Norman J Warren

NORMAN J WARREN IS A DIRECTOR WHO KNOWS HOW TO PUSH THE GORE CONTENT. THERE IS A LOVELY 2004 ANCHOR BAY BOXSET CALLED THE NORMAN J WARREN COLLECTION THAT IS DEFINITELY WORTH A LOOK.

HERE IS THE imdb LINK TO THE MAN AND AND HIS WORKS.

Johnny: How did you first get involved with directing horror films?

Norman: Well, it really came – I started in the industry by being a runner and an assistant in the cutting room – I was doing that in what was called sexploitation films but at least it gave me the opening. But to be honest by the time I had done the second one, they were very dull to make believe it or not – it’s trying to think where to put the camera with two people on the bed. I was offered the chance to do more but I really backed away from it, I could see it was a dangerous road to go down to get stuck in those things. So I initially went back to the cutting room because I enjoyed that more. I was given the chance to direct a couple of horror films that never happened.

JOHNNY: What were they?

NORMAN: One was called The Naked Eye which would have been a wonderful opportunity and Vincent Price was going to star, but American International got involved and sadly they kept changing things and the budget was going up and up and up and then they turned around and said that this film is too expensive and basically they didn’t want to do it then. They paid off Vincent Price because they had him under contract. The other was for Amicus called The Book of Seven Seals, it petered out for various reasons. So with a friend, we were both getting so frustrated with it all these problems we thought, why don’t we try and make our own film. And that’s how Satan’s Slave was made. I always wanted to do horror but didn’t have much opportunity.

JOHNNY: Would you call what you did back then guerrilla film making?

NORMAN: I suppose it would be classed as that now. Basically we knew what we were doing, though everybody was all young everyone was already working in the industry doing various things. It was just a question of trying to get it financed, it was a nightmare you know. We had peanuts to make it with but a lot of it’s easy and we could just do it in a couple of weeks. Managed to get Michael Goth which was a great help; gives it that little bit of kudos, and a good cast. I’m glad to say that it was a great success for what it was. We got proper distribution and it sold around the world.

JOHNNY: Do you know the total earnings of the film to date?

NORMAN: No idea, it never stops. And the other one we did the same way later called Terror which was lovely and successful for what it was once again, but actually became a number 1 film on release.

JOHNNY: So when you think back to those days and you look at the way horror has gone now – do you think as a genre it has died on its arse?

NORMAN: Films nowadays rely too much on the CGI, I’ll tell you that; sometimes it’s so over the top it doesn’t have any effect at all. You can see it’s fake. It’s not going to frighten you or worry you, it’s just endless gore. There’s no character to the films any more. Why not go back to when horror was good and have some scenes where no-one’s getting chopped up and have actual character driven films. I know it sounds like an old man moaning here, but another thing that bugs me is the sound, nobody works on the soundtracks any more. It’s just flat out noise, no breaks not even some silence any more.

JOHNNY: Especially when you look back to, let’s say, the Hammer Horror films. There was always a subtleness; you knew something was about to happen – and there would be slight shifts in the tone and the pitch of the music and that would keep the tension up and keep you on the edge of your seats. Now it’s just industrial make your ears bleed music.

NORMAN: I’ve been very lucky when it comes to composers, I was working with a man called John Scott, you know, he’s from the old school. He actually works on every single scene; very single moment of music is working for you. But sadly, I don’t think that people work that way any more. If you have a film where everything is flat out loud there’s just nowhere else for anything to go. You can’t go louder than louder.

Another issue we have today, a lack of script writers. I’m a victim of trying to find good scripts, we don’t have good writers here which is very sad.

JOHNNY: Have you found any good scripts recently? If you got one, and managed to get the money attached would we see a new Norman J Warren film?

NORMAN: For various reasons I’ve not been doing any work for the last year – I won’t say the reasons here. But there are a lot of scripts out there, but most of them are dreadful.

JOHNNY: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed Norman.

NORMAN: Okay, thank you!