Birthing Boogeymen
BY G. NOEL GROSS | September 28, 2001

FlixMix dazzled fans at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors in Pasadena with its all-star Boogeymen panel featuring no less than Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface), Tony Todd (Candyman) and "masters of horror" Clive Barker and Peter Atkins. These sultans of slashers sung the bloodcurdling praises of this interactive disc that features video clips and goodies from more than 15 horror films. As Atkins quipped, "it's jam-packed with deeply unpleasant moments." But before all the stargazing ensued, I met up with producer Gary Shenk to get the inside word on Boogeymen and what's ahead in his unique world of interactive entertainment. (Read DVD review.)

This is sort of an unusual project, as it's really one of the first totally interactive discs. How did this project come about?

It's part of a new video concept called FlixMix, which is an autonomous production company that was set up to pursue these types of releases -- total genre experiences. It all started when we were looking at booming music-compilation businesses such as Rhino Records, Time Life, Now That's What I Call Music! and K-Tel. We thought, "Can we apply their model to the motion picture business by really taking advantage of the DVD format?" What we soon realized was that we can actually do MORE in motion pictures with DVD, because we can make it a truly interactive, immersive genre experience. We decided the natural place to start was the horror genre with Boogeymen. There's so many reminiscent and seminal scenes that moviegoers have such an attachment to in the horror genre, and its fans are rabidly interested in all aspects of the movies. We knew we could really develop a comprehensive horror experience by starting with the scenes and building upon them with audio commentary, horror-related games, music by Rob Zombie and our animated FlixFacts trivia that runs at the bottom of the screen. Overall, we've added three hours of original horror content to make it the ultimate horror experience.

How did you arrive at the list of Boogeymen?

There's 17 in all and we started with literally 1,000 movies.

Does the roll call start at a certain date?

The core demographic of DVD is younger male consumers 18 to 34. We felt we had to bring content that was most compelling to that target consumer, so the Boogeymen are mainly from the modern horror franchises, which is Texas Chainsaw Massacre and later. One exception is Psycho, because it recently topped AFI's list of the Top 100 thrilling movies of all time and we felt like we had to include it. It was really where the Boogeymen came from. There's so many of these franchises that are so iconic like Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Chucky, Leatherface and Pinhead that you have to have them on the compilation. But then there are some other lesser known ones that we included because these scenes are just so incredible. Like the Tall Man from Phantasm.

And The Dentist!

Exactly, the notion of The Dentist is very iconic. Forget Corbin Bernsen for a second and just think "the dentist" -- it's a very scary notion. Every single person in our society has some sort of very gut-deep fear of dentists. In that scene, he actually pulls his wife's tooth out and it's this moment that makes you cringe. He puts in the plyers and yanks out her tooth and it's pretty amazing. It's one of those moments that every person says, "Oh my god! I can't believe that!"

Was it difficult to coordinate the rights to use all these films?

There's 12 studios involved, and they were willing to participate because they understood the promotional value of the product. Movies that have been sitting on the shelves for awhile will have a lot more legs with the onset of Boogeymen.

How long did it take to put the disc together?

We started in January. To choose the movies, secure all the rights, and to generate all the value-added content took about eight months.

What's really neat is that you've got this audio commentary by Robert Englund. How'd you finagle that?

We went to Robert and he loved the product. As you know, subsequent to Robert, we sent the product out to a lot of people in the core horror community like Clive Barker, Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper who have all endorsed it.

And Englund has connections to all those folks also.

Right. Robert has been in a number of great horror films, and of course, he's Freddy Krueger. He's been so involved in the horror community for so many years that he can really speak about all the movies. I think you'll discover that this audio commentary is incredibly rich. On some DVDs the commentary is like, "Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh."

Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. They can be pretty barren.

This one is end to end talking and value-added information that will allow you to see the scenes in a new way.

How was the FlixFacts trivia compiled?

We wanted to make the trivia as value-added as possible by not recycling stuff that was broadly known already, but really finding new things that would be compelling to core horror fans. So, we went to people who were intimately involved in the pictures -- in some cases the producers, directors, writers -- people who were involved in the making of those movies. We went straight to the horse's mouth and got the best, juiciest trivia possible that was also verified by people closely involved.

You realize in the horror genre you're going to have all manner of fans out there who are going to know these movies better than anybody.

Absolutely, absolutely. We want to make this as much of an interactive experience as possible, so we've set up a website that's going to have a section called FlixMiss. And we really want people to call us on things like, "Why'd you chose that scene?!," or if someone had a problem with the trivia they could call our attention to it. All the trivia was researched and vetted with the top horror experts, so we feel very comfortable about it. But you're right there's always going to be people who think they know better. We really want to give people an opportunity to interact with us about that.

The disc includes some lists like the "Top Horror Movies." How were they arrived upon?

We took pre-existing polls from sources like Total Movie magazine. They had thousands and thousands of respondents. For our next product, Ultimate Fights, we're really upping the ante by doing our own polling.

Can I vote for an ultimate fight? Let's see They Live with Rowdy Roddy Piper!

It's in, of course! It's unbelievable and all over a pair of sunglasses!

I commend y'all on a relatively low MSRP for a disc with so much content and a lot of extra work. There are tons of crummy discs for studio films that cost way more than this.

Thanks. You're going to be able to buy it at most places for $15.

It ought to do really well at that price. How far out is Ultimate Fights?

We don't have a date right now, but I expect it to street around January or February of 2002.

Beyond that, what other titles do you have in mind?

We want to pursue another horror release since this one is being so well received. We're also looking at comedies right now and hope to do four to five releases in 2002.

If you went back to horror would you showcase creatures? Classic horror?

You can cut the product a lot of different ways. We could do Boogeymen 2, as there's certainly enough of them to support that. You could frame it around special effects. You could do it around the filmmakers. The great thing about the horror genre is that it's so rich and the fans are so rabid about the genre.

Is there anything I haven't asked that you're especially interested in getting out there?

I think the key for me is that FlixMix delivers the ultimate genre experience. This is our first release, but we really hope to establish this as a new form of entertainment.