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Long Island Super-8 Maestro: |
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PG: Would you say that Weasels Rip My Flesh
was a way for you to explore both sides of your interests in horror in the
same movie? NS: I would say so, because the imagery from The Monster Times article never left me. I met this older girl and she’d seen [all these films]. I’d been reading about other films, like I Drink Your Blood and all these other sub-genre movies, and Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs. I asked her, “What was it like?! Do you actually see these dismembered arms?” And she said, “Oh my God! You see the flesh hanging, you see the bone cut—oh yeah, it’s really disgusting.” So she confirmed it. Blood Feast was exactly what its title indicated. You’ve got to remember that when you’re imagining what these films are like, they’re always so many times more terrifying and gory. I thought Blood Feast was going to be—you wouldn’t survive. That was my image of it. I didn’t realize it was going to be such a terrible movie. I mean, I love it, but I didn’t know it was going to be so inept. PG: When you were growing up in Long Island, did you ever go to Times Square or 42nd Street? NS: Believe it or not, no. I was never part of that scene or the Manhattan scene. In the ‘70s, a lot of people went to 42nd Street. I saw a lot of things on Long Island. I guess that’s the main reason I didn’t catch up with a lot of this stuff until video started and when the re-release boom started after Friday the 13th became such a hit. They started re-releasing all the old classics—anything they could find that was a gore film—movies like Night of the Bloody Apes and weird stuff like Suicide Cult and Slithis. |
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PG: They were screening these in your local theater? NS: At the Eighth Street Playhouse. It had a huge exploitation week, and they were offering everything—Herschell Gordon Lewis, Andy Milligan, several of the Italian gore films, and lesser ones like I Dismember Mama. I caught several Andy Milligan movies there. They played everything—and this was before video, before Something Weird and all these companies were offering everything. PG: You saw them in the perfect setting. NS: Yeah! And the prints were horrible. I saw Bloodthirsty Butchers in a theater on a giant screen, and I’ve got to tell you, it didn’t look any better than it does on VHS. |
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PG: The grain must’ve been huge.
NS: Oh my God, the grain was the size of softballs. The prints were
mangled—there were so many splices and scratches. I think one of the
movies didn’t even have title cards—it just went right into the film. |
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 And you thought bike riding was good for you? - Weasels |
PG: But everything that you’ve mentioned is what he wrote about as
well—these movies were in the most atrocious condition, but that was the
best way to see them. NS: There’s a certain charm to it—and sleaziness. PG: Well, the sleaze is the charm in a lot of ways. NS: You know, when film is damaged—it doesn’t seem like you’re seeing a bad print. It seems like something’s being taken away or hidden from you. PG: It has a forbidden sense to it. |
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NS: Exactly. “Does that splice mean something? Was an arm missing?” PG: “Is there something in this reel that I missed?” NS: Yeah, and you’re more nervous that you’re going to miss something because the print is worse than any horror on screen (laughs). PG: So when you make the jump from shorts to feature-length with Weasels— NS: This is the first attempt to make a feature-length movie without any schooling or knowledge on how to do it or how to work with sound or anything. PG: So did you just say, “I’m going to make a longer version of a short?” NS: The whole thing was imagined in my head. In fact, I remember that at one point before I made it, I was thinking about how features were made. But I didn’t understand how films were cut, like when people speak—when a film is edited and it cuts to someone else talking, I thought, “How do they do that? How do I see the other person listening while another person is talking?” I didn’t understand that the image is cut over the sound, and that particular part of the sound is not interfered with. PG: But you taught yourself that. NS: Right. I had this thought—“I could never make a movie. I don’t know anything about it. It’s impossible!” But then I started thinking about all the low-budget monster movies, and I did it, and it wasn’t impossible. The thing about Weasels Rip My Flesh is that even though it’s very crude, I’m proud of some of the blocking and photography. |
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PG: Yeah. You wouldn’t think from seeing it that you were completely
self-taught. There’s a sense that you had an intuitive idea of how to put
a film together. NS: I think I believe that what you’re saying is on the mark. You either have it or you do. Some people study it for years and can’t do it. It’s something that I’ve inherited—I don’t know why—perhaps from watching so many movies, perhaps from how your brain absorbs knowledge visually. The main thing that hampers the movie, of course, is the budget. But the funny thing is, my monster weasel has gotten as much criticism as John Frankenheimer’s mutant bear in Prophecy. I always find it fascinating that people are making fun of my $400 Super-8 cut-and-paste movie in the same way that they not the great John Frankenheimer. |
 No, this isn't how the Mothers of Invention broke up--it's Fred Borges on the rampage in Weasels Rip My Flesh. |
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I mean, those were his bad years—he was
having a lot of personal problems—but it was a Hollywood movie. He had a
studio behind him. (pause) I actually built two of those [weasels]. PG: Yeah, there’s one that has a working jaw. NS: Right. There’s one that looked more like a weasel, and one that looked like a shark (laughs). That’s because I wasn’t very good at bending and molding the chicken wire frame. One had arms attached to it, but the mouth was a big floppy jaw, and it was either a case of “stay shut” or “stay open.” If you wanted it to stay shut, you had to hook it shut or you had to have your hand underneath the jaw to hold it shut. I only used that thing for a couple of shots when the kids are attacked at the beginning. If you notice after the last kid has his head mushed up and the monster moves in, that’s the first weasel, because it has a huge mouth. I even put ribbing in the upper palate. I wanted it to be as realistic as possible. But when you see the monster later on, it’s a completely different design. The mouth is able to move. I built a mechanism where the mouth could open and close when you pulled a wire. (self-effacing) I was so proud of that. I said, “Wow…it’s actually moving by itself. It doesn’t look real at all, but the mouth moves!” PG: This is the first movie with John Smihula and Fred Borges. You’d known them for some time before this, right? NS: No, actually. I met John on the school bus. I couldn’t have been too long before we made Weasels. I made the first half before I even made John. So I think I met him in late ’79, after the first half had been finished. PG: How old were you at this point? NS: We were seventeen. Fred was one or two years older than us. PG: How did you meet Fred? NS: How did I meet Fred…it’s so hazy. I have an incredible memory, but as far as how I met these friends…(laughs). I remember seeing Fred in school, and I think we struck up a conversation about movies and we sort of hit it off. It was a mutual thing. And there was a third guy that almost became a partner—we both loved horror movies, but he got in an accident and part of his finger was cut off. He was supposed to be in Weasels. He was the guy who taught me how to use foam to make the monster head—he told me that he’d done in movies that he’d made. He was a very creative person who was dying to get into the picture, but that accident cut him out of it. His arm was in a sling when he came back to school. I said, “So we’re ready to do the movie,” ’cause I still wanted to use him. But he said, “I can’t do the movie with my arm in a sling. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.” So it was Fred and John. |
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 Weasel Prototype One (Shark Model) ripping flesh. |
PG: John and Fred tend to play types in your movies—John is the anti-hero
loner, and Fred is almost your Peter Lorre. Were they cast in these roles
for specific reasons? NS: It was almost a given in a way. Fred looked like a villain—he was smaller and had the scruffy hair and the mustache, and John was a big guy and he was clean cut. They were almost the perfect duo. You had the small, sniveling, evil guy and the big, macho hero type. I didn’t want to go against type, because even as a kid, I would have never thought of casting Fred Borges as the hero and John as the scientist. It would have looked more phony than the weasels. PG: What’s funny is that John is also great as a lunatic in They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore and Vermillion Eyes. If you watch the movies chronologically, you can’t believe it’s him in those later movies. |
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NS: That’s John set free. John was very shy when we were growing up
together. When he was in Weasels, he was terrified of appearing on camera.
He didn’t tell me this until recently—he was utterly mortified, but he
didn’t want to admit it. You can see that in some of the early scenes in
Long Island Cannibal Massacre, like where he’s talking to his boss—he’s a
little stiff. There was no run-through—it was “Okay, John, say your
lines.” And he was standing there in front of strangers and having to act.
But he improves as the movies went along. In LICM, he improves. And in
They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore, I thought he was incredible in that. He
loved playing that character. He was totally free. He wasn’t playing this
conservative Clint Eastwood guy—he was playing a yahoo. It was like all
the restraining straps were released and he could go crazy. What was funny
was that at the end of the movie, when he and his brother get on the
train, he’s basically back as the characters he played in the other films.
Did you see Vermillion Eyes? PG: No, I haven’t. NS: (sighs) That’s the movie that Image refused to release. PG: You intimated that it was the subject matter that they were concerned with. NS: Yes. Everything was set to go—the artwork was done, the interview, the commentary—everything was done. If you read the liner notes on the other DVDs, it mentions Vermillion. I guess they did things backwards and they showed it to their legal department later, and the legal department found something objectionable to the point that they thought they might get a lawsuit. So they cancelled it, and I got a phone call and a letter—“We cannot release this movie because of its violent nature and content.” PG: Which is funny considering that They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore, people are literally reduced to pulp. NS: You know what it is? Of the four features, it’s the most serious of the four. It’s the only one that I made that wasn’t tongue-in-cheek. The film doesn’t have a lick of humor in it, and it’s the longest movie—it’s two hours of a very somber situation. People who are a fan of my stuff aren’t that crazy about Vermillion Eyes. And when I ask them why, they say, “It doesn’t have the charm that the other have.” So apparently, the charm is the humor and the craziness. But there are a few good reviews online. It was a loss, because I’ll never again get a chance to get a Super-8 movie released by a large company like that, so it was a shame that they had to drop it. PG: Do you have plans for it? NS: I’m trying, but so far I’ve been unlucky in getting other companies to bite. I’m certainly not going to get a big company like that, because you have to remember that it’s a Super-8 film. Even though I consider it the best of the films, it’s still a low-budget Super-8 film. I can’t make it out to be anything more than it is. It’s got everything working against it—it’s low budget, it’s Super-8 and it’s completely humorless. PG: You should make those bullet points in your sales pitch and do them exploitation style: “Shot in Super-8!” “Completely humorless!” NS: (laughs) Yeah, that’s true. The other thing is, the only way you get movies like Vermillion Eyes released is to have someone who believes in the project. That’s how David Lynch got things like Lost Highway made when it was never going to make a plug nickel, or David Cronenberg with Spider. There are people who believe in them and love their art, even knowing that there’s absolutely no audience for this film. PG: Didn’t he run out of money halfway through that movie? NS: Yeah, but he managed to finish. But look at some of his films—he made a series of viciously uncommercial films, starting with Naked Lunch and Crash and M. Butterfly, even existenz, and finally Spider. How do you make five feature films that nobody goes to see, and still keep making them? That’s because he has a clique of people who love his stuff, and producers who believe in him and will finance whatever he wants to do. I have yet to find someone who loves Vermillion Eyes so much that he’s willing to get it released. PG: Well, hopefully the Image releases will get other people interested in your work, and a release will come from that. NS: Yeah, that would be very nice. PG: So I want to go back to Weasels for a minute. You said that it was filmed in two separate sessions—how long was the total shoot? NS: The first part of the movie was shot in about two to three days—and not full days. I’m talking about a couple of hours and then everyone went home. I mentioned this on the commentary, but the whole part that introduces the guy driving the car up until when he’s killed and the friend runs off was shot entirely in one day—and again, before the sun went down. That was I think the most film I ever shot in one day. The second part, with John and Fred, took longer because it was shot during school. The first part was shot during the summer. We had to shoot after school and weekends, so we only had until sundown, so it was only for a couple of hours. |
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PG: So you basically had from two until six [p.m.]. NS: No, no, we didn’t get out of school until three. By the time we were ready, it was four, so we had about two hours of filming time. PG: So how long did that period take? NS: It took us about a week or so to finish the rest of it. It went much faster when we finally got outside to film the climax. That was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun making Weasels. PG: That comes across—it has a giddy feel to it at times, especially the ending. NS: People always worry when they watch the movie: “Uh-oh…is this it? Is the guy going to throw a bomb and we’re going to see a firecracker?” But no—all hell breaks loose, and you have a couple of nice showdowns before the movie closes. So people are kind of surprised that it has the ending it has. All of my films end with a bang. They have strong opening and strong endings, because I believe that the final image of any film is very important. You have to be left with the impression that you’ve just seen something. |
 We'd explain to you how Fred Borges lost his arm, but you'd never believe us. |
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PG: Do you feel that this is again something that you picked up
intuitively from watching movies? NS: Absolutely. It’s unconscious—I wasn’t thinking about any other movies when I was making this one, incidentally—but I’m sure [my decisions] were unconscious, because many of the movies that my movie is an homage to end in big climaxes. Besides, you know, when I made this movie, I had no idea that anyone else would see it besides friends. But it just grew in popularity…in a way, I think it’s a shame how the film climate has changed, even for low-budget and indie films. Indie films are as polished as Hollywood movies were back in the ‘80s. You really have to have an open mind to appreciate this kind of filmmaking, because it’s so primitive. People expect Wrong Turn. I find it amazing that in reading reviews of that awful remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that people think the original is boring. PG: That’s pretty baffling. So to wrap up on Weasels: I know that John and Fred were friends of yours, but where were you getting the rest of your cast? NS: Again, it was like dominoes: brothers and sisters, friends of brothers and sisters, girlfriends of friends. It was a community thing. Nobody in any of the four features that I made was an aspiring actor. There was one girl that I was found that was studying to be an actress and I auditioned her to be in a small part for Vermillion Eyes, because there was no female lead in that movie. She ended up getting a non-speaking part, and needless to say, we had to finish the scene with another girl because she refused to come back after we shot the scene. PG: Is that your brother who’s in They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore (Edward Schiff is “Guy on Lawn”)? NS: Yes, he’s the first male victim. He’s also one of the kids in Weasels —he pours the stuff down the hole. PG: I guess the most pressing question I have regarding Weasels is: why weasels? I just seems like weasels are…well, they’re weasels. NS: Well, here’s the funny thing. I always loved movies about giant rodents like Night of the Lepus and Food of the Gods, so it was influenced by them. I like movies with animals biting people. I really do. What is more horrifying? If a little tiny animal bit you, you’d freak out. I was holding a lizard once, and it nipped my finger, and I was utterly horrified. This rush of panic went through my whole body. Now, I gently took it off my finger, but I was wondering: “Why did I freak out?” Like it was going to swallow me whole. PG: Maybe because you don’t expect something so small to act aggressively. NS: I guess so. But the thing is, it’s one thing to be attacked by another human being, but to have some mindless creature with sharp teeth sink its teeth into you, that’s terrifying. The only other thing that I’ll tell you--which will make me out to be a complete idiot, and I shouldn’t be telling you (laughs)—so you’re the first person who’s interviewed me to whom I’m revealing this little secret—the cat’s out of the bag. I made a mistake referring to a weasel as a rodent in Weasels. Weasels are not rodents. PG: I was not aware of this myself. So what are they? NS: I forget what they’re called, but they’re in the third family. Ferrets aren’t rodents either. PG: Oh yeah—ferrets and fishers and all that. Well, when this runs, I think this will lead to a better understanding of the weasel family. NS: Absolutely. It’ll be educational. PG: So, you’re done with Weasels, and you’ve got this mass of film that you have to put together. So was there a point where you were like, “I’ve got all this film—what do I do next?” NS: I was cutting it as I went along. The moment I got the film back from the lab, I would start editing it. PG: So where did you learn to do film and sound editing? NS: I got a Super-8 editor for splicing and viewing, and the projector had a sound module on it that I could plug into a record player or an audiotape and record sound effects and music. Again, it was something that was pretty much self-taught. Here’s a perfect example of learning as you go along: Super-8 film has separate tracks—you could put the sound effects music on the left and the dialogue on the right so you don’t endanger the original dialogue track. But when I made Weasels, I didn’t know that. There was a knob on the back that said “Sound on Sound,” which meant that you could mix the sound—you could put sound effects or music over the dialogue track and still hear the dialogue. The only problem was, you had to monitor the secondary sound or it would either be too loud and overwhelm the dialogue or erase it altogether. And once this was recorded, you couldn’t go back. So a lot of dialogue got spoiled because I didn’t know there was a second track. It had to be dubbed over or was erased entirely—like when the guy gets his foot ripped, that’s a perfect example of the sound being too loud. You see their mouths moving, but nothing’s coming out. PG: That’s funny—I don’t remember that. NS: I think that’s because things are moving so quickly in that scene. But to me, that sticks out like a sore thumb. Even to this day, I can’t stand the fact that there’s nothing coming out of their mouths. But things improved with Long Island Cannibal Massacre, because I learned to use the two tracks. PG: I think the two movies are night and day, technically speaking. And not only do things come together much better, it’s also a more atmospheric movie. You can tell you had more time. NS: Yes. We learned a great deal after the first experience. We also learned to not do things that you can’t do. Weasels is a special effects movie, which means you need a monster. And I realized quickly that no only did it look terrible, but I couldn’t show that thing too much without it looking utterly ridiculous. So it was shown very little. I think it was effective in the little bits that you do see…I mean, it looked pretty chintzy… PG: Yeah, but it moves so fast that your reaction is more “What the hell was that?” NS: You know, people actually jump, which is what’s great about it. When I showed it in school at the Student Enrichment Program, and the monster attacks Smihula and you see them in the same shot together for the first time, the whole audience screamed. It was like people were watching Jaws. That was kind of a proud moment. PG: Was that your first public screening of the film? NS: Yes, it was, and it was the most incredible experience—I’ll never have a better experience. It was better than the Manhattan experience. PG: People were cutting class to see your movie. NS: Oh, yes. The principal had to come on the P.A. system—I was right in the commons in Baldwin Senior High School, and suddenly there came this announcement that I wasn’t even expecting, and booming through the whole school: (muffled, authoritative voice) “This is a message from the principal to Baldwin Senior High—please do not see cut classes to go see that movie.” That’s what he said—“that movie.” He didn’t dare say Weasels Rip My Flesh. [The auditorium] could only seat 200 people and there was about 350 people packed in there to watch it. PG: Was that the impetus for you to say, “I’ve gotta make another one”? NS: Well, I was basking in the success of that one, and the funny thing was, it played in the school during June of ’80, when I was graduating. And I was never popular with the girls, but all of a sudden, the elite class was calling me over to their table. The school paper did an article on me. And this beautiful girl who I’d adored for years but could never go near because I wasn’t a joke—all of a sudden she tells me, (breathy voice) “I’ve got your picture on my refrigerator. How did you do that? Can we be in your next movie?” Meanwhile, we’re two weeks away from graduating. PG: Perfect timing. NS: Yeah, right. If this had happened at the beginning of the year, it would have been great. PG: And you never saw that girl again. NS: That’s right—I never have. |
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Coming Soon: Part three. It's sequential.
Here's Part 1.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ -Paul Gaita Home |
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