Interview with Nathan Thomas Milliner (Horror Artist and Director of "The Confession of Fred Krueger")

I recently had a chance to chat with Nathan Thomas Milliner. Nathan is a professional commercial artist as well as a writer and filmmaker. He started out in comics back in the 1990s before landing a gig as a staff member and cover artist for HorrorHound Magazine in 2008. Also, that same year, Nathan became involved in independent film as a screenwriter, a position which would lead to directing. In 2012, Milliner became the premiere artist for Scream Factory, producing nearly 20 covers over the next 4 years for titles like Halloween 2 and 3, The Howling, Day of the Dead, Motel Hell, Sleepaway Camp 1-3, Dolls, Shocker and Village of the Damned. Milliner has produced t-shirts for companies like Fright Rags and Cavity Colors along with book covers, including the cover art for "Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street."

Nathan recently began working for NECA, producing package art for figures of Freddy Krueger and Leatherface. In 2011, he made his directorial debut as writer/director of the feature film A Wish for the Dead. In 2015 he added two more credits to his filmography. The first being a segment in the horror anthology Volumes of Blood and the Nightmare on Elm Street fan film The Confession of Fred Krueger. He just wrapped photography on his segment for the sequel to Volumes of Blood, Fear, for Sinners Here. Nathan lives in Louisville, KY with his family and continues to work on many art and film projects.

I initially discovered your work through your horror related art and comics and then that you were making films through The Confession of Fred Krueger. Was film something you wanted to get into all along, or did the drive develop as you got deeper into creating through your art and comics?

I think my biggest influence from an early age was always film. I was born in '76 so I was at that age where I grew up on films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Gremlins, E.T. and Ghostbusters. The early 80's was such a rich and imaginative time for movies and I was right there to be exposed to people like Spielberg, Zemeckis and Cameron. Movies are what got me into comics after all. I was 13 when Tim Burton's adaptation of Batman hit theaters and I instantly became a Batman fan and started reading the comics and drawing my own. I ended up writing and drawing my own comics for the next 20 years.

It was when I was told about a local zombie film needing zombie extras back in the Summer of 2006 that I ended up on my very first film set. It was infectious. I went to my first film festival and I was hooked. I remember talking to a filmmaker at that show, expressing an interest in maybe trying to make films. I had become a very serious film fanatic in college back in the mid-90's thanks to indie guys like Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith. So there was this feeling out there because of these guys that making movies was not just for rich people living in Los Angeles. I wrote a short called Girl Number Three which I ended up publishing as a comic in 2007 and a local filmmaker named Herschel Zahnd read it and asked if he could make it a film with me writing the screenplay and him as the director. I said yes and it was off from there.

On the topic of Confession, did the film stem from wanting to explore a pivotal slice (pun intended) of Freddy's life that hadn't been put to film yet, or was it more about the themes that you were presenting about his origins?

I fell in love with the horror genre in 1988 after seeing the second and third Nightmare movies. I quickly sought out the first one and absorbed all things Freddy Krueger. One of the first things I came across was a book called "The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion" written by Jeffrey Cooper. Cooper had written a short origin story called "The Life and Death of Freddy Krueger." It really captured my imagination and made me wonder if we would ever see this story put on film. While the sequels delved into his past as the series progressed, the origin twisted and Freddy became a character that was no longer very familiar to me. The character Wes Craven invented in that original film was dead by the fourth film and a new, lighter, goofier version was put in place. Suddenly, Freddy had a daughter and a wife and lived on Elm Street? What?! No, that was not the Freddy I knew. That was not the vile child murderer on the outside of the picturesque landscape of Springwood that I was enthralled with as a young man.

Confession was, for me, making that film I always wanted to see made since 1988. It was my chance to take Freddy back to his origins. Back to the way Wes intended him to always be. He was not your anti-hero, but the worst person imaginable. I wanted to hear Freddy tell his story in his own words while borrowing from the 1990 documentaries on HBO, The Iceman Confessions, about hitman Richard Kuklinski, and the interview with Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers. Freddy's police interrogation scene seemed like the perfect set up for me to unfold this story. I ended up writing the script for Confession in 2012 after some friends online suggested I get it out of my system. It took another 3 years but I finally made the film a reality.

Your film A Wish for the Dead was just released, even though it was actually the first film that you directed. It must be exciting to get it out to people, but is it also strange to have it coming out after audiences have been seeing your more recent films?

There is a deep down part of me that is a little worried about the A Wish for the Dead coming out now. It was very much my first film and like anyone's first film, it is not my best work and it reeks of inexperience. I was very green when making it and a little too ambitious. It is a very complex story and I really needed to learn more about filmmaking before I jumped into it. The film was produced by Herschel Zahnd and in many ways under his control. I simply wrote the script and directed the film but never really had 100% control of it. We shot the film in 2011 and then Herschel was in charge of editing. I mostly felt bad because so many people worked so hard on the film and never even saw it...so I am happy for them that they finally get to show off their work. But I have trouble watching the film because, again, it was very much the work of someone who wasn't exactly ready for the job.

Since then, I have done a lot of studying and hard work to improve and learn from the mistakes I made on it. But that is part of the process of being a growing artist. You try, you fail, and you learn from those failures and you correct them the next time. Art is a learning process. Now that isn't to make it sound like A Wish for the Dead is a bad movie. It isn't. It has a good story and some really good performances in it. But I always say that in five years time every artist will hate anything they did five years ago. I made A Wish for the Dead five years ago so I fear an audience may go into it expecting to see the same quality of The Encyclopedia Satanica and The Confession of Fred Krueger and will be let down. But I am proud of the film all the same. I made it with a lot of good friends and the story is a very personal one for me.

Do you find that your approach to doing a stand alone film vs. a segment in an anthology differs much? Did working on your Encyclopedia Satanica segment in Volumes of Blood scratch a different creative itch than doing Confession?

The films I made with Herschel were far more controlled and collaborative from all directions. Film is collaborative in nature but it was very much a 50/50 split on Girl Number Three and A Wish for the Dead. Encyclopedia Satanica was the first film I was making where I had so much control that I felt like I got my total vision on the screen. The film that was in my head was realized. While I had nearly 100% creative control on Satanica, the film still belonged to the producers of Volumes of Blood and therefore I had to bend to their demands. I can't just show it to people or do with it what I wish. One of the biggest constrictions was the (segment) had to be filmed in only 8 hours. The final runtime on it was 24 minutes. Anyone who knows filmmaking can attest that shooting a 24-minute long film in 8 hours is pretty impossible. Well, needless to say in that 8 hours, we only got 17 minutes of the film shot. Which is still good. Our segment was the longest of the anthology and it required a second night. An extra 5 hours to finish.

While I had total creative control on VOB, I was still in many ways, a hired gun on that. The script for Satanica was originally written by Todd Martin. But I was allowed to rewrite it because, while I liked the story, I felt it needed a lot of changes in tone, dialogue and just needed a lot more dynamics, suspense, meaning and themes. Thankfully PJ (Starks) trusted me enough to basically reinvent the film as my own.

The biggest difference on Confession was that it was my film entirely from the standpoint of paying for it, scheduling it, casting it, hunting down props and locations and costumes and basically seeing every little detail from beginning to end was done. I had great help, but Confession was entirely in my hands. And with Confession I had the cloud of fandom involved. I was working with material that was not my own and with that comes a heavy responsibility to Wes, Robert and everyone else involved. But also to the fans who can be very unforgiving and hard on you. I knew expectations would be high and criticisms would be unavoidable.

Out of everything I have done, I think Encyclopedia Satanica gave me the most thrill because it was the first time I felt really free. And on Confession I felt pride because it was the first film where I was the one making it happen as producer/writer/director and everything under the sun. It was my baby. But I have to mention my incredible cast and crew on these two films. My cinematographer/editor DP Bonnell is an amazing talent and composers Tony McKee (Satanica) and Lito Velasco (Confession) really made them sound like giant films with their music. Not to mention the master Roman Chimienti who did my audio remastering. And the casts were just phenomenal. Kristine Renee Farley (Satanica) who I first worked with on A Wish for the Dead, Kevin Roach (Satanica and Confession) in both films along with Todd Reynolds. And then Thomas Dunbar (Confession) who was also in Wish. Just so many talented folks on all levels coming together. I have been really blessed to meet and work with so many of them.

And you're currently working on a segment for the Volumes of Blood sequel, right? Can you give us an update on how that's going and any other projects that readers should keep an eye out for?

I just shot my segment for Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories this past weekend actually. I wrote two segments for this movie. The first being Murder Death Killer--a tie in to the first film and that is to be directed by Jakob Bilinski who directed a segment on the original film. The one I just filmed was Fear, for Sinners Here which I wrote and directed and will be editing. My first time editing a film on my own. It is a challenge I have been wanting to make for a while. Making films is hard for me because I still work for UPS (20 years this year), I have the art career and a family. But I decided I wanted to edit this film myself as I love the editing process. I have always sat in with my editor like most directors and put films together along their side but this will be the first time physically doing the editing. Very excited about that.

Fear, for Sinners Here is a Christmas based story. The sequel for Volumes of Blood has stories taking place on different holidays or occasions. It was a last minute addition as Todd Martin had to step out of the film and PJ needed a second story from me. I was originally supposed to direct Murder Death Killer but I fell in love with Fear and knew it had to be my follow up to Confession. I was working for the most part with an all new crew. Most notably my cinematographer John Holt who will be shooting most of the segments in VOB: HS as well as directing a segment himself. Just a really nice, easy going, energetic, positive personality and professional as you can get. His cameraman Austin Madding is a madman when it comes to getting the shot. His lighting team, Jason and Jordan. The costume designer, Barbie Clark. Just a wonderful team of people that I think are going to push Volumes of Blood to the next level.

And my cast on this one is just so damn good. I brought back Julie Streble who starred in both Girl Number Three and A Wish for the Dead. Julie and I had been talking about working together again for quite some time and when I wrote this role in the film, I knew she would knock it out of the park and she did. Her performance in this is electric and really woke the crew up after we had been shooting for over 30 hours over the weekend and needed a kick to the butt. Julie is going to shock people in this. But I have to mention my leading actress Jessica Schroeder. Jessica is a young actress out of Indiana who is just finishing her college career at IU as a theater major. She has a passion for Shakespeare and her last performance before this was as Lady MacDuff in MacBeth. I was desperate to find the right actress for this role. I always look for that wow factor. I saw it when Julie auditioned for Girl Number Three, I saw it when Kristine auditioned for A Wish for the Dead, and I saw it when I worked with Kevin Roach on VOB and knew I had to cast him as Freddy. But I wasn't seeing that wow factor from anyone on Fear. Thankfully my friend Jason Crowe who has worked with so many actors over the past decade offered to help me find the right girl. He asked me for a list of what I needed. I sent him a list of about ten things and he said the only person to come to mind was Jessica. He had just worked with her on The Legend of Wasco. I rented that film and while her role was basically the supportive girlfriend with not too much to do, I saw enough there to write her and ask if she were available and interested. Luckily she was, she auditioned and I saw what I needed. But on set last weekend she showed me just how right of a call it was. The girl is amazing. She is going places. And she has the right attitude. She cares for the work. She just wants to make a living at being an actress either on stage or on film. Humble, professional, talented for days and a real sweetheart. When it came to her most emotional moment, John turned to me and asked, "Where did you find this girl?!" I cannot wait for people to see this one.

Finally, as a filmmaker, artist, and fan who's obviously invested in the genre, how are you feeling about the current state of horror? I know you're vocal about your desire for there to be more positivity amongst the fandom.

I get really tired of hearing "modern horror sucks." It doesn't. Every year I have a hard time choosing what is the best of the year. I think most of that hate comes from several places. One being the frustrations of the mainstream only shoving remakes, sequels and particular subgenera down our throats in the cinemas. But indie and foreign film is really exciting every year. I can name at least 200 great horror films to have come out of the last 16 years. But listening to fans today you'd never know it. Nostalgia really clouds people. They think that nothing is as good as the films they grew up on and it is pretty ridiculous. Me, I am still having a blast with the genre and wish fans would lighten up and be fair and appreciate what new filmmakers are doing today. Films like REC, Haute Tension, 28 Days Later, The Conjuring, You're Next, It Follows, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Let the Right One In, Inside, The Descent, The Witch. These are some of the best horror films ever made in my opinion.

The fan base has become cannibalistic. It is really weird. But, if someone is intent on being miserable, let them be miserable. I will continue to enjoy the work of creative and talented voices in the genre and I will continue to contribute my own work either on paper or film. I am happy and honored to be a part of it today and I look forward to seeing what everyone out there busting their asses is going to come out with next. I think it is a very exciting time for the genre.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today, Nathan.

Be sure to visit Nathan's website, check out "The Confession of Fred Krueger" on his YouTube Channel, and follow him on facebook.