Even though John Cusack tried to be pretty mum on the details, the actor (who's also a producer) filled us in exclusively about the movie's status, and just how R-rated this film will be.

Let's talk Hot Tub Time Machine. Where's the film at right now?

I won't give anything away, but we are cutting the film right now. But it's about four guys who go back to the 1980s.

From what we saw in the trailer it seems like a pure group comedy. Who is your character in that group? What is your role?

I play sort of a guy who is a little bit of a control freak. He doesn't like to look back, and he gets forced to go back.

Since you are dealing with time travel is this going to be a Peggy Sue Got Married scenario with the actors from the future stuck in their child bodies, or will you have younger versions of yourself playing 80s you?

I'm not gonna tell you.

You are killing me.

I'm not killing you I'm trying to tantalize you.

Well the trailer looks like a return to the heavy drug usage, heavy on the swears, super fun type comedy? Are you guys doing a lot of drugs?

That's true [about the comedy]. There's not a lot of it, but there's some, you know it's the 80s, it's got drugs and sex and all the things that you know...

Why should we be excited for this movie?

I think Craig Robinson, Clark Duke and Rob Corddry are hilarious. It's pretty fun if you like those old movies. There are some characters that make fun of those old movie characters like the stock bad guys on the ski patrol and the things like that.

What about the stock good guys? Anyone skewer your past characters a little bit?

We'll we have those too [for the good guys]. I think somewhere in there it's doing that. Crispin Glover is in it and he was in Back To The Future and is an 80s icon. He's in it. Chevy Chase is in it.

Besides the cast, why did you want to get involved with this project?

Because MGM was making it, and they only had about half of a script and they wanted to start making it before the summer. So they said, you have to just go shoot it right now, and you can produce it, but you'll have to rewrite the script and write it, but you'll have to start in seven weeks. So it was a very insane project and time frame, but we decided to do it anyways. It was a mad dash. Because you know what the fuck? It's just this insane juggernaut.

With a title like that, it kind of has to go to that extreme.

Even the filming was that way, we only had about 60 pages of the script. We just had to write it as we went. A lot of it is improv.

There comes a moment in every teenage horror nerd's life when she discovers the work of Herschell Gordon Lewis, and spends several consecutive weekends watching freaky shit like 2,000 Maniacs, Wizard of Gore, The Gore Gore Girls, and many other amazing freakouts featuring vaguely subversive plots and lots of animal entrails. At least, there came that moment in my life of horror nerd-dom, and maybe that's why I'm so excited about this remake of the Lewis gorefest featuring nubile ladies and sheep guts.

I think what appeals most is that this is one of those rare remakes that does justice to the original by updating it both in terms of plot but also production values. This new Wizard of Gore is just as much a Z-grade movie as the original, and just as much pure brilliance shines through as a result. After all, indie, low-budget productions get wild in ways that Hollywood blockbusters, with their massive staffs and bottom-line values, never can. Honestly, if ever there was a man worthy to inherit Herschell Gordon Lewis' mantle, it's Crispin Glover.

DVDs This Week [Quiet Earth]

Interview with the director of Wizard of Gore [Esplatter]