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 "The
Dead Next Door" has been one of my fave zombie flicks for years and
hence I was more than happy to hook up with J.R. Bookwalter, the writer
and director of that cult flick, on MSN and ask him a couple of
questions about his first steps as a filmmaker, the shooting of the "The
Dead Next Door" and the writing and recording of the film's supercool
soundtrack that has just been released as a limited edition CD on J.R.'s
label Tempe Entertainment!!
So if you're into tons of zombies, bloodshed and
shrill synthie sounds, this interview might be totaly up your alley.
J.R.'s been a really funny and cool guy to talk to and his answers
definitely provide an entertaining and interesting read...
And as if that's not enough, J.R. has also send me
a bunch of freakin' awesome behind-the-scenes photos from the set of "The
Dead Next Door" to make sure the interviews' layout will turn out just
as cool as its content. So here we go, fellow gorehounds!!
Shortfilms
(Shortfilms
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Movie
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Soundtrack
·
Future projects)
As far as I know "The
Dead Next Door" was your very first feature film. But was it also your
first try at filmmaking in general or have you done other projects
before, like working on the sets of other flicks or shooting short
films, for example?
 J.R.:
Yes, first feature film but definitely not my first
experience... I found my mother's Super-8mm movie camera in 1978 when I
was 10 or 11 and starting making little movies, first animating STAR
WARS action figures and later using kids from the neighborhood. My
mother shot a lot of home movies of my sister & I growing up so that was
a big influence!
I kept making shorts right up until DND in 1985, including many music
videos and a 20-minute short called GO INSANE in college, where I also
was an extra in DAY OF THE DEAD and worked as a PA on a local flick.
Are any of these shorts availible on DVD? And if not, could you imagine
to add some 'em as bonus features to, let's say, future Tempe DVDs? Or
would you say it's better if not too many people get to see your first
steps as a filmmaker?
J.R.: I actually put a few
of them on some early Tempe releases... there was one I did for junior
high school called BURNING OF THE SALEM WITCHES that I stuck on
WITCHOUSE 3: DEMON FIRE as an extra, and some of the stuff I did with
David Barton as a kid wound up on the DEAD & ROTTING disc.
We used a lot of commercial music for some of those old shorts so that
would probably preclude doing an official release, but yes, I have
considered it. When I first saw Sam Raimi and
Scott Spiegel's early shorts, I didn't feel so bad... their early stuff
was just as bad as mine.
"The Dead Next
Door" - The Movie
(Shortfilms
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Movie
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Soundtrack
·
Future projects)
Can you still remember when the idea
to shoot a feature film did first come up in your head? Was there any
special happening or so that made you think "Well, I've made quite a few
short films so far, but now it's time for a bigger and more ambitious
project!"?
J.R.: Actually after I quit college in 1985, I had planned
to shoot local industrial films or commercials like Romero had done in
Pittsburgh... doing a feature didn't really enter my head until I met
with "The Master Cylinder" in Detroit and he encouraged me to do it
after watching some of my short films, and even offered to kick in a few
bucks. You don't have to tell me twice! LOL
 Is
it true that Sam Raimi then ended up spending his whole "Evil Dead 2"
fee to finance "The Dead Next Door"? If so, what do you think was it
that finally made him believe in the success of this movie so much?
J.R.: LOL... well, I don't think he spent his whole salary,
that's for sure. You have to remember that the money was spent between
1985 and 1989, by which time he was already onto DARKMAN. But there were
other folks he enlisted to cough up cash, and we found some locals in
Ohio to do the same.
All I can tell you about why is what he told me: He liked me as a person
and thought my short films showed promise, so I think he was just
passing along his good fortune to others, maybe.
Ah, ok... so it took almost four years to finish "The Dead Next Door"?
That's quite a bit of time. Why did it last that long until the movie
was done and ready to hit the screens?
J.R.: Most of the film was shot over the summer of 1986,
but we kept plugging away getting insert and FX shots and also going
back to reshoot things that were too dark or stuff that didn't work. The
final picture was locked by the end of 1988, which should have been
sooner but neither "The Master Cylinder" nor myself knew much about
doing a video finish on a movie at the time so a lot of mistakes were
made. But a good chunk of that time was waiting for money to get to the
next step, during which time I was out shooting weddings or music videos
or whatever to keep the lights on. LOL
Just a short question in between? How did Sam Raimi get the nickname
"The Master Cylinder"?
J.R.: That was his idea... I think he didn't want his name
to overshadow mine so he wanted to use that name in the credits, which I
was a little heartbroken over so I chose not to credit him at all as
Executive Producer (that is, until the remastered version that Anchor
Bay released... by then I had grown up and didn't care, LOL). I think
the name came from some cartoon he liked as a kid whose name escapes me...
Thanks for clearing this up... I was
just curious. But now back to "The Dead Next Door". Once the movie was
finished, what kinda release did it get? Did it go straight to video or
did it hit the silverscreens as well?
J.R.: Noooo... it was unfortunately finished on 1" video
so there really wasn't any hope for it to go theatrical, although we did
have some tests done, blowing a few clips up to 16mm and 35mm to see
what it looked like (not very good). The movie sat around for about a
year before it first debuted in 1990 from a little label called Electro
Video, run by a filmmaker named Tony Elwood who had worked on EVIL DEAD
2 in some capacity. It wasn't a big release by any means, but copies of
the thing started to circulate and people got to see it somehow.
But nevertheless the movie went on to become a true classic and cult
film of the zombie genre... do you know how many copies of "The Dead
Next Door" have been sold so far?
J.R.: No, no way... there have been a lot of bootleg
copies out there over the years on top of shoddy distribution around the
world, so unfortunately there's no way to know for sure.
 Do
you know if the Astro copy I have (as far as I know the only uncut DVD
availible in Germany) is legit or not?
J.R.: The original release was legit, but from what a
friend of mine there has told me, those guys sublicensed it to a bunch
of scoundrels and flooded the market with bootleg copies. What can you
do? It happens...
The movie is also banned in Germany
from what I understand... which is kind of cool.
Definitely!! A few weeks ago you told me in an email that you're
planning to do a special edition DVD that'll be like the ultimate "The
Dead Next Door" release. Can you already give some more info about this?
What extras will it contain and why should even people, who already own
an older DVD, consider to buy that special edition, too?
J.R.: There's a lot of stuff that didn't make it to the
Anchor Bay release because they wanted to keep it to one disc... some TV
commercials that we made for a local broadcast premiere, storyboard
artwork, a tour of some of the locations today and a bunch of other
stuff I can't remember. LOL For now, the Anchor Bay disc is the ultimate
version, but there's some talk of doing a Blu-ray version with the new
extras so we'll see what happens. That's going to take a lot of work on
my end, basically redoing everything I already did for the AB release
but this time in HD.
Sounds cool, I'll surely keep an eye on it. Now one more question about
the film in general, before we come to speak about the soundtrack in
particular. What do you think is the special something about "The Dead
Next Door" that qualifies it as a true cult flick? Why do you think do
gorehounds from all over the world still watch it and enjoy it more than
20 years after it was shot?
 J.R.:
You know, I have to defer to my friend Dennis Petersen, who did some of
the conforming work on the AB release for me (actually handling the
Super-8 film to prepare it for transfer)... he always said that when you
watch the movie, it's got balls... I think he means that it's kind of a
bold flick, lots of crazy stuff going on and it feels very documentary
in style maybe.
I spent many years really disliking the movie... it wasn't until the AB
remastering that I was able to step back and see it for what it was, I
think. It's far from perfect, but it's got some kind of quality that
speaks to people, especially guys like myself that want to make movies,
and gives them hope maybe.
What I love about it is the fact that it has no lengths at all...
right from the start it's just kick-ass zombie action with lots of blood,
cool effects and great makeup. A lot of old horror films take ages until
the first drop of blood pours down and have rather boring effects and
stuff... "The Dead Next Door" however is nonstop zombie massacre!! And
it's still rather funny and tongue-in-the-cheek. That's a great mixture
in my book...
J.R.: Yeah, I have a very black humor and that comes out
in most of my movies... they're not really scary at all in the
traditional sense but I guess enough folks like it, so... but thanks,
you said it better than I did I guess. LOL
"The Dead
Next Door" - The Soundtrack
(Shortfilms
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Movie
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Soundtrack
·
Future projects)
 Another
thing that I think is quite impressive about "The Dead Next Door" is the
fact that even though you were just 19 years old when you started the
shooting, you were involved in almost all aspects of the making of the
flick... you've directed it, produced it, edited it and even recorded
the soundtrack... and
since the latter
has just been released on CD through your label Tempe Entertainment, I'd
like to go a bit into detail about it.
J.R.:
Yeah, I was a bit of a maverick then... I didn't really think about it,
I was just a big kid in an expensive sandbox.
First of all I'd you to tell me a bit about your musical background.
What instruments do you play? And have you taught yourself how to play
them or did you have any formal training?
J.R.:
I was basically self-taught... I was in band during high school and
played trombone and later baritone, but I never really learned how to
properly read or write music. But I always like noodling around with
keyboards. Some guy rear-ended me with his car in 1986 and I got an
insurance check, which I promptly spent on Casio keyboards instead of
repairing my car with. LOL Later I discovered the "rent-to-own" plan at
my local music stores and then I went overboard getting all kinds of
stuff.
In the linernotes of the "TDND" soundtrack CD you say it's all John
Carpenter's fault that you picked up a keyboard 20 years ago and scored
your first feature film yourself. So I guess he's been quite a big
influence on you back then... what aspect of his scores has been so
inspiring for you?
J.R.:
Definitely Carpenter... he was like, "I can't afford a score so I'll do
it myself," although he had the advantage of musical knowledge which I
didn't. But I used to always have soundtrack LPs playing while I would
write scripts or what-not... HALLOWEEN, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, Pino
Donaggio's TOURIST TRAP or THE HOWLING, Goblin's DAWN OF THE DEAD or any
number of others. But Carpenter in particular made it seem more feasible
to do an interesting score yourself, because it was simple, very
effective music.
When and how did you write the "background noise" (as it's been
called in the linernotes) for "The Dead Next Door"? Did you write the
compositions in advance? Or did you write 'em after the shooting was
completed and you could match 'em to the individual scenes?
J.R.:
Most everything was actually scored to the picture... I started with one
of the later rough cuts but it was mostly just playing around because no
decision had been made about who would score the movie until I went to
L.A. to lock the edit with The Master Cylinder. There was some talk
about somebody like Joe LoDuca (who had done THE EVIL DEAD) doing the
score, but in the end I won out because I happened to be in L.A. when
the decision was made to get the sound work done. So I had to have all
of my gear shipped from Ohio to California and holed up in a room at the
house where I was staying and came up with the rest of the score. One of
the tracks, "Left For Dead," was actually written for a movie that a
friend of mine was doing and I had done a vocal version on 4-track maybe
a year before that. I was stuck for an end cue so I just reworked that
without the vocal and called it a day.
 You
have just released the soundtrack of "The Dead Next Door" on your own
label Tempe Entertainment. What does it feel like to finally have the
remastered score availible on CD after all those years?
J.R.:
I think it took me so long because my colleagues and friends basically
teased me years ago about all that old music, so I abandoned scoring any
of my later movies. But as I've remastered each of these movies for DVD
over the years, I figured that it would be a logical step to release the
scores, especially with the popularity of legal music downloading now,
thanks to iTunes and others. I have dabbled with some soundtrack
cassettes (and later, CDs) which we've sold online and they've always
been more of a hobby really rather than a business. But THE DEAD NEXT
DOOR score has never come out in any form, although I actually
premastered a lot of it back in 1997 before I got busy selling my soul
to Charlie Band for 5 years. LOL
Anyway, it's kind of a kick for me to get it out there... it's a lot
less work than making a movie so in some respects it was more rewarding
doing this project.
The CD has been advertised with the words "Strictly for fans of bad
synth music!". That doesn't sound like a large target audience to me...
So I wonder how many copies of the CD have been pressed? Has it got a
wide release or is it just a limited run for the hardcore fans?
J.R.:
It's a limited release for sure, mostly because I went the CD-R
duplication route to keep the costs low. The idea was more to make the
music available via iTunes, Amazon MP3 and the other download
services... the CD was really an afterthought for fans, because I know
they'd rather have something in their hands. And being a fan of bad
synth music, I take offense to the implication that we're not a big
enough audience...
Is this planned to be a one-time affair or will Tempe release a whole
series of B-movie soundtracks? If so, what CDs will be out next?
J.R.:
Ideally I want to get the Tempe music library out there, which includes
my scores for ROBOT NINJA and SKINNED ALIVE, Matthew Jason Walsh's
scores for ZOMBIE COP, KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE, MIDNIGHT 2, THE SANDMAN,
POLYMORPH and BLOODLETTING. There are some other miscellaneous tracks
which I might cobble together for a release as well. I also have a full
album's worth of actual songs with vocals that don't have anything to do
with these movies... stuff I did between 1986 and 1990... but I'm not
sure the world is ready for that yet. LOL
I hope it is!! Would be cool to have some more soundtracks at home
cause every once in a while they're really fun to listen to... however,
the only thing that's a bit sad about the "TDND" soundtrack is the fact
that the cool songs from the credits aren't on there. I don't know the
titles, but I think one of them is simply called "The Dead Next Door"...
couldn't you have added these songs to the soundtrack as bonustracks as
well?
J.R.:
Yeah, I went back & forth over that... I think we own the rights to
those cues but I just wasn't sure so I left them off for now. I tried to
track down the bands but, you know, that was 20+ years ago and they've
all scattered to the four winds. So I figured for now I'll just include
my stuff since there were no possible legal issues there. I'm still
working on the others, they might wind up in a collection of those misc.
tracks down the road.
 Ah,
too bad... but even without them the soundtrack is good fun. Especially
the last track, the instrumental version of "Left For Dead" is really
cool!! What are you personal favorites? Why?
J.R.:
I'm most happy with the first 4 or 5 tracks which had been around longer
than some of the others, but also stuff like "Altar Room Chase" and
"Trapped Like A Rat" are faves. But I agree that "Left For Dead" is one
of the best tracks, which as I mentioned wasn't even written for this
movie, ironically.
As far as why, the tracks I mentioned above sound more full and complete
to me... stuff like "Trapped Like A Rat" has timpani which I dig. Those
were tracks I had more time to spend on, some of the others I was really
under the gun and had no idea what to do. LOL
Future plans and
activities
(Shortfilms
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Movie
·
"The Dead Next Door" - The
Soundtrack
·
Future projects)
Apart from the release of other soundtrack CDs,
what else could we expect from Tempe Entertainment next? What are your
company's plans for the near future?
 J.R.:
Right now my focus has mostly been on the DVD
biz, which is sadly going in the toilet each year I'm afraid. I
executive produced a few shows over the last year or so which are just
coming out... FOREST PRIMEVAL which came out in February, POISON
SWEETHEARTS which hits in July and PLATOON OF THE DEAD which will
probably bow early next year. There will also be some super-huge box
sets later this year. As far as new movies... that's up in the air. I've
been too lazy and unmotivated the last few years to make anything new
myself. LOL
That's too bad... so you really got no idea (or maybe even a finished
script) up your sleeve that you might turn into a movie in the upcoming
months or at least years?
J.R.:
I have a number of completed scripts and things I'd
like to do... but after so many years of making flicks on the cheap, I'd
like to get a reasonable budget to do them. I may be too old now to get
out there with a camera and a few friends.
If you'll ever do another movie, would it be a horror film, too? Or
could you also imagine to do e.g. a comedy or a drama or anything like
that?
J.R.:
I'd like to try my hand at comedy... in my opinion
I've really been making black comedies all along anyway and I think I'd
really be better at that genre than horror! But realistically, it's
easier for me to get a horror movie made and sold. The market is very
different now than it was a few years ago, which has been a big source
of disillusionment for me. Distributors really don't care about the
movies anymore, it's all about making money and not caring what the
customers are forced to endure.
What's your opinion about contemporary horror movies (and zombies
movies in particular)? Have you seen stuff like "28 Weeks Later", "Diary
Of The Dead" or "Planet Terror"? And do you like 'em or do you think
they're kinda missing the charme of the old 80s classics?
J.R.:
My opinion? Not much. Honestly, I stopped watching a
lot of this stuff a few years back because it was so hair-pulling to
watch so much of it. I just found it easier to watch comedies or dramas
or whatever because I didn't have such big expectations of them. I watch
more movies than ever now probably, but my horror diet is almost
nonexistent. My friends in the biz tell me to get out there and make a
good horror movie rather than bitch about it, but... you know, that's
harder than just saying it.
 I
see we've already been chatting for 2 hours now, so it's about time to
come to an end of our interview. So, if our readers have now become
interested in the "TDND" soundtrack CD and your other work, what's the
best place to check 'em out and buy 'em?
J.R.:
Internationally your best bet is a UK store called
MovieGrooves.com or maybe Amazon.com and it's always available
at tempevideo.com as well. It will be on all of the
iTunes stores worldwide as well starting tomorrow, May 20.
Cool... thanks for your time and effort with this interview!! Since
I've been a fan of "The Dead Next Door" for years, it's really been a
pleasure to ask you some questions and get to know more about that great
flick and its director!! But anyway, I better shut up now and leave the
famous last words to you.
J.R.:
Hey, what is everybody doing reading my babbling? Get
out there and buy that music, doggone it! LOL! But on a more serious
note, as always I appreciate the support of all the folks who have
discovered these whacky movies over the years, and folks like you who
care enough to pick my brain. Especially to be talking about this stuff
so many years later... it's surreal!
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