15th June 2009.

Meeting up with director Sam Raimi again at our DRAG ME TO HELL screening was an interesting experience for me. Because like so many people who’ve gone on to become world famous, I knew him when he was just starting out. We first met at the Paris Fantasy Festival in 1981 where EVIL DEAD was being screened for the first time since its earlier Cannes late night debut. I still have the ticket: “You are cordially invited to a screening of EVIL DEAD on May 22 Midnight”. Stephen King had written a glowing review of Rami’s debut based on seeing it there, and as it turned out I was the second person in the world to rave about it in print. Sam never forgot that. In fact he never forgot he was flat broke in Paris too and leaned on me to buy him some food. Because he’d given me a great interview I took him out for a crepe meal just around the corner from the Rex Cinema hub on the Boulevard Poissoniere. Over the years as his stature grew despite the EVIL DEAD Video Nasty association he’d always single me out on PR junkets and thank me for my support. And although I hadn’t seen him since the DARKMAN days, the SPIDER-MAN movies were too big a deal for us lowly genre writers to cover, when he arrived at the ICA he still remembered Paris.

I’ve had the same experience with many directors who started out in the genre. Russell Mulcahy is my best example because we have remained friends through the ups and downs such a relationship provokes. Great if you like their latest movie, not so if you hate it and say so in reviews.  Peter Jackson is another. I last saw him at the Venice Film Festival with HEAVENLY CREATURES although we did speak on the phone about THE FRIGHTENERS. Again, once he tackled THE LORD OF THE RINGS blockbusters, he was on another level and became the ‘discovery’ of the mainstream press. And so it goes right on to Guillermo del Toro, Neil Marshall, Eli Roth, Nicolas Winding Refn, Adam Green… Who knows who else has been or will be a part of the circle of FrightFest trust destined for similar greatness? Based on TRIANGLE, and the fact he’s just finished BLACK DEATH in Germany, I’d say director Chris Smith has a good shot at becoming a key player in the international fame game.

Like the others mentioned he has the right combination of drive, arrogance and humility – and I mean that in the nicest possible ways. Experience has proved to me you need those three things to survive in this business and you shouldn’t be embarrassed by any of them. And the moment you take yourself seriously is the moment it’s all over. That’s more an actor thing though. I’ve only had a few actor friends because they can be such insecure nightmares and all that stuff is boring to deal with. One of my first acquaintances was Richard Dreyfus who I met just after he’d appeared in AMERICAN GRAFITTI and before he shot to stardom in JAWS. He was in England making a little film titled INSERTS, co starring Jessica Harper, still three years away from headlining SUSPIRIA.

Dreyfus was a real laugh to hang out with and taught me a big lesson. It doesn’t matter if people love you or hate you, as long as they never forget you. I’ve lived by that code ever since. Which is why when I’m told ‘so-and-so thinks you’re the rudest person ever and hates you’, I just smile. I don’t see Dreyfus anymore. He’s had a lot of personal demons to deal with and I obviously knew him at the happiest of his times. I always remember asking him what JAWS was going to be like and he replied, “It’s a great little picture that could do really well”. Talk about understatement! I wonder what he’s thinking in retrospect now he’s starring in PIRANHA 3D, the remake of the rip-off of the original template?

Until next time.

___________________________________________
© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009