as an important filmmaker. In my opinion George is one of the most important independent filmmakers in the world. Night of the Living Dead was the Rosetta Stone of independent films. It’s one of the first films to be made outside of Hollywood or New York and financed by the filmmakers. We’re going to delve into a lot of different subjects, and I hope the film will be very layered.
AM: Is Dead On going to cover Diary of the Dead, Romero’s latest low budget independent film?
RN: We continue to shoot footage. We’ve interviewed everybody from John Waters, Glenn Danzig, Penn from Penn and Teller, Dario Argento, Tom Savini, and others. We’re trying to get not only the people that have worked on his movies and people in the horror community but also other independent filmmakers, other non-genre filmmakers, critics, authors, and artists. We’re really trying to show the broad spectrum of influence George’s work has had. I don’t feel that George is a neglected filmmaker, but I do feel that his influence is wide-spanning, and I want to show that.
AM: Have you learned anything about Romero while making Dead On that might be new to fans?
RN: I think that something that isn’t dealt with in the pieces I’ve seen is George’s community. When you watch a movie, you don’t think of the communities that are created; you think of the director because that’s the name that goes out. As a filmmaker I’m very interested in community. I think that’s also been important to George’s work. His humanity is why people are interested in his films and why people respond to them. Unlike other independent horror films, he’s dealing with people. His characters are fallible; they’re more than one-dimensional. In Dawn of the Dead all the main characters are complex. These are some of the things we’ll be getting into in the documentary.
AM: When can we expect to see Dead On and in what capacity?
RN: I’d like to get a theatrical release. If we don’t get a distributor, then I will approach theatres about playing it myself. We did that with Acne. I like my films to play at theatres. I don’t have a problem with straight-to-DVD, but I’d like to see it in a theatre. My plan is to finish the film in 2008, at the latest, which is the fortieth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead and has a nice serendipitous feel to it. The main thing is we just want to make the best film possible. I don’t like to force my work. I’m not interested in just getting something out. It has to be something that satisfies me because if it doesn’t satisfy me, then it’s not going to satisfy people that might be interested in seeing it.
It’s been very interesting to track George’s career. We’ve interviewed two cast and two crew from every movie he’s made. We’re going through this person’s life, almost like the Citizen Kane reporter. We’ve met a couple of George’s best friends, which has been nice. It’s not necessarily the bigger people that make it interesting for us although a number of people will be impressed to see guys like John Carpenter, etc. For me one of the most interesting things has been hearing different things from his best friends. Like the time George went to the Pittsburgh Playhouse dressed like Cyrano; even though he wasn’t in the play, he’d just be trying to make everybody laugh. We’re interested in showing him as a human being.
AM: Moving on to Acne, can you summarize the picture for folks that haven’t seen it?
RN: For me Acne is about the freedom of cinema. It’s about the full potential of making the movie I wanted to make. It might be the first French New Wave horror movie. It’s like a French New Wave, film noir, horror, sci-fi, black comedy, Mad magazine parody. It’s a coming of age punk rock sci-fi movie. The characters come to understand the possibilities of the corrupt military industrial complex and how that affects them. It comes in the form of this virus that they’re affected by, and they’re chased by the government, the military, and big business. When I was fifteen and heard the Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat and the Avengers and Sex Pistols, it was a big awakening to all the messed up things in the world, what do you do about them, and what does it mean to you. It’s pretty messed up and fun. I’m not into brutal horror movies. I’m not interested in rape revenge movies, that kind of thing. I love horror, but I wanted to make an alternative to the really brutal stuff.
AM: Acne seems to a kind of adolescent body horror film. What’s the fascination?
RN: I’m very interested in adolescence. There’s nothing like that coming of age period for teenagers. Those high school, junior high school years are brutal and amazing, and they’re beautiful and confusing. You’re just learning about yourself and the possibilities of being human. My next film, Teenagers from Mars, explores what leads adolescents to become violent in American society.
AM: What were your inspirations for Acne?
RN: My favorite film is Breathless by Jean-Luc Goddard. I’m also a big fan of Shoot the Piano Player by Francois Truffaut. I love Pink Flamingos, Eraserhead, Repo Man, and Mad Max. The film isn’t derivative of any particular movie. I wanted to create a film that harkened back to a particular style.
AM: It seems like you guys were able to get a lot of production value out of your budget. How was it filmed, how much did it cost, etc?
RN: It was shot on 16mm. It took about 4 years to make and cost sixteen thousand dollars. It’s got songs by The Dead Kennedys, Devo, the Luna Chicks, as well as an originally composed score. It’s got a really lush soundtrack; a lot of people like it.
AM: How’d you get all the bands to give you the songs given your budget?
RN: All the people on the soundtrack were extremely cool. When I contacted the Dead Kennedys, I sent them the film. I really wanted to include them because I really like their music a lot. Every song in the film is very specifically selected for lyrical content in relation to the scene that it’s in. With Dead Kennedys the song I really wanted was Moon over Marin. There’s a scene where the main character, Zooey, who’s played by me, is woken up by the Dead Kennedys on his alarm clock. The song, which is all about pollution, comes on. I don’t know how many people will understand the reference, but I wanted it to be there. The Dead Kennedys were extremely supportive, they liked the movie, and so they signed the contract. I really wanted the song Mongoloid from Devo, whom I love and is one of my favorite bands. They went far out of their way to give us permission to use the song. Mark Mothersbaugh, the singer from Devo, is one of my heros. I called him after he saw Acne, and the first words that came through the phone were, “I love this film!”, which gave me goosebumps. There was a different version of the song other than the Warner Brothers version, and they let us change the name of the song so we didn’t have to pay a lot of royalties.
AM: Is this the first time the Dead Kennedys’ music has appeared in a film?
RN: Holiday in Cambodia is in the film Neighbors with John Belushi. It cost them a lot of money for the Hollywood studio compared to what we paid. There haven’t been a lot of DK songs in film though, so I’m happy to have them there.
AM: I heard you have a film festival. You want to tell us what it’s all about?
RN: I have a film festival in Chicago called Movieside. We’ve had John Waters, Jim Jarmusch, Guy Maddin, Jack Hill, and George Romero attend. Pretty soon we’re going to have Joe Dante. You can check it out at Movieside Film Festival.
AM: Any advice for aspiring filmmakers?
RN: I’m not a person that believes everything has been done before. I think that’s bullshit. Cinema has endless possibilities. I don’t think people stretch it enough. A lot of people are concerned with selling their films. When I made Acne, I had no concern for selling it. I don’t think you should go about making independent low budget films worrying about selling them. You should go about making films with as much creativity, as much of your own voice, as much of your own heart as possible. If you make a film thinking about selling it, it’s probably not going to get sold. Some people really like Acne, some people really don’t like it. A number of people have said this is the weirdest film they’ve ever seen. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, but it does have some ideas in it you don’t always get to see. If you want to sell a movie to a studio, they’re not going to buy it because you made a kiss-ass movie they’ve seen a hundred times. When Mel Brooks saw Eraserhead, he was so blown away, he went to the studio and said I want Lynch to direct The Elephant Man. It’s the unique voices that matter. Cinema is the ability to move people and to make them think. A lot of cinema is very lazy. People shouldn’t worry that Saw I and Saw II and Saw MM had a formula and made a lot of money. We should think of film as something that has a life of its own and can exist for a very long time. I think creativity is the only thing that can make that happen.
AM: I have to ask. What’s with the name Rusty Nails, man?
RN: I was born with it. Divined by the punk rock gods.
Much thanks to Rusty for spending time chatting with us and screening some footage from Dead On. Trust me, folks, if this thing ends up being anywhere near as good as the twenty minutes we saw, it’s going to be the definitive George Romero documentary. You can find more out about Rusty at his website New Eye Films.
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