Bookwalter Interview

The J.R. Bookwalter Interview

The following are excerpts from internet interview that I conducted with J.R. Bookwalter.

Caretaker: How did you get into movie making?

J.R.:"Mostly just backyard tinkering with the silent Super-8mm home movie camera that my mother used to shoot my sister and I growing up with. That led into sound short films, and eventually into longer 20-minute shorts. I was making short films right up until "The Dead Next Door" got financed in 1985. The last one I shot was called "Tomorrow", which was made during pre-production on DND as a "warm-up".

Caretaker: Who are your influences in the field of movie making?

J.R.:"George A. Romero and Steven Spielberg. I know that's a weird combination. Romero should be obvious: Spielberg I admire the hell out of because he's been able to make such fantastic, escapist movies under the studio system. I'd love to be able to do the kind of variety he has been able to do."

Caretaker: Where did the idea for the DND come from?

J.R.: "A lot of it came from hearing about the AIDS virus all the time. It was a fairly new topic at the time (1985). But the idea of a virus that couldn't be cured, that was scary. I took it one further and said, "What if it could reanimate a dead body?" and then, "And what if you couldn't kill the body by destroying the brain, a'la Romero?" The religious cult came from my fascination with the whole Jim Jones/Guyana tragedy as a kid."

Caretaker: Can you tell me a little about how you got Sam Raimi involvement in DND?

J.R.: "After graduating high school in 1984, I went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. It was a 2-year trade school, but at the beginning of the 2nd year, my apartment got broken into and a lot of my stuff was stolen, including a 16mm Bolex that I never really got the chance to use. Because they didn't really have film classes (photography was the closest), I took this opportunity to quit and come home. I bummed around for about a month, then one day I'm flipping through these back issues of FANGORIA magazine and came across the one with THE EVIL DEAD on the cover. I had seen that movie numerous times in high school and loved it. I knew Raimi and Co. were from Detroit, Michigan, which was only a 4-hour drive from me. And FANGO had been talking about plans for an EVIL DEAD 2. I figured I should at least be able to get a production assistant job on it with my experience. So I dialed up directory assistance, got the number for Renaissance Pictures, and left a message on the answering machine. A few days later, the phone rang and it was Sam Raimi returning my call. Now, keep in mind that at the time he had just come off of THE XYZ MURDERS (aka CRIMEWAVE), so he wasn't quite the bigwig he is today.

Sam was very friendly. He told me that ED 2 was a ways from actually going into production, but I suggested driving up to meet with him anyway. He agreed, and the next thing I know I was in Detroit in his very humble offices. I showed him and the gang my short films, we chatted for awhile, and the next thing I know, he's telling me I should run right out and make a feature and that he might even be willing to put some money into it. So I drove home and wrote THE DEAD NEXT DOOR, scribbled together an investment proposal, and the rest is history."

Caretaker: Can you take a moment and give me a timeline for DND?

J.R.: "I quit college at the beginning of July, 1985. I first contacted Raimi in late July. He cut the first check for $2,000 at the beginning of September (I still have a photocopy of it). We started setting up a small office in my grandmother's basement, holding auditions, etc. The original plan was to shoot it on VHS video for $8,000! Things were moving slowly, and winter was just around the corner, so around November the project went on hiatus. I kept working, rewriting the script and what not, all through the winter. In February, 1986 we moved into a larger office under a video store. Within a few months, I requested for Sam to seek out someone more experienced to help produce; he hired Jolie Jackunas, who would wind up playing Kuller (very reluctantly, I might add). She and I made a great team, and we started replacing all of the people who had dropped out over the winter. Sam and I also started discussing shooting on 3/4" U-Matic video (more professional) at this time.

I think it was April or May when Jolie and I drove to North Carolina to meet with Sam on the set of EVIL DEAD 2. While standing on the cabin set between setups, Sam and I decided to shoot on Super-8mm film, which Jolie and I had been researching costs for. When that was final, we started shooting in June, 1986. The first week or two of footage was largely waste because the camera was malfunctioning. We had to stop shooting for a couple weeks and get a new camera. We started again in July and kept going pretty much straight until the end of August, when Jolie was scheduled to leave. For the rest of 1986, we hit-and-run the insert shots, effects and other things we'd missed. That winter I drove to Detroit with Scott Plummer (who had come aboard as a co-producer on the exact same night we learned the original footage was no good...talk about persistence!) and Michael Todd (the assistant director, he also played Jason) to meet with Sam, who was now editing ED 2, and pick up some 3/4" editing decks. I spent most of 1987 editing off and on, shooting weddings on the side for money, and also doing a lot of music and other goofing off. We were also STILL doing re-shoots and other inserts as I kept cutting and wanting to change this or that (all of which Sam was encouraging, probably because he loves to work the same way).

As 1987 became 1988, Sam flew me out to L.A. and put me up in a hotel to finalize the cut. Finally, in December, 1988 we did the final picture edit here in Ohio, which left just the sound to be done. In February, 1989 my friend David Barton (who had done most of the key FX for DND) had called upon another friend, David Lange, to come out to L.A. to work with him on FX for David DeCoteau's MURDER WEAPON. It was a 2-week thing, so I tagged along. Once out there I contacted Sam ("Hey! I'm in L.A.!"), who got the bright idea to finish the sound. So, he employed Bruce to get things moving. I talked my way into scoring the movie on top of everything else (a mistake), so I had to have all of my gear shipped out to me and alternated between being holed up in a bedroom scoring and having Bruce pick me up to go work on the sound job. Two weeks became two MONTHS, but it was finally all done in late April, 1989. I got a deal with DeCoteau to make ROBOT NINJA out of the trip, and we started shooting that June. Unfortunately DND languished for over a year until Sam hooked up with Electro Video, who did a limited release on video until 1992, when I took over distributing it. (Whew, long story.)"

Caretaker: Tell me a little bit about working with Bruce Campbell?

JR: "It was great fun! Bruce is such a smart-ass you can't help but love him; even when I didn't agree on something and I'd be sitting there at the mixer seething with rage. He'd crack some stupid joke and I just laughed it off and moved on. A lot of DND was fighting for things--Sam didn't want me to cut it (he wanted to hire Kaye Davis, who cut ED 2, and set me up in a house in L.A. with her...I wanted to do it myself in Akron). I won that battle on my own. Sam also didn't want me to score it. Bruce listened to some of the temp score I had done and talked Sam into letting me do the rest. There were also disagreements about the credits--Rob Tapert and I even had a screaming match in the studio over those--but Bruce was always a great diffuser. I dare say that if Bruce hadn't been involved in those final stages, I would have killed somebody...maybe not Sam, but somebody. (laugh)"

Caretaker: What is your opinion on the state of horror today?

J.R.:"Well, horror has really bottomed out in the last five years. I attribute it largely to the fact that the studios now dominate the theaters, and the "independents" nowadays are only interested in pretentious, art-house rejects. On the low end of the scale, I see even less hope as the current crop of no-budget horror moviemakers can't seem to get the ABC's of good filmmaking down, let alone tell a scary story. But I have a lot of hope that things will bounce back. Horror hasn't completely died yet...it has to take the final nose-dive before it can come back even stronger than before."

Caretaker: What words of wisdom would you pass onto a person interested in movie making?

J.R.: "Loaded question. My advice is more to adjust one's attitude when getting into this. Had I approached Sam Raimi with the attitude a lot of the no-budget guys have today, I'm sure he would have slammed the door in my face. Too many moviemakers get it in their head that they're God's gift to the film business--they start buying their own hype. I think it's important to practice your craft and not lose sight of the goal, which should be to make good, entertaining movies. If you want to direct, don't be afraid of the camera. The camera should be your best friend! And remember that you're running the show. The people working with you will expect you to have all the answers, and if you don't, you had better be good at winging it. It's a very rough business and it's easy to let a bad review or unkind word ruffle your feathers or demoralize what you're trying to do. You have to grow some thick skin and realize that not everyone is going to like everything you do. If you can successfully do that, and you stick it out no matter how tough it gets, you have a good chance at making it. Longevity is the key to surviving in the movie business.No matter how much anyone laughs at what you attempt, they can't laugh if you live to fight another day!"

Caretaker: How did you come about start Tempe Video and what does the future hold?

J.R.: "Tempe came about from making 9 pictures for Cinema Home Video. I wasn't happy with how they were doing a lot of things, and I stubbornly figured I could do it better. My biggest mistake was acquiring outside product like HEARTSTOPPER and THE MAJORETTES and SHATTER DEAD. I'm a filmmaker at heart, and it's tough to push someone else's dreams when you're busy trying to make your own come true. So, after a few years of toughing it out, I've scaled back and now only concentrate on my own work. At first I was concerned that this would affect me financially, but I'm actually making far more money handling just my own movies than I ever did from trying to push newcomers' efforts.

Right now Tempe Video is in sort of a holding pattern. With BLOODLETTING, which I produced and edited for writer/director Matthew Jason Walsh, we're going to shop it around, license it to our international clients first and try to secure some better U.S. distribution than we've been able to do on our own or in the first year of our partnership with E.I. Normally we push it into release here first. This year I'm also going back and revamping some of the titles in my catalog that I don't feel ever got proper treatment, like KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE, which I made in 1991 for Cinema Home Video and wound up buying back from them a few years later. We're going to treat it like a new title and see what happens. I'm moving to L.A. in an effort to "upscale" into better budgets, which will likely leave Tempe Video on the sidelines. Bigger budgets will necessitate better distribution, and I don't have that at my disposal right now. In fact, I've streamlined my filmmaking efforts as well. Where I used to .write/direct/produce/edit/score/mix a picture, I'm looking at solely directing and editing now."

Caretaker: What are your favorite horror movies?

J.R.: "DAWN OF THE DEAD, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE FOG, PHANTASM, JAWS (okay, so maybe that last one isn't strictly horror...). I also have a lot of "guilty pleasures," like THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, and Coffin Joe's first 2 films, PSYCHO III, that kind of stuff."

Feel free to e-mail J.R. Bookwalter at Bookwalter@tempevideo.com

Get involved in a new mailing list run by J.R. Bookwalter and Tempe Entertainment, lots of cool discussion on the future of horror in Hollywood and the movie business in general, to subscribe email subscribe-tempetalk@tempevideo.com .

Special Thanks to J.R. Bookwalter for all his support and assistance with this website

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