- What inspired you to be a Director/Writer? I've always loved fantasizing...and I'm fascinated by hypnosis. That's part of the reason why I don't drive cars anymore (laughs). I'm a menace to the road. I just get into a car...and when the music comes on, I go into a trance. All of a sudden, I'm in some kind of time warp. It's healthy for me to just inject that energy into making films instead of getting into dangerous car accidents (laughs). I could sit in a cell with no light for days, as long as I am planning a movie, as long as I know I will eventually come out and shoot a movie. I live...I exist for making films.
- Tell me about your first film project, "Desecration" and where did the idea come from?
The ideas were definitely born out of my childhood. I directed "Desecration", the feature length version when I was 28. I consider it the psychic footprints of the past. Desecration was based on nightmares I had. But really, the film poured out of me after an experience with an Herbalist in Chinatown in NYC. I had been having problems with my shoulders and neck and experimented with acupuncture with this Herbalist. Finally one day he told me I had an energy blockage. Then surprisingly, this man burned my back with fiery coal three times, right along my spine. I was shocked...but invigorated. I didn't sleep for days and days. During that period, Desecration, the screenplay, just poured out of me, like an Ouija Board session.
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- What was the film "Horror" based on?
"Horror" was really a continuation of "Desecration". I wasn't through exploring that world. It's about an emotionally disturbed boy, the lead from Desecration, and his nightmares, his hallucinations, his interior journey through the halls of hell. On some level of consciousness, this boy meets a girl who is abused and tortured by her family, religious figures. Horror is a cold crazy film. Like Desecration, it's about eternal damnation.
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- Give me an idea of the story behind "Satan's Playground" ?
A vacationing family gets lost traveling in New Jersey's Pine Barrens region. Their car gets stuck...and one by one they're drawn to a creepy abandoned house. An old woman lives there, Mrs. Leeds, and she warns of a violent unseen force lurking in the woods.
Soon the family gets pulled into a nightmare world...a portal to hell. It's an old school horror film with an emphasis on mood, atmosphere. "Satan's Playground" stars Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Ellen Sandweiss (The Evil Dead) and Edwin Neal (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The budget was around $500, 000 and as you know Anchor Bay are releasing it this August. The movie was inspired by my childhood fear of the Jersey Devil, a scary legend about a deformed child, and the New Jersey Pine Barrens, an endless stretch of woods where this demon is supposed to haunt. It's also an homage to all my favorite horror films from the 70s and early 80s.
- Who would your favorite Director be?
I don't have just one. I worship different films by Dario Argento, John Carpenter, David Lynch, Pete Walker, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, David Cronenberg, George Romero, Nicolas Roeg, Tobe Hooper, Coffin Joe...
- Which film is your favorite?
So many of them...Halloween, Let's Scare Jessica To Death, Alice, Sweet Alice, Night of the Living Dead, Suspiria, Frightmare, The Evil Dead, The Fog, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Brood, Videodrome, Rosemary's Baby, The Shining, The House with Laughing Windows, Black Christmas, Mother's Day, Inferno, The House of Whipcord, The Gates of Hell, The Psychic, Lizard in a Woman's Skin...
- And your favorite Actor?
Again, there are so many. I love Jamie Lee Curtis, Felissa Rose, Ellen Sandweiss, Donald Sutherland, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Judith O' Dea, Edwin Neal, Marilyn Burns, Jessica Harper, Faye Dunaway, Daria Nicoledi, Adrienne Barbeau, Margot Kidder, Catriona MacColl, Glenn Close, Karen Black, Piper Laurie, Sheila Keith, Tom Atkins, Christina Raines, Bill Paxton, P.J. Soles, Amy Steel, Ashley Laurence, Dee Wallace, Lynn Lowry, Michael Berryman, David Hess...
- Do you have any plans for an upcoming project?
My next film is called THE OCEAN. It's about God's punishment...the end of the world.
- Thank you Dante, I wish you all the best. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy of Dante's new film, Anchor Bay is releasing "SATAN'S PLAYGROUND" on August 22, 2006
