In the Italian underground cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, it is impossible not to notice the name of Maurizio Quarta, Italian effects artist and director, who granted us an unmissable interview dedicated to those who want to shed light on his filmography. Maurizio Quarta talks to us about his collaboration in filmmaking with Christian Arioli and Roger Fratter, but most importantly, he reveals the interesting behind-the-scenes of his works.
L: Hello Maurizio, how would you describe yourself?
M: A nostalgic dreamer but at the same time a realist with a head on his shoulders, but for more information you would do better to consult my zodiac sign (I was born on the 1st of November), there you will find described exactly as I am ... and I guarantee you ... without half measures.
L: You are an effects artist but also an underground horror filmmaker. How did your passion for this world come about and what are the major difficulties you face in both fields?
M: Eating bread and horror movies since the age of 5/6. It was Nov. 1969 and I still remember as a child my debut with the first scary movie, seen on rai after the moon landing "Forbidden Planet," not a horror movie but enough to terrify me just enough. From there all an escalation until 1980 where I began to fantasize about how to personally make the special effects that I was so fond of in the movies I saw by then in profusion (in theaters and on TV of course... vhs in that year was still science fiction).
One day by chance I happened to reacquaint myself with two friends from my school days, and one of them showed me some home movies made in super 8, short films made amateurishly but conceived as small films complete with story, actors, music and dubbing. It was the electrocution. In November 1981 I bought a super 8 camera and sound projector and exactly one year later started shooting the The House where I could finally make the first crude splatter tricks and at the same time conceive of a story in which I could play the part of the "monster or murderer," which was the figure I liked best ever in so many films I had seen. That's how my adventure in independent cinema started.
Regarding the sectoral difficulty in both cases I remind you that we are in Italy and what was gold in the past era today seems to have become all lead, the cinema of the past remains so and therefore today no one fucks it anymore and I am not talking about those who watch it but those who produce it. Unfortunately, today's horror, packaged by brave independent filmmakers, does not have the impact and visual power of the products of the past and therefore fails to appeal to the producers and distributors who matter.
L: How would you define your way of filmmaking?
M: Symbiotic, this is because I am very much inspired by 70s/80s cinema from which I draw ideas for my products. In fact, music and dubbing I retrieve right from the films of that era, and some of my works are blatant homages to cult films of that period.
L: What is the first film work you were involved in and what are your memories of it?
M: The House (The House). Memories? Among many, the excitement of making the first film work, the affinity with the friends with whom I made it (Pietro Signorelli and Dino Iula, peers from school days and Riva Rosy my cousin) but above all she, the only real protagonist of the film ... the house (mine) where I spent my adolescence made of so many changes and therefore the most intense moments where great memories leave no room for imagination.
L: When do you also take the field as an actor?
M: I have already done it in almost all of my products and also in some of Fratter and Arioli's products, if we count also those in which I only make an appearance then I would say almost all of Fratter and Arioli's films. You probably already know this but behind the pseudonym "Mike Hudson" is Maurizio Quarta.
L: You have worked as an effects artist (and also as an actor) for other directors such as Christian Arioli (Deeply - 1998, The Virus – 2006, Funeral Parade - 1999) and Roger Fratter (Vampire thirst – 1998, Anabolyzer - 2000, Evil in the flesh - 2002...). How did the collaboration with them come about?
M: An athlete who frequents my gym one day said to me "but do you know that my girlfriend knows a director from Bergamo (Fratter to be exact) who makes horror films like you? The contact started and after several months we met at his house, I saw his works which at that time (1997) were short films that won several festivals and some parts of Vampire thirst which he was completing at that time. We talked at length and decided to meet a second time at my home where I showed Fratter some of my shorts. Thus was born the idea of enriching the film with a few gore sequences that actually added that pinch of salt to the product that made the dish tastier. From that moment, a series of collaborative projects started from Snuff at Anabolyzer etc., which saw me at the forefront as sfx in all the early frattermovies until about 2006.
Instead, Christian I met him a year later through a collecting contact; he became interested in some horror titles in my possession and a friendship began to develop. He later became interested in independent cinema, and I introduced him to Fratter, who included him in the cast of Anabolyzer. From there it was a short step and a few weeks later he made, with my supervision on the special effects he made himself, his first project (Deeply). However, given the poor result of the sfx he decided, from the second work onward, to entrust me completely with the realization of all the effects in his filmography up to the most recent Black fairy tale 2011.
L: In 1982 you directed The House (The House). What can you tell us about that? By the way, the title inevitably refers back to Raimi's film. Is that a coincidence or is it a little homage to Evil Dead?
M: Mine is made before Raimi's (which is from 1981 but was released by us in 1984) and, apart from a few coincidences, is completely different in its proposed theme. In fact, the film is made in a completely experimental way since the construction of the story is quite curious. It does not originate as is commonly tend to be done in a filmographic product (setting the script first and then making the filmed shots) but by shooting random sequences without logic of continuity relying initially only on the ideas of the moment and the place in question (the house) and so my debut as director, actor and effects artist begins on a Saturday in October 1982 where with Dino Iula and Pietro Signorelli I decide to kick off the film.
The first shot is the throwing into the void of a mannequin I previously made (in the film it will be that of Alfred Goen played by Iula who is thrown from a balcony after being killed) and the entrance of Alfred Goen and Julius p38 (Iula and Signorelli) into the mysterious room in the tower. In subsequent shootings (on the following Saturday) the decision is made to introduce the element of danger and here the man in the devil mask materializes, the one who will kill Goen and following the other elements of the group. Now the story takes shape and I call my cousin (Rosi Riva) who will play Helen Adams, the female component of the story who will take Goen's place, after his untimely death, for the entire subsequent duration of the film. The location lends itself well (attic and basement) to offer cues of a certain psychedelic charm, and the actors defend themselves just enough.
Thus the story comes to life and so does the film. A homemade dubbing done by the actors themselves and a delirious soundtrack taken from Goblin's music but modified by Iula complete the work. Towards the end of the 1980s the film was transferred to vhs while the 1st cut on film suffered a sad fate by accidentally ending up in the garbage bin. In February 2003, after a re-editing job, it is improved in its form (the story is smoothed out by as much as 7 minutes) which makes it smoother and more understandable, originally the product in fact shows clear signs of incomprehensibility not only because of the sometimes poorly set dialogues but also because of sequences of unclear visual expression.
Curiosity. Considering in the 1980s the considerable costs of S8 film already pistoled (thus prepared for audio soundtrack) and a tight budget at our disposal, it was decided to compose the sound base with voices, noises and music on audiotape keeping the latter separate from the film (which in this case was silent) and synchronizing it from time to time during the projection of the film itself or moreover considering then that the recording did not coincide with the timing of the film, the synchronization was done by increasing or decreasing the speed of the projector based on the audio and not the other way around... in short, a real slam and that was every time the film was projected. If this is not love for cinema.
L: 1999 is the year of Macabre. Tell us about the dubbing that particularly characterizes this film and also about the delightful necrophagia sequence.
M: Macabre for those who don't know, he is the brother of Funeral Parade By Christian Arioli. The plan originally was to make a film with three episodes each directed by myself, Christian and Daniel Frevert respectively. During filming, the project foundered and it was decided to abandon the initial subject and convert everything into a single story. Frevert abandoned the field while Christian and I decided to unify all the footage and each edit his own version. The substantial difference beyond the editing that completely changes the meaning of the story (one among many... the protagonist-Mara Leoni-in Funeral Parade dies, in Macabre lives) is precisely the dubbing that I always tend to take great care of in each of my products, and in this story it was necessary for the main characters to speak a lot in the first part of the film. The whole sequence required a lot of dialogue, and I felt bad that it all ended up being diminished by "homemade" dubbing. Hence the decision to choose professional voices (in this case those of Pino Colizzi and Roberta Paladini) that give that touch of 80s cinema that is so close to my heart and that make the whole film certainly more engaging even in the rest of the dialogue in the story. The cannibalistic scene over the corpse was Christian's idea and is present, edited differently, in both versions. The cellar of one of his uncles lent itself to become a segregation cell for the courageous Mara Leoni (who here surpasses herself by manipulating and devouring bloody pieces of raw meat) and there we set up the set where I was able to prepare the special effects necessary for the realization of the sequences... ah, I forgot... a due thanks to Nekromantik films From which we were a tad inspired.
L: In 2002 you directed Protomorphosis. This short film enjoys not only splatter scenes but also a fantastic melting that does not go unnoticed. What can you tell us about this short film? How did the idea related to the brain...?
M: Thank you for the compliment. Protomorphosis was born out of a co-production with Daniel Frevert who a few years earlier was attempting to develop a short fantasy horror film entitled Mostrum. Frevert's ideas about the subject were somewhat uncertain because at that time I remember him being uninspired and very confused. One day, during one of our meetings and during yet another attempt to bring to life a Mostrum, I was reminded of the super cult "Alien 2 on Earth," and immediately proposed to Daniel to make a blatant homage to Cyrus Ippolito's masterpiece.
I wrote the subject on a notebook page and proposed it to Frevert who, thrilled with the idea, even decided to produce it on super8 film. Originally the story was about a fisherman who, contaminated by an unknown organism, begins to wander through the woods killing unfortunate people, but then I decided to change the role of the protagonist, whom I played, to the naturist photographer who, contaminated by an unknown organism returns to his home and undergoes a metamorphosis in his sleep, in turn transforming himself into an organism identical to the one that contaminated him (not before slaughtering first the letter carrier played by Frevert himself and, later, after his girlfriend).
In July 2001 we started shooting (the one in the woods) but due to my work issues, we suspended and then resumed the following year at the same time, July 2002, where we finished the film in three days. The change of the title to Protomorphosis (protoplasm+metamorphosis) concluded the work. The depiction of the parasitic blob comes to life from the idea of wanting to portray the threat as an organism (alien or terrestrial, this is not known) capable of reproducing itself, engulfing its host body in a short time, but not before the latter has momentarily transformed itself into a monster driven by a thirst for the blood it needs to complete its metamorphosis. And all this in a chain that is not known where it begins nor where it ends, in fact the parasite that contaminates the protagonist may itself have been a human being contaminated by a previous parasite. As the same fate will befall the girl (Samantha Jameson) in the film's finale when she finds what remains of the transformed photographer.
L: Sacrarium Sect of Hell (2000) and Maniak are the titles of two trailers. Can you tell us about them?
M: Two pairs of friends find an old scroll that reveals the location of a sacred place that is the scene of occult rituals. Driven by curiosity they set out on a quest to find said place in which they mistakenly awaken evil, resurrecting monks who are guardians of the temple and worshipers of a demonic entity. This is the plot of Sacrarium, which is actually my re-edited and re-dubbed version of a feature film shot with Arioli in 2000 entitled Abbey Sec. XII Rex Inferi and intended to be a clear homage to the blind templars created by Ossorio.
Several years after the making of the film Arioli had already moved on to other projects, abandoning in a drawer the dubbing and distribution of the latter. I was not very happy about this, because involved as I was as lead actor and effects artist I wanted the film to have at least a minimum of visibility, so it was that I proposed to Christian the permission to appropriate the material by re-editing it, dubbing it and distributing it signing it in both of our names. In 2011 Christian completed the dubbing and finished it, giving rise (as in Funeral Parade and Macabre) to two versions of the same film (his of course the official one).
Maniak instead I would call it my second feature film and of all the products the most extreme in my filmography. A man contracts a rare venereal disease from a woman with whom he has had a sadistic and perverse relationship in the past and who later disappears. Having escaped from a psychiatric hospital and still residing in a squalid one-room apartment located in a rundown metropolitan area, he lives perpetually going from one job to another, prey to memories of her and hallucinatory psychosis in which he sees himself transforming into a purulent monster, visualizing with this through delirium, the disease that is devouring him. Only by killing at the moment of the manifestation of that disease does he imagine regressing the metamorphosis, raging on casual young women also as revenge against the female sex that has contaminated him. Another homage to a cult film in this case Maniac by Lustig, which I consider one of the best horror films made in the 1980s decade. I am reserving some secrecy about the product since I have not yet completed it, it may undergo possible changes along the way, and I would not want to reveal too much of what may turn out to be (obviously compared to my previous works) a very hard film to digest.
L: Let's get to House of the Living Dead - The Injection 2 (1997). First let's clear up a doubt about the title: the "2" assumes that there is a previous chapter but that does not exist in this case, does it? Why this title?
M: Actually it does exist and even in three versions: the 1991 45m 1st, a re-edited and re-dubbed 43m version (the official one), and a 2001 12m re-edited and re-dubbed version for possible presentations at various short film fests. The House of the Living Dead is thus a real sequel to The Injection.
L: I personally believe that Injection 2 is a real gem of underground cinema that I would like to know as much as possible about. Can you tell us about it?
M: As explained just above, the film is a direct sequel to the The injection and its making is plagued by a truly difficult path so much so that to this day nothing remains of the initial script, which instead leaves room for a product of recovery and editing, but let's explain everything from the beginning. Two months after the first viewing of The injection I am putting in the pipeline plans for a sequel titled Iniection 2 The Regeneration. The story involves the insane brain-devouring monster transformed into a living corpse, with the forced help of a girl in his power, attempting new experiments at her home to regress the decay ravaging his body, obviously this involves many murders and experiments with more fully characterized characters. The project foundered after shooting the entire prologue and opening credits due to disagreements with some actors. In 1996 I tried again, putting the project back on track with the title House of the Living Dead The Injection 2 where I drop the subject of the previous version, shoot some unreleased scenes, and edit the whole thing with part of the story of the The injection creating a sort of remake sequel, but once again postproduction stalls due to labor issues. It is said that there is no two without three and indeed here in 1997 is yet another attempt to bring the film back to life. This time all ends well thanks in part to the distribution of the latter sponsored by Daniel Frevert's fanzine "Xelluloid." The 1996 version is disassembled by removing some parts and reassembled with other sequences shot for an earlier work that was never made entitled The House of Blood And some of the footage not used to make the short film Human flesh (Indeed, the careful observer will notice that there are inconsistencies between the whole part filmed in the house and the final part). At last The Creature, properly stitched up like Frankenstein's monster, comes to life and presents itself as we see it today in the very rare vhs version, to date the only edition in circulation. Testimony this one that stands to show how sometimes the art of recovery can yield sometimes fairly decent results (and still always in the amateur sphere of zero-budget cinema and with inadequate means).
L: The fantastic scene of the syringe needle being jabbed into the outer corner of the eye was also captured in Roger Fratter's Anabolyzer. What can you tell us about that?
M: It was my idea to propose it to Roger as a tribute to my film The injection and at the same time create a disturbing but objectively somewhat forced sequence, for while in my film the serum injected into the orbit was intended to reach directly into the subject's brain to cure the disease, in Anabolyzer is not justified since steroids are usually administered intramuscularly.
L: In your works we are pleased to note your musical preferences when it comes to movies. Why did you use famous soundtracks instead of setting them to music with original soundtracks?
M: If we were to play a game where I would invite you to recognize music tracks from at least 20 (horror) films from the last 20 years I find it hard to believe that you could guess at least 2 of them, then I would do the riddle again this time proposing music from films such as: The Exorcist, Halloween, Zombies, all of Argento's films up to Phenomena, most of Fulci's films up to Manhattan Baby, Buio Omega, etc., etc., etc., I think you can guess at least a good 90%. I find that the musical themes of the 70s and 80s directed by timeless masters, were almost as important as the film itself to which they are married of the series that if Profondo Rosso had different music, perhaps anonymous as they do today, it would not have been the same film...get the picture? At one time the music fit the film by placing itself at the service of the latter, today the music is a pure side dish to dose the rhythm of the scare and the otherwise over-insistent silences. Inserting musical themes from films of those years allows me to pay homage with my modest works to what I consider to be the true soundtracks, decent masterpieces that today would no longer be possible to hear in post-2000 films, not because of an impossibility of composition but because of musical choices that, in my opinion, in the products of the last two decades have definitely deteriorated.
L: The film titles you mentioned actually have unforgettable soundtracks. The special effects you created enjoy a craftsmanship that harkens back to that of the old cinema of the 1980s. Which horror films from this period do you think enjoy the best special effects?
M: Tom Savini and Giannetto De Rossi are my inspirations par excellence. The visual cut of their effects in cult films such as Friday the 13th, Maniac, Zombie, Zombie 2, The Afterlife, That Mansion Next to the Cemetery just to name a few, is what I have been inspired by to recreate the tricks in all my products and also those of other directors I have worked for. Definitely to be mentioned masterpieces such as The House, The Thing, Day of the Zombies, Scanners, The Fly and the list would still be long.
L: If you could choose, whose film would you have liked to have edited the special effects or directed?
M: Paradoxically of none of the all-time cults (the ones I see for me as the best) simply because they are so exaggerated in their form with their merits and flaws that as they are they should not be touched at all, who knows...maybe by putting my hands on them then I would like them less.
L: Which among your films do you consider well successful? Which one would you make changes to instead?
M: I confirm for sure that for what I gave in the past I got what I expected from almost all my products, but at the same time with the maturity and experience I have gained today, I would do everything again with more professionalism, I still think this is a common evil... years later you always realize you can do better.
L: Does your filmography stop in 2006, or have you signed new projects?
M: Unfortunately, I must admit that the last work I did was in 2006 with the unfinished feature film Deeply aka Maniak which remains unpublished to this day due to issues that have almost been resolved to date.
L: Are you working on any projects currently? Can we hope for a new film of yours?
M: After Black fairy tale (2010) by Christian Arioli (for which I did the special effects), various work commitments took me away from this great passion of mine but in the so-called drawer I still keep unresolved projects of works (including the same Maniak quoted just above) which I will shortly, I hope, resume and bring to light as soon as possible--hopefully perhaps as early as this year.
L: You have been active in the underground horror scene since the early 1980s. How do you see the transition of our favorite genre in recent decades? In your opinion, is there a solid foundation for it to become relevant again internationally?
M: In the foreign sphere, horror has certainly made great strides thanks to innovative technologies. Unfortunately, originality often leaves something to be desired, but on the other hand, after a century of cinema, now what can be invented that is original anymore? Let's say that the lack of ideas is compensated with good visuals in terms of editing, cinematography, special effects, which in previous decades in many films were limited to sufficiency but supported by certainly thicker stories that have helped to leave us timeless masterpieces despite the passage of time. Another thing if you talk to me about Italian cinema, in spite of myself I must say that I do not have good hopes for the future given what is circulating today. Apart from a few decent works, we are far from the fine cinema that was and very far from being competitive with foreign products in general (our neighbors Spain and France alone are enough to give us a lesson in horror cinema done as god commands). Needless to reiterate that the blame for all this (apart from often the director's inability) lies with a production and distribution mechanism that does not concede much to those who courageously want to emerge today perhaps with good ideas but with few means at their disposal, indeed even boycotting what is sometimes successful with ministerial rules that are neither in heaven nor on earth.
L: An opinion on this interview?
M: Constructive and of great service, and especially a thank you to the staff of DarkVeins who allow unknown authors like us to have that modicum of visibility otherwise not afforded by other publishing and non-publishing channels.
L: Leave a message for your friends at DarkVeins, your fans, and everyone reading this interview!
M: I greet and sincerely thank as of now all those who will read this interview wishing me to have left you readers, with my modest contribution, an added value to what is already your great experience on the subject and I hope moreover to have at least partially satisfied that circle of admirers who appreciate my modest works but also to those who instead despise them, telling the so-called behind the scenes that sometimes reveal unsuspected realities confirming the rule of never stopping at the appearance of what you see. Lastly, a dispassionate piece of advice to those who, like me, want to try their hand at this art out of passion...always express yourself in total freedom by doing what you think you might like and not what you imagine others might like, you will have some less money but a lot more satisfaction.
L: Maurizio thank you on behalf of DarkVeins for your comprehensive and valuable answers. Also thank you for your helpfulness!
