Method to the Madness: The Making of Silent Madness (2020) - full transcript
(women screaming)
(ominous orchestral music)
- I drew comic books as a child
and I think that's the beginning
of filmmaking in a sense.
Comic books have to
give you direction
and you have to
come up with a plot.
You have to draw in a
sense, a story board.
That's what a comic book is.
And I did not go into it,
my parents would not
let me go into film.
They said, that's
not a business.
That's not a business
for a nice Jewish boy.
You gotta get out of that.
And I didn't realize
that half of Hollywood
was Jewish at that time.
I didn't know that.
- I was in the Roman
Catholic seminary
for almost seven years and
left to become a filmmaker.
It was a very,
very hard decision
because I felt I had a vocation,
but ultimately, I felt I was
not really destined to that
and I think the seminary
felt the same way.
- I was doing a lot of trailers
for all kinds of films,
mostly action films.
I worked with Dino De
Laurentiis on "White Buffalo"
for Aquarius releasing,
for Monarch releasing.
And I got involved with
a film called "Snuff"
in which I shot a specific scene
to change the film from what
it was to what it became.
The marketing was brilliant.
They should have given an
Oscar to Allan Shackleton
for the marketing of it
"cause he did beautiful stuff
to really get into the news.
And I saw that the
opportunity was there
in the low budget film area.
There was a way to get into it
and perhaps climb into the
kind of films we want to make.
- The film "Nightmare" was,
I guess, a quasi-nightmare
experience.
We were directed
by Roman Scavolini,
an Italian director who had,
I think, an impeccable eye
for composition
and movie-making,
but his ear for
American dialogue
was perhaps not as
extensive as it should be.
So he cast the film
basically from the crew.
So the still photographer
became one of the actors.
I, who was a producer,
became one of the actors.
I agreed to do it only with
a very, very small part.
I was the psychiatrist who
was talking to the killer
long distance as
he was traveling.
Despite the fact
that someone else
got credit for special effects
who I think was the
show maybe a day or so,
I did all the special effects,
the arm being cut, the
alginate for the arm.
What not else?
All of those were
figured out by me
and actually executed
by me on the set.
I was on the film
every day it was shot
and never met Tom Savini.
I believe what happened was
after the film was shot,
they went back and did a couple
of other close up effects
by Tom Savini.
He was a huge name
at that point,
so special effects by Tom
Savini was on the film.
And did Tom Savini
do special effects?
Probably for a day on the film.
And you know, that's
a marketing ploy.
It's not reality.
- I told you you're
not allowed in here.
- A doctor should
make that decision,
not at attendant.
- How the hell did
you get into ward I?
You can't just wander around
there without clearance.
- It's a plot.
They're spying on you.
They're all out to get you.
- I was writing a
number of stories
which had the same motif
in a certain sense.
It was about an individual
who gets roped into a situation
where he or she finds
the world against them,
everything going against them.
"Silent Madness" was that
about the time of
insane asylums,
which in the '80s were very,
there were many articles
and movies about them.
And I came up with
that story of somebody
who did not commit a crime
who becomes a criminal
because of it.
- There were a lot of
people being released
for financial reasons
from mental institutions
because they didn't really have
the money to care for them.
So marginal people who were
sort of safe on the street
were being let
loose on the street.
But it happened again
because of budgetary things.
I then started to think well,
what if they then
released the wrong guy?
They got one guy too many,
a guy who may be the
same name or a mix up.
- John Howard.
Howard Johns?
Oh my god, they
released the wrong man.
- Discussed it with
one of the writers
who was was working with me,
Bob Zimmerman,
and he said he
develop that story.
And we worked back and forth.
I'm not as good a
dialogue writer as he was,
English, not being
my primary language.
- Bob Zimmerman was involved
because Bob at that
point had a computer.
And I, before that, was
writing scripts by hand
and having them typed,
and I didn't type,
and it was a nightmarish thing.
So Bob was also a writer.
Came in with me on it.
Contributed to the script
and basically was the typist,
computer guy, et cetera,
in that very, very early stage.
- Bill was already
working with me,
Bill Milling, the
producer of the film.
And he also started to write.
- I had been a huge fan of
Nelson long before this began.
Had read all of his books.
Contacted him early on
to turn one of his
books into a screenplay,
which he did.
So Nelson and I became friends.
When I was about a third of
the way through the script,
I contacted Nelson
and said, you know,
would you like to be
involved in this project?
He said, yes.
I went out to his house, I
think, in Seaford, Long Island.
We spent the day together
kicking around ideas,
et cetera, like this, to
be involved in the script.
- The first version
of "Silent Madness"
was more of a drama,
suspense, action, drama.
And it became much more of
a semi-slasher, you know,
with the effects of the
drills, and the guns,
the darts, and all that stuff,
steam steaming into people.
That came afterwards,
development of the story.
That was not the main storyline.
That was just added for
the effect of the 3D.
- We wanted it to be
more story tension
than bucket of blood slasher.
And it was a little bit of a
risk because at that point,
you know, slasher means
blood splatter literally.
We kind of did not
want to do that.
We felt as filmmakers,
you want to try to,
as I said before,
respect the genre and
yet sort of transcend it.
- [Narrator] Inside your head,
the screaming never stops.
"Silent Madness."
- The idea was don't let it
be out there in the press,
this title,
because by the time it's
released, it's kind of old hat.
You want it to be fresh.
So we would always write
the script under a title
that we never knew
would be released.
Consequently, I think we
shot it under "Omega Factor."
And then my favorite title
was always "Silent Madness."
- I went to every 3D
movie I could find.
I loved the idea.
I didn't care about the
blue and red glasses.
If it gave me a headache,
it was worth seeing it.
The excitement of seeing
something in a dimension
like a theater on film
was very exciting.
I saw "Dial M For Murder" in 3D,
which I thought was wonderful.
- I was very fond of 3D.
Very, very early on,
I was fascinated by it
and looked into how we
could go about doing it.
So I approached the people
who were shooting "Jaws 3D."
I approached Arri because
they had ArriVision,
which was their 3D camera.
And we, at that point,
owned an Arr camera.
We owned an Arri BL,
myself and two partners,
and said getting the material
that the lens system,
which fits in front
of our camera,
I wanted to rent it.
At that point, it
was on "Jaws 3D."
They made us next in line.
So as soon as "Jaws
3D" stopped shooting,
we got that
basically mirror box.
We found Gerry Feil who
had done a 3D movie,
"Friday The 13th."
We had a good meeting.
He was willing to do it.
And that's how this
whole film came about.
- The way I got on
to "Silent Madness."
I know it was soon after
I was out of school,
NYU Film School,
and a friend, one of
my fellow students,
gave me a call and just says,
hey, do you want to
work on a feature film?
And I was like,
whoa, that was quick.
Like, right? (laughing)
Like a couple months.
I think it was the summer
after I got out of school.
And he goes,
they need somebody in the
special effects department.
They're looking for a PA or an
assistant in special effects.
And I go, oh, I'd rather work
with the effects department.
He goes, well, have you
done it, effects before?
I go, on my Super
8 movies, you know?
I'd love to do it.
So they called me in, met them,
and it was the makeup
effects lab guys from L.A.
It was Ken Myers, Allan Apone.
It was like super quick.
You're on the show.
- Looking at all the effects,
I tried to make those
as unique as possible.
Now, it's clear that
films afterwards
may have done some
of those gimmicks,
but at the time,
I thought I wanted to make
every one of those deaths
be kind of unique,
which was in the tradition
of slasher films.
You know, the killer instead
of just shooting someone,
goes through these crazy
elaborate lengths to kill someone.
And that was part of the genre,
part of what was
kind of expected
in those movies at the time.
- 'Cause I remember everyone
said that on this film,
there could be no flowing blood.
That was like a big
thing because up to then,
slasher films had flowing blood.
And we specifically
could only use blood gel,
which is like a thick
mixture of blood
so that we couldn't have blood
sprays or blood splashing.
- An Omega sister can't be
bothered with a little blood.
- Part of the
respect for the genre
was understanding that when
you're doing a sorority movie,
that's what people
go there and expect.
You're going to have
not a typical sorority.
You're gonna have
a movie sorority,
which has all these
gorgeous girls in peril.
- Hey, why don't you guys come
with me to Fort Lauderdale?
- I'm sure you'll
enjoy yourself.
- Who, me, with all those guys?
- What makes you think the guys
are gonna look at this face?
- You know, it was
a long time ago,
but I do remember going in
and they talked
about sorority girls.
And can you do, you
know, you're a dancer,
so would you be comfortable
moving around and maybe singing?
My cat was named Reagan
after the little girl
in "The Exorcist,"
I will say.
Yeah, my dad used to
take me to horror films
'cause my mother wouldn't go.
My brother didn't go.
So, we would go to
see all of the stuff
that you probably shouldn't
see when you're 12 and 13.
And my cousin used to
write horror books.
His name is Jack Ketchum.
He's my cousin on my dad's side,
which is the crazy side.
He and I just always
bonded at family events
because we were both sort of
the carnies, the outliers.
And he was the outlier
of the outliers,
but I just, I loved him.
I was really sad to lose him.
- I got the film after I had
done a previous horror film,
"Sleepaway Camp,"
which was a classic
cult horror film
and got the audition
for this one afterwards.
And I was excited
that it was a little bit
of a different role for me.
- Jane, what is the rush?
Your parents aren't expecting
you for about three days.
- What was
interesting about Jane
was that she was
actually the most normal
sort of character I
played in a while.
I played a lot of bitches
and I was so happy,
even though she tended
to maybe be a little bit,
you know, a little
uptight here and there.
- I had a modeling portfolio
and I opened it up and I
loosened all my pictures, okay?
And I literally took
them out of the plastic
and just put them, laid
them in the portfolio.
And when I got there, it
was a complete cattle call.
(cattle mooing)
And it was like,
give us your picture.
Thank you.
Give us your picture.
Thank you.
So of course,
I'm right behind somebody
and she starts to
walk out of the way,
and I tripped.
And I, oh, I'm so sorry.
And my pictures went everywhere.
And I went, oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
And I let them start to pick
them up and hand them to me.
And he said, oh, you're a model.
I said, yes.
And I'm putting
the pictures away.
And he says, wait a second,
'cause I had all the pictures.
He said, do you have
any acting experience?
And I'm like high school
performing arts, Carnegie Mellon.
Well, I have some.
And he said,
would you be interested in
reading for the part of Pam?
And I said, sure.
(upbeat music)
(thudding)
- Don't smile.
I just arrived in New York
and I had my actor card.
And I started waiting tables.
And one of the other
waitresses at the restaurant
told me about this film
she was auditioning for.
And I kind of pumped
her for the information
and it was "Silent Madness."
And I got the casting
director's name
and I sent him my headshot
and my resume and nothing.
And my father was one
of the first people
I ever knew who
had a cell phone.
It was like a shoe
box in his car.
And he owned this company,
the handheld radio company.
And he had provided these
radios for movies in California.
And he just out of the blue,
he said, yeah, some movie
in New York called me
and said they want
to use my radios.
And me, the enterprising, young,
brand new actress that I was,
I said, oh my gosh,
dad, that's the movie.
That's the movie I
sent my picture in to.
I said, call them
up and tell them
you'll give them a really
great deal on the radios
if they put your
daughter in the movie.
- It's very lonely.
Girls are all I have left now.
- I was very, very fond
of Viveca Lindfors.
In looking at her prior work,
I felt she added the
gravitas to that character.
She was a person who was
not like at that point,
of course, she had this
incredible early on screen presence
and I kind of wanted to tap
into that filmic history.
- [Carl] I just knew she was
an old Hollywood actress.
I didn't really know
anything about her.
- Yes, I can talk about Viveca.
First of all, to be
really honest with you,
I had no idea who
this woman was.
My dad was an actor in New York
and I remember going home
and saying, I don't know,
And I had called him
and then I went down to
his house for dinner.
I remember that.
And we're standing there.
I said, Viveca.
And he said, Lindfors?
I said, yeah.
He said, oh, she's a legend.
- It was very exciting
to work with her.
I, of course, knew who she
was after looking her up
and seeing all the incredible
films she had done.
And it was a little
intimidating at first
because she looks
you dead in the eye
and there's no
escaping in the scene.
She is that character.
And it's definitely,
you have to be there, and
show up, and be present.
- They called the night
before and they said,
we think we've decided
that you need to be
braless for that scene.
And I said, okay, kind
of don't want to do that.
And they said, well, you
know, think about it.
I said, well, how about you
think about like a sexy bra?
And so we went back and
forth and back and forth.
And I did say;, I
wasn't gonna do it.
It just wasn't something
I was comfortable with
and I didn't quite think
it was the kind of movie
I wanted to strip for.
- Stop!
You stop that!
You slut, you!
- Mrs. Collins!
- You whore, you stop that!
- But ultimately, we get
on set and we do the scene
and Viveca Lindfors
kind of has a cow.
(cattle mooing)
And she's, I thought
you were going to,
why my, I have no motivation!
What are you doing, you know?
And I was like, sorry, man.
Like, talk to the director
"cause we made a deal,
and you know, it
was really tense.
- Mrs. Collins, we
were only kidding.
- Yes, I'm sorry.
I sort of overreacted.
- You know, I was
doing the scene
and all of a sudden
she reaches out
and she pulls me into her.
Like literally, almost my
face into her shoulder.
A little temptation
is good for you.
It takes you a long away.
You know, we shot half of it
and then it was lunchtime.
And I think it was
one of the girls,
I forget who,
but one of them leaned
over to me and said,
you realize she's
trying to upstage you
by pushing your face into her
because then you
can't say your lines.
And I was like, is
that what it is?
The second time she
tried it after lunch,
she started to pull me into her
and was like this, you know?
And I'm like fighting
her, you know?
And after like one shot,
they were like, okay, okay.
You know, maybe not so forceful?
- But I keep thinking about
all those helpless people
back at the hospital.
- Belinda Montgomery, she
seemed totally professional.
She was sort of like on and
off, but she was the lead.
I think we started
shooting around her
before she came in
from the West Coast.
I do remember Belinda
was like queasy
about like any blood on the set.
Like she sort of like
thought it was so
distasteful or something.
(muffled screaming)
(drill whirring)
The drill through the head.
She was like freaking
out about that.
I remember some of it,
she was like a real,
what do you call it?
Method actor, where she
would break down and cry
and then you needed a long
time for her to recover.
- I'll go along with that,
as long as I know
the girls are safe.
- Belinda and her costar,
he was like literally this
tall and Belinda was this tall.
I mean, this is like
the difference, okay?
And they were talking
and coming toward us.
And I remember the
director saying,
Simon goes, to the guy,
could you crouch
down just a little?
'Cause he didn't want to
relight the whole set.
So he crouches
down about an inch.
Again, next time, he says,
could you crouch a little lower?
And another inch,
he's crouching.
You know?
And so I think it was
the third or fourth time,
Belinda goes, oh,
for heaven's sake,
you're gonna have him on
his knees pretty soon.
Just light the damn
set the right way.
And of course, everybody
went (gasping),
you know, a woman spoke up.
And of course, remember,
you know, in the '80s,
it was still that
kind of thing of like,
oh, a woman speaks
up, she's a bitch.
You know, a guy says something,
oh, he's just
saying it, you know?
And I'm not trying to be like.
I didn't care is what
I'm trying to say.
We just kind of accepted
how things were.
But I remember that feeling
that it took courage
for her to say, look,
let's let the guy play
the scene the right way.
And I really was impressed
that she stood up
for her coworkers.
- Belinda was just sort
of the beacon of sanity
and I watched her.
I remember watching her a lot
just because she knew her stuff.
She was professional.
She was pleasant.
So I remember just
sort of sneaking
and watching whatever scene
I could watch of hers.
- Howard Johns?
- The person that
I mostly admired
was Solly Marx who
played the heavy
'cause he was a stunt man,
a wonderful stunt man.
And we discovered him,
what he's trying to
teach a stunt to an actor
who wanted to play the.
Oliver looked and
said, this is the guy.
- His wife was an actress
who had worked with me.
That's how I met Solly.
And then became
very close to Solly.
- [Female Speaker] No!
- I got the concept of
making the killer a mute.
It's sort of,
and I'm not sure whether
it was chicken and egg,
where I saw we had Solly
as a stunt man already.
And we weren't casting the lead.
And the idea that he could
do all of his own stunts
and he looked very
much the part,
shaved his head, et cetera,
for the part, et cetera.
We gave him a screen test and
he had never acted before.
And Simon and I
looked at each other
and Simon said, yeah.
- They went through a
lot of character designs
for how he should
look in the movie.
And that was a lot of tests.
And Simon and the
producers would come in
every time Allan and Kenny
Myers had a different look.
It started elaborate
and they sort of started
trimming it down.
We did weird things with
his hair, his teeth.
I know it started out
like a much heavier makeup
and then they streamlined it.
- Every day, I
would look at Solly
and say, this is
what I'm thinking.
And Solly would say,
but Bill, did you ever
think of doing this?
And then 99% of the time,
I would say, that's
a better idea, Solly.
Let's do that.
- When he wasn't needed on
set, he would hang out with us.
And then he told
us a lot of stories
"cause he had worked
on a James Bond movie.
I think it was "For Your Eyes
Only" when a stuntman died
and that was like a major thing.
- A lot of the stunts had
to do with special effects.
He, of course, had the
ultimate word with safety.
He would say, we could
do this even better
but with more safety
if we do it this way.
(ominous orchestral music)
(thudding)
We were in the mansion upstate
where we're filming a scene
where Belinda Montgomery
falls down the stairs.
Now, Belinda Montgomery
is an attractive blonde,
average size to
smallish thin woman.
Solly Marx is a tall,
athletic, well-built, bald man.
- And you don't remember
how fucking big he is.
- And when she's supposed
to fall down the stairs,
we were figuring out
how it's to happen.
And I was looking forward to
cast a stunt double for her.
He said, Bill, you
don't have to do it.
I'll do it.
I said, Solly, there's no way,
you can put on all the wigs
and dresses in the world,
you aren't gonna look like her.
He said, Bill, trust me.
He puts on the wig.
We got another dress.
He puts on the dress.
The way it was shot and he
directed the whole scene,
where the camera's gonna
be and whatnot else.
You watch that movie,
you would swear it
was Belinda Montgomery
falling down those stairs.
- You know, If you're gonna
get killed by somebody
who looks kinda terrifying,
it was awfully nice that he
was just really sensitive,
like the sensitive
giant kind of guy.
(ominous orchestral music)
So initially, I was
going to die by drowning
with a water hose
down my throat.
But that got changed.
I don't know why.
I don't know why it got changed
because I'm trying to
imagine that image.
It's certainly phallic, I guess.
But they switched to something
that they could go to later
and show off some
special effects makeup.
(woman screaming)
I remember being in that
harness once I was dead
for an unbearably long time.
I thought they forgot me.
I was really, really not
comfortable hanging in that.
I was lifted in the
air for hours and hours
with all of this fantastic
fun makeup on my face
as a steaming victim.
You don't get a lot of steaming
victims on your resume.
- I had been training with
him on the inversion boots
because they were gonna expect
me to be hanging upside down
between six and eight hours
is what Solly told me.
And so when we did the scene,
he was very caring
and he really understood
what I was going through,
especially because he
had trained me on it.
So he knew how to play it
so that it would get the
optimal response for me.
Oh!
Oh my god!
- He said he'd never
make a movie again.
He did play a bike
rider in "Savage Dawn,"
my next film,
but only because he
wanted to make sure
that nobody got hurt.
He went with the bikes,
but that was about as
far as he wanted to act.
He said, don't make
me act anything.
(people screaming)
(ominous orchestral music)
- No, please!
- Bill Milling contact me.
He knew I just finished
starring in a movie,
"Sleepaway Camp."
And he said, Pauly,
you think you'd be interested
in doing a movie with me?
I said, sure, Bill,
whatever you're doing, man,
you know you can
always count on me.
I brought people to the set.
I got like Ricky Aiello.
I think that was his
first movie he did.
- Paul Deangelo and I were
to "Sleepaway Camp" together.
He played Ronnie.
And you know, you
can't miss Paul.
He's got incredible buff build
and a sweetheart of a guy.
And then we both ended up in
"Silent Madness" together,
which was so nice
because whenever
you're starting a film,
you know, it's that first
day of school feeling
where you're very nervous
on set and meeting people.
And it was so nice to have
someone there that I knew.
- Kathy was really cool.
We go back, man.
She was on one soap,
I was on another one.
She was on All My Children.
I was on One Life to Live.
And it was a lot of fun though,
I mean, working with her.
And then for us to
hook up again, man,
honestly like, wow, you're
doing this feature too?
Like, yeah.
The way Simon and
Bill wrote the script
was I'm in the van with my girl.
And what happens
is we're making out
and I'm supposed
to take her top off
and I'm supposed to
start fondling her.
I'm reading the script
and what happened was
I went and I saw Simon.
I said, Simon, I can't do this.
My mom will kill me.
She'll think I'm doing pornos.
And he was laughing and
Bill was laughing as well.
He said, Paul, you gotta
do the scene though.
I said, Bill, I'm
not doing it, man.
Anyway, they said, okay,
we'll rewrite it for you.
So, he rewrote
that scene as well.
- Paul found us so
many nice locations
throughout New
York, Jersey City,
this whole New York Metro area.
It seems like everybody
knows Pauly Deangelo.
- I had relationships like
with the city of Jersey City.
And I brought him
over to the hospital.
- So when Pauly
reaches out and says,
hey, can my friend Bill
shoot at this hospital?
They said, yes.
- [Carl] The hospital
was pretty amazing
"cause it looked
like it was abandoned
and a lot of things
were just left intact.
- I don't even know
how they got permission
to go in that place.
It was dank.
I don't think they
got a certificate of,
I don't know.
It was not a nice place.
- Like we would wander around
and walk into operating theaters
and the utensils and every
scalpels were all laid out
like it had been
operating the day before.
- I remember walking
in and thinking,
okay, this is not right.
There are people that
died in this room.
- I did have second thoughts
when I was down there,
just thought might get tetanus.
- There was just
this chill you felt.
You'd walk through
cold spots in the room
and you just kind of felt
that something was there
that was unhappy.
- It was really creepy
and it smelled terrible.
- I don't remember
it smelling this bad.
- I mean, it was literally.
I think OSHA would
have a problem
with people working down there.
- We shot free for I think
several weeks in that facility.
The offices of the
medical staff were there.
The sheriff's office was there.
Obviously, all the
medical stuff was there.
Corridors were there.
The basement was there,
the spooky basement.
They're running through
the boiler room, et cetera.
The only thing we had to do
was get the elevators
working again
because they weren't
and we needed them.
We had so much fun and
so much access there.
That movie would have
cost us a fortune
if we had to go and
hire other locations.
- And it was a scene
that we were playing
in the psychiatric ward.
Bill had asked me.
He said, Pauly,
man, like you know,
you have to get some people
who are really
different or whatever,
that could act a little nuts,
or whatever and all.
I said, I have the
perfect people for you.
Bobby Deandre was
a funny guy, man.
Bobby, he was in a
movie, "A Bronx Tale."
He was doing his
dance moves in there.
He made like, he
was a disco guy.
Charlie Friedman.
I used to call him
Cuckoo Charlie.
I met him at the gym
where I used to work out
and we became good friends.
I figured this would
be perfect for him.
- Walking around,
we found like a standing set
from the original "Toxic
Avenger" they had shot there.
I can't remember
if it was reshoots
or something they had done.
And we set up an effects
lab in the hospital.
(ominous orchestral music)
- I envisioned that as an
incredibly frightening scene.
The genesis of that was "Coma."
And that stuck in my mind,
that harvesting of human bodies,
that idea that humans are being
grossly sort of mistreated
in an area where they're
supposed to be helped
was interesting to me.
(ominous orchestral music)
- Pam?
Cheryl?
Come on, guys.
- The basement at the hospital
doubled for the basement
of the sorority house,
which thinking about
it, seemed pretty odd.
It was a pretty massive
industrial looking basement.
I remember it was sort of
musty and dirty in the basement
and everyone was
wearing face masks.
We built some of the props.
I remember even some
of the pipes were made
that were not there,
that we needed more
pipes in certain shots.
The drill goes through the
guy's head in that basement
and we built a dummy for that.
And at one point, I was
dressed up as the character.
I think it was one of
the ambulance drivers
and I was gonna double for him.
But then they yanked
me out of the scene
because everything
had to be SAG.
(woman screaming)
(ominous music)
I know that the biggest
effect in the film,
it was very abbreviated, but
it was a head crush in a vice.
And that effect
took a lot of work
from earliest pre-production
to the end of the shoot.
That was shot at the
estate in upstate New York
and I think it was
shot in the garage
where our lab was set up.
That was like almost an
entire day shooting that.
And when we saw the dailies
and went to the rushes,
that was a huge conversation.
And I think it was
decided at the dailies
that it wasn't gonna
be used in the film.
The 3D effect just
didn't work on it.
Whatever the effect was with
the head sort of cracking open
like didn't work with the 3D.
It was too, too
exaggerated in 3D.
(nail gun blasting)
(woman screaming)
- I remember there
was some discussion
about who was going to
get shot in the forehead
between the eyes
and who was going to
get shot in the back.
And I'm not sure.
I think I have these
really light eyes
and I think they thought
that me getting
shot in the forehead
would be too strange looking.
So they shot Lori-Nan
in the forehead
and they shot me in the back.
And I think that might've been
about the deepest thought
that went into it.
(nail gun blasting)
(woman screaming)
I guess they had decided
that they needed some
boobage for the movie.
They needed someone
to take off their top.
And I just remember Simon
going around and saying,
will you take off your top?
And it was like, no, Simon, no.
And then he'd ask every actress.
It was no, nuh-uh, not gonna.
- From what I remember,
like one of the
nail gun victims,
she wasn't an actress
and they sort of told us
ahead of time she's coming in.
She doesn't have a lot of time.
She was like very busy
and she was a prostitute.
And she was open about it.
- So she said, I think
the body's beautiful
and I have no problem showing
my breasts in the movie.
And we were all like, okay.
- While she was in the chair,
she was telling us
all these stories
and scheduling customers
and everything.
And I don't know how
she got on the film,
but it was it was a weird film
because I remembered
not much nudity
and it seemed like they
got her specifically
"cause she didn't have
a problem with nudity.
And I remember they
put like a wig on her,
so she didn't look the same.
They were sort of disguising
her identity, I guess.
- One of the girls who's
shot with a nail gun
is climbing a ladder.
She gets hit with the nail
gun and she falls backwards.
I was envisioning she falls 15
or 20 feet down onto
her back on the floor.
So Solly, of course, says,
well, she doesn't
have to be up there
"cause the camera's close.
So in effect, she was on the
second rung of the ladder.
She was about 18
inches off the ground.
She falls back like from
here to here and we say done.
A couple of weeks later,
she files for a stunt in SAG.
And we're saying,
stunt, what stunt?
That's not a stunt.
She got stunt pay.
- You inherit $100.
- You're wiping me out.
- The sorority house
was a pretty big mansion
on an estate in
upstate New York.
And we shot there
for a long time.
- But I just remember
being cold all the time.
And it was just dark and eerie
"cause we were the
only ones there,
and echoes, a lot of echoes.
And just a little creepy.
- I remember Belinda
trying to hide from us
that somebody had died there.
- There was a big garage,
almost like a barn,
and we set up the
makeup lab there.
Once in a while,
we would go on set,
myself and Neil,
the other assistant.
- One of the scenes
that stuck in my mind
was the roto-rooter scene
where Belinda is
trying to escape
and the killer is
dropping a roto-rooter
down on top of her.
I'd never seen that anywhere
and that slashing
blade coming toward you
was so frightening.
And the way I did it was a
process that's as old as cinema.
It's called Pepper's ghost.
The camera was on one
side, her face is here,
and the partially
silvered mirror is there.
So the camera's shooting
through at her face
and also reflecting the
thing dropping from above.
Now, Belinda was never in danger
because the roto-rooter
was dropped straight
and the camera hit a mirror.
So the worst case
scenario would have been
it would have maybe hit
the glass of the mirror,
but we had another
protective shield
of thin plastic protecting her.
Even if that should happen,
she would not have been
hit with a glass shroud.
- It took a long time
specifically at that location,
a lot of the shots,
because of the 3D process.
The director of
photography would always,
like they'd have to
really map things out.
- Ease up.
It's more important that
we don't make any mistakes.
- 3D takes a lot of time to
prepare and to do it well.
- Gerry Feil, the cameraman,
was anal about
every single shot.
He exposed things within
a third of a stop,
which meant critical lighting.
- He brought very good
people around him,
his assistants, and the
gaffers, and the sound.
And we tried to go
for the best possible
of everything in it.
And that takes time.
- There's a term that was used.
People always say like, we
got to hurry up and wait.
- I just remember it was
time consuming on the set,
like a lot of
measurements and angles.
- My scenes were
literally stationary
because they only had one
spot for the inversion bar.
So it wasn't as though
like with the other people,
they could have the people move.
I had to stay still
and they had to move.
- You couldn't
just do the scene.
You had to remember the angles,
or put your hand a certain way,
or don't put it a certain way.
So it was a great challenge.
- Allan and Kenny from
makeup effects lab
were like at that time,
the kings of 3D effects,
so they knew a lot.
And the makeup effects labs
have worked with the DP before
on "Friday The 13th 3D."
There was a lot of
discussion on set
of how to shoot
specific effects.
- That was new to me.
I said, oh, 3D.
A knife comes at you,
it looks like it's
coming at you.
It's a little more
difficult than that.
That put on a wire.
It's very complex.
- In 3D in the early days,
really fed itself on things
coming at the camera.
So almost every shot,
we had something
poking into the lens
or moving into the lens.
And nowadays, that's
kind of passe,
and like hokey, and
nobody does that anymore.
But in those days, it
was kind of expected.
You waited for that thing to
come out into the audience.
(woman screaming)
(ominous orchestral music)
- We tried to shoot the hatchet
coming at the camera
and the light went away.
The sun went off.
It looked like it was
gonna rain and didn't work.
And Gerry, our DP, said,
that's not working.
I can't see it.
It looks like a blur.
So we went through
our optical house,
which unfortunately did not
have a lot of 3D experience.
But the man who owned
it, Bobby Pincus,
he loved 3D and he
wanted to do it so badly.
He said, let me try it.
I swear I can do it.
I'm gonna read books on it.
I'm gonna look at geometry.
I'm gonna get my
machines to do it.
And he did it.
It was hokey though.
I mean, you could really tell.
It needed more blur,
which today, digitally,
it can be done easily.
On film, it's a
little harder to do.
- I don't seem to be
doing very well right now.
- You seem to be
doing all right to me.
- Well, I'm not so sure.
- We had one very difficult day
in a restaurant that
was not properly set up.
One of the things you
need for 3D is large sets
SO you can use the lights,
which is the
effects that you use
to make the 3D effect real.
And they have to be far apart.
They can not show in the movie.
And in this restaurant,
which was the only
one we could find
because of budget and time,
Gerry, who was my guide on this.
He was the person who knew.
He said, yeah, I think
I can make it work.
He couldn't really make
it work exactly the way,
so it was a very painful
day and they throw us out,
but we got the shot.
- At that point,
this was sort of the dawn
of the skateboard phenomena.
Prior to that, we
did three movies
and I shot documentary
of these people.
Myself and my cameraman
were the only guys
as we went to these
swimming pools after hours
and did all this.
So I knew skateboarding really
pretty well at that point.
And I said, let's
open this 3D film
where this beautiful
sorority girl
skates through the college,
Wagner College at the time,
meeting every one of the people
who we're gonna see
later in the film.
So we kind of prefigure
all of the people
who are going to be
major actors in the film.
And then she's gonna
come toward the camera
through this archway,
and this figure is gonna
step in front of her,
grab her.
The skateboard is gonna
go through her legs,
into the camera,
and stop in the opening
credits of the film.
Freeze frame.
That was kind of
this, in my mind,
this incredible opening shot.
So I advertise in New
York for an actress
'cause we're gonna go SAG,
an actress who could
do skateboarding.
No SAG actresses came
about who could do it,
and so a non-SAG
actress applied.
She said, I'm a
terrific skateboarder.
To my detriment,
I did not have the time to
go out and say, prove it.
I took her word for it.
So we're on the set.
It is clear she's never been
on a skateboard in her life.
We can't shoot it.
So we're gonna come back
a week later and shoot it.
In the meantime, she's
hanging out with her boyfriend
and she's back every day,
hanging out with him.
In the end,
she puts in for stunt work
every single one of those days
when she was not on camera,
lied to us about
what she could do,
and then turns out
that it's barely
with all of Solly's magic,
et cetera, like this,
makes do that we got the shot.
- The rest of it was okay.
I wish I had another
three weeks to shoot
"cause we could've come
up with more contrivances,
but we didn't have them.
- We were hoping
that that film in 3D
was going to be released
with Myriad Theaters.
I think we had some
The theaters all
had to be prepped
with projectionists
who understood 3D,
who understood this lens system
that they were being
delivered in advance.
They had it all tested.
We ran our film.
We sat there and hey,
it was beautiful.
All of these theater,
I mean, I didn't go
to every theater,
were projected perfectly.
I think it was a week before
we were about to release
that "Nightmare on EIm
Street" was released.
They co-opted all
of our theaters.
- Kruger's release program
has really benefited everyone.
- And we were relegated
to release flat in 2D,
which meant because of
the over and under system
that we released it in,
it was less than half
of what this beautiful
35 millimeter film was.
- I remember going to Times
Square and seeing the movie
and I was so excited.
And I took I think
I took my friend
or boyfriend at the
time to go see it.
And nobody was in the movie
theater and it wasn't in 3D.
And I was like, oh, I
rented the theater for you!
- I went to see
it in New Jersey.
It had a pretty wide opening
in the New York City area.
When I'd see the film,
I was obviously surprised
a lot of effects
that weren't in the film
or things that seem like
they were abbreviated.
- And you could see
some of the stuff
that was supposed to
be in 3D that wasn't
and it kind of
looked a little odd.
- At that time,
I had no idea if there
were cuts for the MPAA.
The film would have been much
huger if they went unrated
and just really went off.
- Not that many people
got to see it in the 3D
that it was designed to be.
- And then just sit in the
theater and see this thing
that could have been
shot with a wind up Bolex
was really disappointing
to all of us.
- So the few people who saw it
saw it from rip offs on VHS,
which were basically
pirated copies.
- I actually just watched
it recently on YouTube.
And I said to my friend,
I said, you know,
I think, I'm also in
like a present day scene.
Let's see if we can find it.
And sure enough,
like there's my face
just plain as day as an extra.
This was such a low budget
film that they needed people.
- There are people who
come up in the conventions
and will either bring a
poster of "Silent Madness"
or something and I'm thrilled
because I feel like it
was a forgotten film
and it's so good,
so I'm so excited for
people to get to see it.
- So I'm really happy
now this is coming out
and the producers of
the DVD, the Blu-ray,
really took the chance to
do really a phenomenal job.
- It's the best news I've had
since the mayor dropped dead.
- It's like looking at a picture
of a painting that's fantastic.
When you see the painting,
it's different from seeing that
flat image in the magazine.
And now, maybe they'll
see the painting.
- And we're seeing
this in the 3D glory
that we had always
hoped to see this movie,
albeit a few decades later.
(ominous orchestral music)
(funky jazz music)
- I remember thinking,
you know, one day somebody
is gonna interview me.
And I'm gonna get to tell
them I got my SAG card
by being shot in the back with
a nail gun by a mute in 3D.
(laughing)
So, here it is!
Here's the big interview!
(ominous orchestral music)
- I drew comic books as a child
and I think that's the beginning
of filmmaking in a sense.
Comic books have to
give you direction
and you have to
come up with a plot.
You have to draw in a
sense, a story board.
That's what a comic book is.
And I did not go into it,
my parents would not
let me go into film.
They said, that's
not a business.
That's not a business
for a nice Jewish boy.
You gotta get out of that.
And I didn't realize
that half of Hollywood
was Jewish at that time.
I didn't know that.
- I was in the Roman
Catholic seminary
for almost seven years and
left to become a filmmaker.
It was a very,
very hard decision
because I felt I had a vocation,
but ultimately, I felt I was
not really destined to that
and I think the seminary
felt the same way.
- I was doing a lot of trailers
for all kinds of films,
mostly action films.
I worked with Dino De
Laurentiis on "White Buffalo"
for Aquarius releasing,
for Monarch releasing.
And I got involved with
a film called "Snuff"
in which I shot a specific scene
to change the film from what
it was to what it became.
The marketing was brilliant.
They should have given an
Oscar to Allan Shackleton
for the marketing of it
"cause he did beautiful stuff
to really get into the news.
And I saw that the
opportunity was there
in the low budget film area.
There was a way to get into it
and perhaps climb into the
kind of films we want to make.
- The film "Nightmare" was,
I guess, a quasi-nightmare
experience.
We were directed
by Roman Scavolini,
an Italian director who had,
I think, an impeccable eye
for composition
and movie-making,
but his ear for
American dialogue
was perhaps not as
extensive as it should be.
So he cast the film
basically from the crew.
So the still photographer
became one of the actors.
I, who was a producer,
became one of the actors.
I agreed to do it only with
a very, very small part.
I was the psychiatrist who
was talking to the killer
long distance as
he was traveling.
Despite the fact
that someone else
got credit for special effects
who I think was the
show maybe a day or so,
I did all the special effects,
the arm being cut, the
alginate for the arm.
What not else?
All of those were
figured out by me
and actually executed
by me on the set.
I was on the film
every day it was shot
and never met Tom Savini.
I believe what happened was
after the film was shot,
they went back and did a couple
of other close up effects
by Tom Savini.
He was a huge name
at that point,
so special effects by Tom
Savini was on the film.
And did Tom Savini
do special effects?
Probably for a day on the film.
And you know, that's
a marketing ploy.
It's not reality.
- I told you you're
not allowed in here.
- A doctor should
make that decision,
not at attendant.
- How the hell did
you get into ward I?
You can't just wander around
there without clearance.
- It's a plot.
They're spying on you.
They're all out to get you.
- I was writing a
number of stories
which had the same motif
in a certain sense.
It was about an individual
who gets roped into a situation
where he or she finds
the world against them,
everything going against them.
"Silent Madness" was that
about the time of
insane asylums,
which in the '80s were very,
there were many articles
and movies about them.
And I came up with
that story of somebody
who did not commit a crime
who becomes a criminal
because of it.
- There were a lot of
people being released
for financial reasons
from mental institutions
because they didn't really have
the money to care for them.
So marginal people who were
sort of safe on the street
were being let
loose on the street.
But it happened again
because of budgetary things.
I then started to think well,
what if they then
released the wrong guy?
They got one guy too many,
a guy who may be the
same name or a mix up.
- John Howard.
Howard Johns?
Oh my god, they
released the wrong man.
- Discussed it with
one of the writers
who was was working with me,
Bob Zimmerman,
and he said he
develop that story.
And we worked back and forth.
I'm not as good a
dialogue writer as he was,
English, not being
my primary language.
- Bob Zimmerman was involved
because Bob at that
point had a computer.
And I, before that, was
writing scripts by hand
and having them typed,
and I didn't type,
and it was a nightmarish thing.
So Bob was also a writer.
Came in with me on it.
Contributed to the script
and basically was the typist,
computer guy, et cetera,
in that very, very early stage.
- Bill was already
working with me,
Bill Milling, the
producer of the film.
And he also started to write.
- I had been a huge fan of
Nelson long before this began.
Had read all of his books.
Contacted him early on
to turn one of his
books into a screenplay,
which he did.
So Nelson and I became friends.
When I was about a third of
the way through the script,
I contacted Nelson
and said, you know,
would you like to be
involved in this project?
He said, yes.
I went out to his house, I
think, in Seaford, Long Island.
We spent the day together
kicking around ideas,
et cetera, like this, to
be involved in the script.
- The first version
of "Silent Madness"
was more of a drama,
suspense, action, drama.
And it became much more of
a semi-slasher, you know,
with the effects of the
drills, and the guns,
the darts, and all that stuff,
steam steaming into people.
That came afterwards,
development of the story.
That was not the main storyline.
That was just added for
the effect of the 3D.
- We wanted it to be
more story tension
than bucket of blood slasher.
And it was a little bit of a
risk because at that point,
you know, slasher means
blood splatter literally.
We kind of did not
want to do that.
We felt as filmmakers,
you want to try to,
as I said before,
respect the genre and
yet sort of transcend it.
- [Narrator] Inside your head,
the screaming never stops.
"Silent Madness."
- The idea was don't let it
be out there in the press,
this title,
because by the time it's
released, it's kind of old hat.
You want it to be fresh.
So we would always write
the script under a title
that we never knew
would be released.
Consequently, I think we
shot it under "Omega Factor."
And then my favorite title
was always "Silent Madness."
- I went to every 3D
movie I could find.
I loved the idea.
I didn't care about the
blue and red glasses.
If it gave me a headache,
it was worth seeing it.
The excitement of seeing
something in a dimension
like a theater on film
was very exciting.
I saw "Dial M For Murder" in 3D,
which I thought was wonderful.
- I was very fond of 3D.
Very, very early on,
I was fascinated by it
and looked into how we
could go about doing it.
So I approached the people
who were shooting "Jaws 3D."
I approached Arri because
they had ArriVision,
which was their 3D camera.
And we, at that point,
owned an Arr camera.
We owned an Arri BL,
myself and two partners,
and said getting the material
that the lens system,
which fits in front
of our camera,
I wanted to rent it.
At that point, it
was on "Jaws 3D."
They made us next in line.
So as soon as "Jaws
3D" stopped shooting,
we got that
basically mirror box.
We found Gerry Feil who
had done a 3D movie,
"Friday The 13th."
We had a good meeting.
He was willing to do it.
And that's how this
whole film came about.
- The way I got on
to "Silent Madness."
I know it was soon after
I was out of school,
NYU Film School,
and a friend, one of
my fellow students,
gave me a call and just says,
hey, do you want to
work on a feature film?
And I was like,
whoa, that was quick.
Like, right? (laughing)
Like a couple months.
I think it was the summer
after I got out of school.
And he goes,
they need somebody in the
special effects department.
They're looking for a PA or an
assistant in special effects.
And I go, oh, I'd rather work
with the effects department.
He goes, well, have you
done it, effects before?
I go, on my Super
8 movies, you know?
I'd love to do it.
So they called me in, met them,
and it was the makeup
effects lab guys from L.A.
It was Ken Myers, Allan Apone.
It was like super quick.
You're on the show.
- Looking at all the effects,
I tried to make those
as unique as possible.
Now, it's clear that
films afterwards
may have done some
of those gimmicks,
but at the time,
I thought I wanted to make
every one of those deaths
be kind of unique,
which was in the tradition
of slasher films.
You know, the killer instead
of just shooting someone,
goes through these crazy
elaborate lengths to kill someone.
And that was part of the genre,
part of what was
kind of expected
in those movies at the time.
- 'Cause I remember everyone
said that on this film,
there could be no flowing blood.
That was like a big
thing because up to then,
slasher films had flowing blood.
And we specifically
could only use blood gel,
which is like a thick
mixture of blood
so that we couldn't have blood
sprays or blood splashing.
- An Omega sister can't be
bothered with a little blood.
- Part of the
respect for the genre
was understanding that when
you're doing a sorority movie,
that's what people
go there and expect.
You're going to have
not a typical sorority.
You're gonna have
a movie sorority,
which has all these
gorgeous girls in peril.
- Hey, why don't you guys come
with me to Fort Lauderdale?
- I'm sure you'll
enjoy yourself.
- Who, me, with all those guys?
- What makes you think the guys
are gonna look at this face?
- You know, it was
a long time ago,
but I do remember going in
and they talked
about sorority girls.
And can you do, you
know, you're a dancer,
so would you be comfortable
moving around and maybe singing?
My cat was named Reagan
after the little girl
in "The Exorcist,"
I will say.
Yeah, my dad used to
take me to horror films
'cause my mother wouldn't go.
My brother didn't go.
So, we would go to
see all of the stuff
that you probably shouldn't
see when you're 12 and 13.
And my cousin used to
write horror books.
His name is Jack Ketchum.
He's my cousin on my dad's side,
which is the crazy side.
He and I just always
bonded at family events
because we were both sort of
the carnies, the outliers.
And he was the outlier
of the outliers,
but I just, I loved him.
I was really sad to lose him.
- I got the film after I had
done a previous horror film,
"Sleepaway Camp,"
which was a classic
cult horror film
and got the audition
for this one afterwards.
And I was excited
that it was a little bit
of a different role for me.
- Jane, what is the rush?
Your parents aren't expecting
you for about three days.
- What was
interesting about Jane
was that she was
actually the most normal
sort of character I
played in a while.
I played a lot of bitches
and I was so happy,
even though she tended
to maybe be a little bit,
you know, a little
uptight here and there.
- I had a modeling portfolio
and I opened it up and I
loosened all my pictures, okay?
And I literally took
them out of the plastic
and just put them, laid
them in the portfolio.
And when I got there, it
was a complete cattle call.
(cattle mooing)
And it was like,
give us your picture.
Thank you.
Give us your picture.
Thank you.
So of course,
I'm right behind somebody
and she starts to
walk out of the way,
and I tripped.
And I, oh, I'm so sorry.
And my pictures went everywhere.
And I went, oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
And I let them start to pick
them up and hand them to me.
And he said, oh, you're a model.
I said, yes.
And I'm putting
the pictures away.
And he says, wait a second,
'cause I had all the pictures.
He said, do you have
any acting experience?
And I'm like high school
performing arts, Carnegie Mellon.
Well, I have some.
And he said,
would you be interested in
reading for the part of Pam?
And I said, sure.
(upbeat music)
(thudding)
- Don't smile.
I just arrived in New York
and I had my actor card.
And I started waiting tables.
And one of the other
waitresses at the restaurant
told me about this film
she was auditioning for.
And I kind of pumped
her for the information
and it was "Silent Madness."
And I got the casting
director's name
and I sent him my headshot
and my resume and nothing.
And my father was one
of the first people
I ever knew who
had a cell phone.
It was like a shoe
box in his car.
And he owned this company,
the handheld radio company.
And he had provided these
radios for movies in California.
And he just out of the blue,
he said, yeah, some movie
in New York called me
and said they want
to use my radios.
And me, the enterprising, young,
brand new actress that I was,
I said, oh my gosh,
dad, that's the movie.
That's the movie I
sent my picture in to.
I said, call them
up and tell them
you'll give them a really
great deal on the radios
if they put your
daughter in the movie.
- It's very lonely.
Girls are all I have left now.
- I was very, very fond
of Viveca Lindfors.
In looking at her prior work,
I felt she added the
gravitas to that character.
She was a person who was
not like at that point,
of course, she had this
incredible early on screen presence
and I kind of wanted to tap
into that filmic history.
- [Carl] I just knew she was
an old Hollywood actress.
I didn't really know
anything about her.
- Yes, I can talk about Viveca.
First of all, to be
really honest with you,
I had no idea who
this woman was.
My dad was an actor in New York
and I remember going home
and saying, I don't know,
And I had called him
and then I went down to
his house for dinner.
I remember that.
And we're standing there.
I said, Viveca.
And he said, Lindfors?
I said, yeah.
He said, oh, she's a legend.
- It was very exciting
to work with her.
I, of course, knew who she
was after looking her up
and seeing all the incredible
films she had done.
And it was a little
intimidating at first
because she looks
you dead in the eye
and there's no
escaping in the scene.
She is that character.
And it's definitely,
you have to be there, and
show up, and be present.
- They called the night
before and they said,
we think we've decided
that you need to be
braless for that scene.
And I said, okay, kind
of don't want to do that.
And they said, well, you
know, think about it.
I said, well, how about you
think about like a sexy bra?
And so we went back and
forth and back and forth.
And I did say;, I
wasn't gonna do it.
It just wasn't something
I was comfortable with
and I didn't quite think
it was the kind of movie
I wanted to strip for.
- Stop!
You stop that!
You slut, you!
- Mrs. Collins!
- You whore, you stop that!
- But ultimately, we get
on set and we do the scene
and Viveca Lindfors
kind of has a cow.
(cattle mooing)
And she's, I thought
you were going to,
why my, I have no motivation!
What are you doing, you know?
And I was like, sorry, man.
Like, talk to the director
"cause we made a deal,
and you know, it
was really tense.
- Mrs. Collins, we
were only kidding.
- Yes, I'm sorry.
I sort of overreacted.
- You know, I was
doing the scene
and all of a sudden
she reaches out
and she pulls me into her.
Like literally, almost my
face into her shoulder.
A little temptation
is good for you.
It takes you a long away.
You know, we shot half of it
and then it was lunchtime.
And I think it was
one of the girls,
I forget who,
but one of them leaned
over to me and said,
you realize she's
trying to upstage you
by pushing your face into her
because then you
can't say your lines.
And I was like, is
that what it is?
The second time she
tried it after lunch,
she started to pull me into her
and was like this, you know?
And I'm like fighting
her, you know?
And after like one shot,
they were like, okay, okay.
You know, maybe not so forceful?
- But I keep thinking about
all those helpless people
back at the hospital.
- Belinda Montgomery, she
seemed totally professional.
She was sort of like on and
off, but she was the lead.
I think we started
shooting around her
before she came in
from the West Coast.
I do remember Belinda
was like queasy
about like any blood on the set.
Like she sort of like
thought it was so
distasteful or something.
(muffled screaming)
(drill whirring)
The drill through the head.
She was like freaking
out about that.
I remember some of it,
she was like a real,
what do you call it?
Method actor, where she
would break down and cry
and then you needed a long
time for her to recover.
- I'll go along with that,
as long as I know
the girls are safe.
- Belinda and her costar,
he was like literally this
tall and Belinda was this tall.
I mean, this is like
the difference, okay?
And they were talking
and coming toward us.
And I remember the
director saying,
Simon goes, to the guy,
could you crouch
down just a little?
'Cause he didn't want to
relight the whole set.
So he crouches
down about an inch.
Again, next time, he says,
could you crouch a little lower?
And another inch,
he's crouching.
You know?
And so I think it was
the third or fourth time,
Belinda goes, oh,
for heaven's sake,
you're gonna have him on
his knees pretty soon.
Just light the damn
set the right way.
And of course, everybody
went (gasping),
you know, a woman spoke up.
And of course, remember,
you know, in the '80s,
it was still that
kind of thing of like,
oh, a woman speaks
up, she's a bitch.
You know, a guy says something,
oh, he's just
saying it, you know?
And I'm not trying to be like.
I didn't care is what
I'm trying to say.
We just kind of accepted
how things were.
But I remember that feeling
that it took courage
for her to say, look,
let's let the guy play
the scene the right way.
And I really was impressed
that she stood up
for her coworkers.
- Belinda was just sort
of the beacon of sanity
and I watched her.
I remember watching her a lot
just because she knew her stuff.
She was professional.
She was pleasant.
So I remember just
sort of sneaking
and watching whatever scene
I could watch of hers.
- Howard Johns?
- The person that
I mostly admired
was Solly Marx who
played the heavy
'cause he was a stunt man,
a wonderful stunt man.
And we discovered him,
what he's trying to
teach a stunt to an actor
who wanted to play the.
Oliver looked and
said, this is the guy.
- His wife was an actress
who had worked with me.
That's how I met Solly.
And then became
very close to Solly.
- [Female Speaker] No!
- I got the concept of
making the killer a mute.
It's sort of,
and I'm not sure whether
it was chicken and egg,
where I saw we had Solly
as a stunt man already.
And we weren't casting the lead.
And the idea that he could
do all of his own stunts
and he looked very
much the part,
shaved his head, et cetera,
for the part, et cetera.
We gave him a screen test and
he had never acted before.
And Simon and I
looked at each other
and Simon said, yeah.
- They went through a
lot of character designs
for how he should
look in the movie.
And that was a lot of tests.
And Simon and the
producers would come in
every time Allan and Kenny
Myers had a different look.
It started elaborate
and they sort of started
trimming it down.
We did weird things with
his hair, his teeth.
I know it started out
like a much heavier makeup
and then they streamlined it.
- Every day, I
would look at Solly
and say, this is
what I'm thinking.
And Solly would say,
but Bill, did you ever
think of doing this?
And then 99% of the time,
I would say, that's
a better idea, Solly.
Let's do that.
- When he wasn't needed on
set, he would hang out with us.
And then he told
us a lot of stories
"cause he had worked
on a James Bond movie.
I think it was "For Your Eyes
Only" when a stuntman died
and that was like a major thing.
- A lot of the stunts had
to do with special effects.
He, of course, had the
ultimate word with safety.
He would say, we could
do this even better
but with more safety
if we do it this way.
(ominous orchestral music)
(thudding)
We were in the mansion upstate
where we're filming a scene
where Belinda Montgomery
falls down the stairs.
Now, Belinda Montgomery
is an attractive blonde,
average size to
smallish thin woman.
Solly Marx is a tall,
athletic, well-built, bald man.
- And you don't remember
how fucking big he is.
- And when she's supposed
to fall down the stairs,
we were figuring out
how it's to happen.
And I was looking forward to
cast a stunt double for her.
He said, Bill, you
don't have to do it.
I'll do it.
I said, Solly, there's no way,
you can put on all the wigs
and dresses in the world,
you aren't gonna look like her.
He said, Bill, trust me.
He puts on the wig.
We got another dress.
He puts on the dress.
The way it was shot and he
directed the whole scene,
where the camera's gonna
be and whatnot else.
You watch that movie,
you would swear it
was Belinda Montgomery
falling down those stairs.
- You know, If you're gonna
get killed by somebody
who looks kinda terrifying,
it was awfully nice that he
was just really sensitive,
like the sensitive
giant kind of guy.
(ominous orchestral music)
So initially, I was
going to die by drowning
with a water hose
down my throat.
But that got changed.
I don't know why.
I don't know why it got changed
because I'm trying to
imagine that image.
It's certainly phallic, I guess.
But they switched to something
that they could go to later
and show off some
special effects makeup.
(woman screaming)
I remember being in that
harness once I was dead
for an unbearably long time.
I thought they forgot me.
I was really, really not
comfortable hanging in that.
I was lifted in the
air for hours and hours
with all of this fantastic
fun makeup on my face
as a steaming victim.
You don't get a lot of steaming
victims on your resume.
- I had been training with
him on the inversion boots
because they were gonna expect
me to be hanging upside down
between six and eight hours
is what Solly told me.
And so when we did the scene,
he was very caring
and he really understood
what I was going through,
especially because he
had trained me on it.
So he knew how to play it
so that it would get the
optimal response for me.
Oh!
Oh my god!
- He said he'd never
make a movie again.
He did play a bike
rider in "Savage Dawn,"
my next film,
but only because he
wanted to make sure
that nobody got hurt.
He went with the bikes,
but that was about as
far as he wanted to act.
He said, don't make
me act anything.
(people screaming)
(ominous orchestral music)
- No, please!
- Bill Milling contact me.
He knew I just finished
starring in a movie,
"Sleepaway Camp."
And he said, Pauly,
you think you'd be interested
in doing a movie with me?
I said, sure, Bill,
whatever you're doing, man,
you know you can
always count on me.
I brought people to the set.
I got like Ricky Aiello.
I think that was his
first movie he did.
- Paul Deangelo and I were
to "Sleepaway Camp" together.
He played Ronnie.
And you know, you
can't miss Paul.
He's got incredible buff build
and a sweetheart of a guy.
And then we both ended up in
"Silent Madness" together,
which was so nice
because whenever
you're starting a film,
you know, it's that first
day of school feeling
where you're very nervous
on set and meeting people.
And it was so nice to have
someone there that I knew.
- Kathy was really cool.
We go back, man.
She was on one soap,
I was on another one.
She was on All My Children.
I was on One Life to Live.
And it was a lot of fun though,
I mean, working with her.
And then for us to
hook up again, man,
honestly like, wow, you're
doing this feature too?
Like, yeah.
The way Simon and
Bill wrote the script
was I'm in the van with my girl.
And what happens
is we're making out
and I'm supposed
to take her top off
and I'm supposed to
start fondling her.
I'm reading the script
and what happened was
I went and I saw Simon.
I said, Simon, I can't do this.
My mom will kill me.
She'll think I'm doing pornos.
And he was laughing and
Bill was laughing as well.
He said, Paul, you gotta
do the scene though.
I said, Bill, I'm
not doing it, man.
Anyway, they said, okay,
we'll rewrite it for you.
So, he rewrote
that scene as well.
- Paul found us so
many nice locations
throughout New
York, Jersey City,
this whole New York Metro area.
It seems like everybody
knows Pauly Deangelo.
- I had relationships like
with the city of Jersey City.
And I brought him
over to the hospital.
- So when Pauly
reaches out and says,
hey, can my friend Bill
shoot at this hospital?
They said, yes.
- [Carl] The hospital
was pretty amazing
"cause it looked
like it was abandoned
and a lot of things
were just left intact.
- I don't even know
how they got permission
to go in that place.
It was dank.
I don't think they
got a certificate of,
I don't know.
It was not a nice place.
- Like we would wander around
and walk into operating theaters
and the utensils and every
scalpels were all laid out
like it had been
operating the day before.
- I remember walking
in and thinking,
okay, this is not right.
There are people that
died in this room.
- I did have second thoughts
when I was down there,
just thought might get tetanus.
- There was just
this chill you felt.
You'd walk through
cold spots in the room
and you just kind of felt
that something was there
that was unhappy.
- It was really creepy
and it smelled terrible.
- I don't remember
it smelling this bad.
- I mean, it was literally.
I think OSHA would
have a problem
with people working down there.
- We shot free for I think
several weeks in that facility.
The offices of the
medical staff were there.
The sheriff's office was there.
Obviously, all the
medical stuff was there.
Corridors were there.
The basement was there,
the spooky basement.
They're running through
the boiler room, et cetera.
The only thing we had to do
was get the elevators
working again
because they weren't
and we needed them.
We had so much fun and
so much access there.
That movie would have
cost us a fortune
if we had to go and
hire other locations.
- And it was a scene
that we were playing
in the psychiatric ward.
Bill had asked me.
He said, Pauly,
man, like you know,
you have to get some people
who are really
different or whatever,
that could act a little nuts,
or whatever and all.
I said, I have the
perfect people for you.
Bobby Deandre was
a funny guy, man.
Bobby, he was in a
movie, "A Bronx Tale."
He was doing his
dance moves in there.
He made like, he
was a disco guy.
Charlie Friedman.
I used to call him
Cuckoo Charlie.
I met him at the gym
where I used to work out
and we became good friends.
I figured this would
be perfect for him.
- Walking around,
we found like a standing set
from the original "Toxic
Avenger" they had shot there.
I can't remember
if it was reshoots
or something they had done.
And we set up an effects
lab in the hospital.
(ominous orchestral music)
- I envisioned that as an
incredibly frightening scene.
The genesis of that was "Coma."
And that stuck in my mind,
that harvesting of human bodies,
that idea that humans are being
grossly sort of mistreated
in an area where they're
supposed to be helped
was interesting to me.
(ominous orchestral music)
- Pam?
Cheryl?
Come on, guys.
- The basement at the hospital
doubled for the basement
of the sorority house,
which thinking about
it, seemed pretty odd.
It was a pretty massive
industrial looking basement.
I remember it was sort of
musty and dirty in the basement
and everyone was
wearing face masks.
We built some of the props.
I remember even some
of the pipes were made
that were not there,
that we needed more
pipes in certain shots.
The drill goes through the
guy's head in that basement
and we built a dummy for that.
And at one point, I was
dressed up as the character.
I think it was one of
the ambulance drivers
and I was gonna double for him.
But then they yanked
me out of the scene
because everything
had to be SAG.
(woman screaming)
(ominous music)
I know that the biggest
effect in the film,
it was very abbreviated, but
it was a head crush in a vice.
And that effect
took a lot of work
from earliest pre-production
to the end of the shoot.
That was shot at the
estate in upstate New York
and I think it was
shot in the garage
where our lab was set up.
That was like almost an
entire day shooting that.
And when we saw the dailies
and went to the rushes,
that was a huge conversation.
And I think it was
decided at the dailies
that it wasn't gonna
be used in the film.
The 3D effect just
didn't work on it.
Whatever the effect was with
the head sort of cracking open
like didn't work with the 3D.
It was too, too
exaggerated in 3D.
(nail gun blasting)
(woman screaming)
- I remember there
was some discussion
about who was going to
get shot in the forehead
between the eyes
and who was going to
get shot in the back.
And I'm not sure.
I think I have these
really light eyes
and I think they thought
that me getting
shot in the forehead
would be too strange looking.
So they shot Lori-Nan
in the forehead
and they shot me in the back.
And I think that might've been
about the deepest thought
that went into it.
(nail gun blasting)
(woman screaming)
I guess they had decided
that they needed some
boobage for the movie.
They needed someone
to take off their top.
And I just remember Simon
going around and saying,
will you take off your top?
And it was like, no, Simon, no.
And then he'd ask every actress.
It was no, nuh-uh, not gonna.
- From what I remember,
like one of the
nail gun victims,
she wasn't an actress
and they sort of told us
ahead of time she's coming in.
She doesn't have a lot of time.
She was like very busy
and she was a prostitute.
And she was open about it.
- So she said, I think
the body's beautiful
and I have no problem showing
my breasts in the movie.
And we were all like, okay.
- While she was in the chair,
she was telling us
all these stories
and scheduling customers
and everything.
And I don't know how
she got on the film,
but it was it was a weird film
because I remembered
not much nudity
and it seemed like they
got her specifically
"cause she didn't have
a problem with nudity.
And I remember they
put like a wig on her,
so she didn't look the same.
They were sort of disguising
her identity, I guess.
- One of the girls who's
shot with a nail gun
is climbing a ladder.
She gets hit with the nail
gun and she falls backwards.
I was envisioning she falls 15
or 20 feet down onto
her back on the floor.
So Solly, of course, says,
well, she doesn't
have to be up there
"cause the camera's close.
So in effect, she was on the
second rung of the ladder.
She was about 18
inches off the ground.
She falls back like from
here to here and we say done.
A couple of weeks later,
she files for a stunt in SAG.
And we're saying,
stunt, what stunt?
That's not a stunt.
She got stunt pay.
- You inherit $100.
- You're wiping me out.
- The sorority house
was a pretty big mansion
on an estate in
upstate New York.
And we shot there
for a long time.
- But I just remember
being cold all the time.
And it was just dark and eerie
"cause we were the
only ones there,
and echoes, a lot of echoes.
And just a little creepy.
- I remember Belinda
trying to hide from us
that somebody had died there.
- There was a big garage,
almost like a barn,
and we set up the
makeup lab there.
Once in a while,
we would go on set,
myself and Neil,
the other assistant.
- One of the scenes
that stuck in my mind
was the roto-rooter scene
where Belinda is
trying to escape
and the killer is
dropping a roto-rooter
down on top of her.
I'd never seen that anywhere
and that slashing
blade coming toward you
was so frightening.
And the way I did it was a
process that's as old as cinema.
It's called Pepper's ghost.
The camera was on one
side, her face is here,
and the partially
silvered mirror is there.
So the camera's shooting
through at her face
and also reflecting the
thing dropping from above.
Now, Belinda was never in danger
because the roto-rooter
was dropped straight
and the camera hit a mirror.
So the worst case
scenario would have been
it would have maybe hit
the glass of the mirror,
but we had another
protective shield
of thin plastic protecting her.
Even if that should happen,
she would not have been
hit with a glass shroud.
- It took a long time
specifically at that location,
a lot of the shots,
because of the 3D process.
The director of
photography would always,
like they'd have to
really map things out.
- Ease up.
It's more important that
we don't make any mistakes.
- 3D takes a lot of time to
prepare and to do it well.
- Gerry Feil, the cameraman,
was anal about
every single shot.
He exposed things within
a third of a stop,
which meant critical lighting.
- He brought very good
people around him,
his assistants, and the
gaffers, and the sound.
And we tried to go
for the best possible
of everything in it.
And that takes time.
- There's a term that was used.
People always say like, we
got to hurry up and wait.
- I just remember it was
time consuming on the set,
like a lot of
measurements and angles.
- My scenes were
literally stationary
because they only had one
spot for the inversion bar.
So it wasn't as though
like with the other people,
they could have the people move.
I had to stay still
and they had to move.
- You couldn't
just do the scene.
You had to remember the angles,
or put your hand a certain way,
or don't put it a certain way.
So it was a great challenge.
- Allan and Kenny from
makeup effects lab
were like at that time,
the kings of 3D effects,
so they knew a lot.
And the makeup effects labs
have worked with the DP before
on "Friday The 13th 3D."
There was a lot of
discussion on set
of how to shoot
specific effects.
- That was new to me.
I said, oh, 3D.
A knife comes at you,
it looks like it's
coming at you.
It's a little more
difficult than that.
That put on a wire.
It's very complex.
- In 3D in the early days,
really fed itself on things
coming at the camera.
So almost every shot,
we had something
poking into the lens
or moving into the lens.
And nowadays, that's
kind of passe,
and like hokey, and
nobody does that anymore.
But in those days, it
was kind of expected.
You waited for that thing to
come out into the audience.
(woman screaming)
(ominous orchestral music)
- We tried to shoot the hatchet
coming at the camera
and the light went away.
The sun went off.
It looked like it was
gonna rain and didn't work.
And Gerry, our DP, said,
that's not working.
I can't see it.
It looks like a blur.
So we went through
our optical house,
which unfortunately did not
have a lot of 3D experience.
But the man who owned
it, Bobby Pincus,
he loved 3D and he
wanted to do it so badly.
He said, let me try it.
I swear I can do it.
I'm gonna read books on it.
I'm gonna look at geometry.
I'm gonna get my
machines to do it.
And he did it.
It was hokey though.
I mean, you could really tell.
It needed more blur,
which today, digitally,
it can be done easily.
On film, it's a
little harder to do.
- I don't seem to be
doing very well right now.
- You seem to be
doing all right to me.
- Well, I'm not so sure.
- We had one very difficult day
in a restaurant that
was not properly set up.
One of the things you
need for 3D is large sets
SO you can use the lights,
which is the
effects that you use
to make the 3D effect real.
And they have to be far apart.
They can not show in the movie.
And in this restaurant,
which was the only
one we could find
because of budget and time,
Gerry, who was my guide on this.
He was the person who knew.
He said, yeah, I think
I can make it work.
He couldn't really make
it work exactly the way,
so it was a very painful
day and they throw us out,
but we got the shot.
- At that point,
this was sort of the dawn
of the skateboard phenomena.
Prior to that, we
did three movies
and I shot documentary
of these people.
Myself and my cameraman
were the only guys
as we went to these
swimming pools after hours
and did all this.
So I knew skateboarding really
pretty well at that point.
And I said, let's
open this 3D film
where this beautiful
sorority girl
skates through the college,
Wagner College at the time,
meeting every one of the people
who we're gonna see
later in the film.
So we kind of prefigure
all of the people
who are going to be
major actors in the film.
And then she's gonna
come toward the camera
through this archway,
and this figure is gonna
step in front of her,
grab her.
The skateboard is gonna
go through her legs,
into the camera,
and stop in the opening
credits of the film.
Freeze frame.
That was kind of
this, in my mind,
this incredible opening shot.
So I advertise in New
York for an actress
'cause we're gonna go SAG,
an actress who could
do skateboarding.
No SAG actresses came
about who could do it,
and so a non-SAG
actress applied.
She said, I'm a
terrific skateboarder.
To my detriment,
I did not have the time to
go out and say, prove it.
I took her word for it.
So we're on the set.
It is clear she's never been
on a skateboard in her life.
We can't shoot it.
So we're gonna come back
a week later and shoot it.
In the meantime, she's
hanging out with her boyfriend
and she's back every day,
hanging out with him.
In the end,
she puts in for stunt work
every single one of those days
when she was not on camera,
lied to us about
what she could do,
and then turns out
that it's barely
with all of Solly's magic,
et cetera, like this,
makes do that we got the shot.
- The rest of it was okay.
I wish I had another
three weeks to shoot
"cause we could've come
up with more contrivances,
but we didn't have them.
- We were hoping
that that film in 3D
was going to be released
with Myriad Theaters.
I think we had some
The theaters all
had to be prepped
with projectionists
who understood 3D,
who understood this lens system
that they were being
delivered in advance.
They had it all tested.
We ran our film.
We sat there and hey,
it was beautiful.
All of these theater,
I mean, I didn't go
to every theater,
were projected perfectly.
I think it was a week before
we were about to release
that "Nightmare on EIm
Street" was released.
They co-opted all
of our theaters.
- Kruger's release program
has really benefited everyone.
- And we were relegated
to release flat in 2D,
which meant because of
the over and under system
that we released it in,
it was less than half
of what this beautiful
35 millimeter film was.
- I remember going to Times
Square and seeing the movie
and I was so excited.
And I took I think
I took my friend
or boyfriend at the
time to go see it.
And nobody was in the movie
theater and it wasn't in 3D.
And I was like, oh, I
rented the theater for you!
- I went to see
it in New Jersey.
It had a pretty wide opening
in the New York City area.
When I'd see the film,
I was obviously surprised
a lot of effects
that weren't in the film
or things that seem like
they were abbreviated.
- And you could see
some of the stuff
that was supposed to
be in 3D that wasn't
and it kind of
looked a little odd.
- At that time,
I had no idea if there
were cuts for the MPAA.
The film would have been much
huger if they went unrated
and just really went off.
- Not that many people
got to see it in the 3D
that it was designed to be.
- And then just sit in the
theater and see this thing
that could have been
shot with a wind up Bolex
was really disappointing
to all of us.
- So the few people who saw it
saw it from rip offs on VHS,
which were basically
pirated copies.
- I actually just watched
it recently on YouTube.
And I said to my friend,
I said, you know,
I think, I'm also in
like a present day scene.
Let's see if we can find it.
And sure enough,
like there's my face
just plain as day as an extra.
This was such a low budget
film that they needed people.
- There are people who
come up in the conventions
and will either bring a
poster of "Silent Madness"
or something and I'm thrilled
because I feel like it
was a forgotten film
and it's so good,
so I'm so excited for
people to get to see it.
- So I'm really happy
now this is coming out
and the producers of
the DVD, the Blu-ray,
really took the chance to
do really a phenomenal job.
- It's the best news I've had
since the mayor dropped dead.
- It's like looking at a picture
of a painting that's fantastic.
When you see the painting,
it's different from seeing that
flat image in the magazine.
And now, maybe they'll
see the painting.
- And we're seeing
this in the 3D glory
that we had always
hoped to see this movie,
albeit a few decades later.
(ominous orchestral music)
(funky jazz music)
- I remember thinking,
you know, one day somebody
is gonna interview me.
And I'm gonna get to tell
them I got my SAG card
by being shot in the back with
a nail gun by a mute in 3D.
(laughing)
So, here it is!
Here's the big interview!