The Sounds of Terror: An Interview with Dante Tomaselli

It's been awhile since I had the privilege of interviewing director, musician and good friend of this very blog, Dante Tomaselli. As part of my anniversary celebration I caught up with Dante on what he's been up to since finishing Torture Chamber.  


Since we last spoke Torture Chamber has come out. How do you feel about the finished film?

I was disappointed by the cover art the distributor slapped on. Vivendi Entertainment originally bought Torture Chamber but then a lot of their titles were sold to this other distributor, Cinedigm. Thankfully the film transfer is solid. But this company, Cinedigm didn't involve me in the process of choosing the cover art. I was very upset when the DVD was first mailed to me. The cover...awful. Plus it had nothing to do with the film. I mean, if I saw this while scanning titles at a store I would pass over it instantly. So even I - the director - wouldn't have seen my own movie!  As far as the film itself, if I look at Torture Chamber as a mood piece or ambient horror film...I think it works pretty well for its low budget...although it might be too droning. The story is told through a series of dreams, flashbacks and hallucinations. When I experience Torture Chamber through the eyes of a person who doesn't necessarily enjoy non linear rides, I can see all its flaws crystal clear. In the light of day, I can see there were some pacing issues and some of the characters...cardboard cut-out...I can now understand what the film lacked and probably what was lacking in my past projects too and that is...flesh and blood characters. Real people we can root for and identity with. Stephen King has a knack for that. Most of my characters are more like dream symbols than real people. Maybe that works for a small cult audience craving a bizarre sensory experience but if I ever really want to expand on my vision and grow as a storyteller and bring my style to a wider audience, I need to relinquish control in the screenplay department. That's why I brought on a seasoned writer, Michael Gingold as co-writer for my next upcoming projects.

Besides directing you've made four albums. Can you tell us a little about what drew you to make music?

Well, I moved from the NYC/north New Jersey area to south Jersey. Actually I moved on the day of Hurricane Sandy which was on my birthday, October 29th, 2012. Everything was flooded. There was so much damage everywhere...cars floating in the streets. A rollercoaster halfway in and out of the ocean. It was almost apocalyptic. And I remember committing to myself that I was going to take piano lessons and get back into music. I was ready to devote all my energies to music. Once the storm subsided, I walked right into the first music store I could find...Royal Music in Toms River and asked if there was anyone who could give me piano lessons. Growing up, I always played an instrument...trumpet, guitar, little casio keyboards but I forgot how to read notes, read music and I wanted to learn again. At the music store I met Don Olson, who taught me some piano on my Roland Fantom X6 synthesizer. Soon he became my sound engineer and we switched over to the computer where he helped me to sound edit on my own. I scored every one of my films but I didn't physically sound edit them. Sure I told the editors exactly what I wanted but it's different to be the sole person at the keyboard. Now that I had my own home recording studio it was really intoxicating mixing all the sounds and elements on my own, totally alone. I became addicted. I shut the outside world and lost myself in the production of each album.

Your music albums each tell a story. Do the stories start in your head or do they evolve as you create the music?

Scream in the Dark was really my love letter to Halloween soundscape albums like Sounds to Make You Shiver and Chilling,Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. Growing up, I got lost in the eerie howling winds and thunderstorms and creepy, thick atmospheres. Also I loved John Carpenter soundtracks—huge influence—­so I decided to create an album of my own. I knew I wanted the listener to feel trapped in a maze-like funhouse during a stormy Halloween night. I designed it so each track is different, a series of moods, like mini-horror films that crystallize in your mind...with titles like Death's Door and Chamber of Horrors. Scream in the Dark was named after a real funhouse from the 70's in New Jersey that I was too young to experience...It existed only in my mind because my older brother and sisters spoke about it in hushed tones. It was supposed to be very scary! I used to play organ music around this time and had a chalk board above the organ and I'd draw haunted houses and fantasize about the interior of this funhouse. All my music is fantasizing...It starts with an image or word or scene and then I score it. I kind of go on a hunt to try and find and re-create the soundscapes that I'm craving. Scream in the Dark was personal because when I was growing up the one thing that made me really happy and tingling with excitement...was the idea of having my very own funhouse. Just the thought of it...the fantasy...released serotonin in my brain. Sometimes I used to create makeshift funhouses with my best friend and a wheelchair and I'd glide the subject in and out of different themed rooms. Scream in the Dark, the album felt like a natural progression...A sonic haunted house. 

Who are your musical influences? 

The Cars, Depeche Mode, John Carpenter, Jean Michel Jarre, Coil, Ric Ocasek, Greg Hawkes, Devo, Tangerine Dream, Marc Almond, David Ball, Gary Numan, Severed Heads, Wendy Carlos, Vince Clarke, Alan Wilder, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Laurie Anderson, OMD, Thomas Dolby, Mort Garson...I could go on and on.

This might be like having to choose a favorite child, but do you have one album that's your favorite?

Probably Witches, my new instrumental album. It kind of feels like I'm crossing over into new terrain with the addition of William S. Burroughs' inspired 'cut-up technique.'  For a lot of songs on Witches, I purchased actual sermons of cult murderer Jim Jones...I bought these sermons and cut them into little pieces and sprinkled them throughout the soundscapes like magic mushrooms. Also, new on this album is the inclusion of beats and pulses. I used to find it difficult to conjure music with beats since I usually gravitate to a more sprawling, spacious atmosphere but lately I add pulses almost every time. A concert I saw in Manhattan...John Carpenter...really helped shape some of the material. His songs are usually short, tight and punchy. The concert was spectacular...and it was kind of a spiritual experience seeing my musical and cinematic idol perform right in front of me. I even got teary eyed on a couple of songs like The Fog. So many memories flooded back. Carpenter's performance with his band and smoke and background clips from the film...Wow. I was in horror heaven. After that emotionally-charged evening, Witches took shape.

Your films are making their way to Blu-ray. Are you involved in the process of upgrading them from DVD to Blu?

I was totally involved in creating the HD master for Torture Chamber that was sent to the European distributor (Ascot Elite Home Entertainment) when it was released on Blu-ray in Germany. Desecration will be coming out on Blu-ray through Code Red soon and an announcement is upcoming. I worked on the master Digibeta with a post company called WorkEdit in NYC and Chris Morton at ImagiMedia in California took over with the HD transfer. It's culled from a Digibeta master because the Super 16mm film itself is missing. Image Entertainment's 2000 release of Desecration was also transferred from this exact Digibeta master. Bill Olsen at Code Red really really wanted the image to come straight from the film negative, as I can understand...and he pushed for me to find it. A print was made only once...for its world premiere and soon it was gone. I searched and searched and it's just gone. I have an odd theory the Vatican secretly confiscated my nun nightmare around the time it made its world premiere at the 1999 Fantafestival in Rome, Italy. I don't know...Maybe an Italian nun or priest alleged blasphemy over the film's scissor attack sequence where an innocent nun is brutally slashed by a pair of floating scissors. I was very happy that Code Red kept me in the loop with the making of the Blu-ray cover. I was in contact with artist David Levine as he created the cover art image with the strange, glowing nun portraits.

Our last interview was back in 2011. Do you see it as being different now then back then?  How do you feel about where horror cinema is right now?

Horror cinema feels a bit stagnant at the moment though I really admired The Babadook and there are some artists like Chris Garetano, Ted Geoghegan, Larry Fessenden, Jeremiah Kipp, Rob Galluzzo, Adam Barnick, Dan Wilder, John Fallon and Jim Mickle who stand-out. Jim Mickle (Stake Land) actually worked on my film, Satan's Playground in the camera department and I remember he drove me home one night and we talked about horror movies non-stop. Other than that I'm not really sure as I prefer older horror films.

The world now more then ever seems like it's gone crazy. Do you feel we need horror stories as a catharsis for all the real world horrors?

Definitely. This world we live in is very frightening and it appears as if humans are going backwards. Lots of religion...cloaked in evil. There's an anti-christ-like energy...looming...that's all about pent up rage. Nuclear war feels almost inevitable. My films are really about peeling back layers of pain and guilt buried in the unconscious mind. I'm trying to construct a nightmare in which we experience the protagonist's damnation.

Have you ever considered working in any other genre than horror?

No. I'm here for horror.

Can you give us any details about your next film The Doll?

It's a horror shocker about a haunting at a family owned wax museum in Salem. Michael Gingold is co-writer and the goal is to make it as scary as possible with its emphasis on supernatural mayhem and an antique porcelain doll. I'm very close to starting production...I just need to secure all the funding. This movie is at my fingertips. I'm painfully pregnant with The Doll and it's violently clawing at my insides.

What would be your dream project as a director? 

Halloween. Sequel. Only if I had John Carpenter's blessing, of course.

Any parting words for the readers?

Taste color. Touch sound.


For Dante's movies and music head here for sights and sounds of pure horror. 

Your trip to the Torture Chamber is coming

This morning horror director and all around cool dude Dante Tomaselli sent me this to share with everyone. Enjoy!

DANTE TOMASELLI'S "TORTURE CHAMBER" IS NEARLY COMPLETE


New York, NY - Chamber Productions, LLC, a New York based production company, today announced that director Dante Tomaselli is putting the finishing touches on his fourth occult feature, Torture Chamber, which is in its final stages of sound mixing. Tomaselli's hallucinatory horror shocker is about a possessed 13-year-old boy who escapes from an asylum and discovers an old abandoned castle with a secret passageway to a cobwebbed torture chamber.

The peaceful New England town of Smithville trembles in fear as Jimmy and his deadly young followers attack and abduct its residents -- innocent and guilty alike -- dragging their victims to an abandoned castle and subjecting them to grisly torments deep within its underground tunnels. Those who discover the terrible secret behind the disappearances and deaths don't live long enough to tell it. The teacher, the doctor, even Jimmy's own brother and mother, will all confront their fates in the Torture Chamber.

With its mist-shrouded ambience, Dante Tomaselli's stylish gothic horror production began principle photography May 18th, 2010 and finished June 9th. Shot in 19 days, the $200, 000 independent film had locations in New Jersey and New York. Tomaselli's feature was photographed on RED in widescreen aspect ratio 2.35:1. The writer/director also designed the eerie electronic score. Torture Chamber stars Vincent Pastore (The Sopranos), Christie Sanford (Desecration), Lynn Lowry (The Crazies) and Ron Millkie (Friday the 13th). Tomaselli states, "You never know what's around the next shadowy corner. There are trap doors that lead to the dungeon. Religious fanaticism...eternal damnation. This is a pure horror movie."

Escaping the Torture Chamber: An Interview with Dante Tomaselli

Dante Tomaselli's fourth feature film, Torture Chamber, has just wrapped shooting. I was fortunate enough to catch-up with him as he gets ready to begin post-production.

You just wrapped filming on Torture Chamber. How many days was the shoot? And how did it go?

Dante: 19 days. 19 never-ending days...or nights...or mornings. After a while I had no idea what time it was. Filming was intense, sometimes painful, shooting for hours on end in mines and darkened underground tunnels, constantly fighting against the clock. I loved every minute of it. I am electrified now. As you know, as everyone knows, I've been foaming-at-the-mouth to create another movie. It's never easy to get to the point of actually doing it. I am very pleased with the footage. It's chock full of scare sequences. Torture Chamber has a new horrific energy, more serious and brutal, more shadowy, tactile and frightening. Even though the budget is low, Torture Chamber has a kind of epic exuberance. I purposely shot the film 2.35:1 so it is very wide and I'm able to feature a bigger canvas.

With a title like Torture Chamber, do you fear any comparison to the Saw and Hostel film series?

Dante: No. To me, the title just fit; I wasn't thinking of any other films. If anything, I was thinking of my own films. I like titles that are declarative, all-encompassing. Torture Chamber is a place, a location,
a state-of-mind. The title...It conjures death and horror. I think of dungeons and castles... gloom and doom. Torture Chamber. It feels like a pure horror film to me...and now that I shot the footage, I know it is. Gothic horror from beginning to end...I would say it's more colorful and stylized than any of my other films, more energetic. It's an interior journey. It's really about peeling back layers of pain and guilt buried deep in the unconscious mind. There are trap doors, mysterious holes, maze-like tunnels...Each set-piece leads you to the next. This is a film about eternal damnation. Torture Chamber is an all-out scarefest.

Vincent Pastore who plays Dr. Fiore is well known for his role in The Sopranos. How much of a departure is Dr. Fiore from the mafioso roles he's portrayed? Also, have you ever seen Black Roses? A 1988 horror movie that may be one of his earliest film roles?

Dante: I never saw Black Roses. Vincent brings real passion to his part of Dr. Fiore, which is really an Italian American homage to Dr. Loomis in Carpenter's Halloween. Vincent brings a sense of urgency to the role. I was happy to hear that he's a huge horror fan and we talked about lots of horror classics. He knew that I didn't want to bring the comedic element into the picture. He played it seriously and with a lot of warmth, a lot of fire. He's stalking the evil, trying to solve the supernatural puzzle, so he's the anchor for the audience.
Also, he's caring for Jimmy's mother, the mentally ill, Mrs. Morgan, played by Christie Sanford.

Christie Sanford has had a role in all of your films since your first, Desecration. How did you come to cast her back then?

Dante: I was only 23, living in NYC and I placed an Ad in Backstage Magazine looking for an actress to star in the trailer for Desecration. At the time the project was called, Mama's Boy. As soon as I met her for an audition I was hooked. This was the lady of horror I've been dreaming of. She's apparitional, ice blue eyes, a face like clay...We just clicked instantly. Christie is a real trouper. She's fearless...She'd hang from rooftops for me, completely soaked in blood, get strapped onto a wood burning stove in the coldest mine...there's just nothing she wouldn't do for my movies. We have a telepathic bond. And her eyes. When she's acting, they radiate holiness...and pitch black evil. Saintly mother? Or morbid angel? And her mouth...it transforms into the jaws of hell, spewing sadistic cackles. She doesn't realize it on a conscious level, but I think sometimes she's channeling Sheila Keith from Pete Walker's British horror films or the great Barbara Steele. I'm not even sure if she knows of those performers. Christie understands the multi-layered nightmare world I'm trying to create and she throws herself deep inside. She's been in all of my movies from the very beginning and I feel she gives her best performance in Torture Chamber. It's definitely her biggest role.

Speaking of using the same actors in your films, I've always enjoyed seeing say a Sam Raimi, Joe Dante or a Stuart Gordon film and looking for those certain actors they always employ. How much easier is it to use certain actors and crew over again in your films? Is it like a family reunion?

Dante: It does feel like a family reunion. I'm a very loyal person so hopefully I attract loyalty. The crew on this film was the best I've ever worked with. Every single person from the Cinematographer to the Assistant Director to the Production Designer to the Producers to the Special FX Supervisor and down the line...just all across the board, everyone in every position on the crew worked so hard under such harsh conditions and ungodly hours. It was so cold in the tunnels and mines and the walls were filled with all sorts of creepy unknown things. I didn't dare look up sometimes. Plus there were constant drips of water coming from the stony ceilings...echoing the sound of Chinese torture. At one point, when we were all underground for a while, everyone on the crew got sick with colds; we were all passing out Halls and Ricola cough drops non stop. It was so chilly underground...then we'd walk outside into sweltering heat.

In your last interview you mentioned that Scott Sliger is your Special Make-up FX Supervisor. What can we expect to see effects wise?

Dante: Scott did an incredible job with the effects on Torture Chamber. I'm sure you remember his throat slash in Satan's Playground. The highlight of the film. Scott and I worked together on Horror too. I really don't want to give away the mutilations, burns and deaths but I can tell you he really delivered the goods. Scott is part of my filmmaking family.

David Cronenberg once said in an interview that his films were like chapters in an ongoing biography of his life. For you is it the same? Do your films chronicle what you were going though at the time you made them?

Dante: Absolutely. Yes. There's the psychic debris of everything around, it attaches itself. Though my films are kind of trapped in a time warp. The child in my mind with endless nightmares takes over. Should all sinners be damned?

The horror genre is at its best when it deals with those dark things we all have inside and don't like to talk about. Should there be any limits on what horror filmmakers can portray on screen?

Dante: My films explore taboos. Even though there's no nudity. I like to take unhealthy emotions and situations
and present them. I think there's a subversive undercurrent, definitely not in your face...more subliminal. But I like it to be beautiful; I need a glowing, electrified surface. Torture Chamber is really about peeling back layers of pain and guilt buried in the unconscious mind. It's about a family in deep psychic pain. They're all connected, because they're family. It's hard to escape family. You can't escape. There should be no limits on screen except filmmakers should never harm animals. If I ever see that, I'm enraged.

Do you ever see yourself not making horror films?

Dante: I will always make horror films, one after another. I will only make horror films. I'm an unrepentant horror fan and there's so much to explore in the genre. The possibilities are endless. My passion is in conjuring horror movies. You'll never see me direct and write a romantic comedy about lawyers in love or something. I've wanted to create hallucinogenic horror movies for as long as I can remember. I was one of those kids with the bedroom decorated like a Funhouse. I was always fantasizing. And there was that period in junior high and early high school when I didn't know if I was dreaming or awake. My dreams were so real that they tricked me. I still have sleep problems. One time when I lived in NYC, I woke up walking around in my underwear in a Korean Deli.

What's your post-production schedule looking like?

Dante: I just wrapped shooting so now I'm getting to know every nook and cranny of the footage. Then I begin editing and soundmixing...my favorite part of all.

What's next after you finish Torture Chamber?

Dante: It could be The Ocean or Alice, Sweet Alice or a totally different horror film.

An Interview with Dante Tomaselli

Dante Tomaselli has directed some of the most visually surreal and evocative independent horror films out there. With his debut Desecration, his follow ups Horror and Satan's Playground he's created films that are part fairy tale, part mad abstract painting. I had the pleasure of talking to him about his current projects and the state of independent horror.


Currently you're working on Torture Chamber. Can you give us a short synopsis about what it's about?

Torture Chamber is about a 13-year-old boy possessed by unspeakable evil. It's probably the first serious independent horror film in a long time that's in the vein of The Exorcist. The demon is called Baalberith, which, if you believe in demonology, tempts its host to blasphemy and murder. Jimmy Morgan is a pyromaniac, horribly disfigured from experimentation with drugs. This Catholic boy's family is crawling with religious fanatics. His mother believes he was sent from the Devil to set the world on fire. His older brother is a priest who tries to exorcise him. When Jimmy murders his own father, he burns him to death. Because of this, the troubled boy is sent to an Institution for disturbed youths. While there, Jimmy has a Charles Manson-like hold on the other kids from the burn unit. Together, they escape and Jimmy finds an old abandoned castle for shelter. That's where the burned kids find a secret passage way that leads to a medieval, cobwebbed torture chamber.

How different is it compared to your previous three films?

It's way more sobering and frightening. Torture Chamber is devoted to scaring an audience. After three films, I feel I can better decipher what works and what doesn't. I'm ready to take everything I've learned to a new level.

You compose the scores on all your films. Were you inspired by John Carpenter to compose your scores or was it out necessity?

When I was a little boy, around three years old, I used to play eerie music on an electronic organ. I'd press all the high and low notes while drawing haunted houses and graveyards on a chalk board that was right above the organ. It's instinctual. I can't separate the sound from the picture. I couldn't imagine allowing another composer to take complete control over my film. It wouldn't be my film. I do love to collaborate with musicians though...Kenneth Lampl, Sean Hartter, Alan Jurich, Joseph Bishara and my brother Michael. There are others. I like to have compositions from different composers and mix and match and layer them. I do this as I'm writing the screenplay, in pre-production, shooting the film...and mostly, mainly, during the soundmix in post production. Everything is leading up to the film's soundmix. So by the time that period actually arrives, the film's soundtrack is already practically a demo. I construct the soundtrack like I'm making an album. I crave the sound mix during production. Crave it. I've always said it's my favorite part of creating the movie. Regarding John Carpenter, there's no doubt that I'm influenced by his work. Halloween and The Fog are the cream of the crop in horror sound design and in every way, actually. I watch...and listen...to both movies over and over. I love them. And the climax, the ending...You know the evil is out there...loose, lurking, you feel it in your bones. It's the purest audio-visual experience...Carpenter's Halloween. It's hard to get me to tear but it can even bring a tear to my eye sometimes because it's so powerful and I'm so in awe of its perfection. That same feeling takes hold during a certain sequence in Carpenter's Christine too. When Arnie says to Christine, 'show me.' ...And then the spectral light pierces through the air and we hear that pristine bell and deep, throbbing bass line from hell. We feel it. I see the camera gliding to the car and in that swirling moment, call it audio-visual fireworks...I get teary-eyed (laughs). I'm in awe of its power. I'm drawn to glacial icy stings and rumbling baritones...and that's early John Carpenter. I definitely feel a profound connection with his early work. The trancelike low tones, those moog synths, they create colors in my mind.

How's the score to Torture Chamber coming along? How different is it compared to your previous music?

It's very personal, very intimate. I feel it's my scariest. If it's not making my hair stand on its ends, it's not working. It's dark ambient horror. I'll be 'painting with sounds' when it comes time for the film's soundmix. Naturally I want a very big palette. I mix the soundscapes of all composers including myself to create the unique world of the film.

Is it true that Marc Almond of Soft Cell was Inspired after meeting you and wrote a song dedicated to you?

Yeah, I was 23 or 24, living in NYC. I met him on the streets of the West Village. We went back to my apartment on West 10th and Bleeker and listened to remixes of Memorabilia and talked about horror films. Marc loves horror. He even wrote a song called 'Martin' on Soft Cell's 'The Art of Falling Apart' that's all about Romero's film. Yeah, Marc wrote a song for me called 'Caged.' I was shocked and happy. At the time I met him I was shooting all my early versions of Desecration and I continuously showed him the footage of the demon mother feeding her caged son.

Do you still have plans to remake Alice, Sweet Alice?

Definitely. I can't say anything now, but yes.

You filmed Satan's Playground in Pine Barrens Forest of New Jersey. Anything strange happen when you were there? Any Jersey Devil sightings?

Well, the Pine Barrens encompasses 1.1 million acres of land...pure woods. Definitely some hardcore rednecks around. The guys from Deliverance would feel at home. There were hunters out there...so we'd hear gun shots a lot. That was creepy. People on my crew and neighbors that lived around had some stories about seeing The Jersey Devil but I was too busy shooting the film.

There is a lot of surreal and bizarre imagery in your first two films. How did you come up with some of it, is it from dreams or is it thought out as you write?

It's from nightmares. A spacious dungeon in my mind. I have a history of sleep problems and issues...I was plagued with insomnia. I still am. I understand Michael Jackson...I couldn't sleep! One time at college, it lasted for a full week and I started to hallucinate. I used to pray for a cure. I bought subliminal tapes, nothing worked. In fact there was a period in high school when I didn't know if what was happening was dream or reality. And I didn't take drugs or drink at all. I probably should have (laughs). When I'd go to bed, it was a place of terror. I was scared for what I was about to experience...and I had good reason...my nightmares were endless. I'd wake up with the sheets and covers twisted all around. Plus I was unhappy, inwardly, for the most part, and quiet...so all of my anxieties and fears came screaming to life in my dreamworld. I replicate those sensations now with my films. It's my gateway back to childhood.

And how hard is it to translate from your mind to the written page and then to the screen?

Growing up, night after night, I would leave my physical body and float around. Sometimes I'd end up touching the ceiling, other times I'd glide downstairs in other rooms or even out my window and over my neighborhood. One time, in college, I woke up in a NYC Korean Deli in my underwear (laughs). In my dreams I could fly. My body would start to vibrate and I would flap my arms in slow motion as if I were swimming in a deep pool and trying to get to the top. But were these even dreams? Was I schizophrenic? I'd visit the same places over and over, strange textural landscapes that led to the same doorways that brought me right back to the beginning. Glowing...color saturated visions in wide open space. I think I was visiting hell. I'd draw elaborate mazes in the daytime. Creatively, emotionally, spiritually everything was jumbled. None of this was enjoyable. I didn't appreciate what was happening to me, whatever it was. As an adult I read books on Robert Monroe, a true pioneer in exploring out-of-body- experiences...I'm still trying to make sense of it all and harness this untamed thing. It seems I have been either lucid dreaming or having full-fledged out-of-body-experiences. I also found out recently that I've had something for a long time, for as long as I can remember. I didn't even know there was a name for it but it's called synesthesia.

You've worked with Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Ellen Sandweiss (The Evil Dead), Edwin Neal (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and you're about to work with one of my favorites, Lynn Lowry from Shivers, I Drink Your Blood and The Crazies. Who would you like to work with in the future?

Dee Wallace, Adrienne Barbeau, Marilyn Burns, Margot Kidder, Karen Black, Jessica Harper, Debbie Harry, Piper Laurie, Jessica Walter, Judith Roberts, Zohra Lampert, Judith O'Dea, Daria Nicolodi, Catriona MacColl... I was supposed to work with some of these leading ladies on The Ocean, an apocalyptic chiller that was just too ambitious, financially. The film is on hold but will eventually get made. Torture Chamber should pave the way for The Ocean and Alice, Sweet Alice.

How do you see the current state of independent horror?

Oh independent horror is shriveling up. The economy has been in a slump, as you know, for a while now. It's very rare to find outfits that invest in low budget indie horror these days. Why should they invest when they can just go to film festivals and 'pick up' films? There are scores of horror filmmakers with their independently financed films clamoring just to find distribution. There used to be factions of studios that helped create low budget horror. Not any more. My goal is to get to the point where I can fund my own films.

How difficult is it to film an independent film these days? How do you pull it off?

It's nightmarish, in the worst sense, it really is. You just have to find the strength to move forward and never give up. You find faith in private investors. That's how all real independent films are financed anyway.

What films have had the greatest inspiration for you?

Some of my favorites are Don't Look Now, Halloween, Alice, Sweet Alice, The Exorcist, The Brood, Carrie, The Shining, Burnt Offerings, The Fog, Tourist Trap, The Omen, Meshes of the Afternoon, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The House with Laughing Windows, Rosemary's Baby, Nosferatu, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Frightmare, Suspiria, Eraserhead, Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978, The Birds, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, The Boogeyman, The Changeling, The Sentinel, Shock, Black Sabbath, Phantasm, The Beyond, The Gates of Hell, Alien, The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Shivers, Videodrome, Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Sender, At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul...

Where is Torture Chamber now in terms of production and when will we get to see it?

I'm on the brink of shooting the film. It should be finished and ready for release some time next year.

Any advice for inspiring filmmakers?

Never say die.

I want to thank Mr. Tomaselli for taking the time to talk to me. Check out his site here....http://horrorthemovie.com