Facing A Hollywood Future Producing Evil: My Interview With Horror Director Vito Dinatolo

Vito Dinatolo is an Italian writer/ director/ producer who has worked both in film and television. He also started his own production company, V-Movie, which has released its first title, "Face Of Evil". "F.O.E" has since been picked up by Gravitas Ventures for worldwide distribution.

Dinatolo has won awards for his short film work, and "Face Of Evil" has found some success on the film festival circuit. Vito is also hands on in post-production for most of his work. He edits, and scores the music for his films, most notably his feature film "F.O.E". I interviewed Vito Dinatolo about his work , "Face Of Evil", and plans for the future.

ASOUTHERNLIFE: Where did the idea for "Face Of Evil" come from?

VITO DINATOLO: I always liked horror movies, so it was inevitable that my first feature film would be within that range. I had a nightmare when I was younger about these pale people with yellow blazing eyes and an evil sneer like joker, moving fast and trying to grab you, and it stuck in my mind. That's where the look of the infected comes from. I think with horror or thriller you can express yourself better, show your style, leave your footprint on the product, while with comedy or action you heavily rely on actors, their charisma. You hear of horror movies directed by such or such, but for most genres, you need a star. Plus low budget horror is safer since it always sells, even in the worst case, which I hope it's not mine.  As for the background issues, like the war vet, the epidemic etc, I had to place the horror in a realistic contest to make the series of unfortunate events believable, where everything is justified at the end. 

ASOUTHERNLIFE: The film blends classic horror with social awareness, bringing to light the difficulty military veterans face returning home from combat. What inspired that aspect of your story?

VITO DINATOLO: The main message is probably against violence, since violence generates violent people, but eventually it's up to the audience. I just wanted to bring up topical issues, such as vets post traumatic stress, suicides, mass shooting rampages (what's going on in a person's mind before pressing the trigger?). This movie also brings up many paranoia afflicting our society in the 21st century, like fear of epidemics, of terrorism, of being spied, even fear of each other, all of which inevitably leads to mistrust and hate. In fact, one tagline for the poster was "Trust Nobody" like Sarge (the other lead) recites, but that sounded like any cheap thriller. The other one was "What's your Demon?" but that sounded to devilish and may have been deceitful. So I decided to use none and keep the mystery - just the title and a smiley face with an evil sneer, simple, catchy, teasing, potentially viral, like an epidemic. Instead of making a plain horror movie, I thought to legitimate the horror in the movie through the eyes of a troubled  war vet with PTSD, which gives a deeper meaning to the story. It’s about the inner journey of a person on the run from his demons, real or not, from an unknown enemy, who may attack anywhere, anytime. Or perhaps it’s just the story of a victim, a scapegoat in a devious system. It’s a contemporary tale of realistic madness. And since we live in this world, we are somehow involved. It could read like the headline of any recent news: "Breaking News! Another war vet with post traumatic stress goes on a shooting rampage among the crowd and then he shoots himself!" Maybe he saw the enemy, monsters, zombies and whatnot… Maybe he was just fighting his demons…  But now I'm revealing too much - spoiler alert!

ASOUTHERNLIFE: How was the filming process for "Face Of Evil" ? What was it like on set bringing the concept to life?

VITO DINATOLO: I wrote the script thinking about the shoot and the limited budget. So I divided the film in two separate productions, and you saw they are almost two different movies. The first half takes place in a house I found in the valley. It was perfect as the owner was a hoarder so all I had to do is re-arrange the mess in a way that mad sense for the action of the story and the blocking of the actors. The second half was shot around LA, some permits, some guerrilla style. I also shot in skid row. One bridge was on sixth street by the industrial area. The other by Chinatown. The hospital was in LACC, as they had a nursing department and I knew people in the school. Finally, the desert scene, an homage to Sergio Leone's spaghetti western, was just outside LA, I was driving the day of the shoot with the two actors and a couple of crew members, knowing LA is surrounded by the desert, but not knowing exactly what to find, I believe on the 14 freeway, at some point I saw a town which looked exactly like a destroyed Afghanistan town, even better than what I was expecting, so we stopped and we shot. Note that every single shoot, location etc, was exactly planned in details in advance. The more you plan in advance, the more you can improvise on set, but that's true for any task in any business I guess. For example, the gas station scene was carefully rehearsed before hand - since they didn't let us shoot on the spot, we went through the blocking many times in another gas station, already knowing the map of the actual gas station which denied us. Then we went on location, to the actual gas station, and while one of us was in the market, buying something, acting as a decoy, we promptly parked, shot with the two actors, and left in five minutes! It came out great. The interior was instead shot in another market in the valley. I could go on forever, but I'll stop here, that's enough behind the scene trivia I guess...  

ASOUTHERNLIFE: Who had a bigger influence on your choices when creating the film's undead, Bava or Raimi?

VITO DINATOLO: I like both, from Bava's "Demons", to Raimi's "Evil Dead", maybe the latter has had more influence on me, including the absurd over the top surreal mood and  characters.

ASOUTHERNLIFE: The reveal at the end was a pretty cool choice. How hard was it keeping the story's continuity going from script to film?

VITO DINATOLO: I first draft was quick, about a month - I wanted to make a horror film and zombies were my favorites. But I needed a realistic background, with dynamics justified by plausible causes, thus him being a war vet, the mysterious vial he brings back, and all other possible causes of this mysterious epidemic, including conspiracies. So I wrote a seventy min story, plain horror/action, many zombie chases, lots of blood, but also comedy. Shortly after, zombie-mania exploded, catapulting the zombie genre into mainstream, which, along with the boom of affordable HD video and DSLR cameras, stimulated the production of zombie movies, with the downside of a rising genre inflation, as all kind of zombie titles were popping out, you name it! I had no intention to waste the following years of my life making just another stupid zombie movie, so I thought I should add a psychological element to it, with final twist, which lead me to re-write the script from Jay's (the lead) perspective (it will make more sense after you watch the movie, and when/if you watch it again). Bottom line, to get to the final draft it took me about a year, as I was also cutting down on blood and extras for budget reasons. The double twist at the end is the viewer's payoff and it leaves you flabbergasted, but in order to make ends meet at the end, as mentioned, it took ma a lot of work, almost writing backwards. 

ASOUTHERNLIFE: What projects are you working on now for the future?

VITO DINATOLO: I'm brainstorming on the sequel of Face Of Evil, and a couple of other ideas I'm not going to reveal yet, including a remake of a great 90's movie everyone will love to see again). I also have a psychological thriller ready, A Perfect Life (a man in denial realizes, in three surreal days, how fragile his apparently perfect life has become, as new memories arise, disclosing a terrible truth). I have a dozen synopses overall ready to be developed. But I will also look for other scripts. I like character based stories - if you notice, the most memorable movies are character based - once you know the story, it's no big deal anymore, but if the story is based mostly on the characters and not just on their actions, we will never get bored of watching those scenes, because we are no longer interested in the story, but in their character, you want to meet them, hang out with them, say the same lines with them. Those movies are evergreen, some become cults.

ASOUTHERNLIFE: Can you talk a bit more about the sequel or franchise development for "Face Of Evil"? Maybe exploring the other issues that effect a soldiers psyche?

VITO DINATOLO:As I mentioned, I have written the synopsis for for the sequel of FOE, where we still don't know what's going on, whether it's real or not, but on a larger scale, closer to the terrorism theme. The lead characters would be Jay's sister, Katy, played by Jamie Bernadette, renown mostly in the horror genre but now making a name also in TV series, and Sarge, played by Chad Bishop, who is the most successful character in the movie, the funniest, craziest and most realistic one, so, it would be a shame to lose him. And who knows, maybe I will keep all other characters too, since they were all great, but they mostly die (ops! spoiler alert), from Janet Roth, to Scott Baxter, Bryan Howard, James Hutchinson, Chris Thorpe, Charmane Star (renown in the hardcore world) and all others (listed on https://www.foemovie.com/media/). By the way, investors are welcome to contact me!