1428 Elm
Fansided

Macabre Gets Masterful: The brilliant minds behind Kane Hodder doc Part II

By Joey Click

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After bringing the bloody brilliant first part of our interview with Masterfully Macabre, the minds behind the Kane Hodder doc, we’re continuing the carnage.

The following was scheduled to be released yesterday. But due to an unforeseen family emergency, it had to be delayed. We sincerely apologize to all parties involved.

To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story — Courtesy of Masterfully Macabre Entertainment

The Intro: 

In the first entry in our two-part interview with Masterfully Macabre Entertainment, we got into the start of the company and how Kane became the center of its debut. It’s a great read and I encourage everyone to check out Part I before heading into the second chapter.

Well today, we’re concluding the carnage with a look at the the minds behind To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story. Are you ready for more fear feigns?

So raise that machete, hack up a few horny teens and honor one of horror’s greats as we continue our conversations with Derek Dennis Herbert and Andrew Barcello, the makers of the recent Kane Hodder documentary.

The Interview:

To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story — Courtesy of Masterfully Macabre Entertainment

Continuing the topic of how Masterfully Macabre got Kane Hodder to open up….

1428 Elm: So you guys say, in a way, we’re steering the ship, but you’re a co-creator on this. If you don’t want it in the film, it won’t be. Which I imagine made him think “These guys are for real.” Because I can only imagine how many times he’s been approached by shady people…

Derek Dennis Herbert: He said he’s been approached about people even trying to make a doc. But they weren’t willing to let it be his words. They wanted to sensor the film. And we don’t sensor. I mean, there’s not a ton of language in it, but that’s just because of the way he told it. But when there’s an F word, it’s in there. But if he says it, it’s important. It’s necessary.

1428: That’s excellent. It’s decisions like that that’ll give you two careers in entertainment. So the film is phenomenal, infusing highly emotional empathetic moments with fun stuff from his filmography. It’s the right balance. Was that always the plan? To strike the right balance?

DDH: Yeah we always knew the film had to be half and half. Half for the horror fans, half for human interest fans who love documentaries. You can’t…well you could. We could’ve made the film all about his career. Actually, at one point we had two movies. And that’s something Andrew pointed out. If it’s not important to Kane directly, we have to cut it.

Andrew Barcello: Yeah the first cut was like six hours or something like that. It really was like two films. And ultimately when I sat down, because I wasn’t on it in the first cut, I showed up and watched the long, the four or six hour version.

So I said “Kane is a great storyteller. He could be talking about going to the store and it would be fascinating.” But you have to say, did this story impact his life. Who he is as a person. And if it didn’t, it had to be cut back a bit. But you have to keep the fun, behind the scenes stories, in there too. And I think we were about to strike a good balance of that.

1428: Oh absolutely, certain parts emphases others. Jumping around in time strengthens the story beats..

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AB: It’s funny you mention that. Initially, we thought it would be chronological. When we story boarded it, it was the beginning of his life to the end, straight through. The problem with that is the beginning of his life isn’t particularity happy. You talk about being bullied and the burning incident, but then you move into the fun stuff — the Jason stuff. Which is fun and uplifting. So we said “the beginning of his life is just sad.” No one will want to sit thought the sad crying stuff for an hour to get to the fun stuff.

DDH: Then we jumped around and that didn’t work. There was no substance when we cut it that way. Well there was substance, but there were a lot of stuff like we broke up the burn into three section. We’d talk about something happy, then back to the burn stuff, then back to happy. And eventually his life being saved. We even broke up the Hatchet stuff up originally too.

So we ultimately went back and restructured. We figured the burn should be told as a whole, but we split up the PTSD stuff from that. Because that brings it back to human interest later on.

AB: Yeah the editing room looked like a psychopath lived there. It was this cork board with posted notes all over it. It looked like someone was plotting a bank heist. And it changed constantly.