Humans are a
brutal species by nature and always have been; from the dawn of time when two
monkeys clubbed each other over the heads with rocks, to the Roman coliseums
where gladiators fought to the death for the Caesars’ pleasure, to boxing
wrestling and mixed martial arts. Even after mankind is nearly erased by the
undead plague, the people need entertainment. Bill Hicks sums the need quite
nicely in Revelations pondering about American Gladiators,
” ‘Is Gladiators too violent? And what are we doing
watching it? Is it really good for us to watch? Is it too violent?’ NO! Fuck
it! Give these guys chainsaws! Let them fuck each other up good. It’s not
violent enough. Let these fuckin’ morons kill each other in that God Damn pit!
Man… I want to see a fuckin railway spike go through their eyeballs. They
want to kill each other, I’m filming it!
Like many zombie enthusiasts I have a penchant for liking
sharp toys, the cover to Thom Carnell’s book No Flesh Shall Be Spared
caught my eye almost immediately at last years ZomBcon. There’s nothing like a
giant bloody blade to catch the eye. Carnell would later sum up the novel to me
as: “Gladiator meets Dawn of the Dead as seen through
the eyes of [Legendary Japanese film director] Akira Kurosawa.”
The story starts with a careless truck-stop mother
accidentally smothering the son she never wanted in her sleep. Thus the
Apocalypse begins, not with a bang like everyone expected, but only with the
tiniest whimper. She wakes up only to find junior has awakened from his
dirt nap and is chewing her to death.
From there we fast forward to a world just barely
recovered from the brink. The people need entertainment and the latest
bloodsport from the Undead Fight League is just the thing. The game is quite
simple: kill the zombies that come out of the turnstiles, stay alive and make
it look good for TV. Our man Cleese is just our man for the job, having earned
a reputation for clearing out hordes of zombies nothing with a bottle of Jack
and a bat during the Apocalypse.
His entry into the UFL is mentored by the older, grizzled
cage-veteran Monk; whose job is to take the tough-talking wiseass and turn him
into an economically viable trained killing machine before he can retire in
peace. Monk teaches him all he knows, how to fight and how to utilize the
weapons provided. When the cameras aren’t on Cleese finds himself drawn to the
mysterious woman ninja Chikara [Japanese for strength]. Except that just
because the television cameras aren’t on doesn’t mean no one is watching.
As his ratings begin to rise, he begins to notice that
something’s just not quite right. Cleese decides it’s time to opt for early
retirement. If he’s not careful about he plays the game it might wind up being
someone he cares about trying to tear his throat out on the sandy arena floor,
that is if he can live long enough not to end up one of the losers coming out
of the turnstiles.
Really what’s not to like about this book? Zombies,
Gladiators, Samurai philosophy, guns, knives, swords! Even from
the beginning of the story Carnell doesn’t bullshit you, this is not going to
be a happy story with a happy ending, Thom Carnell takes the term bloodsport to
a whole new level and assures that No Flesh Shall Be Spared.
Last year at ZomBcon I met a lot of awesome people with a
lot of similar interests aside from the zombie genre. The leather-jacketed
local horror journalist, author and cinemaphile extraordinaire Thom Carnell was
definitely one of these people. Now almost a year later he and I finally
go mano-a-mano and head to head in this epic tête-à-tête that goes all 13
rounds that follows:
The Single Bullet Theory: Not to go for the
proverbial throat right out of the gate but Jesus fucking Christ dude, that
first chapter completely ripped my heart out (being an especially new father at
the time I had a hard time reading past that point for a while, I had to go hug
my daughter after that) was that anywhere as hard for you to write as a parent
yourself as it was to read?
 |
| Carnell: Martial artist, mortician, medic, movie maniac extraordinaire |
Thom Carnell: Well, initially, the story
had a different beginning. It was more of a moment that showed the main character
in his element: covered in blood, buried in corpses… happy. My wife thought it
lacked punch and it was her in fact that suggested we come out swingin’. She
was right. She usually is. Was that chapter hard to write? Well, no… not
really. I knew I wanted something visceral, something that would let the reader
know I what they had in their hand was not your usual zombie story. I mean, so
many of them are so utterly formulaic. ‘The zombies are at the door. They’re
trying to get in! What will we do?’ Usually, it’s not the zombies that are the
real threat anyway. It’s always the old saw-horse of “Man’s inability to
cooperate with Man” that is his undoing. In a word… “Boring.” Well, not so much
boring as over-done. I wanted to do something else, something different. So, I
took a look around and looked at what was popular in Pop Culture (in this case,
zombies and MMA) and what was in my body of knowledge (luckily, zombies and
MMA) and went from there. I have kids as well and I knew the connection parents
had with them. I then remembered a scene from Stephen King’s SALEM LOT which
had a child died and came back as a vampire. I recalled the way it affected me
when I read it. I also remembered Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 film, BURIAL GROUND:
NIGHTS OF TERROR (aka LE NOTTI DEL TERRORE) and a scene in which a child also
dies and comes back attack his mother. I remembered how effective those scenes
were and let my imagination go from there. After that, it wasn’t hard at all.
So during the Apocalypse
Cleese went on the warpath with a bat, what do you think ol' Cleese would say
to swinging one of these?
[laughs] I think he’d like
that a lot. However, Cleese only used the bat because it was handy. It could
have easily been an axe handle, a chair leg, or anything else. The bat was just
something that made for an image that screamed American to me. Hell, if
pressed, he might have grabbed a severed limb and used that.
What's the word on the
sequel to No Flesh?
Sequel’s being written as we
speak. It’s tentatively titled, DON’T LOOK BACK, and I’m thinking it’s going to
be even more action oriented. I’ve done about 20,000 words so far and I’m
having to slow myself down. The pace has been blistering. I took some time
after the first one and did a ton of research: shooting guns, learning about
helicopters, learning about ammo, and spending a lot of time on “improvised
munitions.” It may not all get used, but the experiences I’ve had doing the
research will definitely inform how things will feel. Once the sequel is done,
I’ll promote that and get started on the final book in what I’m seeing as a
trilogy.
You've mentioned before
being a big fan of the chanbara genre, particularly Kurosawa (of which I'm
particularly fond myself), do you have a favorite out of the genre? I remember
you mentioning having seen every Zatoichi movie.
Hmmm… well, that’s a hard
one. I mean I do have personal favorites, but - believe it or not - there are
even sub-genres to that sub-genre. I mean, there’s the action-oriented films
like the Zatoichi films or the Lone Wolf & Cub films. Then, there are the
more drama-oriented films like the Yoji Yamada trilogy (THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI,
THE HIDDEN BLADE, and LOVE AND HONOR) which I just love. I’m actually doing a
thirteen part primer on chanbara films on Season 2 of the pod cast I co-host,
The Night Crew (http:// www.thenightcrew.org) and we just did a comparison
between the Japanese chanbara film and American western. I love the genre
because it’s morality is so clearly defined. That… and the swordplay is
awesome. As far as favorites… The Yamada Trilogy, The SLEEPY EYES OF DEATH
series, DORA HEITA, HARAKIRI, KILL!, The Hanzo The Razor series, THREE OUTLAW
SAMURAI, NINJA HUNT… Man, the list just goes on and on.
You write for DreadCentral
as well as Fangoria and I see you posting reviews of movies everyday, how many
movies would you say you've seen in your line of work?
I do indeed post reviews of
everything I watch on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/carnell).
Honestly though, I do what I do not to be who I am… but because of
who I am. Does that sound douchey? I mean, I watched the amount of films I
watch even before I started writing for genre outlets and I watch an average of
2-3 movies a day and I’ve done so for the last forty-five years. Film was such
a huge part of my growing up and I just naturally became interested in it.
Then, I found books and that opened a whole other world for me. At my core, I
just love the Art of Storytelling. It’s the closest thing on earth I’ve found
to Magic. But to answer your question, let’s put it this way… On Netflix, I’ve
rated almost 7,000 movies and that’s not counting ones I’ve seen, but either
haven’t seen listed or aren’t in in their archives.
Any comment on 'martial artist' Frank Dux
bailing on your panel at Crypticon? Perhaps he was worried about the Bloodsport
controversy or his credibility as a supposed martial artist being questioned?
I can’t even address that. I
mean, I am not in the business of attacking people or making them look like an
asshole. Dux would have gotten “kid gloves” treatment from me. The subject of
his past and what’s real and what’s myth may have come up, but I would have
done so only to give him a chance to dispel any misconceptions people may have.
Why he didn’t show for the interview is anybody’s guess. In the end, he didn’t
show and I held my own panel on MMA, martial arts, and how important I think it
all is to being an “enlightened” person. Honestly, we didn’t miss him all that
much.
What got you into horror?
One of my first movie-going
experiences was going to a drive-in with my mom back in the early ‘60s. We were
a family who were getting by on a single parent’s income. There wasn’t a lot of
money, you know? So, my mom had heard about this new comedy and she loaded me
and my two sisters into the ‘56 Buick and we went to the El Rancho Drive-In in
San Jose, CA. It was an old school place and I saw some great flicks there.
Anyway, it wasn’t until we paid to get in and got settled that the movie began.
The comedy she’d taken us to… HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE.. which is by no means
a comedy. She told us kids to lay down and go to sleep, but I sat and watched
the film through the seats and was entranced. From there, I saw what I could.
It wasn’t until 1971 when Bob Wilkins came on KTVU 2 in Oakland with a show
called CREATURE FEATURES that I was fully hooked. That show became like my
religion. Years later, I interviewed Bob and told him how important he was to
me growing up. I think he thought I was just being nice, but… I wasn’t. From
there, I leapt in with both feet. I used to wait with baited breath for the TV
GUIDE to come in the mail and I’d grab it and a highlighter and sit and mark
off all the movies I wanted to see. And every day, I’d set my alarm for fifteen
minutes before the movie started just so I could get up and watch it. I used to
go to school with little sleep, but it didn’t matter because I would tell my
friends all about the film I’d seen the night before. Luckily, my mom kind of
understood and allowed me to get away with it.
How do you feel about the
amount of remakes? Do you feel any have made any marked improvement over their
original?
Well, not all remakes are
bad. There are just as many out there that rock. I think people give remakes
too hard a time. If you want to get infuriated about something movie related,
get pissed of at people who won’t watch a film in black & white. Get
irritated at the person who won’t watch a film with subtitles… or that is
letterboxed. If you want to see some truly great films, you need watch films
from all over the world. On The Night Crew pod cast, we are always going on
about “context.” The gist of it is… to fully understand why a film like NIGHT
OF THE LIVING DEAD is a good film, you need to have seen OUT OF THE PAST or KEY
LARGO or… who Jacques Tourneur is. Hell, you need to know a thing or two about
fuckin’ musicals or who Vincente Minelli is. Y’know? So a lot of the blame on
the lame output of Hollywood I lay right at the feet of the average moviegoer
who doesn’t take the time to know what it is he or she is looking at. Because,
let’s face it, going to a cinema now is a nightmare. People texting during the
film… talking… bringing children to wholly inappropriate films. It’s hard to
imagine that some of these people know how to behave. Then, to top it all off,
theater owners don’t do a thing about it. Thankfully, there are people in the
world like Tim League at The Alamo Drafthouse who will have someone who does
that shit escorted from the building in no uncertain terms. But remakes… shit,
they’re the least of my worries.
Regarding zombies
What is your take on the
whole Fast or Slow debate?
I kind of adhere to the idea
that Zack Snyder talked about in the Special Features of the DAWN OF THE DEAD
DVD. In that, he describes 3 stages of zombism. #1) “The Emergency Room Zombie”
That is… people who have just died. They bear the injuries that killed
them and they possess all of the attributes that they had in life. Now, I’ll
factor in the inevitable adrenaline dump to explain the whole “fast” zombie
thing. What I won’t buy is a zombie doing something that it could not have done
when it was alive. #2) This is the dead after say three to five days or so.
Rigor Mortis has already come and gone (it usually appears eight to twenty
hours after death and lasts for ten to seventy hours but can remain for several
days) and decomposition has started. Shit’s goin’ south. The can move, just not
very well. #3) This is a body that is less mobile and a lot more decomposed, a
whole lot less coordinated. Think… The Bicycle Zombie in THE WALKING DEAD. Ok,
so, that said… I also adhere to the Romeroian idea that “Every dead body that
is not exterminated becomes one of them. It gets up and kills! The people it
kills get up and kill!” I think it has more of a sense of randomness… which, to
me, is scarier than just a suped-up case of flu. The idea that zombification is
an infection is an interesting one, but one that is more about our fear of
infection and of contamination. While that scenario is a lot more likely…
someone getting sick and dying and coming back is far more possible than
something affecting the bodies of the dead and bringing them back… there just a
part of me that thinks the Romero Model is more frightening. Either way… we
still end up with hordes of the undead roaming the streets. People bickering
about how it all started is, at that point, kind of beside the point.
Weapon of choice: Blade,
bat or firearm?
Well, as I said when I was
asked about my weapon of choice at the first ZomBCon… My initial weapon of
choice would be… a good pair of running shoes. The best way to win a swordfight
is to never draw your sword, right? That said… I think it all depends on your
battleground. Urban? Suburban? Rural? Forest? What’s your playing field like?
But as far as weaponry… and assuming I had anything at my disposal. Long
range… I’m saying the .50 caliber M82A1 SASR (Special Applications Scoped Rifle
or Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle) sniper rifle. It packs a helluva punch and the
round can be delivered from a long way off. Medium range… the Colt AR-15 or the
Heckler & Koch HK416 both use the standard 5.56 NATO round. Short range…
the AA12 Fully Automatic Shotgun (it can deliver an astounding 300 rounds a
minute - full auto, 12 gauge) wins the blue ribbon. Handgun… I’ll take a
suppressed Heckler & Koch HK45 or a Berretta 92F. Closer than that… Give me either a 31” tachi,
a 29” katana, or… if we’re being exotic… a Turkish Kilij.
Are you Prepared for Z-Day?
Let’s just say this… I’m
probably better prepared than your average citizen. I mean, I’ve spent my life
around the dead (I attended mortuary college and worked as an embalmer for
years). I know a thing or two about weapons and fighting. And… I’ve spent a LOT
of time thinking the whole scenario over. But to be honest - and while it may
sound silly - one thing I learned from played LEFT 4 DEAD is… that even a
meticulously laid plan can go to shit real fast from the slightest deviation or
bit of bad timing. So, you never know…
I understand doing it for
the love of film. What are your top 10 movies that you would Ludovico Technique
one of these average movie-goers in an attempt to make them appreciate film a
bit more?
Well… this gets dicey. I mean,
there are the films I think everyone should see. Then, there are the films I
myself enjoy (which sometimes are necessarily classically “great”). And then,
there are the films that people need to see to be able to hold their own in a
discussion of Film. I’ll give you a list of the films I gave when I filled out
my staff questionnaire for The Night Crew. Favorite films: NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD, WHITE CHRISTMAS, THE FALL, Hirokazu Koreeda’s AFTERLIFE, ENTER THE
DRAGON, FIGHT CLUB, BLADE RUNNER, CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, THE DEVIL’S
BACKBONE, the entire ZATOICHI series, the LONE WOLF AND CUB series, KWAIDAN,
the SLEEPY EYES OF DEATH series, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING, THE
RED VIOLIN, OUT OF THE PAST, INSIDE, MARTYRS, GALLIPOLI, WHEN THE LAST SWORD IS
DRAWN, Yoji Yamada’s SAMURAI Trilogy, WATER, THE LAST SAMURAI, 800 BULLETS ,
THRONE OF BLOOD, DEPARTURES, TOKYO GODFATHERS, SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES, RED
CLIFF (International version), DORM, PLAYTIME, Yang Zhang’s SHOWER, OSS117:
CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES, the anime MUSHI-SHI, THE FOUNTAIN, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE
CHINA, THE MAN FROM NOWHERE, THE OTHERS, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY,
MURDER BY DEATH, AMELIE, HARAKIRI, THE DESCENT… I’m sure I’ve left a ton out,
but that’s as good a place as any to get started.
Obviously you're WELL
versed in horror, but what scares Thom Carnell? Or rather, what sort of thing
makes a horror enthusiast such as yourself's skin crawl? (i.e. the director of
Saw II came up with the syringe pit because needles terrify him, bad example
maybe but it's the first one I can think of this late)
Well, first off, one wishes
the thing that scared Darren Lynn Bousman would have been the fear of making a
crappy movie… maybe SAW II would have been better. But, I digress… Other than
the big things (something happening to my family, being infirmed and unable to
care for myself, etc), there’s not a lot. I mean, I worked in funeral service
for ten years off and on and I saw as many ways as there is to die. I’m not too
concerned by the thought of walking in a graveyard at night (it’s really rather
pleasant). I’ve encountered violence. Spiders don’t bug me. Snakes… Some might
saw that I have an issue with zombies since I’ve spent more than a few years
studying them. Honestly, if I had to pick one thing that frightens me… it’d be
people. I love people one-on-one… it’s just I get a little uncomfortable when I
encounter them in large numbers. I start getting mental images of being run up
a windmill by villagers with pitchforks and torches. In my opinion, four or
five people is a dinner party… any more than that and that’s a mob… and THAT’S
scary.
Do you have a favorite
interview with you've conducted with someone or a most memorable moment? Who
would you like most to interview and why?
Favorite interview… Well, I
always enjoy speaking to Clive Barker. He always leaves me with something to
think about and is super inspiring. Both him and Neil Gaiman make you want to
be a better writer. Diamanda Galas was amazing. I was so scared to talk to her,
but she was great. I recently chatted with Kate Beckinsale for the new Underworld
movie and she was nice… smelled amazing. There’s been so many over
the years. I’ve been doing interviews since 1994. There have been literally
hundreds of people I‘ve sat with and each one is kind of special in their own
right, y’know? Frank Miller. Salma Hayek. Robert Rodriquez. Alex Ross. Luckily,
Zed Presents… is putting the best of those out in eBook form in association
with Crossroad Press (http://www.macabreink.com/cpmain) called THE CARPE NOCTEM
INTERVIEWS… Once we click through the ones I did for CARPE NOCTEM Magazine, we’ll
start doing THE FREELANCE YEARS… which covers everything after that. Ok, so…
The memorable ones? I had an interview with Andrew Vachss go bad once. It was
just after the Columbine incident and I think he thought I was asking questions
that were designed to get some clichéd soundbite from him. I wasn’t, but… The
talk started to go sideways and it became impossible to put it back on track.
My wife arranged for me to talk to Gino Vannelli for my birthday one year. That
was pretty terrific because I’ve been a fan since I was younger. I really
enjoyed talking with Spanish director Nacho Cerda about his film, AFTERMATH
because we got into a lot of deep shit about death and dying. These says, I
really dig interviews where I myself learn something and it’s not just that
same ol’ same ol’. It’s the main thing I love about doing The Night Crew
podcast. My co-host, Sean Smithson, and I do interviews with people that are
WAY out of the box. It makes it fun for Sean and I… and it makes it fun for the
guests because they get to actually have a conversation rather than just answer
the same questions they’ve been answering for years. But like I said… there’s
been so many people over the years and I usually have a great time talking with
them. As far as who I’d most like to talk to… I’ve managed to click off most of
the names I’ve had on my Interview Bucket List… with one exception: Stephen
King. I was supposed to interview him years ago, but just before we were
scheduled to talk, he was hit by that car and that ended that. Maybe some day…
What's your opinion on the
latest craze of 'torture porn' movies like Human Centipede: Full Sequence, A
Serbian Film or the Hostel movies? Are these directors just trying to get a
reaction from a 'been-there-done-that-seen-that" sort of crowd by pushing
the envelope off the cliff?
Man, how much space to you
have for this answer? [laughs] What’s my opinion? I have no problem with violence
(even extreme violence) IF it serves to move the story forward. Sadly, most “torture
porn” films fail to do that. The violence tends to be more… masturbatory than
anything else. I think the violence in A SERBIAN FILM was a necessary part of
that particular film. If you wee to take it out of that flick, the structure
would definitely fall apart. It would make no sense. The HOSTEL series… there I
think the violence was necessary, but it also lingered unnecessarily. There
came a point where the audience “got it,” they knew what was happening and the
director let the camera run. After a while, it’s no longer furthering anything
(not story, not theme, etc). It’s just sort of “wallowing” in its own excess. I’m
not a particular fan of the HOSTEL films, but Eli Roth at least tried to
do something that was new (even if he did get caught up in his own mythos).
Plus… any series that casts both Takashi Miike and Edwige Fenech… ain’t half
bad. Now, HUMAN CENTIPEDE… Look, I HATED HUMAN CENTIPEDE, but not because of
the violence or whatnot. I think it had a solid story idea. The problem there
was in its execution. The film was simply poorly made. Now, this all said, I
grew up in an era (the 70s and 80s) when “splatter” was in its heyday. Back
then, Special Makeup FX guys like Savini and Bottin were like rock stars. In
fact, I used to go to see films because of who the FX guy was. But as a result
of that era, we all learned that “gore” was only effective if the audience felt
something about the characters. Look at FRIDAY THE 13TH. Those
kids were dicks and by the time Jason’s mom starts offing them, the audience is
cheering for those fuckers to die. Now, juxtapose that with the single, simple
death in SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES or the violence in THE MAN FROM NOWHERE.
Completely different things. In the former… you don’t give a shit about the
characters and want them to die horribly. In the latter, you COMPLETELY care
and, when the deaths come, you’re either deeply saddened (as in SCHULTZE) or
completely exhilarated (as MAN FROM NOWHERE). Then… you look at something like
Fred Vogel’s AUGUST UNDERGROUND films and you see them for what they are…
exploitative masturbatory crap. There is no subtext there, no meaning. It’s
just death for death’s sake, meant to titillate. It’s bullshit and it’s just
bad filmmaking.
Suppose a fictional battle
between a Roman gladiator and a samurai under the house of Tokugawa, who wins
and why?
This sounds like an unused
DEADLIEST WARRIOR episode. [laughs] Well, samurai have the better weapons (the Katana,
Yumi, Kanabo, and Naginata), the better mindset (the willingness to die), and
speed. Gladiators have a more diverse arsenal (although they hail from an age
when the weapons were made from weaker metals and were therefore more likely to
bend or break) with the Sica, Sling, Trident and Net, Cestus, and Scissor and
are physically bigger fighters. So, it really comes down to size vs. weaponry.
So, given the speed, training, and advanced technology of the samurai, I’m
going with Tokugawa. Now that said, if you watch DEADLIEST WARRIOR, you’d know
that the Samurai lost to the Spartan, so… one never knows.
