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Your upcoming movie
Jim Haggerty's Unnatural Causes - in a few words,
what's it about?
It’s about 100 minutes! (laughs) No, in all seriousness, the new movie is
an anthology of stories framed in the premise of a legendary horror star,
played by Baron Misuraca, dying while creating a new anthology TV series
and he returns from the dead to deliver the three completed stories.
Basic question, why an anthology? And
were all segments made specifically for this collection of were at least
some pre-existing shorts?
I love making anthologies. I really enjoyed making Grave Danger and
When Death Calls, so after all this time it seemed like a good way to get back
into filmmaking. Probably because I always have so many ideas – I always
say I have more ideas than time or money to do them. With an anthology,
it’s like making a movie over a weekend, then the next weekend you’re
making a totally different movie.
But all the segments were made for this, following the same vibe, andI
tried to make them all the same length as they’re supposed to be TV show
episodes. In the previous anthologies the running times varied greatly,
but I made an effort to make these more uniform.
The Movies for the Midnight Hour collection was a collection of all my
shorts, but
Unnatural Causes was all always intended to be one multi-story
project and everything was written and shot specifically for it.
What were your
sources of inspiration when writing
Unnatural Causes?
I started binge-watching Roald Dahl’s old anthology series from the 70’s,
Tales of the Unexpected. Some of those stories he wrote for the original
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a lot of them were classics –
Lamb to the
Slaughter, Man from the South and others. So they remade those with a more
modern feel and introduced a lot of new stories that had a very devious
feel that would always have that kick in the end. I really enjoyed it and
pictured writing episodes for that show with the same intrigue and black
humor. It’s very much a tribute to that series.
What can you tell us about your
Unnatural Causes'
approach to horror?
In a lot of ways it’s less horror and more thriller. Obviously it delves
into the usual themes – murder, the undead, lust, villainy, etc. - but
it’s a lot more cerebral and character-driven than a lot of horror.
There’s a lot of very black humor, and while a lot of the premises are a
bit far-fetched, they’re played extremely straight and made to seem
plausible. It’s a lot of fun.
Do talk about your overall
directorial approach to your stories at hand, and are they all a
homogenous whole when it comes to look and feel or do they differ in
style?
I definitely think the movie has a specific vibe that carries through all
the segments. While the previous anthologies I’ve made had a less
congruous feel to them, I think
Unnatural Causes very much has a specific
vibe all it’s own. Which was intentional, and I think it makes it work.
My approach as a director has matured, I think. I felt like I was much
more on top of things logistically as well as artistically this time than
ever before. My vibe is rather hands-off in a lot of ways - I don’t like
to micro-manage my cast. Especially when I have actors as good as the ones
I had, I try to point them in the right direction and let them do what
they do. It’s exciting to let them bring what I wrote to life like that.
What can you tell us about
Unnatural Causes' cast, and why exactly these people?
Best cast I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and I have had so
many great people in my previous movies. Actually, my initial thought was
to get a lot of the same people from my older movies. Unfortunately a lot
of them couldn’t make it work, even though they all seemed to really like
the stories and the characters – and many have agreed to be on board next
time. Some familiar faces who are always such a pleasure – obviously the great
Tina Krause [Tina Krause
interview - click here] who I don’t need to tell you is a powerhouse. And Debbie D
[Debbie D interview -
click here] who
I’ve known for so long and haven’t worked with in years is still so great
and such a sweetheart. Also, one of my favorite muses Stacey Brook
Schwartz who I first directed in From the Inside 25 years ago, which is
hard to believe since she still looks exactly the same. She’s terrific and
everyone that works with her just loves her.
Ray Talercio has such a great onscreen presence and is such a hard worker.
Of course he was in my short film Frank alongside Jen Elyse Feldy who is
also back – though not in the same segment this time around. But she’s so
funny as a horror groupie along with Julia Fisher who’s new to my movies.
They were so much fun and really had great chemistry.
The movie has a lot of new faces as I was forced to find some folks I’d
never worked with before to fill out a lot of roles. I asked around for
recommendations as I hadn’t been making movies in a while and didn’t know a
lot of actors that were out there. And I got so lucky with the people who
were recommended to me, such an amazing bunch of talented people and I
can’t wait to work with all of them again – Bec Fordyce, Justin Levine,
Livi D’Achilles, Andrew Murano, James Rappa, Tom Ciociari, Ryan DiNicola,
Cole Buck, Shannon Michele Collins, Dino Castelli, and Jack O’Connor. All
were so talented and professional and really brought the stories to life.
A
few words about the shoot as such and the on-set atmosphere?
The on-set atmosphere was great. Everything ran really smoothly most days,
and even when we ran late or we had some typical filmmaking mishaps
everyone was still in great spirits.
In addition to a great cast, I had a wonderful crew by my side. I’ve
talked before about how when I was making my older movies like
Witchmaster General or Grave Danger I had my sort of ‘A-team’ of people that were by
my side and were so instrumental in making it all happen. I’m so thrilled
to have found a new A-team who I could not have done this movie without –
Cathy Guarneri, Sharon Putyra and Robert Jackson - who’s been in a lot
of my older movies and of course is the bassist from my band Drunken
Frankenstein.
But my favorite member of the new team was my son Steven – or ‘Stove’ –
who was absolutely indispensable on set. It was so exciting to have him
there by my side and he was really a valuable team member, everything I
showed him he took to straight away. He worked really hard and he had
great instincts. It wasn’t just having him around for fun, he really
worked as hard as anyone there and was so valuable. On the days he
couldn’t be there the rest of the team felt the loss of him not being
there and kept telling me how much easier it would’ve been if he were
there. I could not have been more proud of him, he was awesome. He’s not
interested in making movies himself when he gets older, he’s a
computer/video game whiz, but he enjoyed the experience and I loved being
able to share it with him!
Any idea when and where
Unnatural Causes will be released
yet? Yes! We have just signed with the awesome
SRS, run by my old friend Ron
Bonk [Ron Bonk
interview - click here], and they will have the Blu-ray out for Halloween 2025! We’re planning
to do some theatrical screenings locally before then since the demand is
there – we just debuted the trailer and had 200 views the first two days! Any future projects you'd like to share?
Right now focused on
Unnatural Causes, that’s in the front
of my mind. But I am writing two or three scripts right now, not sure
which one I’ll shoot first.
Would also like to record the next Drunken Frankenstein CD with my band
and play out again.
Unnatural Causes was your first feature film in
almost 10 years - so how did you keep yourself busy in the meantime?
Actually it’s been over ten years! When Death Calls came out in 2012 –
where did that time go? After that one, I made a lot of short films and
those were compiled for the Blu-ray compilation Movies for the
Midnight Hour. That got a really good response – and is doing very well now
streaming on Tubi – if anyone hasn’t already checked it out.
But what was really fun and unexpected was I started a horror-themed punk
rock band called Drunken Frankenstein. We do songs about monsters and
horror movies. I write the songs, and I’m the singer guy, in addition to
being the crappy guitarist.
It was just to create a theme song for a movie I wanted to make, but it
grew from there – one song grew into a CD, then we were making music
videos and finally started playing shows. It all happened almost by
accident. I never thought we’d be playing out, but my friend Baron
Misuraca of Carnivore A.D. – who plays the undead horror legend Vlad
Eterno in the new movie (funny how these things come full circle) – had a
Motorhead/Plasmatics cover band called Motorplasma and he asked us to do a
show with them. And the other guys were into doing it too!
From there I ended up focusing a lot of energy on the band which was so
much fun and had me living out my rock star fantasies. Never thought I’d
be doing anything like that, but it was great.
But at this point we are between lead guitar players, so I decided it was
time to go back to working on some of the movie ideas I had. And
Unnatural Causes came together and it’s been so great to be back!
Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
At the moment we don’t have a
Yellow Ape Productions website, we let the
old one run out. We still have a Yellow Ape Productions Facebook page and
I’m on Facebook as JimHaggertyFilmmaker. Hoping to get together some sort
of online store at some point soon because I’ve gotten some correspondence
from fans about some of my older movies that have become harder to find.
But I’m not on a lot of social media things beyond that.
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely
forgotten to ask? I think that about covers it. Just can’t wait for folks to see
Jim Haggerty's
Unnatural Causes – and we had to call it that as I discovered a
little too late that there were other movies called Unnatural Causes, so
we needed to set it apart from the others. But I think it’s a movie that a
lot of people will enjoy, it’s a lot of fun and was so much fun to make.
And if anyone wants to check out my band Drunken Frankenstein, our CD
Phantom Creeps is out now and streaming on all the popular streaming sites
as well – Spotify, Apple, etc. Hopefully we’ll find the right lead
guitarist soon and we’ll be back out playing shows and record the new
album as it’s mostly already written.
Just want to say I love making movies and I’m so happy to be doing it
again, and I’m so thankful for the people who watch my movies and like
them.
Thanks for the interview! Thank YOU! Always a pleasure! Very much appreciate the support!
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