Interview with Closet Space Director Mel House

 Any movie with the word "closet" in the title holds a special place in our hearts. And Mel House, director of Closet Space, was kind enough to invite us into his closet to chat about his upcoming film.

What's Closet Space about? Why should horrorheads see it?

Closet Space centers on five graduate students searching for their missing professor. At first they have no idea where the guy went to - he's just gone. When the students get out to the "site" (which is a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere), they discover a door that opens up onto a seemingly endless, lightless pocket dimension. The laws of nature and physics are merely the first layers to be peeled back and discarded as the group continues their inexhaustible search for their mentor—which leads them deep inside the ‘Closet Space.’ But…there are things that live inside the vast emptiness. Horrible, hungry things. With tentacles.

First of all, I think horror aficionados should check out Closet Space because I think we succeeded in making a dark and gruesome picture.  Too often these days you see people making horror flicks just to "cash in" or whatever, because the genre is a proven moneymaker. 

The people involved in Closet Space actually love the genre. It's not a joke to us. We are in this for the long haul. In addition, what we tried to do with Closet Space was make a low-budget horror movie...without all the trappings of low-budget horror moviemaking that you see so often these days. Every new horror flick on the shelves seems to be some 10th-generation slasher rip on Scream, or worse yet, a horror-comedy. Then, if you're suckered into a rental by some (probably misleading) box art, you get little to no delivery on the special effects front. Compounding that, what little FX gags you do get treated to are really, really bad CGI. Fortunately, just about all of our special FX on Closet Space were done practically (by the extremely talented guys at Oddtopsy FX), and what little digital stuff we have is being handled by Visual Odyssee, who are masters of their game.

You started a blog to convey the trials and tribulations of guerilla moviemaking. Can you give us a rundown of those challenges while bringing Closet Space to completion?

Yeah, the blog's gotten me into some trouble in the past - but no more than my mouth has, I guess. I have a notoriously short temper and it comes through in the virtual world as well. Sometimes I hop on there and just vent all my frustrations with no filter or remorse - but it gives me an outlet. As a direct result of that, I don't think I've actually yelled at anyone on set.

Oddly enough, the most challenging thing for everyone on the Closet Space set was adjusting to a real movie shoot. Most everything everyone had worked on before was your usual student film, shot in the backyard stuff. A couple of us had worked on other, more ambitious films (Necrophobia comes to mind), but this time we had a pretty large crew, a special effects team, various mechanical and makeup FX gags, set construction, soundstages (of a sort), on-location shooting, and tentacle monsters.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog