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An Interview with filmmaker Michael J. Hein

By Denise Kaminsky

Michael J. Hein, was born in New York City, and raised in New Jersey. He fell in love with horror films at 11 years old when he saw a double feature of George Romero's "Creepshow" and "Dawn of the Dead" in the summer of 1982.

Welcome Michael, It's nice to talk with you tonight. Why don't we start with by telling me what inspired you to get started in filmmaking?

My love of the horror genre eventually blossomed into a love of filmmaking and I eventually decided that's what I wanted to do with my life. Since horror was my passion, it was natural that I make a few horror films. I have worked a lot of other types of films; love stories, hard core drug addition dramas, etc. but horror films are what I love doing.

Tell me about some of the films you worked on, produced, and directed?

I've been working in the industry for fifteen years now, so I've worked on a lot of films and TV projects. I began doing special effects make-up, worked on a few Troma films (The Class of Nuk'um High 2, among others) when I was a teen, then I went on to do a slew of horror shorts and features. In 1999, I started my own company Moodude Films where I wrote and directed "Biohazardous" a very low budget zombie film. Since then, I have produced many films including "Cyclone", "This is how my Brother Died", "Glow", the very well received horror/comedy "Dead Serious" which stars genre scream queen Felissa Rose and the new one we are currently in post production on is "Devil's Grove."

For the folks that don't know, tell us about the NYC Horror Festival?

I started the "New York City Horror Film Festival" because when I started making my own films, I quickly realized there were no serious genre film festivals in America. So, with much determination and hard work from both myself and special effects makeup artist Anthony Pepe, I put together the NYCHFF, which has since grown into the countries largest and most respected genre film festival.

Do you have any future plans for another project?

The next thing I'm doing is Co-producing and Directing my first drama titled "The Word." Based on the off Broadway play by Tom Cahill. It's about a priest accused of molesting a young child. It's a really strong, important story and I hope I can do it justice.