INT: Tony Mandile

Arrow: What’s your favorite horror
movie?

T.M: That’s always a tough one. I
can’t say I have one favorite. I love so many different films for so
many different reasons – performance, cinematography, FX, etc. If I
was forced at gunpoint to give a “Top 5”, it would probably be
dominated by John Carpenter flicks.

Arrow:
Was
directing always a goal of yours or did you fall into it by fluke?

T.M: I really just fell into it. I
started out in the biz as a special makeup FX artist. That’s always
what I aspired to be since I was a child. I read Midnight Mass several
years ago in a collection of short vampire stories and absolutely
loved it. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been adapted into a film yet. I
approached F. Paul Wilson (who, being my family doctor, I had known
almost my entire life) and said to him, “This would make a GREAT film.
And I should direct it!” Little did I know that he would take me
seriously.

Arrow: What type of
genre effort is “Midnight Mass”? What should the public expect?
Subtlety, trashy, artsy?

T.M: I often call it a dramatic
piece that happens to have vampires in it. The most important thing to
me was being true to Wilson’s characters and having them come across
as real human beings with real problems. I wanted to prove that low
budget didn’t have to mean “schlocky”. So hopefully, what I’ve done is
make a film that has characters you can care about and bond with as
well as bring the vampire lore back to where it was pre-dating Bram
Stoker. I eliminated all of the romance from the vampires and created
ferocious, mindless beasts, crawling from the grave and stinking of
death. There is no humor to Midnight Mass. It’s a very dark film
intended to be taken very seriously as the characters deal with one
inner crisis or another.

Arrow:
Being that
the vampire sub-genre is now kind of tired (it’s all been done), what did
you try to bring to “Midnight Mass” to make it stand out?

T.M: As I briefly went into earlier,
I wanted to eliminate all of the romance that has been given to the
vampire genre for many years. We were all unanimously pretty sick of
the “Anne Rice vampire” – the slick, hip, romantic characters that
were sympathized rather than feared. I wanted to create vampires that
were mindless zombies – kind of like drones that operated only on
orders from their leader, Father Palmeri. I eliminated anything sexy
about the vampires and recreated them as feral, foul smelling beasts whose only thought is of gorging
themselves.

Arrow:
How would you
describe your directing style? Grounded? Flashy? MTV-like?

T.M: I’m not sure that after only
one film that I’ve really found my “style” yet in order to describe
it. I’m still kind of “finding myself” or my style. “Midnight Mass” was done very gritty. I guess some of it could be
described as “flashy” because of my use of color in creating a mood
for a specific scene. I think it really all depends on the world
you’re attempting to create. In “Midnight Mass”, the world was supposed
to be cold and gritty, so my direction and photography came off that
way. But I also HATE lack of movement in your typical independent film. It seems that some first
time directors are almost afraid of moving the camera or cutting. To
me, that gets a little boring. I’m a firm believer in “if the
characters aren’t moving then the camera should be”. I think
“Midnight
Mass” is a lot more dynamic than most indie efforts because I’m always
panning, dollying, zooming or cutting. I know none of this really
answers your question, but I hope it help describes my style a bit.

Arrow: You worked
with F. Paul Wilson (writer of the novel “The Keep”) on the “Midnight
Mass” screenplay. How smooth was the collaboration?

T.M:
Well, there was never really a
time where the two of us sat down together to hammer out scenes. Most
of what you see as far as the history and motivations of the main
characters is all Wilson. What
happened is he handed me a completed first draft “spec script”. I then
wrote many different variations on that, making minor alterations,
bringing some of the background characters up to the foreground and
creating all new supporting characters – characters I knew I wanted to
explore further if I ever got the opportunity to do a sequel. So I
guess you could say it went smoothly because once he handed over his
draft, he left it all up to us. He was extremely supportive, but in a
hands-off kind of way.

Arrow: Would you
say that “Midnight Mass” is an effect-heavy film, a character
study…maybe both?

T.M: It’s more of a character study
than a special fx film. There are obviously plenty of fx and gore in
there, but they’re there to help punch the story along. Even though I
come from a special fx background, I’m a firm believer that an effect
is pointless unless it’s motivated. I was much more concerned with
telling the story of Joe and Gwen and how the world got to be this way
rather than showing off with a lot of unmotivated splatter.

Arrow: Will gore
hounds rejoice when watching your movie or is it a more restraint type
of flick?

T.M: There are pretty big gaps in
the film between gore sequences, but when we DO see them, I pulled
them off in a way that I (as a fan) would want to see. I think there’s
enough “squishy” moments to satisfy most gore-hounds without
detracting from the story.

Arrow: What’s next
on your plate as a director? Anything up to bat?

T.M: I have plans… EVIL plans…
you’ll just have to wait and see… Muahahahaha (evil laugh).

Arrow: A
solid tit shot or a disgusting gory bit…which one cranks your dial
the most when watching a horror film?

T.M: Why not both?? I’m kidding…
Man… if it were a choice between the two I’d have to go with a good
gore shot. I mean, I love tits an’ all, but I REALLY love a good
decapitation.

I’d like to
thank Tony and Lions Gate Films for making this fine interview happen.
It definitely peeked my interest in regards to “Jigsaw”, that’s for sure.
I’ll be sure to check it out shortly. The question is…will you?