Exclusive Interview with Hellevator Man Segment Director Vincent J. Guastini
Staci Layne Wilson
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V/H/S: Viral makeup FX artist Vincent J. Guastini has made the leap into the director’s chair with “The Future Executive,” a segment of the upcoming horror anthology Hellevator Man, featuring Cortney Palm (Sushi Girl, Zombeavers) and world-famous WWE wrestler Mick Foley.
Hellevator Man is the latest horror production by Blanc/Biehn Productions, who have so far confirmed segments helmed by Guastini and short film fave Patrick Rea, whose piece is titled “It’s Hell Getting Old.”
Dread Central: Can you talk a little bit about how the project came to you? Was it already a story that was presented, or was it your idea for the script?
Vincent J. Guastini: Jennifer Blanc [the producer] came to me and said, ‘Listen, did you ever want to direct?,’ and I said, ‘Yeah!’ The first thing I ever wanted to do was direct after I saw Star Wars. And when the 80’s interrupted all that and it shifted to special effects and I saw The Howling and American Werewolf and The Thing, then I kind of shifted from wanting to produce and direct and went into makeup effects. That’s how I got into makeup effects, but I always wanted to direct or at least produce. And so, over the years, when my career progressed, I had a few chances or people came to me… I had this script, this alien script, that everybody really loved, and it got close. But some of the dynamics of what was going on with money or what was going to happen didn’t quite feel right or I didn’t feel like anything was ready yet, so it didn’t happen. When Jennifer came to me and I told her all this, she said, ‘Well, we have this thing called Hellevator… it’s an anthology and it’ll be like six stories.’ She then asked, ‘If you want to do one of the scripts, do you write?’ And I said, ‘Kind of. I’m more of an idea guy and I know dialogue and I know what’s real doesn’t sound real. And also, story-wise I may have a couple ideas.’ So she says, ‘Well, if you want, come up with an idea and present it to us and we’ll let you know what we think because we would like you to direct one.’ And she’s talking to me about directing some other project for her, and I said, ‘Sure, but let me come up with an idea…’ And she says, ‘You have to be in an elevator.’
So I immediately thought it was a horrible, awful first-time opportunity to direct something like that, and I was really actually kind of upset. And I said to myself, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And when I heard the limitations of that, out of the frustrations of the limitations, I came up with the idea to slowly broaden the whole idea of the elevator because I knew everybody’s preconceived ideas was where I was coming from at that moment when I was offered that which was, ‘Well, we’ve seen Devil and we’ve seen all these other stories and they’re kind of boring and lackluster because what more can you do with an eight by eight space?’ So I decided in the story to slowly grow something so that I’m destroying the location I hated and make it move and make other visual aspects of introducing not only what I do with effects with my company, but also showing the most important thing, which was that I didn’t want to be a first-time director that just came in to do something just for effects. So I wanted to make a powerful story with some great performances and really great dialogue that was believable and something that you cared about the characters first… you can do all kinds of pretty window dressing being an effects person, but if you don’t care about the characters and you don’t care about the story and you don’t care about any of that, it’s not going to work. It just becomes an effects reel, and that’s not what I wanted to do.
So, story is very important to me… dialogue is very important to me… then we can get into everything else. But even with that stuff I wanted to make sure that it was not only real, but visceral, exciting, cinematic. So that’s where we went, and on these budgets I didn’t think we could get there at first so I decided, even at the beginning, I was going to try and slowly massage everybody to get there and really push for what I wanted s, I was very clear about what I wanted to see since when I presented the script, they loved it. Everybody fell in love with it, but I wanted to make sure what was on the page was actually going to get on screen, and that was my worry. I didn’t want to be a first-time effects director who was going to come out with a piece of garbage, and I don’t want to be in that universe. I don’t want to be anywhere near it. I want it to be where if anybody’s going to look at me for my bigger credits, the stuff that I worked on before somewhat matches what I’m going to do as a director; even if it’s a low budget thing cinematically, there’s something bigger and much more going on.
I’m happy to say with the support of Jennifer and Mike and me sacrificing all my money and them giving me extra and being there as my friends and believing in me, they changed my life because right now, on this set, I don’t know what’s going to happen with editing, but I’m telling you what we’re getting on camera is so much bigger… I was trying to get 80%; I’m getting 157%. So we’re way beyond and out of the boundaries of where I thought we were going to be and I’m making my days and we’re getting amazing shots. Like, amazing.
DC: The segments — they’re satellite productions, not all filmed in L.A., right?
VG: Yeah they’re all separate and it’s all coming together under one big umbrella. So I also said, ‘If I could suggest other people to direct things, let’s elevate the whole movie. Let’s get other really creative people involved.’ So I got Eric England, which is a friend of mine. He’s going to come up with one, a story, so he can direct. And I just feel that if you just get enough strong [directors], the whole movie will be strong. Which will make them sell it more and it’ll be, you know, just taken really seriously.
DC: What is the basic premise of your story?
VG: I guess I could tell you. The basic premise is there are three people trapped in an elevator. It’s in a corporate office. And what happens is the kind of office clerk that works there is telling one of the people stuck in the elevator, who’s basically an office executive–she’s very high-end, very corporate kind of cold–that he’s had a thing for her, has been in love with her from a ar. And while being stuck in this elevator he expresses how he feels about her for all this time. And it starts to melt her cold exterior that she’s actually starting to notice him in a different way and not just some office guy that works in the mail room. That he’s actually somebody that is special and didn’t realize that somebody like that could have feelings for her like that. So it melts her outer exterior.
In the meantime, while this is going on, they’re stuck in the elevator with the biggest asshole ever on the planet who’s basically his past can be from prison. And there’s a slight hint that he might be a rapist or a murderer, and as things go on, they have a climax between the guy that’s falling in love with her and him, and a fight ensues. Not unlike the fight that would be in They Live but a hundred times worse, the fight between Keith David and Rowdy Roddy Piper. And so I wanted to use certain elements that attracted me like Fight Club and Raging Bull. And as the story heightens, the elevator goes crazy and goes up and down and becomes a runaway train type of situation. To break the atmosphere of just being four walls, I put a window in the elevator. A small window so that when things go crazy and we see the floors going up and down and out of control, we have that element inside the elevator adding more danger. Emergency lights and things like that that belong. So it becomes an action movie now.
DC: Where are you in the production right now?
VG: We’re on the final day, and we have a lot of makeup effects that go into a different area because we have a very big surprise ending that is very broad and really cinematic and really big, and there’s a big punch line at the end of it – what you find out about these people and what they may or may not be.
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