Brandi (Mena Suvari) hits Tom (Stephen Rea) with her car on her way home from a night of partying. With Tom still alive but lodged through her windshield, she promises to go a hospital but then decides to leave Tom to die in her garage as she realizes that her future is inextricably tied to her victim. Realizing this plan, Tom knows escape is his only chance for survival.
Bloody: So Stuck is the first Amicus movie in like, what, 30 years?
Stuart: Something like that, yeah, I think the last ones came out in the 70s.
Bloody: Are you going to work with them again?
Stuart: Yes, I am actually working on another project with them now, so yeah, I’m hoping there will be more to come.
Bloody: From the synopsis for Stuck, it sounds like it could be one of your plays...
Stuart: Well we do have several scenes outside, but yeah, the majority of the story is sort of the battle of survival between the two of them, in the garage, so in a way it could be a play.
Bloody: Are you still doing theater?
Stuart: I’m actually in rehearsal right now for one. So yeah I do one now and then, I miss theater very much.
Bloody: Now Stuck’s real story took place in Texas, why did you change it to Providence for the film?
Stuart: It had to do with where we shot it. We ended up shooting the movie in New Brunswick, Canada, which is on the east coast. So the question was “What American city does this look like?”, and Providence was kind of the best choice.
Bloody: How much of the film does Stephen Rea spend in the windshield?
Stuart: He’s in the windshield for a pretty long time actually, he’s in there for most of the film. The actual event took place over 3 days, the movie takes place over about a day and a half, and he’s in the windshield for about a day.
Bloody: What kind of rig was he in? Was he comfortable?
Stuart: It was pretty terrible (laughs) I was amazed that he was able to deal with it. Of course, it’s not real glass, but it’s still incredibly uncomfortable; this rigid plastic. But it’s still as uncomfortable as real glass would be. And we tried to pad this thing so he wouldn’t be leaning on it, but he’s hanging down with his head lower than the rest of his body, so it’s not a comfortable way to be for very long. Plus it’s bloody, and he had to go through hours of makeup every day. What a trooper he is. He told me that on this film that he just finished doing after Stuck; they said ‘we have a scene where we have to tie you up, will you be OK with that?” And he just laughed and said “After what I went through on the last movie I can do anything.’ (laughs) He used to say, ‘The real guy was in the windshield for three days, but I was in the windshield for three weeks!” But Steven and Mena Suvari are amazing in it, and so is Russell Hornsby, who plays her boyfriend. They went above and beyond the call of duty.
Bloody: Did you have any contact with the people who were involved with the real story?
Stuart: No, I didn’t, not directly. I just based it on the news stories.
Bloody: How close is the film to what actually happened?
Stuart: The general idea is pretty accurate, and I would say the first half of the movie is pretty close to the reality, and then we kind of went our own way with it. We were working on this for a couple years, and first we were keeping it very close to the real events, and then one day we said “What if this happened instead of that?” and then all of a sudden, we found, in a strange way, this is sort of how the way things SHOULD have happened.
Bloody: Is there a release date yet, or is it going to be in festivals for a while?
Stuart: No, there’s no release date yet, my guess is that it’s gonna be next year sometime.
Bloody: Now, other than your Masters of Horror episodes, all your recent films have been less horror, more realistic.
Stuart: Yeah, that’s true...
Bloody: Is that something conscious; is horror something that you’re trying to get away from? Or just coincidence?
Stuart: No, it’s just lately I’ve been thinking that what happens in real life is much more horrifying than anything you can dream up that exists within the supernatural world. kSo King of the ants, Edmond, and now Stuck is kind of a trilogy. But I’m still interested in horror, I love doing the Lovecraft stories and the new project will very likely be one of those.
Bloody: While we’re talking about Masters of Horror, have you heard anything about Season 3?
Stuart: I think things are looking good, I can’t really say too much more. Hopefully there will be some sort of press release or something, but I think things are looking good.
Bloody: This next project, is it going to be House of Re-Animator? What’s the status of that?
Stuart: We’re still trying to find a backer for that film. On that one I’m kind of disappointed, because I was hoping to be working on it right now. But the one I’ve been talking to Amicus about doing is The Thing On The Doorstep, which is a Lovecraft story that Dennis Paoli adapted several years ago, and it’s a great script. So that could be the next thing.
Bloody: Can you talk a bit of what it's about?
Stuart: It’s a great story, its one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, and I think it’s really one of the only Lovecraft story that has a strong female character in it, which makes it pretty unique. It’s a tour de force for a couple of wonderful actors. So I’m very excited about it.
Bloody: Now with Amicus, obviously anthology films would come up, have you had any ideas of maybe doing an anthology film of some of the shorter Lovecraft stories that couldn’t be stretched into feature length films?
Stuart: It’s a terrific idea, except that it’s hard to get an anthology movie made. They really just don’t want to do them. Even Amicus, they’re talking about doing re-imagining of some of their titles, but I think they’re thinking of them not as anthologies but full on features.
Bloody: The From Beyond DVD is finally coming out, how much involvement did you have putting that together?
Stuart: I had a lot of involvement, because it’s a restored director’s cut of the picture. MGM discovered a film-can a couple years ago that had all of the trims that the MPAA made us take out of the movie, and they had saved the original footage, and we were able to put it back now to restore it. And it was all workprint and kind of cut up, and had grease pencil marks and things like that, but with the way they do this digital cleanup now, you really cannot tell where the new footage is.
Bloody: So it’s all re-color timed and all that...
Stuart: Yeah, and we remixed the movie as well. And it’s the first time it’s ever been available in letterbox, and the colors are just spectacular. It’s a beautiful DVD.
Bloody: So can we expect the same treatment for some of your other movies? Special Editions for something like Dolls or Fortress?
Stuart: Dolls came out a year ago, and that was widescreen, and it was a great improvement. Fortress I think would be a good candidate; I don’t think it’s ever been available in letterbox, and there’s no commentary or anything. I would like to do that; I’m not sure who owns the rights at this point. I think it might be Lion’s Gate.
Bloody: Have you ever seen the Re-Animator comics?
Stuart: I did see them a few years back. Someone just sent me the new one where he’s fighting Ash from Evil Dead, which is kind of cool I think. These things take on a life of their own, which is amazing.
Bloody: OK well before I go, I just wanted to let you know I finally saw Dagon, and I really dug it.
Stuart: Oh, thanks. Yeah, that was a movie that took forever to get made.
Bloody: And since it was based on Shadow over Innsmouth (a movie Stuart tried for years to get off the ground before combining it with the Dagon story), does that “count” as far as your desire to get that story onscreen?
Stuart: It’s a combination of the two, so yeah, I kind of feel like I got the opportunity to finally tell that story. And it was one of the hardest shoots I’ve ever been involved with, because we decided we wanted it to rain in every scene (laughs) and we shot it in the middle of winter, so it was cold and wet. But you get that feeling when you’re watching it, that sort of clamminess transfers to the screen, so I think it was worth it.
Bloody: I’m from Massachusetts (where the Innsmouth story takes place) so I was kind of bummed the story got moved to Spain.
Stuart: (laughs) Well originally, we were location scouting on both coasts, and we found our way up through Massachusetts, into Maine, and we found a town in Maine that told us we could blow up their town if we wanted to! (laughs) “Burn it down!” That was kind of a hard offer to turn down.
Bloody: Maybe you should just write a film just so you could take them up on the offer...
Stuart: I know! It was hilarious, because we’d be going up the coast, and we’d come to a town, and we’d sort of describe the story, what we were looking for: the fishing village, the docks... And they’d be like “No we don’t have anything like that”. And we’d say “Really? You don’t have anything that would work?” And then after talking to them for a few hours and we’d finish, and they’d say “Where you going now?”, and we’d say to the next town. And then they’d say “Well they don’t have anything to shoot in, but we do!” All of a sudden they had locations. But it worked out in Spain I think, there’s a similarity between the two areas, with all of the witch history and stuff like that.
Bloody: OK, well, thank you for your time!
Stuart: Alrighty, take care.
