INTERVIEW WITH SERIAL KILLER FILM MAKER CHUCK PARELLO

Article BY ERIC HILLIS

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Filmmaker Chuck Parello has directed three feature films, all based on the exploits of real life serial killers, and is currently in pre-production on yet another movie inspired by real life crimes. We spoke to Parello about his fascination with true crime.

Your three features to date have all been based to some degree on the exploits of real life serial killers. Are we right in assuming this is a field you take great interest in? Where does this interest stem from?

I am interested in the exploits of real serial killers, but only to a certain extent. In other words, I don't read every book published or watch every movie made on the topic, nor do I have Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy memorabilia hanging on my walls. I am most definitely a true crime fanatic, but I'm a little less interested in tales about some mad at the world creep who goes on a horrific killing spree than I am about stories where the perpetrator’s motivation to murder is a little more relatable--like they're lusting after somebody else's spouse or somebody else's fortune. 

Regardless of my personal preferences, I think everybody is somewhat fascinated by serial killers and the atrocities that they commit. Serial killers are people who get to live out their perverted fantasies without caring how many lives that they destroy in the process. Unencumbered by anything resembling a conscience, these are truly human monsters and all of us can't help but be a little morbidly curious about how they got to be so damned sick in the first place.    

You made your writing and directing debut in 1996 with Henry II: Mask of Sanity, a sequel of sorts to John McNaughton’s cult hit Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, based of course on the prolific killer Henry Lee Lucas. Can you tell us how this came about? Did you have to acquire any rights, and did you receive McNaughton’s blessing?

Back in 1986 (!) I was working at a film production trade publication in Chicago when the then unknown director John McNaughton came into our offices. He brought with him a VHS tape of his film "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" as he was hoping that somebody at the publication would write about it. 

I ended up taking the tape home and watching it and I knew immediately that it was something very special. I started publicizing the film, which was already having distribution problems because it had been branded with a commercially prohibitive "X" rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for "disturbing moral content."

I eventually got hired as a publicist at the home video company that made “Henry,” and one of my first orders of business at that job was to get this hugely scary flick off of the shelf, where it was languishing, and into public view. I got “Henry” its first commercial booking as a Midnight movie and things kind of snowballed from there. 

The film was a critical success, but not a commercial one--it was playing mainly at art movie houses and I think a lot of folks who patronize those theaters were just too scared to go see it! Nonetheless, “Henry” became a cult classic, and it made enough money in foreign markets and on home video for the producers of the original film, who owned the rights, to want there to be a follow-up. Since the producers of the film owned the property, they didn't have to ask for anybody's blessing to proceed with a sequel.  

I originally was going to just write the screenplay for the “Henry” sequel, but then John McNaughton turned down the chance to direct the film and I was given the opportunity to helm my first feature!    

Do you know what McNaughton thinks of your film?

After I left the home video company, I worked for McNaughton's production company for almost four years before branching out to become a director myself. (So John and I know each other pretty well!) When I got the chance to direct “Henry 2,” John was very helpful to me. He gave me constructive notes on my script, as well as on the editing of the film. 

John has publicly spoken positively of the film. (And if you know him, he never says anything he doesn’t mean!) In fact, it was John’s praise of “Henry 2” to a certain producer which got me the chance to direct my second film, “Ed Gein.”

The original movie featured a chilling turn from Michael Rooker in the title role. For your movie you cast Neil Giuntoli, who gives a very different performance, but one that’s equally as effective. There’s a vulnerability to Giuntoli’s portrayal that was absent from Rooker’s. How much of this was down to the actor and your writing and directing?

The character of Henry was a hard one to follow-up on because it made such an indelible impression on so many people. When Michael Rooker passed on doing “Henry 2,” we had to go through an intensive casting process to replace him. Many of the actors who auditioned for the part were trying to imitate Michael, which was never going to work. I eventually got the idea to cast Neil Giuntoli after working with him on a TV project which was directed by John McNaughton. 

Neil is a great actor who is mainly known for playing the heavy. He has been in many films, including “The Shawshank Redemption” and John McNaughton's awesome horror comedy “The Borrower.” Anyway, Neil made it a point not to watch the original “Henry,” and I think that was a wise decision because he was able to create his own specific take on the character. Neil also made the choice to make Henry vulnerable, and I think that that made the whole scenario even more believable and chilling. As a director I trusted Neil to knock his performance out of the park. My role was mainly to be there to offer support, and to do a little bit of shaping here and there. But mostly I just let him create his own magic. 

How much of the plot of the film was based on true events?

When I was concocting the plot line for “Henry 2,” I made a conscious decision to go beyond where the first film had already been. It's the same homicidal sociopath who was inspired by the real serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, but under a whole different set of circumstances, with a whole new set of characters involved. I still wanted to have Henry out there running loose, rather than locked up in some prison where he couldn't have any fun, but I also wanted him to have other diversions besides just his serial killing. 

So the whole Henry hooks up with an arsonist thing was a mash up of the Henry story and another story involving a group of pyro-loving criminals who eventually graduated to murder as a way to get what they wanted. So I guess you'd say that “Henry 2” was loosely based on true events from a couple of different stories.

You followed this up with Ed Gein in 2000, however this time you were working from a script by Stephen Johnston. Tell us how you became involved in this project.

“Henry 2” was being marketed at the Cannes Film Festival and the “certain producer” I mentioned earlier in this interview noticed the "H2" advertisements on billboards around where the festival was taking place. The producer happened to be at a party where John McNaughton was in attendance and he started teasing him about how his idea was being ripped off. However, John stuck up for “Henry 2” and said that I had done a great job with it. This producer was pretty shocked to hear John come to the film’s defense and he really wanted to see it after that. He ended up watching “Henry 2” and he totally agreed with John’s assessment that it was a very good follow-up. So then, when this guy was looking for a director to helm an “Ed Gein” film, he gave me a call and things clicked from that point on.  

Steve Railsback gives a great performance in the title role, but he was very much cast against type. How did you come to cast Railsback?

Somebody else had the suggestion to hire Steve Railsback as Ed Gein. I knew of Steve’s impressive body of work and was struck by how he actually kind of resembled the real killer, so we had a meeting and he got hired. I don’t really think that Steve was playing against type though, as he portrayed Charles Manson in the original TV version of “Helter Skelter” and ended up scaring the living piss out of millions of TV viewers. He’s also played the heavy in many other movies so I’d say that the dude knows something about representing the dark side of human nature. Steve is a terrific actor, not to mention a terrific guy, and I would love to work with him again some day.  

Several movies have been inspired by the notorious Wisconsin killer, such as Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Deranged. Did any of these films influence you? How close is your Ed Gein film to the actual case?

My film is pretty close to the actual Ed Gein case. (With a few cinematic flourishes!) Most of the other films that you mentioned just took certain parts of the Gein story and fictionalized the rest, where I pretty much stuck to the actual events. I wouldn’t say that those other films influenced me very much while I was making my film. In fact, I had to stay away from some real details of the Gein story while I was revising the "Ed Gein" script because they had already been represented in films like “The Silence of the Lambs” and I didn’t want to be considered a plagiarist.   

You reteamed with Stephen Johnston in 2004 for The Hillside Strangler, the story of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. Again, you cast against type by having former teen idol Howell portray Bianchi. Tell us how you chose Howell.

Casting the part of Ken Bianchi wasn’t easy. The real guy was actually pretty good looking and mild mannered on the surface, somebody you would never suspect was raping and strangling women in his spare time! So the actor who played Bianchi had to be charismatic and attractive, plus he had to have a certain vulnerability so that you’d believe that he’d willingly become Angelo Buono’s pupil in the game of serial murder. 

We had already cast Nick Turturro as macho maniac Angelo Buono, who was perfect for that part, so we needed to find somebody to play against Nick who was an equally amazing actor. C. Thomas Howell came into meet me and I knew instantly that he could work well in the role. He has those matinee good looks, but he’s also one of the best character actors out there. And the fact that he saw all of the horrible things that we were asking him to do in the script as an incredible acting challenge made him an even more appealing choice. I also think C. Thomas was happy to be subverting audience expectations of him as a hero or a good guy by playing such a prolific serial killer, so that made the fact that he was starring in my film an even bigger win/win proposition for everybody.  

How close to the real life case is The Hillside Strangler?

The film is a mostly accurate portrayal of the Hillside Strangler case. The saga of Buono and Bianchi is such an intense one that there really was no need to cinematically embellish it at all. It still is amazing to me that those two distant cousins joined forces to commit the horrible crimes that they did. If they had never gotten together, it’s my feeling that the 12 women they killed might still be alive. Buono was a guy who loved to abuse women before he met Bianchi, but I think having a younger impressionable dude by his side might have made him cross a line which he would not have crossed on his own.  

Do you feel any extra pressures in adapting a true life story?

Yes, I do feel extra pressure adapting true life stories. Especially if they’re kind of contemporary, like “The Hillside Strangler” was. I try to be very aware of the fact that these were real people who were murdered, and that most of them still have family members out there who will be sensitive to what is being portrayed on screen.  

Do you know if anyone with a connection to any of the cases (relatives of the killers or their victims) has seen your films, and if so have you received any feedback?

I don’t know if anybody connected to these cases has ever seen the films. If they have, I've never heard from them. (Sigh of relief!) I would recommend that anybody who is personally connected to these cases not watch these films if they know that they’re going to be upset afterwards. 

It’s been over 10 years since your last feature, but we’re happy to see you have a movie – Powder Burns – in preproduction. Again, it’s based on a real life case. What can you tell us about that?

“Powder Burns” is based on the true story of a beautiful but headstrong teenage girl who goes to war with her parents over her relationship with an older, married man. It’s a very shocking and violent case, so I think it should be a big hit with the horror crowd. We are talking to the very talented actress Zelda Williams (the late Robin Williams' daughter) about playing the lead in the film. I have been developing the script for a while now, so I know that the finished product is going to be pretty frightening!     

Are there any other serial killers whose stories you want to bring to the screen?

I am also working on a film called “The Sunset Killers,” which chronicles the terrifying but true story of Carol Bundy and Doug Clark. Bundy was an oddball nurse who helped her gigolo boyfriend Clark murder prostitutes and runaways in LA circa 1980. We are talking to Mackenzie Phillips about playing the lead in that film, which I think is an amazing choice!