Biography for
Dante Tomaselli

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Dante Tomaselli, an Italian-American writer/director/score composer, studied filmmaking at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, then transferred to the New York School of Visual Arts, receiving a B.F.A. degree there. His first film was a 23-minute short called, Desecration, which was screened at a variety of horror and mainstream film festivals and venues. Tomaselli expanded Desecration, which he also wrote, to feature length. And in 1999, the film received its world premiere to a standing-room-only audience at the prestigious Fantafestival in Rome. The release of Desecration (1999) on DVD by Image Entertainment resulted in laudatory notices unique for an independent horror production. Made on the minuscule budget of $150,000, Desecration received instantaneous acclaim for its nightmarish visuals. The supernatural chiller quickly established itself as a modern horror cult favorite and became an Amazon.com Top 10 Best Seller under the category of Horror & Suspense. Tomaselli has been a lifelong supernatural/horror aficionado and is also the cousin of film director Alfred Sole, whose Communion (1976), made its own mark in the world of Catholic-themed horror films 28 years ago.

His second feature film, Horror (2002), began principle photography January 15, 2001, in Warwick, upstate New York. Final cost of production and post production: $250,000. Horror, a visually arresting chiller, had a group of runaway teens escape from a drug rehab and encounter demonic forces in a rural farmhouse. In a bizarre casting twist, the film starred celebrity mentalist/magician Kreskin. Dante Tomaselli's Horror was released on DVD in the United States and Canada by Elite Entertainment May 27th, 2003. The film garnered raves in the horror and cult press and was even favorably reviewed in Variety Magazine. It was also an Amazon.com Top 10 Best Seller under numerous horror categories. Most surprisingly, with a surge of online articles and a devoted cult following, it charted # 7 out of all movies on the IMDb for the week of September 21, 2003. Tomaselli just completed his third feature, Satan's Playground (2005). Satan's Playground stars 70s & early 80s cult-horror icons Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Ellen Sandweiss (The Evil Dead), and Edwin Neal (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Tomaselli is now looking ahead towards the creation of a fourth feature, _Ocean, The (2007)_ , an occult shocker about mysterious and deadly riptides. Continuing in his tradition of casting leads from horror greats of yesteryear, Judith O' Dea (Night of the Living Dead) is slated to star.

Trivia

Cousin of film director, Alfred Sole.

Has a loyal pet, a black and white English Springer Spaniel named Spooky.

His father, Louis Tomaselli, a jeweler, died of a fatal heart attack when Dante was 17 years-old. The teen lived in Montville, New Jersey before moving to NYC to build a horror film career.

In 1994, Soft Cell's Marc (Tainted Love) Almond met Tomaselli in NYC. Inspired, the British Pop Singer wrote a song dedicated to the cult horror director, "Caged." It's the first track on Marc Almond's solo album, Fantastic Star.

Documentary/biography currently filming, The Horror of Dante Tomaselli. The director and producer is Christopher P. Garetano (Horror Business).

Personal Quotes

"I am not a Satanist. I am a Supernaturalist!"

I know my films reflect the fear of the end of the world or the end of my world.

"I'd see multicolored streaks in the atmosphere. And I didn't do drugs. Sometimes I could see sounds. They were different colors. I could taste color and touch sound."

"The music really inspires...everything. It moves me along in the writing process, shooting, editing. Sometimes, many times, the sound design becomes the dominant force and it actually shapes a scene. It happens a lot. Music has a lot of power. I'm making movies that are trance-like experiences..."

"I love performers from horror classics; I can't help myself. I've been lucky in that I've been given the opportunity to work with actors from landmark horror films. The trend needs to continue with me...and the possibilities are endless. Jamie Lee Curtis, can you hear me?"

"I loved the woods. I didn't need anyone with me. I was definitely a quintessential loner growing up. I felt uncomfortable with most social interactions. I was either eager and confident or I had no confidence at all. I played sports but I hated it. I always enjoyed retreating into my imagination. That's when I was happiest."

"I'm just this guy from New Jersey who has odd visions. I do have an obsession with replicating childhood nightmares, fears, anxieties. With my films, I'm trying to construct some kind of nightmare where we experience the protagonist's damnation."

"The idea of drowning in the sea is the scariest thought in the world for me..I'll never forget, one time, when I was like 12, I was deep in the ocean, very far out...and I lost my boogie board to a crashing wave. Suddenly the riptides got a hold of me and I was drifting further and further out. Soon, I was being pulled under. I started to panic. I couldn't breathe. When I came to the surface, a slimy tentacled jellyfish, one of those bloody-looking ones, was literally draped over my head. I had no idea it was there! It was a moment of such dread. I felt sharp burning, stabbing pains all over my body. My head was on fire! When I finally got to the beach, my face looked like death; I had deep burns and lacerations."

"When you're trying your hardest to create your first feature and people around you are dragging you down, jealous, or whatever their reasons are, my advice is to drop those friends. They are energy vampires! Beware! Let the movie dominate...your passion for the movie, let it take over and obliterate everything. There are lots of chattering voices in your mind saying it's impossible. But it is possible. It really is."

"Yeah CGI works when you have a 100 million budget, like Lord of the Rings or something. Otherwise, I think it looks too cartoon-ish. When I want to watch a cartoon, I'll watch one. I like working with a real Special Make-up FX craftsman, not some person with a mouse."

"I saw the remake of The Amityville Horror on DVD and it looked like a TV commercial. Seriously, it was shot exactly like a TV commercial! Yuk! The remake craze is a double edged sword. On one hand it could give horror filmmakers like me a chance to work on a fairy large budget. On the other hand, there's something whorish about it. I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it all."

"My Grandma Rose Ruocco always had her Rosary Beads with her and seemed to be silently praying. She was a good person. At the same time, I felt detached from religion. I never experienced the faith. I was skeptical...The bible had talking snakes, walking on water...even though I was imaginative, it all became a jumble of confusion and doubt in my mind. I felt like I didn't buy it. Going to church became a very strange experience. I just felt detached...I always wondered what I was doing there, on my knees, chanting songs and praising, what appears to be a Ghost. I would stare at the architecture of the church. Where is God? I would try to talk to him but I ended up speaking with my imagination."

"It's ambient filmmaking...told through a series of dreams, flashbacks and hallucinations. I was going for something completely out-there...not censoring myself...allowing my imagination to run wild."

"I think I pulled the images from the dark pit of my childhood, my nightmares. Growing up, I had so many nightmares and was always wondering if what was happening was actually true. Or was it a dream? I didn't use drugs. I know...that's a shock. If anything, I was repressed and probably needed drugs to open me up. Everything I kept bottled up in the day would explode out of me at night. All of the negative debris of the day...it would all come popping up, so strongly in my nightmares."

"I will only shoot movies on film -- only. If you want to go for a painterly look -- you shoot on film. Video, even the best video, is thin. I'd prefer grain over pixels any day."

"Kreskin actually contacted me. I was all ready to go with this other actor named Wayne Bolton. He's a cripple, very withered-looking, with...some kind of wizard-like quality to him, very interesting, almost whimsical...yet sinister, intimidating. You'll probably see him in one of my future films. I thought, well there's my Reverend Salo. The guy came all the way from Virginia to NYC to audition for the role and his reading was excellent, very spooky. He wanted the part badly. I thought, perfect. Then, right before the shoot, I got a letter from Kreskin's agent, asking for Kreskin to be considered for the role of Grace's grandfather. Apparently, they read a casting notice. Kreskin and I met, bonded, and he got the role. He really did hypnotize people on the set during certain scenes."

"I guess it has something to do with how I grew up, my background being Italian American and having two very religious grandmothers. But, really...I just think organized religion is a very scary thing. It gives me a feeling of paranoia. One group against another, thinking the other one is wrong and they are better, holier. Religion causes wars. It has a dark force that can't be denied. Also, as you know, my cousin, Alfred Sole, directed "Alice, Sweet Alice," the infamous Catholic slasher. I saw it at a very early age and it is forever embedded in my psyche."

"This movie is like a dream you can't wake up from. I tried to make it very doomy...yet beautiful to look at. Satan's Playground is like a pretty lady with a knife. Don't trust the texture, the beauty, the smiles, there's something sinister lurking underneath."

"In 1975, I was 5. In 83, I was 13. So, I got to see all these great horror movies, the golden age of true horror, while I was a little kid growing up. It was an incredible time to be a horror fanatic. I was like the boy in Romero's Creepshow. My mother actually took me to see these 70's, early 80's movies because she knew how much I loved them. She enjoyed horror films too, actually. I'd cut out Ads from the newspaper, for movies like...It Lives Again, Prophecy, Phantasm, Invasion of The Body Snatchers and just...stare at them. I was in love with all of this stuff from early on."

"I starting writing it right around the end of 1999, when there was all that end-of-the-world talk going on. I wanted to harness that feeling...that we all could be predestined for a horrible, violent death. The idea that the threat of violence can strike at any moment."

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