Interviewed by Michael Juvinall – Horror Society
Award winning filmmaker Damien Leone is a jack-of-all-trades artist. He’s one of an ever growing stable of young filmmakers who likes to get involved with many aspects of film production. Like many in this profession, he became interested in film at a young age growing up in Staten Island, New York. It was Tom Savini’s how to video Scream Greats that ignited his passion for filmmaking. From that point forward, Damien spent many years learning the craft of makeup. As an adult, Damien has been working in the film industry since 2005 as a makeup effects artist.
Then in 2008, he wrote, directed and created makeup effects for his first short horror film The 9th Circle and then Terrifier (2011). He made his feature directorial debut in 2013 with the horror anthology All Hallow’s Eve, which was based on his short films. His latest project is the creature feature Frankenstein vs. The Mummy, in which he wrote, directed, edited, and created the creature and makeup effects for. This project is superior monster mashup homage to some of the greatest monster films of all-time.
I had the opportunity to speak with Damien Leone recently about his new film, Frankenstein vs. The Mummy. We chatted about why he would want to take on a project like this, the design process of the monsters in the film and what’s ahead for him.
You can read my review of Frankenstein vs. The Mummy here, which hits DVD and VOD on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 from RLJ/Image Entertainment.
Horror Society: I watched your film Frankenstein vs. The Mummy and I really enjoyed it.
Damien Leone: Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
Horror Society: I’m a big fan of monster movies and your film is a throwback to the monster movies of old.
Damien Leone: Was it what you expected or was it completely out of left field?
Horror Society: It was not out of left field for me. It was better than I was expecting.
Damien Leone: Oh wonderful, that’s great.
Horror Society: What prompted you to write and film a movie about two famous monsters? Were you a fan of the Universal monster mashups of the 1940’s?
Damien Leone: I’m definitely a fan of the classic monsters and I’ve seen Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man but this wasn’t my idea. My producer came to me with this concept. He had a thirty page treatment for a found footage Frankenstein vs. The Mummy. He asked me if I’d be interested in doing the effects. Immediately I said yes because what special effects artist wouldn’t want to create his own versions of these creatures and seconds later he said would you be interested in directing it as well? I said can I see the script first because I really don’t like found footage movies and especially with these two characters that sounds absolutely ludacris. He sent me the treatment and I wasn’t into it. I’ve been a huge fan of Frankenstein since I was a kid and I always wanted to make a stand alone Frankenstein movie, so I thought this was the closest opportunity I was probably ever going to get. I said “Look, can I scrap your idea, write my own version as long as I can do it with the same budget you had allotted for the found footage,” and then he agreed to it. Once he agreed I scrapped his idea completely and immediately read the novel because I wanted to take as many details as I could from that novel to put into this story. That was it and I was off and running from there.
Horror Society: One of my other questions was going to be that the Frankenstein side of this story is fairly faithful to Mary Shelly’s vision from her novel and I gather from what you were saying that was all intentional.
Damien Leone: It absolutely was. I loved Frankenstein and the story is very deep. The Frankenstein’s monster had so many layers to him and I wanted to incorporate that into the movie because I didn’t want to have this two-dimensional monster just grunting and fighting. He’s not like that at all in the story, he’s very intelligent, very articulate, and half of the story is written in his perspective. The only thing I did was make him completely sadistic in my version. He’s still intelligent but you’re not going to sympathize with him in my version, he is a bad guy.
Horror Society: He does have Carter the janitor’s brain in the film and his is a sadistic character to begin with.
Damien Leone: The janitor character was my new take on the Igor character. He’s the assistant helping him out with getting him the supplies. I figured how do I make that more twisted and more sadistic? This guy’s out there unbeknownst to Victor hacking up homeless people and God knows who else. He’s setting him up as a really twisted character from the get go. A lot of times, they don’t show you, you just find out that they used a criminal’s brain for the monster in some adaptations but then you say “who was this criminal? Where did he come from? What was he doing? What kind of crimes?” We show my guy from the start brutally killing a homeless man and sawing his head off then putting that guy’s brain into the body of a killing machine, which was really interesting to me.
Horror Society: You also managed to get the famous line “It’s alive, it’s alive!” from Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein. Did you ever think about that being too over the top for the movie?
Damien Leone: Never. I thought it had to be in there. It’s one of the most iconic lines in history so I knew it had to be in there. I wanted it to be screamed so loud by my actor Max Rhyser, who’s phenomenal in my opinion. I remember that day so vividly because he thought it was so over the top and we did it about seven times and every time I kept telling him that it has to be louder and louder. This has to be insane, this is everything you’ve been dreaming for and working for your whole life and it just happens, you have to be ecstatic. He finally did it, I was so happy with the way he delivered it; I thought it did the line justice.
Horror Society: Well it was a fun scene in the movie to get that line in there, I have to say. For a film featuring both Frankenstein and the Mummy, the look of the creatures is key. You also designed the creature and makeup effects for the film. Frankenstein’s monster is fairly faithful to the concept from Shelley’s novel and the Mummy has a classic design as well. Did you toy with what the creatures would look like or did you have the idea in your head all along?
Damien Leone: Well, the Mummy, I worked on another found footage movie where I just did the special effects and it was called Day of the Mummy. I had designed the Mummy prior and I used the same makeup and the same actor. That was my take on a mummy. I wanted to make him really rotten; I didn’t really want him to have any human features left. I wanted him to be as close to a skeleton as possible.
As far as the Frankenstein’s monster goes, he’s as true to the description in the novel. It is vague but for the most part that is what he looks like in the novel. Even if I haven’t seen every movie, I’ve seen almost every variation of what other people’s Frankenstein’s monster looks like through pictures. I took as much as I could from the novel and I was really taken with Bernie Wrightson’s comic book version of Frankenstein. Are you familiar with that one?
Horror Society: I was just going to say – I’m laughing to myself here. I was just going to say that your Frankenstein design is similar to Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein which I really love. I love that design and I enjoyed your design in the film as well.
Damien Leone: Thank you very much. I’d say he was 70% influenced by the Bernie Wrightson version, especially about the muscular physique. I had to cast an actor who was shredded. I thought that was a cool take and I haven’t seen a human version with a real actor who’s that muscular playing Frankenstein before. They’ve made muscular CGI versions of Frankenstein but not with a human.
I was really surprised because I haven’t really run into anybody who has seen the movie yet; everybody is just going by the trailer. Everyone is so surprised by what my version of Frankenstein looks like. I said hasn’t anybody seen Bernie Wrightson? I didn’t think it was going to be that shocking to people. I thought people were going to immediately recognize it as similar to Bernie Wrightson’s monster with the long hair and muscles but nobody knows, nobody noticed, you’re like the first person.
Horror Society: I could talk to you all day I’m sure. I’m also a big fan of your All Hallow’s Eve movie and the character Art the clown. I wanted to ask are we going to be seeing Art the clown again in the future?
Damien Leone: I’m in pre-production right now on Terrifier. It’s going to be the next Art the clown stand-alone movie. It’s not going to be an anthology of short films, it’s one plot, start to finish, all Art the clown and it’s going to be absolutely nuts. It’s going to be the most graphically violent and disturbing thing I’ve done so far.
Horror Society: Awesome! I wanted to say it was a pleasure speaking with you. Frankenstein vs. The Mummy, I truly enjoyed it. You played the film straight, there’s no laughs thrown in there which I loved. It’s just a great movie for fans of monster films and a gory homage to the Universal monster mashups of the 40’s and I highly recommend the movie.
Damien Leone: Thank you so much man, that really means a lot to me. Thank you.
Watch the trailer for Frankenstein vs. The Mummy here,
