Video:Trick r Treat - Michael Dougherty Interview
with Rebecca Murray'X2' and 'Superman Returns' screenwriter Michael Dougherty makes his directorial debut with 'Trick 'r Treat,' a horror/thriller starring Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, and Lauren Lee Smith set to hit stores on DVD in October 2009.
Transcript:Trick r Treat - Michael Dougherty Interview
Warner Home Video's Trick 'r Treat at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.
Trick 'r Treat Writer/Director Michael Dougherty
So how tough was it to mix all the storylines and make sure you paid enough attention to each one?
Michael Dougherty: "It's a careful balancing act. Originally, when it was first written, every story took place one after the other. And then in the editing room, it felt as if it might be better if we actually intercut the stories a little bit more like Crash or Go or Pulp Fiction. And so it's been an interesting experience. I'd say that the film was really, really made in the editing room. It's really tricky because each story has its own tone. One is more of a serial killer story. One is more of a Creepshow dark and dreary piece with Brian Cox. One actually has a kind of a Goonies sensibility to it because it involves kids. So it was a careful balancing act of trying to make sure that the tone didn't go up and down and wasn't too scattered."
It sounds like you pay homage to a lot of interesting movies.
Michael Dougherty: "I wouldn't say they're homages to the films themselves as much as to the types of films that they were. We don't get films like that anymore. There was an amazing era in the '80s where there were a lot of Amblin films. They were almost like family films with an edge. When you sit down to watch Goonies, for me at least as a kid, I couldn't believe I was getting away with watching this movie, my parents are taking me to this. Gremlins it was the same thing. And the horror films were also the same in that you're sitting down watching maybe a rated R horror film, Nightmare on Elm Street being a good example, and it's also oddly funny. It's got this morbid mean streak to it. And I think a lot of reasons that these films are classics to this day is because they might not be scary anymore because you've watched them 20 times, but the humor still holds up. The character still holds up. Poltergeist, same thing. And I think a lot of horror films are forgetting that aspect now. A lot of it is about gore, gore, gore, or jump scares, but they aren't fun."
With a dearth of good scary movies, why didn't this get a theatrical release?
Michael Dougherty: "I don't know."
Is there a reasonable answer to that question, because it got good reviews from everybody who got to see it?
Michael Dougherty: "I know, I know. It's really hard to get movies into theaters these days. And even though this is a horror film and it's got a lot of great reviews and it's got a fun spirit to it, it's a weird horror movie. It's not a simplistic, formulaic horror film. It's not a group of five pretty teenagers going out into the wilderness stumbling across cannibals, stumbling across a big guy with an ax. It's not that. It's four stories, they crisscross, they intercut. There's no obvious bad guy. There's no obvious plot, necessarily. Each story has a plot, but it all kind of comes together in the end but it's not an easy sell."
So this is going to be one of those that's discovered on DVD.
Michael Dougherty: "I'm okay with that. To me, honestly, the distribution method is almost irrelevant. A lot of my favorite films that I've discovered of the past two or three years were discovered on DVD."
Like what? Name one.
Michael Dougherty: "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Amazing film, saw it on DVD. The Host, another one. A lot of times they get limited theatrical runs. Let the Right One In, that played in a couple theaters for a few weeks and then it's on DVD. I never got a chance to see it on the big screen but when I watched it at home on Thanksgiving, funnily enough, loved it."
Because it's the perfect Thanksgiving movie.
Michael Dougherty: "Yeah. But I think there was an era in the '70s and '80s when a lot of horror films would kind of hit the road. Even Halloween was done that way. It wasn't a wide release. Friday the 13th was the first wide release horror film. Until then, they kind of had to find theaters that would show them. So I feel like in this day and age where movies have to kind of be, have to have a lowest common denominator appeal to get into theaters sometimes, your best bet is going to be on DVD."