In his autobiography, Fear, legendary Italohorror maestro Dario Argento relays a rather amusing anecdote. During the ‘80s, an imposter was going around Italy, dining in at several fancy restaurants, and then skipping out on the bills by saying “I’m-a Dario Argento… I’ll pay later!” We can only imagine many wild hand gestures were used during his dramatic exits.
Somehow, the police couldn’t catch this hungry madman, and he eventually ended up at the actual Argento’s window in the middle of the night, calling him out to fight in the middle of the street. Not one for violence offscreen, Argento phoned two of his best buds to come escort the ruffian away: fellow genre workman Luigi Cozzi (of 1977’s Cozzilla infamy), and his assistant director protégé, Michele Soavi. Dario’s boys happily obliged, and the weirdo never claimed a free plate of pasta again on Argento’s tab.
Soavi, in particular, had become a loyal acolyte of Argento’s during his teens, after becoming obsessed with Dario’s films at an early age, and then parlaying that love into an actual working relationship with the Deep Red giallo genius. Graduating through the Italian genre film industry via a number of acting and crew gigs, Soavi eventually established himself as an auteur in his own right through a series of surreal, brutal slices of scare cinema. Starting with 1987’s owl-headed slasher, Stage Fright, and ending with the erotically charged, existential cult classic zombie comedy, 1994’s Dellamorte Dellamore (a/k/a Cemetery Man), Michele fired off a string of shockers that’d earn him a deserved showcase in the Borghese of Italian Horror.
Now, for their annual Black Friday Sale, Severin Films are celebrating Soavi’s body of work with three of his best titles on upgraded 4K discs (stacked, as they usually are, with brand new extras): The Church (1989), The Sect (1991) and, of course, Cemetery Man. To celebrate these diabolical discs, we caught up with Soavi to chat about his career, and reflect on how an eager upstart can become one of the true voices of his country’s genre filmmaking.
You’ve told a story in the past about sneaking into Argento’s Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) when you were about twelve years told, and then wanting to make movies from that point forward. What was it about that movie that made such an impression on you?
When I was a kid, cinema was a big event. Nowadays, everything is on TV, and we can see everything, and study everything, over and over again. But even tape machines [VCRs] didn’t exist back then. So, when you saw a film, you were just building the imagery in your brain, so that you could remember it later. But sometimes, when you tried to remember it, what you’re remembering wasn’t actually in the film. You have a memory of something that might not exist.
What I remember most was the silent auditorium, and how Dario was hypnotizing people with his camera. I remember thinking ‘how does he do this?’ It was just so impressive.
Growing up, did you ever want to do anything else, or was it always filmmaking?
I didn’t come into the filmmaking business a director, but as an actor. And then I was a Grip, a Production Secretary, an Assistant Director, a Continuity Supervisor, an Assistant Editor… all of these things.
You wore just about every hat possible on set…
Yes. My family wanted me to work, but my work as an actor, it was very sporadic. Sometimes, in a year, I was working three days. How do you make a living on that? So I started doing things on the side, working in different roles, and suddenly I was working for five weeks, not just three days, which helped me to survive on my own, instead of relying on my parents. And, when I did this, it was never frustrating, because I’d always be working.
I remember going to America to film City of the Living Dead (1980) for Lucio Fulci. One day, I went to the Production Manager and just asked him what I could do, and he made me an Assistant Grip. Then, all of the sudden, I was right next to the camera, and was always listening to Fulci, participating and learning on set. I was proud of that, because I felt like I wasn’t wasting time.
When did you first meet Dario Argento?
I met him for the first time as an actor, for the casting of Inferno (1980), and he wanted to get to know me, because he was interested in my stories and pictures. He was very nice, but I wasn’t good for the role, because I was too young. It was kind of the same thing that happened on Lamberto Bava’s Macabre (1980), where they also chose another actor, but our relationship was always good.
How did you end up becoming one of Argento’s assistants?
Lamberto Bava was working as the First Assistant Director on Tenebrae (1982), and proposed me as being the Second Assistant. I’d already been working a bunch, and when they called me, I was busy. My girlfriend of that period was like, ‘Dario Argento wants to work with you, what are you thinking about?’ She was right.
You came up during the real heyday of Italian genre cinema, working with everyone - from Fulci to Enzo G. Castellari to Lamberto Bava. Was it a very tight-knit community in those days, or do we romanticize it a bit too much with hindsight?
It’s good to always take the right train, and there’s always the question of sliding doors when you think about it. But when you get the right moment, and the right people around you, it becomes like a family. We formed an identity, and were part of something that is now referenced in Italian cinema. At that time, genre was huge, and all the markets were powerful. We’d be able to sell these movies all over the world, which helped them become a piece of history. It helped that we were all moving in the same direction. We had the same interests. So, it made the community very alive.
How did your documentary, Dario Argento’s World of Horror (1985), come about? Wasn’t it for like, Japanese TV, or something?
I was still working as an AD for Dario, on Phenomena (1985), which was a very difficult project. Jennifer Connelly was the star, and she was only thirteen years old. My first real challenge was to hold the set and direct the set, because Dario didn’t like to direct the set. He would spend hours in the hotel, thinking and envisioning every shot in his head. So, he relied on me to do the set work every day.
He’d dictate every shot and every scene in his room to me. I’d even record our conversations, so that I didn’t lose anything he wanted to do. It’s unbelievable, how he worked. You saw the movie, too, because he’d tell you in such detail: ‘Okay… so we go from a wide shot, into a tracking shot, into a side shot,’ and so on and so forth. Once we were in Switzerland, this let me take the reins and direct the set because he dictated every frame to me, so I could explain it to everyone.
When I decided to make a documentary on his life, he trusted me in the same way he trusted me with his own art. I became the one with the white canvas on which I could paint Dario’s life. I designed the documentary because I was already doing the job with him.
Can you talk about working with Joe D’Amato (aka Aristide Massaccesi)? How did he end up producing your debut, Stage Fright (aka Aquarius)?
He’d been part of the circle I’d created since I was a teen. Once I was working, it was only with Dario every few years, so I had to do more in-between. With Aristide, it was a totally different experience. His were cheap movies, sometimes with only an eight person crew.
Now, you have to understand, Aristide started as an Arriflex operator. His father was an electrician. When Aristide began making movies, he started to produce some hardcore films, and then inexpensive genre movies, which he’d often finish in three weeks. So, it was exciting to see this man working with small crews where he was often doing all the same jobs as the crew were. I learned a lot by eating both the good food of Dario and the poor food of Joe D’Amato.
So, Aristide called me one day and was like, ‘I have a script I want you to direct.’ I couldn’t help myself and responded ‘are you joking?’ and he responded ‘No, no, you’ll be a director. Come to my office.’ And he was right - it was a good script, written to shoot economically [read: cheap], all shot in the same place, and he let me be completely free to cast my actors, and change the story. Luigi [Montefiore, a/k/a George Eastman, of D’Amato’s Anthropophogus] wrote a precise story, D’Amato made it all come together, and then the film was received very well and started this beautiful success all over the world. France, Japan, the United States… it created an amazing opportunity for me.
Who came up with the infamous owl costume the killer wears in Stage Fright?
In the script, the monster had a mask, and it wasn’t right. Luigi suggested a clown mask and it was… banal. Boring. Too easy.
My mother was a painter, and I was talking to her about my work, and one morning she showed me a magazine, and on the cover, there was an owl with a little heart-shaped face. It looked sweet, but also very frightening. During my research, I was looking at many painters and artists, and there was a painting with a man wearing the head of an eagle, and it made me remember the magazine. Then, I found a book at my friend’s house with an owl. When you get three coincidences that line up like that, you have to do it.
So, I insisted on it, and was told by Joe that it’d be shit, but I brought him a new drawing. While we were looking at it, a very small spider fell on the book. Joe was a very superstitious man, and tiny spiders are supposed to represent luck, so he instantly let me do the owl mask. I’m glad we did, but to tell the truth, the mask cost almost the whole budget of the movie. [laughs]
You acted as a Second Unit Director on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). How was working with Terry Gilliam?
I met Terry at a festival screening of Stage Fright, and he talked to me for twenty minutes with his wife after the movie was over. He’s such a lovely man. Dario was the dark side of the moon, and Terry was the light in my life.
Working with him was like being on a roller-coaster, though. Munchausen was a $90M film, and it made my brain just crazy. On my movies, you can do up to twenty shots a day, because they’re very, very small compared to that. On his, we could only do three shots a day, sometimes with over five hundred extras. It was amazing, but very challenging.
The Church was originally meant for Lamberto Bava to direct. How did you end up taking that project on?
Another sliding door in my life. I’d just finished Baron and was Dario proud of me for having worked on such a massive production. He was preparing Demons 3, which became The Church; only, for one reason or another, Lamberto refused the project. So, Dario offered it to me.
Can you talk about the music in your movies a bit? There are whole sections of nearly every film where they become like these crazy rock operas with no dialogue.
The balance is very delicate. In the ‘60s/’70s/’80s, they wanted rock music to push the image forward. But music is like drugs. You need to moderate. You can’t just use it too much. It’s all about the moment.
When did you first read Dellamorte Dellamore?
As I’m sure you know, Tiziano Sclavi is the author of [Italian horror comic] Dylan Dog, which is very famous all over the world, and I wanted to make that into a movie.
So, I called Sclavi, and he was very complimentary. He liked The Church, but he’d promised the Dylan Dog rights to another director. However, he had a manuscript of Dellamorte Dellamore, which hadn’t been published yet, only it was over 300 pages.
He told me I could have it for free, but the first draft was very bad… way too long and silly. The humor didn’t work with the horror, and I wanted to keep the tension going and the jokes kept cutting it. Eventually, a small editor did a pass and cut it to 130 pages, which made it a big success.
At the time, I was playing tennis with a producer whose son brought the book to school and caused a big scandal. After this, I had an idea: if we make this film, it’ll be a success because that’s what young people like now. They like it so much, they’ll even take it to school and get themselves in trouble.
Can you talk a bit about working with Rupert Everett for Dellamorte?
It was an easy choice because we wanted to make Dylan Dog, and that’s who Sclavi based the character’s whole look on. He’s beautiful, and it let us sell the movie in different countries. Convincing him was tough, though, as he was in an interesting point in his career, but he loved the script.
When we began shooting, me and Rupert got off to a bad start. During the very first shot, I was more interested in the technical parts with the camera than with the actors themselves. But Rupert needed much attention, as he was very famous at the time. After the first take, I told him he was overacting, and he got pissed off, so the rest of the fourteen-week shoot was tough. We’d be in war one day, then making peace the next day. It was very up and down because we didn’t get each other. I was too interested in my shots, and he wanted more direction for the action. After some reflection over many years, I made some mistakes, but the film is very good and I’m proud of it.
You’ve mostly directed TV throughout the last 20 or so years. How has that been?
It’s basically the same as when I directed features. It’s not thrillers or horror, but it’s still very high quality. If I’m being honest, I didn’t lose anything to TV, because TV is big now, and the language is still the same. I’m still enjoying and amusing myself with the work, because Italian cinema these days is very dry. There’s no horror films in Italy anymore, because it’s not commercial in this country. But here’s the thing about the past: it might still come back one day.
Cemetery Man, The Church, and The Sect are part of Severin's Black Friday Sale, running from 12:01am EST on 11/24 to 11:59pm PST on 11/27 at SeverinFilms.com.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Jacob Knight is a freelance journalist and co-host of the Secret Handshake Cinema podcast.
