- [James] Okay.

- [Mick] And be very aware that that works for Catholics

- [James] Yeah.

- I think being Jewish is really going to be a problem.

(chainsaw roaring)

- Hey I'm James A Janiesse

and some of you may now me as Dead Meat.

If you do you probably already know

that I love to watch people die.

You know like on screen.

I've always wanted to talk to the horror legends

who put those kills on screen

and find out what scares them.

And also if they could survive their favorite kill scenes.

This is Meat Up.

Today's guest, director and writer Mick Garris.

(upbeat music)

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode

of Meat Up on Crypt TV,

where I interview legends of the horror genre.

Today's legend is Mr. Mick Garris.

No that's you.

- Oh okay.

- Hey great to see you man.

- Great to see you.

- Yeah we're here today at Krimsey's Cajun Kitchen.

- Krimsey's vegan kitchen.

- Yeah, I wasn't sure if I was allowed in here

being the host of Dead Meat.

- Yeah, you could burst into flames

upon going through the doors,

but as that didn't happen I think we're fine.

- So Mick you are a writer, director, producer,

you might best be know or at least the internet says

as the, I'd say, the premier director

of Stephen King adaptations.

- Stephen King's bitch.

- Oh, I hadn't heard that but your words not mine.

- Oh I've heard that.

Not mine either.

He had seen Psycho 4 and I guess I became the expert

in sleeping with your mother.

Not personally, but movies about such things.

And the next thing was The Stand.

- So I feel like The Stand is commonly though of

as like his magnum opus.

- Yeah, it turned into a hugely successful mini series.

Well it was a really good start to our professional

and personal relationship.

- Okay, and then you would go on to do

The Shining mini series adaptation in '97.

- Three years later, yeah.

- I remember watching that as a kid.

I was probably too young for it.

- That's good parenting.

- Yeah, right.

- As far as I'm concerned.

- The Shining adaptation is your adaptation.

Stephen King has said he prefers it, right,

to the Kubrick.

- Yeah, I think he makes no bones about

his not being a huge fan of the Kubrick film

because that book was a very personal one to him.

King himself had written a draft of The Shinning

for Kubrick or two that Kubrick just tossed aside

and went his own way.

So I think he was personally hurt by it

and it was such an important book to him professionally

and personally and emotionally

that when The Stand was such a success

and ABC said to him whatever you want to do

we want to do that.

He said I'd like to do The Shinning.

And so that's what happened.

So most people don't know that Kubrick

got paid $1.5 million for us to be able to do that

and part of the contract was that King was not allowed

to talk about his opinion of the Kubrick film.

- Oh wow.

- So there were some pretty heavy duty impositions.

- I had no idea about that.

- Yeah, the one great thing about Stephen King's bitch line

is I've never once had Steve tell me

I think you should do it this way.

Or don't you think it would be better like that.

I mean I've certainly asked him questions

because if you've got that asset on your set next to you

and you don't avail yourself, you're an idiot.

And you're masturbating with the camera.

(upbeat music)

- You've been doing a lot of non-horror stuff recently too.

- I always feel like I'm learning

and evolving and having a really good time

surrounded by creative people.

You know who you find on a set,

whether it's movies or TV or whatever.

- I feel like you're very good at adapting

to the changes in media

because you also have a podcast.

- I started doing interviews way back in the 60s

when I was a kid literally in high school.

With Post Mortem as a podcast

it's something like giving back.

It's contributing to cinema history.

It's giving an hour long interview

that's not about somebody's latest movie to promote it.

It's not the Entertainment Tonight of horror,

but something that's a little deeper and richer

and something that I feel I learn from.

- Yeah, I had a similar conversation with Eli Roth

because he has his History of Horror show.

- Right.

- Of course, that you're a part of.

He made the good point that you know,

when we start losing people like Romero and Tobe Hooper

it was kind of a wake up call for him

to like do something like that.

Like get all this.

- Now is the time.

- Exactly, and he cited you as an influence

because you had the Masters of Horror dinner parties.

- Dinners yeah.

- Yeah.

- That led to the series.

- What were those diners like that led to the show?

- The first one we ever did took me a week to put together,

getting everybody's time straight.

Ended up getting 12 film makers together.

It was me, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter,

Guillermo del Toro, John Landis,

Bill Malone, Stuart Gordon,

just there were a dozen of us.

And we just had a diner in the middle of a restaurant

like anybody else would, a group of 12 people.

We just talked to each other.

It's not necessarily about horror or whatever,

but we all have the same job.

And it's just like a bunch

of car salesmen getting together for a dinner

but we don't sell cars, we see blood.

And so we're having this great time,

this table next to us was celebrating a birthday party.

And so when they started singing Happy Birthday,

we all joined in.

And sang Happy Birthday

and at the end Guillermo del Toro stands up and says,

"The masters of horror wish you a happy birthday."

- Oh my god.

- And so that's where the name came from.

(upbeat music)

- All right, now we have our food here.

This is not the breakfast I'm used to but it's nutritious.

- Nor am I but it worked.

- So what do we got here?

We got some steel cut oats, fresh fruits.

- Veggie sausage.

These are beignets.

- Yeah, we'll have those.

- Classic New Orleans style.

- We'll hit those up after we're done filming.

- That will make clouds.

And then this is fried potatoes and veggies.

- Fried potatoes, these are amazing.

- You would be amazed

at how many horror directors are vegan.

Aside from myself, Axelle Carolyn, Don Coscarelli,

Adam Rifkin, Alejandro Brugués,

I mean a lot of the vegan gang making horror films.

- The vegan gang, I just imagine you guys

like rolling down the street.

- Da do do do do.

- Well I believe I saw that Tobe Hooper said something

about making Texas Chainsaw Massacre made in vegetarian.

- That would not surprise me.

I don't think it lasted long.

(upbeat music)

- So I wanted to ask,

how does it feel to be the director

of what might be the only Easter horror movie,

and Critters 2, which was your directorial debut.

- My feature directorial debut.

- Your feature yeah.

- I had been writing for Steven Spielberg on Amazing Stories

so all of the people who would never even look at my scripts

or take a meeting with me

were all offering me jobs

because I had been knighted by King Steven.

And New Line came to me,

they'd made Critters,

which was a modest theatrical success

and a bigger home video success.

They were going to do Critters 2.

It was green lit.

They offered it to me

and they said you can rewrite it any way you want.

You rarely get that opportunity

where a movie is, we're making it,

we want you to do it, start now.

- Yeah.

- And so, Critters 2 had the opportunity to do that.

It was structured like a classic western.

It was set around Easter,

there'd never been another Easter horror movie

that I know of.

It really embraced the cliches of the holiday,

the little old ladies in their pastel dresses

and the Easter egg hunts and the kids

and throwing them into that kind of jeopardy.

It was really fun and the movie tanked completely.

It was a huge flop,

but people have come to love my little child you know.

It's pretty exciting to see something

you'd written off for dead

to come back in glorious technicolor.

(upbeat music)

- All right Mick, now it's time

for the fun and games segment of this interview.

And before we met we had you tell us

three of your favorite horror movies.

And they were Rosemary's Baby, Psycho

and An American Werewolf in London,

which I chose for this little experiment

that we're going to do.

- Okay.

- What we're going to do is place you in a scene

from that movie and see how you would react to it

but thankful you're not going to have to do by yourself.

You're going to draw three items out of here

and it's up to you as a creative writer,

creative thinker to see how you can use these items

as you navigate your way through the scenes.

So if you could please pick three random items

from the bucket.

- The chum bucket.

A flask of holy water,

a kettle bell.

- A kettle bell, okay.

- Less useful.

An electrified fly swatter.

- That's a thing?

- You gave it to me.

- Whoops.

Okay so using those three items

we're going to place you in this scene

of one of the most out of left field scenes

I've ever seen in a movie.

The dream sequence involving the demon Nazis.

If you were in David's position,

you know sitting at that table.

The demon Nazis rush in

and say one of them even does what they did to David,

they grab you and they put a knife to your neck.

Because they hold that knife there for a while

so you got time to act.

- Well I'd probably try the holy water.

- [James] Okay.

- And be very aware that that works for Catholics.