Cult Files: An interview with Mark Lester

By Calum Waddell

(07/12/06) - Mark Lester is probably best known to cult cinephiles as the man who helmed the controversial cult shocker Class of 1984 (1982) a film that was banned during the video nasty sweep of yesteryear but which is now poised for a comeback on DVD. As with many of the filmmakers that became familiar to horror fans as a consequence of their one defining bout of notoriety, it is sometimes surprising to learn about their careers outside of the genre. Indeed, Lester's biggest hit was with Commando (1985) – the Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle that propelled the muscle bound star to even greater fame and fortune. Brutal and hugely profitable – Commando was one of many back to back hits for the Austrian beefcake, although – strangely – the film failed to ignite Lester's career as a commercial force. Post-Commando, Lester took on such projects as the failed buddy comedy Armed and Dangerous (1986), which starred the late, great John Candy and Meg Ryan, and the inevitable Class of 1999 in 1990. The following year's Showdown in Little Tokyo saw the director working with Brandon Lee - and the film remains well remembered largely because of this – but it would be a while before Lester returned to the horror genre.

Currently Lester is riding high on the back of his own company American World Pictures. Selling a number of quality genre productions around the world (including Jeff Lieberman's Satan's Little Helper) and also producing some low budget in-house pictures – Lester is poised to enjoy continuing success in the industry.

Kamera met with the filmmaker – whose other credits include the dopey Linda Blair disco movie Roller Boogie and the superior Stephen King adaptation Firestarter – at the Cannes Film Festival. Amusingly, Lester actually fell asleep during the following conversation – largely because he mentioned to us that he and his wife had been out partying through until the very early hours of the morning. Indeed, it took some effort to convince him to sit down for an interview and, even then, he only agreed after another fix of coffee. A very professional and straight faced presence – Lester was nevertheless open to talk about his career, even if it was through a state of serious sleep deprivation...

Mark, the earliest film of yours that I have been able to track down is your comedy Whitehouse Madness – but I am fully aware that you made movies prior to this picture. Would you care to tell me a little bit about your start in the industry?

I started in documentaries – working in San Francisco. My first movie was called Twilight of the Mayas about the mining in Mexico and then I did a movie called Tricia's Wedding, which was about the wedding of Nixon's daughter Tricia. It featured drag queens in the Whitehouse and Whitehouse Madness was actually a sequel to that. It was much later... and in between that I did Steel Arena, which was a race car movie, and Truck Stop Women – then I did Whitehouse Madness. That was a purely fictionalised comedy and, actually, it was quite a catastrophe because we opened the film the night that he (Nixon) quit! He resigned and nobody showed up because they didn't want to kick him while he was down – which was completely opposite to the reaction we had with Tricia's Wedding. But with Whitehouse Madness, they weren't interested anymore, Nixon had gone...

Whitehouse Madness isn't exactly sympathetic to Republican politics, which is kind of interesting when you consider that you did your bit to make Arnold Schwarzenegger a megastar with Commando, a few years later...

Well that was not a political film, of course, although he happened to be in it. But, no, I never thought of that before – that is interesting... (Mark shoots yours truly a steely glare that may indicate asking him anything else about politics is far from wise...)

Okay, so let's talk about some of the stars you've worked with, because you've had some of the best in your movies over the years. Let's start with Robert Forster on Stunts in 1977...

Well he was a good actor - he had some very good ideas – but he always wanted to change the ending of the movie so it would be like Medium Cool – it would all turn out to be a film within a film. He suggested that idea while we were making it... it took him a long time to get his career going again, didn't it?

1986's Armed and Dangerous hooked up Meg Ryan with John Candy. That was pretty good casting going by anyone's standards...

I just always had an eye for finding talent and knowing they were going to be stars. So, yeah, Meg Ryan in Armed in Dangerous – she just came in to a casting audition and I immediately thought that she was good. It was the same with Michael J. Fox - I hired him to be in Class of 1984 after a reading. Drew Barrymore – I interviewed 150 girls for that role in Firestarter and she was the best one. So, fortunately, I have been able to pick out good people.

Stephen King's novels have been notoriously difficult to adapt to the screen – what were some of the challenges when it came to turning Firestarter into a movie?

Well I tried to follow the book almost exactly, although there were some story holes that didn't make any sense – but if you really studied the book and then tried to adapt it to the screen... it was really difficult. Especially to make things work such as people reading minds – how do you show that on the screen? But we worked very closely with Stephen King the whole time during the writing and he approved the final script. He had a lot of ideas for the film including making her (Drew's) eyes a different colour and making her hair blow out, you know? Later he said, 'Oh that wasn't my idea, it was (Dino) Delaurentis' (the producer) – but King was involved every step of the way.

Moving on to Commando – the stunts for that movie must have been a challenge – you've got some pretty extreme stuff going on in that film: Arnie leaping from a moving plane during take-off, swinging across a shopping mall, blowing everything up that can be blown up...

It wasn't really so bad, because I had so many years experience of directing stunts and it was much easier to do them on a bigger budget. The studio was behind it, so they had a lot of people working on the film. Arnold was great to work with. He hadn't made that many films and he listened to every instruction I had. The stunts were done by stunt doubles – he did charge through some glass at one point, so he was willing to do some things – but mainly he just did the close ups. We did a close up of him on the wheel of the plane as it takes off but then it was stunt people in the wide shots.

Let's talk about Class of 1984 – are you aware that the film was quite controversial in Great Britain?

What was the controversy?

Well... uh, they banned it...

It wouldn't be banned now though?

No, in fact it's coming out on DVD now. Are you involved in that?

Yes, I am very involved with that and I did the commentary for it too. I went back through all of my records and I had special stills that I gave Anchor Bay. There's a 'making of' documentary on the DVD that I did extensive interviews for – interviews with myself and other people. There will be a whole package to go along with the film.

How did Class of 1984 play in America?

Oh, it was a huge sensation all over the world and it proved to be very controversial because it was considered to be very violent, but by today's standards it is not. You should go and watch the film again – it really isn't so violent. It was also really prophetic because it predicted Columbine and so many other terrible events that would happen in the schools, but at the time it was considered to be laughable that kids would go through metal detectors and bring guns to class and kidnap teacher's wives - but now it is commonplace. Hostage situations and violence in schools... that is just normal now. So it was very much a Clockwork Orange type of movie – I wanted something in that vein.

The death-by-band saw ending is pretty cool as well...

I knew it was the main scene in the movie – because it was the first scene where the teacher took revenge on the kids and that is where he changes from pacifism to revenge mode. The audience wanted the kids to die and it was just an incredible reaction in every theatre, no one's seen someone thrown onto a chainsaw before.

Did you want the audience to be on the side of the teacher in Class of 1984? Or did you ever want the audience to stop and think, 'You know – maybe this isn't the right way to go about things... taking a band saw to the students...?'

I wanted them to be on the side of the teacher – it's a Blackboard Jungle kind of movie and I wanted the teacher to make the transition and show the very ironic situation where they are there to educate but all this violence is taking place. It was designed from the teacher's point of view. I was thinking, 'How can you have a teacher come to a school to teach kids and by the end of the movie they are cheering him for killing the kids?' That was my concept – how could I get people to accept that and cheer for that to happen? So that was my drive throughout the whole movie – to say, 'That would be something if you could actually believe in it at the end... that a teacher would finally resort to killing his own students.'

Did you get any feedback from teachers that might have seen the film?

No - Nothing.

I think that Class of 1999 is a better film than Class of 1984 – although it has nothing in common with the predecessor. So why do an in name only sequel?

I just didn't want to do the stuff with the kids all over again, you know? I thought, 'What if I do a Westworld kind of idea... set in the future?' Another idea of what could happen...

Did you have any censorship problems with Class of 1984?

Yes, Class of 1984 was banned in Switzerland, I think, and Sweden was the other country...

I have heard that there is a Director's Cut of Class of 1999, which is much more violent. True or false?

Well I was the director and I don't have any additional cut.

Class of 1999 is probably best remembered for having Pam Grier, Stacy Keach and Malcolm McDowell and John P. Ryan together in the cast. A B-movie collective!

They were all great and they were fantastic actors – all of them really got into the part, and then Pam Grier was re-launched by Quentin Tarantino.

Class of 1999 focuses on the use of drugs and firearms in high school – was that a problem that you saw as being relevant to the time?

(Poor Mark is nodding off here, but springs back to life in a second or two...)

Oh, yeah... I was just projecting it going even further than in Class of 1984. Even in Los Angeles today they are closing schools because kids are rioting and shooting each other and it is totally out of control. I had read about areas in Los Angeles where the schools were under the control of gangs and the police were going in there so in the movie I had areas of the city that run by the gangs and you have to go through special crossings like in Iraq. In LA there are areas that even the police are afraid to go – just some places where the gangs are.

Why weren't you involved in Class of 1999 Part 2?

Well what happened was that I sold the rights to it. When I made the first Class of 1999{e/m} it was for Vestron Video - the company that made Dirty Dancing. They financed the movie and, under the financial agreement, they got to buy the sequel rights. Then somebody came in and bought them (the rights) but he never came to me. He was a producer on Class of 1999 and, in kind of an unethical way, he just went around everybody and bought the rights and then sold them again. Another guy I know bought the rights to a script called 3000, which became Pretty Woman. When the company was falling apart all of the employees became vultures and they just grabbed what they could, including Class of 1999.

You've produced, directed, written – and now you have your own company that also sells movies. So what do you enjoy the most?

I enjoy all aspects of the business – it's all about where I am in my life at the time. At the moment I have the sales company, through which I've sold fifteen of my own films that I have directed and now we are selling a lot of other people's movies. I have a family, I don't really want to travel around the world making films – production has left LA, now you have to go to Eastern Europe to make a film that can recoup its investment. So I got tired of producing - and the problems that go alongside that – unions and labour problems, although I did shoot Pterodactyl in August in the Czech Republic and that was a fantastic experience.

When you produced The Funhouse for Tobe Hooper, you had Universal behind you. What's better – being an independent, as you are now, or making a movie with the support of a major studio?

It's always better to have a studio behind you than to be an independent. You don't always get to do what you want but there is no risk either, so there you go...

So do you have any last words on your company – American World Pictures?

What we are doing here at American World... because I have been a filmmaker my whole life, I saw the need for a company that would fulfil filmmakers dreams of getting their film made, distributed, out there and also someone to promote the film. So we are open to filmmakers bringing us their projects and we've been funding portions of films, whole films, buying films and distribution rights – right now we have twenty new films we are distributing. Just any way that we can help the filmmakers...