Feature Category: Interviews

One of Hollywood’s best emerging talents, writer/director Natalie Erika James has proven herself an empathetic storyteller capable of delivering studies of life’s most harrowing interpersonal challenges. Her debut feature, Relic, takes the painful business of contending with dementia and crafts a wholly original, relentlessly raw story that will endure and endear itself to audiences long after the credits roll. STARBURST was fortunate enough to nab some time with the director, who is hard at work on her next feature and graciously offered up insights into the making of the film and what it all means to her…

STARBURST: Forgetting can be a really terrifying thing, as can watching a loved one deteriorate. What kinds of things were you drawing from when you were writing this script?

Natalie Erika James: It really did come from a very personal place. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s for quite some time before she passed. I guess a lot of it came from, to be honest, guilt. She lived in Japan and I actually started writing Relic when I went to go see her. But she couldn’t remember who I was on that trip. So I felt guilt about not having gone and seen her more often. A lot of it was also trying to capture the uncanny sense of someone who, for all intents and purposes, looks the same but it feels like they’re becoming someone different. Something other than who they are. And it was also observing the heartbreak for them going through the experience. It is hard for the people around them but it’s a really devastating process for them, especially in the beginning when they are really lucid about what’s happening. They start to blame themselves, get really upset, and… yeah, all of those things fed into the writing of the film.

Do you think the best movie monsters are the ones we know or the ones we don’t know? Like, something that’s familiar and close to home or something more otherworldly and Lovecraftian?

I’m a massive fan of Gothic horror and Asian horror and both of those genres really play on psychological horror, which is a lot to do with the terror within ourselves and within our homes and our family dynamics. So I think there’s something more potent about that genre and that approach compared to something like a monster that’s kind of invading from the outside. I guess I draw from what I’m actually scared of, and that’s just what interests me. If I watch a slasher film, I always feel like I can just lock my doors and I’m fine. But if the menace is already inside the house, there’s not a lot you can do.

As a horror filmmaker, do you think your topic or your subject matter should scare you more than it should scare the audience?

The writer/director is the best gauge of what is going to be scary and, to a certain degree, you have to use that as your compass for what you write. If I write something and I can’t put myself in the character’s shoes and imagine being scared, then I’m probably not going to shoot it because I can’t imagine anyone else being scared in that position. I think you try your best to write stuff that scares you because you hope that there’s commonality in your audience.

Circling back to the guilt you were discussing earlier, that seemed like a pretty prominent aspect of the film. The guilt Kay feels is really potent.

Right! The things that we owe our parents. The simmering resentments and how your dynamics can change… yeah. It’s a really emotional time for people and you have to constantly negotiate the power balance in your relationship because, effectively, you have to start parenting your parent. And there can be a real resistance to that.

What are you tackling next? Any details you can share?

I’ve got a few things but the one I’ve been writing the longest is a folk horror set in Japan. Relic is about mortality and death and this one is more about creation and birth… motherhood, really. A folk horror using Japanese mythology.

RELIC is available in the UK digitally from Jan 8th, and on DVD/Blu-ray from Jan 18th. Check out our review here.

The sci-fi sequel Skylines is in select cinemas from December 18th, so we caught up with some of the talent behind the film. In this video, we talk to actor Alexander Siddig.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive interviews and content.

The sci-fi sequel Skylines is in select cinemas from December 18th, so we caught up with some of the talent behind the film. In this video, we talk to actor Lindsey Morgan.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive interviews and content.

The sci-fi sequel Skylines is in select cinemas from December 18th, so we caught up with some of the talent behind the film. In this video, we talk to director Liam O’Donnell.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive interviews and content.

In his new film, Come Away, David Oyelowo adds another instance of the great British literary canon to his illustrious career. While the actor is equally known for his roles in historically-based dramas, wherein he portrays real people – such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Oscar-winning 2014 film, Selma – Oyelowo has acted in Shakespearean plays, voiced James Bond, and next year sees him joining up with Peter Rabbit.

However, in the conceit of Come Away, the actor plays Jack Littleton, the father to Alice and Peter, who will soon come to be better known by the appellations of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, respectively. It’s an intriguing concept, made all the more interesting by the fact that the film was directed by longtime Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks filmmaker Brenda Chapman, in her live-action directorial debut. There’s a lot to take in when discussing his career, but it was a joy to speak with David Oyelowo and see how the actor connects historical fact with literary fancy, and what it means to him as an actor.

STARBURST: It seems as though Come Away is a further example of your work wherein you get to be part of this grand literary tradition, as well as one that’s specifically British. You’ve done many adaptations of classic works: you got to be James Bond for the audiobook of Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis, you’ve done Shakespeare, you’re tied into both Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland with this film, and you’ve got Peter Rabbit 2 coming out next year. What’s it like, getting to be a part of this historical literary tradition?

David Oyelowo: I think it’s born out of my love of literature – my love of the classics, whether it be plays or stories – so I gravitate to those. They’re tried and tested. They are beloved, and with good reason. Sometimes it’s because you get to play dress up as well. [laughs] These period dramas – which I definitely grew up on, being from the UK – there’s something elevated about them, as well. You can either be a superhero and wear a costume or you can play Javert and wear a costume so, yeah, I probably gravitate towards them partly for those superficial reasons but mainly because the stories are just really good and the characters are wonderfully complex. They’re great challenges to try and conquer.

We imagine that was part of what attracted you to Come Away, as well as probably the possibility of working with Brenda Chapman in her live-action feature directing debut?

It really was. Brenda’s work has been a fan favourite of ours in our house with The Lion King. Prince of Egypt is a big film in our house. I have a daughter who adores the film Brave and so, again – a tried and tested filmmaker and storyteller. Also, the concept behind this story was just really imaginative. The idea of putting Peter Pan and Alice from Alice in Wonderland together as brother and sister sort of feels like an idea that should have been had a long time ago, but when Brenda approached me with the script, I realised that someone like me was now going to be reflected in a story that I had loved growing up, but never really seen anyone who looked like me within.

Not only was that going to be something for me, but something for my kids – something for kids all over. Partly why I gravitate towards these kind of roles is, I would love to see them normalised. I would love to see it normalised that someone like me gets to be in those stories, because the truth of the matter is black people didn’t pop up in the middle of slavery or the civil rights movement or the Windrush in the UK. We’ve been on this planet for a very long time and participating in its well-being in ways that transcend struggle and racial issues and so that should, therefore, be reflected in storytelling.

It is such a wonderful thing to see representation in adaptations of classic literature, rather than simply going with the flow of, “Well, this is the way it’s always been done.” Now, this is sort of apropos of nothing we’ve been discussing but, whenever I see Michael Caine in a film, I have a bit of joy, no matter how briefly he’s in it, such as in this picture. Did you know that you would be working with him when you signed on and if so, was that also part of the appeal?

No, I did not at all. It was a complete surprise. We approached him almost as a bet to each other and, lo and behold, it happened really quickly. It happened within a week of us going out to him and suddenly, he was on set with us. It was a really discombobulating thing because it’s Michael Caine with that voice and that face and I now had to do scenes opposite him, which really threw me because I felt like, “Why is Michael Caine doing an impersonation of Michael Caine?”

It just felt so odd having that voice come at me in the midst of a scene but, again, just one of the joys of being an actor is getting to work with your heroes. For me, to get to work with Angelina Jolie and Derek Jacobi and Clarke Peters, and a friend of mine, David Gyasi – let alone these wonderful young actors – it was just a just a complete dream.

You are best known for your work in historical drama and we were really intrigued by the idea that you’ve done all of these literary works, but you’ve also done so many things where you’re playing real people. How does that process differ or how is it the same? We assume that, in both cases, you’re having to work based on already extant presuppositions of how people might think these people should be.

It’s an added layer of challenge. Any role you’re playing is exposing, especially when it comes to film. You’re putting yourself out there, so to speak, but historical characters – or, I should say, even just characters who people have, like you say, a presupposition, with their own assumption of what they should be – I would almost put historical figures and literary figures in the same bucket, because whether it’s Dr. King or Javert, people are coming at it with their own baggage.

You have to just accept that you are not going to please everyone and so therefore, the thing to fastidiously do is to figure out what your best three-dimensional interpretation of that character is and to do it unapologetically, because the temptation is to half do it and sort of fall somewhere in the middle or do an impersonation of someone else or even the character you’re playing and then that feels surface, rather than revelatory. I just think you go full ball and just accept you’re not going to please everyone. Tell the truth. That tends to be the guiding principle for me.

You mentioned your family. Can we assume that possibly some of the roles you take are so that your children can see you in films? We know some actors have this thing of taking roles because they’re like, “Oh, my kids are going to like this.” Does that happen with you at all?

Absolutely, it does. Earlier on in your career, you take these roles that appeal to you and your sensibility and your journey and maturation as a human being. Then, you have children and you suddenly turn around and your kids are 10, 12, and 13 or whatever and you go, “They don’t know what I do because they haven’t seen anything I’ve done,” because it’s just inappropriate for them.

Peter Rabbit 2, which I did not long ago and will be coming out sometime next year, was a film I actually turned it down quite a few times because I was about to direct a film – my directorial debut, called The Waterman. I was understandably nervous about directing a film and wanted to give myself all the preparation possible and then, Peter Rabbit 2 came at a time where it would bleed into my prep time, but my daughter heard me over the phone turning down Peter Rabbit 2 and said, “Daddy, what are you doing?!” She loved the first one so much and so literally, Zoe is the reason I am in Peter Rabbit 2, but the byproduct of that is just getting to do a breadth of things, which is what I want. I want to appeal to the whole family, not just a certain demographic and so, getting to mix it up is not a bad thing.

Your career has been something that we think any actor would be like immensely satisfied to do. You seem to get these parts that allow you to have something in which to sink your teeth. Would that be an accurate description?

Yeah. It’s partly by design. I once heard someone say the greatest power an actor has is to say, “No,” which is a very privileged thing to be able to say. Most actors are just trying to make them nuts and enough to live. You’re doing incredibly well to make an actual living from being an actor but I’ve been very blessed with opportunities and thankfully, blessed enough that I can be a bit more judicious with my choices.

Every time you say, “No,” rather than panicking about whether you’re gonna work again – my approach has been, every time I say, “No,” it’s to create room for the thing I really want to say “Yes” to and the things I say “Yes” to are the kind of roles that you allude to: they have a bit more meat on the bone. They have something to say. They are holding a mirror up to humanity. I like films that have both magic and meaning but, most of all, I want to be thoughtful. I don’t particularly want to be in things that are pure entertainment with no real substance. Nothing is more satisfying to me when I watch a TV show or a film then if it stays with me – if it has me thinking or if it has me ruminating on it.

You don’t always succeed! Don’t get me wrong: there are definitely choices I’ve made that didn’t go as well as I would like, but the intent has always been to do something that has some substance to it.

In terms of substance, your role in Come Away is a father and you are a father and the heartbreak at the core of this film – we can’t imagine what it’s like, as a parent, having to work with material such as that, where you’re dealing with the loss of a child. Is it a little difficult or a little too close to the bone at times, when you’re having to deal with something like that?

Inevitably, one of the things you do as an actor in a given situation that you have to play is you think about what that would mean for you as a husband, as a father, as a friend – in any given circumstance, how would this impact you? Of course, some of what my character and Angelina Jolie’s character go through in the film is the worst thing you could have to deal with as a parent – or, indeed, a human being – and it’s very uncomfortable to have to entertain those thoughts, but that’s the job. The job is to reflect the reality of humanity as best as you can and I would much rather play those circumstances than experience them myself, in my own personal life.

Sometimes, the portrayal of those difficult circumstances can be incredibly healing for an audience, some of whom have been through some of that stuff. I lost my dad this September. He lived with us for the last four years and I’ve had to watch my kids go through the challenges of losing their grandfather and in our film, we are trying to balance fantasy and reality and trying not to patronise kids and trying to equip them to deal with the challenges that we will all inevitably face in one way or another, and especially now, in the middle of this pandemic. There is something cathartic about watching it played out in films that, hopefully, can help people deal with this stuff in life.

We can’t imagine what it’s like to have to have something such as that in the back of your mind while you’re promoting a movie about a family. Without giving too much away for folks who’ve not yet seen Come Away, in the film, you are not only the father to Peter Pan and Alice of Alice in Wonderland but, essentially, you are the grandfather to another set of literary characters. How does it feel to be such a grand patriarch?

That’s a great way of putting it. What I love about that side of things is the fact that, for people who will see this film in years to come, I just love the idea that we can start to normalise stories like this that have beloved literary characters, where we’re seeing those characters through many different lenses in many different forms and guises from different cultures and backgrounds and ethnicities. The thing about Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and a myriad of fairy tales is the reason they endure – the reason they stick around for such a long time – is because they are universal in their relatability they speak to all of humanity.

Whether you’re black, white, African, Asian, American, South American, Russian: they go to the heart of humanity, much like Shakespeare does and if any piece of literature does that, then I think it behooves us to tell and retell those stories through the guise and eyes of different kinds of people to allow them ownership of those stories. So, for me to play the “grand patriarch,” as you call it, of these literary characters: of course, it’s a great thing for me, but I hope it’s going to be very meaningful to audiences of all shades who will watch this film as the years go.

Come Away is in cinemas from December 18th.

Arguably the most famous horror thriller of all time is BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA. While Stoker himself passed away in 1912, his cultural legacy lives on, with his literary estate curated by his great-grandnephew, writer, historian, and lecturer DACRE STOKER. Vampires have been a never-ending fascination of humanity throughout the ages, from the Egyptian goddess Sakhmet to Vlad Tepes to Edward Cullen. We were privileged to recently check in with Dacre to talk about his work surrounding the legendary author…

STARBURST: What made you want to honour Bram Stoker’s legacy professionally?

Dacre Stoker: It started off being very simple really, I just wanted to learn more about my ancestors, in particular my great-grandfather, Dr. George Stoker, Bram’s youngest brother. The more I dug into my family’s interesting past, the more I found about the close relationship between Bram and George. I found correspondence between the two, which, in turn, led to more interesting finds about both of them. As a teacher and an athletics coach, I have always been very interested in what makes a person ‘tick’. I was obviously aware of Bram’s writing and the worldwide interest in his novel Dracula. I have become fascinated in both what kind of a person he was and what led him to write such an incredible novel.

You have written both an official sequel and an official prequel to Dracula. Do you try to emulate Bram Stoker’s style, or do you strike for something different?

My goal is to simply contribute to my great-granduncle’s legacy through my writing, both fictional and non-fiction, and through giving lectures to interested audiences. Many people around the world are familiar with the Dracula story, but I have found that there are far less who are familiar with its author, his life, and his research and writing of his best-known novel. In writing Dracul with J.D. Barker, we decided to write in the epistolary style, like Bram did when developing the novel. It was challenging for us, but we realised that many fans of Dracula appreciated our efforts.

You give numerous tours of the Romania of Vlad Tepes. Do you have a favourite site, or some lesser known tips?

I have led tours for the past five years to locations in Romania associated with both the real Vlad Dracula III, and to sites associated with Bram’s fictional Count Dracula. While the castles, palaces, and fortresses are interesting, my favourite location is the Saxon village of Viscri with its beautifully restored fortified church dating back to 1100. Although there is no proof that Vlad the Impaler visited Viscri, and there is no action in the novel Dracula set in this quaint little village, Viscri epitomises the romance of rural Transylvania and allows one’s imagination to bring you back to earlier times of Vlad Dracula. I have recently started to visit and have plans to lead tours to Cruden Bay; this is the quaint village in northern Scotland where Bram spent at least thirteen of his summer holidays. Local researcher and author Mike Shepherd has found evidence of the different houses and the hotel where Bram and his family stayed over the years. Mike, in his book When Brave Men Shudder, has pointed out that Bram wrote parts of Dracula here as well as two other novels actually set in this area. I am convinced that Slains Castle, a ruin on the outskirts of town, provided Bram with an interior layout that he needed for describing Castle Dracula. You see, Slains contains a unique octagonal room precisely like the one Bram describes in Chapter 2.

There is endless rich history behind both Vlad Tepes and the mythology of vampires. You tend to do a lot of history-based work in addition to your literary work. Are there any specific tales or peculiar historic facts that you would like to share?

I continue to be fascinated with analysing the myth of the vampire in many different cultures. Many of them seem to stem from the lack of understanding of biological decomposition, as well as that of germ theory and the contagious aspects of diseases like cholera, plague, and tuberculosis. I am always looking for any ‘strange but true’ reports or accounts in old newspapers. When I do research for a story, in this age where many newspapers are digitised, it is fairly easy to find real accounts of events happening during the period that my story is taking place, thus I can insert these events to make the story seem more believable.

Your great-granduncle was heavily involved in the theatre scene. So much so that writing novels seems almost an afterthought of his. What do you believe that the performing arts have to teach us about culture, literature, and the arts in general?

Bram’s writing was a sideline to his primary career as Manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London for twenty-seven years. It appears that he was only able to find the time to research and write his stories and novels when he was on holiday. I can imagine he probably also found the time to write when he was crossing the Atlantic at least sixteen times to travel back and forth to America with the Lyceum actors. Bram was a lover of the Arts; as a college student, he wrote theatrical reviews in a Dublin newspaper, this is what led him to a meeting with Henry Irving, the actor, and the dream job offer to move to London to Manage the Lyceum Theatre. Bram won a prize from the Royal Hibernian Society as a young boy for drawing, and later he became a founding member of the Dublin Painting and Sketching Club. Bram gravitated towards the freedom of expression found in the fantasy world of theatre and at the same time that same trade teaches the discipline associated with portrayal of plays, memorising scripts, attention to dialects, accuracy of costumes and set designs.

The world of vampires has grown significantly since Bram wrote his book. There are endless games, books, movies, TV shows, and everything else. With this, we have seen a seemingly infinite number of changes to vampire lore. Vampires in Twilight, for example, are vastly different than Dracula, but both have legions of dedicated followers. What is your opinion on the wide variation in depictions of vampires up to this point? 

Obviously, vampires in literature have changed a lot since Bram Stoker introduced Count Dracula back in 1897. Bram’s Count was a very dark figure, very animalistic in nature; it needed a complete makeover when he hit the stage as Bela Lugosi in the early 1920s. Slowly, over the years, the name stayed the same, but Count Dracula became more human-like and sexier in his demeanor. Over the course of the next fifty years, creative writers such as Richard Matheson, Anne Rice, Stephen King, Charlaine Harris, Kim Newman, and Chelsea Quinn Yarborough, just to name a few, each adapted their vampires to become unique and possess more human-like qualities. What started as a revenant-like creature from the grave slowly morphed into eastern European debonair aristocrats, before the undead more recently started appearing like the boy or girl next door. Personally, I think it is wonderful that so many authors have been inspired by Bram’s novel and I recognise that variation and originality is necessary to keep the readers coming back for more.

Can you tell us about your keynote presentation, Stoker on Stoker?

I’ve been doing Stoker on Stoker: The Mysteries Behind the Writing of Dracula for the past five years. My talks provide an audiovisual glimpse behind the scenes of the life and the writing of one of the least known authors of one of the world’s most famous books. I weave together details of Dracula’s history with Stoker family lore, and Bram Stoker’s life in Dublin and London. I’ve been fortunate to obtain seldom-seen historic images associated with Bram’s research and writing process. Recently, I have added some of the background research and images of locations in the novel Dracul, co-authored with J.D. Barker.

Bram was, among many other things, an Irishman working in London at a time when there was often contempt towards the Irish. Vampires have, continuously, been depicted as the ultimate outsiders. What do you think that vampires can teach us about acceptance and diversity?

Being more accepting of vampires is not a good example of building tolerance for others who are different from us or are from different cultures. A vampire is a supernatural creature who simply wants to take your life; therefore, it would make good sense to protect yourself and keep your distance. On a more serious note, Bram did experience what is what like to be an outsider from Dublin, Ireland, living and working in London, England for twenty-seven years. I believe that Bram was also very aware of the tensions and confrontations associated with religious differences between Protestants and Catholics growing up in Ireland.

On a related note, there are endless disabled creators looking to get into the professional scene. Disabled actors, writers, set designers, puppeteers, you name it! As a veteran creator, what is your advice for those with disabilities looking to get a leg-up in the creative world?

Bram dealt with some version of a disability himself for the first seven years of his life. It is not known exactly what led to his sickly childhood and to what degree he was affected, but he did recover to become a champion athlete at Trinity College in Dublin. Nowadays, as a result of increased awareness and appropriate laws, many parts of the world have become more accommodating for people with disabilities. My advice is to not hold back, apply yourself, become highly skilled and qualified for your desired roles and do not let your disability become a factor.

Hardcover and paperback copies of DRACULA THE UN-DEAD, DRACUL, and BRAM STOKER’S LOST JOURNAL are available to buy at BRAMSTOKERESTATE.COM, alongside some fun merch such as Bram Stoker Bobblehead figures and the new Vintage Dracula Book Cover necktie. For information about STOKER ON STOKER presentations and tours that Dacre leads to Transylvania, Dublin, Ireland, Whitby, Scotland, and other sites associated with the research and writing of Dracula, visit DACRESTOKER.COM

This interview was originally published in STARBURST issue 475.

STARBURST caught up with exploitation legend William Grefé to talk about his career, which is celebrated with the Arrow Video release He Came From the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection…

STARBURST: Did you ever think that people would still be enjoying your films 50 years plus later?

William Grefé: No, not really. When we made those films, they went in the local drive-ins. The sad part about all of this is the laboratories threw away a lot of stuff. For example, I met someone at one of the film festivals up in New York, he called me about three four years later, he said, ‘Listen, I was going by the LOX laboratory and they were throwing all these big cans in a dumpster. I crawled in and I found The Naked Zoo – which is the Rita Hayworth movie – are you interested?’ I said sure! He said, ‘I don’t want anything, just pay the freight’. So I sent him a check for $70, and that’s the way I got The Naked Zoo, which is insane. What really makes me sad as well, I did Impulse – that William Shatner movie. They threw the negative away. So we are in the process of trying to put together the best existing prints. It’s so interesting now that Arrow is putting out all the seven films on Blu-ray. I mean this is a big unbelievable that people are getting in touch all the world.

How did you get started in the film industry?

Well, ever since I was a kid, I love the movies. When I was like 11 years old, I wrote a play. I was in grammar school, and I wrote a script and we performed at the school. My script, which I directed at 11 years old! Anyway, I used to go up to New York to visit my aunt in Long Island. And back then, on 42nd Street, they had maybe a dozen theatres that played three feature films for 25 cents. I would just go over in the morning and I lived in the theatres. After high school, I did Summer Stock in Woodstock, New York, which later became quite the famous Cape Town Woodstock. I was in the Summer Stock at The Maverick Theatre with a guy named Lee Marvin. Anyway, I guess I’d seen too many John Wayne movies and I joined up for the Korean War. And when I got out, I got married.

After I got married, I said boy this acting is not too secure. My wife got pregnant, so I joined the Miami fire department and I was a fireman. When I was at the fire department, you have a lot of spare time because we worked 24 hours on and 48 off. So I ended up writing screenplays. And I wrote probably five or six screenplays – I had the rejection slips to prove I wrote them anyway! I finally sold one called The Checkered Flag, which was about automobile racing up at Sebring. I took a 30-day vacation from the fire department, and they bought me on set for rewrites. The director ended up having a nervous breakdown the first day. All of the investors panicked. Back then in Florida, there were absolutely no directors. The film business there was in its infancy. So they said we got to get a director from California. The cameraman said ‘look, by the time the guy gets here, the races will be over – what the hell, make the writer the director’. So they drafted me at one in the morning to direct the movie. I knew zilch about the mechanics of it, so the cameraman sort of carried me through. Fortunately, the movie made money.

You were pretty much the person who invented the Miami film scene…

Well, Florida, actually, yeah. Orlando was nothing because Disney wasn’t there at that time. When Castro took over Cuba, all of the Cuban film community fled Havana and they came to Miami. My sister spoke fluent Spanish, so I found all these Spanish filmmakers and Julio Chávez, who became my director of photography – he probably did at least 10 of my films. There was only one mixing facility in Florida. So I went to them and told them I have a limited budget. The place closed at five o’clock, so I asked if I could mix my film at night. And so the guy said I can give you my mixer, Henry Lopez, who was the office boy. Henry is like 18 years old. So we would stay up all night till nine in the morning. It took two weeks to mix the film.

Was it true that you made Death Curse of Tartu in seven days?

Yeah, the way that came about was I had directed Sting of Death, and back then, all of the various drive-ins always wanted to horror movies as a package. The distributor had a stake in the film, but he couldn’t find another horror movie. So he said the magic word – if I could get a horror movie, he would finance it. This was like December; back then, making movies took forever. He said ‘the only monkey I’ll put on your back is I’ve got to have the movie April 15th’, because that’s when all the drive in theatres open up after the winter. I wasn’t about to turn the deal down, so I said no problem. I had to start shooting immediately, so I stayed up all night, and I wrote Death Curse of Tartu in one day. I shot the film in seven days, and of all the films I’ve made, Death Curse of Tartu will not die, it keeps coming back to life.

You also followed the lead of Willard, the famous rat film, by making Stanley, how did that come about?

I had become president of Ivan Tors Studio, which was the studio that did Flipper and Gentle Ben, and all those series. So I was the executive in charge but I loved independence, so in my contract, I was allowed to make one film independently from the studio, but I had to give them first crack. So I was out in Los Angeles on their business, and I pick up Variety and it says ‘Willard – biggest grossing independent film’. And I thought, boy, animal horror movies – that’s the next trend. You see, if you jump on a bandwagon, you’ve got to be the second guy out, maybe the third, and you’ll make money. If you’re a fifth or sixth guy, you won’t make money. So, I don’t know what I ate that night, but I went to sleep and I dreamt Stanley. I went by Crown International, a studio that had handled one of my films, The Wild Rebels. The distributor was an old crusty guy named Red Jacobs, and so I said I’ve got a great idea for a movie. ‘Okay, leave me the screenplay, I’ll read it over the weekend’. I said I don’t have a screenplay. He said, ‘Well, give me the synopsis then’. I don’t have a synopsis. ‘Get the hell out of my office!’ [Laughs] He smoked these big Havana cigars that were about a foot long and I reached out and grabbed one. ‘Put that back!’ I said, look, calm down, bring in Mark Tenser – who was the vice president – and Paul Joseph – publicity – and let me tell you the story. I told him the story. And afterwards he said, ‘how much will you make this movie for?’ I said $125,000, we shook on it and when you shook hands with him, it was better than any written contract. He said ‘I’m only gonna put one monkey on your back, Grefé, I’ve got to have it April 15th’. [Laughs]

Anyway, I was taking the red eye back from Los Angeles to Miami. So I thought, ‘What can I do? I’ve got to start shooting next week. And I thought, Gary Crutcher, the writer. Gary was a pill-popper, he was a druggie with uppers and downers, so I told him to meet me at LA airport. So I sat down with a yellow pad and I wrote down all the characters and the story. This was a Friday night, and I said, ‘Gary, I got to have a screenplay Monday morning in Miami’. Back then, there were no faxes or emails, so Sunday night, he had to put it on the red eye plane to pick it up at the airport. So Gary just popped the pill and rolled it like a day and a half. That’s the way Stanley came about. The last thing on Stanley, we opened in Los Angeles, against the most expensive, biggest film Hollywood had that year, called The Godfather. The Godfather in Los Angeles took $181 thousand. Stanley pulls  $175 thousand. We’re only $6000 under The Godfather.

That’s something to be very proud of! You actually had the jump on Steven Spielberg with Mako: Jaws of Death, because you had already written that, is that right?

Yeah, but I couldn’t get arrested! Nobody was interested. Then, when Universal came out with Jaws, every major magazine, Time Magazine, Life, everything was shark, shark, shark. So my phone rang off the hook with distributors and people that I’d shown the story to them. So I wasn’t stealing Jaws, I rode on the publicity of Jaws.

He Came From the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection is out now from Arrow Video.

1993 cult sci-fi biopic Fire in the Sky told the story of Travis Walton, who claimed in his book The Walton Experience that he had been abducted by aliens. Actor D.B. Sweeney played the film version of Walton and the movie is set to be released on Blu-ray for the first time by Via-Vision’s Imprint label. We caught up with him to have a quick chat about the role…

STARBURST: How did you approach the role of Travis Walton?

D.B. Sweeney: I thought it was a strong setup in the script. It was a great opportunity for me to do something that hadn’t really been done before in terms of making zero gravity believable.

Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like filming Fire in the Sky?

It was like two movies really. The great time in Oregon with James Garner, Robert Patrick, and Peter Berg filming everything outside the spaceship. Then the second movie was just me and Rob at Industrial Light and Magic with their incredible team doing the alien sequences. Both movies were fun but a lot of long hours.

There’s a moment in the film where the character is covered in a rubber-type material, what was that like?

ILM had so many cool ideas and setups that it made it really easy for me to buy in as an actor that we could pull it off. Really creative, cool dudes trying to make some magic.

What was the most difficult part of the role?

The weightless sequences required me to be in a harness on wires, hung upside down for long periods of time. That was hard on the body even though I had trained hard to be fit for it

What do you think you’d do if you were abducted by aliens? Is there anything in particular you’d want to ask them?

I think I would tell them how much I enjoyed their gentle cousin in E.T. and hope they took the hint.

What’s next for you?

I have a film called Haymaker about to drop and then The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre, which is really fun. And my short film Two Dum Micks co-starring Sean Astin has won over 60 film festival awards and is still going strong on that circuit! You can check it out at twodummicks.com.

Fire in the Sky gets its worldwide Blu-ray debut on December 30th from Australian label Imprint.