You know Mark Neveldine’s movies, but you may not know his name. That’s because the co-director of Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, Gamer and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has been working with Brian Taylor for so long that they actually changed their on-screen credit to Neveldine/Taylor. But all things must pass, and although their collaboration will continue in Crank 3, Mark Neveldine has struck out on his own with the supernatural thriller The Vatican Tapes, in theaters this week.
We spoke to Mark Neveldine over the phone about making the transition from R-rated action movies to PG-13 horror thrillers, his affinity for Catholic horror, how The Vatican Tapes sets the stage for a more action-packed sequel, what’s to come in the Crank franchise and much, much more. Let’s take it away!
Crave: So The Vatican Tapes is a horror movie about the antichrist. That’s material that’s been done before in other films. What did you feel you could do differently in that genre?
Mark Neveldine: When I read it, I was first surprised that Lakeshore brought the film to me. I said, “Are you sure I’m the right guy for this?” But I read the script and I thought it was a fresh take as a film. It wasn’t just an exorcism film, it wasn’t just a possession. I thought there was opportunity for this really cool sort of origin story, camouflaged underneath this spooky little possession film.
I grew up Catholic, I went to Catholic school my whole life [so] that’s all in me. This was like a Catholic thriller, and I was like, wow, this is incredibly scary and challenging for me to do. I’m going to dive in and do this. I didn’t make a conscious effort to try to avoid any of the great classics out there. I just said, you know, I’m just going to film my version of this – my PG-13 version of this [laughs] – and just show people the things that spook me, and tell it the way I want to tell it.
I was very interested in a naturalistic approach. This is like a slice of life possession film. I wanted to slow down the filmmaking of my past and try for something a little more of a slow burn, and play with characters a different way, and play with the tone of the acting a different way. This is much more subdued, [like] back when I was working in the stage in New York City, certain parts of these performances needed the kind of respect to get the actors there.
It wasn’t the sort of film where it’s like, “Okay, day one, let’s get on the roller blades and start shooting fun, cool action stuff.” I had the luxury on this for the first time in my life, to actually have rehearsal with all the actors before the shoot. The only downside was that it was the shortest shoot I’ve ever done. We did it in 24 days, which was just enough time. [Laughs.]
Speaking about the shift in your visual style, your previous films have been shot in a fashion I guess I would call… “crazy pants?”
It is! I love it.
In this, you’re working in many respects with what we call the “found footage” genre. Was that the appeal? In some ways that’s rather limiting…
Yeah, here’s the thing, it was originally a found footage script. When Lakeshore gave it to me they said, “We’re not interested in a fully found footage movie, we’re looking for a more cinematic experience, something a little more classical,” which I was really shocked that they were talking to me about this. I said, okay, I get there I say let’s take a look at this.
The Vatican Tapes is definitely not a found footage movie, by any means. There are surveillance characters and there are things that are organic devices today – iPhones and Skype and FaceTime – that are a part of it and blended into the film and useful when we needed them. But ultimately it’s not a found footage movie. That said, it was exciting to shoot some of those scenes and to use that format, and it helped plan the sort of naturalism that I was going for with those scenes.
You mentioned earlier that The Vatican Tapes is an origin story for the antichrist. By doing an origin story that implies that there is more story to be told afterwards. Do you see this as the start of a franchise, or are there multiple chapters?
I talked to Lakeshore about this. It would be incredible, it would be my goal that [in] the next movie Michael Peña goes back to his military roots, Djimon Hounsou goes back to his sort of military roots, and they’re working for the Vatican but now they’re devil hunters and now we amp up the action just a little bit, and now they’re on the hunt and the devil is rising and the unholy trinity is taking over the Earth.
I think that would be awesome and that’s kind of why I say it really the coming of age story of Father Lozano and what he’s really meant for, what his greater purpose is. At that point I was interested in it. We’re only sprinkling this into the movie, but this is really cool. I love this grabbing me back in.
I liked that it wasn’t about bashing the church. It’s always about, that part of it goes, “Hey, you know, maybe the Vatican is the good guy here. Maybe they’re the ones who are going to save the planet.” There’s something just kind of neat to me about all that.
This is the first feature that you’ve directed without Brian Taylor. You guys worked so closely together that you renamed yourselves “Neveldine/Taylor.” What was it like working on your own, and do you feel like this film turned out dramatically differently than it would if you had been part of a unit?
I think that filmmaking is always a collaboration, right? Brian and I, we love working together, we’re super excited to get Crank 3 off the ground, and there are a couple other projects that we think would be a perfect Neveldine/Taylor movie. But we’re two completely different guys with two families, and there’s things that we’ve always kind of wanted to do on our own, that we’re like, “Oh, we’ll do them later, we’ll do them later,” or we’ll try to incorporate them into a Neveldine/Taylor thing, and it just made more sense for to say “Hey, let’s just do our own thing right now.”
For me, because this question has been asked, “Was it totally different?” It’s not, because I love collaborating with people, so instead of bouncing ideas off of Brian I would be bouncing ideas off of my cinematographer Mateo Madrazo, or Jerry Fleming my production designer. Jerry of course did all the Crank movies, Gamer, Pathology with me. So we have shorthand. So there’s still that same sense of collaboration, but I think that if The Vatican Tapes were a Neveldine/Taylor movie it would definitely have to be an NC-17 movie. And that’s a pretty awesome movie too. Wouldn’t it be cool? It would be awesome to do both.
So you’re saying that, alone, you make a PG-13. But when you’re with Brian Taylor you have to do an NC-17? Does he just push you two ratings ahead?
No, absolutely not! I just produced a movie called Officer Downe that I also camera operated on in conference with, but not directed it, and it is the hardest R movie that I’ve been involved with yet. It’s just complete awesomeness in that range. But it’s just the expectations I guess I’m commenting on, about our fans and what they expect. That’s the sort of stuff I mean. I wanted to stretch my muscles, do something different. Do something that would terrify, try to [downplay] the gore, and knowing it would be a challenge. It was just really fun to do.
I remember feeling that sense of, “Wow, I’m actually directing in a different way.” Not because I was not working with Brian but because I was working different tonally, and doing things different to wring things out of actors. That was fun and different. That’s the great thing about this career is that we’re always presented with a new job and everything is different. This is one of those great experiences.
Thinking about your evolution as an artist, I’m trying to imagine an experience like making The Vatican Tapes – in which you evolve, change, think about film in a different way – and then you want to go back to Crank? Do you think this experience would affect Crank 3? Would Crank 3 be more subdued?
[Laughs.] No, no. Not in a million years. Crank 3, 4, 5 and 6, those movies have already been made. Like, they’re already done. Time isn’t linear and those are their own separate entities. We will go back to drinking Miller Lites and turning on the Crank channel. Crank’s a very special thing. It’s our baby and we love it. But it’s just a different thing, just a completely different experience.
You’ve thought that far ahead? When you did the first Crank did you think, “We could do six of these?”
Probably not. It’s hard to really think back. I think originally we wanted Chev Chelios just to die. I think both of us were like, “You know what? Let’s just end this awesomeness with death.” Like, let’s just… he dies. Once we finished the film we got really excited about and we were like, “Well, maybe it’s just a quarter in a video game, and we just put in another quarter.” He blinks. He’s a terminator. He’ll rise again and he’ll be fine. We’ll put him back together, keep this thing going.
All that just happened organically. At every different stage, while wrote it, when we directed it, and we got to the editing room. You write the movie, you write it again when you direct it, you write it again in you edit it.
What could possibly be next for Chev Chelios? You mention him being a terminator so I’m imagining him just being a cyborg next time.
Well, no. There’s definitely been ideas about Chev Chelios’s fate. It’s not what the outline is that was approved by Lakeshore. So next year. You’ll have to wait. You’ll have to get the little rumors out there and you’ll start to find out how far it can go, and it can go really far. [Laughs.]
Speaking about going really far, I was a big fan of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I thought that movie was really far. Looking back on it, it seems like one of the craziest superhero movies we’ve ever had. Do you feel like you went far enough, or that you could have gone farther?
Ghost Rider was exactly what you said. It was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed it, we had fun with it. Working with Nic [Cage] was incredible. Looking back I would have loved to make the original David Goyer script that was hard R, and we just make the hard R Nic Cage Ghost Rider movie. I think that would have been fun as well. But I’ll tell you, it’s amazing how many people have seen it because at PG-13 it’s always that side of it, but ultimately Nic, Brian and I would have also loved the R version of Ghost Rider.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
