“My trajectory is so weird,” offers Eric Goode.
Back in the early ‘80s — before directing music videos for Nine Inch Nails, launching iconic New York City destinations like the Bowery Hotel and Waverly Inn and creating the docu-phenomenon “Tiger King,” but not long after showing a series of bondage-themed Etch A Sketch drawings alongside works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring — Goode opened Area, a nightclub in downtown Manhattan that catered to Andy Warhol and the art-world set. Along with its terribly cool clientele, Area became known for its décor and lavish installations, whose theme changed every six weeks. One of those themes, “Natural History,” called for live animals. So Goode turned to Tom Crutchfield, a reptile dealer in South Florida, to provide giant lizards and snakes.
It seemed innocent enough. Crutchfield was the self-described “Mick Jagger of the reptile business” who’d supplied snakes to a number of Hollywood productions, including Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Little did Goode know that in the late ‘90s, Crutchfield would be the target of Operation Chameleon, a joint effort by the U.S. Marshalls Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block his smuggling of endangered snakes and turtles from Madagascar, flee to Belize, get extradited back to the U.S. and serve 30 months in prison. Now, Crutchfield is just one of several colorful characters profiled in “Monsters of God,” Goode’s five-part HBO docuseries about the exotic reptile smuggling trade.
“Monsters of God,” which premieres Aug. 6, is a deeply personal project for the 68-year-old Goode, who grew up collecting reptiles and, through his nonprofit the Turtle Conservancy, has helped protect 65 turtle species and preserved over 70,000 acres of wildlife across the world. Unlike previous docuseries “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy,” he says “Monsters of God” is “more like a history lesson” that explores every aspect of exotic reptile smuggling, from the dealers, smugglers and buyers (such as the San Diego Zoo) to the feds hunting them down.
“I wanted ‘Monsters of God’ to get all sides of the story, which ‘Blackfish’ didn’t.’ They just got the detractors but didn’t get SeaWorld,” Goode explains. “We got the zoos, the feds, the reptile dealers, the collectors. I want to say that we [made] a balanced, real story to show that it’s not so simple, and the supposed good guys might not be so good.”
Goode was inspired by Bryan Christy’s 2008 book “The Lizard King,” about father-son reptile-smuggling duo Michael and Raymond Van Nostrand (the latter also dabbled in cocaine trafficking). But “The Devil Wears Prada” director David Frankel won the rights to the book. So in the late-aughts, Goode began making “gonzo short little PSAs” for the Turtle Conservancy — directed by his pals Josh and Benny Safdie, the former a producer on “Monsters of God,” and featuring stars like Christopher Walken and Slash cradling turtles — as well as a short film called “The Trophy Hunter.” In 2012, he told another buddy, Fisher Stevens, that he wanted to make a documentary about the dark underworld of exotic reptile smuggling. Stevens replied, “How can you make this story without getting killed?”
“He thought the characters were too sketchy,” recalls Goode,” especially Anson Wong.”
Known as the “Pablo Escobar of animal trafficking,” Wong runs a complex network of wildlife smuggling operations out of Malaysia, capitalizing on the country’s lax wildlife protection laws and easily-bought officials. “Monsters of God” sees Goode tracking Wong to the mountains of Penang for a sit-down interview.
“I was definitely fearful the day before meeting him and wondering how this was going to play out,” Goode, who claims he’s “had his life threatened” by numerous people over his work, remembers, adding, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m just being stupid. It’s not that I’m brave by any stretch, but you just feel it out. I don’t know if it’s the most nervous I’ve been, but it’s certainly up there.”
He also comes face-to-face with Mario Tabraue, a cocaine kingpin (and animal collector) who’s been compared to “Scarface’s” Tony Montana and also appears in “Tiger King.” Goode and the Safdies began filming interviews with Tabraue and Crutchfield in 2014, with Josh sporting spy-camera glasses to try to capture Tabraue undercover, but the footage looked like crap. He subsequently spent “a bunch of money” on a CNN pilot about people who trophy hunt and eat exotic animals, but the network “didn’t need another old white guy” since they still had Anthony Bourdain, plus it wasn’t his finest work. Then “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy” got in the way.
Unlike most documentary filmmakers, Goode casts a very wide net, using his considerable resources to shoot several different stories at once, hoping one hits. But he’s adamant that “this is not an easy way to make money” and doesn’t recommend his unique approach.
“I’m filming people that are killing sharks or monkeys that are being used for medical research in Mauritius or the guy who has the most rhino horns in the world in South Africa,” he shares. “I’m filming so many things, and then you have to figure out what makes the best story and how it will resonate, and it takes a long time and a lot of money to boil that down to finding the Joe Exotic and the story you want to follow.”
As for “Tiger King” and its flamboyant, incarcerated subject, Joe Exotic, Goode says he hasn’t spoken to him in a long time. Despite Exotic’s plea for a Trump pardon falling on deaf ears, Goode teases that he may have a way to save him.
“I have one card up my sleeve in a year or so to see If I can get him out of prison. I’ll just say that,” Goode teases, adding, “He did a lot of bad things… but he’s getting older and I think he’s done enough time, in my eyes. I’m not one of these people who believes in putting people in prison and throwing away the key. I don’t think he’s going to get out of prison and try to kill anyone ever again.”
In the meantime, he hopes “Monsters of God” will prove both entertaining and edifying, since that’s always been his goal.
“Just like my club Area, I try to entertain people and in there I hope there’s something people learn, so it’s not completely frivolous,” he says. “Not everything has to be something that changes the world, but maybe it can make a little change.”
English (US) ·