Schmidt’s new film, THE ALPHABET KILLER, has received limited theatrical release and is due for a DVD release this month. I talked with Schmidt briefly about his childhood and career to date.

Jonathan Stryker: You’re from Slippery Rock, PA, which is located about an hour away from George Romero country. Have you been to the locations where he shot NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, MARTIN and DAWN OF THE DEAD?

Rob Schmidt: No, I haven’t been to any of the locations. And NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is this beloved movie of mine. And for some reason I just never – I lived three miles outside of Slippery Rock and it’s a very different kind of town. I guess that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD takes place in this farmhouse, you know, but where I grew up feels like a different part of the country than the Pittsburgh area where he made so many of his movies. Since I made THE ALPHABET KILLER, I have been living in New York, and that’s a lot different than Slippery Rock!

JS: How was life growing up in Pennsylvania?

RS: Well, for me, living near Slippery Rock was a really strange childhood. We lived on a farm that wasn't working anymore. It was on 52 acres and our nearest neighbor was about a mile away. I remember there was a guy who lived in a trailer who had no tongue. He was nice and would bring apples to my family. We also lived near the Amish and they rode past us on their carriages. We used to do all kinds of crazy stuff when we were kids. We used to have bottle rocket fights with each other. Fireworks were legal there. When I was older, it was a dry county, so you weren't allowed to drink there. I remember we had to drive about 40 miles just to get to a bar. Actually, it was probably 25 miles, but when you’re really drunk it seems like it's much farther away. (laughs)

JS: Did television viewing figure into your nocturnal habits?

RS: I wasn't allowed to watch television until it was nine years-old. And at that age I became addicted to it. I also had a love-hate relationship with horror when I was a kid. I actually looked at horror movies as evil. I really thought that horror movies were evil entities. But then it wasn't long until I got over that, obviously.

JS: Which horror films in particular impacted you?

Rob Schmidt: Well, I did go to the movies quite a bit in the 70’s. For me, a seminal experience would be seeing ALIEN. I think that that film is a perfect movie. I was hitting puberty when that film came out and seeing Sigourney (Weaver) in her short panties was a big deal. (laughs) JAWS made a huge impact on me. The sequel to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was the first profoundly disturbing movie that I saw.

JS: My friend Lannie Lorence was the script supervisor on SATURN, your 1999 film about a young man caring for his debilitated father which starred Mia Kirshner and Scott Caan (son of James). What inspired that script?

RS: Lannie if you’re reading this, hello. That script came from my own father’s illness and subsequent death as a result of a brain disorder. I really loved how that movie came out, but some producers sold it and put a really terrible soundtrack on it and re-titled it (SPEED OF LIFE). So, that was a learning experience.

JS: How did WRONG TURN come to you?

RS: Stan Winston had seen SATURN. I don’t know if he had seen CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA, which I did after SATURN, but he was excited about it because he thought that I could direct actors. He wanted someone for WRONG TURN who could bring in believable performances. And when we met I really liked him and I guess he liked me enough to hire me for the movie. His death was a tremendous loss to the film industry.

JS: Yes, it was. I was shocked when he passed. I didn’t even know that he was sick. THE ALPHABET KILLER, which is now in limited release theatrically and is due to arrive on DVD on January 6th, is a supernatural horror story which is loosely inspired by the still-unsolved “double initial killer” that terrorized the Rochester, NY area between 1971 and 1973. Did you have any reservations about tackling a story that was inspired by this real-life case?

RS: Yeah, I had two reservations about the film. One was that it was about children being abused and killed. As a parent, that was something that I had to wrestle with. Secondly, having to fictionalize a real-life scenario was challenging. Making those decisions are tough, but once I had made them, it was a lot easier to follow through.

JS: What are you working on now?

RS: BAD MEAT, which is a disturbing horror film that I am in the process of making. I also hope to do INSOMNIA based on the Stephen King novel of the same name in the near future.