In the beginning, if I had said "I don't know, Kathy, what do you think we should do," she would have eaten me alive. But what happens is, you just pay attention to them. people have told me before: "Oh, she's difficult," and blah blah blah. She's grand, she's intimidating, and she knows she's intimidating."Īnd she's a great actress. She's a movie star, and there aren't many left. You once said about Turner that "She just doesn't like indecision in a director. And she runs in one scene in really high heels with a butcher knife flawlessly. Let's go back to Kathleen Turner for a moment. No matter how good they are-they have BO. Because they have to run for so long under those hot movie lights. I always thought that if I were to do a horror movie in Odorama-like I did with "Polyester"-I would have the smell of rotting body parts from the butcher, and scream queen's BO. We got those from a local butcher, but they had been sitting out for a while. We had the same problem with "Multiple Maniacs" when Divine had to eat kidneys. Apparently, it was rotting, and had to be sprayed with Pinesol to keep it fresh. The tongue scene in "Blood Feast" is especially striking. When we shot "Serial Mom," and I showed them the infamous tongue scene, one of the female crew members said, "I hate when a guy does that." "Blood Feast" is my favorite of Lewis' films. And they had this big gimmick that people have forgotten about, where they had a big clock that said "No one will be admitted once showtime begins." That's a very William Castle-style gimmick. Because when "Psycho" came out, Hitchcock's career was not going great. No, the first movie that did that was " Last House on the Left." Now, Hitchcock ripped off Castle. " from "Strait-Jacket" for "Color Me Blood Red." The Castle-Lewis connection is tantalizing because Lewis ripped off the tagline of "Just keep telling yourself it's only a movie. I also included footage from the Joan Crawford movie "Strait-Jacket." Later, I played William Castle shooting that movie in "Feud!" I had the poster hanging in my house for years. I still have the vomit bag they gave you when "Blood Feast" came out. Everybody'd honk when there was tits or gore. They've seen it by now, but all the kids I usually do films with had already seen Herschell's films because we used to go see them at drive-ins. And the kids were probably too young to have seen it. Kathleen had never seen "Blood Feast," I promise you. It's hard enough to die without some gore, but he did. I love that Herschell died in his sleep with no gore at all. He was elderly, but his mind was perfectly intact. We became friends I had dinner with Herschell the last year before he died. And then when she kills the guy at the flea market, it's basically the same scene. I wrote about Herschell in my book Shock Value, for which I interviewed him. There's a scene in "Serial Mom" where they watch "Blood Feast," and Kathleen likes it. Given Kathleen Turner's initial reaction to your film's "liver scene"-which is very indebted to "Blood Feast" and its use of offal and gore-did you show your cast and crew "Blood Feast" or any other Lewis films to give them an idea of where you were coming from? WATERS: She was lovely and she got the movie greenlit immediately.The influence of "Blood Feast" looms large over "Serial Mom," which gives me another opportunity to talk to you about one of my favorite subjects, Herschell Gordon Lewis. “You’re an A-movie actress and he’s a B-movie director!” I said, “He’s made films that have touched and moved people all over the world!” TURNER: I said, “As long as you’re going to do it this way, then yes.” I walked into a storm of resistance, from agents, friends, actors, everyone. WATERS: Every one of my movies is satire of a genre. I called John and said, “Is this a gorefest or a comedy?” He said, “Let me come and talk to you.” About four hours later he shows up at my door in New York. I’m talking to my husband and saying, “You won’t believe this one.” But I went back and read it again. So I went back and read further until she kills the guy with the air conditioner and said, “No, no, no.” Threw it down again. KATHLEEN TURNER: I got to the point where she pulls the boy’s liver out with the poker iron and I went, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Threw that one down, went about my way. The Baltimore-based Waters sent the script, which also included a scene in which Beverly removes a teenager’s liver with a fire poker, to Romancing the Stone and Prizzi’s Honor star Kathleen Turner.
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