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A SIMPTE GAR GRASHWORDS / INTERVIEWS l\4ikel J KovenIMAGES Seven Arts Pictures / Kale idoscope Fi lm Diskibut ion ADDITIONAL IMAGES Simone Bargetze

ack in GZ 49. we ran afeature about the remake ofKevin Tenney's 1988 horrorfifm. Nrgftt of the Demons.We emphasised that, whilethe basic plot had beenretained about a group of

kids who summon demons at aHalloween party, this remake wastaking the story in a different directionaltogether. To date, despite one festivalscreening back in 2009, Night oftheDemons has been another victim ofDistribution Hell, Some may arguethat GZ has already spent enoughspace promoting yet another remakeof an original which wasn't such hotshit to begin with. So why, late in 2010,would we revisit a movie we'd likelyignore in the first place?

After GZ ran its piece on Night oJ'theDemons, we received word that SimoneBargetze, the stunt double who playsDemon Angela (as well as several otherdemons) in the film, had beeneffectively gagged by the producersfrom talking about the film. Accordingto Bargetze, the producers also tried tosuppress the photos of her in demonmake-up, which appeared to givecredence to her claims that she is onocroBER 2oro / 8Z / s6

screen much more than she is givencredit lbr. GZ tried to interview her forthis present article, and although a timeand date was arranged, she stood us up.We contacted her again to try and getsome kind of validation on this rumourbefore this article went to press, towhich the stunt performer did respond,albeit briefly: according to Bargetze,she still hasn't been paid for doing thereshoots, her credit on the IMDb onlylists her as 'stunts' which effectivelyunderplays her contribution to the film,and her pictures in Angela make-up areblocked. Bargetze also confirms thatshe was under a "gag order", to whichshe "can't say anything" further.

We put these accusations to several ofthe Night of the Demons key personnel:Harvey Lowry, the co-producer largelyresponsible for the effects make-up, andtherefore the person who would havehad the most day-to-day contact withBargetze; Greg McKay, the film'sprimary producer, who would havebeen responsible for most of thepersonnel decisions; and AdamGierasch, the film's director and, withhis wife Jace Andersono co-screenwriter, who would have madethe artistic decisions on the shoot. Thev

'Unfofiunatelu mo$t of tho time | ilastnore doing mc Angola thing, sheIlliraftethl didn't nsod t0 hG 0n sstanlm0ls. Because I did thal wn0le

nartl0r her.'all claimed shock and dismay that such a rumourwould exist about Bargetze. All three had nothingbut the highest praise for her.

Lowry comments that, o'She was great, actually. Shewas a real trooper. She ended up, at the end oftheday, playing several characters, because she was theone who could accept the make-up. They [the specialeffects make-upl were very harsh on the actors; the-vhad a tough time with it. And Simone, because ofwhat she is and what she can do was able to step inand help out as much as possible. We were flyingher with wires, and full demon make up-wholebody make-up-she was great. I didnot have anyproblem with her at all.o' McKay echoes this praiseand claims to not have any knowledge. "A gag orderon Simone? No. This is the first I've heard of it.Why would she even think that? Simone did a

fantastic job.I loved working with her and I canotwait to work with her again."

These comments completely contradict Bargetze'sclaims. They claim, as does Gierasch, to be unawareof any bad feelings between the two parties. So,what's going on here? The key to this mystery, Ithink, can be found in an email sent to GZ fromBargetze back when the first Night of the Demonsarticle was being prepared. In that emailo Bargetzeapologises for her poor English, noting that this isneither her first nor second language. According toher, it is the suppression of her personal photosfrom the shoot, in which it is perfectly obvious thatit is her, and not Shannon Elizabeth (who plays non-Demon Angela), which appears to be at the centre ofthis controversy. In that earlier interview, Bargetzewas asked about her relationship with Elizabeth, the

usual 'what was it like to work with'kind of question, to which she replied,'oUnfortunately most of the time I wasthere doing the Angela thing, she[Elizabethl didn,t need to be on setanymore. Because I did that wholepart for her. But the few days she wasthere with me, it was a real pleasure.,tRemembering Bargetze's lack ofconfidence in English, a bigmiscommunication seems to haveoccurred. When Bargetze says she didthe whole part, it does not mean thatshe replaced Elizabeth; she is referringto those scenes wherein she is playingDemon Angela. What Bargetze appearsto have been trying to say is thatElizabeth never played Demon Angela,it was always the stunt personos bodyin the make-up; a point furthersupported by Lowrl'.

But then, i f this is al l just amiscommunication issue, rr.hvwere her photographs suppressed?The answer is supplied b1. Gierasch.'oI think at the t ime. xe rranted to notlet the audience knon that otherpeople were playing the demons. Wedidn't want people to sar. ,Oh. that 'ssomebody dif ferent. ' Simone did a lotmore than just plal Demon -{ngela.W e c o u l d n ' l h a r e d o n e i t u i t h o u t h e r .She was just an a\r 'esome stunt personwho was in make-up a /arl So. to behonesto she wasn't just DemonAngela. 'o The suppression ofS u b s c r i b e a t h t t p : / c : - e : : - : : : _ < s n o D

Bargetze's photographs then appearsto have been motivated, not by anattempt to diminish her contribution tothe film, but to try and keep some of themystery and magic alive for Night of theDemons' audience. In this era of instantinformation and over-documentation,where backstage photos can be instantlyblogged remotely, you can't blame afilmmaker for trying to sustain somemystery about his film.

Finally, the suggestion that Bargetze,scontribution to the film was diminishedcan also be largely rubbished. Bargetzec la ims the f i lm 's .powers tha t be '(she's vague as to who is actually doingthese things to her) ,,denied

[herl crediton lMDb." While it is true that onNight of the Demons, lMDb pageBargetze is only listed as 'stunts', she isgiven a more specific credit in theactual film itself. McKay, while wewere conducting this interview, double-checked the credits on the film itselfand confirmed to me that, ,.She iscredited on the finished film as'Angelaos stunt double', so it should bevery clear to the audience that she isthe Demon Angela", let alone any ofthe additional cast members shedoubled in make-up.

Bargetze's complaints ̂ bout Night ofthe Demons appears to be something ofa tempest in a teapot and many of theissues she raises can be dismissed as

miscommunication on both sides. Everyone I spokewith about the film praised Bargetze and all saidthey'd love to work with her again, so myth bustedl

But not al l is happiness and puppies in the wake ofNight of the Demons and there are others lurking inshadovrs lr i th axes to grind. Joe Augustyn. thewriter of the original film, was not consulted orincluded in the remake, which has resulted in somehurt feelings and resentment, According toAugustvn, "From what I was told, my originalcontract guaranteeing me the first right to write anysequel was not forwarded to Greg McKay when theoriginal executive producers closed a deal with him.Itrs pretty obvious that none of the principles [JeffGeoffray, Walter Josten, Kevin Tenney, GregMcKayo Adam Gieraschl wanted me involved asthey all wanted to claim the remake as their own."I tried to push Augustyn for some elaboration onthis, but was rebuffed with a simple o,no comment".

The filmmakers seem largely unapologetic. McKaynotes to me, o'Joe's a great guy and I 'm the one whodealt with him. We used his characters, but wechanged the story somewhat. He did a great job onthe original, but we were going in a differentdirection in the remake." Gierasch elaborates. ..1'mnot shocked, but I also donot know what role hewould have wanted to play. l t was one of thosethings where you ask yourself, do you want toinclude evervone who worked on the original? AndI hate to say it but, no, not really. I wanted to do myown movie. And Kevin [Tenney] knew this as well.Everyone is very attached to the original films. AndI knew the one thing I couldn't do was copy that.And we wanted it to be a very different film. I didn'twant the comparison, and i f I 'd stuck closer to theoriginal, the two would have been compared. Now,theyore quite different. Now, as far as Joe Augustynis concerned, all I can say is I hope he likes it. He,sfree to get in touch with me. He was the originalwriter. I would have been more than happy to speakwith him. And I am still."

One of the few people from the original film to beincluded in the remake, in addition to Tennev asone of Nrg&l of the Demons' producers. is LinneaQuigley in a cameo appearance, who playedSuzanne in the original. In the same way that theremake wanted to avoid slavish adherence to theoriginal 1988 f i lm, the producers didn't want cameooverload either. Gierasch notes to me that,"Original ly [Linnea Quigley's appearancel was notin the cards. I succumbed to peer pressure.Everyone was asking me if Linnea was goingl|

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'llllho's Amelia l{infiadeflAs lar as I [now, Ameliahas liued a uGrU nilRylife, and is now t rctp$Icnis. I didn'I u{ant loGram mc mouie uithGrmso$. [s I said, I reallywantsd it t0 stand on itsown. ilnd linnea wa$ ancxs$[ti0n t0 mal rulG.'

to be in the movie. Finally I said,'OK! Sure! Put her in themovie!' When you see the lilm,you' l l laugh. I t 's a funnycameo.tt

Not everyone was laughing,however. Amelia Kinkade, theactress who played the originalAngela, sent the followingcomment to GZ through heragent: o'They

l the remakeproducersl never tried to contacther even for a cameo and it hurtreal bad!" I noted this toGierasch. whose immediateresponse was "Whoos AmeliaKinkade?" When reminded,Gierasch went on to say, "No, itnever came up. As far as I know,Amelia has lived a very happylif'e, and is now a pet psychic

lwww.ameliakinkade.coml. Ididn't want to cram the moviewith cameos. As I said, I reallywanted it to stand on its own.And Linnea was an exception tothat rule." McKay takes this - r *r

point even further. ooWhen you docameos, i t takes the audience r ight outof the story. If we had given [Kinkadela cameo, the audience would say,'Wow, there's Angela from the lirstmovie. ' And that just wasn't the goal.

The goal was to tell a story. Should wehave had a cameo? Yeah. And we did.It was Linnea and she did a great job."

Nuff said.

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Gierasch and Anderson have written fbr anumber of stalwart horror icons, penningthree films for Tobe Hooper: Crocodile (2000);

The Toolbox Murders (2004); and Mortuary(2005), and are currentlv working on a project

for Clive Barker. They were also two of thewriters on Dario Argento's mess-terpiece,

Mother of Tears, and I couldn't resist theopportunity to talk to Gierasch about working withArgento. Needless to say, with a lilm asdisappointing as Mother of Tears and given that

Gierasch is a remarkably knowledgeable guy, he is

under no i l lusions to what we al l think about thisfilm. "We sat down and wrote Mother oJ'Tears with

Dario, which was an absolutely amazing experience.And when we left , we thought we'd done our job.

We thought the script was really good. And, you

know. the movie is a 'Dario movie'. And my feelings

on i t are, i f anyone has major league cri t iques of i t '

not that they're illegitimate, but go back and watchthe earl ier ones. Tel l me i f those same issues in this

aren't the same issues in the earl ier ones. With

Dario, he has such a distinct style. You're eitherwith him or you're not. I certainly view him as an

inspiration visually, like in Autopsy IGierasch'sdirectorial debutl,"

Gierasch's debut lilm,,4rtopsy (2008) is a pretty

good neo-slasher in its own right. So what about, in

Mother of Tears, that fucking evil monkey? "We'resitting there one day, in this apartment in Rome'

and Dario says, ' l have a new character I qant in

this movie. I t 's a monkey. ' A monkey? So DD

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I'm thinking about CreeperslPhenomena and just how big amonkey is he thinking? 'Smaller

monkey, smaller monkey.r Jaceespecially just loved that idea. And thedraft that we wrote after that just hadso much monkey in it, It wasabsolutely increditrle. And Dario andhis brother Claudio were pleadingwith us to take like half the monkeyout. The monkey was l ike chasing herthrough the train terminal andevervthing. lt still warms my heartwhen I see the movie with a bigaudience, and the monkey comes onand the whole audience claps andlaughs. The monkey is the monkey,You either like monkeys or youdontt."

The final, and no less contentious,issue we discussed was Holllrvood'scurrent lack ofimagination in horrorcinema. Remake, after remake, afterremake. McKay confirmed that theidea for remaking Night of theDemons came out of his efforts tosecure the rights to remake anotherTenney frlm, Witchbo(trd. You knowHollywood has lost the plot when inthis culture of remakes, they startremaking movies which weren't reallyany good in the first place.Rewatching the original Night of theDemons recently, it just underlinesthat the I 980s was a bad decade forAmerican cinema in general, not justfor horror. Tenney's original film islike the Top Gan or Dirty Duncing ofthe horror genre; films which have aloyal following and are thought ofnostalgically, but really aren't very

ocroBER 201-0 / BZ / 60

good in the first place. But then again,maybe that's the point; remakesrescue good ideas from bad films.

For Lowry and his Drac studios, themain reason for remaking Night of theDemons was to demonstrate theimprovements in special effects make-up in the intervening 22 years.

"We stayed true to the original story,but we went al l out on the visualeffects. Some of the make-up processesthat we developed recently are justnight to day from what was possibleback then. The guys who did theoriginal film did an incredible jobwith what they had. Some of thethings we pulled off in this show justweren't possible then."

According to Gierasch, "RemakingNight of the Demons wasn't a hardchoice. I asked the producers if I coulddo some peculiar things in the moviethat were not in the original-pitchedthem this absolutely ruild scene wheretwo of the characters have anal sexand then turn into demons. And theysaid 'good'. So I said, 'Then I 'm yourdirector.' If vou lvant me to do demon

anal, I'm there every time." But getting back to thepolitics of Hollywood's vapid culture of remakes,Gierasch is absolutely unapologetic. "To me,remakes are just retelling a story. There are a lotof people who are real ly puri tanical about remakes.And I just think John Carpenter's The Thingkicked the ass of Howard Hawks' version.Christopher Lee's Hammer Draculas, I don't seeanything wrong with those movies at all. I could goon. I mean, there are bad ones, and I 'm hopingNight of the Demons isn't one of those. I just don'tbelieve that being puritanical about remakes orsequels gets you very far. I think the mostimportant thing is to be as creative as you can, andto have as good a t ime as you can while making i t ."

And with that, Gierasch had one last trump to play,informing us thatNigft/ of the Demons is actuallygetting a theatrical release in the UK in Septemberbelbre its release on DVD in October. "lt is gettinga theatrical release in the UK around September200 or something like that. You absolutely will getto see it on the big screen. I love it when people saydirect-to-DVD to me, and I can say, 'Well, itdepends on where you are. ' Even in America we'redoing enough screenings so that people who real lywant to see i t wi l l be able to. 35mm, by the way. Nofucking bullshit digital projection. You get to see areal moyie,"

Here's hoping i t ' l l be worth i t . MK

ll rv,gf,t of the Demons is released on 15September and is reviewed on page 31.

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