With their burglar-versus-serial killer shocker The Collector opening in theaters nationwide today, filmmakers Marcus Dunston and Patrick Melton were kind enough to sit down with me for a revealing chat about the making of their unforgiving new flick, their love of Italian horror legend Dario Argento, the state of the Saw franchise, and just what went wrong with their proposed remake of the William Castle classic The Tingler.

Me: I wanted to start by talking about your transition from writing to directing. You’ve written numerous screenplays and directing is a pretty big leap.

MD: The way it happened?

PM: Accident!

(laughs)

MD: Well, it happened because of Pat. We were in a meeting with this idea, the premise of a thief breaking into a house with the intention of robbing his employer, unwittingly interrupting a home invasion by a horribly vicious killer, and the two movie villains go “Wham!” — with the lesser of two evils hopefully winning, but probably not.

Me: The crime versus the horror.

MD: Yeah, absolutely. And that (distracted by my T-shirt) — is that a that Suspiria T-shirt or…

PM: Deep Red.

I pull my other shirt aside to reveal the InfernoT-shirt underneath.

MD and PM: (Surprised) Inferno!

Me: Ha! Fooled both of you!

MD: ’Cause that’s the guy I’m trying to rip off.

Me: I know. I read that in the press notes and didn’t expect that!

PM: As soon as I saw that “rio Arg” I thought it would be the pale ballet and the trickle of blood from that Suspiria cover…

Me: Nah, I’m going for the sequel today.

PM: In that case I’ve got a couple of tidbits… I shouldn’t reveal this, but there’s a particular sound sting we used from Tenebre on a shot where we mimic Tenebre. The sound where the psychic from Deep Red screams before she opens the door with the killer, every female character in jeopardy in the movie has that same (makes gasping sound) that we tried to sample from, the killer’s gloves are black and wet…

PM: Backing up just a little bit, it should be mentioned that Marcus has always been directing films. Even when he was in film school he was always a really creative and inventive director, and when everyone in film school was doing the film like, you know, my dad touched my pecker and I’m really sad about it, he was doing the world’s slowest zombie chase, which consisted of an elderly man on his walker going down the street and the zombies are coming — and these are Romero zombies — they’re coming slowly but he’s going a little bit faster and they’re getting closer and closer until the old man falls down. And here they come to get him when he’s got his cane hooked to the bumper of a car and — “Vroom!” — he drives off.

MD: Hitched a ride!

PM: And that was this Film 101 thing that he did. So it was like, this guy is leaps and bounds ahead of what other people are doing. With this one, though, this was originally a short film called “The Thief.”

Me: Before the trailer that you shot to sell The Collector?

PM: Yeah, before Project Greenlight. It was when we were just struggling and Marcus was working at the Blockbuster and I wasn’t, and we wrote the short with the intention that Marcus was going to be the director for like $20,000 or something like that, and before we could do that — we were pretty close — we won Project Greenlight. So that film got put on the backburner. But slowly, while we’ve been doing the Feast stuff and the Saw stuff, we were always progressing on this script that later became “The Midnight Man” and now is called “The Collector.” So not until a week ago did we finally see the final print with the sound and the picture all done and it was like, “Wow!”

Me: It had to be a pretty amazing moment.

PM. It was. And it was about seven years to finally get it done.

MD: …and we thought it would be easy!

(both laugh)

PM: Well, we had limited characters, one location. Should be able to be made for a price, and that price was a little higher perhaps than we thought it would be, but the proof is in the pudding because it’s really darn good — and I know that’s me, and biased — but watching it as an observer, too, what Marcus was able to pull off with very limited resources and time and he was able to put it together, a lot of times by himself, and me even wondering “I don’t know if this is going to work!” and then at the end him pulling it off. It’s probably the proudest thing that we’ve done.

Me: What was the biggest challenge during the production?

MD: There were a mountain of them! I mean, ultimately, I think the biggest challenge with anything like this is time. Based on the script pages, [The Collector] was a $4.3 million budget that we needed and 36 days to shoot it; we were given 19 days and $2.5 million. So we wagered our writing duties to Dimension to kick that up to about $3 million. So yeah, we’ll take a run at Hellraiser but we want to shoot film. Why? Well there’s 100 reasons why, but fortunately we never wanted to pretend like it would ever be on a shelf. It was always going to be up there; it was always going to be 30 x 40. That was never a reality until Mickey Liddell came in, 48 hours before we were to be shipped off to shelfdom, and said, “No, it wasn’t going out.” And even with that, it was supposed to be 500 screens if we’re lucky and as of today we’re at 1,400 — and it keeps growing. So this was a triumph over time, I think, it was also like this was the first one. This was the first one where Pat and I have been able to wear two hats of a three-hat chain, being you write, you direct, and you edit — those are the three hats of the storyteller. We were able to hang on to two this time. That was amazing because there’s no one there to sharpen your knives and make anything more keen; you’re judging yourself.

Me: A bit of a trial by fire.

MD: Yeah! …and if it was any easier, it wouldn’t have been worth it.

Me: Going from screenwriter to director, did you find yourself editing things later on, or was it hard to give up stuff that you wanted in the movie? Things that you guys had in the original draft that didn’t make it?

MD: Oh, goodness, yes! You know, 15 pages just “poof!” gone with that schedule. And yes, pretty much I spent everything I made writing Saw sequels, more like working on Saw sequels — [Patrick] being the writing engine on those — to shoot those scenes. Then go back and use every favor from the crew that had worked in Shreveport (Louisiana) and Los Angeles to find another three days here, another two days there, then, all of a sudden, our characters have the backstory they needed. You know, “Wow! Now I care for them, and when they go through the wringer it hurts all the more!”

Me: Right.

MD: Then, you know “Gosh, we can’t really have this 15 minutes of character development because we promised this thriller or horror movie so we need that opening scare! I know you cut it because we didn’t necessarily need it” Well, so then we went and shot it. That was helpful, and it was just going inch by inch and try to protect that initial thought: Stay up late, work hard, push hard to get a chance to tell the story.

Me: Well, it certainly sounds like you’re pretty satisfied with how it turned out.

PM: Yeah. This whole project was an incredibly roundabout way to shoot the script that we originally wrote. We went to Shreveport and we shot probably 75% of the movie, and then we came back over the next year and a half to Los Angeles and the surrounding Los Angeles area, where we were able to fill in the remaining 25% and then some — the stuff that we had to cut out even before we had a locked draft. It makes you realize, looking at it as a writer and a then as a filmmaker — because first we wrote it as a writer — and it’s just “Tonight’s going to be rain so that’s just what we’re going to write!” And it sounds good, but then when you get into the process of doing it and it becomes “How are we going to pull this off?” you start having to rewrite on the fly and not necessarily for the right reasons. Until we eventually got back to what this story originally was and it certainly took a while. It was a great learning experience, too, that next time you write, “Night. Rain” it sounds wonderful on the page and looks wonderful in your head, but man, it can be brutal when it’s 29 degrees and 40-mile-an-hour winds and people are turning white.

Me: I liked the anecdote about (lead actor) Josh Stewart’s hair freezing and turning white!

PM: It was warmer with the rain machine on you than it being off of you because it was the only thing that was above freezing.

MD: It was just incredible, and yet in some cases the limitations are very helpful. For example, you can envision an action scene in 30 shots, but you’ve got an hour and a half left so you have to come up with a way to do it in about four (shots). And if it’s TV-style it maybe ends up lacking impact — but I went back to the Argento library every time he would use the camera as the silent observer in a way, and he would leave the lovely damsel in distress, just let it drift along to something pretty, something of color or something of glass and, wait, “Oh gosh, there’s the threat!” And then, he leaves the threat now that it’s found a way to get in to the damsel in distress and then it just hangs right on the back of her shoulders and you’d be waiting, waiting, waiting for the strike. And this gentle movement here, and discovery, became far more effective than “Whizbang! Cut! Cut!” you know, Avid fart, whatever you want to call it where it’s just overdone for a sensory overload that isn’t required. Forty-five minutes of this movie is silent; it’s not dialogue driven, it’s cat-and-mouse between two badasses dressed in black. One’s vicious, one’s desperate — who’s gonna win? So then the sound becomes a big, big player when you don’t have dialogue, so we went to what we loved when we were up against it and had to turn up something loud and proud so we could get through the night. And Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome Dillon did our score, and it’s a wonderful score.

Me: So did he go back to the Italian stuff, too? Perhaps some Goblin influence?

MD: No, that was the thing. He was not supposed to be influenced by anything visual, it was all supposed to be like, “Check out what this story is,” and you know that backbeat from “With Teeth,” let’s bring that in and start to create a sonic soundscape. The thief will be represented by instruments that are electronic, while the killer, being of an insect/entomology bent, will be string-based (mimics a plucking sound) to create these kind of sonic characters. It was a wonderful challenge and a great joy to see these things come to life. And then, once again, in comes the awesome Mickey Liddell who’s like, “You want some songs?” Which we’d been begging for, we’d been chasing. And then all of a sudden we have Korn; we have Bauhaus; we have Depeche Mode, and this movie is becoming the fever-dream version of what we always wanted to deliver. I guess the ultimate moment of satisfaction for us came when we did just watch it last week and this isn’t that thing where you just sit in the back chewing on your knuckles going, “If I’d only had more time I could have just got that other shot!” No. This is exactly what we wanted to show you. So, love it or hate it, there’s nothing for us to defend because it is exactly what the intention was. That feels really good.

Me: Not a lot of filmmakers get that, especially on their first film!

MD: No! And we didn’t have all the bucks in the world, but we sure had the desire to please the audience with a story that we believe in.

PM: And a lot of it was that we never really had a release date because Dimension didn’t know what the hell they were going to do with it. This happened with us on Feast, as well, where we kind of sat there for 18 months working on it and, you know, the more time you have the better it’s always going to get.

Me: So it sounds like Mickey Liddell in particular really came through for you guys.

PM: Oh, big time!

MD: Oh, absolutely!

PM: He added elements of music. He let us shoot things that we really wanted that completely enhanced it. He took it from a “B” to an “A” just by giving us the resources that we never had before.

MD: He has a very rich background in television, where he was very hands-on in keeping stories intact, so he came in, and within an instant saw the areas we were so hungry to fill out, agreed, and made it so. His editorial eye as well as his producer skills allowed something well beyond the restraints of our production to occur.

Me: That’s a great producer!

DM: It’s the one you dream about but you rarely meet. He’s the skin-and-bones version of it. He’s the real deal. He’s also a director. He directed his own movie (The Haunting of Molly Hartley).

PM: So he can sympathize with a lot of the things.

MD: When he sees the writer’s eyes go big and beg for something, he knows where it’s coming from because he was once on a set having to fight the deadline, get the thing, because he saw something just up ahead. Just grab it! Just get that shot! So he’ll tell you “yes.”

Me: You’ve worked a lot in sequels. Do you find it more rewarding to create an original framework from scratch or to work within the kind of structure that’s already set in place with sequels?

MD: Well, the nice thing was that with Feast 1, 2, and 3, we and John Gulager were able to release every thought for that horror universe, and there’s creatures and mayhem, but the budgets were low enough that we could get away with murder because when the investment doubles, triples, quadruples, so does the restraint. So that was really a blast. That was almost like the type of filmmaking where (whispers) “Mom and dad are gone. Let’s rip it up!” and then you have Saw, which is a phenomenon. To be a part of that opened our eyes to another way of working, but it was a very serious, very intricate machine that also had a reputation and a bible of its own to respect. Then this film comes along and we were able to pull off a couple of things that we had wanted to see in movies for some time. We were able to put the thriller character into a horror scenario. People with layers, flaws — that horror movies usually invite you to whack off in the first ten minutes. No. We wanted to see what would happen when they stepped into the mainframe. What if someone who was desperate had to get violent?

Me: I imagine half the fun of it is just coming up with outrageous scenarios to put the characters in. You got do it with comedy in the Feast films, horror with the Saw films, and thrillers with this.

MD: Well that was the nice thing in Feast. It was always like, “What do we keep seeing?” Why don’t they ever kill a baby? Let’s realllly kill a baby. And it’s going to be bad but funny. How do you make killing a baby funny? Just watch. (laughs) That’s righteous, that’s amazing to have the option to play in that arena, whereas with Saw, Saw’s captivating element is that all of us have a vice. What a Saw villain will do is trap you in a room with a mechanical version of it, put on a timer, and see if people can survive the worst of themselves. That’s great. I think that’s an open, endless landscape to explore. Plus, the producers know the end of what they’ve begun, and it’s a whopper, so we’re thrilled to be a part of that. If we may pimp one item, the editor of Saw 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 also directed 6. Kevin Greutert, who also edited The Strangers, and he’s one hell of a filmmaker. 6 is probably the finest of the entries that we’ve been participating with. This guy is Babe Ruth. He pointed to the stands and swung.

Me: Sounds like he was the man for the job since he knows the series through and through.

MD: He really does. I’ve already seen Saw 6 three times, and it just keeps getting better. So I’m excited for Saw fans that have been sticking around because I think it’s going to reward someone that’s come back Halloween after Halloween to get a shock and surprise. I’m real excited for Kevin; I think he’s a great filmmaker.

Me: In talking about the collector there’s been mention of putting a “new face” on horror. Aside from the Saw mask and maybe The Strangers masks, it seems like there’s been a shortage of iconic horror masks in the past decade or so. What can you tell us about the thought that went into designing the mask for The Collector?

MD: Well, in this film, the protagonist and the villain each wear a mask. The burglar pulls down his, made of cotton, to conceal, and then the killer laces his up from the back S&M style. It’s Mr. Bad and Mr. Worse coming face to face with an innocent family in between. When a killer wears a mask in horror movies, it becomes their iconic stamp on the world, and we wanted to participate in that a little bit. If Feast was taking place in a bar right outside the woods from Evil Dead II, The Collector is supposed to be taking place in a house on the far other side of the town where The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is going on — dark figures, very demented psyches going at it in an artistic world. That was the idea.

Me: It’s hard to get a good look at the mask in the trailers, though the brief glimpses I saw made me think of the mask David Cronenberg wore in Nightbreed.

MD: Yeah! What’s really nasty is when you get really close to the mask and you start to see that the effects gentleman Gary Tuncliffe, who did Pinhead for years and the creatures from Feast, made the mask, and there’s bits of hair and fiber and different things in there. It’s an odd cacophony of things you don’t want to touch.

Me: Did you work with him to design it?

PM: There was an original mask that we had that was a little familiar to some other things, and when Gary came in, Marcus told him some ideas like that we wanted something dark since it takes place at night and it’s supposed to sort of match the mask, in a way, that Arkin wears — this black ski mask. But even more so than the mask, it’s an aspect of the killer’s eyes. Which is something that he (motions to special effects artist David Karlak) enhanced. It like when you see a dog when the light goes past and it sort of reflects, something like that. So we added that element to it, and it’s supposed to be kind of creepy…

MD: I love the idea that the reflective eye has no sympathy. It’s just gunning for you.

Me: Let’s talk a little bit about the special effects. Are there a lot of digital effects?

DK: Well this gentleman here (motions toward Marcus) gave me the opportunity to do effects for his movie as sort of filling a vacuum that was left by a previous company. So I came in and started doing shots here and there that were outside of the main visual effects list — shots that would have been too expensive to farm out. One of them involved the camera going through this thunderstorm above the clouds and then lightning strikes the house. You imagine a shot like that and then you realize that a shot like that can get kind of expensive, so I was the go-to person for those kind of shots, and once I started turning those over I was asked to do all the visual effects shots in the movie, and right now I think the total number is around 138 — anything from wire removal to blood augmentation.

MD: And two full 3-D creations from scratch.

DK: Yeah.

MD: Aerial photography.

DK: Yeah. Two fully CG shots of stuff like the shot of a forest where these headlights are making their way through this dark world of trees and fog. That scene alone had half a billion polygons. To give some perspective, Gollum in Lord of the Rings only had about 80,000. That took about three days to render on the render forum. It was pretty incredible that a lot of this was able to be accomplished with just me on my home computer, but also with the help of such other individuals as Alex Friderici — he was one of the animators on Pan’s Labyrinth and helped do the animation for the CG spiders, which are used as a kind of motif in the movie. Adding to the whole entomology story point.

Me: Looks like time is running out, so we’ll only be able to sneak in a few more quick questions. Did the MPAA give you any problems when you submitted the film for an R rating?

MD: Four trips to the MPAA! Five trips to the MPAA for our trailer alone. What was normally three minutes we had to cut down to one minute, thirteen seconds to get enough footage together to deliver the intent. But even the montage that was supposed to excite you… the tone was too intense. But the film itself, I think they actually helped.

Me: Really? You don’t hear that very much!

MD: Yeah. There’s one scene that — I loved it — but it was gratuitous, and we only lost seven seconds of material from version one to this one, but none of the impact. So it helped because sometimes the less you see, the more the mind fills in — the more real it becomes. Whereas gratuitous spurting all of a sudden becomes Tex Avery.

Me: …or Feast!

MD: Yeah! That was a celebration of visceral and arterial spray! So as stress-inducing as it was, it was actually helpful. We landed it too far; they brought us back to just the right amount of too far — I think!

Me: Last thing — any news on “The Tingler”?

MD: Thanks for bringing it up, but we don’t know! It was definitely a really cool process to go into William Castle territory. It could not be more different from the world of Saw and the world of Feast.

PM: We set out to do a really good monster movie. It’s really strange because it was really good, and Neal Moritz who’s the producer on it, really liked it. We were all very excited about it. But we were with Columbia, and the most genre thing they make is Spider-Man and Hitch. They just didn’t quite get it.

MD: There’s one other element, too — right when we turned that thing in, Prom Night made $22 million. So they’re like, “What’s the PG-13 possibility and can these be kids?”

PM: Ours was very much more of The Thing ilk. An older lead who’s flawed and kind of tragic and kind of “Well, what if we set it in a high school?” and we made it PG-13, but we couldn’t really get our heads around that. So they may have taken it in a different direction with different writers, but I don’t know. It was very good, though; it’s unfortunate that it got sort of stuck there because I don’t think it will ever get made there with the current regime.

Me: Bummer. No buzzers on seats anytime soon, eh?

MD: That was the fun part! That was actually an executive’s idea, that should it be made do little test screenings with that — because there were strategic attack scenes in there. It’s a movie that I do hope gets made in some incarnation because it was so much fun to turn fear itself into an animal, and let that animal loose!