HORROR AUTEUR: An Interview with Zeph Daniel

There’s a new documentary about the creative backstory of the notorious satiric horror film Society, featuring the film’s screenwriter Zeph Daniel (née Woody Keith).

The documentary, directed by Larry Carrell, is called The Darkside of Society.

Despite debuting during the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and quickly becoming a cult movie sensation in Europe, Society’s shocking body horror climax and subversive message about the rich literally preying on the poor, kept American distributors from releasing the film until 1992. It promptly bombed at the box office domestically.

Now, 36 years later, Society is recognized among the most important and influential horror films of the late 20th Century. It’s shocking, hellish, Hieronymus Bosch-like climax raised the stakes for mind-melting “can you top this?” make-up and practical special effects (designed and accomplished in the film by Joji Tani, better known by his professional pseudonym, Screaming Mad George), and adding subversive narrative subtext suggesting the horror on the screen is but a blink compared to the true horror of the culture in which we live.

I’ve grown to know and become a friend of Zeph Daniel over the past couple years. He is a remarkably brave and unique human being, and I wanted to talk with him about the new movie and the older one and what it all meeeeeeeans. The interview is easily accessed atop this page, but if you prefer Rumble or YouTube, it’s there too: RUMBLE /// YOUTUBE .

I first saw Society at a midnight movie in 1992 or 1993, and it freaked me out so bad I got nauseous and nearly vomited. Three decades later, I’ve become so numb to horrors, both Holly Wood and the news cycle, that a second look at the film and its notoriously gruesome climax merely gave me the “Ick.” It’s a movie years and years ahead of its time, a work of savant genius from a then-broken soul striving to discover a way out. Thank God he found it!