ARROW IN THE HEAD VS. POLLY STAFFLE

John Fallon at Comic Con.

We here at PollyStaffle.com are not ashamed to lavish our favorite movies, filmmakers, entertainers and such with praise. We also admit to wearing our influences on our sleeve. That’s why it is an honor to bring you the following Q&A with John Fallon. The Canadian-born writer is the man behind the always entertaining website ArrowInTheHead.com. So after years of interviewing the likes of Stuart Gordon, Mila Jovovich, Rob Zombie, Asia Argento and many, many more, John found himself on the other end of the tape recorder for a few hours, discussing his journalistic career and his adventures in the filmmaking business. John, who just recently sold his screenplay “Trance” to Upload Films, talks about his revenge movie “Deaden,” working on Eric Red’s latest project “100 Feet,” getting cast in a remake of one of his favorite actors’ films and more. All that was printable can be found below.

HITCHHIKING WITH THE HITCHER

John Fallon and Eric Red.

CCF: First off, I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Like I told you before, your site was a great influence and inspiration for PollyStaffle.com. So I really appreciate it.

JF: No problem man. You run a good site.

CCF: Thanks. There’s a lot I want to get to with you and I probably won’t get to half of it.

JF: (LOL)

CCF: So let’s jump right in… I know you were a part of Eric Red’s most recent project “100 Feet,” what can you tell me about that film?

JF: That’s pretty much the biggest part I’ve had in a studio picture so far. “Saw 2” was two lines, I’m gone. “Alone in the Dark” was one line, poof, I disappear. And so forth. What I was happy about “100 Feet” is I got to act with Miss. Famke Janssen and Bobby Cannavale. The film is being cut as we speak, but I would say I have maybe eight minutes of screen time. It wasn’t just one line and I disappear into oblivion.

CCF: Right. So did Eric have you doing anything sick or anything?

JF: It’s all dialogue driven so, it’s me bouncing off Famke and Bobby. There’s no physical stuff. It’s not “Deaden.” I’m not kicking anybody’s ass. I’m basically, I call it, Captain Exposition. I show up early in the picture and I set up the rules of the film. I don’t know if you know the story, but it is about this chick who is put under house arrest for killing her husband. It winds up that the vengeful ghost of her husband is stuck in the house wanting to get even. She can’t leave the house unless she wants to go back to jail and she has this ghost busting her balls and there you go. So basically, I come in and set it all up for the audience.

CCF: So, you’re kind of like the guy in “The Grudge,” the detective (Nakagawa played by Ryo Ishibashi) that kind of explains the whole thing to everybody?

JF: Exactly. I’m there to explain it to the main character (Marnie Watson) played by Famke, but at the same time I am explaining it to the audience.

CCF: You and Eric from what I hear are pretty good friends. How did you guys meet originally?

JF: Oh, that was so long ago. Long story short, he was one of the first people I seeked out to interview when I started the site, because Eric, during my early evolution, was quite the influence on me in terms of writing. He was like my writing idol when I was a kid, teenager and young adult. So I seeked him out and it ended up being one of the longest interviews I had ever done. It was a three hour long interview and we got along, so we kept in touch. A friendship just evolved from that and then I ended up being the best man at his wedding.

CCF: And you have kind of a similar type story with Christian Viel, right?

JF: With Christian, I met him on the set of “Samhain” (now known as “Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain”) as a journalist. I really had to fight to get onto the set because at the time Mr. Viel didn’t know me and he hated journalists…

CCF: (LOL)

JF: Especially internet schmucks like myself. So I get on the set and when he saw me, we both recognized each other. As it turned out, I had auditioned for him a long time ago for an action movie. So yeah, same thing, after that we kept in touch. Christian and I are actually very similar in terms of personality. We really get along, so we ended up working together. Personally, for myself, he is one of the people I like working with the most. He is a very no bullshit kind of guy. I like that and they are, unfortunately, very rare in the film industry.

CCF: Are you ever kind of amazed at what you’ve done with the site and where some of these little friendships have taken you?

JF: Right now, it is just my reality. But I will always remember when Eric Red asked me to be his best man. I had a moment of “Wow.” I was talking with my parents and my mother, in particular, knew of Eric Red because of “The Hitcher,” “The Hitcher,” “The Hitcher.” I kept watching that movie over and over again. Yeah, it is somewhat surreal. As a young teenager, this guy was one of the main reasons I started writing and here I am now, a young adult and I’m going to be the best man at his wedding. I had my little moments like that. Also, the first time we did a run through of my scene with Famke Janssen in “100 Feet” … I mean, it’s Famke Janssen, you know. She’s from “X-Men,” so I had another little moment like, “How the fuck did I get here?”

CCF: (LOL)

JF: But they are very rare at this point. Maybe like four years ago I had a lot of moments like that, but now it’s all just part of my reality. That’s just my life and that’s how it is.

CCF: And with Eric Red, it was mostly “The Hitcher” that had influenced you?

JF: I saw “The Hitcher” as a young teenager and I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was genius writing. It was a whole movie communicated by mostly action without sacrificing character depth, development or relationships in the process. I watched that movie a gazillion times. I got my hands on the script and I read it a gazillion times. It really inspired me as far as story structure and just screenwriting overall.

THE ACCIDENTAL CRITIC

CCF: Before the website, you had a background in acting or you had at least went to film school, right?

JF: I went to film school first for two years but acting was my main thing though. It just goes to show when you are younger, you’re a fucking idiot.

CCF: (LOL)

JF: Acting was my main goal. So I figured, I’ll go to film school, make my own films and put myself in my own films. Ugh, yeah. Real genius idea. So I went to film school and learned the basics. That’s all you do in film school, is learn the basics. You really learn when you are on set. I got out of there and then I told my uncle, who is a local producer here in Montreal, my master plan of putting myself in my own films. He said, “Well, you don’t know how to act, so your plan is kind of flawed.” I said, “No, no, no. I know how to act. I’m a natural.” My uncle said, “Do me a favor, go to acting school for one semester. If you feel you have nothing to learn after that then just quit.” So I thought, “Why not?” So I went to acting school and after one semester I found out I knew shit. So I stayed there for the whole three years and graduated. And I still don’t know shit. (LOL)

CCF: (LOL) After that, did you start doing little bit parts here and there?

JF: Yeah, after that I got an agent, a headshot, resume and started doing the auditioning round here locally. I live in Montreal, Quebec, which is Anglo and French, so I speak both languages. So I got a lot of parts in French - TV shows, French feature films. The peak of that was I got my own variety show where I would interview local talent. I did that for about six months and my show got canceled. Then I started progressing towards English.

CCF: Where did the whole Arrow in the Head thing come in?

JF: That was actually, Berge Garabedian known as JoBlo from JoBlo.com. I think his website was two years in and I had met JoBlo’s brother in acting school. Through his brother I met JoBlo. Then one day out of the blue, JoBlo knew I loved horror films and I knew how to write, he emailed me and said he wanted to start a horror section on the site and asked if I would be interested. So, I thought, “whatever.” Being a critic is not something I ever really wanted to do, but I figured it will keep my writing fresh. So I emailed him back and said, “Okay, if you don’t censor me and you call it Arrow in the Head, I’ll do it.” So he said, “Okay” and that’s how it started.

CCF: Right.

JF: Really, for me it was all for shits and giggles, and also like I said, to keep my writing fresh. The only way to become a good writer is to keep writing. So I just took the job to keep writing. About three to six months in, I was writing my drivel and I started getting directors, screen writers, producers and distribution companies emailing me to either tell me good stuff or to tell me off. So I thought, “Oh, I think I’m on to something here.” I didn’t think anybody would read my shit. I thought, “who gives a fuck?” So I figured I was on to something and thought I might as well run with it. Just like that I had another job to take care of.

CCF: Here you are trying to start this acting career and now this new thing starts to catch on. How hard is it to juggle the two?

JF: It’s very hard on varied levels. The good thing is I’m a workaholic. Arrowinthehead.com right now, for me is a good 40 hours a week job. Put on top of that everything else that I’m doing and you’ve got a man that works his fucking ass off around the clock. So it is hard. It takes a lot out of me and it takes its toll. I at least crash every three months where there’s that one day where I can not function. (LOL)

CCF: Right.

JF: I’m exhausted, so I just sleep all day and then I start again. So, yeah, it’s a lot of work. The other thing I have encountered is conflict of interest. Here I am auditioning for this director as an actor and at the same time I am writing a review of one of his films. The first time I found myself in that position, a decision had to be made. One thing about Arrow in the Head I always said was, “The day were I can not be one hundred percent honest with my readers is the day I will quit.” So I decided to be honest. I made enemies that way though – so be it. (LOL)

CCF: There’s kind of that thing anyway with a site like yours and with mine. I talk to you or I talk to Christian or somebody and I like the guy, then I go and watch one of their movies and say I don’t like the film and think, “Oh man, this is horrible.” (LOL) I end up having this situation where I think, “How do I rip on this guy?” For you it would be like ten times worse because you are probably thinking, “Hey, I might work with this guy.”

JF: It’s tricky. It’s tricky. It was for me especially in the earlier days. Now the site has gotten bigger than me. But for the first three or four years it was all me. Everything was done just by me – the reviews, the interviews, the columns, everything. Now I got about nine employees, so that helps. If I see a huge conflict of interest and there is no way for me to get around it then I just won’t cover the film. I’ll just give it to one of my guys and he’ll cover it objectively. One of the reason I feel the site became successful is it’s a no bullshit site. We don’t bullshit. We don’t kiss ass. We don’t suck dick. We say it like it is. So it is very important for me to retain that. Having nine other people that contribute to the site helps me be able to do that while being in the industry on varied levels.

CCF: Yeah, that’s the thing about it, if something is crap, then its crap and you will say that. At the same time, what I really loved about your site, and I’ve been reading it since the very early, early days, is how funny it is. Most film critics take themselves so serious and you weren’t really approaching it from the film critic point of view, you were approaching it more from a fan point of view. You always made it funny, no matter how serious a movie it was you were reviewing.

JF: I never considered myself a critic. I still don’t consider myself a critic.

CCF: (LOL)

JF: I’m just a guy with an opinion and I write about it online. Some people read it. Some people don’t. Some people like it. Some people don’t. That’s it. At the same time, one thing I consciously tried to do when I started ArrowInTheHead was to also have fun. Just have fun. Don’t take yourself seriously. They’re just movies. People love movies, but they’re just movies. I had a lot of readers that emailed me and said although I don’t agree with a lot of your reviews, I read them anyways because they’re entertaining. I like hearing that because that was my goal.

CCF: You don’t have to tell me who, but do you have any stories about a director…

JF: (LOL)

CCF: ... or whoever that just got really angry about something you wrote?

JF: Ugh… (LOL) I have a lot of stories.

CCF: (LOL)

JF: A lot of stories. (LOL) We’ll leave it at that.

(Continued - Click to read Part II)