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Rated: 5.00/5 | Votes: 3 | Views: 125 |Submitted: 08/02/08

Interview with Brutal Massacre Director Stevan Mena

By Heather Wixson

Director Stevan Mena made his first impression on the horror scene in 2004 with his directorial debut Malevolence, a story about a group of bank robbers on the run from the law that hide out in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, unaware that they picked the "wrong" house to hide out next to.  Four years later, the director is dipping his toes in the comedy waters with his latest release Brutal Massacre (now on DVD).

“I didn’t want to be labeled as a ‘one-trick pony’,” explained Mena. “So I decided that this time I wanted to have some fun and do something that was a departure from my first film.”

The result is a mockumentary-style film about Harry Penderecki, a once celebrated horror director who’s trying to get back on the good side of Hollywood after releasing a series of unsuccessful horror movies. However, he finds that not everything goes according to plan on the set of his new film and Penderecki, along with his cast and crew, face an onslaught of obstacles before the movie can get finished.

For Mena, he wanted to show the absurd side of making a horror movie.  “I basically wanted to take all of these crazy experiences I have heard that people in the business have had and just built a movie around the worst possible things a director could go through.”

Brutal Massacre teams up cast members from both the horror and comedy genres.  Penderecki is played by David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London), whose naivety and tunnel vision alone nearly side-track his movie.

“Harry is definitely the kind of director I am afraid I would end up turning into,” commented Mena.

Naughton is joined by horror favorites Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly (“The Ladies of The Evil Dead”), Gunnar Hansen (the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Ken Foree (the original Dawn of the Dead), as well as comedy stars Brian O’Halloran (Clerks, pretty much almost every other Kevin Smith that followed), Gerry Bednob (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), and Vincent Butta (The Pick-up Artist).

“I really wanted to show a lot of our cast playing against ‘type’,” said Mena. “I mean, we have Gunnar playing a crazy local guy. Who knew Leatherface was so damn funny?”

Mena was lucky enough to not have a case of life intimidating art, so he had a pretty easy shoot for Brutal Massacre and didn’t really find it difficult switching gears from horror to comedy.  In fact, what he noticed most was just that it was a different vibe.

“Personalities tend to dictate the flow of a shoot,” said Mena. “Horror can be much more methodical because you have to worry about camera angles, tone, and just needing to be aware of everything.  With comedy, your main concern is if a scene shoots funny or not, and then you can move on to the next scene.”

Mena is currently working on finishing up Malevolence 2, the prequel to Mena’s original film.  The first Malevolence is actually the second in a trilogy of stories, so for Mena, it seemed logical to start in the middle because of the limited resources available for his first outing as a director weren’t going to let him get into a lot of the back story which will be told in the next Malevolence.

However, just because there were constraints doesn’t mean that Mena isn’t extremely proud of his first film.  “Sometimes having no budget can really enhance your film, especially in the horror genre,” added Mena.

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