As legend has it, a notorious serial slayer will return to the sleepy community of Riverdale to finish off the seven children born on the night he purportedly died. But is the slayer really dead, or is he still at large? Or has the mysterious evil personality that once impelled his bloody spree entered the body of an unwary teen, who will now be compelled to do his evil bidding?

BD: This is kind of an unorthodox idea. Could you maybe tell us how you came up with it?

WC: I wish I could. I mean, it just came to me. What I call my shower thoughts. Occasionally I just have an idea, completely like, shampoo in my eyes or something…you just have to jump out of the shower and write it down. It just came to me. I don’t know why, but this guy, this normal guy, has schizophrenia but it’s completely under treatment. They’ve identified all the personalities within him. They’re all relatively benign; they have an agreement with the psychiatrist that they only speak in the office with the hypnosis. This guy’s leading a fairly normal life – in fact, he hasn’t even told his wife he has this condition. But there are a series of serial murders taking place in the town and it never has occurred to him he has anything to do with it, but he finds in his house, in his own home and his workshop a bloody knife that matches the one that people describe as being the killer’s. As soon as he does, in his horror, the voice speaks for the first time of the killer that’s been using him as his conveyance and says, “if you tell anyone, I’ll kill your family.” So that’s how it starts. The main story is about the son of this man. The man dies in the first act. The souls of each of the personalities...of the child go into the seven kids born that night. The son is one of them, he’s rescued from the dead mother’s belly. The man threatens to come back and kill them all because all the personalities helped turn him in, and none of these kids know any of this. It’s all been kept from them by their parents so they can lead normal lives, so it’s kind of like this is the night of all of their 16th birthday, and it all happens. The man makes his move. Six and one make seven. The title comes from – and again, it was just an idea – but I had run across 25/8 on the Internet when I did a global search for it. The idea was, if you want to fight the devil, the devil works 24/7 – so you have to work 25/8 to avoid him getting you. It was kind of a working title. Originally it was called “Bug”, the script was, because that’s the central character. And then [inaudible] came out with a new and better title, so I [inaudible]. We just took the phrase from a line in the film.

BD: You’ve had a great relationship directing Kevin Williams’ script and other screenwriters’ for awhile. What’s it like to get back to writing your own?

WC: It felt like the smart move to make, and also I just loved the idea. I had some time and I just took three months and wrote it. I just look back on the films in my career. Some of them were the screen series, [inaudible] were a pleasure to direct. The films that are really kind of vintage, Wes Craven stuff are things that I wrote myself. I just felt like it’s time to get back… be a complete filmmaker, directing things that you wrote yourself. It just makes it more personal, and just a little bit deeper.

BD: How many of your films have been “shower thoughts” versus other inspirations?

WC: I think in the past, shower thoughts have been more of things to do within a film. This is the first time that I can remember, because a lot of them – I think Shocker and People Under the Stairs and Nightmare on Elm Street were all things based on articles I’ve seen in newspapers. So this is the first one that just came to me, a whole film idea.

BD: This seems to share themes with Nightmare on Elm Street. The scenes with parents visiting children.

WC: Yeah, in that instance, it’s much more of a search for the father and specifically, who was this kid’s father, because he was born the night his father died basically, and how much his father’s madness might or might not have gone into himself. So over the course of the film you don’t know whether the father survived that night (of his killing?) or whether his kid’s actually a killer. I won’t tell you what it is.

BD: [It’s] not a very gory film. Is there much blood and violence in it, and do you think it is going to be rated R, or is it more of a PG-13?

WC: No, it’s definitely R. It’s not a bloodbath, but, you know. Six or seven people die. Not pleasant.

BD: How much of the effects were CGI versus practical effects?

WC: The majority of it was practical, although in some cases now it’s so easy to do CGI blood for like (bullethits?) and things like that but it takes you a lot of time to do it. So there is some of that, just because there’s a lot of time. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a horror shoot, but using blood, everything grinds to a halt. And take 2 is complete wardrobe change and all that. Mostly, that’s what we did on this one too. But there are some…mostly bullet hits, or when someone gets shot in the head…enhance it.

BD: Storywise, you have these multiple children that have all these different personalities. Are all these kids all aware of each other? Are they all friends?

WC: Yeah, they’re all friends because it was a small town. It was this fluke event that impacted most of them so they couldn’t mature because the seven souls going up there basically kind of precipitated. A couple of the mothers weren’t ready to deliver, most of them were two to three months early. Just so they could all receive these souls. So yeah…and as far as the kids are concerned, that’s basically all they know. Their parents have kept it quiet, the community doesn’t want it to be noticed, these horrible events [inaudible]. And the kid who is the son of this man doesn’t know that he is. The parents actually got together and he was adopted by the sister of the woman who is killed by her husband. So, he thinks his mother is someone totally other than [inaudible]. It’s really the dawning of the awareness, especially on the part of this kid played by Max, of who he really is and what is heritage is.

BD: Are you looking to get involved in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake?

WC: I don’t know. I mean, I had heard that they were doing it. That’s as much as I know. I don’t even know who’s…

BD: Would you get involved if they asked you?

WC: It would have to be a pretty good deal, including controls and script and everything else. I mean after having written something again, it’s like…why? Why go back to something else that somebody else owns? I mean, I own this picture.

BD: James Kennedy, I actually ran into him last night. It’s pretty evident that you’re involved in Scream 4…

WC: Jimmy Kennedy? Would he ever lie about it? [laughter] I’ve heard that Bob [Weinstein] is thinking about it, and I think he has asked around the agency whether I would be interested, but I don’t think right now it’s anything (sufficial?), but I have heard that he’s thinking about it seriously for the first time.

BD: Nightmare would be the third Wes Craven movie remade so far, with potentially Shocker and People Under The Stairs on the way too. Of all of them though, have you sort of thought it’s inevitable Nightmare would come around for another generation?

WC: I’m surprised it hasn’t already, I mean, because that one, let alone remakes…I guess there could be a way to think of another. Frankly, when I did the seventh, I looked at all of them and I said, “there’s no coherent story left.” So then I just got the idea about doing it about we who made it. So I don’t know exactly where he’ll go if he did a remake…I don’t know. Suppose it could be better. It’s funny, I was [inaudible] a couple nights ago, because their just starting to premiere little family and friend screenings, and someone said “well, that’s a lot better than the original.” And I said, “No, I didn’t think of that when I OK’d the remake!” At my age, it’s like, do I want to be doing remakes for the last films I make, or would I rather just be doing original stuff?

BD: With LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, you had said that you never wanted to revisit that place again…

WC: I wasn’t there, I was shooting 25/8. I did not. I had to sit through a bunch of screenings of it and it’s actually a good film, but I personally wouldn’t want to remake my film.

BD: How true are they to the original film? Have they changed the ending, or really what the theme was about?

WC: I think the theme is pretty much the same, it is. It’s a little bit like the remake of Hills; it’s very close in some ways and in other ways it’s quite the director’s version of it in some cases. Events, things that parents do or have to cope with are different than the original. Certainly not just a page-for-page remake of the original. But, you know, it’s basically that story.

BD: What do you think of these remakes?

WC: You know, by and large, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and say, “should I be doing this, am I sort of destroying my own heritage?” Show of hands, how many have seen the original picture? I think they are an opportunity to give young filmmakers a chance and financially, frankly, there’s only very few films that I have ownership in. The first two, Hills Have Eyes and Nightmare on Elm Street were done with friends basically, and it was like a 50/50 deal, handshake. Nightmare on Elm Street was supposed to be that deal but it turned out that was not even the case. After 30 years we’ve had ownership of them again. Of course, when we made that deal back then, we thought we’d never live to be 30 years beyond where we were then.

BD: Or that people would be interested?

WC: Suddenly, it was one of those, “yeah, we own it! Let’s remake it.”

BD: How are things with People Under the Stairs and Shocker?

WC: People Under the Stairs is, I would say, likely. Shocker, maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t a film that got as much recognition I think or an audience as People Under the Stairs did. People Under the Stairs could be the next remake.

BD: Is there someone with a take on it?

WC: Not at this moment, no. We looked a long time for somebody with a take on Hills that felt original and, you know, worth it.

BD: [something about release dates]

WC: No. We’ll be done in early January, so maybe sometime after that. May just depend on Rogue’s schedule I guess.

BD: Do you think it’s a standalone film, or could this be the beginning of another franchise?

WC: It was certainly written as a standalone. I’ve always said that I don’t think you need a hook at the end of a film that says, “Oh, that’s the sequel hook.” Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t written as a think to generate sequels, all the [inaudible] and had me do a scene at the end. Not everybody’s dead at the end, so I suppose you could say yeah, we could do a sequel.

BD: Is this the first under your Rogue deal?

WC: Mm hmm.

BD: How’s that turning out?

WC: The 25/8 idea was pitched to Andrew in a lunch and he said “great, whenever you’re ready with script, we’ll do it.” So, it doesn’t get much better than that. He was very, very patient because the Hills Have Eyes 2 turned about to take a lot of time and energy in areas where I didn’t think it would. You know, my son and I wrote the script, and it was kind of a big deal. Andrew waited through all of that patiently and everything else and was there with the money when we were ready to do the picture. It’s been great. I work with Andrew a lot. Used to obviously work under Bob Weinstein, so we have a history that goes back. Universal has kind of taken over the releases of Rogue Pictures and they have a big powerful apparatus so I think we’ll get good distribution.

BD: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you talk about editing. How do you approach post-production?

WC: Oh, I have spoken about it, I mean that’s kind of where I started. My first jobs were in the editing rooms and I kind of learned basic filmmaking by working with Sean Cunningham on a film just before The Last House, and I cut my first films up through The Hills Have Eyes. I think it’s enormously important and I’m there every day. It’s not like I check in once a week or something like that. A huge amount of the film’s rhythm and focus comes from checking every shot and going through all the [inaudible] and saying “no, let’s use this take, trim there, trim there.” Probably 40 to 50% of what makes my films are those rhythms and pace and choices you make in the editing room. It’s hugely important.

BD: What new writers of horror are you particularly interested in?

WC: Wes Craven wrote an interesting script…you know, I don’t read specifically horror writers.

BD: I mean writers of film.

WC: I couldn’t say. For a year I’ve been sort of submerged in this one. The film 28 Days Later I thought was very clever. I like films that have some depth. I’m kind of a bad person to ask that question right now because I’ve just been buried in this film.

BD: You said in the panel you think this is some of your best work you’ve ever done. What is it about this film that is so special to you?

WC: Mr. Craven was eating a white-chocolate cookie, and most of what he said was unintelligible. I have this sort of rule of thumb when I think about writing a film or choosing a film to direct. One is, have I seen this before? So it will be basically a derivative or somebody else has already done it, in which case I try to rule it out. The other is, would I go see it if it was in the theater right now? Would you go out of your way to go see the film? On those two things, I got excited and when I had this idea, I couldn’t think of another film that was like this. It just was very personal to me in some ways. My father died when I was 4, so it’s just enough to have some vague memories of him but not really have a sense of who he was or what he thought of me, so I film about a son trying to figure out who his father was and what influence his father had on him, he’s very personal. So, my father wasn’t a serial killer, but that kind of thing is just…it felt like I know this kid.

BD: Do you have next horror idea in your head already or do you need another inspiration in the shower?

WC: No, I’m just barely off my honeymoon. I’m not thinking about who else I have to sleep with. This film is where I’m going to be for the next, certainly through the rest of this year. I’m totally focused on this.-