Interviews
[Interview] Nick Damici Talks ‘Late Phases’, Werewolves, and Playing An Old Badass
I first saw Late Phases back in July at Fantasia Fest (my review). Since then I’ve been championing the movie, urging everyone and their grandmother to see it. It’s the story of an aging veteran, his guide dog, and a tense father-son relationship.
Damici (Stake Land) stars as Ambrose McKinley, an elderly veteran. He moves into the quaint retirement community of Crescent Bay, a secluded locale in upstate New York nestled in the bosom of a thick forest. The residents don’t take too kindly to Ambrose’s biting behavior, especially when he pulls a gun on the Stepford Wives-like welcoming committee. Soon Ambrose learns that aggressively friendly old bags are the least of his worries. Crescent Bay has been rocked lately by a series of grisly murders the cops are deeming “animal attacks.” After Ambrose experiences one of these attacks firsthand, he decides to get proactive on their hairy asses.
Late Phases is certain to satisfy fans of the classic creature features of the ’80s who crave a practical werewolf transformation. The crack special effects and makeup team (headed by From Dusk Till Dawn‘s Robert Kurtzman) put together some wonderfully gory gross-out shape-shifting moments. Sweeping CGI aside, they went practical with werewolf suits and they’re huge and AWESOME. Their faces look more like Critters than wolves, but that’s part of their charm.
As Ambrose, Nick Damici gives a genuinely powerful performance. He plays it kinda like Eastwood in Gran Torino, but with more hard-boiled dialogue to spit out in his thick “fuhgeddaboutit” accent. Ethan Embry does a great job acting alongside him as the concerned son wounded by his father’s detached attitude. Their scenes together are terrific and deliver the type of credible family tension that a lot of folks can relate to.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Damici about the film and his approach to playing such a surly old character.
A lot of the reasons I love this movie has to do with your character, Ambrose. Could you talk about what initially attracted you to this film and this role?
Obviously it’s a great character and he’s blind. And basically he’s that previous generation’s veteran character. Like Clint Eastwood, I thought that would be a hoot to play. The fact that he was blind, y’know, every actor wants that Helen Keller moment, to see if they can do it. So that was kinda interesting. And it was fun to play something different, play older than I am. So the challenges were all there to see if I could pull it off and make it interesting.
And I like to work every day. Not that I need to play a lead. I just like to work every day when I’m acting. I can’t stand to work for a few days then be off for a few days, y’know?
How did you prepare to play a blind person and what were the challenges there?
In the end it actually worked out to be surprisingly easy. I initially did the typical acting thing and said “I’ll blindfold myself.” So I would get up, blindfold myself, make coffee, y’know, do some dishes, have a cigarette…then I’d spill my coffee, break my dishes and I’d say, “Wait a minute. This ain’t working.”
Then I realized, you’re never going to realize what it’s like to be blind. Y’know what I mean? So I started watching videos of blind people. And at first I didn’t realize that there are different degrees of blindness.
If you close your eyes, you see blackness, basically. You’re cutting out the light. But the blind, they don’t have even that. They can’t say “I see black.” They can’t describe what it’s like to be blind. People who have never seen, who are born blind, their eyes don’t have any way of focusing.
Since Ambrose went blind later in life, those people have more of a blank stare. So I chose that and never moved my eyes. It became a technical thing. And it really was just a way of learning to focus peripherally and not centered. Our eyes are kinda like a camera. They focus on the center when we look at something. Y’know, first you look at that, and then you don’t…like a peripheral circle. It’s very technical. So that way when you move, your eyes don’t move.
Then I had to show it to Adrian (Bogliano) and I said, “Look, you gotta call me on it if it’s not looking real.” Especially on a set, there’s lights. And lights will make your eyes do weird shit. Especially when we were doing action stuff, which was really difficult.
All in all I think it worked out pretty easy for what it was. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. It was more of a trick than anything else.
It’s never explicitly mentioned where Ambrose is from, but he has an obvious NYC way about him. Did you draw on any characters you knew growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, to shape the character?
Well it wasn’t a big stretch for me. I thought for this role, what’s the difference? I had a good friend, you know Taxi Driver, the guy who comes out of the deli and beats the kid with the bat?
Victor Argo?
That’s Victor Argo. He always played the gangster in this or that. We were very close friends and I knew him for years. He died in 2004 and when I read Ambrose I said, “My God, it’s Victor.” He had this real dour sense of humor. So it was kinda like my homage to Victor. He woulda been terrific in this role, now that I think about it.
So the way of holding my face, my mouth, was very much based on him.
I was at screenings in Montreal and in Denver. Both times, people were laughing out loud one second, then bracing themselves the next. Then at the end you could hear folks sniffling they were so sad. What sort of tone was Bogliano and you as an actor going for?
We talked about it a lot, me and Adrian. We had a lot of arguments about it, y’know, in good humor. Trying to do the best thing we could. And I think he got it. Again, it’s a very campy a horror movie, but it has this other-worldly human element to it, making it a drama in a way. And I think what I brought to Ambrose was, he was funny. Even though he was cantankerous and the character is not particularly meant to be funny, he’s got this pessimistic, totally nasty kind of humor, y’know? And he’s very dark but there is some kind of humanity to him.
Y’know, basically we were making a drama disguised as a campy werewolf movie.
Speaking of the werewolves, what was it like rumbling with these guys in the huge werewolf suits?
I felt bad for the poor guys. I’m no kid, y’know. I’m over 50. So y’know when it looks like 30 seconds on screen it’s two hours shooting. You have to do it over and over and over and over again. And this kid was wearing a rubber suit, in the summer. I was like “Jesus Christ, you’re dying! Get that mask off!”
But y’know, Kurtzman did a wonderful job on the costumes. And ultimately it’s a guy in a werewolf costume, y’know? We all know that. But the transformation in this movie was pretty fucking good. Ultimately though, without the CGI, it is just a guy in a werewolf suit. And that’s fine. I wasn’t asking for more out of this movie and I don’t think the movie asks for more.
And it was mostly all one guy in all the suits playing the werewolves.
Oh really?
I think they might’ve had half a suit to shoot the other guy in, it was hilarious. And the worst part is, y’know, I can’t look at anything. I can’t focus my eyes and I had frosted contact lenses on, like I have cataracts. I can’t see outta them. And the lights and fog are blinding, I can’t see outta them, and the poor kid in the werewolf costume…we couldn’t see what the hell we were doing!
Sacrifice is a big theme in the film, I think. Father Roger addresses it in his sermon. It comes up since Ambrose is a vet. And by the end he sacrifices himself in a way. What do you think he was sacrificing himself for?
I don’t know if I saw it as a sacrifice myself. I saw it as a warrior choosing his time. Y’know, like why did Ali come back last time? And Ambrose said okay I can be a soldier one last time, I get a second chance. To do what I do best and be that. To be the best soldier, and be that.
It was more that for me, and you could say he sacrificed himself to kill the werewolves, but I don’t think it was about that. I didn’t see it that way. I just think Ambrose was just pissed off this werewolf killed his dog!
What was it like working with so many amazing veterans like Tina Louise, Lance Guest, Rutanya Alda, etc.?
They were terrific, a lot of fun, man. It was really great to meet Lance. And Karen Kynn Gorney was an incredible woman. And of course Tom Noonan was great.
The quiet moments between you and Tom Noonan are some of my favorite in the movie. He seems like such a natural actor.
You wouldn’t think it about him, because he’s very big, very quiet. But when you meet him you’re like “Oh shit!”
The funny thing is I’ve known him for years through (Jim) Mickle. I went to a party at his house once, I’ve know him for 10 years in my neighborhood. One time I went up to him, I knew he didn’t know who the fuck I was! And I thought it was funny, y’know. Now that we have this movie, I guess he’ll remember who I am.
He actually loves bad jokes. That was our thing. My father was a bartender so I was like “Ya like bad jokes? I got a million bad jokes!”
Tell me a bad joke.
Hamburger walks into a bar. Bartender says, “sorry pal, we don’t serve food.”
Oh, that sucks.
Probably a Tom Noonan joke.
That’s another unique thing about Late Phases, its hero is an older person. Besides Embry and his wife, the whole cast is essentially old timers. Most horror flicks nowadays have teeny boppers in the lead roles. But there’s something about having an old veteran as the hero that makes it even more badass, more tangible. Do you agree?
I have nothing against youth. I was young once, but society has just over done it. You watch shows like CSI nowadays and it’s just 22 year-old investigators. Most people have to go through school for nine years first. I get it, I just don’t find it particularly interesting. I just think a certain amount of age is interesting.
Yeah, one kid in Austin asked me when I would stop doing all these action things, I said you wanna step outside?! What kinda question is that?!
Speaking of that, you used to train boxers, right?
I used to. Never professionally, but I trained kick boxers until two years ago.
What do you think of that smug fella Floyd Mayweather?
Eh, we’ll see what happens. I don’t find the game that interesting anymore. To me it’s like most professional sports, and movies to some degree. I like people for who they are. I don’t want to work for shitheads. It’s that simple. If they’re a shithead, they’re a shithead.
You’ve done quite a few acclaimed horror films the past few years. What’s attracted to you about the genre?
I like it because you use it as a metaphor, to tell human stories. I kinda find most straight drama really boring. I’m not interested in people’s lives. I feel like the horror story you can deliver it without boring people to death. Much like we did in Stake Land and Mulberry Street. And Late Phases, to a sense.
I don’t like horror specifically, y’know. I don’t like the torture porn movies, I’m not a big fan of the Halloweens and the Freddie movies. They’re fun, but they’re really for teenagers. I think there’s another element to horror to explore. I like a little more story in what I watch.
I have to ask you about Hap & Leonard. I know you’re in early production…
We’re very early in production so I can’t say much.
Are you going to be in it?
I’m not planning on it. If something comes up that I want to do I might, but right now we just want to do the best job we can on the writing and get it rolling. As for Joe Lansdale, he deserves to have a TV series on the air.
Yeah he really does.
If anybody does, y’know. We’re trying to keep it as close to the books as we can, like we did with Cold in July. It’s very difficult. Joe is a prolific writer, so it’s very interesting. It’s definitely going to be based on the books. So we’ll see what happens. It should be, if all works out…it should be airing in 2016. That’s the goal.
Are you planning on following the order of the books?
Right now we are. With the first novel (“Savage Season”) and then we’ll see from there. So it depends. But at this point I think we’re going to try and do that, a book every few episodes.
Well I have the utmost confidence in you and Mickle after Cold in July. So go get em…
A massive thanks to Nick for taking the time to talk with us!
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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