Lacey talks to Kevin S. Tenney about the new “Night of the Demons” remake
Director Kevin S. Tenney of the sleazy ’80s horror cult favourite, Night of The Demons and other frightening flicks such as Witchboard, Witchtrap, Pinocchio’s Revenge, The Cellar, and Brain Dead recently finished wrapping up production of Adam Gierasch’s Night of the Demons remake (currently screening at horror film festivals across North America) with his company, Prodigy Entertainment. Fans of the original and supporters of Gierasch’s remake might just be lucky enough to meet the man behind the demons, as he will be attending a few of the scheduled premieres, including Screamfest on the West coast. Kevin took some time to answer a few questions for Cinesploitation.
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Laceration Lacey: You made a few of the most memorable horror films of the 1980s. Why horror specifically?
Kevin S. Tenney: Why not horror? It has a built-in audience who will go see a film they’ve never heard of, with a cast they’ve never heard of, and who will give it a great word-of-mouth review if they like it; try doing that with a love story or a romantic comedy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that three of the most ridiculously successful low-budget films in the last 10 years—i.e. Blair Witch Project, Open Water, and Paranormal Activity—have all been horror films.
LL: What are some of your favorite classic genre films that enticed you to do these kinds of films?
KT: I wasn’t necessarily a huge horror fan when I was younger; I was more of an Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Peckinpaugh, and Stanly Kubrick fan. But I did really like Jaws, Alien, The Exorcist, The Omen, and The Legend of Hell House. I did not become a fan of the low-budget horror films like, The Evil Dead and Halloween until much later, after I had already directed my first few professional features.
LL: As a student of the University of Southern California, you were the only student ever to have directed both a senior film project AND a graduate project. Tell me a bit about these projects and what it was like to have accomplished so much at such a young age?
KT: I always wanted to make films. Walking home from grade school, I would see an alley and think, “That would be a cool location for a movie.” When I was in sixth grade, Bell & Howell came out with a Super-8 camera that could be plugged into a cassette tape recorder; the camera would send a sync pulse to the recorder every time you turned the camera on and off. Then you could plug the recorder into the projector, and the cassette would play sync sound with the projected image. The down side was that everything had to be shot in sequence, you had to get each shot in the first take, and you couldn’t do any editing afterwards, other than to splice the different fifty-foot, three-minute rolls of film together. I begged my parents to get me the camera, projector, and tape recorder for Christmas, and although they were pretty expensive, my parents agreed. If they hadn’t, I’d probably be a used car salesman now.
My first production was a twenty-minute gangster/detective film with all of my sixth-grade classmates playing adult roles. It was pretty awful, but I was hooked on filmmaking from then on. After graduating high school and getting Associative Arts Degrees in Drama and Telecommunications at my local community college, I applied to the University Of Southern California. I got turned down by the film department three times, but I kept applying and pestering the faculty and department heads until I finally got in. The next year I made an undergraduate film about a Viet Nam veteran who is now a rookie police officer. He’s testifying in front of a shooting review board about a recent incident, but he keeps flashing to a similar incident from his past, in Viet Nam. It was a very heavy drama called WAR GAMES, and it won an Emmy Award later that year.
Two years after that, I wrote and directed a dark comedy as my graduate film, about a disenfranchised defense attorney who finds himself representing a homeless man in an attempted murder trial. His job is made more difficult by the fact that his client claims to be Jesus Christ. That film, The Book of Joe, was screened for the Hollywood community to rave reviews. I ended up getting an agent at ICM, my own office on the Columbia Studios lot, and a three-picture deal with producer/director, Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes) all while I was still a student at U.S.C. Some of my classmates would often complain that I was the teacher’s pet, and I used to get really annoyed. Why did they think I was the teacher’s favorite? Because he looked at the class roster on the first day and thought, I like the name “Kevin”? I was the favorite because I was obviously the most dedicated. My projects were always more ambitious than my classmates, and I worked diligently during pre-production to make sure that I would be able to accomplish whatever it was I was striving for. Talent is probably a part of my success, but so is hard work and determination. Nobody hands you your dream; you have to earn it.
Tenney with Tawny Kitaen promoting Witchboard
LL: How did you react upon learning that the Emmy was going to you and you’d be given the opportunity to work with Reitman?
KT: Needless to say, I felt pretty vindicated about my decision to not take business classes as my father had suggested.
LL: What was your experience working with him [Ivan Reitman] like?
KT: I discovered that working for a studio is too much like having an office job, especially since I was still a full-time student, carrying a full class load. I’d been spoiled by the thrill of the guerilla-style filmmaking I had been doing since my first Super-8 movies. When the opportunity to run off and make my own independent film presented itself in Witchboard, I took it and never looked back. I’d no doubt be a lot richer and a lot more successful today if I’d stayed, but I’m positive I would not have been any happier. I have a great life now, with a beautiful wife who I met in college, and two great kids. And I’m doing what I love to do.
LL: Witchboard – personally not my favorite film that you’ve done but it managed to sell over 100, 000 VHS copies back when it was released, while opening many doors for HBO after it premiered on the station and gained the highest rating of any program that aired that particular week. Why do you think Witchboard was such a success?
KT: Witchboard was a screenwriting assignment while I was a student at USC, and it was the first feature screenplay I’d ever written. It was also my first attempt to write something in the horror genre. So to have it be produced and to be able to leave film school to direct it, then to have it open in 1,100 theaters in the U.S. as the fifth highest grossing film of the week, was pretty much a surreal experience. It then went on to receive great reviews and do fantastic business in the rest of the world, so I am definitely proud of it. I honestly have no idea why Witchboard became so successful. Since I did not come from a horror background, I concentrated on developing the characters, the way most non-genre films do, and I think those characters and their problems resonated with the audience. At first I was afraid that I’d focused on the drama of the story too much and that the film was not scary enough, but after our first few screenings for distributors, I knew we had something. It was funny to see all of these jaded professionals jumping and screaming throughout the film.
LL: Night of the Demons was another one of the first films you did. What was the outcome like at the time of its release in comparison to the preceding success of Witchboard?
KT: Night of the Demons was actually my second film. It never achieved the same magnitude of success as Witchboard, but it still received a strong theatrical release and was very successful financially. And the fact that many young horror filmmakers today emulate it while listing it as one of their favorite films from their youth also makes me proud. It pleases me to have created such a cult favorite, especially when you have no idea at the time whether or not the fans are going to respond to what you’re doing. I just try to make a film I’d personally want to see and hope my tastes coincide with the general public.
LL: What the hell is up with the Linnea Quigley lip stick insertion scene?!
KT: The writer/producer Joe Agustyn had written a scene in which Linnea Quigley’s character, Suzanne, vomits bile on her own abdomen, which burns her like acid. Then she inserts the lipstick into the hole that’s been burned in her flesh. I felt the scene didn’t really accomplish anything and the whole bile-vomiting bit had been done in The Exorcist. I came up with the alternative idea of making the scene sexy, instead of gruesome, so that the audience would be caught completely off guard when she shoves the lipstick tube into her nipple. After telling everyone my idea, I actually had second thoughts about it, but by then the producers and FX team were in love with it. The rest, as they say, is history.
LL: How do you feel about Adam Gierasch’s remake of Night of the Demons?
KT: I think it’s a funny, gory rollercoaster ride that the fans will really enjoy. It’s actually more of a re-imagining than a literal remake. Its budget is more than five times greater than the original’s, and it stars established, name actors, as opposed to the newcomers we cast the first time. It’s been a surreal experience for me to see all the hype and buzz preceding this version’s release when the original came out with no fanfare and had to slowly build its fan base.
LL: Apparently you’re on board as a producer of his remake, is this true? What company are you working with?
KT: My company, Prodigy Entertainment acquired the rights from the original production company, Blue Rider Pictures. Then we took the project to Seven Arts Entertainment to co-produce and help with the financing. Although my partner, Greg McKay and I were both involved in the pre-production stages, I had to leave during the actual production in order to direct ‘Bigfoot’, another film I had previously committed myself to. Greg then served as the on-set producer during the entire production.
LL: Will you be attending any of the premieres?
KT: Absolutely. I’m going to the ScreamFest west coast premiere at the Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on October 8th. I was going to attend the Fangoria east coast premier in New York on October 15th, but I’d already agreed to sit on the Night of the Demons panel at the Weekend Of Horrors Convention back in L.A. that same weekend.
LL: Do you think the remake will be a success among fans of the original?
KT: I sure hope so. And if you see me at a convention in the future, I will gladly sign whichever version you want.
LL: Tell me a bit about more about your production company, Prodigy Entertainment.
KT: Prodigy Entertainment, has already produced the Night of the Demons remake and the award-winning Brain Dead, both of which are coming out on U.S. DVD in October. Brain Dead, which I also directed, has a much smaller budget, but it feels more like my earlier ‘80s films. It played at film festivals around the world and brought home five Best Picture Awards, five Best FX Awards, one Writing Award, a Best Scream Queen Award, and a Best Screenplay Nomination. It garnered great reviews during its limited theatrical release throughout the mid-west. Night of the Demons has already screened to enthusiastic crowds in the UK, and the U.S. DVD is pre-selling like wildfire.
LL: Any current projects, anticipated release dates for upcoming movies?
KT: Prodigy Entertainment has bought the rights to Witchboard, and we’re trying to put the financing together for a remake later this year. Like Night of the Demons, I plan to produce but not direct. I’m also currently writing two new horror screenplays as well as my first novel.
LL: Any last words for Cinesploitation?
KT: Pre-order your U.S. DVD copies of Brain Dead and Night of the Demons now, also available on Blu-Ray. And if you’re living in the UK, go see Night of the Demons in the theater, and pre-order your copy of Bigfoot, my first and only family film, coming to DVD in the UK this October.
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Check out what’s new & gruesome with Kevin Tenney at www.tenneybrothers.com!
