Interview: Rob Schmidt

Earlier in January, Anchor Bay released Alphabet Killer starring Eliza Dushku. She re-teamed with Rob Schmidt, her director for Wrong Turn and I had a chance to talk with him on an off day from shooting his latest film. Here’s our conversation:

Jon: The film was lower budgeted than Wrong Turn was. What were some of the advantages and disadvantages working this way?

Schmidt: The advantages are that there isn’t a lot of interference on a lower budgeted movie, so we can get away with doing stranger stuff. The disadvantages is there’s less in terms of resources, a lot less time, a lot less money. Everything down the line gets smaller.

Jon: The film isn’t a strict retelling of the real Alphabet Murders as it explores a fictional detective exploring the case. Some true crime fans get up in arms over the liberties some films take with such cases, what was it that what appealed to you about the project and the script?

Schmidt: Well, you know (pauses) no one has asked me that question, it’s a good question. For me, when something that appears to be close to the facts and it is not, it’s sometimes frustrating for me. I don’t get much pleasure out of watching a movie like that. This one, while that it draws attention to the Alphabet Killings, it’s obviously, when you look at the DVD cover, not going to be accurate. In some ways it’s more truthful as say something that claims to be accurate and is not.

Jon: What was it like filming around the areas of the original Alphabet Killings?

Schmidt: Well, that is Rochester in general, at this point was before the economy went down, had a Kodak building that was a shadow of what it was. We were in an upper room, at a giant Kodak facility that was just completely abandoned. There were some guys there with electric jeeps to make sure the lights were off. I think they said like forty thousand people worked there and now it’s a big empty factory. The whole city had a feel like that, my experience there was that it was a sad place, you know? We had finished some preproduction, and people were going back o their hotels to watch a movie. I had half an hour, so I stopped at this place to get some BBQ, it was in a restaurant that had been a house. They had taken their living and dining room and put tables in it, so the guy behind the counter had a .45 caliber revolver on his cowboy belt. It’s like that kind of place! (laughs)

A lot of desperate people there, you know? We were at the Kodak place and we shot on film there, the guys said some people fired shots from the highway at the windows of the Kodak plant for the layoffs. It’s pretty grim as was my experience. We were there in the winter when we were filming and it was so dark that we couldn’t see even in the middle of the day, the streets lights would be on! There was so much over-cast. You know, we shot in the church; the cathedral at St. Michael’s where the three girls had gone to mass. Some people, including the detective the movie was based on, believe there was a priest who left in 1974, that was probably the killer. It was very strange to shoot in that place knowing the girls had been there. The priest just disappeared; maybe had left the country about the time the third killing had taken place.

Jon: Eliza Dushku is really good in the film and I appreciated on how her character of Megan was different than her typical “tough girl” persona she likes to play. How much of that was the script over say, you and her developing the character?

Schmidt: From the time I got on the project, I thought it could be something Eliza and I could do, an opportunity for her to play a woman, instead of what she usually plays, a younger girl but tougher. So the development was all about that. It’s a tricky thing to say how much was the script and how much was her. Eliza is so Eliza! (laughs)

I think if nothing had changed and someone else had played the part, it would be completely different if that makes any sense. In terms of film culture, she’s a particular type of female icon, you know?

Jon: She is. Fans at Killer Film might get mad at me if I didn’t ask about Eliza’s first nude scene. Was it the friendship between you two [being the second time working with each other since Wrong Turn] that allowed ease and how gung-ho was she on doing it?

Schmidt: Honestly, it’s funny that people are calling it a nude scene. It was one of those things were you are making a movie and it’s not a sexual scene, it’s a scene that has a lot of energy in it. It was not intentional or designed; it was just an accurate performance for that character. We didn’t even discuss about it before hand, it was just what was right for that scene, and I stand by it.

Jon: It is and it isn’t that explicit….

Schmidt: Well, it is sort of explicit! (laughs) When I made Alphabet Killer there’s your personal work experience and then there’s the way things live in the world. For me, I kind of think of myself as a guy that likes to just make horror films and it didn’t occur to me that there’s a difference in terms of my life from directing and being offered scripts, then seeing them finished. It didn’t seem to me, like a supernatural horror or graphic horror, other than it’s interesting material to work on. Other than that, you know, people know Rob Schmidt from Wrong Turn, it was not what they were expecting. I think the same can be applied to the Eliza’s nude scene. There’s your work and what the world sees and we didn’t have any idea when we were doing it, how that thing would land. It’s good, you know, it’ll get more people to look at the movie. Look at it on YouTube first thing! (laughs)

Jon: Besides Eliza, you have some fan favorite actors providing key cameos in the film, like Michael Ironside, Bill Moseley, Timothy Hutton, and Cary Elwes. What was it like working with them?

Schmidt: I love all of those guys! I worked with them before or am friends with and that was one of my big priorities in the film was to get Eliza, then to get them. Tom Noonan is just great! What I was trying to do was to populate the movie with these people who played villains and it creates more tension because you have more people to suspect. Even people who are friendly like that could be villains. What do I want to say? I was really happy with Bill Moseley because he was like a really soft spoken and gentle guy. I think that was really neat to see him play.

Jon: Yeah, that’s a great parallel to when I last talked to him; he was on set for Repo! and he was just so outrageous. Here, he was subdued and was something different to see him do.

Schmidt: Yeah, yeah.

Jon: Going back to the priest, you said you read a lot about true crime, so can I ask you your opinion on who you believe were the Alphabet Killer?

Schmidt: Yeah, you know it was (pauses) honestly, it’s hard to say. There was this guy down in Florida that they briefly thought was the Alphabet Killer and it turns out there was a fourth girl with matching initials and they thought he was attempting to do something like the Alphabet Killings, in order to rape and murder somebody. But I know that people think it was this priest and it’s a reasonable thing to suspect. It took along time for them to investigate the Church, this was in real life, and while investigating it, the Church closed all of the records. I am surprised that they did, especially in a murder investigation but they managed to shut everyone out, There aren’t any other suspects, so it seems like a likely scenario.

I guess they think it was this guy, I guess it was the first time he had sex and he strangled the girl from the front. So the next killing was from the back and they thought that the first time was an accident. He had no intentions to have sex or consciously had done it, he just did it and he realized his life was going to change, so I guess he very quickly decided to kill the girl. I don’t think she died, when he dumped her. The second was very controlled and concealed. They think it was either two different killers, or it was someone who really wanted to do something and they did it, like a crime of passion and they liked doing it, so they continued and got better at it. That’s the two theories. For a bunch of cops, the priest theory sits well, because she (the victims) was poor and the parents thought she could be trusted with a priest. He drove her some place and she got out-of-hand and he killed her. The next time, he got excited and did it again. I think it fits. Anyways, that’s what I know about it.

Jon: Am I mistaken, that the filming of Alphabet Killer brought attention around a firefighter who was blamed for the murders, but due to the publicity of the movie, it resurrected the case and DNA proved it wasn’t him?

Schmidt: Yeah, actually murder cases remain open but can become inactive. They can be like 50 murder cases and 5 of them happened like in the last few weeks and are really active, then there’s like some that are 25 years old and aren’t closed. It had been an open but dead case, because they assumed this firefighter had committed suicide after the third killing was responsible for the murders. I’m not sure why they thought that, but they did think that. They were convinced about that until we started shooting when the press started asking them what was going on with the case. So they exhumed the body and matched the DNA, so they could get it over with. To everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t him, so it became active again. In some ways-this is a terrible thing-if they had proved it was the firefighter, it would’ve squashed our movie! (laughs)

Jon: We at Killer Film think the direct-to-video market has been quite strong recently, especially for horror, and some being better than horror films released in theatres. You recently said, “That’s where the market is now”. Why is that?

Schmidt: It’s a tricky thing. The reason is that it cost something like 25 million dollars to do a national marketing campaign for a theatrical release, literally, its 25-80 million dollars. So for horror films, 25 is a giant number, when most are made for fewer than 10 million dollars. So, the prospect of putting up a marketing campaign is intimidating to producers. There’s this new market, direct-to-DVD or direct-to-consumer that is really profitable without having those marketing expenses. That’s the economics of it. In a way it’s good, you know, as American independent films are being shut down, American horror is still going strong. I’m grateful that that exists. (laughs)

Jon: Yeah, otherwise Alphabet Killer would’ve had a hard to reaching its audience…

Schmidt: It’s a tricky thing. When they’re negotiating the sale, there were some talks where they could’ve done a wider theatrical release. They did a tiny theatrical; it was released in New York, L.A., Rochester, some places in New Jersey, things like that. There were some scenarios where they would’ve done a bigger theatrical release, but it’s the economy, it’s the expenses. If you’re a number’s cruncher, it wasn’t good. Especially, Alphabet Killer since it’s an odd movie. It’s not a normal horror movie, I think.

Jon: Finally, I believe Bad Meat is your next film? How far along are you on that?

Schmidt: We’re two-thirds of the way through shooting. It has one of the most disturbing slaughter-house sequences I have ever seen! (laughs)

Jon: That will pretty much sell it to us and the audience! I want to thank you for your time for this interview, sir!

Schmidt: Sure man. Yeah, thank you for talking with me. Anytime.