We Dared to Say His Name Above a Whisper: Paul Ehlers Brings the Madman to Scared Stiff, Part I

Exclusive Interview by Geno McGahee

“I think a return to something a little more suspenseful, something to keep us more on edge, and then have the payoff rather than starting by dropping pails of blood from the first frame is the way to go.”– Paul Ehlers, the Madman

When you think of an unstoppable killer in the woods of the horror world, one name probably comes to mind: Jason Voorhees, and rightfully so. He has been marketed well, maintains popularity to this day, and is being reborn again in a remake. Others may think of Cropsy from the 1981 horror classic “THE BURNING,” a man wielding hedge clippers and attacking campers. Some of you die hard horror fans may even be thinking about the Monster in the 1984 film “THE PREY,” but there was one other killer…a man…a Madman to be precise that carried and axe and presented an unstoppable force. The 1982 film “MADMAN” is a quality horror film, featuring a memorable killer. It is one of my favorite horror movies and had it had the right ambition behind it and the correct bankroll, we may be talking about MADMAN VIII right now, but we are not. There is only one, but I’m happy to report that it won’t be that way for too much longer.

Paul Ehlers played the role of MADMAN, the insane farmer that killed his family and is now rewriting history, preparing for a remake of the film and a second shot at horror greatness on a large scale. Along with his son Jonathan, he is bringing back the Madman, and this, if it’s done correctly and by all indications, it will be, could potentially turn this horror world back around to where it was and where it should be. This second chance for MADMAN may bring another horror franchise to the fans and should. Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers have run their course and have, arguably, become stale. Madman will be a fresh face and will bring in the youth that love horror and want to see the new kid on the block and the people of my generation that are nostalgic and want the axe wielding killer to return.

I recently sat down with Ehlers to discuss the 1982 classic as well as the return of horror, the industry, the direction of Hollywood and his successfully and possibly surprising career outside of horror.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Scared Stiff brings you Madman Marz himself, Paul Ehlers…

GM: In 1982, MADMAN was released. How did you land the role of Madman and what acting experience did you have prior to this film?

OK, I had been doing a lot of voiceover work and acting pretty much throughout film school. I went to the school of visual arts, and I guess that I showed some natural aptitude at acting. So rather than bring people in from the outside, they went cheap and they decided to use me for just about every movie that they made. I was like Lon Chaney, SR., man. There were like a million different things that I would wear…costumes and faces and beards and hair, and I wound up doing that and I also was very fortunate to do some voiceover work for some of the students and their animations, and I had fun with that.

My friends and I, when we were kids, and I’m sure a lot of people have done this…I know Steven Spielberg did and some of these other guys…we did things in super 8. The funny thing is that my good friend, Larry…when he was growing up, he was making really low budget, no budget, horror films, and I was doing espionage movies and I remember we would actually go to some place like New York’s Kennedy Airport and film spy scenes and we’d actually go with these plastic replica guns with us.

We’d have them under our coats and have shoot outs in the bathrooms and I cannot even imagine today what that would be like. That would be so crazy, but you know it’s funny, because in visual arts, of course, I love acting and I also love very much directing and it so happens that when I got out of college, my background from childhood was primarily as an artist, drawing, and it just so happens that I fell into more commercial art jobs then I did any film work. That kind of took hold and it was about 1979 and I was doing various commercial jobs…illustration jobs, and a friend of mine…actually a friend of his was making a low budget film, independent film. It was the guy’s first movie and as with many young filmmakers I think that they wanted to do something exploitive…an exploitation movie, so they could bring in the money that they needed to do their very “serious” film. So, MADMAN became the exploitation movie.

I know that they were working on it for a bit and trying out a bunch of different people for the part of “Madman.” They tried some very tall guys and so forth and what happened was that I was in there, talking to them, and they wanted me to do the poster for the film and I did a variation of it, but the one you see now commercially. The one with the silhouette that everyone knows is basically taken from a photograph that they illustrated over. So, no, I did not do that poster, but the one that I was going to do…I was describing to Gary Sales, the Producer, and Joe Giannone, the Director, how I was going to illustrate this character. I was kind of like moving and snarling and doing these weird hand movements. They looked at each other and said: “What are you doing for the next two months?” So I landed the role as Madman Marz, and it was, for me, very exciting because I grew up on horror movies. Every Saturday, we had matinees, and we’re talking about the fifties now. I got to see all that great fifties stuff when I was a little kid…the Wayne Castle movies and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. All the best stuff…RODAN. You should really see them when you are a kid. Then you have this overwhelming impression that lasts you the rest of your life.

We came up from that with all my friends reading famous monster magazines, Castle of Frankenstein, and Creepy and Eerie, and all that stuff, and we just got off on all this horror stuff. To me, it was just very cool for me to have grown up with this love of the genre and then being asked to be in a film and to actually be wearing make up and stuff…so, it was really great for me. I really enjoyed doing it a lot. It was memorable. It was an experience that I never forgot and hope to relive shortly.

GM: There was a supposed rewrite of the script when it was discovered that a similar film “THE BURNING” was being produced. Is there any validity in that?

That is true. I think that everybody scrambled. The Cropsy maniac is kind of a legend in New York camps became the theme for really both films, and I think that the way it came down, as I understand it, Gary and Joey were interviewing actresses to be in MADMAN and an actress came over and said: “Your script is something very similar to something that I read for a while ago.” And it was THE BURNING and everybody panicked. So THE BURNING remained THE BURNING and Joey regrouped and went back and put together MADMAN and fortunately, because it turned out to be their own special little story and I know that they had to really get it done quickly. A lot of things were in place like the money and stuff like that, so something had to be done very quickly.

GM: There were three movies released around the same time and they all kind of had the same feel. You had MADMAN, THE BURNING, and FRIDAY THE 13TH. Why do you think that FRIDAY THE 13TH made it so far, while the other two, which were just as good or better, didn’t really take off with the public?

I think the sexuality of Betsy Palmer…only kidding…and I know Betsy from conventions and she is just a fabulous person. She’s a great woman. You know, I’m not sure. You know, I thought about that. I thought why we, at one point, faded into relative obscurity, and FRIDAY THE 13TH caught on so well. It’s a mystery to me. I think that our production values are not so greatly different. I don’t think that that varies that much. Both monsters are a lot of fun. It could be more went into the promotional stuff for FRIDAY THE 13TH. Maybe better word of mouth at that point? I don’t know. You would almost have to speak to some people back at the time and see what inspired them to go see them.

GM: When you look at the development of Jason Voorhees from little kid to weapon wielding monster, do you feel that the creators sort of borrowed some ideas from MADMAN?

I think so. I think that what started to happen is that so many of these monsters start overlapping with each other and I think that you can’t avoid that after a while. You take what works. You’re going to take what’s successful and if it’s different weapons…if it’s machetes or axes…whatever may work along those lines. I think in time, with Jason becoming this killing machine…this unstoppable thing, which he became was really a great feature of him, and I don’t think that there is a way you cannot borrow from other people of the genre, unless you are…I’m not even sure. It’s almost like you need an alien creature to bring in originality to that kind of slasher character. What changes is the motive of death you have in films. I think that is something that changes. It becomes more horrific in many ways. In many ways, it becomes more repulsive, leaving less to the imagination of the viewer, which at times, can be a very strong thing to rely on. I don’t know about you, but I know how freaky my mind can get when I hear something or when I imagine something. So there’s a lot to be said for what is going on even off camera…what we are not showing the audience.

I think that too much of “in your face” becomes just that and I think that we become use to it and we become callus. We no longer get shocked or effected by it as well as we should. If anything, I think a return to something a little more suspenseful, something to keep us more on edge, and then have the payoff rather than starting by dropping pails of blood from the first frame is the way to go.

GM: I think that that is why THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was successful because it left it all up to your imagination.

Absolutely. The great thing is that they were the first to kind of do it that way. I think that it gave it that uniqueness and quality, but it’s a tough way to handle things. You have to know how to manipulate the audience. You have to have a sense of pacing and timing with what you are seeing on the screen. Your acting is important in cases like that. Music, which I think is so vital in every film. It’s interesting where horror is, in fact, going. It’s becoming something so visceral. It’s like the games that people play. You can almost reach out and touch the gore. If that is the only that is a measure of success, then I don’t know if that’s the best achievement. It seems like that is the easy thing to do and if people are expecting to see that, then it’s just one person outdoing another person with how much of that is shown. You know, scare them with something basic. Scare them with something primal. If we can go back to real primal fear like why are we really afraid of the dark? What is out there? What’s creaking or breathing or whose eyes are those? Leave a little of that to the imagination and then wham, when you pay it off, then scare the living shit out of them. That’s what I would strive to do myself.

GM: In MADMAN, we had the unique death scenes, the memorable killer, and the tremendous pace of the film. How do you feel about the finished product and how do you compare it to the movies of that time that are similar like THE BURNING, THE PREY, and FRIDAY THE 13TH?

Well, what I liked a lot about the Marz character was that he would come in kind of this unstoppable freight train kind of a way. He’d do his damage and be gone until next time. In many ways I enjoyed what Joey did with you not seeing him all of the time. I thought that there was something working well with that. It was certainly enough intimation of where he was. You know, a lot of what happened and I mentioned to many before, a lot of the times you just see Marz’s hand come around the tree and what had happened at the time, was that we had different prosthetics sent to us at various times during filming. I think that after two weeks, he only had a right hand. So, we worked around this hand a lot. We used that. They pay off in the sense that you’re dealing with a maniac and you’re dealing with a “when is this thing going to hit.” I think expecting that kind of terror…trying to be creative in how you bring the character into contact with the players in this film and again, part of it is how unique these murders are and how the kills are, you know. And, of course, the acting varies so much in every film.

The thing that I always thought worked very well with MADMAN was I thought that our production values were high. The camera work was really good. The photography was good, the lighting was excellent. It had that creepy, eerie feel to it. Shooting only at night was a bit grueling but we did that, but I think that that separated MADMAN from the others at that time. It had that creepy, at night shooting and the “something is out there in the dark” kind of thing.

GM: I thought that MADMAN was shot very well with the less is more mentality, much like SNOWBEAST. When you don’t’ show your hand and when you see Madman just sitting up there in the trees, which is one of the most famous scenes, it sets the tone a lot better than a killer going crazy over and over again.

The cool thing about that is that every single person who was young at the time, as I would have been when I was most impressionable. I would give anything to see MADMAN with new eyes from the perspective of an eight year old kid for the first time. So I can truly, truly judge how scary it was compared to things that I saw when I was eight years old. It is so hard as adults. We become so used to so many different varieties of horror on the screen, we become very hard at what we look at. I’ve become very hard at what I look at. It’s like show me something that I haven’t seen and if you’re going to show me something, it’d better be good.

It takes a lot today for something to scare me in film. Back then, life was simpler and I could still do it. I loved that feeling of terror that I would have watching stuff. So, a lot of you have spoken to me and had a chance to see MADMAN when you were very young and that seen that has creeped everybody out was that scene with Madman silhouetted in the trees. It’s great stuff and I’m going to try not to disappoint the fans with all of that if we get around to the remake.

GM: Were you ever approached to play another horror villain considering that you played Madman Marz?

No, not really. I kind of did the film and then scurried back into the art field. I was certainly there. I was prepped and ready to go, but as it happened, I got more involved in illustration and then I got involved in knife designing after a while, and that kept me really busy. I was really wrapped up in that. I would have loved to have done something, of course.

GM: Was there ever any mention of a sequel to MADMAN?

There was at the time. I know that Joey the director and Gary the producer had gotten together several years back and did write a sequel story…not a remake, but an actual sequel involving the Madman versus a motorcycle gang…or something along those lines…something in the mountains. From my sense after reading it, it seemed more action than horror. That did not come to pass.

GM: That might’ve been a good thing.

Well, it could have worked too. There are a lot of places to put the old farmer, where he’ll do his best work. Why not with Hell’s Angels?

GM: Now here’s a question that you may not even know the answer to, but I’m just curious. Why did he go stark raving mad? What was the reason behind that?

Well, the main thing is that he had a TV show that he would watch every week and the kids broke the rabbit ears on his TV and he sat down to watch his show and he opened his bottle of beer and he was so pissed off, he went stark raving mad. None of that is true. I have no idea. Thank God I blacked out to why that happened. My conscious is clear. I do not remember that night that well when I did those terrible, terrible things to those people. I could make up some bullshit about it, but I won’t.

GM: Well, I like the rabbit ears story.

Yeah, well when Dad can’t watch his show, he gets very furious. Can you see Dad in there when he sees the broken rabbit ears? (makes Madman roaring noises). “Oh shit, Dad’s pissed off again. Get the axe mom.” You never know with him.

GM: Madman was hanged by the townies and then axed in the face and then the next morning he was missing. I have always assumed he was alive and lived through that but there is the contention that he is actually a zombie. He may have died and came back.

That could be very true. We were leaving that up to the viewer’s perception because when he was struck with the axe, he was struck deeply in the face and through the jaw, enough to fray the rope. So the rope was weakening and at some point, in the night, God knows what happened. He is gone the next day. I’d like to think that he was more of a primal type of thing.

What I’m doing with the remake…what we’ve done…my son Jonathan and myself, who was born at the time when we were making the first film. I have told this story many times where my beeper was going off and it was like two in the morning and he was about to be born and I had to drive like an hour and a half to this hospital. I went to get the costume off but I wasn’t able to get everything off but I couldn’t find the people…the costume people at the time. Somebody went to the bathroom…I don’t know. I’m covered in blood and driving like a madman to the hospital and I pull up to the hospital and I run in and I yell: “Where’s maturnity?” And they go: “No sir, you want emergency!” So, it was this crazy, crazy thing that really did happen. Lo and behold, after all of these years, I kind of keep track of how old my son is because this November, he’ll be 28 and that is how long ago we actually shot the film.

What I’m doing with the remake is that we have been working together on a screenplay for a bit and what I decided to do, and I know that people want to see sequels but, I wanted to do a remake in the sense that at the time, when I was involved in the film, I was hired to play Madman, and I did it the best that I could, but I was really a guy from a horror background. I remember after we wrapped at night…well, we’d wrap at sunrise was the way that it worked, and I would think a lot about how scenes were done…how I would have tried to do them a little bit differently or perhaps making them more frightening. That’s what I basically did after all of these years. I kind of did that. I wrote that up. My son wrote the dialogue with me. He’s written some really meaningful dialogue, even though it’s for a horror film and what I’m going to give everybody with this is the Madman as a horror guy that I would have put together. This is kind of a different take on it, although I am following the storyline very closely.

GM: Outside of financial issues that you may face while trying to make this movie, are you concerned about licensing rights, or do you own the rights to MADMAN already?

The rights are owned right now by Gary Sales. Joey Giannone and Gary owned them. It flipped back and forth for a while. I know that Anchor Bay had them for a time and it was on DVD and then I think that it was on VHS for a while, and then the rights finally moved over to Joey and Gary and then a couple of years back, Joey passed away very suddenly. Gary currently has the rights to the MADMAN film and is involved in this too. We have been working with Gary and sort of all together on the script and so forth. How all of us are going to play into this down the road when this comes together, I’m not quite sure.