Retribution (1987) | Guy Magar

uh if I may before we start I'd just like to introduce a couple people who are here actually from a crew did is Alan howth here okay uh first I would like to introduce the production manager of a picture this was her first dja picture and she went on to have an illustrous career and she still talks about the last day which was 32 hours if you could just stand up and just wait to applaud till I'm finished of them jinny vanot jinny could you stand up and also the amazing photography from A to Z that was done by Gary Tillis who was my first roommate when I came to Los Angeles we went to the American Film Institute together and uh he's also the only person I know who's ever won an Oscar Gary Tillis and the amazing music was done by this incredible composer that I had such a pleasure to work with Alan [Applause] howth and the production executive of a film who spent every day with me uh preparing and shooting and posting and being a great support and he also played the bus driver the production executive of retro contribution Brian Christian thank you um also just noting for those who didn't notice guy played The Irate cabbie in the film cigar chomping cabbie the fun part of that is that I play the same cabbie with the same wardrobe in every single one of my films so I can't ever do a western cuz there's no cabs in a western you could have been an iate Stage Coach driver um let's start at the beginning all the way back um because I know when I first saw this movie one thing that I was taken by I love horror movies I've seen God knows how many um and the thing that draws me to horror movies usually is that they have these interesting ideas they're not always that well made in this movie I was really surprised I like this movie is really slick and ambitious and I remember when I looked you up I was unlike a lot of horror movie directors where they've often only even made two things they'll have two credits on the MDB um that movie and then a movie I never heard of you came you had a pretty great TV career even leading up to this uh guy directed some episodes of what was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid The A Team among other things can you just kind of talk a little bit about your career and when you chose to segue into making retribution uh came to Hollywood went to the American Film Institute made a $500 movie uh they used to shoot black and white I didn't want to shoot black black and white cuz I figured the studio didn't like black and white so I actually took the last $500 and rented a colar camera which Gary shot to shoot my student film at DFI uh it was $500 a day for one of those big videotape cameras not like today and I couldn't afford more than you know one day rental but we were shooting 4 days so I waited till there was a three-day holiday and I went in on a Friday and I said need a camera for Friday morning shoot I'll bring it back at midnight they said it's we're closed at midnight cuz Monday is a holiday and I said what do you want me to do he said well bring it back Tuesday morning and that's how you got a 4-day rental out of one day and I I'm actually the only the first person who has ever shot color film at the American Film Institute and it was I will never forget sort of a theater like this where we showed our films and when the film came up there was a big back gasp because it was the first color film they had ever seen at the AFI and you were not supposed to have credits I had credits you're not supposed to have music I had music I wanted to make a little 20 minute movie that I could use as a showpiece and after it was over I was brought on to the stage and told that I had broken all the rules and they were confiscating the master which was by the way was 3/4 inch tape in those days of course I had made 15 copies already and I had that at home and that film opened the door to Universal Studios where I became a director uh and was shooting a lot of action type shows like police shows and things like that and then I had a dream to move on the features and I love The Exorcist and possession stories and me and Lee sat down and wrote retribution it took three years to find the money uh this was not something that was going to be made by studio and for low budget I couldn't afford any stars so I knew it would have to be Independent Finance ing for three years I was directing television while talking to every guy that was a millionaire that the friends of mine knew or anybody knew I would travel and talk to them and bring my script and finally I lucked out I just really lucked out a friend of mine told me this guy in Chicago who had just turned 30 and got a100 million trust fund and wanted to be a producer and I met him and we got along great and he loved my idea and um he put up the money guy it's never happened before it will never happen again I've never heard of any independent movie being only having one investor you usually have 50 670 who put up maybe 30 40,000 each or something so that's how retribution was made after three years of looking we finally scored and we're able to go into production yeah uh he's going to ask that question shortly yeah um talking about those three years that you were working on it again what really struck me in the movie the first time I saw it was if nothing else was the sheer ambition Ian you have a bus crash you don't see that a lot in these little independent horror movies and I guess I call it a little independent horror movie because it was but it didn't feel little I mean it opens with kind of a classic Hollywood movie style you know crane up to the guy the jumper on the roof uh what made you stick to your guns to do this movie versus kind of a standard let's say cabin in the woods with five teenagers uh movie that's usually cheaper and easier to get off the ground I hate those uh you know you're you work a lot and you hope to follow your passion and follow your dream and my dream was to make a feature and it's every you know body's dream every filmmaker's dream to even if you're doing commercials or if you're doing TV or if you're doing documentaries if you're doing whatever you know most of us have a dream to finally make it to our story so when we finally get there and we finally find a million and a quarter which is what this budget was about we really pour our souls into it and of all the films I've made this is the one that's closest to me because it was the first one and I think you'll hear that from other filmmakers about their first one and you kind of sit down and try and max out as much as you can not only in the writing but in being able to put production value like the bus crash like the rain scene at the end you know rain is very expensive to to put together and you know everybody's soaking and turning off water and having water buses around to feed the the showerheads and all the rest of it but what you want to do is try and put in as much production value into your movie as opposed to well you know I only have so much money and what can I do to get away with it you know and can I make a small cast and can I have a cabin in the woods I didn't want to do that I wanted to go for it you never know if you're going to make a second feature so when you get a shot to make the first one I think you pour your heart into it you assemble the right people around around you and you go for it so all the production value in this film really comes from the cast and the crew I thought they did an amazing job Dennis lium was amazing as the lead and playing these two incredible roles and Suzanne Snider was great as Angel and of course Leslie Wing was amazing in my opinion as a psychiatrist um how did Hoy Axton end up in the movie was that someone you had an idea for the part or was he just suggested by casting I had worked with ho on a TV show a police show he was regular and uh we became friends CU he was always at the craft service table and uh when I finally got the money to make this I turned to him I mean you know we we were close friends he came to my wedding and everything and so we had that kind of a friendship and when the time came I I couldn't afford anybody because this was a sag sag minimum picture you know everybody made sag minimum weeklys and so you don't ask K axon to do that you know but I did and he was so kind he said yes so we were able to schedule him for a week so he worked for a week and really did me a favor and he's the only name in the movie um I don't know if you know this or not but I think him and his mother are responsible for writing Joy to the World they are remember that song Hy axon no very few people know that um did you ever consider having him do a song for the movie no couldn't afford him no there really no singing in the movie The two songs the one in the reg club and whatever we we we bought those but all the music was composed by Howard um and uh the effects of the movie were done by the great Kevin joerger had you did you already know him or how did he get involved see when you don't when you don't have a money you got to go out there and find the best that you can get you know you got to get every single person and every single Department from wardrobe on up to makeup effects hair everything and you got to fight to get those people and you got to really you know smoo them and get them to work for you for a lot less than what they usually work and usually you know they got to like the script and they got to like wanting to be a part of it you know I mean there was another movie believe it or not where I looked so hard for somebody to build me a monster and I found that guy everybody was saying go to that guy go to that guy and I went to him and his name was Jim Cameron and I hired Jim Cameron to build a monster we were close friends for about three months because he was the genius of a time so when I was doing this film I really needed a great special effects guy I mean you know cutting somebody's arm with a torch and busting their face with a grill I mean and building a carcass to put the poor guy in the carcass I mean you really needed somebody extremely good and all the extremely good special effects guys are very expensive and I found this kid his name was Kevin jger he was just a kid working in in in the out in the field but he was doing really cool stuff and I really liked him and he said he could do this and I said great let's do it he said I can only give you one take of of every single shot only one take because I can't build two arms I can't build two heads I can't do that two carcasses because you don't have a money for me to do that so I agreed so when we were ready to shoot I had to make sure that take was going to be good but you have to find ways to do things that are unusual I'm going to give you a real fast example the green eyes you know that's a really expensive if you're going to do it through a lab or something that's really expensive to get green glowing eyes we couldn't do it we didn't have a budget for it and over a three-month period of trying to figure out how to do all this stuff I went to get my ice checked and part of getting my ice checked was he put some green stuff in my eyes and turn off the lights and put on a blue light which some of you might have in your Opthomologist uh uh visit and they use it to look inside your eye and I said are you serious so I got Dennis to go get lenses contact lenses and we got a bottle from my eye guy which was this incredible liquid and he put the the lenses in the liquid kept them there when I was ready to shoot he would take them out put them on and then Gary had to shut the lights around him so he would be lit as close as possible with a blue light with a black light because only with a black light do they glow so it was a real technical difficulty because black lights put out very very little wattage and uh you know it was very tricky to light but it worked and we got glowing eyes and we did it with a set of contact lenses and a nice actor who didn't mind putting them on and a little bottle of green juice who knew who knew that would work but that's what happens when you have to make a lowbudget movie if you care about the movie mie and you're getting your great shot to be able to do it you got to figure out how to do all that stuff but that's how we did the green eyes um I want to talk a little bit about the art in the movie especially because a perfect example again when I first saw this movie uh I was constantly surprised by the directions it was going because you kind of start to think that you get what the story is and you're like okay so like this is going to happen and that'll happen and then usually what I was think was going to happen wouldn't happen and it just just keep going to these really unique spots and I think for me when the moment where I was first like okay this movie is something weird and special is where they go to the neon Museum and then walk into that room that just has a giant Easter Island head in it um I saw it the credits the you the Museum of neon art but that Easter Island head was that something you just built or would that exist somewhere a production designer actually built that it was made of cardboard and it was in the warehouse where we were shooting other stuff so that's why we had to build like little walls to make it look like it was part of a gallery but it actually didn't take place at all anywhere near the gallery but when I saw the museum down there and I and we went on a scout I thought wow what a great place to get stoned yeah so it all worked out for the film because I needed to be able to relax the audience a little bit and get you to enjoy the love story that was going on between the two of them and it was a cool way to do it quickly by getting them stoned and going to this Museum but the actual giant sculpture where the blood was going to come out of and all that that was we built all that it was built out of basically cardboard we had a brilliant production designer brilliant his name is Rob Wilson King he went on to have an incredible career but I caught him at just the right time and that's the kind of thing that I think again typifies the movie because I know when uh every dollar counts on a movie like this I I don't know if the conversation ever did literally happen but somebody be like do we really need a room that just has this giant head sculpture in it but the fact that you did that it's like such an indelible odd thing to see in the movie uh so I guess my question is did you ever consider not having that and why was that kind of thing that you felt was worth the amount of time to take for just that one scene well the scene has to start in a nice romantic way and end badly with I'm having to leave through the back door so something's got to happen and you've got this Museum and I can't mess up the museum and I can't break anything in there so I got to build whatever I need in a separate spot to be able to make this work where we can do the blood thing so the museum and and the head all worked out with the idea of them getting Stone and Angel being able to light a joint and get him to relax a little bit and enjoy life for a few moments before we zap you again but a lot of things like uh you know when you have a problem like this and you don't know what it is a psychiatric problem especially if you are you know possessed you go to church so we had to have a church scene where he turns maybe to you know that as maybe looking for help or he goes somewhere where Angel says hey I know this guy who can help you this like a really weird Jamaican guy at a Jamaican club and you know that came because I went to Jamaica and proposed to Jackie in Jamaica and I loved Ree and I wanted to make it regga scene in the movie and it all seemed to work for me that where is he going to turn to at the end well he'll he'll go to a reg club and deal with this weird guy who has a snake around him by the way that was a two day scene and the snake died that night forget that I had a problem of continuity cuz I wasn't n of a snake and we get back in the morning and they tell me the snake was dead that's one of the really weird stories of a movie that the snake would die overnight but anyways um and that guy didn't like putting the snake on his neck at all so you take a lot of his personal things then you got to work it into the story script wise and that's what screenwriting is about it's taking a lot of personal stuff and being able to T story visually you know and if this scene is going to start with an ambulance driving through Los Angeles to get to a suicidal scene you got to build that and if you got to build you know Halloween there's got to be people there on the pavement in in costumes and it all starts to make sense after a minute and then all of a sudden you're involved in this suicide thing so you can't just write suicide on the piece of paper you got to be able to visually tell the story of what happens well let's start with a ambulance going through LA and we'll start with the opening credits and the main credit and then we'll move from there later on we'll bring in the ree Club calm people down a little bit before we zap you again and that's what great suspense Thrillers are about about being able to go up and down to a story so we can take an audience on this incredible experience like I went on when I saw the Exorcist I mean that film blew my mind and uh I was deeply profoundly moved by that movie and the experience of watching The Exorcist which I knew nothing about and you know I'm not Catholic so for me it was like wow what is all that you know so visual story telling is why I became a filmmaker and why all filmmakers make films is because we love to tell stories visually well and I've been dying to go back to what you said up top can you tell us a little bit about this 32h hour final day of shooting we were behind schedule we were doing the big scene in his room at the end when uh you know all hell bricks loose and the paintings and typewriter and all that stuff and uh you know we didn't make it you know and I asked the crew if it would be kind enough to just stick it out until we got everything we needed it was the finale you know we didn't have a movie without that scene and to great credit to Crews everywhere that really care about their work and remember this is a real lowbudget movie they stayed all of them stayed and we shot 32 hours and you have to feed them every six hours so we fed them five times and it's incredible because my wife Jackie came to see me and then she left and she came back the next day dressed in different clothes and she left and she came back the third day a third time to see me of again different clothes it was amazing but we shot 32 hours which in the world of with people who worked on retribution like Jeannie uh and Brian and Gary who stuck it out and we they believed in the movie and they wanted to finish it we finished it and I'm very grateful for them can you talk a little bit about then the film's release and kind of its life since then and maybe it make you happy to know I had a bunch of shows this month and whenever hyping that this show was coming up uh there would always be people in the audience who would cheer for it so and in the horror Community uh it is a decently known enough movie um how does how do you feel it was received at the time it came out uh this is a crazy story and a great tragedy for me uh because of what happened but this happens to filmmakers and uh it happens and it's called an executive changeover and everybody has connections at different Studios different this different and that but if a person that likes you and brings your movie in or buys your movie or gives you a movie gets fired you don't have anybody left and you're thrown out because the new guy doesn't want the old guys's people so what happened was when we finished the movie we sold foreign first there's only two sales to make we sold foreign rights and we made a huge hit at the inter at the um Market here in Los Angeles three markets around the world the reason we made a hit is because most independent movies aren't that well made like you said a lot lot of times they're out of focus the music isn't so hot they're not cut well they're done by people who haven't had a lot of Television experience like I did and I was very lucky to have that so a lot of those first films are not really great product and you see them at the markets because they're trying to sell around the world well we were really hot at this market and we had like seven offers which was amazing and we got 750,000 just for foreign rights which at the time was incredible for a million and a quarter movie so then we went to sell domestic there's only two sales to make and I met the Weinstein brothers that we all have heard about lately at the time there were upand cominging young Distributors and they were really hot if you had an independent movie you wanted to go those guys cuz soon after my movie they got sex lives and videotape and zoomed from there so we all knew they were were really hot and they came up with an offer for domestic for a million and a half just for domestic rights before anything happens and that's the moment we all have certain moments in our lives big moments where we make certain decisions that are good or bad and we go down different Journeys for me that was a milestone moment because the Weinstein brothers were really hot looking for the next big independent film ready to smash it out everywhere in the United States got out bided somebody came in with a $2 million offer and that somebody was the president of the United Artist theater chain so me and my investor sat down and said what are we going to do do we go over young Weinstein brothers who were ready to explode this movie and they would have they were really good at what they did that's how they became so big as they did and do we just take a million and a half or do we take $2 million an extra whole half million and go of the biggest theater chain in the United States that doesn't need a distributor they already have a theater so we're going to be in every theater of United Artist in that moment of course you would have I did my investor did we chose United Artist deal and we said no to the Weinstein brothers and we took the 2 million 2 million plus the 750 this movie was a million and a half in profit before anybody had ever heard about it and I was really excited about the United Artist Cinema they were going to put it out they started doing the commercials and the posters and all the rest of it the guy loved the movie the head of it then what happened he got fired one day I get a phone call the guy's been fired I don't know why what do you mean my movie is supposed to come out in two months sorry new guy we have to wait for new guy to come in new genius and of course the new genius doesn't want any other pictures that the old genius who got fired bought I even went to find the CEO of V other Artist Theaters which was incredibly difficult for me to do to sit him down and say your new guy is about to blow $2 million deal that you already gave me by just dumping the movie and he talked to him and the guy eventually said okay they got a poster they got a big billboard on Sunset they got open it in three theaters in LA in 10th years in Oklahoma I don't know why Oklahoma and that was the end of it nobody has ever heard of Retribution and my career at that moment did not go the way it should have gone if a Weinstein Brothers have put this through like they've done such great stuff as far as promoting films and promoting young filmmakers like tantino and Sex Lies and videotape and all those guys this was right at the beginning these guys were just beginning in 1987 so we took the money we took the the deal of the United United Artist Theaters we made money the investor was happy he got his money back and made 750k it was the biggest payday of my life and I never got the same opportunity ever again opportunities like this only come once or twice and you got to be at the right place at the right time and make the right move and I didn't in retrospect anybody would have done exactly what I did it just didn't turn turn out for me so the picture was dumped nobody's ever heard of it unless you open up in theaters and get reviews and people will write about a movie nobody ever hears about it one of the reasons why har suspense thriller uh fans have heard about the movie is because in 2012 which is six years ago I finally got approached for an offer to bring out the DVD because it was no DVD ever made in the in 1987 because we were at VHS days so the movie came out on DVD just six years ago so it was the 25th anniversary of Retribution and that's how I think most of horror uh fans heard about the movie was when that happened because that sold out pretty quick and they had to reprint three times so that's what happened with retribution that's why you never heard about it but the fact that it sold out I think show because it was on VHS technically right it did come out on VHS VHS yeah remember Blockbuster stores they really needed product they bought it as well they put it on on VHS but it doesn't matter if you don't come out theatrically if you don't get reviews in all the papers and magazines nobody ever hears about you nobody knows who you are and you don't move on to another big picture doesn't happen and that's exactly what happened I got caught in an executive changeover after I sold a movie to the biggest theater change in chain in the United States States well I do think it's great though that it I think it's the kind of movie that either somebody thinks it's great or they probably haven't heard of it but it's that kind of movie that if you get it in front of somebody it sort of sticks with them um so hopefully it keeps going is there any many talk of a Blu-ray do you know um it was just released in Blu-ray in Germany but that's the only country has been released in Blu-ray has somebody uh uh hopefully somebody jump on it here um I think maybe uh was there anybody in the audience who has any questions yes over there thank you for coming and and thank you for giving us your print of this film it was great print looked fantastic yeah so um you know I I was curious to the story thank you for telling us that story about the executive changeover I had the same thing happen to me uh fortunately was at the script stage so it wasn't as costly but the agent's assistant got fired and then everything we same so you might not have an answer but is there any way to read these situations if you could go back and look into the OR is is just there just no way to know no this happened four months after we made the decision to sell the movie for 2 million up front guarantee now and he was the president of United Artist Theaters which was the biggest chain in the United States the actual theaters was actually going to distribute their own movie they didn't need the middleman distributor so it was perfect until he got fired and the new guy came in and he said you know I don't this is a movie I don't want this movie around and I'm going to dump it and that was the end of it and that's exactly what happened it happens all the time at script scrip script chain stages or actors you know if an actor's got a really good deal at Paramount because the president Paramount loves that actor and wants to do like a three picture deal with him and on the day they're about to sign that guy the executive gets fired and the new guy doesn't want this deal for $20 million for three pictures and boom he says no and that's the end of it it's not signed yet so even if it's signed they took a $2 million loss you're not an artist but the movie never came out and never made any noise and never got a chance and that's just you know the way it is and it happens a lot to a lot of people you just got to get really lucky and hope that people who like you stay in power and and make your film or distribute your film or buy your script or whatever it is it's a very common problem and it happens all the time because there executive changes at all the all the studios all the production companies and every time that happens whoever was in favor is no longer in favor I'm sorry right um on the ironies I'm sure that new executive who dumped your film probably got fired two years later that any other questions from the audience uh right down here KJ thank you so much for being here this has been really great and yeah seeing it on the big screen and that print just looks beautiful um and one of the things that I love about this movie so much are the specificity of different locations and it's they're each so unique and you really can tell that you have you and your team had an understanding of a specific specific counterculture or like not a typical Narrative of Los Angeles so I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that either location scouting or the set design because like even the lobby of the apartment building and his Studio they're all so specific and it's so believable that people actually live in these spaces and visit these spaces so we're dealing with a painter who doesn't really sell much and is getting money from the county to survive so we're talking about pretty much a poverty kind of person who doesn't have a lot of money so you start thinking okay where would that kind of a person live well he would probably live in you know some a hotel of where there's a lot of uh those types of people who live in that hotel who don't have the money and they kind of become a little bit of a family you know um so that's the idea that we came up with and we started scouting about what kind of a building are we looking for and because we had an amazing like I said production designer he found the dawn hotel which is actually downtown and once I saw it and I saw the sign and everything I saw wow that's perfect for us and it's tall enough you know to die if you jump from the top and the lobby worked out the lobby was the actual Lobby the real Lobby uh his room was built on a stage so his room upstairs was was not in the building but we could shoot outside in the street we could block the street it was you know an area down town that it's very easy to control uh bring in Rain machines for the end and uh you know bring you know we for that opening shot going up the building which uh is an amazing crane shot believe it or not we put one crane on top of another crane because we didn't covered enough of a building to move which was incredible so we could do all that at the da Hotel you know we could afford it easily uh and we could shut it down we could shut the street down and we could own that that uh that Lobby for uh I think we shot maybe three days inside and a few days outside and have a lot of extras outside for Halloween night costumes police cars ambulances firemen people all that stuff I mean you all that stuff has to be brought in and we could do it and control the situation in this location so when you're looking for locations and you want to be able to you know tell the best story you can you gotta just hang in there until you find exactly the right location for every idea sometimes you have to change the idea I'm not really sure the the museum uh the neon Museum was in the original script that was just a museum maybe in there and then I found out there something called a neon Museum downtown I went to see it and it work work perfectly for a stone kind of a scene so you just have to really work hard of your production people your location people you know your production manager to be able to get permits and shut this place down and own it so that you can bring in your 100 men crew and you know take over the place for however many nights we shot there and how many however many extras we needed and then the lobby had to be you know obviously decorated by our art design people and the party you know the party where uh they welcome him back that was in the same hotel that was in down downstairs as well and what did the idea for the land lady's dog that's always wearing a wig and glasses come from as far as I recall all I asked for was like a little poodle dog or something that could sit on the counter and this dog came exactly dressed the way it was and it was a personality in the movie industry and person that I did not know her name is Miss Miss Holly and I look at her and I'm asked is this okay and I said who dressed her who got her the sungl oh she comes this way she comes all dressed with the glasses the wigs and everything I said you gotta be kidding me who has these kind of pets and who dresses them up like that and this you know little old guy was sitting in the corner and they said he does and they said is this okay or do you want us to take everything off I said no it's perfect so that was a complete accident of that poodle uh being dressed the way it was we didn't do anything except order it and it came that way any other questions from the audience yes yeah another crazy uh you know it's very hard to shoot in a slaughterhouse because of you know health freeons and things like that you're bringing a whole crew in there and equipment and these carcasses are there I mean you know we can touch them and I mean it's pretty gross and disgusting there's blood everywhere and the slaughterous is one of those crazy locations where you better find one because if not you're going to have to change your script and everything else so we had to go and send our location people to all these slaughter houses and one said okay so I went to look at it and I said can I shoot in the refrigeration area and they said yeah you don't mind if we shoot it next to all your carcasses and move them around a little bit no and I shot as fast as I could because I thought we're going to get shut down or some you know FDA person was going to jump in and say what the hell are you doing next to all these carcasses of beef and uh you know it was one of us very very lucky locations but that's part of a process of preparing a movie and looking and trust me you know was you know a lot of you don't know this but there's a lot of slaughter houses around La and on the outside of LA and we visited a ton of them and none of them would let us do what we wanted except this one and we even moved it up in the schedule so we could shoot it as fast as possible before anybody found out so it was a real slaughter house yeah it was a very interesting story actually um that night he was outside smoking a cigarette and was very nervous great actor and I've used him in other movies and um he was very nervous because the car some carcasses were being brought in and he saw real cow carcasses being brought in and he thought oh my God but you know I would never ever ask an actor to do something that I wouldn't do that's one thing I do as a director you know I never ask anybody to do something that I really wouldn't do and I would not get into a caucus and come out of its ass I would just not do that so that was part of a special effects we had to build a fake one which was made of plastic and it was dressed and you know blood was put on it and everything but it was a just a plastic thing that you could put around you and it was that easy and that simple but he was so scared and I didn't tell him that we build a special carcass and he was just sweating it outside until I finally took pity on him and I told you know you don't have to get into a real one we build we build the plastic one for you and he was extremely relieved his name is Mario ruzo is one of those wonderful character actors that has done like 200 movies in their lives and I called them uh last week and told him about the screening unfortunately he's uh too elderly to come today but I told him that uh I would put in a good word for him because uh he's one of those wonderful actors I mean you know Marlon Branda would not get into a cow carcass but Mario did and thank God that he did because I have one of those craziest scenes uh I think in in the horror world of somebody being inside a carcass and about to be have an electric blade go through them uh any other questions out there right there yes uh um I've always been a great fan of Hitchcock and as you know Hitchcock was always in his movies that was always a shot of him walking by or his shadow or and you always knew it was him it was kind of like an inside joke and I like that I thought that was fun and I love actors and I've taught acting so I thought when the time came it would be kind of fun for me to do this character which was not that hard for me to do except you know chomping on the cigar and I just decided to do it for the fun it and then it became a thing where I did it on every movie so I mean every movie has the same taxi cab orinary guy with the same hat the same jacket they're mine they're not wardrobe so every time I make a movie and cab day comes I just have to go buy some cigars and I'm ready to go um any more questions over here again oh hi you know obviously The Exorcist was a big influence but uh I also felt uh intimations of film Noir like uh Point Blank and DOA except that the guy is already dead at the beginning and also the the way you uh used the paintings to tell the story I thought was great I thought that was pretty unique except maybe for Diva I've never really seen that in a film so I was wondering how you you developed or got the idea to incorporate those influences what films might have influenced you this film this films didn't influence me too much it was just really The Exorcist that I went by as my inspiration for the film but all the paintings were Again part of a production design team they found a local painter and we met with him and you know what we wanted to do because every single one of those paintings had to be prepared and ready to go and different sizes when he sees that all of them have turned into the face uh every single size and everything had to be done we had like 15 of them or something and then one had to be rigged so when he he hits it with a knife blood comes gushing out you know every single thing that happens doesn't happen by itself it happens after you know a long production meetings with special effects people design people what do we want to do what do we want these paintings to look like you know how are we going to do it how is blood going to come out of that thing when you hit it with a knife how well you got to figure it out you know they special effects has to come in and figure it out then they have to budget it and then the budget goes to her and then she comes to me and says we don't have a money to do all this what do you want to do so it's all part of you know a creative process of visual storytelling which is what we love has an incredible process behind it involving a tremendous amount of people who are extremely skilled at what they do and it's your job as a filmmaker to find them and it's your job as a filmmaker to get them to work for you for much less wages than they're normal because they're so talented um well with that I think it's time we wrap it up could I get a big round of applause for GU thank you very much for coming appreciate it thank you