Set: Masters of Horror

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

July
12^th, 2006: The temperature in Vancouver
is clawing its way to record highs on the afternoon of my visit to
the set of Masters of Horror so luckily for me; the sweat of nervous
anticipation that soaks my shirt is covertly masked by the
unrelenting heat.

As
I pull up along side the incredibly unassuming
warehouse-turned-soundstage in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, I’m
immediately struck by the reality of what I’m about to do; I’m
mere minutes away from interviewing one of my personal – all-time
– favorite directors, Tom Holland (Fright Night) on the set
of his triumphant (if not quiet) return to the genre that misses him
dearly; Holland’s “We All Scream For Ice Cream” episode for
season two of Masters of Horror marks his first time back behind
camera’s since 1996’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Thinner.

I
quickly find an empty visitor parking spot, check my recording gear
on last time and make my way inside the front office building.

Walking
into the Masters of Horror production office, I’m immediately
struck by how laid-back and informal it is. The desks are set-up in
an open-floor design, littered with bits of flair and empty coffee
cups; it’s so laid-back in fact, that no one seems to even notice
this 250 lb “intruder” that has just walked-in off the street.
Another moment passes and finally I’m seen.

Coincidentally, the
person that spots me standing by reception is the man I was told to
ask for; Unit Publicist, Bill Vigars. Bill greets me with a hearty
handshake and immediately whisks me across the production office
floor, through a door and down a flight of stairs, littered with
thick reams of cable, discarded camera-tape and cigarette butts. At
the bottom of the steep, thin stairway, an impossibly high black
curtain looms into view. Bill stops dead, and like a sinister carnie
barker, he pulls the curtain aside and ushers me in behind it.

My
first thought as I move in past the curtain, is that I’ve just
stepped through Lewis Carroll’s wardrobe; as my foot falls on
bone-white snow, a pine-tree lunges out of the darkness, its needles
threatening to stick-out my eye. More cautiously now, I move further
into the thick of the pines, navigating my path by a tiny twinkle of
colored light up ahead…just through the trees.
As the pines break around me, my thoughts of Narnia and
cheery little beavers are quickly stripped away; an ice-cream truck
sits silent and frozen in the middle of an open patch of grass…and
it truly is a sight to behold.

It’s been beaten to shit, scratched
and dented, and falling apart. The front grill has been kicked-in
and now resembles a dead mouth. A slowly roiling mist moves around
it, lending a haunting, dreamlike menace to the sight. Lengths of
twinkling Christmas lights adorn the outside of the steel-beast; a
pedophiles hot-rod springs to mind – crude indeed. The best way to
describe it is: John Doe’s apartment from SE7EN…but on wheels.

An
icy (no pun intended) chill races down my spine as I stand, staring
at this impressive piece of production design. Slowly, the sound of
distant walkie-chatter and the clank of grip-work bring me back to
reality; it’s a convincing set, and one that should look
absolutely fantastic on the screen.

A
moment later, Bill shuffles through the thick stand of pines behind
me like a little smiling badger and waves me over. He tells me that
Tom (Holland) is busy wrapping up with the EPK (Electronic Press
Kit) guys and he’ll be a minute, but Mick Garris
(Writer/Director/and creator of Masters of Horror) would LOVE to
chat with the site (a big fan of Arrow in the Head and JoBlo I’m
told).

I am not opposed to this at all. Bill walks me across the set
(a small neighborhood park so says the script), over a length of
dolly-track, past a group of tattooed grips and into Video-Village
(a bank of video monitors set up for the director to survey the
action and call the shots from). A tall, thin man immediately stands
and extends his hand. The youthful smile on his face betrays the
grey on his head. Mick Garris introduces himself and I return the
gesture.

Mick
Garris

Congratulations…the
fans really seemed to react to the first season.

Yeah,
we’re really, really delighted that it’s such a success around
the world. Showtime’s a very small network so it doesn’t take a
whole lot of people to be a hit show. I think we’re their number
two rated show.

How
are things going on season two?

It’s
going great. It’s very strange how much faster it seems to be
going this year. It’s exactly the same schedule as we had last
year, but it just seems to be booming by…but it’s going great,
they’re all more ambitious.

So
the scale and the scope of the episodes have gotten bigger this
year?

It
doesn’t seem like it on paper, but then if you start breaking them
down and it’s like, “Oh, Jesus!”…you know, we don’t have
much more budget…an inch more, maybe. It’s the same shooting
schedule and all that, we’re just cramming more clothes into the
hamper.

What
do you feel is so attractive to fans in regards to Masters of
Horror? Is there something that, you feel, keeps them tuning in each
week?

I
think that theatrical
horror has settled into this kind of…one kind of movie, you know?

So
the attraction would be selection?

Yeah!
I mean none of them are alike, and this year continues that. There
were thirteen episodes last year so now, after this season, there
will be twenty-six of them and none
of them are alike. I don’t know how long
you can do that but…

I’m
sure that the fans would hope for more.

Yeah,
yeah…we hope! But even if there are some similarities, you
know…maybe there’ll be another ghost story or whatever,
things’ll be different…enough that it still feels fresh.

Right,
there might be some similarities, but told from a different
point-of-view.

Exactly!
That’s what’s great about this. Even Tales from the Crypt, you
know, as wonderful as it could be, still had very much the same
style; it’s written by the same people all the time, and even
though the directors were bringing their own personalities…they
all looked very much
alike…not alike, but…similar. They went for a particular look
for the show and a style for the show, and a wink-wink horror
attitude. As long as there were boobs and blood they were fine (laughs).

But
you guys still get to do all the boobs and gore.

That’s
true! (laughs)

One
thing people might be interested in is the selection
process…finding the directors and then the scripts and, more
importantly, pairing up those scripts with
the directors. Is it a case of giving them (the directors) a
stack of scripts and saying “See what you like”, or is it like;
Tom Holland is kind of like this, this script is kind of like Tom
Holland, let’s see if they work together?

It’s
a bunch of different things, I mean the hardest thing about the
selection process is getting the timing right for the directors and
their schedules…it’s a domino effect. It’s like once you lock
in one, another director says something like “Oh that was the only
time I could have worked,
oh shit!” So we’ve had to lose out on al lot of really great
directors who really wanted to do the show like: Guillermo Del Toro,
Rob Zombie, Eli Roth…all were booked to do one but the schedules
were never able to work out right.

So
it can be a real juggling act?

Yeah,
that’s a big part of it. But the basic priority is each of the
directors has to be someone who has made influential horror films.
Last year, our young whipper-snapper Lucky McKee…you know we had
lost out on George Romero and Roger Corman back-to-back and we had
to fill a slot…quickly…with someone who was available, and
Lucky’s May, was something all of us were really knocked-out by,
and though it was very influential and The Woods looks like it’s
going to be very good as well. So, that’s part of it. It’s about
half-and-half.

We develop a handful of scripts…all freelance,
there’s no writing staff but me, I write two for each season; one
that I do and one that someone else does. So we’ll develop those,
we’ll look for short stories that make for really good films…one
hour films, and have either the authors of the story or writers that
we know that can work in the genre…which is a very limited pool by
the way. There are a lot of writers that love the horror genre, but
not that many are really good at writing it. But yeah, it’s like
you said, we’ll try and match them (the scripts) with the
personalities of the director. Like in this case, Tom Holland and
this story, John Farris’ story, and the Schow script really seemed
like a good match…Tom really responded to it.

At
this point in my conversation with Mick Garris, Bill Vigars politely
interrupts to tell me that Holland has finished up with the EPK crew
and has gone to his trailer to watch dailies from the previous day.
Bill tells me to head out to the trailer and announce myself. I take
a moment to thank Mick Garris for taking the time to chat and I’m
off.

My
interview with director Tom Holland tomorrow!