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Long Island Super-8 Maestro: |
 Super-8mm is the chosen medium for old home movies, porn loops and
pretentious rock videos. With its grainy image and rattletrap camera
noise, no one would consider using it to make a feature film—no one, of
course, except Nathan Schiff. From 1979 until 1991, the Long Island native
not only wrote, directed, produced and edited four low-budget horror
films, all in Super-8, but managed to make them gorier and more bizarre
than those made by other regional filmmakers at the time (most of whom
were using the new and less time-consuming video format) and even many of
the grindhouse horrorshows. Pretty impressive for a guy who, in Nathan’s
own words, never had “schooling or knowledge on how to do it or how to
work with sound or anything.”As a kid, Nathan absorbed a steady diet of monster movies and exercised his obsessions with the help of his parents’ Super-8 camera. After a string of horror and science fiction-themed shorts (many starring his beloved dog), Nathan decided to tackle his first full-length film. Undaunted by his lack of technical expertise, he made his first feature, Weasels Rip My Flesh (1979) for $400 over the course of several after-school shooting sessions. A frantic mix of giant monster movie and early splatter, Weasels pits Nathan’s high school pal John Smihula (who recently directed the documentary Hidden in Plain Sight) as a cheroot-chewing detective against a freak-haired mad scientist (Fred Borges, another school friend) and a giant weasel mutated by space goop stolen from a downed rocket. Though undeniably primitive, Schiff’s enthusiasm and the game cast lend the film a certain degree of naïve charm, as does its gallons of gore (homebrewed from Karo syrup, cranberry sauce and ketchup) and one of the most jaw-dropping deux ex machina conclusions ever recorded on film.  Buoyed by a SRO screening at his high school, Nathan set to work on his
second feature, Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980). Less tongue-in-cheek
than Weasels but equally bizarre, Massacre stars a manic Borges as a
deranged killer who supplies human flesh for his cannibal leper father
with the help of a pair of sadistic bikers. Despite behind-the-scenes
difficulties (largely due to getting the cast to show up), Cannibal
delivers the goods for a $900 film, thanks to its bleak Long Island
locations and no-holds-barred homemade grue; the film’s climax, in which
Borges is carved up by his monster father, and consumed by a gaggle of
little girls (!), is a one-two punch that can send even the most seasoned
gorehound reeling.A day job with greedy real estate investors inspired Nathan’s third film, They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore (1985). Smihula plays it freeway-broad as Billy Buck, a demented hillbilly gardener who murders his jaded employers with the help of his deformed partner Jacob (Adam Burke). Intended as an even bigger production than Cannibal, the film’s scope had to be trimmed considerably to accommodate Smihula’s service in the Peace Corps, but even with its abbreviated shooting schedule, it manages to present some blackly comic social commentary along with Nathan’s most repulsive special effects to date. Shortly after its completion, Nathan’s was invited by Gore Gazette publisher Rick Sullivan to screen his films at his legendary exploitation movie nights The Dive in Manhattan; the popularity of these showings helped put him on the cult underground map and earned him coverage in genre magazines like Deep Red and In the Flesh. Nathan’s final completed feature to date, and his most accomplished as a director, is the controversial Vermillion Eyes (1991). A surreal trip through the mind of a compulsive killer (Smihula), Vermillion’s sustained atmosphere of dread proved that Nathan was more than just a cult curiosity. However, the film’s relentlessly downbeat tone and unsettling sexual violence earned it critical and audience brickbats. Since then, Nathan has been largely out of the filmmaking biz, save for a few shorts with Smihula and the late NYC experimental filmmaker Joseph Marzano (who contributes a memorably weird cameo to They Don’t Cut The Grass Anymore). An aborted sequel to Vermillion Eyes forced him to hang up his Super-8 camera for good until he’s able to raise the funds for a film in 35mm. In the meantime, Weasels, Cannibal and Grass have been released in deluxe DVD editions from Image Entertainment, complete with commentaries by Nathan and a number of his pre-Weasels shorts. No one is more surprised by this rediscovery than the self-deprecating director himself, who never foresaw his films being shown beyond his own backyard, but the recognition is long overdue. We want to thank Spencer Savage of Image Entertainment and Robert Marcucci for arranging this interview, and of course Nathan himself, who gave up three hours to regale us with stories about the glory days of Super-8 gore. __________________________________________________________________________________ PG: I just finished watching the last of the discs from Image, and I thought they did an impressive job with them. Did you ever expect to see such a presentation of your films? Nathan Schiff: Oh, no. I never really thought that anything like would happen, simply because they were Super-8 productions. I’ve had so much trouble in the past trying to get some kind of a release, and no one would even look at them because they were Super-8. PG: Did you ever have any VHS releases of these films? NS: Never. I could have, but I didn’t like the way they were going to handle them, and there wasn’t much money involved. I mean, if it was an enormous sum, I guess I would have done it. There was a company that I came closest to doing a deal with back in the mid-‘80s, but they were some really fly-by-night company, and they wanted to re-title it and make it a sequel to a Donald Farmer movie. PG: Oh, God. NS: They wanted to call it Cannibal Hookers 2: The Father’s Story. “The Father’s Story”—I never forgot that. And I said, “But this doesn’t have anything to do with hookers, and it’s not a sequel to that movie.” And they said, “Oh, no, it’ll sell.” So I said never mind. PG: Were you aware that there was a pretty brisk trade in bootleg versions of your movies? NS: No, I wasn’t aware of that until I started noticing—especially through the internet—that there were all these write-ups, and people mentioning these films on message boards, and a lot of genre magazines would mention the films. PG: Until these came out on DVD, how were you showing these films? Were you taking Super-8 prints around? NS: Well, when you say Super-8 “prints,” there was only the original. I never had a negative. If you see how beautiful the original image looked projected, you wouldn’t be able to tell if they were 35mm or Super-8—that’s how sharp and crisp and vivid the image was. But since it’s Super-8, it’s basically a reversal. There’s no negative, so it suffers immensely from the transfer from film to tape, even digitally. At one point, I wanted to have them on videotape, because I didn’t want to keep running the films. In the beginning, when I was showing these films in Manhattan, I was lugging this 40-pound projector and playing the actual film. I’m glad I did that, because that was the best way to see them. It just looked amazing, and the sound system they had—it was incredible, because it was intended for rock bands. I never knew my films sounded that good. Whenever someone spoke, it would boom out. It was like an actual 35mm experience in Dolby stereo. I couldn’t believe it—I said, “It never sounded like this when I played it in my back yard.” That was the only time I got to hear it like that, and probably the only time I’ll ever hear it like that. So when video started to get big, I just videotaped it off a screen. I guess I made copies of some people, and if you make one copy of anything, suddenly it’s all over the planet. And then there was a machine that would transfer it without a blink, and that’s where the bootlegs came from. From what I understand, most people that were seeing these films were seeing tenth-generation copies. That’s all I kept hearing: “I’ve got this horrible bootleg of this movie called Long Island Cannibal Massacre. It looks like a tenth generation copy—it’s hard to tell what the quality is.” PG: I wonder if that affected their reviews at all. NS: Well, it’s interesting, because if it was a first- or second-generation copy, they would actually look like a bad 35mm bootleg. So you could actually gauge who had what kind of copy, because somebody would say, “It looks like it was shot on Super-8,” and I’d think, “Oh, well, this guy had a better bootleg.” PG: You could tell how far down the line he got it. NS: Right. People would mention that they could see splices…so the better the review, the better the bootleg. PG: I understand that you had to replace a lot of the music library tracks—what it sounds like they did was replace them with library tracks from a lot of Something Weird movies. What were your original tracks? NS: Well, actually, the reason it sounds that way is that a lot of that library music is from the Thomas J. Valentino library. I really didn’t change all that much. What had to be taken out were a lot of pop songs—I had Led Zeppelin, the Who, Genesis—all of that stuff had to be taken out and replaced. So a lot of the music you hear is stock music that you’ll be familiar with if you’re familiar with low-budget movies. I wanted it to be retro anyway. It’s amusing because with people who aren’t familiar with all generations of horror films, they’ll say, “Oh, he took the music from Night of the Living Dead.” But that’s stock music. PG: Yeah, those are all library tracks. NS: I could name at least ten movies that are completely scored with the same music, and TV programs too. I don’t criticize—they’re just not familiar with the genre as a whole. PG: And they’re also not aware that a lot of low-budget films have to use library tracks for their scores. NS: Absolutely. And I don’t think there’s anything with a lower budget than my films. My films are the cheapest films to ever get a national and worldwide release. I’m not including films shot on video—you’re seeing a lot of people shooting entire films on video that are getting distribution as features. What I find odd about that is that when they’re reviewed, many writers don’t notice the fact that they’re shot on video. PG: They’re almost used to it now. NS: Yeah, but that befuddles me. I think that you have to point that fact out. You can’t compare the texture of film with something shot on tape—even something shot on Super-8. PG: Well, again, I think it has something to do with their sense of history. If you grew up in the early ‘90s, you might accept that some horror movies are shot on video, but if you grew up at the same time that you and I did—in the ‘60s and ‘70s—you notice that difference. NS: Right, but what I’m talking about are movies that are shot on video and get DVD releases. It’s not film—someone took their video camera and shot an entire movie. Sometimes it’s cited as a “shot-on-video” production, but I’ve noticed that a lot of reviewers aren’t citing this. Maybe they know the filmmakers—I don’t know. I think it’s a cheat if you order a movie and get something shot on video. I don’t know what the market is like—maybe a lot of people that are into low-budget, indie horror stuff don’t mind if it’s shot on videotape. I have no clue, because I don’t follow the modern indie stuff. PG: So I want to ask you some history questions. A lot of people who we’re talking to grew up as monster kids, watching and becoming fans of horror movies. What’s your earliest monster movie memory? NS: Oh, God…I remember things from when I was very, very young—from when I was two years old. The first thing that pops directly into mind is Beverly Garland being menaced by the Venusian in It Conquers the World. I’ll never forget that. Imagine being three or four years old and seeing the most oddball-looking creation—an adult would look at it and say, “Oh, look how foolish that is. It’s obviously a foam rubber thing. Oh, how dumb.” But to a child’s mind, to see this totally insane thing—it’s got no legs, but it has a face, and the long arms—and the cave is a frightening [place]. She goes in there, and it’s bubbling with mist. That really terrified me. That really had a terrific effect on me. Another movie that comes to mind as having a strong effect on me is the original 1954 Godzilla. That really frightened me, because as a kid, it makes you feel like you’re in an atomic holocaust. I’d never seen anything where a whole city is on fire, and there’s this huge creature causing this. That was very frightening to see—very doom-laden imagery. Such huge destruction. In other movies, you’d see a person killed or something blow up, but not an entire city. PG: So do you think that the reason that these films had such an impact on you was that although they were obviously monster movies, you saw some real danger or fear in them? NS: Yes, but you have to remember that when you’re a child, these aren’t movies. These are real. As a kid, I used to cry when the monster died, and my father used to get angry. My father didn’t really understand—I guess if he was a more understanding father, he would have said, “Don’t worry…” Instead, he was like, “What are you cryin’ for?” I remember when the Spider in Earth vs. the Spider gets electrocuted and falls through the stalactites—I cried my eyes out—felt sorry for the damn thing. And in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, when they fire the isotopes. I cried my eyes out. I never forgot that. My mother was watching it too and said, “What’s the matter?” PG: So what was appealing about monster movies to you was that they were both sympathetic and frightening at the same time? NS: Absolutely. The thing is that when I was super-young, I wasn’t ready to be sympathetic yet—as any child would be. You’re not ready to be on the side of the scary monster. So the fear is the first thing that happens. I remember that Battle in Outer Space, which has no monsters in it, was a very frightening film. Again, mass destruction of huge cities. But then as I started to get a little older, the sympathy was totally to the monsters—I don’t know why there was that connection. I guess I thought of myself as a monster (laughs). PG: I think that for a lot of kids who get into monster movies, that’s a recurring feeling. NS: I mean, I thought it was totally cruel for them to shoot that arrow into the dragon in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. The dragon didn’t do anything wrong. He was controlled by that evil sorcerer. Why didn’t they just leave? PG: Those are the things that cause so much conflict when you watch these movies, and they just leave you to mull it over: “That’s just what happens here—we’ve gotta move on now.” But for some people, those questions never go away. NS: Right. It got to the point that I wondered why they had to kill certain things. Even as a kid, it didn’t seem logical to me. There was no logic to the dragon being killed, but then I realized that it was a cliché in movies—it’s a monster, therefore it has to be destroyed. PG: And that’s kind of a heavy moral debate to roll around in your head when you’re a kid. NS: You take a movie like The Amazing Colossal Man, which is an exploitation film, but it has some pointed philosophies in it. It could have been a great movie like The Incredible Shrinking Man, but it turns into a monster-on-the-loose movie at the end. They actually find a cure for his growth, and a way for him to return to his natural size, but what happens at the end of the movie? He goes on a rampage and they shoot him with a bazooka and he falls off a dam. So what was the point of introducing those two cures if he was just going to go on a rampage and then get killed? PG: It’s almost cruel, in a way. NS: Yeah. He’s a monster, therefore he has to be destroyed. PG: So if you’re sympathizing with the monster, when that happens, it’s like, “Who do I trust anymore? Who’s good and who’s bad at this point?” NS: That’s true. I think a lot of the writers for these films knew what they were doing, starting with The Day The Earth Stood Still. Notice how the moment the saucer lands—all the tanks have pulled out, and some trigger-happy soldier shoots Klaatu when he takes out that thing. Now, they automatically assumed that it was a hostile alien? And in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers—even though the aliens turn out to be hostile, they didn’t land with the intention of hostility. They wanted to talk first. The moment they land, we start shooting. PG: There’s a connection with real life at that point, where we were viewing anything that’s different than us and landed on our soil unannounced meant us harm—there’s the whole Cold War analogy. NS: You said the key phrase. That is it in a nutshell. Any stranger that sets foot on our soil is an enemy. And that’s exactly what was done in those films. PG: So when did you say to yourself, “I’m going to make my own movies”? NS: Every family had a home movie camera, and my father had a three-lens Bell and Howell 8mm camera. So when I was eleven, I took the camera and the first thing I wanted to do was use my dog as the protagonist. I had no actors or anyone to be in the movie, but I could make something very simple by making a city out of toy blocks and have my dog be a giant monster and wreck it. That was the first thing I tried—it would have been a hit if I’d played it during the ‘60s in the Andy Warhol days, because it was [made with] those old cameras where it had the cassettes that you popped in—you had to physically open the camera in the dark and turn the reels around. And I made a mistake—I didn’t turn them around. I put them back in the way they [originally] were, so I re-exposed it. I re-shot the second half of the roll over the first half I’d already shot. It was double exposed—that would have garnered me a great deal of notoriety (laughs). PG: They could be teaching classes on that movie right now. NS: Absolutely. It would have been a huge success—they would be talking about the universal implications behind that film. PG: What did your family think about you making movies? NS: In those days, they thought their son was being creative. They were proud to say that I was the filmmaker. But in later years, when it got to be something that I wanted to do on a professional level, I wasn’t supported. PG: What did your family want you to do? NS: The hope was the same as any family has for their son—as long as I made money. They didn’t get the whole movie thing. The difference is that a lot of people who are successful in the business are lucky to have family who are artists or are in the business, because they understand what their children are doing. There isn’t one person in my entire family on either side that is involved in the arts in any way. I’m the black sheep. When you’re young, you’re the creative kid, but when you get older, you become the weird artistic maniac. PG: You’re still playing with the toys you had as a kid. NS: Exactly. “You don’t make movies—you watch them.” PG: Now that you have movies on DVD, has that attitude changed at all? NS: No. There’s been a little support—“Oh, congratulations.” But there have been so many years of harboring dissent that it’s no longer important. PG: Yeah, at this point, does it even matter if they show their support? NS: No, absolutely not. If I accepted an Academy Award, I certainly wouldn’t be thanking my family. PG: I know that you shot “April Morning” for a class assignment (Nathan shot a three-minute short based on a scene from Howard Fast’s novel April Morning in lieu of a report in grade school; it is included on the Weasels DVD), but who else saw your short movies? NS: Oh, you mean the silent shorts? Those were very popular. We would show them around to family and friends. We did the old-time thing where we would set up a fake theater in the basement and charge admission. We’d show 8mms of the silent Castle films as well. PG: You’d run your own film festival. NS: Yes. And we made our own posters and had a concession stand. It was a lot of fun. Those were the days—there was no business, no money involved, no nasty critics attacking every little thing you did. PG: Everybody just came and enjoyed the show. NS: Everybody had a good time—it was like there was nothing you could wrong. There weren’t any unhappy customers (laughs). PG: At this point, were you completely sold on filmmaking? NS: There was nothing else. I was very one-minded. I had no other interests. That’s all I felt I was destined to do. PG: In watching your early films, I saw the influence of the ‘50s movies you loved, especially in things like “Attack of the Giant Turtle.” But when you start with Weasels Rip My Flesh, the influence seems split between horror and gore. When did you start to become aware of gore movies? NS: That’s a pointed question. It’s interesting that you bring that up, because people have asked that: why did your films start to become so violent when you were able to achieve the same thing without being so violent? PG: I don’t know if it’s a question of achievement—it’s just something I noticed. I think there’s a point for the gore in the film. NS: Okay, I’ll tell you what happened. You know, being a film fanatic, I was reading every publication—Famous Monsters, Castle of Frankenstein, and my favorite, The Monster Times—I loved that. And it was a Monster Times issue that had an article—I think it was in 1975 or ’76—it was an article on Herschell Gordon Lewis. I’d never heard of him. And it was apparently the first time that The Monster Times was printing stills from his movies—you know, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs. I’d never seen anything like this before. I was familiar with King Kong, Godzilla, and Ray Harryhausen, and then suddenly I’m seeing these people with limbs ripped off and meat hanging and mutilation. It was a completely new aspect of the genre, and anything new got me interested. And it was many, many years before I was able to actually see one of these graphic pictures. It’s funny—my parents accidentally took me to see Last House on the Left during its original release—before it was cut. I saw it on a double bill at our local theater, and I’d love to know who was responsible for this double bill— Last House on the Left and Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chairs. That’s what my parents went to see, and the second feature was Last House on the Left. PG: Thinking it would be another comedy. NS: What I found astonishing was that they didn’t take me out of the theater. They didn’t walk out. My mother kept covering my eyes, and I kept smacking her hand away. But they wanted to see what happened—they were fascinated by the movie. And I saw everything. When I saw it later, I realized that it wasn’t a scary movie—it was just disturbing. But there were two scenes that really frightened me—when she asks if her friend’s okay, and they stick the friend’s dismembered arm out, and the sound of the chainsaw starting up. All of a sudden, you hear this loud mechanical noise, and it turns out to be a chainsaw. I realize that if I’d seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when it came out, that really would have blown my mind. But Last House on the Left did not have a profound effect on me. I didn’t leave the theater saying, “I’m going to go and make a movie about two girls getting raped!” All of my shorts have nothing to do [with this sort of movie]. So I think what happened with Weasels was that it was intended to be an homage to ‘50s and early ‘60s monster movies, which is quite apparent, but there was also a fascination with being able to show the effects of someone attacked by a creature. Some movies were coming out in which you were seeing people injured like that. So that’s why the movie has the gore. __________________________________________________________________________ Coming Soon: Part two. Imagine that. _____________________________________________________________________________________ -Paul Gaita ___________________________________________________________________________________ |
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