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Delve into Madness: "The Imp of the Perverse" · Cinema Yūgen

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  G'day. That's right, it's that time again. Time for Cinema Yugen!
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  Music.
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  Yes, welcome back Cinema Yugen. We invite you into the chilling mind of Edgar
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  Allan Poe with The Imp of the Perverse, a new short film from the creators of
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  the hauntingly beautiful Lenore.
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  The entirely black and white production brings Poe's unsettling psychological
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  tale to life with a powerful cast, stunning cinematography,
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  and deep respect for the original text written by Dominic Migliori and horror icon Bill Oberst, Jr.
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  The imp of the perverse explores the terrifying
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  human impulse to self-destruct to act
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  against one's own best interest
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  simply because we can it's disturbing a
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  disturbing confession from a killer who
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  is both clever and cursed consumed by the
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  urge to confess the very crime he
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  believes he's gotten away with go
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  go over to the indiegogo check the links in
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  the description and now welcome said writers
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  and said makers of said upcoming film which you can be a part of now go go to
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  the indie go go check the links in the description and welcome my guests dominic
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  migliori and horror icon bill oberts jr welcome gentlemen thank you.
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  So, Kent, I want to ask you, and I think we might have touched on this when
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  you and I talked. Are you a Poe fan? You're a Poe man?
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  Yes, mate. Once upon, I'd be no dreary.
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  Ah, yes. I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
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  So, this project is based on my favorite little short Poe piece called The Emperor
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  of the Perverse. Do you know it?
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  Yes, yes. Actually, last night I was listening to it on YouTube.
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  You can listen to it if anyone is curious. I'll put the link in the description.
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  You can listen to the great, God, his name's going to disappear.
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  Oh, God, isn't that terrible? Vincent Price. Vincent Price. Yeah. The Perverse.
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  Yeah. So, yeah, I was listening to it last time. I saw it on – I looked it up
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  as a hashtag on Twitter because I wanted to see what, you know,
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  modern people – I don't consider myself a modern person – thinks of it.
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  I found quite a few references to procrastination, like, you know,
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  hashtag procrastination as Poe describes it.
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  And it's from the beginning of the piece where he's talking about how you –
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  You know you must do a thing, and yet you do not do it.
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  Yeah, but I always thought it was a great description of creepy madness that
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  anybody could appreciate.
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  Because he begins with that great example that we've all experienced if we've
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  stood on top of a tall place. I remember when I was a kid going up to the Empire State Building.
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  My immediate thought upon getting to the top, and the fence wasn't that high
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  then. But it was, oh, what if I jumped?
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  That was the very first damn thing I thought. And so when I read Imp of the
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  Perverse shortly after that, like 14, 15, I was like, wow, this is in my head stuff.
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  So Dominic wants to do a pro anthology, and this will be one of the short pieces.
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  And that's what the fundraiser is for. right so
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  dominic mate what uh how do
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  you come to this mate are you obviously a long-time po
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  fan reader yes what is
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  i loved all his stories and this one i
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  feel is very it captures like all of his themes
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  and is like a lot of his stories are very similar about
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  someone going mad or wanting to obsessing with something
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  or wanting to do something like the telltale heart it's
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  very similar to the telltale heart but i think this one
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  is more like a introspective i
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  guess where it's like it's it it's he's talking about everybody but then at
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  that then you realize you know he's talking about himself that he committed
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  this murder but when it opens it starts out as like an essay on like general
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  madness and general like a societal thing.
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  So it's it's very interesting interesting story
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  the way it's structured and the way it's told and i
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  just really i really like the story and i haven't really seen
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  it done but on imdb there's a few uh
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  films listed but i can't really find them so i don't really know if it's been
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  done that much yeah i i personally haven't seen anything at least none that
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  i can recall but i find with a lot of post stuff and and seems to be the consensus
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  and the thinking of this story,
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  the internal conflict between reason and the.
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  Perverse and the desire to act against it, I think is the,
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  I think that's the lure of a lot of his stuff, don't you think?
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  Yeah. It's the lure of a lot of our stuff too, Kent.
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  I mean, why do we – just this morning, I got a haircut and my barber, he's a man of the earth.
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  And he was talking about a buddy of his who after like 20 years of marriage
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  had this affair and it's proved disastrous and he's trying to come back from it.
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  And I was like, oh man, Zach, what happened? And he said he was alone, out of town.
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  His flavor walked by. And every man knows what that means. You know, his flavor walked by.
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  And the thought came into his head. What if I talk to her?
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  I wouldn't have to do anything other than talk to her. It's just talking.
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  And that's how it begins. And that's exactly what Poe is talking about.
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  Once he says, which is even more mad, Poe's narrator says, you must not allow
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  the thought to enter into your mind because if it does, it will inextricably become a reality.
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  Well, if you told me don't think of a pig with a hat on, that's all I can think of.
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  Poe has just set us up there to be what we are, which is tremendous moral failures.
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  Well i think that's a lot of like for
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  example the the old dare against drugs
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  program every kid who gone through that program that shirt became like an ironic
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  shirt that people who did drugs would wear and like you're telling kids not
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  to do something they're gonna be more likely to do it i feel i feel i feel like
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  the fact that we tell people like not to smoke cigarettes,
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  causes a lot of people to smoke cigarettes or something like that. Like, don't do this.
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  It's like, especially when you tell kids that. Kids like to get in trouble and
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  they'll do the thing you tell them not to do.
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  Sure. Because we are perverse, right? We all have this perversity where you're
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  not going to tell me what to do or what to think about, even if it leads to our destruction.
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  And everyone can identify and has been in that situation where you –.
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  In a moment, and you often know at the time that probably what you're thinking
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  is, this is probably the wrong thing, but the impulse is too great.
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  I mean, one of the great things that comes out of this particular term is it
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  emphasizes that old adage that he who hesitates is lost.
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  There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient
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  as that of him who's shuddering from the edge of a precipice
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  thus meditates plunge yes
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  yes because if you think about it
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  it's kind of like this business like if you
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  really stopped and thought about what you were going to do
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  you know
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  the tightrope that you walk out on when you
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  decide to undertake even a project such as this
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  where you're hoping to to garner the the funds through hopefully a successful
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  campaign and it leads to the completion of the project at large it's it's it
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  you know if you if you stop and think about it too much you'll never do it right
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  because you'll plan it to death,
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  don't you think yes so you have to i feel that's true yeah you overthink stuff
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  i've known people who i know someone in particular she is a painter and she
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  wants to do all these other projects but And she keeps planning them so much
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  that she never actually does them.
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  And I have to tell her, you have to just do it.
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  Just eventually do it. You're never going to perfectly plan something.
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  I fully agree. I'm a big believer in throwing your ball way over the fence.
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  And then you have to go get it. Everything I've ever done that worked was because
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  I threw the ball over. And then I was like, shit, what have I done?
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  Now I've got to go get it. And I like Dominic because he works that way, too.
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  So I hope people will take a look at the funding, the Indiegogo link that's
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  there, and think about helping out.
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  Because truly, man, this is indie filmmaking.
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  You know, this is no studio wants to do an adaptation of a short piece by a
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  writer who died before the Civil War.
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  No no it's um and the links ladies and gentlemen in the description get over
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  to the indiegogo campaign the imp of the perverse starring bill oberst jr so
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  what what how how do you see like,
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  structuring this as a film i mean is it is it,
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  Is it going to be, you know? It relies heavily on the narration and images to accompany it.
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  But where the story unfolds through the images, but there'll be a narration over it.
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  Okay. So you're going to give your visual interpretation of what he is foretelling.
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  Yes. Yeah, because I want to stick to the story as much as I can.
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  And I can't really make a traditional type plot with that.
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  I don't feel like, it's Helltale to Heart you can, but Emperor the Perverse
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  really you can't make like a linear story, so it's going to be more abstract,
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  but it relies heavily on the narration that gets to point it across.
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  Dominic and I wrote it together because he said, would you be interested in doing this?
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  And I was like, sure, and I'd be especially interested if we could retain as much opposed language.
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  So it's heavily edited but what
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  i presented him with and he liked and added to was based
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  on the feel of being alone with
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  a poe book at two in the morning and you can't sleep and
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  you're a little groggy and maybe morally conflicted yourself
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  and you're reading this man and he's getting into
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  your head that's what i wanted the narration to feel
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  like and then dominic's images always feel
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  like they're giving them to your head he's he's a
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  very he's a very weird filmmaker and
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  i mean that is a compliment and and i
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  saw in um in checking out the campaign whichever one should do check the link
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  in the description go to the indiegogo campaign anita dominic from uh from routines
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  routine she'll have an appearance yes anita will have an appearance in it we've
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  actually already shot this scene Oh, okay. Well, there you go.
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  Yeah, so she'll, you've seen routines, you'll recognize her. Okay, cool. Yeah.
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  And also in the campaign, there's a, we did an adaptation of The Raven called
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  Lenore, which you could also view in the campaign, which is our first part of the anthology. Hmm.
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  Yeah. Now it's, I mean, really the star of anything when you do something like
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  this, I'm sure you'll both agree, is the language.
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  I mean, it's just, I mean, no one talks like this, but no one writes like this anymore.
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  I mean, we stand upon the brink of a precipice.
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  We peer into the abyss. We grow sick and dizzy.
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  Our first impulse is to shrink away from the danger.
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  Unaccountably, we remain. But...
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  It is but a thought, although a fearful one,
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  and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the
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  delight of its horror. I mean, yeah.
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  And you know, Kent, if we were sitting around a campfire and it was three in
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  the morning, we were all a little high, everybody would be really into what you just said.
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  Nobody talks that way anymore. Yeah. We listen to it really well when it's done in the right way.
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  There's got to be some smoke with that kind of language.
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  I've got a little gothic bedtime story called Gothic Goodnight that I've had for a few years.
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  And that's the kind of language that I use in short gothic pieces there.
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  And the delivery, it has to be smoky, you know, like this. It's got to come from here.
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  And then we can hear it because it kind of like just insinuates itself into us.
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  So we can, we can hear that kind of language, but we don't speak it much anymore.
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  Yeah. Or sadly people are just reading it and go that, you know,
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  that sounds, that sounds good.
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  But I mean, to really grasp this stuff is, is yes, it's prose,
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  but it's poetry at the same time.
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  You know how, and I don't know if, if, well, I guess everybody at one time,
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  you've been making love with somebody and maybe they quote a piece of poetry or you quote a piece.
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  I don't mean like a whole poem, but just something is said that sounds so damn
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  poetic that it adds to the experience. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
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  So that's what this is like. It adds to the experience of life,
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  but you have to first seduce people before they're willing to hear that kind of thing.
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  I do think of all art as a seduction.
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  And that's what Dominic is so good at doing with his images is, is seducing people.
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  And I like that. I like that. So that's, that's what I hope it'll be.
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  It's a little, a little short seduction.
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  Yeah. Well, I mean, there, there is this, there is a seductive nature to the
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  Macabre, the way he views the Macabre anyway, I feel. Yeah.
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  Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's romantic.
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  It's romantic language about, you know, the dark places and dark thoughts.
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  I mean, so often when we think of darkness, we think of horror films,
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  we think of something grotesque and violent.
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  But there's, you know, I mean, it's kind of like the way that,
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  what's his name, Eggers did Nosferatu.
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  It's sort of a romantic, more of a, yes, very ephemeral, ethereal,
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  but romantic nonetheless.
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  I mean, Dracula is a very romantic character. edgar's
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  is a edgar's is a good example because he uses language too
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  like specific language and i believe
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  the lighthouse was supposed to be based slightly on
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  the edgar allen poe unfinished novel the
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  lighthouse or something because he had some that film had
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  something to do with poe but i i i like yeah
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  i like his uh the yeah romanticize this thing like poe romanticizes this stuff
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  so when you read a story it just you just it goes immediately into this madness
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  and he just acts like it's normal like it's a normal and even beautiful thing
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  like in a telltale heart when it starts out where he says like I'm not mad.
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  This guy had a hideous eye and it's hideous and if you saw it like he's talking
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  to you like you know like everyone understands this it's not crazy everyone understands this.
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  Yes, and when you hear it read by someone as brilliant as Bill or Vincent Price,
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  there's a seductive quality to the build-up, especially when he gets to the plotting.
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  I knew that his room was small and ill-ventilated.
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  The other thing I really like about Poe is that he's embodied. He's very in the body.
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  In our culture today, we either romanticize the body ridiculously or we're repulsed by it.
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  The real bodies that we actually live in.
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  And Poe, he has all these abstract stuff about madness, but it always comes
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  down to a human body in a situation.
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  In this one, he puts his hand over his mouth so he doesn't scream out, I did it.
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  And a guy is strapped in
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  the pit in the pendulum and you know and rats are all over
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  him and yeah feels the blade it's all
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  poe is always he's almost like
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  body horror but he starts out with a little bit of abstraction same with the
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  the guy who's buried alive so you know it starts out with like you know are
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  people buried alive and a little look into the history and then suddenly you're
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  in the box and you you can't breathe so well anymore and you don't have the
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  strength really to kick anymore of the coffin.
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  It's just horrifying stuff. But he mixes the body with,
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  the intellectual and i like that about him he has
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  sort of plotting like plotting he has sort of
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  the obsession of like how the character is the
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  character thinks like they can have this perfect plot but
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  it always and you realize that they're they're
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  not it's not perfect like the black cat where his perfect plan was to wall the
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  guy out but then the cat's in there and it gives them away and just the simple
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  mistake just unravels everything so it shows that the mind is it's not perfect
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  the mind no matter how perfect you think something is it always could unravel.
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  No i i think that and i like the fact too that you you made a point of saying
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  yeah it's going to be filmed in black and white i'm a huge fan of black and
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  white cinema if i if i ever got the choice if i ever get the chance or the choice
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  to make a movie it would be black and white i remember but Dominic,
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  when we first spoke, we're both the Jim Jarmusch fans. Yeah.
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  And, you know, you think of like Dead Man or even like we were just talking
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  about The Lighthouse, black and white.
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  I mean, some people might say, oh, it's pretentious. You want to film it in
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  black and white, you know?
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  But, I mean, I don't know. I think it's a different – like, have you seen the
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  black and white version of The Mist, Frank Darabont? Yeah.
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  I've seen it, yeah. And I, I think I like it better. I think the black and white.
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  Yeah. And it really adds, it adds to not only the B movie quality that he's,
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  that he's leaning on, but it makes the whole miss.
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  Like, especially when the people walk out into it. Yeah.
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  Like I'd love to, I kind of love to see like.
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  Look if they if they and like people say i
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  just turn the color down on your tv it's not
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  that at all really it's not just draining the color out but i
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  you know i'd kind of like to see like the fog like john calvin
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  is the fog like in black it would be
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  interesting yeah it really strips down everything to
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  the bare essentials and like you have to focus on what's going on there's no
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  distracting colors you have to focus on certain things and you're like the fog
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  and like the mist like in black and white the fog it looks really creepy it
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  looks totally different in black and white than color if you look smoke like
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  a smoke machine like in lenore we had a smoke machine.
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  And it wouldn't have looked the same in color so we had we shot
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  it in black and white it's funny you talked about smoke just
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  then i remember listening to these people talking about
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  photography and they were talking about famous photographs
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  from great sporting events and they said the photographs look
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  really look better back then
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  because people used to smoke in the arena so
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  there's this there's this ambience of this slight
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  this slight haze from the smoke
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  because you know people that is true when people
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  smoke in movies it like adds a texture yeah it's
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  ugly it's like you hear about when they when they talk
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  about ridley scott you know like when they were doing uh blade runner you know
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  so much smoke and everybody you know ridley is there smoke in your house yeah
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  but i mean look it does photographically and especially with something like
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  this i think it's going to add a lot of atmosphere to the already atmospheric.
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  Nature of the piece wouldn't you say yes well ladies and gentlemen don't wait
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  you can be part of this wonderful project because this is only this is only
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  part of a larger project isn't gentleman.
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  We'll be doing more this is an episode and if you,
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  Maybe five or six total. But if you donate to this one, there's an opportunity
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  to also get credit and be part of the next one we're going to do. That's right. Yeah.
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  If you listen to the video, which is a follow the link in the description to
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  the Indiegogo campaign.
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  If you buy it, it's like two for the price of one, isn't it?
• 22:23
  If you contribute to this campaign, you're essentially contributing to the next one. Is that?
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  How it works yes yes i'm going to do some personal video shout outs to say thank
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  you for people who have done this and i want to appeal to and i don't usually do this but,
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  people who may have liked my stuff if you can help us out on this one it'd be
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  great and this is really a passion project if you're a person who also feels
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  like you're you know maybe a misfit and you ever picked up a book of Poe and thought, ah, you know,
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  this guy's weird like me, you know, help us make this thing.
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  And I think you'll like the outcome. So thank you for helping if you can.
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  Awesome. Get over right now. The links are in the description.
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  Go, go to the Indiegogo campaign.
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  The imp of the perverse, you have the chance now to support this wonderful project.
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  And by supporting this project, you are also supporting a larger piece,
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  a larger collection and anthology of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
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  So, I mean, Bill is obviously the star of this one leading forward.
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  Dominic, are you, I mean, future episodes, is there anyone else that we...
• 23:47
  We don't have a particular plan yet for who we're going to cast in future ones
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  yet, but we have an idea for some, maybe some of the stories we want to do. Yeah.
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  Bill, I remember last time we were talking, we were talking about one-man shows.
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  When I interviewed, what's his name? Reanimator, Herbert West.
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  Yeah, Geoffrey Combs. Geoffrey Combs. When I interviewed Geoffrey Combs,
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  he was doing Nevermore at the time.
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  He was doing a one-man show of Ode, which Stuart Gordon, I think,
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  was one of the last things Stuart Gordon directed before he passed away.
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  This is yet another chance, Bill, for you to do a,
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  a one-man show as it were in this
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  one right i may do sometime i get excited about
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  these weird things that i do
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  on film and then i'm like okay now i have to do
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  it on stage too and just kind of migrate so
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  yeah we'll see and with the other post shorts we're trying to focus on ones
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  that really haven't been adapted because there's so many that have been done
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  so many times So I'm rereading through all his stories and trying to find more
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  ones that have never been adapted. And there's a lot. There's a lot.
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  Well, the treasure chest awaits,
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  ladies and gentlemen. Get over to the Indiegogo. Go, go to the Indiegogo.
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  Link in the description, the imp of the perverse.
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  You have the chance to support it. Not just it, but a larger Poe anthology from
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  the wonderful filmmaker Dominic Migliore and starring the mighty Bill Oberst, Jr.
• 25:26
  Check the links in the description. and gentlemen
• 25:29
  thank you once again for being my guest
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  I wish you all the best with the project I hope it succeeds can't wait to see
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  the whole thing I can't wait to see this the whole collection sounds awesome
• 25:42
  I can't wait to hear Bill do this imp of the perverse in total I'll put the
• 25:48
  link in the description too of Vincent Price reading it he does a very,
• 25:53
  I can't do Vincent Price but a very delicious reading you just about did Thank
• 25:58
  you for the boost, Kat. And I'm not insane.
• 26:02
  I'm not. I swear. I'm not insane. Do you believe me?
• 26:08
  I do. I do. You don't have to give me a script for one call.
• 26:14
  Yes. The Imp of the Perverse.
• 26:18
  Edgar Allan Poe's Imp of the Perverse.
• 26:22
  The short horror film. The creators, Dominic Migliore and Bill Oberst.
• 26:28
  Jr get over to the indiegogo check
• 26:31
  the links in the description you can
• 26:34
  be a part of this wonderful project it's
• 26:37
  a smaller part of a larger project the
• 26:40
  imp of the perverse go go to the indiegogo and check the links in the description
• 26:45
  and as always my little eugenites thank you for listening to us on spotify or
• 26:53
  wherever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts on I'm Kent Hill, and until next time,
• 26:57
  you've been listening to Cinema Zero Game.
• 27:03
  Music.