Editorials
Fear File #4: The Real Tony Todd
I can’t begin to tell you how obsessed my mother was with Candyman. Aside from my early exposure to The Exorcist and Halloween, these were some of my first horror flicks. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been watching them THAT early in my lifespan, but I fell in love. The imagery, the urban legend, the way it was delivered to the audience- Candyman was a rush, an exquisite example of how horror should be. After all, there isn’t much that Clive Barker touches that doesn’t fall into the ‘awesome’ category. But it was Candyman himself that drew me to the series- the mystery of a man who had been murdered for his love of a woman and has since come back to take his revenge; gory revenge, sure, but revenge just the same. In short, it was an urban legend, and one that has stuck with me since.
Actor Tony Todd is Candyman. But he was also a villain on “24.” A CIA Director on “Chuck.” The voice of Fallen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And, as horror fans, he entertained as Reverend Zombie in both Hatchet flicks, and as Mr. Bludworth in Final Destination. His IMDB page reads like a journey- the path of a talented actor who has done every role imaginable and nailed each one with such grace that he’s always coming back for more. When I sat down for this interview, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. By the time I hung up the phone, I was awe struck. I walked into this assuming that I would be interviewing a horror icon; instead, I walked away knowing a skilled craftsman who has an undeniable love for Shakespeare and cats.
Yes, cats.
Uncoordinated Yet Distinguished
Tony Todd doesn’t have a Twitter. He doesn’t have a Facebook page, either (except for the one the system miraculously bestowed upon him). But people know him- they know who he is. Whether it’s for a character he played on television, or a role in a familiar movie, Tony Todd is everywhere- and that’s not something that’s going to change. Even if it were, why would we want it to?
Todd was hit by the acting bug early on in life. A sports fan who wanted to fall into varsity greatness, a growth spurt of nearly six inches between his sophomore and junior year forced him to reevaluate his direction due to a lack of coordination. That was when his English teacher handed him a copy of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the theater bug hit hard. “You know those moments where you go, ‘wow, I want to be as close to this as possible’? That was it.” He spent high school immersed in one play after the next, but eventually went on to study the craft at not only the University of Connecticut, but also in several well-known conservatories. “I take it very seriously, but at the same time it gives me such joy to not only create but just to know that, occasionally, people are moved by what I do.” Todd completed seven years of in-depth studies, but would still love to go back and do even more. Being able to study in Moscow is a thought that crosses his mind often; being able to go into a controlled environment knowing what he knows now. “I love education. I love learning.” Those who act know that there is a distinct difference between film/television and theater. Hell, even those who aren’t actors know that the disciplines are unique. It’s like night and day- some may succeed in one area, yet struggle in another. Todd, who tries to do a play every few years or so, is fortunate enough to be able to do both. “Not everybody can do both. It’s two different disciplines, two different focuses. I’m very fortunate that A) I make a living doing film and television and B) theater is still deep in my blood.”
Todd’s nickname should be ‘reality check’. He’s a realist; a breath of fresh air- after spending nearly an hour talking about life and business, I’ve learned a few things; even more so, I’ve learned that Todd is grateful for everything that he has done and will do in the future. “There is no guarantee of success. The sad reality is that maybe one out of ten are even going to get one job. When you’re young you think you’ll live forever and you’re gonna do what you say you’re going to do.” He’ll be the first person to tell you that Hollywood isn’t kind, either. “You better have a thick skin like a reptile without becoming a snake.”
What can I say? The man has a good head on his shoulders. “You gotta keep your ego in check. You gotta keep it real, man. That’s why I was raised by the right woman and I have the right friends in my life and I have two beautiful children and I love life- and that comes first.”
Tony the Gangster
“I love good movies,” said Todd. “Anything that has a good beginning, middle and end is great.” He doesn’t just like horror movies, but he has his favorites. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The great Universal horror films “have always resonated with me.” Rosemary’s Baby. The original Hitchhiker. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead made Todd think “Wow, not only is that so creepy it could happen, but I saw Dwayne Jones and said ‘I can do this and not be Sydney Poitier.’”
Todd’s love of film started early. Raised by a single mother, his aunt, she introduced him to a different movie every night, using it to build character. “What she was also building was my deep and fascinating love of movies.” In fact, Todd repaid her the best way he knew how in 1994 while filming the western, Black Fox. He invited her to the set and she was treated like a queen as she got to watch what she had loved so much come to life before her eyes. “The beam on her face just sort of validated everything that I was doing.”
Looking over Todd’s vast career, he really has done it all. Westerns. Horror. Action. Thriller; everything has come together to showcase how much he loves what he does. He’s not a one-genre kind guy, and that’s what makes him a treasure; the fact that he can take on such different roles and do it incredibly well. “It builds character. The beautiful thing is that whatever role is meant for you to do, you’re going to do it.” Todd even admits to hating his flops; something many actors would deny, even going so far as to cite wanting a do-over on his 2006 take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “You just don’t know at the time. You’re only as good as your weakest link in the cast.”
Every actor, filmmaker, producer and even writer has their influences. I know for me, it’s Diablo Cody and the ever-changing writing style of Kevin Williamson. But Todd has several, including Robert Deniro and Martin Scorcese. Personally, I’d love to see Todd take on a gangster flick with the best of them. The biggest surprise to me was when Todd mentioned the likes of Humphrey Bogart, but cracked me up when he added “… he had a face only a mother could love.”
The Future
With Final Destination 5 in theaters, Todd is once again in the spotlight; but he’s constantly working. Video games, cartoons, whatever peaks his interest can easily find a place on his resume. Even the type of projects that churn out toys. “I counted one day when I was bored. I have 7 action figures. That’s pretty awesome.”
Aside from FD5, Todd’s role in Jack the Reaper has been in headlines as well. The film recently earned top horror/sci-fi honors at the Cannes Film Festival. But it’s the upcoming film Sushi Girl that has Todd beaming with pride. “[It’s] one of the best roles I’ve ever filmed.” The movie is about a group of robbers who throw a welcome home dinner party for the member of their gang that spent six years silently in prison for a crime they all committed. The dinner is an array of sushi lined up on the body of a ‘sushi girl,’ a beautiful, naked young woman who is trained to remain in a cationic state. But as the four former partners in crime open up old wounds, will the sushi girl be able to keep her cool? It’s a question that I’m willing to ask, and a film that I’m more than excited to see.
The group of filmmakers behind Sushi Girl ‘script stalked’ Todd for awhile before he finally committed to the role. Initially, they dropped a script in his shopping basket at a local supermarket. “I ignored it. I gave it to the cashier.” They pushed and pushed until Todd fell for the content and agreed to play the role. “I gotta give them points for tenacity.”
Todd doesn’t want to stick to just acting, though. Eventually he’d love to take the reigns as director at the helm of his own original project. In fact, he said he’ll keep going “… until I’m done and then I’ll travel and probably end up somewhere in Tahiti. I’ll be there, laying on the beach, having a coconut, maybe with a little rum, a woman on a boat arriving with my weekly groceries… and there in my bag will be a script sticking out of the top. Then I’ll know it’s time to move.”
Todd is a gem. He’s a rare breed; an iconic figure who is actually down to Earth and hates leaving his three cats when he has work to do (they hate it too, I’m sure). He loves fishing, gardening, traveling; but most importantly, he loves what he does. He loves entertaining; frightening people, bringing them to tears, making them smile. He is a master and the fact that he’s good at what he does makes him all the more prestigious. I can’t say enough good things about this man. Actor Kane Hodder agrees: “Tony is a very talented actor… and he happens to be the only guy I met in my life that intimidates me.” I guess that whole ‘be my victim’ mess is the equivalent of ‘you had me at hello.’
For more from ANDREA ALBIN, visit her rad blog THE ALBIN WAY
For more on SUSHI GIRL, visit the film’s official website.
And don’t forget, Todd returns as Mr. Bludworth in Final Destination 5, currently in theaters.
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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