INT: Mike Mendez

I
had never heard of Mike Mendez before “The Convent”, but after seeing the film you can bet your sweet ass that I
won’t forget his name and will be on the look-out for his
upcoming projects. “The Convent” is a fun-filled, blood soaked,
demonic nun on the loose fiasco that delivers the goods like the
good old days. Arrow caught up with Mike and this is what he had
to say.

1-
What’s
your favorite horror movie?

My
favorite horror movie is “Evil Dead 2”. That is
the classic for me. I probably learned
more about filmmaking by watching that film than any
other. I also saw the bridge between horror and comedy, and I thought
it was brilliant. I’m a true horror lover, so I have many
favorites. “The Exorcist”, “Suspiria”,
“The Thing” to name a few, but “Evil Dead 2”
reigns supreme for me.

2-
Your first film was called “Real Killers”. What sort of
distribution did it get? The film’s rep is that it’s very
violent. Do you think it’s that excessive?

My
first film was “Killers” which got released in the
U.S. as “Real Killers”. Which I hate because it
reminds me “Real Ghostbusters”. Anyway this is
an ultra-low budget weird thriller thingie. It was made for
about 100,000 dollars and eventually got released on
video. To
be honest, it’s not really my
favorite
project I’ve ever done, but it was the first time anyone ever
gave me the chance to direct a feature, so of course I did it. It got into the Sundance Film Festival and started up my career,
so
for that I’ll always be thankful for it. The
U.S. version is cut up and has a really crappy transfer, in fact
every country
that
bought the film had a different cut of it. We managed to
find something different to offend everyone. Korea
cut out the cannibalism, England cut out a child getting
shot, and the U.S. cut out the ending. It was
oddly
flattering. I
don’t really find the movie that extreme, but I’m pretty fucked
up.

3-
“The Convent” has an 80s stamp all over it. Was that on
purpose? What films inspired it?

“The Convent” is an homage to 80’s horror films,
pure and simple. They don’t make those movies anymore, and I
felt I had a rare opportunity to make something silly, weird and
with no rules. We
had little money and very little time to shoot this, so I tried
to go for something fun, something gory. The frenetic
shooting pace probably added to the fast pace and wild energy of
the film. I
didn’t think I would get a chance to do another movie where no
one was really looking over my shoulder, so we could go with an
“anything goes” mentality. So I wanted to make
an homage to the films I loved growing up, to “Evil Dead
2”, “Re-Animator”, “Friday the 13th: Part 7”, “Demons”, etc… All the stuff I used to
read about in “Fangoria” when I was a kid. Films that
were fun, and got an audience involved
when someone got decapitated. So we did.

4-
The Demonic Nuns have a very particular look…they’re
florescent.
Was
the look of the
Demon Nuns important to you? What were you going for?

The
look of the Demonic Nuns was certainly important. I wanted to go
with something fairly simple, but effective. Also I knew I wanted
glowing eyes, but I didn’t want to rely on CGI or anything in
post, because it would be too costly and could very easily look
very shitty. So there were these black light re-active contact
lenses I had heard about. They were really expensive, I think
like 2 grand a pair, so we couldn’t afford to buy them, so we
borrowed one pair and kept re-using them, but since we had the
black light going, this opened up a whole bunch of different
opportunities to use florescent effects. I knew I wanted their
blood to look like lava, so we used florescent paint. It evolved
to veins and teeth, and that’s how they ended up looking the way
they do.

5-
What
kind of reactions did you get off the film so far? On a personal
note “Frijole” cracked me and my friends up. The dude
was so funny!

The
reaction to the film has been (usually) very good. We seem to get
extreme reactions, people can absolutely love it or think it’s the
biggest piece of shit ever made. I’m also oddly flattered by this as
well. It’s one thing for people to not like your film, it’s another
to totally piss them off. But thankfully the reactions are much more
often good then bad. We’ve played over 30 film festivals and it
always went over great, especially if you have an audience filled
with horror fans, it gets pretty wild, and that’s the best. I’m glad
you enjoyed “Frijole”, I like him too. People react
differently to the characters. There’s a lot of fans of “The
Prince of Evil” David Gunn and The Goth chick
“Mo” Megahn Perry. But I’m glad “Frijole”
was your boy.

6-
Chaton Anderson wrote the screenplay and also appears in the
film as Seraphina. Did
you go through a lot of script changes as the shoot
progressed?

Yes,
Chaton wrote and was in the film. I collaborated with her
during the writing process. I story-boarded everything
beforehand, so there was little improvisation. We only had 18
days to shoot this, so we didn’t have the luxury of time to
try things differently or experiment on the spot.

7-
I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me when the film will be
officially released. Can you clear that up?

“The
Convent” is supposed to be out on video and DVD on December
11th, 2001. Just in time for Christmas. It will be R-rated so it
will have 19 seconds less of gore, but if all goes according to
plan, we will more than make up for it on the “Extra
Features”. This hopefully will be a very loaded disk.

8-
What’s next up on your plate? Any thoughts of a “Convent”
sequel?

There
will be no “Convent” sequel that I am involved in,
but I don’t own the rights so god knows what can happen. Next
on my plate is a bit larger film, that is a supernatural
thriller, that’s jargon for “Bad Ass Ghost Movie”. I
promise you won’t be disappointed.

9-
Was genre vet Adrienne Barbeau your first choice for the part
of Christine? Did you feel intimidated directing her at all?

I
love Adrienne. She was absolutely my first and only choice to
play Christine. I’ve always been a fan of hers and she was an
absolute dream to work with. Very giving, not intimidating,
very cooperative.

10-
Am I ever going to see a romantic comedy directed by Mike
Mendez?

I
guarantee that you won’t see a romantic comedy from me anytime soon,
but never say never.