Horror Business: Derek Dennis Herbert on TO HELL AND BACK & Documentary Filmmaking
Nick Taylor
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If you haven’t seen To Hell and Back yet, seriously, what have you been doing? Now that it’s available on Amazon Prime, there’s no excuse not to see this fun, surprisingly touching and inspirational exploration of the man behind the mask of Jason Voorhees. We mostly know Kane Hodder as the beloved horror icon, but few know the harrowing details of his life story. The movie pulls off a difficult feat of illustrating a very poignant memoir that unflinchingly confronts issues of bullying and PTSD, while still delivering enough film trivia and gore gag clips to keep us horror nerds happy. The cohesion of these elements, working together to effortlessly spin a thorough and enjoyable narrative, speak to the storytelling ability of director, Derek Dennis Herbert.
Overall, Kane’s life story is a saga of the triumph of the human will over extreme adversity, and a heroic tale of utilizing pain as a resource for strength. Excruciating accounts of his medical treatments at a mal-practicing, ill-equipped burn center are appalling and tear-jerking and the viewer comes out with an even higher level of admiration for Kane, whose plight would have buried most men. But, like his titular character of Jason, he constantly proves to be an unstoppable force who comes back again and again from the very depths of hell, a little bit stronger every time.
Let’s kick this thing off with Derek Dennis Herbert’s three keys for aspiring filmmakers:
- Salute your shorts. Despite hearing from Dov Charney that “Nobody cares about your short,” multiple directors have spoken of how the condensed and low-risk experience of doing a short, teaches directors priceless lessons that prepare them for subsequent features. Derek cites his first short as a difficult but necessary experience that was loaded with mistakes. But, despite how painful it was, the experience of making a short paid off because Derek was able to avoid those same rookie errors on his feature where the stakes were much higher.
- Wear one hat on-set, but multiple hats off-set. Filmmaking often demands the execution of many roles: writer, director, producer, editor — each of which requires a distinctly different mindset. Derek’s production on To Hell and Back was no different, as he was the director, producer and even one of the editors, BUT, he made a conscious effort to focus on being a director on-set so that he could best serve the story with as much focus as possible. Wearing multiple hats is a necessary part of getting your film off of the ground, but focus is equally important, particularly while directing. The balance between focus and multi-tasking is critical, and Derek perfectly articulates it when he says, “It’s about wearing the right hats at the right time.”
- Make sure your subject has charisma: Derek states that, regardless of how amazing a documentary’s story is, if the subject can’t compellingly deliver it, the movie will fall flat. Luckily for Derek, Kane Hodder is excellent on camera (with and without a hockey mask). Always ensure that your subject and the people you focus the most amount of camera time on are articulate, charismatic, and endearing enough to carry a movie. Without those qualities, the audience will likely check out, regardless of how incredible the story might be.
Dread Central: Hey Derek, thanks for taking the time. To Hell and Back was really fantastic. Bravo, man, truly.
Derek Dennis Herbert: Thank you!
DC: How did this project come about?
DDH: We started filming in June of 2015, but I’d been working on fundraising, prepping, the pitch deck and all that since around 2014. It’s been a long time coming, so I’m very happy now that it’s being received so well. I’ve been talking with some other documentary people who said that it took them ten years to get their film finished! Ultimately what I’d like to do is work on narrative films with docs in production, because I could probably get three of those out while a whole doc is being made.
DC: Three and a half years’ worth of effort; it sounds like it was a real labor of love. Could you talk about the process of getting this made?
DDH: Well, I knew I wanted to make a film with someone in the horror genre, as a fan. I also knew that I wanted to make something that would appeal to a broader demographic, with human interest as well. I’ve worked on so many docs–you need the subject (or at least one of the subjects) to be very compelling in order for the doc to work; because the story can be incredible, but if the subject can’t speak well on camera, and can’t make people care about it, then it just dissolves.
Kane’s story sounded very compelling, so I read Unmasked which he wrote with Mike Aloisi. Then I immediately read it a second time before I gave it to my attorney, Andrew Barcello, who read it and said, “You really should make it.” We got in contact with Kane’s manager, who was a real sweetheart. Once we got to a point where everyone was happy, we met with Kane immediately.
In that first meeting, Kane knew we were the right people to make this, and he agreed one meeting in. In that first meeting, he went, “Alright, assuming you guys can do this, we’re doing this!” And we said “Yep! We can start filming really soon.” And he’s like, “Alright, where do I sign?” And we made this thing happen. So it was very quick.
DC: He must have just known that he was in the right hands from the get-go. What do you think it was about your pitch, or about you and your team, that was able to gain Kane’s trust so quickly?
DDH: He said he has a feeling about people–he’s said it before, like when he met with Adam Green for the first time, he knew that something was different about Adam. He said with Adam he never thought it wouldn’t happen. And I think that’s the same kind of feeling he had with us, like, ‘These guys are relatively unknown, but I’ve trusted people before. I’ve trusted Adam Green, I’ve trusted Mike Aloisi with writing my book, so if I’m going to do this, why don’t I do it with these people?’
Plus, he didn’t think it was necessary to do a doc. He thought he had put everything out there with a book, and that’s all he’d do with it, until we convinced him that we’d reach a larger audience and make it a more easily digestible format for a lot of people. Not everyone has days to read a book, but people have ninety minutes to watch a movie. So it allows him to get his story out to more people. He thought it was a great idea.
We told him, “Listen, we want to tell your story and your words; you’re going to have final-cut approval on it. That certainly helped too, because there’s some really sensitive things here, that if they were handled in the wrong way, could have made this a completely different film. I wanted to prove I could do this, and do it well, and make a film that Kane would be proud of. Hopefully it’s just the start of me working with Kane–I’d love to work with him again, very soon.
DC: What was the most surprising thing that you found out about Kane when you were shooting this?
DDH: The scale and amount of malpractice that he endured at that hospital was very difficult to hear about in person. Obviously, I’ve read the book, but to hear him list it was a different story. We turn it into a montage in the movie. A lot of times we would talk about the malpractice for long periods of time, and then I’d switch to talking about Jason Takes Manhattan for a while, and then we’d go back to it a little more. I wanted to keep us on a path where, when I saw him get physically tired talking about this stuff, we’d change the mood and talk about something fun, or take a break, and reevaluate. I think he appreciated that as well, sometimes he would say, “No, I’d rather continue talking about the same subject.” And I had all my questions, so I would just go right back to where I was.
DC: So, you were strategic in not exhausting him about a single topic?
DDH: Exactly, because I knew we had two days in L.A., which is what we built the whole set for, for him to talk. We also had two days in Hawaii in a hotel, but I wanted to get as much done with the beautiful set we built as I could. I knew they’d be like ten-to-twelve-hour days for him sitting and talking about his life, so I wanted to make sure that it was as comfortable as possible for him, given the subject matter.
DC: That set you guys built was awesome, by the way. It was that sort of Dario Argento-looking Giallo lighting in the background. It was really cool. I was going to ask you about that.
DDH: We went to this Laymont Studios in Kilda Park, where they actually filmed a bunch of Victor Crowley. They’re a fairly low-cost facility but they have a lot of stuff, including a whole in-house set department that built that set. It was one of their kit sets but then we heavily modified it — I wanted the background to be interesting but not overpowering of Kane, and I think that’s what it did. I wanted to make a very cinematic documentary. I didn’t want to shoot against green screens — they did that in Never Sleep Again, and it definitely works, but I really didn’t want to have to deal with trying to make this look realistic again in post. I wanted a real background.
DC: It looked really awesome.
DDH: Thank you!
Robert Englund is one of many star cameos made in To Hell and Back
DC: When it comes to a documentary, I feel like the directorial duties are very different from directing a narrative feature. When you’re doing something like this and you have such compelling subject matter, how much can you actually direct?
DDH: Not too much, but occasionally I would say, “Can you say that again, the same words, just quicker?” Sometimes he’s talking for twelve hours, and sometimes everyone stumbles on their words. They were tailored questions. So continuing to ask questions, pushing as far as I could. But also knowing when he was done. Knowing when a subject was closed for discussion. It was certainly a learning curve in the beginning, to know how far to push it, how far to go. In the beginning I was a bit more hesitant, but as time went on, I finally pushed it a little more.
DC: Did you go to film school?
DDH: Yeah, I went to film school at Full Sail University.
DC: Isn’t that where Daren Lynn Bousman went?
DDH: Yes. It’s a great school, a phenomenal way to meet people. I learned more on my short film I made than I did at film school, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have gone to film school. I wouldn’t have known more than half the crew that worked on this film, and most of my friends are from there.
DC: So that’s how you met most of the crew you worked with?
DDH: A lot of the beginning crew we used were from there. Because with a doc it was two years of filming, so my DP stayed the same, but we used several sound mixers, also depending on where we went. We always flew the DP with us, but we hired local sound people. So in Hawaii, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Massachusetts, New York, San Francisco, we always hired different people.
DC: With a documentary, particularly with such a multifaceted subject as Kane Hodder, what was some of the most challenging stuff to cut?
DDH: Well, since I worked on several documentaries before, I kind of knew that it was going to be challenging. I feel like editing was a little more challenging than I anticipated. We had thirty-nine hours of footage! It was hard to narrow it down to stuff that was important to Kane. We could have pretty much made two documentaries here. We had to always think: “Is this important to Kane?” We had to cut a lot of elements from Jason Takes Manhattan or other films he’s done, because they just weren’t revealing of Kane as a person.
We were telling Kane’s story, not the story of his career. To start with, we had about a six-hour cut of the movie, like Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Chronicles. I feel like Kane’s hard core fans would have loved a six-hour cut. It was not ready, though. We called it ‘Going in with a machete,’ where we chopped out whole sections. Then we ‘went in with a hatchet’ and hatcheted little bits off here and there, and then we had to ‘go in with a scalpel’. We got it under three hours, and that’s when it started getting a little painful for me to get it under two hours. When we got it under two hours, we were like, “Alright, it’s like 117 minutes, it’s perfect. It worked.” And now I still feel like I could probably cut it down a little bit, but that’s being a couple years out of the editing room.
DC: One of the most surprising things to me was how thoroughly but tenderly it confronted major social issues that we are still dealing with today: namely, bullying, and PTSD. What have crowd reactions been like to your very honest exploration of these issues?
DDH: It’s been more resonant than I expected. When Kane did the book, he told us that a lot of people come up to him and thank him for sharing his story. If somebody like him could go through bullying and come out one of the biggest bad-asses in film history, then they maybe can find hope in their lives. It was an American Dream story. Kane went from being raised in a not-so-nice part of Nevada and having no money when he moved to L.A., but built himself up in the stunt world, only to suffer this horrific burn, then receive terrible medical attention. Then after finally getting good medical care, he picks himself up, fights through everything and becomes one of the biggest horror icons of all time and one of the most respected stuntmen and stunt coordinators in history.
DC: This documentary and the subject matter it covers are very universal. How have non-horror fans received the movie?
DDH: There’s a lot of people that have said, ‘I don’t like horror, I was not a fan of Kane’s; I am now, though.’ We purposely made the poster very neutral. That’s what we tried to do in the movie. Every ten to fifteen minutes, we wanted to make sure we satisfied both human interest and horror, so everyone could enjoy it. I’ve had people ask me at signings and stuff, “I’ve never seen a Kane Hodder movie, where do I start?” The Hatchet series are usually the ones I recommend.
I’m a much bigger Hatchet fan than I am a Jason fan. But Jason X is probably my favorite of the ones Kane did. He had the most say in what he did, and I think he had the most fun in what he did. Part 7 is definitely the best of the Jasons, but I think Jason X, it’s so fun–it knew exactly what it was doing, it didn’t take itself seriously, and that’s what I liked. It was just a fun movie. And that’s why I like the Hatchet movies; they’re very tongue-in-cheek, they’re very comedic, fun, gruesome extravaganzas.
DC: Kane Hodder seems like the kind of guy that directors love to have around because he brings a positive energy and work ethic to the set that rubs off on everyone and keeps them motivated while keeping morale high.
DDH: Yes, definitely. He also will call people out. If anyone is being a diva he might say ‘Why don’t you get your own damn water? It’s not like you don’t have 2 legs,’ and say it in a way that’s humorous and makes the actress laugh. That’s the best part of having him there; most of the time he knows that fine line, that balance. I’d much rather have that energy than to have people who are afraid to say anything on set.
While he is this badass, he’s a very nice guy; he cares a lot and if he’s a friend of yours he’s going to be there for you. When Adam Green was shooting Frozen, he flew to the set on his own dime to stunt coordinate because he wanted to make sure it was done safely. Adam really wanted him there. He knew he would make sure that everyone was safe. On set it just feels safer when he’s around.
DC: How did you prep for doing a documentary? Did you study documentary filmmaking?
DDH: I did pull out some of the old materials from our documentary class at Full Sail, but it was more along the lines of just studying documentaries on a lot of subjects. I talked with Adam Rifkin, who had made documentaries. I drew from experience. My short film was not a great shoot, but I learned a lot and I always said I would never repeat any of the things I did on that set. This time everything was planned.
DC: What was the collaboration like with you and your partners on the film?
DDH: It was only Kane, our sound mixer, my DP Zach Conner, and myself on-set. We had walkie talkies and I had an earpiece, so they could give me ideas on additional questions. That way the producer could pick up on things, make his own notes, and then we would compare them and come up with potential follow-up questions or other things to touch on.
In filmmaking, a lot of people try to be these one-man machines. On the short, I did pretty much everything, and so I did nothing well. When you do everything, you can’t focus on directing, you can’t focus on producing, or any of that stuff. So this time I wanted to direct it while I was there, and produce it while I was off set. I wasn’t thinking as a producer on-set. I wanted to make sure we got the footage, so that in editing, Mike Hugo and I could sit down and put together a great film. But I wanted the pieces there in order to put it together into something better. On-set you should wear one hat whenever possible; off-set I say wearing multiple hats is okay, but on-set I feel like wearing one hat is important. It’s about wearing the right hats at the right time, that’s all.
DC: Is there any advice you have for aspiring filmmakers, even documentarians?
DDH: I feel like the biggest piece of advice is that when it comes to coverage, it’s better to have it than to not have it, and that’s something that I took to heart, obviously, with thirty-nine hours of footage. I tried to get as many stories as I thought were potentially good for the movie. It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. It’s a lot harder to go back and film the set again and re-shoot, than shoot somewhere else. We knew we were shooting two days here and two days in Hawaii in the beginning, and those were the four days we shot with Kane in front of four interviews.
DC: Did you have any documentaries that were favorites, or key examples of structures you wanted to emulate?
DDH: I would say Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Chronicles as horror. Non-horror I would have to say probably Supermensch. Super Duper Alice Cooper was also very cool. I love documentaries of all kinds.
DC: Looking at the finished film, in retrospect, what would you have spent more on and what would you have spent less on? I don’t necessarily mean money — it could be time, energy, focus, etc.
DDH: We learned a lot about the process. When scheduling celebrities, you have to work with their schedules; you can’t have them work with yours. So, what I would do next time is schedule half-day shoots. To try and get a couple of people in half-days and shoot them, versus attempting to try and fill full days. In the beginning we were spending money on the crew, paying for full-day rates and shooting one person in the morning and one person at night, at their houses. So we spent thousands of dollars on shooting this, but we could’ve probably cut that in half if we had asked people in advance to do half-day shoots.
DC: What are you working on next?
DDH: Well the next doc will be the one on Adam Green’s Holliston, which is in the early stages. Then I have They’re Inside which is a horror/thriller film about two sisters who go outside into a house in the woods with some friends and not everything goes well (it wouldn’t be much of a movie if things did go well). So that’s that one, that should hopefully be at festivals or available fairly soon. It’s in the very tail-end stages of post right now.
I have a short that I’m working on right now that I’m hoping to film in September, which is a narrative. I’m trying to get a feature done, so I could parlay that into my feature narrative debut. I love documentaries and I’d certainly love to do more of them on other people. I have people in mind, we just need to get our investors paid back first. Once they’re paid back, I will definitely be very excited to jump in full force on the follow-up.
DC: Derek, this was great. Thank you so much, and congratulations on the film!
DDH: Thank you, I’ll talk to you later.
A reminder to all you superfans, that if you buy before Halloween, you can get the blu-ray/DVD combo pack of To Hell and Back, with over 90 minutes of must-see bonus content, for only $14.99 direct from Dread Central Presents/Epic Pictures!
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