So, this past Saturday, I was lucky enough to sit down with Derek Dennis Herbert, who’s the director of To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story. That’s right, Herbert and Masterfully Macabre Entertainment are in production on a documentary about Kane – seriously, I’m more badass than you can even imagine – Hodder.
Not only have they scored all kinds of groovy interviews, the list includes Cassandra Peterson, Robert Englund, Bruce Campbell, Danielle Harris, and a slew of other horror greats, but they’re also focusing the film on Kane’s injury and recovery at the awesome Bothin Burn Center.
Interview with Derek Dennis Herbert
Slickster: So I don’t want to take up too much of your time, here. How’s everything going?
Derek Dennis Herbert: It’s going great. Yesterday was a big day for the campaign because it was Friday the 13th. We released a video with Kane making an important announcement.
I saw! That was pretty fantastic.
Yeah, it’s gotten close to 56,000 views. Our trailer doesn’t even have those kind of numbers. It’s those kind of videos where you get a hit and then TMZ picked it up.
Fantastic! I guess I really wanted to start with Masterfully Macabre because you guys have a very unique kind of mission statement. Usually when you see horror documentaries, they’re focused on a specific film or a franchise, like Never Sleep Again. They’re not usually focused on the people who make horror. So I was just wondering, I mean it’s awesome, but why this?
Well, I’m a huge horror fan. And I’ve always loved Kane and Elvira and Robert Englund and those kinds of people. And I heard their stories, I read Kane’s book and Robert’s book, and they just have such good personal stories as well as professional lives. And so I thought, why hasn’t someone done this? Kane’s book had done extremely well. And it was done as kind of a catharsis for him. To tell his story and about how he was burned.
And so I thought, “Why don’t we tell these people’s stories for the horror community, but not only for the horror community?” I thought that Kane’s story, being burned and bullied, worked as a human interest story.
So it was really the book that lead you to Kane Hodder’s story, then?
Yeah. It was the book and then there were a few videos online where he went into a few details. You just saw him as a person. How well-spoken he is and how good he is at convening his story. And just how likable he is. Often, with the horror personality, you think they are their character. And not of them are. They’re always very nice people who play the villains.
And if it’s someone who has been burned… He doesn’t publicize it, but he goes to burn wards. He knows that giving back to the people will me just as much as when he was given back to. He saw that people were able to live a normal life and still be happy, post burn. A lot of people, when they’re burned, they can lose all hope. And seeing someone with scars telling you that ‘it’s going to be okay’ and seeing someone that’s risen to the ranks that he has means that if he can do it, I can do it.
And so that’s really what lead you to Bothin, right? It came from his connection with them.
Exactly. He’s mentioned them extensively in our interview sessions with him. And when we started playing around with the idea of doing an Indiegogo or a campaign in general, it was always very clear: let’s do something for them. If we’re going to do a charity, let’s do one that means so much to Kane.
Because they saved his life, literally. So much of his medical care before was just horrible and he went [to them] on death’s door and left in a much better place. He credits them with saving his life and I definitely agree with that.
And the world is a better place because of it. I was doing a little research and they are just a fantastic group of folk doing some very difficult work.
And they’ve been doing it. They were the first burn center west of the Rocky Mountains back in ’67 when it was founded. And they just did a major renovation. They always innovate care. They innovated care back when Kane was there and they still are doing it. And they keep people. We have contacts over there who’ve been there for thirty plus years.
It’s a fantastic institution.
And that’s why it means so much to Kane that there are people like that.
And then for the documentary itself, you’ve got a roster of people that you’ve interviewed and that you’re interviewing that’s really impressive. Not just folks from Bothin, but you have Robert Englund and Bruce Campbell, just a fantastic group of people. How did you get all of these wonderful folks?
It was kind of a duel combination between our team, my producer Andrew, and Kane. Kane directly reached out to a lot of his colleagues: Bill Mosely and Sid Haig and Robert. A lot of the 
initial contact was Kane.
Cassandra Peterson was like that. And you think, they really haven’t worked together that much, I mean he was on her TV show and they do conventions, but a lot of people don’t know that she was burned.
Really?
Pretty severally as a child. And they kind of connected on that level. Luckily she was a child, so a lot of times the scar tissue will, as you grow, it becomes less and less.
And she loves him. She drove across town in rush hour in LA right before she was set to fly out of LA for a while. She rushed across L.A. in traffic, did the interview, and jumped in her car to get to the airport. She said she’d do it for Kane. And that’s really the vibe we got from most people.
That’s a fantastic story about Cassandra. I’d imagine the stories from this group of people are just fantastic. Were there any that really stick out?
Well, Adam Green – the director of Hatchet and Frozen – he told this one story about how Kane was not supposed to be the stunt coordinator on Frozen. The budget was pretty small and they were shooting in Utah and they had the budget for the local Utah coordinator. And when Kane cares, he cares very deeply. And he really didn’t want to have Adam and Will – the DP – and the cast and crew stuck up on a real chair lift.
‘Cause they were up there the entire time, right?
Yeah. And he took a pay cut so they could afford him and paid his own way out there. He essentially did it for nothing and to thank him Adam give him a small role, kind of a cameo. When he cares, he cares incredibly deeply.
That’s awesome. And so what’s next for you guys? I know you’ve been at this for a while and you’re looking to get it out into the world.
We’d really like to get this movie finished. This one has really expanded from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to much longer. And we’re still going, we have people who wanted to be in it and still do. So we have a little bit of filming to do and we’d like to wrap it up.
And we want to get the Indiegogo done, we started prepping it in November, and now it’s going and things are going very well. We really want to get the movie finished with filming and into post production. It’s about a four to four-and-a-half month post-production process that we’re looking at.
We’re hoping to have the film ready and get it into the major festivals next year. I think it’s a story that needs to get out there and we’re dedicated to making sure that Kane’s fans get to see it.
And what’s next for Masterfully Macabre?
We’re currently producing two films with other companies and we’re getting those finished, both horror movies. I don’t want to give out too many details right now.
Whatever happens…
Exactly.
Well, thank you for your time today.
Thank you guys at Slickster for having me.
Thanks for joining us.
You too.
So there you have it! If you’re interested in info – or in contributing to their project – check out this link.
And again, a huge thanks to Derek and the awesome cats at Masterfully Macabre. They’re doing some fantastic work!