JEFF BURR

Having spent my childhood loitering the local video stores I became with JEFF BURR long before seeing any of his films. The cover art for VHS titles like LEATHERFACE, THE OFFSPRING and PUMPKINHEAD 2 had left an impression on me and when I finally caught up with his films, I was hooked. Before I understood the ins & outs of filmmaking, I knew what I liked, and what I liked was style. Jeff would never consider himself an auteur but his films are all so distinctive that he certainly is one within the B-world. If ever substance is lacking, he compensates with strong textural aesthetics and vibrant colour schemes. What you are about to read is epic. This is something special and Jeff offers insights on his own career,  people he has worked with as well as discussing influences, back-stories and personal creeds. If you're a filmmaker you will find this fascinating and if you're just a good 'ol movie lover then you're about to get a rare look-see into the work of one of my favourite B-movie directors. Jeff Burr also happens to be a genuine and super nice guy and having bantered back and forth with him for this interview he has become one of my favourite humans.  

Jeff Burr (right) with director Bart Mastronardi.

What was your first memory of cinema?
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My first memory of cinema is being taken to a James Bond film, THUNDERBALL, probably around 1966.  I was four, and I saw it in Florida.  I vividly remember being horrified at the moment where there is a guy trapped underwater by his seatbelt (he has an airhose because it was a planned water landing of a jet fighter) and the main villian Largo swims up to him in scuba gear, and takes out a knife, and you think he is going to cut the man free of his seatbelt. Instead, Largo cuts the man's airhose, leaving him to drown in rather graphic fashion. I loved the spectacle of the film, and have always loved the water, so it was a great film to see as a little kid. I have been a Bond fan ever since, to varying degrees, but one of the great things about being in Los Angeles is that you have a chance to meet people who worked on films you love. I got to meet and get to know Peter Hunt, the editor and second unit director of THUNDERBALL, (as well as many more Bond films, etc  Do yourself a favor and see OHMSS, the Bond he directed, and check out GOLD and SHOUT AT THE DEVIL for rollicking old fashioned adventure filmmaking, and check out THE IPCRESS FILE, a movie he edited that was very influential to 60's mainstream filmmakers)  He was very encouraging to me at a time when I needed much encouraging!  Probably the most affecting movie I saw as a kid was 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  I saw it at the Cinerama theater in Chattanooga, TN, and it haunted me from the first frame on.  That is one movie that I will see anywhere, any time on the big screen.  If you have never seen it in 70mm with a film print in a huge theater, you really haven't seen it.

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Jeff (left) 1978. Age 15.

What was your favourite film as a child?

​I had many favorite films as a kid, as I think everyone has, and the ones that I saw at an early age that I fell in love with are like cinematic comfort food, making me smile every time I revisit them.  Some I love because I can remember the night I saw that particular film, who I was with, the mischief we got into after the movie, etc.  Here are some that come to mind right away...PHASE IV (I couldn't drive yet, and it opened for two days only at a drive-in in my town, so I begged, and I mean begged, my parents to take me to it after I saw the ad in the paper. So my mom and dad put me and my brother Bill in the car and took us to see ants infused with alien intelligence take over the planet. I can remember my dad from the backseat going "Jeffrey, what kind of bullshit is this???" )  EQUINOX (i saw it with my brother on a double-bill with THE BLOB, and both of us got pretty scared over EQUINOX), THE LAST SAFARI, GATOR, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, DUCK YOU SUCKER, THE LONGEST YARD, SORCERER, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, GODZILLA vs. THE SMOG MONSTER, RABID, DEATHDREAM, way too many to mention, and then on TV seeing the Universal monster movies, 50's sci-fi, the Roger Corman movies from the 50's and 60's, the Man With No Name trilogy with Eastwood, Jerry Lewis' movies, etc. 

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Directing Sorcerer's Duel (8MM)

Was genre filmmaking something you had your sight set on or did you happen to fall into it?
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I have always loved what is called genre filmmaking, and I have always loved lower-budget movies that had a rough edge. I love horror movies, always sought them out, and when I started making little super 8mm movies in the backyard, I made horror movies, sci-fi and action movies. So I was always deeply rooted in a love of horror, yes. But does that mean that is the only type of film I want to make as a filmmaker?   Hell no!

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Jeff's late brother William (8mm film)

Your first film was FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM. How did this film come about and can you tell us about your transition from film school into actual film making?

​I started making little super 8mm movies when I was in probably sixth-seventh grade, and as I made them, it made me want to know more and make more.  I became more obsessed with each project and more ambitious, etc. These movies, with titles such as AGENT 005, LIFE IS SEMI-PRECIOUS, LET US PREY, TEENAGE FRIGHT, etc. are in many ways more "real" to me than many of the so-called professional films I have made. There were a few other people making movies in my hometown that I knew about, Mark Hannah, Allen Posten, Mike Malone, Tommy Kaye, (who all have gone on to creative careers, by the way) and we had a healthy competitive relationship, taking pointers from each other and seeing new ways to do things. If you have seen the movie SUPER 8, that is a fairly accurate description of kids making amateur movies at that time. (In fact, I am putting together a documentary of those days, called A DECADE UNDER THE INNOCENCE, which has some great stories of 8mm filmmaking...look for it as an extra on a blu-ray release of one of my films, or on my website www.jeffburr.com that is coming soon, finally!)

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Rarely seen still from Divided We Fall

 So, to make a long story even longer, I always wanted a career (or thought I wanted it, as the case may be) in Hollywood directing mainstream movies. So I ended up getting accepted to the USC School of Cinema, and went there as a freshman right after high school. I learned so much out there, and saw many movies that I had only read about..(keep in mind that this was just at the dawn of the consumer video age, so the only way you could see a movie was in the theater or on tv later, chopped up)  USC was overall a good experience for me, and while there, I made an epic student film with a classmate named Kevin Meyer (look him up on imdb, he has some major credits and is extremely talented) titled DIVIDED WE FALL, which was a civil war western starring John Agar, Nicolas Guest, David Cloud, and Willard Pugh. It also featured cameos from RA Mihailoff and Michael Shamus Wiles. All those actors I would use later in various projects. DIVIDED really became our APOCALYPSE NOW, and we dropped out of school to finish it, etc. It won a lot of awards, and opened a few doors. Also, at the same time, I was working for about five months with Jim Wynorski at New World pictures, as his assistant, being involved with ad campaigns of various films, etc. Basically, DIVIDED became my portfolio, and inspired by EVIL DEAD and production stories like it, I teamed up with two people I had known at USC, Darin Scott and Courtney Joyner, and then Mike Malone and finally my brother William, who had moved out to California in early 1984, and we formed a company to make a feature film. We came up with the script for FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, and my brother thought he could convince people to put money into it. He was a carpet salesman, and where I am from, Dalton, Georgia, is one of the world's foremost places for manufacturing carpet. So William went back to Dalton to talk to various carpet magnates, and I went with him to supply the enthusiasm for the project, etc. It took a while, but we raised the money for the film in late winter/early spring 1985 and shot the bulk of the film in august 1985. It is a much more complicated story than that, but those are the bullet points. All true. I am in the process of putting together a special edition blu-ray for FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, and any and all questions will be answered by that documentary, I hope. 

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I rate the film highly but it is known to aficionados that your star Vincent Price later turned on the film. He's certainly starred in far worse - what was he like to work with?

​FROM A WHISPER was always a polarizing picture, in regard to reviews and audience reaction. It really surprises me to this day, with the cast we put together for that film (Vincent Price, Clu Gulager, Rosalind Cash, Cameron Mitchell, Terry Kiser, Lawrence Tierney, Angelo Rossitto, Martine Beswicke, Harry Caesar, Susan Tyrell)  that so few people really know about it!  I cast the film myself and approached the actors with total enthusiasm for what they were capable of doing, and willingness to experiment, as we certainly couldnt offer much money! With Vincent, we went to his house (I have told this story many times, and it is very complicated, so look to other interviews for the story, and it will be told in all its warty glory on the documentary) and got him to do the movie. He shot for two days, and he was nothing less than extraordinary to work with. It was a true honor to be able to direct him in my first movie. He made me feel comfortable, and made sure to tell me that he wanted direction. I dont know the actual reason why he "turned" on the movie, but it was a very bumpy path to get him to do the movie, which most certainly has something to do with it, and he also got an unsolicited letter from Forry Ackerman, saying the film would ruin him as an actor as it was the most disgusting, distasteful film Forry had ever seen. (the letter is hilarious, by the way, and will be included in the documentary. I had invited Forry to see the rough cut of the stories, as he had known Clu and Cameron through the years,etc. That is how Forry had seen it before we shot with Vincent)  The last contact I had with Vincent was in spring of 1988, as I had sent him reviews of the film from the LA Times, The Atlanta Journal, etc and he wrote me a nice letter saying he hadn't seen the film yet. We had invited him to many screenings, but he was having operations on his feet at the time and was pretty immobile) So I dont really know for sure if he ever even saw the completed film. But he was an amazing actor, and an amazing human being. What an artistic, creative, curious life he led. It was cinema's loss and the planet Earth's loss when he passed on in 1993.  

Pumpkinhead 2


You have contributed to some very big film properties, stepping into some very big shoes. Do you have a personal philosophy and approach when it comes to making sequels and picking up where others have left off?
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No I dont.  Most of the sequels I have been involved with came at the last minute, or at least after a first or second draft had been developed internally. I would say my personal philosophy to that would be that you want to give people a new experience, building on the foundation from those who came before, but you dont to dishonor the original. But doing "number two" movies (and yes, I can see the critics having a field day with that term) I think are the hardest, as the producers are usually calling for a virtual remake of the first movie and you are trying to make it something honoring the original but your own.  PUMPKINHEAD 2's script wasn't designed to be a Pumpkinhead movie, it was a script from another project that was quickly retro-fitted into that world. The producer talks about it on the dvd documentary.  I didnt know that at the time, all I knew was that we had to be filming in two and a half weeks and it couldn't be pushed back. STEPFATHER 2 was designed to be a direct to video low budget film for ITC's video division. We had much less money and time than the original, and that was true with Pumpkinhead and almost all of the sequels I have done! But the bottom line is that all you can do in a situation like this, when you dont have complete control of the process, is to make the film as much your own as possible and do the best job you can do with it at the time, staying true to the thematics of the film and making it as entertaining and enjoyable as you can. I think that if I like it, or am excited about it, etc, that others will too. That is the only gauge you've got. If you start saying "Oh, the fangoria fans are going to love this effect" that is pandering, and taking the directing choice out of the organic arena. Looking back though, I guess you could make a case that there is something parasitic about some of my films, because they are organisms that have attached themselves to a host, and wouldnt be able to exist without that host. But, here's the bottom line for me, for what it's worth to your readers. I learned to be a professional film director via the sequels, so it really was a cinema education, and instead of graduating with a 3.5, I had a 2, 3, 4 and 5.

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What are some of your favourite movie sequels in general? 
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I really never think about my favorite sequels, etc. but let me include remakes and right off the bat my two favorite ones would be Carpenter's THE THING and Friedkin's SORCERER.  Both really are reimaging of the material not really remakes. GODFATHER 2 would be an obvious answer to the sequel question...

I remember being impressed with Richard Franklin's PSYCHO 2, just because that would have been such a daunting task, and he was the perfect guy to pull it off. GATOR is pretty much a sequel to WHITE LIGHTNING, and I love GATOR, so there is another one. And if you call FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE a sequel, that would be on the list too, as would GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. 


Of course THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is probably the biggest franchise you have built upon. I think that your director's cut of LEATHERFACE is one of the most underrated horror films around (the theatrical cut sucks). Is this a film you're proud of?
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There is no question, if anyone knows me at all in film, it is because of LEATHERFACE. By far the most high-profile movie I have ever made (to date!). The irony of that is that it is the one that I spent the least amount of time working on!!! I got hired in early July and I finished my work (and/or was shown the door) in mid/late october. Am I proud of the movie? That is a complicated question and a complicated emotion. There is a lot of me in the uncut version, that survived the corporate process of that film, so I don't know if proud would be the word, but as I get older I am happy that some things got through. But I am never really happy with anything I have done, as there is always that nagging feeling of "Oh shit, if only i had thought of this, etc"  My films have always been low budget and fairly fast shoots, so the gap between what you thought of and what you were able to get on film is fairly wide.  Hopefully the gap closes with each film, as you learn more things every film you make. 

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The new Sawyer family.

The film is something of an oddity and was the first instalment to move the story away from the Sawyer family (or at least the family members audiences had come to love). In many ways your film created a new lineage and backstory that's been exploited in later films. Was this always the intention. How much did the film change from first draught to final cut?

​The development process for LEATHERFACE was more internally New Line, so I really don't know the initial thoughts in the company on what they were trying to achieve with this movie, other than obviously to create another horror franchise to complement the NIGHTMARE series. I know New Line had handled distribution on some of the many re-issues of the original movie, so they obviously were aware of the status of the would-be franchise. Of course, Cannon had produced and distributed the second movie, and then when the rights were available to do another one, Bob Shaye secured them for New Line. I think that he handed off development to his protege Michael DeLuca, as Mike was passionate about horror and really wanted this project. They hired David J. Schow to write it, and so it went. I don't know who other than Mike was shepherding the development of the screenplay at that time. And I think there was a quick flirtation with Kim Henkel, who may have come up with a treatment that New Line didn't like (which later became the 4th movie). The reason I say this is that for Cannes that year (1989) there was a flyer for LEATHERFACE that had a synopsis of the plot of the film, which involved prom night, etc. All of this was very much before I became involved in the film. My first meeting at New Line regarding the film was when they were interviewing directors in the first round. Maybe this would have been April, May or so. My agent set up a screening of STEPFATHER 2 and sent them a tape of FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM.  

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Jeff directing Ken Foree in Leatherface.

I read the draft of the script, which was from David Schow, and the producer at that time was a guy named Jeff Schectman (or Schecter, or something like that, I only met him once) I gave them my thoughts on the script, they asked me questions on how I liked to work, etc.  And that was the last of it, until my agent got a phone call in late June for me to come and meet again on the project. At this time, they had lost a director they had hired (Jonathan Betuel, MY SCIENCE PROJECT...who is a guy someone should interview about LEATHERFACE as he would have a lot of pieces of the pre-production puzzle)  and were scrambling for someone as the film had to start shooting no later than mid-July to have any hope of making the November 3rd release date. So I had another interview with the new producer Bob Engleman and Mike Deluca and Sara Rischer from New Line. It was obvious that Sara wanted nothing to do with this movie and thought it was disgusting and not the direction New Line should be going in, which immediately created negative feelings and needless tension. And of course, I was basically a new filmmaker, having really only one "professional" film under my belt, STEPFATHER 2.  FROM A WHISPER was a totally indie film that I had final cut on, and controlled every aspect of the production, from beginning to end. So LEATHERFACE also would be the first movie that I would do without any support on the producing side. I was alone with no one to really back up my vision of the movie. Which, basically is getting hired to direct a movie in Hollywood!!! So in no way am I blaming New Line and saying that all the problems on the film were their fault. I was a very inexperienced director, but that doesn't mean that I didn't know what I was doing. I needed some support from the production side, and that never happened. 

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Jeff directing Viggo Morstensen in Leatherface.

The bottom line is that New Line really didn't want me to direct the movie, they would rather have had many other choices that just weren't available, for one reason or another. I was the only director at that time who they could tolerate who agreed to do the movie under the conditions.  So that ain't a great starting place for a creative partnership. Michael Deluca was the one most involved with the project for New Line, and he certainly was a horror fan and well versed in the history of the genre in all aspects.  But he wasn't at that time particularly production-savvy, and the line producer they hired, Bob Engleman, had the exact wrong background for this type of film.  His experience was in mainstream Hollywood production, AD'ing guys like Herbert Ross, etc. So through him, before I came on, a lot of decisions were made that impacted the film. Such as having to shoot in California, building the farmhouse from the ground up, etc. Also New Line had the final say on the crew I could hire, so I couldn't have my choice of cinematographers, etc. But again, for someone of my experience level and stature in the industry (none) this was very common. 

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All of this is backstory to when I came on the movie. When I was hired to do the film, the machinery of production was already in motion, and Mick Strawn was building the gas station and the house already.  Of course I could make some adjustments, etc. but my focus from day one was visualising the film, casting the film and getting the script streamlined and doable for the budget and to make it something that would stand on its own.  I do remember my first question when I had a meeting with David was "what family is this and where did they come from, etc"  I always thought that seeing how Leatherface would find other people to make a new surrogate family would be an interesting approach to a sequel.  In any case, there wasn't a lot of time to do a production rewrite on the film, and David had a novel he was finishing I think, so he couldn't be around during the shoot.  He visited a few times though. So the real changes to the script from the time I came on to the final cut were mostly budgetary. The original end to the film involved a police station and a chase, and there was a whole subplot of the character Tinker dipping everything in metal and having a h