E-mail interview with Dean Devlin

Tete-a-tete with Dean Devlin

Dean Devlin is the producer of Eight-Legged Freaks.

Franz: Arachnophobia was released twelve years ago, and I recently saw another arachnid flick called Spiders, which is about a giant spider attacking humans.
Is Eight-Legged Freaks inspired from both movies?

Devlin: Absolutely, but even more so, Eight-Legged Freaks was inspired by films from the late 1950s and early 1960s, such as Them or Tarantula!.

Franz: Are you a big fan of those old Hollywood films about aliens or creatures attacking the human race? Eight-Legged Freaks reminded me of War of the Worlds or even The Blob.

Devlin: I loved those movies. While I'm too young to have seen them originally in the movie theaters, my friends and I used to watch them on The Creature Feature on television on Sunday afternoons. I remember all my friends coming over and we'd make fun on these B movies, making jokes about them and laughing, but later that night all of us would lose sleep with the ideas that scared us in those films.

Franz: There was a scene in James Whale's Frankenstein where Boris Karloff drowns a little girl. I'm sure that scene offended many, but I can't help laughing at Whale's wicked sense of humor. It's that kind of comedy that makes some horror films fun to watch. Eight-Legged Freaks isn't meant much to scare the wits out of everyone, so I wonder if what James Whale did is something you believe in or follow in this latest project of yours?

Devlin: Thrillers and horror movies have traditionally tried to shock the audience, whether using horrifying blood and guts to freak us out (like Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or just terrifying ideas like the thousands of birds Hitchcock used to attack the small town. This has been used for comic effect, as well as screams. But one way or another, these films are made to provoke reactions.

Franz: What do you think is the reason why so many viewers love watching scary films or are used to movies about characters getting attacked by giant creatures, paranormals or beings of the dark?

Devlin: It's like a great amusement park ride. We go because we're allowed to get scared, but we know, deep down, that we're in a safe environment. Nothing really bad is going to happen to us, be we get to experience all the adrenaline rush you'd get if you were in a really horrible situation.

Franz: Aliens attempt to invade Earth in Independence Day. Then there's Godzilla terrorizing the Big Apple. Now it's an army of spiders. What's next?

Devlin: I don't know what the future holds. My passions have been for mainstream, popcorn movies. That's what I usually go to see on a Friday night. I fell in love with the movies by watching Star Wars, or Jaws, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. One day, I hope to make a film as great as those.

Franz: This is a trivial question: are you scared of spiders?

Devlin: They scare the hell out of me! Too many legs! Too damned creepy! The good thing about this movie is that it will cure your fear of spiders forever! Once you've seen them this big attacking a town, the small ones in your house will seem puny and insignificant.

(First published in Daily Tribune on August 20, 2002)