John Carl Buechler & Dan Farrands Interview
John Carl Buechler & Dan Farrands Interview
Talking with the Director of Friday the 13th Part 7 & DVD Featurettes Producer
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Who can ever forget "Telekinetic Tina", the blonde wisp of girl who whipped the one and only Jason Voorhees back in the 80s? "I'm pretty proud of the film," said John Carl Buechler at a recent press event to celebrate a deluxe DVD edition of Friday the 13th Part 7 (available tomorrow). "I think the fact that we had a full-blown subplot of a telekinetic girl kicking Jason's butt was lots of fun."
Of course, when you're making a movie that's part of an extremely popular franchise, it's not all just about the fun. "The one thing that had plagued me about this particular movie is [that] in post-production there was an overall compromise of makeup effects that we shot. That has everything to do with, I suppose, not just that I was directing the movie, but I have a big background in makeup effects, so that aspect always kind of bothered me."
As far as this horror fan is concerned, that's part of the goofy charm of the Friday the 13th films — from flick to flick the murderous mommy's boy always had a different look going on from the top of his mask to the steel-toes of his work boots. And yet, there is never any mistaking who he is. Part of that familiar mystique is due in large part to the great commitment in which Kane Hodder, who portrayed Jason in four films including Part 7, put forth. Although Michael Myers is known as "the Shape" — I can't help but think of Hodder's Jason that way, too. He brought something really unique to the role, not the least of which was his stance.
In Part 7, Jason is as ruthless and swift in his murderous M.O. as ever. "I got to do a lot of cool stuff with the makeup effects – we designed and engineered something that I thought was unique at the time – that was all just fun stuff that we got to do" said Buechler, "and the fact that we got a great guy inside of it to play the role… We both were of a single mind: we wanted this to be a more energetic, more dynamic version of the character than we had seen before, and I think we accomplished that."
One of the things discussed in the all-new DVD extras is the fact that Jason's infamous "sleeping bag" slam kill had to be cut way down because of ratings board interference. I found this especially interesting, because one of the few things I didn't particularly like about the 2009 Friday the 13th remake was the recreation of that death… to me, it was far too drawn out. I'd always considered Jason even scarier because of the rattlesnake quickness of his strike. But now that I understand it was the ratings board, and not necessarily the filmmakers who softened the blow of that kill, I'll judge that aspect of the remake less harshly.
In fact, I daresay longtime fans of the Friday the 13th series of films will glean at least one or two new tidbits of info thanks to producer Dan Farrands' ferreting out the most elusive of facts. [Read Horror.com's review of the Friday the 13th Part 7 Deluxe Edition DVD here]
Although it seems hard to imagine there is any stone left unturned, Farrands is cautiously optimistic about finding even more treasures should the series be release on Blu-ray in the future. "It's an option," he said of another release. "We haven't officially discussed the Blu-rays of the last set, from 4 through 8; there's been some talk but we haven't had any official discussions. There would be more room on the Blu-ray discs, so maybe there's an opportunity to find more material. A lot of this depends on how the DVDs sell, and what the fan reaction is, but there's always interest in doing more. If there's more to be found, [Paramount] will give it to us; I know for a fact they weren't holding back on, like, 'Let's reserve this for Blu-ray.' They never took that attitude, and if it was there, we put it in."
As for upcoming projects which are not Friday-related, Farrands, who produced the #1 hit The Haunting in Connecticut, hinted that there will be more where that came from. "We may do The Haunting in Louisiana."
Buechler is also wading in familiar, non-Crystal Lake water. "I'm getting ready to remake a film that I did back in 1985. It's a little movie called Troll that is likely to be fairly controversial; that's part of the reason why some of the hurdles that I've been jumping through to get the movie financially secure have been what they've been. But it is now financially secure and I've got everything in place.
"We plan to reunite some of the original cast, but in cameos. I've talked to Annie [Lockhart] and I've talked to Noah [Hathaway] and there are folks that are very interested; one person will reprise their role and that will be Phil Fondacaro. But the character of the troll is going to be played completely by someone else, a person of great stature, because we see Torok before he becomes a troll, and we see him after he transforms back into the person that he was. He also plays the personality and the voice of the troll."
Buechler has high hopes for the so-called little movie. "I think the remake promises to be so much better than the original, and I have so much passion for it that there was no other alternative; I've gotta direct it. I know that I can bring to it what I wanted to initially, but I was very much surprised the first time around with a radical budget cut a month before shooting. We had to sort of change our whole approach from a more serious, darker kind of a project into, well, we can't really show it so we have to talk about it, so we have to play it more for laughs now. The first film, I think it's fine as it is in terms of it is a campy little kids film, but now I don't have to make it that way. But because of the existence of the first movie there has to be some of that aspect in there as well. So it's a hybrid of tone; it's still going to have some of the humor but it's going to be more ironic as opposed to winking at the camera. I won't have to play it light."
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