GAY BLADE INDEED! Director David DeCoteau Brings a Gay Sensibility to the Horror Genre by Owen Keehnen

Director David DeCoteau was a pioneer of scream queen and early VHS horror cinema, helming such classics of the era as ‘Nightmare Sisters’, ‘Sorority Babes at The Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama’, ‘Creepozoids’, ‘Prehysteria 3’, ‘Morgana’, and ‘Dr. Alien’. He also was the force behind the popular Full Moon ‘Puppet Master’ film series. Somewhere during all this DeCoteau came out as a gay man and with that a great amount his cinema seemed to take on a decidedly more guy-candy feel with such classics as ‘Voodoo Academy’, ‘The Frightening’, as well as the enormously successful film series ‘The Brotherhood’. The combined effect of these solid moneymaking films was to launch a new sub-genre of “himbo horror”. In addition, he also expressed and affirmed his sexuality with the non-horror art-house gay film ‘Leather Jacket Love Story’.

As if all this weren’t enough David DeCoteau has also directed a myriad of other horror genre favorites such as ‘Leeches’, ‘Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy’, ‘Frankenstein Reborn’, ‘Alien Arsenal’, ‘Shrieker’, ‘The Talisman’, ‘Skeletons’, ‘Final Stab’, ‘Prison of the Dead’, ‘Totem’, ‘Witchouse’, and ‘The Killer Eye: Terror Vision’. He has even started his own production company, Rapid Heart Pictures, Ltd. This man has a horror pedigree a mile long. It was a thrill talking with him and our conversation turned out to be both insightful as well as a real treat.


  Owen: You have mentioned that when you were a teenager Roger Corman was a huge mentor for you.  What was the main thing he taught you about filmmaking?

David: Roger Corman my inspiration to make movies. I was lucky enough to work for the man when I moved to LA at 18. Just working on his sets taught me everything about how a set works. It was amazing working with James Cameron at Roger's studio. It was a great time.

Owen: Have you assumed somewhat the same role with helping out newcomers like director/writer Jason Paul Collum?

David: Jason was my assistant for a few years. He got in contact with me through another filmmaker I was championing, Jeff Bookwalter. Jason was enthusiastic and determined to make a go of the movie biz. The fact that he was openly gay was refreshing. He was relentless which is what you need to be to get anything done in Hollywood. Sweet kid.

Owen: You are well known as a director who gets his movies in on a tight budget and shooting schedule. What would you say is the typical mood/atmosphere you like to keep on your set?  What is the most conducive to a smooth filming?

David: I've been directing and producing movies for 25 years so I am very confident about what I am doing. Working on a short schedule allows me to spend the extra money on extra crew, hotter cast and shooting on motion picture film. The sets are professional, no-nonsense yet fun. I'm all business when I am shooting so there's never a wasted moment. I come prepared and ready for the adventure to make the best movie I can. I trust my instincts and make decisions fast and clear. I feel lucky that I get to do this so I make sure I do it right.

Owen: Does your production company Rapid Heart Films have a mission statement?

David: Simply a commitment to excellence in the genre I have essentially invented. Non-exploitive, provocative supernatural thrillers that appeal to women, couples and gay men. Few four-letter words, no nudity, no handguns, very little gore and no smoking. I do bend these rules slightly for story purposes but I try to stick to them as much as possible. This "clean" approach has alienated a few and been embraced by many. My "horror" films are the antithesis of what’s currently popular amongst the blood and gore horror movie fans. I feel any genre is open to all kinds of subject matter, taste and style. I found a specific audience and they are simply loving and supporting my movies.
 
Owen: You're filmography took a decided turn with your coming out as a gay man. How much did that freedom translate into your freedom of expression?

David: I came out when I was 30 although many close friends were aware. Maybe coming out did affect my sensibility in how I approach movie directing. ‘Dreamaniac’ certainly is homoerotic but that what's cool about the genre, you can include any subtext you want as long as it’s in the genre so some people don't see it and some people do.

Owen: Your sexy pseudo-gay horror flicks really broke some new ground in film.  Specifically the three films in 'The Brotherhood’ series, 'Voodoo Academy’, and 'The Frightening'.  Was your intent to make titillating gay-fantasy fright flicks?

David: Sure. I am in the B movie business. All B movies have to be titillating and exciting in some ways. That's why the genre works. Fans want to see something they have never seen before and want to be thrilled. B movies can supply them with movies that the major studios rarely make.
 
Owen: So I've heard those films also have a huge teen female base.  Do you have any how aware that demographic is of the gay overtones?

David: I knew the audience existed and I needed to figure out a way to get Charlie Band to finance a movie to fill the demand. He agreed, once I told him to sell the movie as "The first horror movie for girls!" Gay men are very industrious and smart. I knew they'd discover the movie and boy did they!!!!  There was a popular gay magazine that said, "The Movie Everyone’s talking about!"
 
Owen: These films are also important in flip-flopping classic bimbo-horror movies by making it himbo horror.  Was the size of the hungry market out there surprising?

David: Like I mentioned earlier, I knew there was a market but didn't know how big it was. Needless to say that I was surprised at the success of VOODOO ACADEMY. Next to the mega-hit THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING, it was the biggest seller of any DVD released by Full Moon that year. I new I was REALLY on to something. Full Moon decided to start shooting their movies on crappy Mini DV so I left the company and started my own label Rapid Heart Pictures, Ltd. I approached Regent Entertainment for financing explaining my success in "gay appeal" genre movies and they committed to financing THE BROTHERHOOD right there on the spot.

Owen: Are you eager to push the envelope with this newfound sub-genre or will is it more of a niche you intend to fill and satisfy but not extend?  In other words, is the subtext going to be moving to the forefront anytime soon?

David: There are openly bi-sexual characters in PRISON OF THE DEAD, FINAL STAB and others. I will of course push the envelope but will not risk the ability to hire the best cast possible. I want a stunning cast of movie star quality young men and women. Some have tried to imitate Rapid Heart but have failed miserably with shop worn and haggard looking actors and graphic sex and violence that in one case caused Blockbuster Video to return all the DVDs to the distributor because of numerous complaints. I don't need to do that. I don't want to ruin what I have created. My films are distributed world wide without any censorship problems whatsoever. I've taken the higher road and my audience has embraced that by buying almost 1 million DVDs of all the Rapid Heart films combined. Not to mention a huge hit on the new gay cable network HereTV. I have found a very specific niche with very little wiggle room but I am a clever filmmaker and I will still surprise my audience with jaw dropping moments celebrating the male form. Wait till you see what I have created in THE BROTHERHOOD 4 which debuts in August on HereTV. You won't believe your eyes! 

Owen: Tell me about your non-horror gay flick 'Leather Jacket Love Story'.

David: LJLS was something I needed to do. It was an idea that producer Jerry Goldberg and I came up with. I needed to do my ART movie just to cleanse my pallet of a particular string of soft-core movies I wasn't proud of. Jerry raised the money and we shot it in B&W. It played film fests all over the world and had a 22-week theatrical run at the biggest art house cinema in LA -The Sunset 5. The success of that film was due to Jerry Goldberg. It was a producer driven movie from the beginning to the end. He made it a success and he is an example of a perfect producer. I owe it all to him. Jerry is starting a new movie called DEAD BOYZ DON'T SCREAM. He offered me that directing job but I am busy up here in Canada. I just found him a new director. An old protégé of mine. More news on that later.

Owen: I am curious too.  Everyone knows how homophobic Hollywood can be --- is that prejudice a dominant factor in independent cinema as well?

David: Hollywood is made up of orphans from all over the world. I don't think I have met a person that was born in LA. It is a melting pot of all types of people from many cultures. You sometimes run into homophobia but in the movie industry specifically there isn't much that I can see. If a homophobe decides to work in Fashion, Movies or Television then he is the most stupid fucker on the planet.

Owen: Your early films are considered classics 'Nightmare Sisters', 'Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama', 'Creepozoids, 'Dr. Alien', etc.  When you re-watch these movies (or think about them) is there anything now that you wish you would have done differently overall?

David: I don't watch my movies at all except in post-production and when I record the commentary. Maybe I would of done something differently but as a pragmatist I can't even think about it because it is out of my hands once you release it to the public.
 
Owen: In films such as these you were also instrumental in creating the scream queen genre of films.  Do you think a campy and gay sensibility helped you mine and somewhat lampoon the underlying potential of female objectification?

David: Sorority Babes needs to be done as an all drag musical on Broadway. It’s got the Bride of Frankenstein, Motorcycle Chicks, Zombie Babes, and Hot nerds, spanking and Bowling. It’s a gay man's camp fantasy! The bigger than life female characters such all the roles played in my films by Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer and Brinke Stevens are all essentially Drag Queen campy fantasies of mine. It my vision of what I adore about women. Big Hair! Big Eye Lashes! Big heels!

Owen: Do you still keep in touch with "the gals"?

David: Yeah. On occasion. I live in Canada so its tough to hook up. I'd like to do a reunion movie.

Owen: Tell me about making the extremely successful Puppet Master series of films for Full Moon?  They were shot in Romania?

David: PM3 was shot at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. PM6 was shot in LA. PM7 was shot in Romania. All were difficult movies to make because of those damned puppets. PM7 was the most difficult because it was set in Paris in the late 1800s. Lotsa costumes, period vehicles. I was lucky to have a 2nd Unit Director on that one named Chris Bergschneider. He saved the puppet sequences, which I think are very cool in that movie.

Owen: Now is it easy to work with a series, like the Puppet Master movies, because you know the material or is it tougher because of a desire to keep the material fresh?

David: Hell yeah. That's why each Brotherhood movie has a completely different story with different characters and everything. It’s almost episodic in an anthology kind of way. This helps in keeping the through-line very simple. The Puppet Master movies kept getting more difficult because when you add a new puppet to each movie and some of those movies were prequels it can be a pain to backpedal and explain logically why the puppet didn't appear in an earlier movie.

Owen: I also want to hear a little something about another film gem of yours 'Final Stab'? 

David: A gem, huh? Thanks. Its was my valentine to the slashers of the late 70s early 80s. It has a cool gay subplot, which really throws the audience off on who the killer is. I loved doing that movie because everything clicked – the script, the cast, and the photography. I felt like I was getting something special. The last day of the shoot was a 28-page day. Erinn Carter who played the lead only worked 3 days on that movie. She went on to play Mindy on the MOW about the Mork and Mindy TV Show. I shot that whole movie in 5, 12-hour days, in 35mm CinemaScope.

Owen: With 'Final Stab', 'Leather Jacket', and 'Ancient Evil'.   You wrote the screenplay as well as directed.  Does writing the movie give you an added advantage when it comes to the eventual directing?

David: I've never written a screenplay in my life. I have come up with stories, which gives me a "story by" credit. That's why I like working with writers and developing a story from scratch. I don't think I have the patience to write a script although recently I tried.
 
Owen: Do you have a dream project and a dream cast you would like to film?

David: I would like to do a Baby Jane type movie with Christopher Plummer as the Joan Crawford character and Christopher Lee as the Bette Davis Baby Jane character. Two aging horror stars....

Owen: You have so many other horror credits as well --- 'Shrieker',  'Leeches', 'Totem', 'Skeletons', ‘Prehysteria’, ‘Witchhouse’. 'Prison of the Dead', etc. Overall what three films do you consider your best work?

David: SKELETONS, LEATHER JACKET LOVE STORY, THE BROTHERHOOD.

Owen: What's lined up for you in the future?

David: Less movies hopefully. I want to slow down and enjoy my life up here in Winnipeg. Maybe do just a few films up here and maybe a few in Europe. I can't do volume anymore. I don't have the energy.

Owen: And finally, what's something that makes you scream? 

David: GEORGE W. BUSH.

Owen: Amen there.