INT: Jay Woelfel

What’s
your favorite horror movie?

JAWS was at the time the
scariest movie I’d seen, though COUNT YORGA THE VAMPIRE was the
first film that kept me away an entire night–first real vampire
film I’d seen at the time. JAWS my favorite movie probably
period. But there are so many now it’s hard to say which one.
Some great movies I see once and almost don’t need to see again
because I remember every frame of them. Others you see over and
over and they just get better. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (and
don’t insult me by asking which one) is like that, it gets more
disturbing and funnier every time you see it. LET’S SCARE
JESSICA TO DEATH is like that and has some elements like those
in Ghost Lake.

THE OMEN, THE THING (okay, I do
like this remake better than the original) both those had really
shocking violence and more important memorable gruesome imagery
I’d never really seen done on that level at the time. It’d be
unfair not to say THE INNOCENTS since we’re talking about me
making my first ghost movie. That movie, Mario Bava’s favorite
genre film by the way, works on so many levels, beautiful and
scary all at once and even has something to say. But I didn’t
even mention any Hammer or Universal films or any recent films.
There are too many of them, just like the rats in WILLARD.

You wrote and directed Ghost
Lake; what was the creative spark that had you put fingers to
keyboard to create this water soaked Zombie jamboree?

This idea was a spark that got
hotter over a number of years until I couldn’t stand it anymore
and it caught fire. I always wanted to make a ghost story at
Rushford Lake ever since I heard about some people drowning in
the lake. I had this image of people coming up from under the
water along the road that lead down to where the towns used to
be.

There really are remains of two
towns under the lake, that’s real. Maybe in 1987 I started
thinking in ways that were closer to what I ended up doing, in
1988-1990 I wrote out a basic treatment that then languished
again. I had seen the movie SHOCK WAVES again when it was
finally released on DVD and that coupled with my discovery of
the ghost stories of Algernon Blackwood a few years earlier were
the final amounts of starter fluid the spark needed.

By reading about the film; I
spotted some potential influences in terms of your varied
narrative. Did any already existing horror films inspire your
own?

Because this is an
independently made movie the narrative could be more varied.
It could take you more places and do different things than would
be possible otherwise. It’s tricky on purpose and some
questions it asks aren’t answered. Not to say that there aren’t
answers, they just aren’t important to the real flow of the
story. One reviewer, and not a bad one overall, commented that
a problem with the movie was that I didn’t “keep it stupid.”
If you’re making a comedy about people who fart and puke a lot I
think this might be good advice. But horror films don’t have to
be stupid, or that was my brash assumption.

One inspiration for the idea is
the movie DELIVERANCE which I saw first on TV as a young kid.
The idea of them flooding the valley, having to move the graves
and that terrifying image of the cold white hand rising up out
of the water and then the image of just the water lapping and
lapping as the movie ends. The sense that creates of waiting for
the day it will rise again. I used to love to swim underwater
as a kid too and imagine living down there or finding things
underwater etc. There are a bunch of others I suppose as it was
an idea I’d had for so many years. I’d always watch movies that
had an element like it. I actually didn’t make this movie after
seeing IN DREAMS because I felt no one would want what might be
thought a version of that story when that movie had tanked so to
speak.

Someone might think that Mario
Bava’s film KILL BABY KILL was an influence but I saw that years
after plotting out this movie. ZOMBIE LAKE, which is little
more than enjoyable sleaze ( nothing wrong with that but let’s
not confuse a good hamburger for filet mignon) did interest me
in terms of having a zombie with a back story I guess even in a
way a love story. It’s better, I feel to take ideas from things
that didn’t work–like ZOMBIE LAKE and rework them than to rip
off something that was great in the first place.

But the thing is to have so
many influences/ experiences that no one takes over the whole
movie and hopefully not just movie influences but things from
books and real life too. This had all that for me
personally. You eat up all these things absorb them into your
system hopefully create something new out of all the elements.

How was the casting process for
the picture, smooth surfing or an “arrow in the head’?

Arrow
in the head. I was counting on an actress I’d worked with
before but frankly the nudity issue became a big arrow in the
head and I just stopped calling her. She just panicked and
thought she’d be naked in every scene, etc. Then maybe an arrow
in the eye was when the first little girl we cast, an 11 year
old, passed on the part because after due consideration “It was
not the type of role she cared to portray.” Though I admire
her advanced use of language I, less than a week before
shooting, didn’t appreciate her change of mind. Ultimately when
the pain subsided we ended up with people in both roles who were
better anyway. But that’s easy to enjoy now!

When, where and for how many days was the film shot?

Rushford Lake is a real lake
about 60 minutes south of Buffalo, New York. We shot in the
fall of 2003, though if you do the math of dates in the movie
you’ll see that the film is set in 2006. We shot for 26 days
almost straight. Average length of a shoot day was probably 15
hrs we shot 1 hour of footage a day. This was not a shoot for
couch potatoes that’s for sure.

What would you say was the
biggest obstacle that arose during the actual shoot? Lousy craft
table?

The craft table afforded me one
pleasure in particular. Someone got a bunch of day old
doughnuts early on and one of those suckers ( filled with
something we could not determine) was still wrapped up uneaten
over a week later. I said when I had the time I would burn the
sucker in the fire–which was one of the few sources of heat in
the cottage where we all lived. One morning I finally had the
time, the sucker burned real good, very satisfying experience.

We had rain, cold, some
equipment problems, two skunks who kept getting into either the
food or the make up workshop and making a mess. One night
everybody started playing guitars and singing around the fire –
there was just no stopping them to get back to work. All the
usual pleasures and then some on this shoot. The big problem
was that there just weren’t enough people to make headway. The
crew was too small to catch up. So we went over schedule but we
did manage to stay on budget despite this. There were too few
of us but those who did stick it out to the end really made it
all worthwhile.

Does the film sport the
required spices (gore and nudity)? What’s the goodies quotient?

Funny now that they have to
qualify the rating for your movie. The R rating is officially
for horror images and some sexuality. There is in fact nudity
but I guess the sexuality was more the reason? Huh? There is
very little blood in this film. It’s about water and drowning
and ghosts. So I guess got rather high brow in my thinking of
it until I screened it for people and they started reacting to
the emaciated corpses and frothing dead people etc.

Azure who played the little
girl ran out of the screening saying she was going to throw up
the first time she saw her corpse in the finished as a film. So
I guess it’s too strong for the 8 year olds! Anyway I think the
ghosts or zombies if you prefer to call them that are well
done. We used gelatine based material so they would have that
translucent soggy flesh look. They are quite creepy looking but
if you’re looking for a movie where they eat brains etc this
isn’t that movie.

How did you tackle your
effects? Practical? CG? A little bit of both?

The intention was to do them
all on set. Some things either didn’t work right or didn’t get
done in time to shoot, so in post we did compositing. CG was
used only to connect two or more real elements into a finished
effect shot. Some ghost effect stuff of people vanishing was
done totally as CG. CG in general I think is best used in
combination with real on set effects and is perhaps best used to
remove things, like wires etc, rather than create whole objects
etc. CG is a dangerous animal to try to harness on any level
especially with a tight deadline. The stuff always looks better
on the workstation screen than when you see it big and sometimes
you see it big at the premier screening and it’s too late!

You also wrote and directed
Trancers Part 6? Looking back what would you do different on
that show?

I did a small bit of writing on
it but took no credit, I did write the line “Shouldn’t
you be dead? Or at least in school?” For example. As to doing
different? Tim Thomerson had talked to me and others a few
years before about making the movie without Charlie Band being
involved. It just seemed at that time that maybe that was the
only way it would happen. Nothing ever happened with his
efforts and then Charlie got what for his company at the time
was a larger budget than usual and offered my company, Young
Wolf Productions, the chance to do it. I could say that at the
point where I realized Thomerson wasn’t going to be in it I
thought about quitting.

This was around the same time I
realized that Maggie Grace ( now on LOST) was also not going to
be in it. I know both of them and they both wanted to be in it
and both passed because it wasn’t going to be done as a SAG
film. Maybe at that point I should have just walked. But by
that time we were only a week or so away from shooting. I did
have another film that was supposedly a “go” at another
company. But you know what, if I had quit it wouldn’t have
mattered, the other “go” deal never happened, that company has
in fact never made a film since. I would have ended up making no
film at all. And in a Hollywood way the fact my company made
Trancers 6 matters more than how the film ended up turning out.

The other thing I would do
different is I guess I’d lock myself in a room with the master
film transfers, armed if possible, and make sure that other
hands didn’t fix and release the movie without me. The version
released isn’t a finished movie. It’s a chopped down version
with no color correction with temp special effects half a music
score and a temp mix. But hey did I mention I wrote that line
about “shouldn’t you be dead…”

What’s next on your plate film
wise? Anything in the works?

I thought I would have been
done with this film called DARK BETWEEN THE STARS by now, but
the killer rain here in LA and other things have stopped that
for the moment, though even while answering your questions I got
a call that it will be back on soon. It’s a creature film
dealing with native American beliefs, Ken Foree, Corin Nemic and
Aimee Brooks are in the cast

The other project which might
be next, or will be after that, is currently called HIS NAME WAS
DEATH. It’s a very bloody mummy movie. But not your typical
kind of mummy. All the blood I didn’t spill on screen in Ghost
Lake I saved up for this one. I hope to make both films, maybe
even both this year. But you never know something totally
different just came my way recently. This film making stuff is
at it’s best and worst rarely dull.

What was the first beverage you
downed at the wrap party?

I’ll let you know when we have
one! We had to shoot right through what was supposed to be the
wrap party, we had a table all set to party at and had to just
walk past it and keep shooting. You have to be a Zen master to
resist that kind of temptation.My
wrap party was a lonely 365 mile drive through the night.
Technically what I drank as I drove for seven hours back home
after being awake shooting for 25 hours was a jar of peanuts.

I started driving with snacks to keep me
awake. I had a jar of peanuts and I realize as I try to reach
in to eat them that after the first couple of inches I can’t get
my hand into the jar to get any out. So I had to just “drink”
the jar, raise it shake them into my mouth and keep driving as a
thick blinding fog rolled in and the miles just kept coming at
me like they’d never stop. That’s something they should have
had in the movie “Sorcerer,” one driving hardship they left out!

Jay Directing his young star!