By Ryan Gowland.
Neil Marshall and Axelle Carolyn
The horror anthology has been having a resurgence lately, dating back to 2009’s Trick ‘r Treat and continuing with the V/H/S and ABCs of Death franchises. The latest contender for a horror anthology franchise is Tales of Halloween, featuring ten segments unfolding over one Halloween night in a suburban town and directed by a virtual who’s who of the genre’s top directing talents. Axelle Carolyn (Soulmate) created the project as a vehicle for not only her and her husband Neil Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers) but their many horror director friends, dubbed The October Society, who frequently get together to celebrate the genre.
Featuring the talents of Darren Lynn Bousman (The Devil’s Carnival, Saw II-IV), Adam Gierasch (Night of the Demons), Lucky McKee (All Cheerleaders Die, May), Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider!), Dave Parker (The Hills Run Red) among others, Tales of Halloween is filled with trick or treating kids, competitive neighbors, aliens, witches, ghosts, monsters, and literally almost everything else that can and will go bump in the night, including a vengeful, evil pumpkin.
Creative Screenwriting spoke to Marshall and Carolyn, who also produced and helped organize the film’s many segments (“Adam Gierasch recently said my job was cat herding” explained Carolyn), about collaborating, how directing will help you overcome your obsessive compulsive disorder, a potential sequel and how The Descent is just fine the way it is.
How did this project come together?
Axelle Carolyn: We used to live in London, Neil and I and we used to travel a lot to Los Angeles. The first time we went we met a whole group of friends and they were all making horror movies. I’m a massive horror fan and obviously so is Neil so we kind of felt like we were very at home and as we started visiting more often and then moving here and realizing, this is something really unique and we haven’t seen this in any other city where you have a bunch of filmmakers who hang out, watch movies together and have a genuine passion for the genre. I thought it was kind of silly that we all hang out and discuss other people’s movies when we could all get together and make one.
And so the idea of an anthology was born a few years ago out of that desire of just doing something with my friends and then it’s only early last year that the theme should be Halloween because we celebrate Halloween in massive style every year so it just made sense to make this a giant celebration of all things horror and Halloween.
Was it a collaborative process?
AC: I was in charge of making sure all the directors were on the same page and connecting the script and making sure everybody’s happy and is part of every decision. And that was, from the very beginning, from the moment we decided to do this and got the producers on board, we would pitch each other ideas and bounce ideas off of each other and you’d see people go, “Yeaaah, that’s okay…” And you’d know that maybe it needed it more work or you need to find something else.
And then throughout the script process, they would send me the scripts and I would gather them and see if they were different enough from each other and if the stories made sense and fit into the same universe that we were trying to create. And then if I thought that something didn’t quite work, I’d usually ask for somebody else’s notes or ask Neil what he thought or Mike Mendez what he thought or somebody else. And then I would gather the notes and send them out to the filmmakers.
On a couple of occasions we worked with the filmmakers to get the script as good as it could be but they’re all super-talented people so it was very exciting to see. But for myself, getting notes from people I respect and admire, it was an awesome process.
NM: I think also it was very much a sense of collaboration as opposed to competition, because it wouldn’t benefit the film to have one bad segment in there, so we all looked out for each other. It wasn’t like we were trying to to do the best segment ourselves at the expense of somebody else. We all want to raise our game and do the best we possibly can, but anything we could suggest that might help or improve anybody else’s segment was valid as well and we were all open to that. We were all open to each other’s ideas.
AC: Yeah, there was no sense of anybody wanting to crush anybody else. It was very clear from the beginning that the anthology was only going to be as good as the weakest segment. We all wanted to show what the horror community comes up with, so we want it to be a great piece of work all together.
Tales of Halloween at Scare LA
You’ve mentioned before that the financing for this came together rather quickly. Was that a refreshing change for you?
NM: Definitely a refreshing change! Moviemaking is compromise and so what you sacrifice in terms of time – or what you gain by getting financing incredibly quickly – is what you sacrifice in terms of budget. Obviously, this isn’t a mega-budget movie, but we also gain creative freedom for that as well. So it’s all question of balance. It’s amazing that we got it together in that amount of time and it added to the energy and character of the piece, I think. It’s frustrating that other things take so long.
AC: It’s not a big budget, so everybody was doing it generally for the right reason, because we wanted to have creative control of all the story – which usually doesn’t happen. I think there was a huge amount of enthusiasm from the beginning from the directors, but also from the producers. Everybody was on board with it and wanted to make it happen. So I think that played a huge part in making it happen so fast.
How did you come up with the idea for each of your segments?
NM: I know I was trying to come up with an idea and at some point a killer pumpkin came about. I think maybe I was chopping vegetables or something and the thought of a pumpkin getting revenge on Halloween for all the pumpkins that get cut open and have their innards ripped out. As soon as that clicked then the rest fell in very, very easy. It sort of sets its own tone when you do a killer pumpkin story, like it has to be tongue-in-cheek. So once that initial idea sparked, then the rest was pretty straightforward.
AC: He was trying to come up with an idea for scary stuff and then suddenly he came up and went, “I’m going to make one about a killer jack-o-lantern.” And I said, “That is not scary, Neil!”
For mine, it was partly because I made a movie about a ghost called Soulmate and it’s more of a psychological drama and I thought it would be really fun to make a ghost story that was actually scary. And also because I thought the movie needed something more serious. And because I couldn’t crack something that made sense I started looking into urban legends about Halloween for inspiration.
One was about the mirror where you look in at night and see your future husband. I thought that was really creepy! The other one was that on Halloween night, whatever you do, don’t turn around if you hear footsteps behind you… because you might not like what happens. I was inspired by the Disney version of Sleepy Hollow – The Adventures of Ichabod Crane – and by The Haunted Mansion – also Disney – and turned it into this “a ghost will follow you home” kind of idea. Just a simple set-up that leads to a scare.
NM: I think in terms of coming up with ideas for stories, if you give ten horror directors carte blanche to do whatever they want within the boundaries of it being Halloween in a town, that many of us came up with more quirky, funny ideas as opposed to terror ideas and we kind of noticed that early on. So we also wanted to make sure that there was alarm. I mean this was a horror movie and people should be scared too.
AC: Yeah, they kind of left that to me and Dave Parker [who directs the first segment “Sweet Tooth,”] to make something serious.
Axelle, you’ve had such a varied career working is several different fields [writing for Fangoria, acting], but I know you’ve said you found your calling with directing. What is it about directing that you find so satisfying?
AC: I think, to be honest, I’ve always known that I wanted to make something in film, but I think I had trouble saying, “Yes, I want to direct” because it seemed like such a giant enterprise. It seemed crazy to me because it’s so unusual for people to make a career out of this. And so it took working in all kinds of different capacities to finally get the strength to go, “OK, I’ve got a script. I like it. I’m ready. I can finally go and direct this.”
I think if your passion is telling stories, it’s the best possible way. And from the first moment I was on set of my first short film I was like, “Yes!” It seems daunting, you think, “Am I cut out for this?” because it’s not just the creative side, it’s also being able to get the best out of people, it’s about having this global vision for how every single piece can fit together…
I remember being on set my first day and we shooting in a hospital and I – I get hugely OCD, I hate touching things that are dirty, so hospitals are not a good place for me – and I didn’t even think about it! I was super happy, I was like, “I don’t even notice I’m in a hospital, this is fantastic, I love it! I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing!” And that made me realize that this was really worth pursuing because I definitely never had that feeling during any of the other work that I’d done.
Neil, you’ve been working more in TV than features lately. Is that because it’s been so hard to get a project going?
NM: It’s part of it, I’ve certainly not been avoiding features, though it has been great getting back into the world of horror film and the festival circuit with Tales of Halloween. The movie making world is evolving constantly – it’s changed dramatically in the five years since Centurion came out – thinking of the kinds of films getting financed. You have to evolve with the times, but with people offering me TV work, it’s difficult to say no. It’s good work. But Tales of Halloween has really whet my appetite to jump back into more genre stuff.
Are you thinking of pushing one of the projects you’re currently attached to or a new feature?
NM: Well, like every director out there you can’t just pursue one project. I’ve got multiple irons in various fires in the TV world and movies as well.
If you were to make another feature, would you go back into the horror genre?
NM: Well, there’s no “if” about it, I’m determined to do more features. I want to find another great horror project to do. It’s not easy, but yeah.
As a big fan of The Descent, it’s now ten years old. What are your thoughts of it ten years later?
NM: That I’m ten years older, which is scary. My thoughts about it are that I’m as proud of it as ever and amazed that, ten years later, people are still talking about it and that it’s kind of ageless. I saw it recently at a film festival as part of an anniversary screening and I was really amazed at how it doesn’t age at all.
Anything you think you would do differently now?
NM: Not really. There’s a couple effects that look a bit ropey, but otherwise I wouldn’t change a thing.
Getting back to Tales of Halloween, is there talk of a sequel already?
AC: There’s been talk of it mostly from people who’ve seen the film, which is exciting. I think we would all love to do one but it really depends if people go see it and whether there’s demand. I don’t know if it could be next year because it’s very quick turnaround but we’d love to work together again for sure. The fact that we’re still all friends after working on this for a year and a half and being together almost all of the time and discussing this together it shows we did something right, I guess.
NM: It sort of reeks of arrogance to talk about a sequel when the first one hasn’t come out yet, so I don’t know. I don’t know if we want to hex it, but I think everybody wants to keep an open mind.
If you were to do a sequel, would you keep the same group or would you open up to other directors?
AC: I don’t know. I don’t know, that would be really hard. I think we’d have to change the concept somehow and maybe we could open it up to a different group, I don’t know. I just think if we try to open it up to other people we’d run into a lot of trouble and if we don’t, we’ll also run into a lot of trouble.
NM: It’d also just be worth asking who would want to do another, you know? Maybe not everyone would want to do another one.
AC: Would you do another one, Neil?
NM: I’d do another one, yeah! I already got another one in mind.
