Damian Maffei Talks TCM Video Game & FM Festival (Interview)

Get the inside scoop on Damian Maffei’s character, Johnny, in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre video game in this exclusive interview with Mad Monster. Damian, famous for his chilling role in The Strangers: Prey at Night, lends his voice to bring Johnny to life in the game.

Don’t miss the chance to meet Damian at the Famous Monsters Festival, where he will join an incredible lineup of celebrity guests, including the legendary Ozzy Osbourne. Find out more about the festival and its 65th anniversary celebration of Famous Monsters of Filmland here.  Damian will be hosting the Famous Monsters Festival Costume Contest.  This is going to be one festival that you don’t want to miss!

Sgt. Horror:  How did you get involved with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre game? How did that come about?

Damian Maffei:  That came about in the hallway of a horror convention. It was after hours I was walking; I think I was looking to find food. Tom Devlin walked up, and he said, Hey Damien, I’d like to introduce you to these two guys here. And he’s like, it’s Ronnie and Matt from Gunn. I said, oh, Gunn Media, the company that makes video games. They’re like, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Matt talked to them about my adventures with Friday the 13th, which are quite humorous.  They told me that they were interested in me providing the voice for a character for the game they were doing, and  I was on the top of the list for this character and was very interested.

Video games and horror are my thing. And I was also interested because, why me at that point, the only thing anyone would’ve known me for is characters that don’t really speak or don’t speak at all. So, how I wound up on this list for the speaking voice for something was pretty interesting to me. But I enjoyed talking to them there. And we probably stood in that hallway for 40 minutes just chatting, and I was like, yeah, I mean, let’s do it. And I didn’t even know what game it was then. They weren’t telling me, but they were like, we’re in Texas. So I figured it out because I’m real smart.

So, I would message Ronnie and Matt on Instagram for months leading up to it. I’d be like, when’s this game going to happen?  And then they told me they were going to be at Mad Monster in Arizona, where I was also going to be, and they said, we’d like to take you out and talk more. So we met up at Mad Monster. They wanted to take me out to a nice restaurant. They showed me some of the nice restaurants nearby, and I was like, is there a Cracker Barrel on that list? And they were like, you want to go to Cracker Barrel? I was like, I insist on going to Cracker Brown. So, we went to Cracker Barrel, and they told me about the game and the character and asked if I would do it.  And I was like, kidding me, do I pay you how? Yes, let’s go. So that’s how I came to be in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre video game.

Sgt. Horror:  What was that like being involved with a video game versus acting on a set?

Damian Maffei:  Well, I mean, it’s very different. It threw out some challenges that I wasn’t anticipating, or it just didn’t occur to me. I mean, Ronnie had sent me all the kinds of inspirations for the character and his ideas on the character, which was sort of a Kim Henkel creation and conception from way back in the day, but it didn’t make it to the movie.

He sent me all this dialogue.  I had pages of dialogue. Next to the dialogue was a very short description of what was happening in the game, just like one sentence. Johnny’s victim going down a well, you find a victim in trunk, something like that. Just what’s going on there. I got to work on it. I started going over the lines so there is a difference between maybe doing a movie or theater.

You’re pretty much on your own, man. There are no other actors. I didn’t see any of the animation for it. The only thing I had to go off of was the description that accompanied the line of dialogue. So, whatever you are reacting to or delivering the line to is based on whatever’s playing in your head. I’d seen some artwork of Johnny, so I knew what he looked like, but I had not seen him move or anything at that point, and I wasn’t there for the mocap. That was tough. I mean, acting was reacting. You listen and react based on what’s going on in the scene. That’s not so much the case here.

It’s fire off this line of dialogue, move on to the next, move on to the next. I mean, with this, I’m sure if you’re doing a movie or an actual scene in a game, there’s a little more.  You get a little more fluid and build it.  That was tough. You have to have a good imagination to have it play out in your head and try to get the feel right.

I knew they wanted that kind of growly thing in there sometimes, which I got to do. Nobody escapes me, which is when he says it’s to himself. But with much of the dialogue, I’m trying to get that growling there. And then the director, who I just met that day for the session, he was like, oh, this person is a hundred feet away from you running away. So he’s like, it has to be louder. And that was my big thing there. It was like everything had to be louder. I wasn’t loud enough. I’m used to going from theater, where I project my voice, and you go to movies where that mic is right on you. It’s picking up everything. And then here, the mic was still in my face, but I just wasn’t loud enough. I had to be yelling, and then I would start to yell it, and that growl would be gone.  So, I was trying to adapt to that in the studio.

Sgt. Horror:  I’ve played Johnny quite a bit, and he’s a great character. Where does The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as a movie rank in the horror genre for you?  When did you first watch it?

Damian Maffei:  The original ranks very high up there. I have an affection for the other movies in the franchise, too. The 2003 version is very high up there. I think pretty highly of it.

I did enjoy, for the most part, the Netflix one that just came out in 2022. I think all The Texas Chainsaw movies work better when it’s family-oriented. I know many of these things try to go full Leatherface, and I don’t think it’s as effective when it’s just him. When the whole family’s running around there, it’s great and unique to slashers.

When I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I was very young, and I believe my sister had rented The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and the VHS player with her friends.  At that point, people were renting VCRs to bring home, and you got to return them. So there’s probably a handful of VHS tapes available at that point. My sister would have sleepovers, and they’d rent scary movies.

So that’s when I first saw it, and yeah, it was so effective. Of course, it’s not gory, but at that point, I mean, you thought it was so grimy and real; it just all felt real. It’s like these can’t be actors. You can’t find actors like this. This is just someone who had a camera on real people. So, in that, it really stuck with you. Especially me being maybe seven or something. Yeah, you don’t forget something like that.

Sgt. Horror: Many people have seen you at Mad Monster Party in North Carolina and Arizona. That’s where we met. You are doing an appearance at the Famous Monsters Festival in the Pittsburgh area on October 13, 2023. Were you a fan of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine?

Damian Maffei:  A big fan.  Famous Monsters had the best covers of any monster magazine. I love the classic monsters. I am not much for nostalgia, but I mean, that’s not nostalgia. That’s just the roots, and maybe the classic monsters are incredible and deep. And even to this day, one of my favorites is The Invisible Man. I’m a huge Invisible Man junkie.

Being able to do the Famous Monsters Festival at this point. Yeah, it’s one of those things I think if someone told little Damian, maybe while he was watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He wouldn’t believe you. He’d probably kick in the shins.

Sgt. Horror:  I always enjoyed your role as the killer in The Strangers: Prey At Night.  That kill scene when you’re sitting in the car ranks high up there as an iconic kill.  Where did you get the motivation for that? How did that scene come together?

Damian Maffei: That scene stood out for me in the script. That scene is probably the only scene on paper that played out as it was scripted. But reading it, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the movie at that point for some reason, but reading that, I was like, oh, this is really cool. This scene could potentially be very harrowing, something that, if I’m allowed, I can take my time with it and set the pacing for it. That’s exactly what happened. Johannes was like, just play around with it, and I did, and that played out as it did in my head when I was reading it. And yeah, just delicious to be part of that kind of, I mean, it’s fucked up, but it’s also, it’s a lot of fun, just kind of, I was locked onto him with my eyes, and yeah, you just lean into it.

Sgt. Horror:  What can we expect next from you?

Damian Maffei:  What you can expect next from me is some acting, some actual acting if all goes well. Some movies I filmed would be due out in about 2024, which will easily be my three best performances and movies.

One is Dark Circles. It’s one of my favorite scripts of all time. It’s a movie very near and dear to me, directed by Hannah Fierman.  I’m the lead in that.

Another movie, called They Watch, was directed by Doug Henderson. It’s kind of a spooky film. Ashlynn Yennie of Human Centipede fame played my wife in that.  She’s a fantastic actor. So, that was a joy to work on.

And this movie called Black Eyed Susan, a script that I read and immediately was like, wow. The subject matter, the whole thing is very kind of, I mean, it’s a lot. I had to sit down for a while and decide whether to take this movie on. It was a lot of uncharted territory for me, and it’s the biggest risk I’ve taken as an actor. But the script was just so good, and it’s so relevant today, but it still feels like a seventies movie, and it was shot on film. I’m happy I did it. Yeah, it’s a wild movie, Black Eyed Susan. It’s definitely going to be something.