My fellow director friend Chuck Parello had set up a meeting between horror legend Stuart Gordon and us. I was excited for the whole day as I finally got to meet the director of Re-Animator, one of the horror movies I adored as a teenager. It was such an inspiring treat being able to talk about genre cinema with truly a master of the genre who has consistently produced excellent horror over past three decades since his first feature Reaminator burst into the scene in 1985.
Re-Animator was sort of the groundbreaking movie that took horror cinema to new heights with amazing prosthestic effects including exploding guts and a talking decapitated head and a reimagining of the concept of undead. Re-Animator is a literary, artistic and independent feat.
After Re-Animator, Stuart made the equally fun and effects laden From Beyond, another HP Lovecraft adaptation which is also a classic of its own. Stuart has since directed a jawdropping slate of over 13 features that include the scary killer doll movie Dolls, David Mammet's Edmond with William Macy, the super imaginative Dagon, and most recently Stuck with Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea that premiered at Toronto awhile back.
It was a childhood dream come true being able to sit in his Burbank office whose walls were plastered with posters of my favorite horror flicks and chatted with him about horror cinema. Talking about being in Montreal's Fantasia film festival, he tipped us into a new genre of Serbian horror films that are quite cutting edge and extreme born out of the violent social and cultural context of Serbia.
One Serbian movie cheekily titled A Serbian Film has been gaining global controversy. It's a horror film about an ex-porn actor who gets hired to do a snuff film with an insane director. The film is full of sex and extreme violence complete with a final unimaginable (SPOILER) sex scene with a newborn. Invincible Pictures in the U.S. has picked it up for distribution. I simply can't wait!
What an inspiring afternoon!
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