Brian: Who were your first horror
inspirations? - The Universal monsters? - James
Arness as the Thing? - Vincent Price being such a
good papa to Diana Rigg in 'Theater of
Blood'?
Joe: I remember
the first horror films I ever saw as a 6 year old
on TV, a triple feature of 'The Monster
That Challenged the World', 'The
Return of Dracula' and 'The
Mummy's Ghost'. The next ten years are a
smattering of images, but Price in 'Theater
of Blood' and the 'Phibes'
films and the Hammer Dracula and Frankenstein
films and Chaney's Phantom were big for me. I
really enjoyed the idea of the monster as main
character. -In my early teens I saw 'Night
of the Living Dead' for the first time
on WABC in New York and it was a late night
showing.... I'd never seen an indie low-budgeter
before and I couldn't get over how raw the film
looked.... and you couldn't predict who would
survive. It almost felt like I was watching a
documentary.... an effect that was intensified
when they'd super "A DRAMATIZATION"
over the scenes of the TV announcer to avoid any
Orson Welles-style panics. - What really did it
for me though was the original 'Dawn of
the Dead'. I saw it first run
theatrically at 15 and it was like nothing I ever
saw. The characters, the story, the shock images
- I saw 'Star Wars' the year before and it made
me want to get into entertainment, but it was 'Dawn'
that made up my mind on what genre t pursue.
Brian:
Since 'War of the Dead: Z.E.R.O.' has
such a huge back story I was interested in
knowing whether you are influenced by the classic
epic storytellers such as Robert Louis Stevenson
and Charles Dickens?
Joe:
Sadly, I had no patience for the classics in
school so I never read them until later in life.
For me, the epic stories were sci fi. I must have
read 'Dune' and 'The
Martian Chronicles' more than a dozen
times each. I was always dismayed that no-one
endeavored to do an epic horror story because the
prevailing wisdom is that horror is an emotion
best brought out in small, claustrophobic
environs. I think King's 'The Stand'
is the closest I ever found to an epic horror
story and Romero's 'Dead' series
could be the closest thing cinematically. The
Universal monster films, when watched in regular
intervals, can be considered close, but the
stories decay in credibility and quality toward
the end of each cycle. I like to think that where
we want to go with 'War of the Dead' is close to
an epic horror story if only in scope.
Brian:
What was your initial impetus to create the
Zombie Outbreak Survival kit and did you ever
think it would be such a career builder for you?
Joe: Frankly,
it was just an attempt to see if we could create
original product to sell on fangoria.com, which I
had built for the publishers. We were selling
other companies' products, but they weren't being
released regularly enough, so I asked Norm Jacobs
and Rita Eisenstein if I could try it out and it
became the biggest seller on the site outside of
subscriptions. I've always loved gag gifts and
thought that a "first aid kit" for a
zombie epidemic would be different enough to
appeal to the horror fan, and it blew up into a
whole 'Civil Defense' kind of
thing, with the posters and the "how to
recognize different classes of zombies"
flash cards. Z.E.R.O. was invented as the agency
that distributed the kits to the citizenry, and
all of that stuff was just me working out my
creative frustrations after several long years of
doing corporate marketing. - As for a
"career builder", I just hoped I could
sell enough of them to start paying bills and not
have to work for The Man anymore. We've sold over
20,000 of the damn things. Who knew?
Brian:
How did you get from the Zombie Outbreak Survival
kit to the characters peopling 'War of
the Dead: Z.E.R.O.'?
Joe:
That's mostly Mike DiSario. 'The War of
the Dead' "saga" (yeesh)
follows the adventures of a few generations of
people, from the first outbreak all the way to
the final confrontation between the living and
the dead. - Obviously, way out of the scope of
indie productions. Mike's true gift is in
recognizing the small window in the epic timeline
and focusing on how everyday people would act in
outrageous situations. I gave him an outline on
how the Z.E.R.O. organization was structured, how
a particular team would be made up and respond to
situations and he came up with the specific
characters in the team. The idea of the
psychiatrist evaluating the team after a mission
was all his as well.
Brian: Was
it frustrating when first realized your budget
for 'Z.E.R.O.' wouldn't be able
to support the grand ideas that you wanted to
bring forth? Or did you just immediately move
onto Plan B?
Joe: Actually,
digital video production allowed us to go beyond
where we though we would with the Z.E.R.O. idea
and it was Melissa Rubin who used her indie
training to stretch a dollar. We knew there was
no way to start at what is to me the more
exciting eras of the War, like the 'Planet
of the Apes' -kind of world ruled by the
'Dead in the Seventh Age', but I
went the complete opposite extreme initially. I
saw how many people were making these crappy
backyard zombie flicks and I thought "why
can't we do an affordable section of the saga and
do the same?" - At that point, I was fully
prepared to do a "backyard zombie film"
style of project, as so many of them were being
done and distributed (much to my amazement).
Melissa showed me that we could do something of
quality for not a lot of money.
Brian:
The second episode of 'War of
the Dead: Z.E.R.O' focuses on Tara, the
female member of the Zombie Emergency Response
Operations. I have always found horror to be a
wonderful emergence zone for powerful female
characters. Do you have any particular thoughts
on feminism and horror?
Joe:
I think we are in a terrible spot right now, with
all the torture porn coming out of the smaller
studios like Lionsgate. On the DIY and indie
front, I'm sickened by all the faux-snuff and
serial-killer-worship themes. I think there are
some really disturbed people working out some
issues in those areas. I'm no prude by any means,
and I love gore, but as long as it serves the
story. I don't think there have been enough
strong female characters in the horror genre
outside of the
brave-mother-defending-her-family-against-the-unknown
or the
serial-killer-victim-who-got-away-and-uses-the-killer's-weapon-
against-him. To me, no-one equaled Fran in the
original 'Dawn of the Dead'. She
knew that the possibility of her male companions'
death was very real and demanded to know how to
use a gun and fly a helicopter to survive. Sarah
Polley in the Dawn remake is up there, too, now
that I meditate on it. This episode of Z*E*R*O is
so woman-focused, given the interplay between
Dina Cataldi (Tara), Lynn Mastio Rice (Dr.
Orchid) and our guest star Devon Marie, we joke
that it's a "Lifetime movie with exploding
heads". Anything more will spoil the story,
but you'll see for yourself.
Brian: Can
you tell me a little about your working
relationship with Z.E.R.O.'s writer/director
Michael DiSario and producer Melissa Rubin?
Joe:
I can only hope that they want to keep working
with me once they become unaffordable. They are
incredibly talented and easy to work with.
Melissa is a no-nonsense producer with a
laser-sharp command of facts and details and
unafraid to kick my ass if my ideas get too
expensive. Mike DiSario is a great writing
partner. He'll take a germ of a concept and
extrude it into a fully-fleshed, believable
scenario and he's a deft, light touch on the set.
He makes it really fun and the cast and crew seem
to be willing to follow him to Hell. - Which is
convenient really.
Brian:
Can you take a moment to brag about 'War
of the Dead's' amazing cast?
Joe: We just screened the second episode at the New
Jersey Fangoria Weekend of Horrors and I got an
email from an attendee saying that he was stunned
at the quality of the acting and the total
believability of the characters. A testament to
Mike and Mel's casting chops, but all of out
actors are rising stars and so seemingly happy to
work on this project. Don Money (Justin) has a
small role in the new I Am Legend, Sean David was
in the last Denzel Washington flick, and Dina and
Andrew Roth have been in a bunch of horror films.
From what I just heard, Dina, Don and Andrew are
all doing an action film together, apparently
cast because of their work on Z*E*R*O. With this
second episode, Lynn takes what little screen
time Dr. Orchid has and brings real gravitas to
the role, -- we unfairly made the good doctor a
one-note exposition device in the first episode
and we promise never to do that again. Lastly,
Adrian Mishek plays the "Detective" who
hands off the crime scene from the local police
over to Z*E*R*O and we love working with him so
much that we changed the role from rotating cops
to a "police/Z*E*R*O liaison". Watch
carefully as he also doubles as a zombie in this
one. It's hard to talk about guest star Devon
Marie without spoiling the story, but her work
with Dina in this film was a real tour-de-force.
I hope we get her back in a future episode. Their
talents really put the final sheen of quality on
the show and I\rquote m so happy with them that
I'm cutting them all in on future revenues from
any 'War of the Dead' endeavor because they took
a chance on the ground floor level. I hope to
work with them forever.
Brian: Your
Monster Times project is such an amazing idea -
producing a horror site for fans of all ages. I
was, also, fascinated by it because I had never
heard of Monster Times. Can you explain a little
what Monster Times meant in your life?
Joe: The
Monster Times was a 72-issue
"newspaper" that focused on monster
movies in the 1970s. Unlike the better-known
Famous Monsters, it was better-written, more
in-depth and also looked at comics and
conventions. It was bi-weekly for a while and I'd
rush out to grab every copy, which was next to
the other newspapers at the candy store, not up
in the mag racks like FM or the others. I got
into monster movies because of my parents and we
shared a love for the genre, but as a parent I
found it difficult to share horror films with my
kids outside of the universal pictures because
they've really all been "R" rated since
the 1970s. I also cringe at some of the kids
coming to conventions dressed as Jigsaw or Jason,
but I'm sure that's an age thing. Can they read
Fangoria? God, I hope their parents aren't
brain-dead enough to let them. I reached out to
the Monster Times guys because I felt kids and
their parents needed a place to congregate and
share their love for the genre without
accidentally exposing them to inappropriate fare.
This is also because I felt we had to emasculate
Fangoria's online presence (which I developed)
since it seemed kids were going there as well.
I'd like to see Fango's muzzle taken off and a
proper age-gate placed in front eventually. The
Monster Times will be the place for family fans
of fearful fun (I'm amazed I went this far
without a cheesy Crypt keeper alliteration).
Brian:
Lastly, do you have any exciting future plans
that you would like to share with us? I know you
have plenty of stuff brewing. And - thanks! It's
been a blast!
Joe: It's always a concern when I blurt out the stuff
we want to do because it's all subject to change.
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him
your plans," the saying goes. But, some
concrete stuff that's happening is the expansion
of the FearWerx merchandise line to include
licenses from Troma (a glow-in-the-dark Toxie
action figure) and Living Dead Dolls, a War of
the Dead card game with amazing illustrations
from Vince ("DeadWorld"
, "Sandman" , "History
of Violence") Locke, sci-fi stuff
like our Mego Star Trek reproduction action
figures, and of course, more episodes of Z*E*R*O,
which we hope to put on DVD next year. |