Jim Mickle is the writer / director of STAKE LAND, the fantastic vampire film that was so awesome they quote Gorepress on the DVD cover!

Mickle is also responsible for Zombie Virus on Mulberry Street – a lovingly created rat-zombie horror flick that was surprisingly original. Having kicked out an original take on zombies, STAKE LAND focuses on a vampiric apocalypse that sweeps through America, destroying everything in it’s path.

Scullion had a chance to ask Jim a few questions about his masterpiece, and he comes across as friendly, honest and very professional. See below as he talks about werewolves, budgets and Chinese hopping vampires…

GOREPRESS: Hi Jim, hope all is going ace. Absolutely loved Stake Land – a truly amazing piece of filmmaking.

JIM MICKLE: Thanks dude!

GP: Where did the idea for Stake Land come from?

JM: Nick Damici and I were trying to follow up our first film “Mulberry Street”. At some point we decided to go back to the do-it-yourself filmmaking model, so we set our sights on making a web series, something that could air episodically online. Nick started sending me short 10 page scripts and the first one became the opening 10 minutes of STAKE LAND. From there, we stretched it out to many, many chapters of the Martin and Mister story. Once the chance to make a feature version came about, Nick collapsed all the stories down to one throughline. So it kind of became a feature film by accident.

GP: You managed to pull together a superb cast for Stake Land – how did that come about?

JM: We had fantastic casting directors, Sig DeMiguel and Steve Vincent. They’re both big genre fans, and really understand the low budget, indie world, especially on the East Coast. A lot of it came from meeting with actors. Not auditioning, but sitting with great performers and talking about the characters and their lives. It was more about trying to form a ragtag team of actors who had the right energy and the right philosophy about making films and telling stories. Everyone brought something very specific and very personal to the story and then we tried to build a lot of their characters around the actors organically. I was very lucky to have such a great cast from top to bottom.

GP: The journey of Michael Cerveris’s character Jebedia suggests that the vampires could be part of a spiritual apocalypse, spawned by God – what was your take on this?

JM: I wanted to keep that idea in there always. We tried to show both sides of faith and religion- the compassionate, loving, accepting side (through Sister) and the powerful, narow-minded, morally righteous take (through the Brotherhood). I’m sort of fascinated by how religion can be interpreted, and how fully people subscribe to their beliefs, no matter how crazy they might sound. So yes, for me the journey of Jebedia’s character should work as a literal, faith-based take on an unexplained event, but also have a little of the fable, morality-tale quality, so it’s up to the characters and the audience on how it should all be interpreted.

GP: What was the hardest part of making Stake Land?

JM: There was a lot of coordination that went into it, because it was so ambitious and had a big, diverse cast. It was spread out over two separate shoots with 3 months off in between, yet still with a very small budget. And it’s not usually how films get made, so we were kind of making our own rules as we went along. It’s hard to say it was difficult, because it’s also invigorating and inspiring and the stress gets addictive and creates its own momentum, but when I look back on it and how many people worked their asses off to make it all happen so smoothly, it kind of blows my mind.

GP: If you’d had a bigger budget, was there anything you would’ve done differently?

JM: I’m sure I would, but I can’t necessarily say that any of it would have been better. A lot of my favorite things from the movie are the little tricks you have to come up with when you don’t have much of a budget or when you have to move very quickly. It gives it all a personal, rough around the edges quality that makes independent films special. So, yes it would probably be a different film with a bigger budget, but I’ll always love this version for what it became.

GP: Were there any other “types” of vampire you wanted to include, but had to reject (for whatever reason)?

JM: There were a few different kinds from the webisodes that just didn’t fit into the feature version. Or different ones got folded into the different kinds you see onscreen (the Scamp and the Berserkers). We had a Chinatown chapter with a hopping vampire that moved by leaping around in basements. There were a few other kinds that I quite liked, and maybe they’ll all make it into future stories depending on how things go. I know know Nick wants to do flying vampires next time.

GP: What inspires you as a writer / director?

JM: Trying to do things differently. Both Stake Land and Mulberry Street start off in familiar sub-genres, but I fall in love with them when I connect personally and find a different way to treat the story, usually in the tone and the music, and finding other genres to mix into the pot so the results are unexpected. My sister production designed DRIVE and I had a great chance to talk to Nicolas Winding Refn on set once. His first advice was to make movies your own and to listen to your instincts so they become your own story that no one else can tell. His movie is a perfect example of that.

GP: Stake Land is about vampires and your previous work was the underrated zombie film Mulberry Street. Any intention of making a werewolf movie?!

JM: I’d love to. Ginger Snaps is one of my favorite movies, and I’d love to do a real, latex and animatronic take on a werewolf story someday. We haven’t had a great one in a long time.

GP: What’s next for Jim Mickle? Any chance of a Stake Land sequel?

JM: Hoping to shoot our new one in the spring. COLD IN JULY- an adaptation of the Joe Lansdale, country-noir novel. We’ve been working on that one for a while now. Also working on a new script with Nick that would be very fun to do. No plans for a sequel at the moment. I’d like to take a few steps back and see what kind of a life the first one takes on. So many things change in the world while you tell stories, so I think it would be fun to come back in a few years when we’ve all had a chance to evolve and go through some more of life.

GP: And finally, what is your favourite horror film of all time?

JM: John Carpenter’s THE THING. I freaking love that movie.

STAKE LAND is released on DVD today – go and buy it!

Dick Maas is a controversial Dutch filmmaker who has spent over 30 years in the feature-film business, creating films such as bonkers Dutch-language flick Amsterdammed and William Hurt starrer Do Not Disturb (also set in Amsterdam).

Recently he’s grabbed the headlines all over his native Netherlands, with his twisted Christmas horror film Saint, a demented take on the legend of jolly Saint Nicholas. In Maas’s comedic horror, jolly old Santa is a burns-victim horseriding ghost of a psychotic, child-murdering rouge Bishop, returning to modern-day Amsterdam to wreak havoc on families and steal all their children.

Sound insane? It is.

Gorepress’s Scullion had a chance to ask him a few questions, and Maas comes across as a smart, serious and amiable gentleman, happy to share his thoughts on filmmaking and the creation of Saint.  See below as Maas talks about making myths, broken horses and really pissing off St. Nicholas lovers…

GOREPRESS: First up, I caught a screening of Saint at Frightfest this year and it’s a truly original piece of work – congratulations! Where did the idea for Saint come from?

DICK MAAS: I always wanted to do something with this cult figure.  In Holland the St. Nicholas celebration, every year on December 5th, is the biggest yearly celebration.  St. Nicholas is more popular than our queen. He is always portrayed as a nice, children-loving guy, and I wanted to show his dark side. I started to work on the script about ten years ago and it went through several drafts before it hit its final form.

GP: The history of St Niklas is a murky one – why did you choose this particular imagining?

DM: I invented my own legend.  There are a lot of stories about St. Nicholas and no one knows which one is true. The Catholic Church also used the guy for public relation purposes.  Especially nowadays, a child loving bishop like St. Nicholas can be very helpful, given the flak they’re taking on child molesting issues. For my story I turned him into a rogue bishop that was burned alive by villagers in the 15th Century.  Every time it’s a full moon on the 5th of December he will return to take revenge. And that happens on an average of once in every 32 years.

GP: Have you had any trouble from the Church regarding your depiction of this psychotic, rogue bishop?

DM: Not from the Catholic Church itself.  There was some commotion in Bari, Italy, where his relics are buried.  And St. Nicholas societies in Holland and Belgium were opposing the movie. And they really protested the poster we made for the movie.  They wanted to ban the poster from the street and cinema’s in Holland. They went to court but the court ruled in our favor and judged there was nothing wrong with the poster and we didn’t cross the boundaries of good behavior. Because of the uproar, the awareness of the movie was very good, and it helped the box office.

GP: Niklas’s horse takes an absolute battering in the film – were any animals harmed in the making of Saint?!

DM: We had a favorite stunt horse from Germany and I am sorry to say he sprained his ankle by the first test run in front of the elevated greenscreen we had. So we had to use another stunt horse.  For several shots we use different horses because they all have different skills.  We used four horses in the shoot.  The only horse that got hurt was the horse that fell from four stories high on the police car.  But that was a dummy horse.

GP: What was the hardest part of the production process?

DM: The horse chase across the Amsterdam rooftops was the most difficult to shoot.  We shot mid-time winter and it was very cold.  For several nights we had to go up the roofs and shoot the plates for the chase. Then we had to figure out how to shoot a galloping horse and put the elements together.  For a few shots we used a 3D digital horse, but for the most part we used a real horse, shot against greenscreen.  We also put a horse on a treadmill to achieve shots of him running.

GP: The festivities and traditions shown in Saint are different to that of other cultures, including those in the UK and America. Are you concerned some of the film’s impact will be lost in translation?

DM: I’m afraid that is the case. There are so many aspects and details to the celebration that foreign audiences don’t grasp. And some of it gets lost in the translation. For instance there are the St. Nicholas songs that the children sing in front of the fireplace every year.  In the movie I explain what the lyrics really mean and that gives the songs a different, more horrible meaning.  On the other hand, at the screening I attended at Tribeca and recently at Frightfest, the audience reaction wasn’t much different from that in Holland.  People were laughing and jumping out of their seats at the same moments.

GP: What is your favourite Christmas film? And what’s your favourite Christmas horror?!

DM: I really can’t think of one.  It’s a Wonderful Life springs to mind.

GP: What’s next for Dick Maas? Any chance of a Saint sequel?

DM: At the moment I’m editing my next movie QUIZ.  It’s a thriller about a famous game show host who has a dinner appointment with his wife and daughter in a restaurant. They don’t show up. After some time a strange man presents himself at his table and he claims to have kidnapped the wife and daughter.  He shows a photo on which we see his wife and daughter tied up. The game show host has to answer ten questions correctly within one hour if he wants to see his family back alive. So the man turns the tables around and plays the part of the game show host and the game show host is becoming the contestant. That is the start of an evening full of surprises, twists and turns. There has been some talk about a Saint sequel and we even have some story lines worked out, but it all depends on the success of the movie in foreign countries.

GP: And finally, have you been naughty or nice this year?

DM: I’d like to see myself as a nice guy, but I’m not sure St. Nicholas will agree with me!

GP: Thanks for chatting to Gorepress, Dick.

DM: You’re welcome.

SAINT is released on DVD on the 31st October.

It’s an overcast but hot one as I pick my way through the sightseeing hordes toward The London Bridge Experience and Tombs. I’m meeting Tom in one of the tombs for a chat and fully expect a man who deals in such extreme, nasty and extremely nasty subject matter to fit right in. The folk behind the attraction clearly do too – I’m excitably informed that, come Halloween, a section of the tombs will become the set of The Human Centipede; complete with a diabolical Doctor and three unfortunately grafted together centipede segments. It sounds horrible. I can’t wait.

I’m glad to say that though his horrific creation will be at home in “the UK’s scariest attraction”, the man himself is not. He turns out to be a thoroughly lovely, polite and attentive fella; resplendent in beige suit, straw Stetson and awesome cowboy boots.

We both pull up a pew, coffin actually, and I ask him how much input he’s getting in the area dedicated to his film, “they told me what they are going to do. They are going to create a human centipede, with actors, and a Dr. Heiter”. But will it be a three man centipede a la the original or a twelve person “full sequence”? “That won’t fit, I think”.

He seems genuinely delighted at the burrowing into the collective consciousness of his horrible baby, “it’s amazing. This. South Park. Beavis and Butthead. It’s incredible. It’s a film maker’s dream. It’s spread like a fire, like an aggressive virus, all over the world. The idea is so horrible that people can’t help but talk about it. I knew I’d made a sick idea, but for it to take off like this? No idea”.

But when talk turns to the BBFC’s treatment of it’s second part, the delight turns to surprise and shock, “it’s totally banned! They say they cannot even cut it! They think it might cause harm to viewers. I think it’s totally ridiculous.” This is no act. He is actually hurt and taken aback at what he sees as a slight against his film and a terrible misreading of The Human Centipede: Full Sequence, “this film has a lot of dark humour in it and I’m really disappointed that a country that gave us Monty Python and Little Britain can’t see the humour in this. They say the guy is “sexually obsessed by The Human Centipede”: that’s absolutely not true, he’s just obsessed. I wrote the story. I know”.

This dismay and disbelief is exasperated by the fact that the notoriously picky American ratings board have granted it a certificate, as have their Australian counterparts, “Australia is OK. America is fine. So it’s really upsetting that the BBFC is not. The BBFC let through a lot of films, like Antichrist and A Serbian Film. Crazy”.

So what is next? What can he do? “We now have to go to court. It’s been rejected two times, so this is our last chance. We have to have them say that it is not obscene, that it’s not illegal”. If the film’s UK release does not materialise, or does – but much later than elsewhere, how will this harm the movie’s returns? “By doing this, the BBFC are promoting illegal download. If people want to see it, they will. They are really hurting me as a film maker”. I ask what message he would like to give to any UK fans tempted by an illegal download, in their eagerness to watch The Full Sequence and his reply is simple and honest, “Please. Wait. The UK is such a big market, it will do us a lot of harm. We are fighting our ass off to get to show it here. We will somehow show it here. Even if I have to rent a cinema and show it and get arrested”.

On a lighter, sort of, note; what are his plans for the third and concluding part of The Human Centipede? And will it be The Human Centipede 3D? “Well, part two is totally different from part 1 – you’re going to be really surprised, and part three is going to be totally different again. It’ll be from a totally different perspective again. It’s going to be called The Final Sequence. I have joked about 3D, but the films have more to do with the idea and story, rather than visualising it with bombastic things. It doesn’t need that. I’m not into that Hollywood craziness right now”.

I’m interested to know if there have been any American studio approaches regarding a remake and he kind of dodges the question with a nervous laugh. Instead he tells me who he would cast in an American remake, “I would have Tom Cruise, as the head of the human centipede. Jennifer Lopez in the middle. Paris Hilton in the back. I would choose Christopher Walken as the doctor”. That I would pay to see, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone.

He says that Hollywood have come a knocking, but what they have punted him he has no interest in, “I get sent scripts. They are so unoriginal. I would never, ever do that. I have crazy ideas and want to do my own films, as there is still uncharted territory. So many people lack ideas, or they copy each other all the time. I don’t want to be part of that. Yeah, a guy changes into a wolf – I’ve seen that a hundred times. They lack ideas.”

But what of the future? What comes next? “I am going to make a horror film in LA. A psychological horror film which will definitely top The Human Centipede. It’s very original, people haven’t seen it and they are going to be really upset by it”. I press for any names that may be attached but he’s a wily one and is only willing to give me the title: The Onania Club. When I seek clarification on the spelling of “Onania” he instantly makes for my notebook and writes it out for me – as I said: thoroughly lovely.

I hope he manages to secure a UK certificate and release for The Human Centipede: Full Sequence. I also hope that if that release is delayed, and anyone’s tempted to do a dodgy download, they remember what the polite, Dutch, gentleman in the cowboy hat said: “Please. Wait.”

Who knows when we may or may not get to see Full Sequence, but I can tell you that the Human Centipeded area of The London Bridge Experience and Tombs will be ready to greet you, and then scare the pants off you, this Halloween.

Paul Campion is the Writer / Director / Producer of The Devil’s Rock, a brutal, bloody horror set on the Channel Islands during World War 2. He took some time out from the marketing trail to chat to Gorepress’s Scullion about the film.

Honest, candid and good humoured, Paul gives an interesting insight into the making of The Devil’s Rock and where this mad idea was spawned from.

See below as Paul talks about demons, Nazis, the Weta Workshop, one crazily tight shooting schedule and someone called the “Deep Throat German”…

GOREPRESS: First up, congratulations on The Devil’s Rock – a very taut, bloody, compelling little horror.

PAUL CAMPION: Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. We set out to make a horror film that would hopefully be entertaining and have a little more depth to it than audiences might be expecting.

GP: Where did the idea for The Devil’s Rock come from?

PC: A trip to Guernsey in 2009 when I found out about the Channel Islands history of witchcraft, the Bad Books, and on the same trip saw one of the German fortifications there (specifically MP3) and thought that would be a great setting for a horror film. I started doing more research and took those elements and combined them with the commando raids on the Channel Islands and the Nazi’s history of the occult to come up with the basic plot.

GP: There is a lot of detail in The Devil’s Rock – from the historical facts to the demonic literature – how accurate is it all?

PC: Apart from the demon it’s all based on a certain amount of historical facts which we tried to weave the story around – the Channel Island’s history of witchcraft, the Bad Books (I found real 250 year old copies in a vault there), the German occupation, the fortification (based on a fortification called MP4 in Guernsey) and gun pit, the fact that the Germans were starving at the end of the war – hence the reason they went looking for food and found the book, the commando distraction raids on the Channel Islands, the interrogation and torture – which was based on Hitler’s Commando Order, which itself was because of a commando raid on the island of Sark in The Channel Islands. Then of course the Nazi’s were doing all kinds of weird things with the occult.

GP: The Devil’s Rock takes a much more sensible approach to “Nazis and the Occult” than most horror films (with the likes of ridiculous splatter-fests Dead Snow and Blood Reich in recent years) – were you tempted to make it funnier, or more extreme?

PC: It was always meant to be on the more serious side, more akin to The Exorcist. I don’t know about more extreme. It was always meant to be entertaining rather than going anywhere nasty.

GP: What do you think the Film Industry’s fascination is with the Nazis?

PC: In the case of fantasy type films like ours, they genuinely dabbling in the occult and were supposedly looking for religious and arcane/occult artefacts, so it’s very easy to cast them as the antagonists.

GP: Were you pleased with the cast you had?

PC: Fantastically! They are all extremely experienced actors and they brought a seriousness and honesty to the roles which was vital to making the film work, and without that it could easily have turned into more of a comedy horror, which was never the intention. On top of that they went through a lot making this film. They only got the shooting script 14 days before we started shooting, and then had to shoot up to 8 pages of script per day which is a huge amount to try and learn and memorise, let alone act. Then on top of that they had to endure the makeup effects and copious amounts of blood which is really sticky nasty stuff.

GP: I noticed one of the dead Nazi’s was Jonathan King, the writer / director of Black Sheep! How come he was involved…?

PC: Jonathan lives in Wellington, and I got to know him through the local film industry there. A lot of the same cast and crew who worked on his films Black Sheep and Under the Mountain also worked on my short Eel Girl and The Devil’s Rock – Matt Sunderland was in Under the Mountain, Nick Blake from Eel Girl was the taxi driver in Black Sheep, Weta Workshop did the makeup effects for both his films and for Eel Girl and Devil’s Rock, Richard Bluck was DoP on Eel Girl and Black Sheep/Under the Mountain, so I thought it would be fun to give Jonathan a small cameo as we had so much in common. The other cameo is Hadyn Green, who co-write my short Night of the Hell Hamsters – he’s the “rifle down the throat’ German – more affectionately known as the “Deep Throat German”.

GP: The blood and gore affects were very good and endlessly disgusting (I did especially like the “rifle down the throat” Nazi!) – who was responsible for that sickening mess, and were you happy with the result?

PC: That would be myself, co-writer Paul Finch and Sean Foot who was the prosthetics supervisor. The intention was always to make it a very bloody film, although if we had more budget there would’ve been more blood and gore. Paul Finch came up with the Deep Throat German and it was also his idea for the various body parts during the ritual at the end. The body parts around the rooms were my idea; there were supposed to be far more, in the script the floor was awash with blood and there were body parts embedded in the walls and ceiling, but again we just couldn’t afford it. There was also a scene where Helena rips a dead body in two, but we ran out of time and didn’t get to film it, which was a shame as Sean Foot built a great prosthetic body for that effect. Sean Foot built all the body parts and handled all the gore on set, so it’s all down to him how gross they look.

GP: Who came up with the design for The Demon? And how long did it take to apply the make-up?

PC: That was my design. I did some concept art, then Weta Workshop did a head cast of our actress Gina Varela then Sean Foot did the sculpture on top of that and really brought it to life. It’s a shame we don’t get to see more of her back, as she’s got two wing stumps and scars in the shape of symbols all over her back – the idea was that she was an angel who’d committed a crime in Heaven was cast out and sent to Hell, where her wings were hacked off and the details of her crime were carved into her back as punishment. The makeup took about 4 or 5 hours to apply. Gina and the makeup artists had to start work at something like 3 or 4am, then it took several hours to remove the makeup at the end of the day, so it was an even longer day for them than everyone else.

GP: This is your first Feature – did the production go smoothly / as you imagined it would?

PC: I would guess it went smoothly in the sense that nothing major went wrong, but the pre-production and production were incredibly stressful and extremely hard work.

GP: What was the hardest part of creating The Devil’s Rock?

PC: Trying to make the story and script work with basically two actors in a single room for 50% of the film, and the very limited schedule, both in pre-production and production. We started working on the film in February 2010 and were shooting in August. Paul Finch had only 7 days to write the first draft of the script, and Paul, myself and later in the production Brett Ihaka worked non-stop on it right into shooting. Then the shooting schedule itself was ridiculous – only 15 days to shoot everything. We shot 8 pages of script per day, including makeup and visual effects. We couldn’t afford any more time and we were racing to get the film into production and shot before The Hobbit started ramping up in Wellington and took most of our crew. We just managed to get the sets built before we lost our construction and paint crew the following day. The only way we got through the shoot was the cast and crew were incredibly professional and worked very hard and very fast.

GP: If you had one piece of advice for any first-time directors out there, what would it be?

PC: Surround yourself with the most experienced cast and crew you can and let them do their jobs.

Finally, what is your favourite horror film of all time?

PC: Can’t pick one. It’s a toss up between Alien, Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, The Thing, American Werewolf in London, Evil Dead 1 & 2 and Blade 2.

GP: Thanks for chatting to Gorepress, Paul.

PC: My pleasure!

The Devil’s Rock will be released in cinemas on the 8th July and is out on DVD on the 11th.

Jonathan Sothcott is one of the producers behind the ever-expanding British production company Black & Blue Films. After interviewing him last, Gorepress got the chance to catch up with him once again to talk about his new project Strippers Vs. Werewolves and how far the company has come in such a short space of time.

GP : What have you been up to since the last time Gorepress spoke to you, Jonathan?

JS : Well I have been a bit busy I have to say – I think we last spoke around the time of Devil’s Playground. Since then I’ve made 5 more movies, two of which – Airborne and Elfie Hopkins – are horror movies. Airborne is a plane-set supernatural thriller about a jet hijack going horribly wrong because of an ancient evil in the cargo hold. It has an amazing cast – brilliant veterans such as the legendary Julian Glover (who was the baddie in my favourite sci fi film Quatermass & The Pit) and gangster film icon Alan Ford plus great newcomers like lovely Gemma Atkinson. But the big coup was landing Mark ‘Luke Skywalker’ Hamill – the man is a legend. It was directed by my talented pal Dom Burns, who did a comedy for us called How To Stop Being A Loser and produced by Simon Phillips who has now joined my company.

Elfie Hopkins is a dark tale of cannibalism in rural Wales starring Ray and Jaime Winstone and Kate MacGowan. The director, Ryan Andrews, is a phenomenal talent – watch this guy, he will be a Brit Tim Burton. His use of imagery and his storytelling ability are amazing. He was the production designer on my first short so this has been a long time in the making. Ryan assembled this amazing little team of really talented people down in West Wales to make this film and they have all done themselves proud. It will be an instant cult movie and will make Jaime Winstone into the leading lady everyone knows she should be. That girl’s scarily talented.

GP : Why Strippers vs. Werewolves?

JS : You really need to ask? To be honest, the script came to me out of the blue from micro budget auteur Pat Higgins and I was the only one here who ‘got it’ immediately – but once the other guys read the script and realised it was a Kick Ass style comic book action-comedy rather than a sleazy T&A horror flick, we knew we had something pretty special! Getting this right has been our biggest challenge but I think it’s one that people are going to like!

GP : What can people expect from Strippers vs. Werewolves?

JS : They can expect a film that delivers on the title – beautiful girls (Adele Silva, Ali Bastian, Barbara Nedeljakova, Coralie Rose), big action set pieces and really scary werewolves – we have Billy Murray and Robert Englund as our baddies – who could be better? It is also, really, really funny – we have worked very hard to get the best out of every gag. And it is littered with in-jokes – look for werewolf movie references aplenty! I have made films in the past that didn’t deliver – notably Dead Cert, which squandered a great cast and great ideas. I was particularly disappointed we wasted Billy as head vampire… but he’s going to be a bloody great werewolf in this. It took a long time to find a director that the distributor approved but who had the right film-making sensibility, but we definitely had a touch getting Jonathan Glendenning, who’s a very talented guy and a pleasure to work with. Have high expectations because they’ll be met – this one’s a lot of fun.

GP : What rating are you aiming for? Can we expect an 18 certificate blood & breasts splatter-fest?

JS : I’d like a 15 – it really isn’t a horror film, it’s an action-comedy that happens to have werewolves in. And it isn’t sleazy, I wouldn’t want to make a sleazy film. But given that it’s about a pitched battle between strippers and werewolves it seemed silly to call it anything else! I do think we’d be letting the teenage boys of the world down if we didn’t deliver on the boobs and blood though!

GP : Will this be a film for both male and female audiences? It seems a little male orientated…

JS : Not at all. The girls are our heroines and they are very, very cool as well as very sexy – this is a movie girls will like just as much as boys, it was always intended to be. Just because they work in a strip club doesn’t mean they’re bimbos. There’s a lot of girl power in this movie! Before I take a project like this on I discuss it at length with my girlfriend, who is very clever and switched on but also my barometer of what’s cool and what girls will like. She absolutely loves this script and that was an important test.

GP : Lucy Pinder has been recently added to the cast list – who else are you hoping to get involved?

JS : Lucy is a friend of mine and has been looking to do some acting for a while, so she’s making her film debut. It’s a cameo really, but a very funny one and she’s a delight to have around. There are some people you meet who think they’re actresses just because they’ve taken their clothes off for the public, but Lucy is passionate about it and I think she’ll do well.
I can’t tell you how excited I am about Robert Englund – that’s like bagging Christopher Lee. The man is one of the biggest genre icons in the world and such a brilliant actor. The best thing about making movies is the toys we get to play with – not just blowing things up and car chases, but getting to work with people you grew up watching and loving.
The other one to look out for is a really nice role for my business partner Martin Kemp which will surprise people – it will be Martin dong something eye-poppingly different.

GP : What kind of werewolves will they be? The traditional Wolf Man look or something entirely new?

They are very much the classic Curse of the Werewolf look. We looked at every major (and some minor) werewolf movie as research and going down that route the ones that worked were ones like Curse of the Werewolf, the one in The Monster Squad (a film we pay very loving homage to in SvW) and of course the Lon Chaney classic. Unless you have bundles of money, the quadroped look seems to go horribly wrong and I didn’t want this looking like a Howling sequel, as much fun as they are. Our prosthetics designer Kristyan Malett, is an incredibly talented guy and will do us proud.

GP : When will Strippers vs. Werewolves be released?

JS : It is currently scheduled for a cinema release in November and DVD in Spring 2012. I’ll know more about international plans after Cannes.

GP : Black & Blue Films seems to be going from strength to strength. What do you attribute this to?

JS : Well yes we have upped our game in the last year. We are being more careful about what we take on. It’s all a huge learning curve. There isn’t a film producer school you can go to and graduate with an understanding of how to do this right. For me taking on Simon Phillips, who is a very talented producer, has been a really big help as Billy and I were spread too thin. Between us all we have a pretty good set of skills and now we’ve really moved up to the next level. We will keep trying to make better and better films and adapt to what audiences want – I wouldn’t want us to go stale.

GP : And finally, what is your favourite werewolf movie of all time?

JS : That’s a tricky one because I love werewolf movies – even the bad ones (and most of them are bad). I love American Werewolf in London. I love Curse of the Werewolf. I really liked Bad Moon. Guilty pleasures are definitely The Beast Must Die, Moon of the Wolf and Silver Bullett. I think the Hammer House of Horror episode Children of the Full Moon was great. And I love The Monster Squad but it isn’t really a werewolf film! I guess The Howling is probably my favourite – its scary and funny and cool. But I also love the sequels, even though they’re garbage, especially the impossibly silly Howling II and the murder mystery party that is Howling 5. Phil Davis who was in Howling 5 is a pal of mine and he cringes whenever I bring it up!

Keep your eyes peeled for more news on Strippers Vs. Werewolves!

Courtney Hope is an up-and-coming American actress and star of the  brutal horror flick Prowl.

Having learnt the ropes on American TV shows such as CSI Miami, Grey’s Anatomy and Walker, Texas Ranger, she’s proven her worth by knocking out as superb turn as Amber in Patrik Syversen’s Prowl.

Gorepress’s Scullion had a chance to catch up with her on the publicity trail, and asked her a few questions about her involvement in Prowl.

Gorepress: First up, great work in Prowl; a really surprising film, in a lot of good ways. Really enjoyed it.

Courtney Hope: Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

GP: So how did you get involved with Prowl?

CH: I got called in to read for the role of Amber, who’s character I loved. I read the script and thought it was very interesting. I ended up meeting with the director and we instantly clicked, and then I was told I had the role.

GP: Tell me a little bit about your character in Prowl.

CH: Amber is a very interesting character. She is dealing with the struggles of growing up and finding herself, so she feels very lost in her surroundings. She is very naive and not in tune with her friends when it comes to just having fun and being young. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about them, she just is in a different place than they are, mentally. As she leaves her small town to move to the big city, her struggles become bigger than she ever imagined. Her strength and independence as a person really show through, and reveals that she would do absolutely anything to fight for what she loves and believes in.

GP: The relationships between the characters in Prowl are very believable – how were the rest of the cast to work with?

CH: The whole cast got along really well. We had an absolute blast while filming. We all clicked instantly, and I think it really showed on screen.

GP: Your role is pretty brutal and very active – how did you prepare yourself for this?

CH: We shot in chronological order, so the extremely brutal/ emotional parts, I just prepared for as I went along. I just really dove deep into the character and how she was feeling, so when she became emotional, tired and fearful, I found myself doing the same. As far as the physical activity, I am a very athletic person, so that was second nature to me.

GP: Prowl has some surprisingly deep themes simmering beneath the horror – what would you hope the audience gets from this film?

CH: I would hope that the audience feels a deeper connection to the characters, and a more extreme, detailed version of the struggles of growing up.

GP: Would you ever accept a lift from a complete stranger?

CH: Absolutely not. My mom has always made it a point throughout my life to make sure my brother and I know not to accept rides, or anything for that matter, from strangers. Now, after seeing the extremes of what can happen, it would never even cross my mind.

GP: What scares you the most?

CH: Clowns, paranormal activity, and serial killers are the things that really get to me. Those are all so real to me, and completely terrify me.

GP: And finally, what’s your favourite horror movie of all time?

CH: Its funny when you say favorite, because to me in the horror genre favorite means what scares me the most. Its hard to pick just one, but the ones that stand out are IT, Paranormal Activity, The Fourth Kind, and any slasher movie like Scream or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to name a few.

GP: Thanks for chatting with Gorepress, Courtney!

CH: Anytime! Thank you very much! =)

Prowl is available on DVD now.

Director Michael Shane Leighton and writer Marc Leighton are the brothers responsible for the terrifying found footage horror film Pursuit of a Legend – review here

Gorepress’s Scullion was hugely impressed by their feature debut and wanted to discuss where their ideas came from and how they created such a believable “found footage” film.

Although not yet released in the UK, check out the official website here for a taster of Pursuit of a Legend.

Michael and Marc both come across as passionate, funny and genuine gents, with a love for film and a great pride for what they’ve accomplished. Below they talk about Bigfoot, surprise snow, an eviscerated deer, one severely inexperienced boat captain and a very disturbing dream…

GOREPRESS: Why Bigfoot?

Michael Shane Leighton: I have a couple of reasons for Bigfoot; one being that he is a household name. The other is of all the investigations for Bigfoot that have been documented he seems to always elude the camera. And that was perfect for a film that I never wanted to show the actual creature.

Marc Leighton: Can you think of anything more bad-ass to put up against these city boys trying to make it out in the woods with a camera?

GP: What made you think – “Let’s make a film!” – And why this particular story?

Michael: It all kind of happened fast. I had wrapped up a film in Grand Rapids and was eagerly looking forward to another project. Marc and I were sitting at my kitchen table discussing a reality based television series Pursuit of a Legend, which would actually follow a team of investigators around the United States looking for proof of Bigfoot once and for all. Then we thought – what if these investigators actually found him, what would happen. And well now you know.

Marc: Michael had been pitching me his reality show about searching for Bigfoot so my mind was focused there and I thought; why not make it a horror film. From there we started shooting ideas back and forth and within a few hours we had our cast, two brothers trying to make a show, how much more obvious could it have been.

GP: Why did you choose the “found footage” route to tell your story?

Marc: The story really lent itself to that concept. Two brothers go out to make a show, get some footage but before they get back bad things happen.

Michael: We thought to really tell the story of what happened to the brothers, let’s just piece together what footage they got and show the world that way.

GP: Personally, do you believe that Sasquatches exist?

Michael: You know with all the sightings all over the globe you gotta think there is something out there. Have I found one piece of hard evidence that makes me believe… no, but all of it put together, yeah. He’s out there, but he’s just a little bit smarter than those searching for him.

Marc: Didn’t you see the movie? Of course he does. But really, I would say I do believe he exists, but it gets harder and harder to hang on to that belief. I mean let’s face it, with today’s technology it would be hard for something to hide for very long. I just keep waiting for him to pop up on a Google map.

GP: Apart from Pursuit, what’s your favorite “found footage” film?

Marc: I would have to say Paranormal Activity. It had so much hype about it before its release I had myself set up for disappointment. But I thought they did it really well. There was nothing over the top. They focused on suspense and I think that placed them a cut above the rest.

Michael: Boy…I am going to go with Blair Witch. For one thing, it was a breakthrough concept and look at the following it generated; genius. Also, looking from a filmmaker’s standpoint, they did such a good job cutting it together. There were so many well blended transitions you never noticed until you sat down and watched it real close.

GP: Have you both always been fans of the horror genre?

Michael: Ha Ha… I suppose we could thank our father Michael W. Leighton for that one. I think we were what… 6 and 7 when he took us to see Friday the 13th in the theater. But for me, I would call myself a movie fan in general. If it has a good story and shot well then I would enjoy it.

Marc: My love of horror was kicked started when I saw Friday the 13th, and I also loved books by John Bellairs. They weren’t necessarily horror, but for a kid they were scary. I quickly moved on to Stephen King and Dean Koontz. From there, yes, I was definitely a horror fan.

GP: What scares you the most? Personally I’m terrified of the sea…

Marc: One word answer there: Dolls. I mean really, does it get any creepier?

Michael: Actually, the answer to that question is a topic of much debate at CK Pictures. I’ve had this terrifying dream that has haunted me since high school where I am skateboarding and an old black car pulls up alongside. The windows roll down and there’s this scary old woman in a long white veil staring at me. Scared the hell out of me then, and still does. Marc wrote a script about an old hag that haunts a family. I feel I deserve some story credit on it, but he’s fighting me.

GP: Marc, what films / TV series influenced you when writing Pursuit of a Legend?

Marc: I would say Halloween had some influence. It was one of those films where it was dark and you saw these images of the antagonist in the background. Also, The Strangers did such an excellent job on suspense. Through so much of the movie, the audience was on the edge of their seat, waiting for something to happen.

GP: Were you inspired by T.A. Wilson’s book “In Pursuit of a Legend: 72 Days in California Bigfoot Country”? It’s seems of a similar theme.

Marc: To be honest, neither of us had heard of the book ‘til we were looking up Pursuit of a Legend to make sure it wasn’t already a title for a movie.

GP: How difficult was it to write dialogue which had to be extremely naturalistic?

Marc: Actually, the dialog came quite easy. I just imagined me and Michael out in the woods and how we would talk to one another. Our conversations are almost always loaded down with sarcasm and the insults are sure to fly. But, it’s all in good fun.

GP: And Michael? What influenced you in the filming of Pursuit of a Legend?

Michael: I thought we could tell a fun story like you would do sitting around a campfire. Also, filming Pursuit of a Legend was not only a chance to have my directorial debut but also a way to finally get a chance to create a project with my younger brother Marc.

GP: How long was the shoot?

Michael: The shoot itself lasted only 6 days. We actually filmed it in sequence. I wanted Chris (Justin) and Steffen (Carter) to look and feel as though they had been out in the woods camping. So it goes right along with the script. Day 1 of the film is day 1 of shooting. Of course we had to make a few adjustments, such as the six inches of snow that was dumped on our set on day 1… That was not in the script. So we did have to push our shooting back a day. That also cancelled out our plan of having our brothers really spend the night out in the woods in their tents. We ended up bringing them in each night to our small lodge… a one room shack with twelve metal frame bunks… I had the crew wake them up every few hours to give them that didn’t-sleep-worth-a-damn look every morning.

GP: Any problems on set? Anything spooky happen?

Michael: The snow! Marc and I did a walkthrough of our set the week before shooting and it was perfect! Barren trees, dry branches littering the ground, a few spots of mud here and there to put a nice foot print in. Then, on day one, the snow fell; But nothing spooky that I heard of. Couple of mishaps in the port-a-potty.

Marc: Don’t forget about our weathered boat captain.

Michael: (Laughs) Of course there’s that. The script originally called for our two brothers to get a boat ride down river to the Widjigo woods. Well… first it took forever to get our small boat in the water and that was way down river from our location so it took forever to get the boat down to our location. Then we realized our captain (Winston Whitten) had never driven a boat. You saw the film, tell me Winston didn’t look like he’d spent time on the open seas. So we taught him how to operate it, he got himself in the boat, we went up to the location, about fifty yards up the semi frozen river, and the shoot started. It wasn’t ten seconds later we heard the terrible cry of “he’s in the river!” Our set Medic (Tim Morrow) was standing by in a mustang suit and we all started a mad dash for Winston. We finally got there and Winston had made it to shore, but he was on the other side of the river. All in all, Winston was a great sport and we ended up doing a quick rewrite and ended up with the scene we have now. And a great scene at that.

GP: Whose idea was the decimated deer?! And what did you use to create it? (Please tell me it wasn’t one of you with a chainsaw in a deer park!)

Marc: As much as I hate to do it, I have to give Michael credit with that one. Originally I had another rock shower in the script but Michael wanted something more… something that showed our Legend was stepping things up. He suggested a deer, or at least pieces of a deer. I looked at him like he was crazy and may have indeed told him he was. He told me he’s the boss. Clearly it was the right call and I think it turned into one of the more disturbing scenes in the film. It also gave way to some good dialog later one when Carter gives his opinion of what is happening. And by the way… PETA, it was a hunter’s kill that we got bits and pieces of.

Michael: Damn it! Why don’t we have Deer Parks??

GP: What was your greatest challenge when making Pursuit of a Legend?

Marc: Have we mentioned the snow yet? And boy was it cold.

Michael: Other than that, there was the final night of shooting. It was the film’s climax and everything needed to be done just right. It was the only time we really had to choreograph the scenes and as the film’s director I stepped in and did much of the camera work myself. Nothing against either actor, but it had to be done just right. Other than that, location, weather and keeping Bigfoot happy.

Marc: He even did about a dozen falls to the ground at the end and ended up at the chiropractor’s office the next day.

GP: The film really rests on the shoulders of your two leads. Where did you find them, and how were they to work with?

Michael: We found them both through our great casting director Fran Bascom. I asked that we find two actors that have no credits to speak of and within a week, Fran had several dozen to choose from. The two were great to work with and made it easy for a first time director. From day one, they took on the roles of Carter and Justin and remained in character the entire time.

Marc: Yeah, I don’t think I even knew their names ‘til we were done with the shoot. I had of course seen their names on paper, but when I met them during preproduction they introduced themselves as Carter and Justin, and I guess I was simple enough that it just stuck with me as their names.

GP: Were you both happy with the final result?

Michael: I am definitely pleased with the film. We had a vision, good or bad, and the film is more than what we had believed it could be.

Marc: It turned out great. It has more than just your typical found footage film. It has two characters you can really like and a story.

GP: If you could go back in time, what one piece of advice would you give yourselves before starting production?

Michael: I would tell myself to wait until fall, only because the snow storm threw a bit of a wrench in things, but really, the snow cover gave us some great scenery. Then I would say to butcher the writer and throw his parts at the tent.

Marc: Of course, there are always things I think could have been better in the script, unfortunately you gotta stop rewriting sometimes and start filming. Even now I’ll think of something and say, “Damn, I should have put that in the script”.

GP: When can we expect a UK / European release date?

Michael: Right now, we are in the process of finding a domestic distributor but we are very eager to get it out internationally. Know anyone in acquisitions there in the UK?

GP: So, what’s next for you both?

Michael: We are currently finishing a great Western script that we both wrote and hope to see it in production in the very near future. We also have fantastic horror film Marc wrote, “Elmira” based on one of my biggest fears, and hope to begin filming that one the end of summer this year.

GP: And finally, what’s your favourite horror film of all time?

Michael: I am going to go with The Blair Witch Project. The fact it was the first film of this kind to really break out tells a lot about the filmmakers. From concept to marketing, they were nearly flawless. Genius really and for that, I tip my hat to them.

Marc: I think I can speak for both of us when I say The Exorcist. It has to be the most disturbing and brilliantly scripted horror film out there.

Craig Fairbrass is a veteran British actor with a huge range of experience; three years on Eastenders, a memorable role in Cliffhanger, a Uwe Boll film, roles in Stargate SG-1 and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and even voicing major characters in the Call of Duty franchise. Being involved in over 12 films in 2010 / 2011 and currently working on his own project “Gunned Down”, the future is looking even brighter for Craig Fairbrass.

Gorepress’s Scullion caught up with him on the media trail, celebrating the release of free-running zombie horror Devil’s Playground. Chatting over the phone-waves of London, Craig comes across as a smart, thoughtful, horror enthusiast and a true gent – a real pleasure to talk to.

See below as Craig discusses zombies, Danny Dyer, the film industry, action-horror and his surprising choice of favourite horror film…

Gorepress : Tell me a little about Devil’s Playground?

Craig Fairbrass : You haven’t seen it?!

GP : No, I haven’t seen it yet.

CF : Oh no, you’re joking.

GP : I’ve seen the extended trailer, if that helps…

CF : Devil’s Playground is an action-horror with a real emotional story running through it. It’s not just your bog standard shoot ‘em up and bash ‘em up and kill ‘em type film. Mark McQueen, who directed it, made sure there was a real human story running alongside of it. You can perceive that anyway you like, but there’s a real story there, about a group of people really trying to survive. My character Karl, who’s head of security for Newgen Industries, who’s been working for this company and no longer wants to be there because he’s done too many bad things for them. All this goes a bit weird for them. They’ve got this new drink out, which has massive side effects, and starts making people turn into zombies. So Newgen brings my character Karl back, to help track down the one person who’s not had any side effects –

GP : That’s Myanna Buring, right?

CF : Yeah. But at the same time I’ve already been bitten myself, in the laboratory, when one of the test subjects goes berserk. Then I only have one day – I have three suppressants that suppress the virus – so I’m like a ticking time bomb, where I’ve got to track her down and get her out of the country to do some tests, to find an anti-virus.

GP : That’s actually a genuinely good premise, especially for a zombie film.

CF : It is. And along the way we’re attacked at every turning point and every place they can hide.

GP : The zombies are free-running, Parkour zombies, right?

CF : They are, yeah. Mark McQueen, Bart [Ruspoli] and Steve [Matthews] and Jonathan [Sothcott] decided to give the zombies an edge, because they’re usually slow and lumbering. They’re all free-runners, and they were absolutely amazing, and without them the film would’ve been nothing, as far as I’m concerned. Absolutely breathtaking, what they do – the way they move and jump and run. It really gave them an edge.

GP : Are you a fan of zombie movies?

CF : Yeah, I am. I’m a big horror fan. I always remember watching George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead when I was a kid. I just loved it. And then I find myself at four o’clock in the morning, it’s snowing, and I’m fighting zombies. It was a lot of fun.

GP : Do you prefer the slower moving zombies or the fast ones?

CF : It all depends. I’ve just been approached to do another zombie film, which is filming in Serbia, towards the end of the year. And that’s more “blow their heads off with a pump-action shotgun” type film, but this is much more different with jumping and trying to bite you and you’re wrestling them, and the only way you can kill them is by smashing their brains in with a hammer!

GP : Well, with it being set in London there’s not a huge access to guns, I suppose.

CF : Exactly, yeah. I’ve got a gun, but it don’t do much damage. You’ve really gotta get to grips with them and kill them that way. A bit more hand-to-hand combat.

GP : How’d you get involved with Devil’s Playground?

CF : I’d come back from the States and I was offered a sort of – I had done this film called Freight, which was an action movie that’s coming out shortly – and then I was offered Dead Cert. Then the producer saw me in a film called Rise of the Footsoldier. Have you seen that?

GP : Yeah. You play that real-life gangster –

CF : Pat Tate. They saw me in the that, I had a meeting with them, and I was about to do another sort of gangstery type film, which I really wasn’t too keen on doing, and then this script came along from Jonathan Sothcott – The Devil’s Playground – and I read it as soon as it arrived, and I said I would absolutely kill to play this role. Because what’s interesting about Karl is he’s searching and hunting for redemption. He’s done so many bad things in his life, and if he can do one good thing before he dies it’d make him happy. He was a tough character, but with an Achilles heel, with a little bit of empathy. I found him interesting and not just a geezer who goes around smashing people up. There’s a lot more going on, and I thought I’d like to play a part like that.

GP : He’s not your average hero, is he?

CF : No, no he’s not. It just made him interesting.

GP : What was it like working alongside other British horror pros, like Colin Salmon, Myanna Buring and Danny Dyer?

CF : Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You know, Danny Dyer said to me, “I’ve not been on a film like this for a long time”. He said “there’s not one weak link in this chain. It’s amazing”. Because everybody was on their game – especially Dyer. Because it’s five or six people, it’s a tough shoot, it’s five weeks – snow, freezing cold – all sorts of logistical nightmares, big outdoor lighting shots, action, explosions. In amongst all that was this emotional turmoil, and all this frenetic activity between the group, and conflict. And if you weren’t on your game, and you weren’t on the material – you only had two or three times to shoot it, because of the weather conditions. But everyone was brilliant – Jamie Murray, Lisa McAllister, Craig Conway, Dyer, Colin – everyone was just faultless. If you see the film – I am really, really genuinely proud of it. 100%. It’s the best work I’ve done for a long time, outside of Rise of the Footsoldier. I’m really proud of it.

GP : At Gorepress we love our zombie films, me especially, so I’ll have to watch it as soon as I can.

CF : Yeah, you should. You should. Production value wise, for a British film, we were very very lucky. Mark McQueen is an extraordinarily talented kid, he’s got a huge future ahead of him, you’ll see what I mean when you watch it. He’s got a real edge, the way he’s shot it. I just looks and sounds perfect – it all came together at the right time.

GP : Mark McQueen previously did documentaries, like The 5th Gear and a Guinness World Records piece.

CF : Yeah. A couple of pop things, a couple of commercials, like a lot of these new directors. He’s an editor, which solved a lot of problems, when we went down to the set in the morning and you’ve got so much stuff to do – you really need that to be done, someone who’s ahead of the game.

GP : You’ve done such a huge range of work. Eastenders on TV and even voiceovers on the Call of Duty computer game franchise. What sort of work do you prefer?

CF : I like action, I like TV, but film is really where I enjoy myself. Because it’s forever. There’s something special about it. You watch it on the big screen, and then you’ve got your little collection. It’s funny, because it’s opened up another avenue of work for me – in the action-horror arena – which I’m looking forward to doing more of.

GP : Yeah, well you’ve got a lot on in 2010 and 2011, haven’t you?

CF : I’m just about to go to the States to do an actiony-gangster film, then come back. I’ve got my script at the moment – which I’m producing – a film called Gunned Down, which we’re finally got the last chunk of finance for. And I’ve got a couple of action-horrors that are kicking around. You jump on what goes. I know The Devil’s Playground jumped straight in at number 4 on the DVD chart, which is great.

GP : That’s excellent for a British horror film.

CF : Everyone who’s seen it has said to me “Craig, it really is head and shoulders above anything that’s around like that. It really is a cool film”. And it’s nice when people genuinely like it.

GP : You’ve done your zombie film now – is there anything you still want to do, that you haven’t?

CF : Well, I get all these e-mails, and one said to me “You’ve done the vampires, you’ve done the zombies – you gotta do a werewolf one!” I’d love to. I’d play a werewolf or I’d kill a werewolf – anything!

GP : I’m sure there’s someone out there reading this and desperately thinking “I better get a script knocked out – werewolves and Craig Fairbrass!”

CF : Yeah, we’ll see.

GP : You’ve worked in film and TV for nearly 30 years now – how’ve you found the film industry’s changed in all those years?

CF : Well I started in 1986 – so that’s nearly 25 years, yeah – I was in For Queen & Country, opposite Denzel Washington. I can remember that a low budget British film then was about two n’ a half million quid, but a low budget British movie now is about one million quid. It’s like everything’s doubled the price but film budgets have gone down even further, because it’s just impossible to get them off the ground. With the big American movies that come here – and most of them aren’t very good anyway – you know what I mean? I watch a lot of films and think “There’s no excuse when you’ve got thirty million dollars”.

GP : The film industry is saturated with some utter bollocks, it’s true.

CF : Completely. I’m so glad you said that – completely that. How many times in the past year – apart from Inglorious Bastards – have I sat down and watched a film and really enjoyed it.

GP : As we’re talking zombies and big films – did you see Resident Evil: Afterlife?

CF : No, but I tell you what I did see – The Crazies. I thought it was brilliant.

GP : That was surprisingly good, especially for a remake.

CF : What was Resident Evil like?

GP : It’s the fourth Resident Evil film, and it’s appalling. It’s a joke, it’s a mess – there’s hardly any zombies in it, for a start.

CF : It’s action.

GP : Yeah. I don’t mind action, as long as it makes sense. Anyway, talking of the film industry in regards to budgets, you’ve done a couple of movies with Black and Blue Films – you mentioned Jonathan Sothcott earlier – it must be nice to have a British production company actually pumping out films. They’re a prolific company.

CF : Yeah, well Jonathan’s a very smart, shrewd guy. I met him, and he said to me “You’re quite unique. Your age, your look, your physicality, your acting ability. There’s a real brand that I could really do with you – there’s a market for these films now – “It does what it says on the tin” films.” And it’s something he’s aggressively pushed me into, in a nice way, he said “Listen, we’ve gotta do this, we’ve gotta do that – we look at the figures, we go back” and he’s recognized that, which is great. And we try and use the same people, and try and make it like a family unit. Getting the money, and getting everybody back on board, just pushing forward and try to make more films.

GP : Like Hammer Studios, back when it was a smaller studio.

CF : Exactly.

GP : Passion and commitment for the same goals.

CF : Yeah, and trying to do contained, clever-budgeted films that get investors a return. So many films are made where they don’t get a return, and what we’re trying to do is set up quality films, with quality directors and quality actors, where that private chunk of equity that you bring in actually gets you a return on your money, which is great. Once you start that, you can keep going back and back and back.

GP : I think investors have got to the point where they expect to lose money. It’s rare an investor actually makes something.

CF : Yeah, I’m amazed what people put money into. I met two people last week, who’d both put 800 grand each into some sort of rom-com – I’m just amazed. It’s horrible for me to say, but it’s got to be the commercial gear that sells the planet.

GP : Is there anyone you’ve always wanted to work with and haven’t had the chance yet?

CF : Not really, no. I was just about to do a film out in New Orleans, which has just been pushed back a couple of weeks, and Ray Liotta was gonna be in it. But they’ve recast him with someone else. I was quite excited about that. You know, Goodfellas, “he’s a funny guy”. It would’ve been nice. All the actors you meet – I’ve worked with big stars – it’s nice to work with big actors, it does you the world of good, standing and sharing the screen with some of them people. It’s been fun – I did a film with Steven Berkoff recently – Dead Cert. I’ve always been in awe of him and he was a really nice, down-to-earth, good fella who’s been through the mill. I think the ones who’s done it all, they’re a bit more secure – in their head – they’re a lot more better behaved.

GP : Finally, what’s your favourite horror film of all time (apart from The Devil’s Playground, of course).

CF : For me – you’re gonna laugh – Jeepers Creepers.

GP : Really? – Wow.

CF : I do like the monster ones. That and The Thing.

GP : A great choice. Have you seen Jeepers Creepers 2?

CF : Yeah, I didn’t think it was that good.

GP : It was a mess.

CF : Yeah, it was. Did you like the original?

GP : I did – I know of lot of people panned it. The start was brilliant and suddenly, out of nowhere, this monster appears.

CF : It was so original. And when a creature is done well – and so violent and gruesome – it’s great.

GP : Yeah, the ending was especially grim. Brilliant. Well, Craig, thanks for talking to Gorepress.

CF : Thank you.

Devil’s Playground is out on DVD now released by Entertainment One.

Brian Metcalf is the director, writer, producer, editor and visual effects supervisor on fantasy-horror film Fading of the Cries. Not released anywhere yet and having only just finished the post production on it, Gorepress’s Scullion had the pleasure of talking to Brian before Fading of the Cries hits the big screen… or any screen, for that matter.

Talking from California, Brian comes across as affable, enthusiastic, smart and a genuine lover of the medium he’s committed himself to work in.

As Fading of the Cries might be a large number of months away from a UK release, here’s the awesome trailer below to tease and excite you – and also help understand what Brian and Scullion are talking about!

See below as Brian Metcalf discusses zombies, schedule-raping fires, the nightmare of funding, using CGI, his film addiction, UK distribution and a very angry Brad Dourif…

GOREPRESS: How did you get the idea for Fading of the Cries?

BRIAN METCALF: Well, the idea came about because I’ve always been a huge fan of zombies and the undead and horror films and fantasy movies and everything like that, so the idea came about when I was really young – I remember being a huge fan of George Romero and Lucio Fulci and all the undead films, and also being a fan of superheroes, so I wanted to combine and mix around the different genres.

GP: Why is it called Fading of the Cries?

BM: It relates to a scene in the film. Fading of the Cries refers to the cries of the townspeople as they’re fading out, as they’re dying.

GP: This is your first feature film, correct?

BM: Yes it is.

GP: Your previous work includes directing 24: The Board Game, is that right?

BM: Yeah.

GP: How did you go from directing a board game to creating Fading of the Cries?

BM: I’d been a creative director, working on a lot of films, and I’ve been a visual effects supervisor on a lot of things. I had always wanted to do film myself, and get my hand in and learn about all the different genres and fields and so forth. I wrote my script and showed it to investors and eventually they bid on it.

GP: Is that how it normally goes? You have to fight for it?

BM: Honestly, we had been fighting to get this movie made since 1999. I’d actually made a trailer for the film in 2002 with Thomas Ian Nicholas, who’s also in the film. We were showing it around to investors and around that time we actually came close a few times to getting funding, and then – for whatever reason – they dropped out.

GP: That must have been frustrating.

BM: Yeah, it’s been very frustrating. It’s been an off and on and off and on and finally, back in 2007, investors said they’d love to do it and we started production in 2008.

GP: What have you found that’s the toughest part of the film industry, for you personally?

BM: Apart from funding? [Laughs] Everything else has been a cakewalk. I’m assuming the whole distribution thing will be it’s own difficult task, but now we have sales agents for that, who are working on that for us. I think the funding is always the most difficult part of all.

GP: The fact you actually received funding is an achievement itself.

BM: It is, certainly. It’s an achievement to make a film at all. There are so many scraps and so many tasks – we had fires on location and we had to rearrange our schedule, and had to rearrange actors around it. There were all kinds of challenges we had to face, but we got through them all, thank goodness, and pretty well.

GP: Where was the shoot – with these fires?

BM: There were fires over in Santa Clarita area [in California]. We were planning to shoot over at Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch and Sable Ranch, but we had to rearrange our schedules because the roads were literally blocked off by the fires over there. So we had to switch around different days and had to rush the actors in at different points throughout the rest of the shoot, and thank goodness their schedules were free to accommodate that.

GP: So what advice would you give to any writers / directors trying to get funding?

BM: Have a solid pitch and have a solid idea. Really know what you’re doing. Don’t suddenly think “Okay, I’m gonna be a writer” and then write your entire script on Word or whatever. Use the correct tools, like Final Draft, and make sure it’s formatted correctly and you’ve had plenty of people check over the script to make sure it’s – you might understand it very well, but your viewers might not understand it. Or more importantly, the investors might not understand it. I would say just really think things through.

GP: When it came to the directing side of Fading of the Cries, there’s a lot of choreography involved – sword fights, lots and lots of people running across fields – how did you find that?

BM: I had help from a great fight choreographer, called Luke LaFontaine, who’d worked on a lot of films like Master & Commander and Beowulf. He was a great choreographer to help with the sword fighting and training. A lot of the other stuff, I had people doing animatics and I was able to do storyboards, and I actually had a great storyboard artist who helped out, by the name of Patrick Barrett. I had this movie so much in my mind that I pretty much knew every shot of the film I wanted to make before actually going in and doing it. And then, being on set and things changing rapidly around me, I had to make compromises on the spot.

GP: Did Fading of the Cries turn out how you’d hoped?

BM: I feel that it’s turned out about 70% of what I’d actually imagined. I like how it turned out, and we’ve had some great critiques from the people who’ve viewed it so far. I hope the general audience feel the same about that. You know, you have hopes and aspirations about how it’ll turn out and it turns out slightly differently, but I’m still happy with the end result.

GP: On hindsight, is there anything you’d change?

BM: We had to change a few things around, and for pacing we had to cut a few scenes to make it quicker. I certainly wanted to move around a few things, but I’m not going too heavily into details… [Laughs]

GP: You wrote it, you directed it, you produced it and you even worked on the visual effects. Were you not tempted to do a bit of acting on it?

BM: [Laughs] No… I’m more behind-the-scenes, a more of a behind-the-camera kind of person. I like to see the whole scene as it is. The reason why I wanted to write it and direct it and edit it and so forth is because they say you make a film three times. In order to have complete control on the vision I wanted to write it, direct it, edit it… and then if it sucks, I’m the only one to blame for it. But if I’d had a really bad editor and they took all my shots and they took the wrong shots, I’d be a totally different film, so that’s why I was so tempted to do it all myself.

GP: What genre would you put Fading of the Cries into?

BM: Oh jeez, I never really think of specific genres. It does have zombies in it, so it does have an element of Horror to it, but it also has a strong element of Fantasy to it. It’s not a straight up Horror film, per se, and it’s not a straight up Fantasy or Action film. It’s got elements of everything.

GP: From the trailer it appears to be largely Fantasy – regarding funding, do you think it was quite hard to get it off the ground because Fading of the Cries didn’t have wand-wielding children or wistful blood-suckers, like Harry Potter and Twilight? Is it hard to get a Fantasy film noticed when it doesn’t contain wizards and vampires?

BM: I’m honestly not sure. I would think that Fantasy would be easier to fund in some ways, only for the fact that they sell better. According to my sales agent, he was saying one of the hardest things to sell nowadays is Drama. Straight-up Dramas.

GP: Why do you think that is?

BM: I can only assume that the general public prefers Fantasy because it’s something to escape from their normal, everyday life, and something to lose yourself in and imagine things out. Just have a good time with. I’m not 100% certain as to why, but that’s my own best guess for it.

GP: You had to deal with quite a lot of CGI in Fading of the Cries. How’d you find dealing with that?

BM: Because I’ve worked in the visual effects industry previously, that’s the one thing I really had no doubts about. I had a lot of friends I could pull in to help, and it was really intense. We’d been working on the effects for over a year and a half. We have over 1000 effects shots in the film – it’s quite intensive stuff. We have lots of set extension and other things as well. Oddly enough, we had people saying that the scenes that weren’t CGI-touched just weren’t as spectacular as those with CG, because the CG ones were expansive.

GP: Were there any difficulties?

BM: Oh, well, it’s only difficult when mixing live action with the CG. We have to set the proper tracking points on, so we could get the set extensions and the tracking correct. Then you have to make it look realistic and have it match with the live action stuff. It can always be difficult – we had a lot of crowd simulation and a lot of CGI birds. They all have their own challenges and a lot of planning. There’s a tremendous amount of planning involved with it.

GP: What do you think of all the other CG heavy films out there at the moment? Are you a fan?

BM: I like them. I really like a lot of the films that are out there at the moment. I have always had a fascination with Fantasy. It’s fun to get lost in other worlds. I saw the movie Inception recently and thought that was a really fun, imaginative world.

GP: It was excellent.

BM: Very well done, and I think it was great what he [Christopher Nolan] had done. Without being able to use CGI it just wouldn’t have had the same effect.

GP: How’d you find working with the non-CG elements – the actors? How was Brad Dourif?

BM: Brad was fantastic. The interesting thing is that, back when I came up with the idea for this film, I already knew I wanted him for this because I’d watched the Exorcist 3. Brad plays the Gemini Killer in it and I thought “Who is this actor?”, because he was so intense and violent and I wanted that type of character. It was a dream come true to actually get him on board the film. He read he script, said he liked it, and said “yeah, I’ll do it” and was like, “Yes!”. I was really excited to be working with him. He did a fantastic job. He took the character to a whole new level that even I hadn’t imagined. All the other actors were fantastic – they all really got behind the project and worked hard and understood their characters really well.

GP: What’s the one thing that gets you up in the morning? Apart from this interview, of course…

BM: I love the whole film making process and post-production, and I really mean that. Having worked on this for so long – I mean, we just finished it last week! The entire film, in terms of post production. All the effects, the music and composition and everything has finally been put in place. The whole process is really really fun, I really have enjoyed it. I have loved movies my entire life, watched them around the clock, so being able to do it for my own film – it’s just so exciting for me.

GP: What inspires you?

BM: A lot of things inspire me. Definitely other feature films inspire me, books inspire me, comics inspire me, music is a huge inspiration as well. All kinds of entertainment inspires me. They’re huge inspirations to me. I’m constantly watching films. During the whole post-production process and while working on the visual effects I went through five or six movies a day.

GP: Wow – a day?

BM: Yeah. I’d be watching a tonne of films I’d seen before, a tonne of new movies, because you’d be working 12 / 14 hours a day in post production, so you have movies playing in the background. I think I got through the whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogy about thirty times!

GP: [Laughs] So what’s the last film you watched?

BM: I watched one yesterday. I was watching Prince of Persia.

GP: Oh, blimey… erm… what did you think of it?

BM: [Laughs] I thought it was fun. It was adapted from a videogame and had a lot of fantasy mixed in with it. It’s kind of a fun, mindless entertainment type thing…

GP: It wasn’t trying to be cerebral.

BM: [Laughs] No, I don’t expect it to win any Oscars!

GP: So what would you like people to take from your film?

BM: I’d like people to be entertained with it and really be able to escape from reality for an hour and a half. You know, just enjoy themselves, and go on a rollercoaster ride and have a lot of fun – I think the movie has a tremendous amount of action in it. It’s very fast paced, so I really hope people are entertained and their intelligence isn’t insulted.

GP: As this is an interview, I’ll ask the traditional job interview question – where would you like to be in five years time?

BM: In five years? Strangely, I’d like to be doing what I’m doing now – making films and being in the process and writing and directing. Right now I’m working in post production for a music video, which we shot for the film. It’s with the band Helmet, and we actually got most of the actors in to be in the music video as well.

GP: That’s an exciting idea.

BM: It’s exciting stuff. I’m very thankful for Helmet for letting me have their music to do this, and working with me on this.

GP: You mentioned distribution earlier. Does Fading the Cries have a release date in the UK yet?

BM: I’m not exactly sure about the full details of distribution over there. We have a number of different distribution places around the world, but I don’t think the UK is listed as one of them yet. As for the U.S., we are going to show it to distributors next. We have not shown it to anyone yet, in the United States, because we have wanted to wait until it’s completely finished. But we’re having the screening up here at the end of the month.

GP: I’m really interested in seeing it in the UK. The trailer is certainly exciting, and it’s always good to see Brad Dourif.

BM: There’s a lot of Brad. He’s in full, angry, rage mode.

GP: [Laughs] That’s good news.

BM: [Laughs] He’s really an evil character in this film – it’s really great to see. I’ve loved him in movies like Halloween 2, but I really missed him from the days of Chucky and all of that. It’s really exciting to see him angry again – and he’s full-on rage in this film.

GP: Apart from his role in Fading of the Cries, what’s your favourite performance of Brad’s?

BM: Oh gosh… well I mentioned the Exorcist 3 as certainly one of them. That probably is the strongest of his, as he’s so intense in that and has an extremely large amount of dialogue and you give it to a certain type of actor and it could go really wrong, but he really made it interesting. I’d definitely say the Exorcist 3.

GP: Finally, what’s your favourite horror film of all time?

BM: [Laugh] Oh no – I have so many horror films that I love! I’m a huge Lucio Fulci fan, a George Romero fan – Day of the Dead and Martin. I love Frank Darabont’s work. I really like Let the Right One In, the film by Tomas Alfredson. There are so many movies, I can’t just pick one.

GP: How about your favourite zombie film…?

BM: [Laughs] There are so many favourite zombie films I can’t – I mean, I really have to say The Evil Dead ranks as one of the top ones for me. And Day of the Dead is one of my favourites. A lot of people prefer Dawn of the Dead, but I like Day of the Dead better. It’s difficult to choose! [Laughs]

GP: Thanks for talking to Gorepress, Brian. It’s been a pleasure.

BM: Thank you very much.

Meir Zarchi might not be a household name, but he was in 1978, and for a heap of controversial reasons – Zarchi is the director, writer and producer of the notorious and original I Spit On Your Grave a.k.a “Day of the Woman”.

Banned on its cinematic release throughout most of Europe, cut to ribbons by many other countries and barely surviving an attempted ban in Australia, this rape and revenge horror classic is still making news today, having the recently released Ultimate Edition banned in Ireland!

Gorepress’ Scullion had the pleasure of asking Meir a few unique questions about his seminal film, including justifiable revenge, career killing, the 2010 remake, 3D in cinema, some funny stories and who’s lurking outside his window…

GOREPRESS: Hi Meir, thanks for taking the time to speak to Gorepress. I Spit on Your Grave is perhaps the most controversial film of all time, and there’s been countless studies and reviews and interviews done about it – the absolutely rammed double Ultimate Edition DVD proves that – so I’m going to try and ask some less-than-frequently-asked-questions. Let me know if we’re treading over old ground! Starting simple – are you proud of I Spit on Your Grave?

MEIR ZARCHI: Of course I am. I fully financed this film and it has become one of the most famous cult horror films of all time. Audiences have a choice whether to see a film or not and all over the world they have always reacted so strongly, which can only be a good thing.

GP: Was I Spit on Your Grave fun to make? Any funny stories from the set?

MZ: Ah well, quite a few. Not sure you can call them funny but dramatic. One guy – who was the electrician on set and worked very well through every night – after we did the first take of the men sodomizing her, he said “I can’t take it any longer” and quit. The make-up woman – after a few days on set, and after we shot the rape scene in the house – she confessed she was once gang raped and left as well. Also when we did the rape scene we took the shot from three different angles and four men sodomizing Camille [Keaton]- I wanted to do one more angle of her getting up and banging her head against the tree trunk. Camille said “no, I want to see you do it first naked” – and so I did, and banged my head. And then she went ahead and did the scene.

GP: Do you think Jennifer Hills’ revenge is just and righteous? Did the rapists deserve their fate?

MZ: Absolutely yes.

GP: How did people treat you, personally, on the release of I Spit on Your Grave?

MZ: Nothing but respect – whether they liked or disliked the film.

GP: What’s the most disturbing thing you’ve heard, in regards to audience / critic reactions? Any perverse feedback from fans? Gain any stalkers?!

MZ: No (laughs), but I remember eighteen years ago a lot of online reviews and internet surfers came from Amazon.com and one said “I’m gonna kill this man, how can he make a movie like this?”. I didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. This is the first time I came across such remarks, but audiences have changed somewhat now and they’ve seen a lot more horrors. But no, I haven’t had any stalkers. I’m looking outside my window now and there’s no-one standing at the gate!

GP: If the film didn’t involve such a brutal depiction of rape, do you think it would’ve become so notorious / famous?

MZ: Well, how can I answer that? Maybe if it was a family killed in their home – the killers would have deserved that punishment too – I don’t know if it still would have been so famous. This movie will remain famous because of what it is.

GP: Why do you think rape is so much more controversial in film than violence, dismemberment and murder? Even today.

MZ: It is very hard to imagine someone being raped – especially someone you know. It’s the most violent of crimes – to penetrate someone’s body against his or her will. It is very hard for them to understand – we all hear about it every 5 minutes in the U.S. I think audiences almost can’t accept it with something so realistic. When I look at the movie – it’s very hard for me to face.

GP: You’ve done little work within the film industry since I Spit on Your Grave was released – did the film effectively dig your career a grave (rather ironically)?

MZ: No affect on my career in a bad way. It gave me the financial freedom to do what I want to do.

GP: Apart from Camille Keaton, the actors in I Spit on Your Grave have also never really worked within the film industry since – do they blame you / the film for this?

MZ: To a certain degree yes. When it came out in 1978 under the name ‘Day of the Woman’ people didn’t know how to handle the film. A lot of people have seen it now but I think it did have some sort of an effect on the cast, but maybe the part was too harsh and strong. She is a great actress and has done films since, but some years in between. I think if she made it now the world would see the film very differently. Let’s see what happens to Sarah Butler with the remake this year.

GP: Have you watched anything, ever, that made you think “this should be banned”? Or does everything committed to film have a right to be shown?

MZ: Nothing should be banned – we’re all mature enough to decide for ourselves what we should watch – we’re not living in Mussolini’s era anymore. They should kick out the BBFC! Even if we didn’t have the internet – who can tell you what to watch and what not to? It’s demeaning to the public to be told what you can and can’t watch.

GP: What do you think of the I Spit on Your Grave remake? And is it necessary?

MZ: It wasn’t necessary – no one needs to repaint the Mona Lisa or Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony but the motion picture business is a business and they are hoping to make money off the remake. The question is – is it good? Is it faithful to the original? To a great extent yes and some extent no. I would like the audience to watch both and decide for themselves.

GP: What’s your view on 3D filmmaking… and would you have filmed in 3D (if it had been available in 1978)? Do you think Jennifer Hills’ rape would’ve been more harrowing in 3D?

MZ: Lone Star with Clark Gable – they showed 3 clips before the film in 3D with things coming at you. There is really nothing new with 3D. What’s important is the story – the plot, the story, the characters. Who needs 3D? It’s like eating candy – how much can I take?

GP: What’ve you been doing since I Spit on Your Grave, and what are you up to now?

MZ: Another movie called Don’t Mess With My Sister (1985) and Holy Hollywood (1999) starring Mickey Rooney. Am now working on the remake of I Spit on Your Grave.

GP: Finally, what is your favourite horror film of all time?

MZ: I saw this when I was 16 or 17 – The Thing (1951); The Wages of Fear by Henri-Georges Clouzot which was an Italian/French co-production. A Real horror movie has no masks and doesn’t cut off limbs for the sake of vulgarity.

GP: Thanks for talking to Gorepress, Meir.

Anthony Straeger is the Director of Call of The Hunter. Gorepress’s Scullion met up with him in the classy establishment that is The William Morris Wetherspoons pub In Hammersmith. Ignoring the drunks, the smell of spilt alcohol and the carpet that feels like angry Velcro, we sat down to discuss his first feature film. At length.

To say Anthony Straeger is a man of few words is a lie. And a ridiculous one. But when he speaks it’s compelling and forthright, good humoured and honest – and you realise he’s a man of experience and knowledge, who has cut and sliced through the bullsh*t of the industry to come to his own opinions. He’s gone through a lot to get Call of the Hunter off the ground and noticed, and he’s wonderfully candid about it.

Anthony Straeger talks tantrums, distribution, a homage of death, the power of pornography, sh*tting through the eye of a needle and his absolute, thorough dislike for Dead Man’s Shoes. Read all about it below…

Gorepress: What drew you to the story of Herne the Hunter?

Anthony Straeger: Herne the Hunter came through Stephen Gawtry – the writer – he works in the area of legends, of the lore of the land. At one point we were talking about doing a series of documentaries on towns or areas. And then I’d written about three scripts that I’d been pushing for a long time, and got close with two, and he said “why don’t we just make something ourselves?” and I said, for a start, it has to be incredibly low budget. He said “If you give me the perimeters I’ll come up with an idea”. So I said okay, it’s very simple; one location, preferably a forest, preferably a house, with no more than eight characters. He said “What about actors? Do you have any in mind?”, and I said, okay, there’s these four and we’ll audition the rest.

How did the auditions go?

Actually, the auditions were really successful. Because we got three really great actors. Sarah Paul, who’s the main lead, who’s amazing. She’s done a lot of TV. Julia Curle who’s the young girl, who’s super, and Johnny Hansler who’s done all kinds of everything and has a very smarmy look… for the character!

He played Max.

He played Max, but he’s completely off the wall, completely. So, we came up with the story, and we wanted to do something with Herne the Hunter. You have of course the legend of Herne Hill, which is in Central London, which is where the Oak was supposed to be. So Stephen Gawtry drafted me a story, and I went through it, he then did the treatment. I went through it, he wrote the first draft and I completely edited it and cut it down. And that’s basically it.

So it was a real collaboration between you and Stephen?

We had to do it. Stephen is more geared towards a theatrical process. That’s why there’s a hell of a lot of dialogue in there, but it’s all good, and that’s what makes it work. You’ve got a history going on, you’ve got the characterisation going on there, and hopefully it’s the right balance to make it work. We both like comedy, and I don’t like a horror film that doesn’t have a sense of humour, so we put in a lot of silliness, like “lick-a-lotta-puss” and stuff like that.

Essentially it’s a very British thing to do, that comedy style – look at Dog Soldiers or Severance or Doghouse - Call is a very British film.

It’s something like Mash. You need the light with the shade, the dark and the comedy.

The original script that you both put together, is that what we see now, as a finished film?

It was fairly well set in stone. When we got there we were running out of time and had to start cutting into the original script.

How was the shoot?

Very successful. It was twelve days, it was very intense, we didn’t do less than twelve hours a day and we didn’t do more than eighteen, so that doesn’t take much maths skill to understand how tired people were getting.

The DVD extras had a half-hour blooper reel and the short comical piece The Unfortunate Demise of Michael Instone, so obviously even though you were working really hard on it the atmosphere was reasonably relaxed. Is that accurate?

I tell you what, we had a very very small group; we had a cast of eight people and that was it. We had one place where we stayed, worked, slept and eight.

For twelve days.

If you were in a room with your wife for twelve days… see how well you maintain your decorum. The same goes for sixteen people working intensely. I would say nobody went without a tantrum – having said that, it was limited, it was controlled and it was mainly due to tiredness.

Like being in the Big Brother house, except working constantly instead of sitting around preening yourselves.

It goes against you, it’s got to go against you – I can’t not get on your nerves at some point. At some point I would just get on your tits and bug you. And you’d just blow. I blew once, and just went off at four o’clock in the morning about one particular thing that was going on. The cameraman did remarkably well, because having your eye glued to a lens for twelve days is pretty damn difficult.

Having such tense moments on set is surely quite useful for a horror film?

[LAUGHS] Yes, yeah.

Luckily no actual violence.

No.

How did you approach the “fake” violence within the twelve day shoot, within that environment?

Anything to do with a murder, a violent act, it has to be very well choreographed. Then once you’ve got it choreographed you’ve got the limitations of the time limitations that say how long you’ve got to shoot it. For example it took all day to rig the hanging.

Really?

Sure, because you’ve got a guy in a harness hanging there for twenty minutes, it’s not comfortable. You’ve got the guy who’s got the responsibility, he is the stuntman, he is the one with the qualifications. If he hangs it’s his fault.

Luckily he didn’t hang.

He didn’t hang. Or he did. Well, you’ll never know.

That’s spooky and a bit disconcerting. Did anything actually weird happen on set – after all you’re dealing with Herne the Hunter, a mythical force you don’t want to mess with.

Um… not that remember. Someone said something happened, but I can’t remember what it was. I just seemed to be awake for twenty-four hours a day, with occasionally a bit of sleep for a couple of hours.

So you might’ve hallucinated.

I may’ve hallucinated. I was actually imagining that one day England would play good football.

You were going mad.

Completely.

So what were your major influences on Call of the Hunter? Directors or writers –

One of my favourite directors has to be John Carpenter, who is a leg-end, and there’s David Cronenberg and Wes Craven. They are the masters, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not an uber-fan of Italian horror. I think it’s too slow for my liking. You take something like John Carpenter’s Vampires, it’s a film you can watch time and again, with some great pace. And the way Carpenter shot it in that John Ford style, just made it incredibly stylish and exciting.

These directors all have a distinctive style an audience can recognise. How do you want your audience to feel while watching Call of the Hunter?

I’d like them to feel almost like they’ve been educated, and fascinated, as it’s a great legend and something people should know – about our culture and history. I’d like it to be something people say “My god, did they really make that with so little money? I was totally entertained for eighty-two minutes in the U.K. and eight-five in the U.S.”

How difficult is it getting funding for an independent horror film in the U.K.?

Getting funding in the U.K. is like trying to shit through the eye of a needle.

Relatively difficult then?

Relatively difficult, yeah. I’ve had conversations with the likes of Warp, and Warp have a very warped way of dealing with their financing because they’re totally in bed with the Film Council. You can’t get in with the Film Council unless you’re with Warp and you can’t get in with Warp unless you’re with the Film Council. And then you’ve got to take into the situation that if you’re attached to Warp, like Paddy Considine, and people like that, the they can suddenly find that five hundred thousand quid to make that crap little movie called Dead Man’s Shoes.

Not a fan then, no?

It’s possibly one of the worst films made in the past twenty years, and still people try and convince themselves that it’s actually worth watching. It’s directed badly, it’s got no script, it’s got little story and he’s about as threatening as toilet paper.

If you had a Hollywood budget, then, would you add some CGI, some Sam Worthington or maybe a plane crash?

What? With Call of the Hunter? Well… with a Hollywood budget? It’s a film that wouldn’t really need that. I talked through this very carefully at the premiere. I said if we made this film for £25,000 and I’m lucky enough to recoup enough money, then I’d pay all my cast and crew and everyone else on a daily rate which I promised them, which was £100… then I’m up to £120,000. If I could have the extra time on that budget, to be able to have a twenty-one to twenty-eight day shoot, then we’d be up to £200,000. If we’d paid everybody the Equity rate we’re up to £500,000 – which is half a million! And if we decided to have a star name in it, then you’re up to £1.5 million. Then if you’re going to change your camera to something like a Red 35mm then you’re looking up to £2 million.

That’s what it takes?

That’s what it takes. And that’s why, when you look at people and they do something for £3000 it’s rubbish – they’ve just got a camera, they’ve imported it to a computer – so what do you expect for £3000? But that was never my attitude. I had one person that started the ball rolling – John Slocombe, who is the executive producer – who put 50% into the production. He’s a successful businessman and he fancied a gamble, and I hope it pays off, because he’s the one man I do want to pay back, because it takes – well, it’s a pretty substantial amount of faith to lose in something.

Well, it’s about getting people to pick it up and buy it. You got distribution in the U.S. first, which is odd considering no one in America has ever probably heard of Herne the Hunter. It’s a very British character.

We looked through our actual distributors catalogue, and it’s probably got about eight good movies in it.

Out of how many?

About 100. So they watched Call of the Hunter, and it’s a good movie, so it didn’t matter about the subject matter. We love a bit of hunky American – they clearly love a bit of hunky English.

And you educated them on the history of Herne the Hunter. Kind of.

Why not? They can turn it around, put Jet Li in it and remake it if they want.

How’s it been received across the pond? With the Herne the Hunter mythology?

Again, we’ve had several people come back and say they loved it. A director who’s working on a sit-com in Chicago at the moment, he bought a copy and he said “The great thing I love about this film is not only is it a good film, every cent is on the screen” – and that’s as good a citation as you could get.

Distribution in the UK – how’s that going?

At the moment it’s difficult. R-Squared currently have worldwide rights, which has to change. In the interim we need to have some kind of launch in the UK as we’ve had pre-sales, on a DVD that didn’t exist. I’d like to take the PAL rights from R-Squared, because they’re only really dealing with NTSC. Like I said to you earlier on, the one problem I do have is that Call of the Hunter is not a project I could afford to take a year and a half to two years putting around film festivals and then wait for the right distributor. It’s been more like – throw a bit of line, reel a little in, throw a bit of line, reel a little in – it’s been a bit of a frustrating way of doing it. I did jump at two or three festivals quickly, who all wanted it, who then pulled it because we already had distribution.

Is that how it works?

A lot of the good festivals, they don’t want distribution. They’re about throwing out the product and seeing who snaps – that’s the point of doing something like Sundance.

Regarding your own career, you’ve done a variety of work – theatre, film, directing, photography, acting… you’ve even done mime. Why the horror genre, and why directing?

The story begins with my mother. My mother always loved horror and there used to be a thing when I was a child called Mystery and Imagination, something you’re probably not aware of.

Erm… yep…

If I was a really good boy on a Friday night, she’d let me watch it. Also, if I was a really good boy in my teens she’d let me watch the Midnight Movie by Hammer House of Horrors. I just loved it with a passion. The moment I was old enough, the first movie I crashed into see was A Clockwork Orange, before it was banned. They’d got a limited showing, and I remember going to the playhouse and I was just hooked. I had a lot of junk horror movies – I probably have over a 1000 DVDs, of which at least 600 are horror movies. Some of them should be burnt on a cross upside down, but there’s something always in them that I love – I’d like to go back and take random deaths and make a homage to them. A film of it. A death homage. I like the sound of that. I don’t know why, but I do!

I suppose if the horror genre is good for anything, it’s inventive, interesting ways of murdering people.

[LAUGHS] Precisely. Take anything – Zombie Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox –

I Spit On Your Grave?

Yeah, which is one of the lousiest films ever made. But the book that it’s based on, however, is amazing. The novelette. If you get a chance you should read it.

They’ve remade I Spit On Your Grave.

Well, as long as they stick to the novelette, it could be excellent.

They won’t.

Well, a couple of the remakes have been very good. They’re not all terrible. I certainly think the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fabulous. Toolbox Murders was pretty good.

The Hills Have Eyes?

Yes, that was a pretty good remake. The original only has the bald guy as an image and nothing else. It’s lousy.

What’s your take on remakes? Can you see things now being remade in the future? Like Dog Soldiers being redone in 10 years time?

What horror did in the 70’s and 80’s was push new ground. It’s like the internet – the bounds of the internet have been pushed. Not by the providers or the programmers, but by pornography. Pornography has the most influence in security, in development, in web-streaming – that’s where it’s driven from. In the 80’s, some of these guys that were making horror films really changed the boundaries of film-making and affected what was happening in Hollywood. You look at that video nasty era, you look back at it and you see how many of their ideas were filtered into the mainstream. You take something random and new like Blair Witch, now every big-budget Hollywood film has tried that random camera-work to emulate it. Not just in the horror genre too. I don’t think the modern horror genre, where you can get absolutely great quality cameras for very cheap, is spawning a great deal of anything new. What it’s actually allowing them to do is make their own interpretation, and so there will be another Dog Soldiers, kind of, there will be another Wilderness, kind of, because it’s just part of the genre… kind of.

So you think there won’t be actual remakes of modern films? A Call of the Hunter remake in five years?

No, I don’t think there’s any need to. You just keep knocking the same sort of stuff out, and I think Call of the Hunter is a good story and it works. It could be made better and for more money, but I can’t see anyone remaking it – it’s too much of a convoluted story. If you drag it down, out of the convoluted story, you’ve got a “slasher in the woods” story.

What is the greatest thing you’ve learnt from making Call of the Hunter?

When I started this I’d made probably about ten shorts, I’d been involved as a cameraman on a couple of documentaries, I’d worked as an actor. Having completed a feature, somebody who’d also made a couple of movies came up to me and said “Congratulations on joining an elite group of people who DID”. I think the difference between the “doing of” and the “completing of” is such a mammoth task when you have so little money, and the time. If you took all the work I’ve done on Call, and split it down to your average 40 hour weeks, I think I’ve spent 5 years of my life doing it. That’s how it feels. It’s consumed my life, it’s consumed my time, it’s consumed my finances. Very much like David Lynch endured in his first film, which made him bankrupt. You question yourself, and ask why you bother to put yourself through it, but at the end of the day when I look at it, I love it and realise it’s probably something I should’ve done sooner. But, that’s just the way it works.

So what’s the greatest sacrifice you’ve made for Call of the Hunter?

Sacrifice? It’s always got to be time. There’s always something you have to deal with in the course of making it, and every day since conceiving the idea I’ve had to do something on it. Every day. You can’t just wrap it, edit it and sell it. It’s not that easy. Well it could be, if I’d had a huge budget and a studio behind me, but I haven’t. And I’m still working on it, and people are asking “What’re you doing now? What’re you doing next?”

What are you doing next?

[LAUGHS] Treatments, again. One written by Stephen Gawtry, again, called Theatre of Mirrors. It’s set in Morecombe Winter Gardens Theatre, which is one of the oldest and most haunted theatres in the country. Within two years it’ll be gone. It’ll no longer be a theatre, it’ll be –

A Starbucks?

[LAUGHS] It’ll probably be a hotel or a complex of some sort. Stephen has written a very good treatment of a ghost story and we’re two-thirds of our way through the script, with a financier already interested.

And you’ve only got two years until the set, the actual location, is gone?

We have to get the script all done by September, so we can start working on pre-production. Other than that I also have a script I’ve written called Stan, which has nearly got picked up a number of times but never quite. It’s about a psychopathic Stanley Knife.

A knife itself? Like Maxwell’s silver hammer?

You actually have to deem it a “boxcutter”, as no one in the U.S. has a clue what a Stanley Knife is. Those are my two main priorities – Theatre of Mirrors and Stan. I’m also involved in the production of something called Tripping Up, which is set in Poland. It’s a comedy and we’ve got two-thirds of the finance for that.

So you’ve got a lot on? You also cameo-ed in Call of the Hunter as Herne The Hunter himself.

< Of course! It would be rude not to be involved! As they say, you can take the man out of Bradford, but you can’t take the Bradford of out the man. Likewise as an actor. It just wasn’t worth putting in a decent actor. Originally we had a plan where I was going to play Max, but we’d seen so many low budget film where the director wants to be the writer and the actor and that always turns out badly. Obviously if someone wanted to remake it, and someone like Wes Craven wanted to direct, I’d be happy to reprise my role!

So on your own work you’re more likely to do a Hitchcock or early Shyamalan cameo?

Yeah, definitely.

What advice would you give to a fledging director, especially one starting up in the UK?

Start with one thing – a very firm idea. A very good one-page that really encapsulates the story. And you have to do a treatment, if you’re not a full-time experienced writer, because what a treatment allows you to do is to keep the control over where you are going.

And what does a treatment actually involve?

A treatment is the story. Ten page of script is one page of treatment, approximately. So 10 to 18 pages of treatment is a 1 to 2 hour film. It’s very useful for character, knowing exactly where they’re going, and avoids it going off on a tangent. That’s as far as writing is concerned. In regards to making your film, actually directing it, you have to be clear on the constraints of making an actual film. What is cheap is finding a room for rehearsal, because invariably the stuff with the much lower budget – and I’m talking the stuff without Sean Pertwee. Anything that’s sub £100,000 – the acting can get very very ropey. We did a week of evening rehearsals and did three readings. Luckily I had particularly good actors, but you also get “Would you come and be in my film? We’re making a movie!” So you’ve got some plank who looks great down the bar, or your girlfriend, or your best mate’s dog, and it all falls apart very quickly because they can’t deliver their lines or remember them. It’s about getting good quality performance and unfortunately – and I hate to say it – you can get a lot of great actors that are more than willing to do something for free. On the proviso you take care of them. Everyone in my crew had a bed for the night, had all their costs met in terms of transportation, and anything else that happened. All the wardrobe was sorted out, even if I had to ask them to buy three t-shirts, two vests and a wooly-pully – they got that paid back. Everyone had a full breakfast, a full lunch and full dinner… and a few drinks.

The few drinks would’ve sold it to me.

[LAUGHS] Exactly. In reality, if you’re not going to end up paying your people, because you might not make any money back, then you have to have the people walk away thinking you’re good. I’ve done things in the past where I’ve been promised this, and promised that, and that I’ll be paid for my train tickets… and you get nothing back. So my advice is – don’t promise what you can’t do, choose your people well, rehearse the hell out of it and be sure about the script. It’s been a huge learning experience.

And at the end of it, you’ve got a film.

And I’m proud it. I’m proud of all my cast and crew who gave everything they had, I’m proud to have been part of project where everyone involved has turned round and said “I’m glad I did that. In hindsight, it was a lot more fun than it seemed at the time!”

Finally, what is your favourite horror film?

Without a shadow of a doubt – Hellraiser. I love Hellraiser, the budget it was made on, the quality of stars that they got. I just think Clive Barker is one of the greatest writers. I think he’s better than Stephen King.

Thanks for talking to Gorepress, Anthony.

Thanks, Dave.

Call of the Hunter is now available on DVD from Amazon here and from the Call of the Hunter website here

Steve Isles is the co-director of British horror film The Torment (A.K.A. The Possession of David O’Reilly). Gorepress’s Scullion spoke to him on the release day of the UK DVD, Monday 9th August – Steve was in America at a fresh 10am, while Scullion was in London at a tired, post-work 6pm. Both places, however, shared impeccably crap weather…

Happy to chat to Gorepress, Steve discussed horror, accidental comedy, his own personal paranormal experience and why the loss of the UK Film Council doesn’t particularly matter. Friendly, chatty, honest and sharp – and despite the Skype connection being a little dodgy, Steve was a pleasure to chat to.

Steve has also given Gorepress access to an exclusive alternative / extended ending to The Torment. Watch the film first, though, otherwise it’s a little bit of a huge SPOILER (and wouldn’t make a speck of sense anyway…).

He explains more in the interview below… so read it. Now.

Gorepress: How did you get involved with The Torment?

Steve Isles: It’s a bit of cliché but I was down at my local video store, where I used to live in Battersea in London, and there was this guy that runs the store and we got chatting about horror films, as you do. His name was Andrew Cull and it turns out he’d written scripts and was an aspiring writer, and he’d been working on a little YouTube series called In The Dark with another local bloke called Steve Smith, who was an established writer. This In The Dark series was basically about a young girl who’d come to London and was blogging about these supernatural things that were happening to her, and I did some soundwork on it, because my original background is lighting and music and doing sound. It was like this sort of Lonely Girl, but supernatural, and it did really well. So I asked Andy if he had any proper scripts and he gave me a couple. One he gave me was called Inside, which ultimately turned out to be The Torment. It was one of those ones where I read it and hairs pricked up at the back of my neck and I realised it could be really super-scary. It was also set in one location, and when you’re trying to make a film you’re thinking about the budget and because it was one location with a few actors it seemed very doable. So that came about because of a video store!

How was it working alongside Andrew Cull?

It was great. We spent quite a long time developing The Torment. This was my first film and Andy has done a bit of writing – he’d done an episode of Urban Gothic – but this was the first bigger thing either of us had done. We worked on the whole ideas of it, and working on the creative elements of it – we collaborated closely on everything. We both had a shared vision – we wanted to go old school on it and avoid CGI and use real prosthetics and creatures in the room, so the actors had something to react off. And our influences came through films like The Thing and The Shining and The Omen. With the whole emotional, documentary style, we liked the idea of shooting it with a handheld camera, with quite a lot of point-of-view shooting – that sort of first person gaming experience can be quite intense. You never feel it’s a documentary per-se, however.

Was there never the temptation to go down the full-blown documentary route?

It was interesting, because it was always about the story and the narrative features, and it would be very hard to keep the conceit of having the camera there. Like in [REC] it’s a TV crew and Paranormal Activity it’s a couple investigating their own house and Blair Witch and so forth. But how you get that made convincingly, it’s very hard and it’s always with hugely varying success. We wanted to go down the route of films like Hidden or even Gomorrah –

Hidden especially seems relevant, as there’s a lot of still shots in The Torment focusing on a wall or window rather than a person. Is this also an influence from Andrew’s work on In The Dark?

In The Dark was more “found footage”, filmed as if it was real and put on the internet. People were commenting on it online and even advising the girl what to do. She’d wake up in the bed and find one side colder than the other, checked with a thermometer, and people are telling her “Definitely a haunting, love, you better get out of there”.

A lot of people believed it.

It was definitely done to get that reaction. So the point of view stuff in The Torment is to vary the dramatic points of the film. Most films do have some point of view shots in them, cutting from close ups to P.O.V. shots. I think the idea here was to shoot a lot of it that way, but there’s quite a fine balance, because some of the most terrifying things are in seeing people’s reactions in the room. Their fear makes your fear.

Those people in the room you mention – the cast – how were they to work with?

They were brilliant. We literally had a couple of thousand people apply to be in this, we auditioned maybe a hundred and fifty, and these four or five people who ended up in the film were an absolute success – they were brilliant. We were so happy we got such great performances from them.

It must have been a pretty gruelling shoot – at night, lots to tense emotions flying about. How was that to deal with?

Giles had just come from an emotional split-up himself –

Wow, that’s proper ‘Method’.

Yeah! So he was able to bring a lot to his character, and he put a lot of work in, really really pumped it up and a huge amount of energy came off him and everyone raised their game to match that. We talked to him about key performances we’d liked – like Jack Nicholson in The Shining – very intense roles. We also chatted to a psychiatrist about the experience of schizophrenia, and found that schizophrenics actually believe what is happening in the room is real, so their reactions to it are totally normal. They’re seeing a little army of people, marching towards them, and they’re jumping out of their chair yelling “there’s tiny people!” and expect you to react in the same way. And they’re confused when you do it. It sounds quite comical, but it’s not at all. So when Giles is seeing these monsters and he’s reacting completely appropriately and his friends are just thinking “he’s having a serious breakdown here”.

You mention the comical side of how people can react to schizophrenia – there were moments, during the screening I saw, where people laughed at Giles’ descent into mania. Was there any intention to make it comical?

Interesting you say that, actually. I talked to Giles after the premiere and he said that people laughed in some places, and I thought it was quite an interesting reaction there. Were they laughing because he was genuinely comedic or were they laughing because he was so freaky? He’s got quite a high pitched voice and a high pitch scream at one point, so some people may have found that funny, but there was no intention to make it funny. In any of those stressful situations people react in different ways.

It’s odd to see a man break down in the way Giles does, as it’s normally reserved for women in horror films or Hollywood in general, as clichéd and sexist as it sounds. Perhaps that’s why people laughed.

He’s at the end of his tether and it’s a strange thing to see, especially in a man. You’re right.

What was your biggest challenge working on The Torment?

The same old thing – the time and the money. We had a very tight schedule and we literally did it in three to four weeks and we were lucky because we had a big old house there, so we could put people up there in different departments. With a little bit more time we could’ve done more shooting and had more options, but I think it was really that. Also we were trying to avoid all the usual horror clichés and references that might present themselves.

Well, you didn’t have any cats jumping out of cupboards, thankfully…

[LAUGHS] Or the shadow under the door – the usual things that spring to mind. We also wanted to play with the colours, to create a dirty street-lamp yellow rather than the green of Dark Water, for example, or the blue of Paranormal Activity – we wanted something different thrown into the mix.

It did have a real feel of being set in London, with the dirty yellow and browns – was this intentional?

Totally, yeah. We wanted it to feel like a typical London suburban flat, Victorian house, and that colour pallet was supposed to be particularly unglamourous. You see a lot of films with lovely moon-lit houses and rooms and you think “I don’t know anywhere like that!” We definitely wanted it to reflect on it being slightly documentary-like, more realistic. It does feel like people could live there, if you suspend your disbelief.

As this is your first film, what one piece of advice would you give to any budding film director?

I just think, given the journey we’ve had on this film, I think you need to be very passionate about the film. It’s a very long journey to write the story, raise the money, make the film and then get it out to distributors. I went to Cannes 2009 to get a sales agents and then the American film market in November last year to start selling the film and getting distribution for it. We’d started talking about this in 2007 so it’s been a really long journey and you have to have a lot of passion for it. You have to feel it in your heart that you’re creating a great movie and you want to get it out there. Also get as much feedback and advice as possible – don’t necessary take it all! Often some people want to change it entirely.

The creatures were fantastically created and realised. Who came up with the designs, and who made them?

Initially Andy did the description in the script and then we found this brilliant concept artist called Sharon Smith, who’d just done some of the creature work on the Harry Potter films and we thought “There’s no way she’ll do horror – why would she?” and she came back with these most incredible designs. So we went back-and-forth with her and came up with these really great drawings, and some of them you get to see in the diary in the film. Then we found these two guys – Paul McGuiness and Alexis Haggar – and they’d done some work on Outpost and Sherlock Holmes. Paul has been doing this for years and years, back even on the original Doctor Who, and a lot of BBC stuff – if you go to his workshop there’s corpses hanging everywhere like a horror fan’s dream! These guys were fantastic. If you get the DVD with the Making Of, Paul shows how he does that nine foot, huge creature, which chases them around the apartment. It took them two months to build it, sculpt it, mould it, and get it in there. And it’s actually Paul in there, and he’s six foot four and has three foot stilts. The creatures were so good I said “keep them in the cupboard for a possible sequel!”

The moments of shadows and suggestions of something horrific lurking in the dark provide the greatest scares, for me personally, and I felt perhaps that showing the monsters in such clarity wasn’t actually necessary. What’s your view on this?

I agree. It was a real battle. The original script was much more terrifying when reading about it than when showing the creatures. Again, it all depends on the budget – take in a high budget movie like Alien where the creature is realised in such incredible detail, and it’s so iconic you want to see it, and it’s a main character. Here [in The Torment] it’s not supposed to be and you’re questioning whether you’re actually seeing them, so it was a real balance with how much we showed and how much we didn’t. But then again there’s a balance on how you plan a movie, and a lot of marketing people are like “you’ve got to have the money shot, with all these big creatures running around”, and those sort of things can excite interest. The intention here was to do a very supernatural movie where the intention was to build it more slowly, and get glimpses of the creatures to begin with. I hope we achieved that balance.

The film poster claims the age-old tag of “Based On True Events”. How factually accurate is this statement?

When Andrew wrote the story several years ago he’d basically been looking at various stories about events that had happened, and the various episodes within the film are actually true, and if you care to Google the various things you’ll see there are elements we’ve cobbled together to create the story. I think a lot of people ask what it‘s based on, and it is based on real events, but they’re so shocking you question how it can actually be true. They really did happen. So we created a vaguely fictional story based on these events – breakdown, murder, even the scene with Anna – which are based on real events. When he scans up the wall you see the headlines on newspapers, all of those are true. It’s testament to the fact that real things are more horrific than fiction. That’s where it comes from, and that’s what it’s stuck to, the origins of the story.

Are you a believer of the paranormal – possession, ghosts etc…?

Well, you know, I had a freaky experience once when I was fifteen and staying at a friend’s place. I was woken in the middle of the night by this rustling noise in the bedroom of this old house, I think it was Tudor, and I listened to this rustling going around the room. Then it finally stopped. In the morning I told my friend about the really weird rustling and he said “Oh, I haven’t heard that for ages. It’s supposed to be from an Elizabethan woman who walks around that room with a long dress”. Whether that was a cat or something I don’t know, but the night before he was telling me about this Cromwellian soldier that walks around the corridor and walks into the kitchen, and that was the main ghost in the house, so I was all set up for a Cromwellian ghost, but not a Elizabethan lady! I think it’s one of those things that is open to question and interpretation, and in a way I hope it is real, from the point of view of having an afterlife and so forth. I know other people can be pretty sceptical. I mean, Andy is very sceptical of it, even though he’s fascinated by it.

The film has two different titles; The Possession of David O’Reilly in the USA and The Torment in the UK. Which title do you prefer?

You know what, the original story was called Inside and when we went to the market, we were told we couldn’t call it that because too many films were already called that. We had a little problem with the title clearance, so we went with a name that reflects the events within the story, which said what it was all about instead of being something obscure. So we came up with that name – The Possession of David O’Reilly – which said exactly what it was on the tin. Then we brought it to the UK, and they said they wanted a shorter name. It’s very normal for English films to have different names to American films, so we said “let’s talk about what we can call it” and we went around a few different ideas there and came out with The Torment. I think it’s a strong name. In terms of my preference, I’ve always been quite fond of The Possession of David O’Reilly. I like the imagery it creates, but then again The Torment is really strong and a lot of people like that name.

How come it was released in the USA before the UK? It is a very British horror film.

Yeah, it’s interesting. The sales agent we got – I mean, the big Hollywood studios distribute their films themselves, but the independent filmmakers need sales agents – was an American one, and they took it to the American film market in November and sold it to IFC Films, who are part of the Sundance Festival. They were very keen to release it quite quickly, I think as there was a lot of interest in Paranormal Activity and they wanted to push it as a British version of it, and they would sort of jump in on the wave of that. Which is fair enough. We had a little trouble in the UK, as things got pushed to the end and then the World Cup came along and we couldn’t do it then. So it got pushed to August.

What with the government recently killing off the UK Film Council, how do you view the British film industry at the moment?

I’ve always had a view that they’ve [the UK Film Council] always had a specific idea of the sort of films they wanted to make. I read somewhere recently that the music and book publishing industries don’t have their own councils. If you let filmmakers go out and make films that would genuinely interest people, people will turn up for it, and then you can start building from there. You look at the American way – and I’m not saying Hollywood is great, by any means – but they make films without government subsidies and they dominate. I do feel that filmmakers should essentially make something that’s going to put butts on seats, and interest people, and you’d get a more vibrant film because of it. If you go to a council, they’ll decide what sort of project it should be. You can still make local, cultural stories without it, but as long as it travels. Why can’t we have very successful films? I’d love to see what happens now.

Talking of which – what are you working on now?

There’s a few things; depending on money, and seeing how The Torment goes so I can do something off the back of it. I have a couple of supernatural films, which I’m developing, and also another script which is a thriller and another script which is actually an action film.

Interesting. So we’ll be seeing a lot of you in the future.

Hopefully.

What’s your favourite horror film?

I think it has to be The Shining. I love the book, I love the film – it’s a great adaptation. What’s yours?!

Oh, blimey, erm… I think it’s got to be John Carpenter’s The Thing.

I was going to say The Thing or The Shining. It’s a brilliant film. I was a little nervous to hear they’re doing a remake of that.

So was I… but luckily they’re not carrying it on. Or remaking it. It’s a prequel set in the Norwegian base camp you glimpse in the original. I don’t know how that’s going to work or how it’ll be any different, but we’ll see…

It won’t damage the original.

I hope not. Now, you’ve also given us some exclusive footage from The Torment [accessible above] – can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, absolutely. In the original story you’re left to conclude what actually happened, and you’re left wondering. I don’t want to give anything away, but this exclusive gives a more definitive ending.

I rather liked the ambiguous ending, actually.

Oh yeah, but this still isn’t on-the-nose. It let’s you go “okay, so that’s happened and that’s happened, so…” – it gives you more of a nudge.

Is that how it was released in the States, or is it exactly the same over here?

It’s never been seen anywhere. This is the first anyone would’ve seen it. It was shot and then cut out for various reasons. It’s not an alternative ending, more of an extension of what’s there already. It gives a slightly different conclusion, nudging you in one direction.

Thanks for talking to Gorepress, Steve, all the way in not-so-sunny America.

Great talking to you, Dave.

Have a good brunch. I’m going to have some dinner.

[LAUGHS] Cheers, Dave. Thanks.

Tom Noonan’s career spans 30 years of horror from Wolfen to House of the Devil, but he is still perhaps best known for his amazing performance as demented serial killer Francis “Tooth Fairy” Dolarhyde in Manhunter. He has clocked up notable performances in Heat, Last Action Hero, The X Files and Seraphim Falls. Tom Noonan also writes, directs, produces and even composes for film – he is a man of many, many talents.

The Scullion had the pleasure of catching up with him at the London Film and Comic Con 2010, chatting about writing, Eminem, acting, the stupidity of the film industry and how no one messes with Tom Noonan. No one.

Sporting a nifty straw hat, Noonan comes across as a very serious man – stern, confident, curt, a little world-weary and utterly firm in his opinions. Tom Noonan clearly doesn’t suffer fools gladly…

GOREPRESS: Is this your first time in England?

TOM NOONAN: No, I’ve worked here a few times as a screenwriter.

GP : You’ve been involved in a lot of aspects of the film creation process – you’ve acted, written, directed, even composed – what do you prefer doing. Is it the acting side?

TN : Acting is easiest to do, and the rest of it all feels pretty much the same. Directing and acting feel the same. Writing is harder because it takes a skill, and acting has no skill involved -

GP : There’s no skill involved in acting?

TN : There’s a little bit – there’s a little bit when you gain experience, but acting is something you’ve got a knack for or not. Simple as that.

GP : What kind of genre do you like to write for – are you more drama, comedy, thriller, horror?

TN : Most recently drama, but I’ve written comedies and scary movies and thrillers, all kinds of stuff.

GP : Are you a fan of collaborating with others, or is it more about your own work?

TN : No collaborating.

GP : No collaborating at all?

TN : No.

GP : Why not?

TN : It’s just not as much fun.

GP : Do you prefer to act in your own work, that you’ve written, or do you prefer passing it on to someone else?

TN : The four features I’ve made I’ve acted in all of them. It makes it easier in a lot of ways, to act in something you’re directing.

GP : Have you had any trouble with directors or producers, in regards to passing over your writing?

TN : Usually by the time the movie gets made you’re not on it any more.

GP : Really? Why?

TN : When they sell your script they option it, and they give you a part of the money and then the rest of the money when you finish the re-write. So if you sell a script for five hundred thousand dollars, they give you a hundred, and then another hundred when you do the first re-write, another one-fifty for the second… except what usually happens is they give you a hundred thousand for the first re-write and then they fire you.

GP : And that’s happened to you?

TN : Yeah, all movies are done that way.

GP : Do you think that’s a good approach to making films? A sensible one?

TN : Look at movies. Most of them are terrible. So what they do is – there is a [script] budget for the movie, which is five hundred thousand, and you get a part of it, but you’re not going to get the whole five hundred unless you’re on it the whole time, which is very unusual. So by the time they begin directing, either they hate you or you hate them, and it’s a drag.

GP : Is it because you spend too much time with the director or producer?

TN : No, it’s because they tell you one thing and then a month later they tell you at totally different way to re-write it. And then a third way, and then their wife reads it and then their maid reads it and the maid has her own opinions on it.

GP : So the writing side of things is pretty harsh. What’s your favourite experience on a film? Acting wise.

TN : Besides my own movies, I do a show called Damages, which I really enjoy doing.

GP : With Meryl Streep.

TN : Exactly. I have a lot of fun acting, it’s very easy. People tend not to tell me what to do very much.

GP : Really?

TN : It’s sort of because of who I am.

GP : Are they scared of you?

TN : Hopefully, yeah.

GP : So it’s deliberate? Do people find it difficult to approach you about your acting?

TN : Usually on a movie, if there’s a problem with a scene, the director will go to the actor they think is easiest to talk to. So the more you make it easier to be directed, the more you’re going to be directed. Even if you’re not the problem. So I tend to avoid discussions about the scene, although I’m available if someone wants to say something, but they almost never do.

GP : Do you think this is because, during your thirty-year career, your most recognisable characters have been unapproachable, sinister, slightly twisted and ultimately a little terrifying? Is this a perception people bring to the set?

TN : Well, I’ve not done as many of those sinister roles as you’d imagine. I’ve done seventy movies, probably twenty or twenty-five have been strange. I think it’s just my attitude, and people also admire me because I’ve made movies that they’ve seen. Once you’ve worked a lot and they like what you do, they don’t really want to mess around with it.

GP : So they know what they’ve got and they’re happy with it?

TN : You know, making a movie is so fucking hard, and most people have no idea what they’re doing. So the last thing you wanna do is start messing around with an actor you like. So it makes sense that they don’t want to bother you, because if they fuck you up then they’re really fucked.

GP : Have you had any appalling times on set then, when people have messed with you?

TN : No, no, not really. I know my words and I’m pretty good, so no.

GP : You’ve worked with Michael Mann twice, on Manhunter and Heat. What’s he like as a director?

TN : I love working with him, but he’s not an easy guy to work with. He can be very tough with people… but not with me.

GP : With House of the Devil, did you have much influence over Ti West in regards to the writing or directing?

TN : I tend not to get involved with the directing element at all. I don’t tell them how to direct, they don’t tell me how to act.

GP : You’ve also composed music for some films (occasionally under pseudonym Ludovico Sorret) – what kind of music are you a huge fan of?

TN : I love Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, you know – the standard shit.

GP : Nothing hugely modern like Lady Gaga or Britney Spears then?

TN : Yeah, well pop music loses it’s sheen as you get older, and it doesn’t have much interest for me. Once in a while though, someone like Eminem comes along, who I like a lot. Rarely do I like something new – I’ve never liked pop music that much. It took me a while to even like the Beatles, which I now love.

GP : So – the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Who do you prefer?

TN : The Rolling Stones are great, but I like the Beatles because I think they’re better – their songs are amazing. Amazing words, and no one seems to really appreciate their lyrics. They’re great.

GP : So you’re more about the words, what they’re saying? Which is why you like Eminem presumably.

TN : I like what he’s got to say. It’s good.

GP : Finally, what’s your favourite horror movie?

TN : I think it’s probably Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original one. And The Exorcist. And I like Vertigo, although that’s not really a horror movie…

GP : Thanks for speaking with Gorepress, Tom.

TN : Thanks.

MyAnna Buring is a Swedish born actress who moved to England when she was sixteen. She graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), started a theatre company (called MahWaff) and has starred in a large range of film and television roles.

Ticking off the usual British TV essentials such as The Bill and Casualty, she can also proudly add roles in comedy series The Wrong Door (where she dated a Tyrannosaurus Rex…!), Doctor Who episode The Impossible Planet and films like Red Mist and Credo to her C.V. She even appeared in one of the fake trailers on Tarantino / Rodriguez’s horror Grindhouse (“Don’t” directed by Britain’s Edgar Wright).

Most notably, however, MyAnna Buring will be recognised for her role as Sam in The Descent and as Lotte in Lesbian Vampire Killers.

Gorepress’s Scullion had the pleasure of chatting to her at Collectormania 2010, about Neil Marshall, CGI, an encounter with Patrick Stewart and how she’s actually a bit of a scaredy cat…

Despite the rain, wind and the nightmarishly grey sameness of Milton Keynes’ MK Dons stadium, MyAnna was exceptionally chirpy, very sweet and utterly at ease with chatting with me. When I arrived at her signing desk, she was ribbing table neighbour Tommy Knight (Luke from The Sarah Jane Adventures) over his obsession with Pom-Bear crisps and his distinct lack of crisp-sharing. It said a lot about MyAnna before I even began talking to her – she was approachable, good humoured and genuinely funny.

So I went into the interview confident she wouldn’t punch me in the face or set me on fire. Which was nice.

GP : How’re you finding Collectormania 2010?

MB : It’s amazing! It’s incredible. I had no idea it was this huge. We’re currently in Milton Keynes stadium, which is enormous and there are people all around the stadium. And it’s been raining and it’s freezing cold and everyone is trooping through. I think that it’s extraordinary and a testament to what a cool little gathering this really is.

Have you been to many of these events?

Not Collectormania. I’ve been to Doctor Who conventions – but this is the largest thing I’ve ever been to by far.

It’s a very strange event – what do you think brings so many people to events like this?

It’s a love of film isn’t it? It’s a love of sci-fi, horror, genre films and I think it’s exciting to see to what extent people like to express their love for films. Some people like coming along, some express it by buying lots of autographs and pictures, which is incredible and amazing and baffling, and some people really go the full mile.

And dress up.

Yeah, and dress up. It’s extraordinary. And the lengths to which people really make the effort to really dress up and find the costumes and make the costumes. Some of the stuff we’ve seen today is exceptional. Exceptional.

As you mentioned, it’s an event for the fans to express their love. Is there anyone here you want to see yourself?

I saw Patrick Stewart, which I thought was fab.

Did you meet him?

Yeah, yeah I met him. He worked with a friend of mine so I sort of said hello from my friend… in such a deflective fan way! Like “Hello Patrick… it’s just my friend says hi. Nothing to do with me wanting to shake your hand. Oh no, no, not that at all”. Patrick is very lovely, very polite.

It is interesting what this event brings out of people. It’s very bizarre –

It’s great. Bizarre is not a bad thing – absolutely not. It think that’s why everyone’s here – they all have a love of the bizarre.

In regards to your acting career, how did you get into acting in the first place?

Well, I kind of always wanted to do it, but I never really got how people like me got into it. I ended up getting involved in a lot of theatre and projects like short films, and then I applied to drama school. From there I set up a theatre company with some friends, so we did a lot of work together and did some shows and took them to Edinburgh. Then about three months after drama school I got The Descent. I couldn’t believe someone would hire me, and they did, and they just continued hiring me… It’s amazing.

Your work seems to lean more towards horror and science fiction. Is this something you set about aiming for, or just by chance?

It’s the way it’s gone. However, I’ve really enjoyed that aspect of it. Somebody was saying that a lot of actors look down on that sort of role, which I think is ridiculous because it’s a lot of fun. It’s quite amazing to work with these people, as there’s so much imagination that goes into the work. Bringing a two dimensional vision into a three dimensional vision is an exciting place to be, and I enjoy it. I love playing straighter things as well, and dramatic parts too, but I have no complaints whatsoever about what I’ve done. It’s been a blast so far.

Well, everyone at Gorepress obviously has a real love of horror films. I think it’s a fantastic genre.

Well, you know what? The older I get, the more and more difficult I find it to watch horror. I mean, I love making horror, which is bizarre. I think it’s a lot of fun to do, but my imagination is getting better as I get older, so I just get terrified by it, even though I know how everything’s done now!

So what scares you most? In a horror film, what would really terrify you?

Well, I’m scared of the dark, which is a bit embarrassing…

That’s pretty much all horror films you’re scared of then!

[LAUGH] Yeah, yeah – it’s the fear of the unknown. For me and horror it’s often the music and the sound that really sells it, and I think my ears are getting more sensitive as I’m getting older. I literally get terrified watching horror films. I have to psyche myself to do it now, but if someone says “Do you want to do a horror film?” I’m like “Yep, definitely!”

You’ve worked with Neil Marshall on two occasions, right?

Yeah, that’s right.

The Descent and Doomsday. He’s a great director – how’ve you found it working with him?

He’s fab. Well, Neil and Christian Colson (who produced The Descent), they were the guys who gave me my break, and Gail Stevens who cast it – they picked someone unknown when they could’ve picked someone who had a bit more experience, perhaps, but they picked someone straight out of drama school. I’ll always be grateful for that, and I’ll be grateful for Neil bringing me back on Doomsday. They were the two best films I ever did in terms of experience and the people who were working on it – they all did incredible jobs.

The Descent was fantastically well received, so much so it got a sequel. You even returned for The Descent 2, for a small role as flashback footage found on a video camera… and as a corpse.

[LAUGHS] My corpse. Yep. My corpse.

How did they approach about that?

We were told [about the sequel] and we were asked and there was no question from any of the girls. We all said yes immediately.

It did well as a sequel, which surprised a lot of people.

Well, Jon Harris who directed Descent 2 was the editor on the first Descent, so it was nice that it stayed within the family. And Sam McCurdy and his crew returned, who shot the first one, which was great. There were a lot of people who came back from the first one, so that kept the family feel going about it.

You also did Lesbian Vampire Killers.

Yes, I did.

That was less well received than The Descent was. Why do you think that is?

I don’t know. You never know why something is more or less well received. Possibly it’s because it had been talked about for a long time. Sometimes when things get built up, and hyped up, it’s easier for them to fall – unlike films that are discovered by people. I think that can affect the reception. Maybe that’s what it needed, to be discovered as opposed to people being told they should go and see it.

Well a lot of people discovered The Descent and are still discovering it. Whereas Lesbian Vampire Killers… well, the title said a lot about it in advance.

Yeah, definitely.

Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, yeah. Phil Claydon [L.V.K.’s Director], it was one of his first features, and he’s up-and-coming and just has fab ideas and an amazing energy about him. That’s always fun to work with. It was a fun concept, it was meant to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek film, and never meant to be, you know, hugely serious –

It was an homage, of sorts.

Yeah, absolutely, and I think it achieved that on certain levels. And I know you said that some people didn’t feel that, but equally I’ve met people who have really enjoyed it.

How were James Corden and Matthew Horne to work with?

Funny… funny. You know, they’ve worked together for such a long time they have this really great banter between them, which you don’t often get that with actors. Most actors are just thrown together, but they [Horne & Corden] speak in a different language with each other, which is great to watch. And also it’s great to work with young actors who have already been incredibly successful, with Gavin and Stacey doing so well, which is something that should be celebrated.

Well, James Corden has done so well he’s in Doctor Who, which is something you beat him to. It’s such an iconic television show – a British institute. How was your experience on Doctor Who?

Well, I didn’t know Doctor Who that well – I knew of Doctor Who, but not much else – so when I rocked up on set I was hit by just how huge it was. And then the reception afterwards… to come to things like this and realising that several years after it people are still talking about it and remember it… that’s amazing.

I think it’s because it bridges the usual divide between horror, sci-fi, family and drama, in a way no other show ever has.

Absolutely. It’s very inclusive.

You’ve done a lot with CGI and green screen technology, on Doctor Who and The Wrong Door – is it a difficult thing to work with?

You get used to it. Maybe that’s why my imagination getting better is a good thing – you have to suddenly imagine these things in front of you. You hear of actors who do a lot of work with CGI, and this hasn’t happened with me, who go crazy, constantly having to work with pretend. I’ve always found it quite exciting. I think anything that’s thrown at you that’s different is a challenge – so on one hand it’s great working and on the other it’s great to be thrown challenges. I feel very lucky.

You’ve done comedy, horror, sci-fi – are their any more genres you’d like to be involved in?

I’d love to more some more dramatic parts. I’m doing something later on in the year with Face Films, who I’ve worked with before, which is sort of a dark drama, so that’s going to be quite exciting to work on.

Are you looking to do more film than theatre, as you went to drama school and…

Yeah, well I ran a theatre company with some friends, so I always thought I’d do theatre, but then I ended up getting jobs in the film and TV and it kind of works that way, and if you do a lot of film and TV you have to adapt yourself. I love theatre as well, but acting for me is acting, and all mediums are just as good as each other. I never thought I’d do film and TV ever, so I feel really lucky that I’ve had the chance to do it and still get employed to do stuff, so it’s fantastic.

Is there anyone who you really want to work with? Obviously we’re surrounded by talent here, but is there an icon or an iconic figure you’d really love to work with?

Um… I’d love to work with David Fincher. Also Clare Higgins. I worked with Jim Broadbent earlier in the year, which was great. That was a bit of a dream cast, just a couple of scenes, but still it was amazing. So, so many people I’d like to work with. I’d love to do more stuff with Ben Wheatley, who I did The Wrong Door with – his Down Terrace, his feature which just came out, is a great film – I love the way his brain works. Corin Hardy, another young director I’ve known for years, I think is exceptional. He’s a bit of a British Tim Burton, so look out for him.

So, are planning on staying a few days in Milton Keynes?

No, no I’m not! I’m filming in Bulgaria at the moment. I flew in this morning.

This morning?!

Yeah, I flew in this morning at four-thirty, which is two-thirty British time –

My God.

[LAUGHS] And I’m flying back tomorrow at six-thirty in the morning… so I want to get back home this evening, spend about an hour with family and friends and go to bed for hopefully about three hours…

Well that’s a disturbing amount of dedication to your fans. That’s hardcore.

A little bit hardcore. Well, once you said you’d do something I think you should commit to it. I didn’t want to let people down.

That’s quite a commitment.

Yeah, I told myself “I will come to Milton Keynes, I will come!” And I have – I’ve arrived!

And finally, what’s your favourite horror film?

Evil Dead 2. Definitely.

Great choice! Thanks for talking to Gorepress, MyAnna.

Thanks.

Chad Ferrin made his first movie ‘Unspeakable’ a decade ago. Since then he’s been working hard to create a name for himself and with his fourth directorial effort ‘Someone’s Knocking At The Door‘ in the bag and due for release in the US on the 25th of May, he’s certainly doing just that. Gorepress was lucky enough to catch up with him for an email interview recently; here’s what he had to say.

GP : You seemed to break into the industry at a relatively young age and went from Production Assistant to Producer in a short space of time. What do you attribute that to?

CF : Passion. When I was 8 years old my father took me to see Quest For Fire and its graphic images of SEX and VIOLENCE were seared into my young brain, from that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do. I sold my house to make Unspeakable, and then my 1968 ½ Ford Mustang to fund The Ghouls. I’ll sell my organs next if I have to.

Gorepress are big fans of the Troma ‘grass-roots, anything-goes’ way of filmmaking. Were you a fan of Lloyd Kaufman’s ideologies before you became involved with Troma?

Not really. I mean, I’m all for ‘grass roots, anything goes’ but to be honest, I don’t think much of Lloyd Kaufman.

And how did your affiliation with them come about?

I had sent Troma a copy of Unspeakable and they liked and picked it up. Now, ten years later, I still have not seen a dime from them. At this point I wish they would just give me my film back. Maybe we can start a petition?

You seem like a director that has veered away from the mainstream. Was it a conscious choice or an organic process?

Organic, I do everything from my gut. From writing, placing the camera, cutting, I go with what feels right at the moment.

You’ve taken on a huge number of different roles behind the camera. Was it mostly circumstantial or do you just enjoy adding new strings to your proverbial bow?

It’s both. I’ve had to work every job and I’ve enjoyed those experiences and the knowledge that they have given me. It’s made me unafraid of the machine.

You’ve repeatedly worked with ‘Deadgirl’ scribe Trent Haaga, does that working relationship stem from your time with Troma?

Come to think of it, Trent was the one who championed Unspeakable to Lloyd…that son of a bitch!

And do you have any plans to continue working together?

Not now after you reminded me that it’s all his damn fault.

Recently, at Easter, I noticed that there was a distinct lack of seasonal horror movies, only to stumble upon ‘Easter Bunny, Kill Kill!‘ Did you look for a gap in the market or did the murderous easter bunny concept come first?

The director of Christmas Evil had told me a story of how he turned down an Easter themed horror film in the 1980’s. It got me thinking and Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! was born. And, it actually just premiered on cable VOD and will hit DVD June 1st from Breaking Glass Pictures. I am very proud and excited to have it hopping out to the world.

Your movies have already garnered cult status. Is the potential audience a big factor when you’re making films or do you just make movies that you would want to watch?

It all starts with what I would want to watch, but I do have to restrain myself at times because some of my ideas actually frighten me and ultimately, I do want my work to reach the widest possible audience.

Your latest directorial outing is on grindhouse homage ‘Someone’s Knocking At The Door‘. How did it all come about?

Out of the blue, I received an e-mail from producer Roham Ghodsi asking for my help selling a film he had just completed. I asked “why me?”. He said he had seen The Ghouls and was impressed not only in the film but the fact that it’s available all over the world. So, we set up a meeting, and he flew to LA from Australia the next week. We spent 3 hours smoking cigarettes, talking cinema and then suddenly he asked if I’d be interested in directing a script he had written. Without hesitation, I said “Yes”. He sent me the script for Someone’s Knocking At The Door and with his blessing I started a re-write on it. I worked out a story where this drug these kids take opens a door to some sort of Hell, unleashing all sorts of horrors. I sent the script to Noah Segan and we wound up fleshing out the more existential elements. One month later we were shooting. Of course, then there are the stories of losing almost $15k to currency conversion and having to go to illicit measures to make up that end of the budget… Let us just say the cash arrived in a paper sack. Thank heavens for Rich Wolff and Richard Ross of Breaking Glass Pictures for having the guts to put out the film and in a sense save my life… or at least my legs.

Are there any specific films that inspired you with regard to visual style, for this particular project?

If Dario Argento fucked Russ Meyer while Sam Fuller watched, Someone’s Knocking At The Door would be the stain left on the sheets.

Rumour has it that before a screening of SKATD, Gorepress favourite ‘Mark Macready & The Archangel Murders’ was shown. Did you hand-pick it?

No, I had no input on that.

And what are some of your favourite short horror movies?

Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, Robert Enrico’s La Rivière Du Hibou and every single episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone

Finally, what does the future hold for you? Do you have any other projects on the horizon that you can mention?

Well, my next project is again with Roham and is called Dances With Werewolves. The film is set in the aftermath of the Civil War, centring on Confederate soldiers having escaped a Union prison camp, only to be hunted by Native American shape-shifting werewolves. With a little luck, we’ll have it rolling at the end of the year.

And when can the UK look forward to the release of SKATD?

We are working on that as we speak, and any help we can get from our UK fans would be greatly appreciated. Please write to your favourite horror distributor and tell them you want to see it!

Written, produced and directed by award winning filmmakers Paul Feeney, Ryan McDermott, & Sean Candon, Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders is a high concept independent short film filled with numerous memorable characters, laugh out loud moments, original creature effects and a taste of true British comedy with a sprinkle of horror. Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders has been the recipient of the Special Commendation Award 2009 at the Festival of Fantastic Films. Already hailed as “a British Hellboy” by Joblo.com, a “triumph” by the Salford Star and “a balls out out, eyebrow cocking horror comedy romp” by Filmrant, this thirty minute horror/comedy is proving to be a cult smash amongst audiences at home in the UK and across the pond in the US.

I met up with Mark Macready himself, actor/producer Ryan Mcdermott, along with Paul Newberry and Nathan Head, in a busy Costa coffee in Manchester city centre.

GP: So what are you up to then, guys?

Ryan: So we’re taking the short, and putting it online which is going to hopefully lead into making the feature film version, just getting it out there. It is going to be a really interactive experience as well, we’re going to let everyone watch the short and once we start making the feature we’re going to be live tweeting from the set, live cam and stuff like that. We’re going to give loads of opportunities to people to get involved, in a really groundbreaking kind of way. And what we’re going to do while making the feature is put together ‘webisodes’ that are going to include the characters which lead up to the events in the feature film. It’s going to be a real online cross platform universe.

How are you funding the feature?

Ryan: Private investors. We’ve been quite lucky with the short playing in so many places, we’ve got two investors. So we’re just waiting on their decision to see what they want to do. I’m going to go to Cannes, the short is going to be on the Short Film Corner. It’s probably going to be around the next twelve months getting the money together, and anyone who has got money, just seeing if they will invest in it. I mean there are some people who let the fans fund, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to get the money ourselves and give back to the fans, who then give back to the project by supporting it. So funding is coming on well.

The short is getting quite a lot of attention, I see its won some awards, how did the short come about?

Ryan: I met Paul Feeney, the writer and creator in college, we were given one of these projects. You know, to shoot a thriller, or to shoot a horror and he asked me if I like David Duchovny from the X Files and I said “I do indeed” so he said he had the British X Files right here and would I be in it. I said “yeah sure” and we shot it. It was horrendous. It was so bad. But there was a little bit of something in it and then Sean Candon who directed the short saw the tape and asked us to develop it because there was something in there. So Paul went away and wrote the short film…and then the three of us got together and said that I would produce it and star, Sean would direct, and Feeney would write it. He ended up being in it, and Sean did too as its hard to get actors who fit the style. We were very lucky with Nathan and Paul, as they really got the style, that Garth Marenghi-type serious delivery of the ridiculous. It’s very hard to play that straight.

How did you find the roles?

Paul: It was good, it was hard. Because it’s a horror parody there is a delicate balance between straight and comedy. If you imagine Julie Hagerty in Airplane when she is doing those serious moments, its a bit more that style, a bit more on the serious side of parody. It was about getting into these niches and levels of the parody, and it was difficult to get that balance.

Nathan: I think because some of the dialogue you got, like in the first train station scene, wouldn’t have worked if you had done it silly…

Paul: It wouldn’t, you’re right.

Ryan: The line when Paul’s character comes on is “Fuck me sideways and call me a cunt, what the hell are you doing here?”

Paul: And talking about vaginas as well…

Ryan: That’s right, the monster in the short, the Archangel, does nasty things to ladies parts.

Paul: It wouldn’t sound right if you were saying it in a silly way.

Ryan: It had to be said deadly serious, even though what is being said is utterly ridiculous. It’s getting that balance which is very tough. We shot ten days originally, and when we got that footage back it was neither serious nor funny. It wasn’t anything really, just bland. Nobody really knew the style, and what happened then was we re-wrote a lot of it, shot it and eventually it started to come out in the re-shoots. The script got a lot better, from watching that ten days worth of footage we could say where the comedy worked and the performances were working but the dialogue wasn’t complimenting the performance which had to be reworked. We discovered during the re-shoots that Mac is an extremely fast character, he doesn’t wait around. In the earlier version, we had Mac sat around saying “Where’s my wife?”, and we realised that this guy would never just sit there. From the minute you meet him, he is go, go, go, go, and that was something we really needed to get across.

Manchester is an important city for me, how important was Manchester to the film?

Ryan: So, so important. It really annoys me in these English movies where they are all set in London, and there is nothing else that exists outside of London. We wanted to do that with Manchester, and make it a huge character for the film. The branch where they work is called the Greater Manchester Paranormal Investigations Department, the GMPID. What a mouthful. But it was really. I think it was a fresh take on it, I don’t think anyone has really done Manchester. 28 Days Later had a bit around here.

Living Dead At Manchester Morgue shot parts at a hospital in Salford, which has been gutted out from the inside now which is a shame.

Ryan: Was that 70s?

I think it was around ’74…

Paul: It was up Pennine way, wasn’t it?

They shot a little bit in Manchester, and then everything else was done elsewhere. The shots of the hospital are just incredible, it was really good to walk around in Salford and find it. See a part of classic Italian horror in our own city.

Paul: I need to find a copy of that.

Ryan: I’ll have to get hold of that. We’ve got a shot of driving up towards McDonald’s in Salford by all the 70s flats, with Mac in his car. Whenever anyone sees it, they always comment on that part. I wish we had done more of that, but we didn’t really have a lot of time. In the dialogue Mac talks about how the city is key for him. He puts the city before his wife and that’s what begins the story, his job protecting the city comes between him and his wife and then when she is taken, it really hits home.

So the feature will be set in Manchester too?

Ryan: Definitely.

Are you going to take a bit more time to develop the city as a character in there?

Ryan: Already, in the treatment written by Paul Feeney and myself, it is kind of spanning every aspect. From suburban streets down to the docks, around Deansgate, and the forests and woods. Those really eerie parts of Manchester are a huge part of it. Also in the webisode series, it’s going to play a big role in there as well, in creating that world.

Paul: Manchester is definitely a huge part of it, the people too. That’s why Paul Feeney named it the GMPID, the Greater Manchester Paranormal Investigation Department. It’s just instantly recognisable.

Have you had any scary experiences in Manchester in general? I remember once I tried to walk to Salford Uni from Prestwich, I looked it up on Google Maps and it was a pretty straight route through the Albert and Peel Park. And I just got the most lost ever, I was walking around there for about three hours just not knowing where the hell I was and eventually I found a an old sewage plant and a road back to where I started. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life, I thought I was going to die!

Nathan: I get pretty scared when I’m under Piccadilly Station, under the bridge. You get used to walking under there, but it can be scary!

Paul: Once I was with my mum and it was that big football match, if you remember…

Ryan: Oh, with the riots! With Scotland?

Paul: Yes, and there was two cockneys, me and my mum, on the tram and it was full of football fans and they were jumping on the tram. It was really frightening. My mum was waving a red flag to try and pretend we were from Manchester.

Ryan: One thing that really scared me as a kid, which we were really to get into the movie, was the old train station in Swinton. I would go on the train to Manchester with my Grandmother, and it used to scare the hell out of me. It was so scary.

Nathan: They’ve modernised it now…

Ryan: Yeah, they’ve put in an electronic board. That won’t last the weekend… But, it was scary. It was always something that haunted me as a kid. We managed to do a big scene, a death scene, there which was something I really wanted to do.

Paul: And even shooting that, there was loads of drunks coming past the bridge all shouting over and it was scary.

Ryan: Really rough, yeah.

So the film has been to a lot of festivals, have you been going with it to gauge reactions and how has that been?

Ryan: That’s been probably the best thing about it, seeing the reactions. It’s really nice to get a review, but when you are in there and you see the actual reaction and feel it when you come out, people are looking at you. It feels a bit strange, but very nice.

Nathan: At Mayhem in Nottingham, they had this thing called An Experiment In Fear where they had this person strapped to a heart monitor while they were watching the film to see what the scariest moments were.

Ryan: That was really cool! We’ve been across Manchester, we’ve been to Nottingham, we’ve been down to London, Portsmouth. We flew to New York for a screening there. Every audience is very different. At Mayhem they were really primed for it, as it is a pure horror film festival. I think one of the most amazing reactions was where it was the last film on, and the films before it had all been very serious, very gory and realistic horror. Then this man with a silly eyebrow and a silly voice pops up, and they was like “ooh, what’s this?” I really miss it, and I can’t wait to hopefully get back out with the feature film.

Paul: It was all absolutely brilliant, I think one of the organisers of Mayhem is the director of Mum & Dad…

Stephen Shiels?

Paul: Absolutely brilliant guy. I had such a wonderful time. It was really funny because a lot of the audience were so used to just watching horror films, and you see them thinking “what the hell is this?” when it has just started but once the audience engaged with each other in the humour of it, that’s when it takes off.

Ryan: It takes that first five minutes to break the ice. In that first five minutes, it’s just Mac and his wife talking…

Nathan: At every festival we’ve been to, we have always sat at the back just in case…

Ryan: Just in case we have to get out quick…

Nathan: But it’s gone down really well everywhere.

Ryan: We’ve been very lucky, even in New York it went down well. That was a bizarre one because I’m sure they just thought “what the bloody hell is this?”, they were sat there just looking around. And then suddenly that first laugh came which broke it, by the end it got a really good reaction. For me, Paul and Sean, that was the most nerve-wracking one, because the American audience can be very difficult. Certain things that didn’t get big laughs here, got big laughs there. And certain things that got big laughs here, didn’t get big laughs there, very different sense of humour.

Nathan: One of the biggest laughs in America came when a character gets shot…

Ryan: A female cop gets shot and the Americans go wild…

They probably just saw the gun and got excited.

Ryan: Probably, probably… And it was a Texan who shot her.

British horror is going through a bit of a renaissance lately, what British horror flicks have influenced you guys?

Ryan: I like the Neil Marshall stuff. He updated it, he brought it back. I haven’t seen The Descent 2 yet, which I know he didn’t direct. He was just executive producer…

It was alright, not as good as the first…

Ryan: I need to check it out. I just really like what he has done, he is someone who has brought it back and in a cool way. It’s not just B movie stuff, although some of the plots are B movie, it’s good horror that looks big budget and I like that.

A lot of people were down on, uh, on, uh…

Ryan: Doomsday?

Doomsday, yeah! I loved it. It’s one of the best films to watch on the big screen.

Ryan: It was a great experience, and I don’t think it worked as well on DVD. I really liked the size and scope of it on the big screen, and I’ve seen it again on DVD. Seeing it on the big screen just made it. I really liked it. Neil Marshall is great.

What about you guys?

Paul: I really liked Mum & Dad, because Britain has this culture of things happening behind closed doors. It has that British Hostel feeling for me. I really liked that, and I loved the characterisation in it. It’s a great film.

Nathan: I know they technically aren’t British but the Hellraiser films. I know only the first two and a half are British but I love them!

Ryan: You’re a big Hellraiser fan, aren’t you?

Nathan: Huge!

Are you excited about the Nightbreed found footage?

Nathan: I’m looking forward to that! Apparently there is a scene in the cemetery with a giant stop motion cat with a women on its back walking around. I’ve seen the test shots in the studio, but I’m looking forward to seeing that. I don’t know if it’s going to get a DVD release, did they do a screening at the weekend?

I’m not sure, but I know a lot of people are lobbying for a DVD release of it. There is a lot of good being found lately, I don’t know where it’s hiding but it’s coming out slowly…

Ryan: Someone is digging into the archives aren’t they…Someone is going in and pulling the stuff out…

Getting back to Mac, was it a difficult shoot?

Ryan: It varied, those first ten days were very hard, very tricky. We were all learning so much. There were too many people, too many cooks.

Nathan: It seemed quite high pressure, it might have just been because it was massive production…

Ryan: Yeah, those first few weeks we different a bit too complex than it needed to be. Myself, Paul and Sean then sat down to talk about how we were going to do it differently. We decided it would just be the three of us, us holding the lights and doing everything. We got one person to do the make up, minimised everything so we could just work with the actors. That is when it became very fun, we really bonded at that point. We all knew each other reasonable well, but for me that was when I really got to meet Paul and Nathan and become friends with them. Which is what we have done really. I mean these guys are actors really, but they are sat here helping me push the movie which I really appreciate. Same goes with everyone, really, who worked on the second half of the film. We all stayed in touch and stayed really good friends, on the photographs from Mayhem we are all there together. We were lucky, it was a really good experience, the second half of it…

Nathan: I still enjoyed the first bit but I’ve got fonder memories of the re-shoots…

Paul: Especially the parts at the train station and the warehouse.

Ryan: I think out personalities came out, through the first half I was just Ryan, producer, not being an asshole… Well, I hope I wasn’t an asshole! I just couldn’t really engage with anyone or talk to anyone because my mind was in a million places. But the second time I got to get closely involved with everyone.

Paul: I was always happy with both sides of it. Obviously, it did relax. It was quite hard to come back and redo scenes, you get a bit paranoid. You think “what did I do wrong?” but actually they’d gone back and seen what was wrong and they knew how to make it right…

Ryan: You guys didn’t have a clue, did you?

Nathan: I could understand why things were re-shot, for lighting and things like that. I’m glad really because it was like a practice run, we better understood the characters during the re-shoots.

Ryan: We were lucky…

Did any of that initial shoot make it into the final cut?

Nathan: There is a bit in Korkinsky’s flat that’s part of the original shoot…

Ryan: Yeah. The raid on Korkinsky’s flat, that’s the original. The She-Snake sequence, and the train station sequence.

Nathan: Some of the actors were different, because they couldn’t come back.

Ryan: That was a shame, because we lost some great people. But we got, in a fate kind of way, people who are more suited to the faster paced version. Ashleigh Edwards Pitt now plays Friday, but originally she was played by a friend of ours called Lynsey Little. Lyndsey suited the very film noir version that we had, very calm, relaxed, femme fatale. But when we came back, we didn’t think Mac would interact with this kind of a character. I think it has to be a sexy demon, leather clad girl, when Lynsey couldn’t come back we then met Ashleigh who was perfect for that kind of approach. Ashleigh is a great example of what the re-shoots brought in. But mostly it was the pace of it, each scene had to end up with a punch, or with a gun. Each scene had to have a big moment.

Paul: I think there was a lot of good stuff in the first version. A lot of good ideas, and good creatures. But a lot just didn’t work for what we needed.

Nathan: I was quite disappointed that some of it didn’t make it to the final cut, like in the GMPID when you saw the other monsters. You just see a werewolf, in the final version, being interrogated, but there was a zombie prostitute and there was a mummy. I don’t know why that didn’t make it through, but I really like the zombie prostitute…

Paul: I liked her too…

Nathan: Her make up was really good, have you any of the photos?

At this point I’ve seen everything on the Facebook group page, I’ve seen the trailer and the make up is one of the things that really stands out…

Ryan: Thank you. We were very lucky with the girl that we had who did the make up, Lindsey Genter, who actually ended up playing Dr. Gish in the film just because we were out of actors. We were like “who the hell is left to play this role?” We were worried at one point that it might turn into a bit of a disaster project, like is this another Wolfman? Thankfully, it wasn’t. Lynsey stepped in to play Dr. Gish, she had never acted before, and she is a great talent. She saved our bacon on a lot of the stuff with the make up, and then we had a really great effects guy called Oliver Starkey come in. He enhanced all those effects, he gave it the look that it has… The grain, it was just shot on standard HD. If you see it without the grain, the colours aren’t as crisp because we didn’t have the money to light professionally.

Nathan: He added some really good effects on the swamp as well, didn’t he?

Ryan: He added all the wind, the lightening and the rain. CGI rain, it’s pouring and no one is getting wet…

So where do you guys stand on the CGI versus practical debate that’s obviously ongoing?

Nathan: I’m mixed, I like CGI if it’s not over the top. Sometimes you don’t even know when CGI has been used like when it is just used to touch something up… But when whole characters are CGI like Jar Jar Binks, I think it can cheapen it. If it’s done really well though, like in Jurassic Park, it can really work. I was worried about seeing Avatar because I was expecting it to be Jar Jar Binks: The Movie but it worked really well in that too.

Ryan: Coming from a producer point of view, it’s whatever is cheapest to do on the day. You have to go with it. But I love what Peter Jackson and [Guillermo] Del Toro do, how they integrate live action with that CG effect. Especially Blade 2, a great example of that, where they had the practical mouth opening and then had the CG. I love the puppetry side of it, we were talking about Gremlins earlier… I really want to own one of those gremlins. But I do like both, both have pros and cons. We had to go with a lot of CG to enhance stuff, but I think it works.

Nathan: It looks good.

Ryan: I just take issue with films that use it for blowing up heads and it’s really obvious.

That’s my biggest bone of contention at the moment, CGI blood. I don’t know how expensive corn syrup is… I watched a film recently with Dolph Lundgren called Command Performace. He plays a rock drummer who has to save the Russian Premier…

Ryan: He’s still working?

He is! But the blood in that is so obviously CGI, it’s almost like Roger Rabbit…

Ryan: It just looks animated…

Nathan: You don’t really need it, even if you can’t afford corn syrup just get some ketchup out of the cupboard. I know its the wrong colour, but you could do something…

Ryan: Spit Vimto out or something…

Nathan: It was chocolate sauce in Psycho!

Ryan: Was it?

Nathan: Chocolate sauce!

Ryan: I wish I worked on that movie. Nom nom nom nom.

Haha! So have you seen many other shorts on your festival rounds? Were there any you were into?

Nathan: Horrorshow!

Ryan: Treevenge!

Nathan: I loved Treevenge!

Ryan: That’s has got to be the best short I’ve ever seen at a horror festival, I love it so much.

Nathan: I liked Dr. Psycho’s Chamber Of Sadism too.

Ryan: Have you seen that one?

I haven’t, I’ll have to check it out…

Ryan: It’s the shortest, most insane thing I have ever seen.

Nathan: It’s quite wacky, isn’t it?

Ryan: It’s very quirky. Lots of girls, lots of gratuitous nudity. It features a really cool up and comer, Eleanor James, who has that horror, B movie queen quality. She is getting a name for herself at the moment, I hope we can get involved with her.

Nathan: That would be good…

Just picking up on Horrorshow, the Neon Killer short… I really liked that one and the Trannibal trailer he also did…

Ryan: He did Trannibal and he did Slash Hive…

Nathan: I’ve seen the Slash Hive one, it’s like a trailer?

Ryan: It’s amazing… Slash Hive was done for the Grindhouse Trailer competition, just like Treevenge last year. Ben Robinson did both of those, great guy.

Paul: Was that with killer bees?

Ryan: It was killer wasps, but it’s madness.

Ben Robinson has this excellent way of shoot that just makes everything look so authentic…

Ryan: I think Ben has been ready for a long long time for something big, I think he was cinematographer on most of the shorts for Horrorshow. I just feel really fortunate to know him, I hope we can get him involved.

Is it out on DVD yet?

Ryan: It’s not.

Nathan: I need to see it again, I haven’t seen it since last year!

Ryan: So Horrorshow and Treevenge are the big ones for me.

Paul: I love Treevenge too, the bit at with the baby. You think there is no way they’re going to do that…

Ryan: And they do it. It’s ballsy. So good! I couldn’t look at our Christmas tree the same this year…

Nathan: Did it talk?

Ryan: Like an ewok.

Paul: Horrorshow is brilliant though.

Norman Warren is obviously an icon, have you met any icons at festivals who weren’t as friendly as you’d hope?

Nathan: I wouldn’t say anyway, I’d get done for slander.

I’m just trying to illicit a little scandal…

Ryan: We’ve been really lucky, everyone has been really nice. The good thing about the horror community is that everyone is so open, it just shows on Twitter, and interested in knowing each other. You feel like you’re in with a nice crowd, I don’t think you could do that with any other genre. I don’t think you can engage with a drama community, how would you find them?

There’s nothing like a drama community out there, really.

Ryan: Sitting round, talking about Keira [Knightley]…

Paul: It’s harder to market too…

Horror fans are generally a lot more forgiving too. They tend to see past the bad parts and focus on the good stuff…

Nathan: I know what you mean, if a film has good gore or death scenes it can still be good. The Saw films have gone downhill, each one is worse than the last but I still enjoy them because of the interesting deaths and the gore is quite good.

Ryan: I like stuff like Evil Dead and Bad Taste because they aren’t perfect but still so cool… We have had with a couple of reviews people saying that the acting is a bit wobbly but it’s a parody, we’re deliberately doing it. Some people really get that, some don’t.

Nathan: People who are fans of the Evil Dead films do understand… Some people seem to be expecting a mainstream blockbuster, and they’re expecting it to be polished with a really obvious story. Some people just don’t understand that underground horror thing.

Ryan: We’re just lucky enough that there is something in it that people see that we can develop. It’s a kind of a high concept thing, and we want to do it big.

Do you have plans for a franchise or a trilogy?

Nathan: I hope so!

Ryan: Well the idea is that we do three, Paul has written the ending. It was written a while ago, a certain aspect of it was actually written in college years ago and it’s one of those surprise endings…

Is it the butler?

Ryan: Damn! You got it! We’re going to make this one and make it as good as we can, then see where it goes. Everything has been a blessing, I am glad we even made it this far. The night before the première I watched it with my brothers, they really enjoyed it and I thought it was the biggest pile of shite I’d ever seen. I genuinely didn’t think anyone would enjoy it, and then when we put it on the reactions… I was very surprised by it all.

Nathan: The thing was, at that screening we had special offers on cocktails on the bar…

Ryan: Everyone was pissed, basically…

Well that seems like as good a place as any to wrap this up, any final words?

Ryan: Thanks for coming down, we really appreciate it. We’re really grateful for everything. I think if you work hard, if you live it morning, noon and night, it’ll happen.

Paul: Follow us on Twitter, @MarkMacready

Thanks guys!

Ryan kindly gave me a copy of Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders for my viewing pleasure, so here is a bonus review of their short.

Mark Macready is a no-nonsense tough guy, living in an all-nonsense world of monsters, shape-shifters and demonic killers. When faced with the guilt of his wife being kidnapped while he was off pandering to his other love; the city, he goes on a rampage to find her and destroy all those who get in his way.

Mac is your basic anti-hero, a heady mix of Snake Plissken, Ash and Hellboy with a uniquely British lilt, and is excellently mis-played by Ryan McDermott. In fact, the whole cast is wonderfully bad. If acting like you can’t act is an art, this lot are the new Expressionist movement! Brilliantly shot by Sean Candon, there are some of the same flourishes that marked early [Peter] Jackson or [Sam] Raimi outings. The script pops and crackles with ridiculous, OTT, and some genuinely witty, dialogue. This short had me laughing out loud and making mental notes of what to say if my wife gets taken by a murderer. Although some parts were a touch over-scripted, to the point where the plot had to grind to a halt to make sure everyone got their lines out. The characters are clear cut archetypes from many films that have come before but all are played straight, without any winking or gurning.

It isn’t all rosy though, it is certainly a film marred by its budget. Through all Mac’s arrogance there is a likeability that isn’t quite exploited to it’s fullest. Despite the fact that the make up is excellent for the most part, some of the CGI is ropey, even for a parody, and some of the smaller roles such as Dr. Gish, Stone, Korkinsky, and even Friday, are under-explored. Although I can forgive the maligning of smaller characters in such a short running time, I really hope they are explored more in the feature version. Also there isn’t enough focus on the Archangel, I would love to see his particular method of murder shown in some depth, just to prove what a formidable foe he really is.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the ending, the lack of resolution left me wanting. I’m sure it was done deliberately to get both fans and investors salivating over the prospect of a feature version.
Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders is a competently directed and well written, short, with some moments of genuine tension, some fairly moving stuff, and a whole heap of laughs. It all bodes well for the proposed feature version, and I am already positioning myself in the queue to see the further adventures of Mac and the rest of the GMPID.

I would give it a solid 7 skulls.

Although she’s a relative newcomer to the fright business, Bianca Barnett is already making waves. Having used the internet to raise awareness of her rising star and create a loyal fan-base in the process, she’s gone from ‘horror hottie’ to serious actress in a fairly short space of time. Given that it’s Women In Horror Recognition Month, we thought it the perfect time to celebrate one of horrors’ new female presences.

GP : So, which came first, the acting or the modelling?

BB : Modeling came first, but honestly, I grew tired of that industry pretty quickly. I realized I like standing out in a crowd, not conforming to someone else’s idea of what I should be or look like. I was literally killing myself trying and damaging my body and soul to reach an impossible standard of beauty.. I want to be known for my accomplishments, and judged by the size of my heart, not my clothing.

You’ve created quite a presence for yourself via the internet; it’s a powerful tool for self promotion but people must have been quite receptive to you anyway for it to work. Do you think the internet has helped you to create a fan-base that might not have been able to find you otherwise?

Absolutely, I wouldn‘t be where I am now without the internet and without my amazing fans and friends! It takes a lot of time and effort to promote my work. Right now, I do most of it by myself, but if things keep picking up I will have to have help. That part will be hard for me because I like being “hands-on“. I’ve become much pickier about how I want to be presented in photos and what films I want to be a part of. I think that drives a lot of people crazy, especially photographers. I feel like I’ve been doing this long enough that I know how I want to present myself professionally. Most of it has been very instinctual and I base a lot of my decisions on my intuition.

It’s always nice to see powerful women making a name for themselves on the horror circuit, be it behind or in front of the camera. Do you enjoy your status as something of a horror pin-up?

Oh yes, I’m completely flattered and honored when people think of me as attractive. I’m so critical of myself and tend to focus on my flaws, so it’s a nice surprise when people see things differently. I’m still working on my confidence and self-worth and staying positive.

Do you think you’d like to concentrate on garnering more film appearances in the future or will the modelling always be just as important to you? Is it nice being able to juggle the two?

I’d love to garner more film appearances, and hopefully that will lead to more modeling gigs. I feel like I am in a place in my showbiz career that I am ready to take it to the next level. Previously, I took almost every modeling and acting job I was offered because I was so eager to be a part of it all. Now I’ve become much more selective and I’m choosing quality over quantity. Let’s hope that the offers keep coming!

You’ve been involved in a couple of projects featuring Troma legends Lloyd Kaufman and Trent Haaga. Do you admire the Troma way of filmmaking?

I admire anyone who is brave enough to follow their hearts and make their own path in an industry. I just hope I can be as successful as they have been!

In Albino Farm, you play the primary villain, the truly grotesque and memorable creation; ‘Pig Bitch‘. I always feel that the villains are the more interesting characters in horror. What sort of preparation did you have to do to get into character?

I have to agree, the villains are usually the best part of the movie. I couldn’t wait to portray Pig Bitch – being in the makeup really helped me become the character. I tried to completely channel my teenage angst and aggression. I also studied my dog, Dixie, and based some of the reactions on her more primal behaviors.

Albino Farm got mixed reviews but one thing the reviewers seemed to agree on was that you were the best part of the movie. How does it feel when someone openly praises something you had such a big part in creating?

It’s like winning the lottery! I can’t describe the feeling in words, but I was surprised that people really seemed to like my portrayal of the character. I know I still have a long way to go as an actor, but I did try to do my best with the material I was given to work with.

Was it difficult to act through the heavy make-up and prosthetics or did you find that it made it easier to get into character?

It made it easier to get into character, but the fact that I was carrying five pounds on my head and had limited vision, breathing, and hearing for about fifteen hours a day while doing all of my own stunts, took a toll. I came down with viral pharyngitis and was extremely ill by the end of the shoot. I did it, though, and I’m proud of myself for toughing it out! I would love to do more action films in the future.

It’s an exciting time for women in horror, which seems to be reflected in another of the projects you‘ve recently been involved in, Welcome To My Darkside, a documentary looking at females in the industry, from scream queens to directors. Do you have any role models that inspired you to seek out a career in horror?

I love all of the cool, Hitchcock blondes as well as the beautiful and exotic actresses from the 1960s and 1970s. The hair, makeup and wardrobe are all so fabulous! Barbara Steele and the women who epitomized Hammer glamour are very inspirational to me.

Ok, so what’s next on the Bianca Barnett agenda? What does your future hold and which direction would you like your career to head in?

I am wanting to get better at developing my acting craft and style. I think that will increase my profile. I want the future to hold some really great movies and wonderful experiences making them. I also hope to meet as many new friends and fans as I can. I want people to look forward to seeing a picture I am in and as long as people want to see me, I will continue to act and entertain!

You can find lots more information about Bianca at www.biancabarnett.com or on her myspace page..

Zach Galligan is best known as being Billy Peltzer in Gremlins 1 & 2, but he’s also so much more. He’s acted in classics such as Waxwork 1 & 2, cameoed in Warlock 2 and Hellraiser 3 (wonderfully impaled with a pool cue), walked the boards on stage, starred in TV dramas as diverse as Dr Quinn Medicine Woman and Tales From The Crypt and teaches at NYU.

His latest film, Cut, is released on February 22nd and is a genuine world first (Guinness World Record confirmation pending).

Gorepress had the honour of chatting with Zach about Cut, directing, horror porn, zombie films, a bawdy sex comedy, Gremlins 3 and filming in Wales…

GP : You’re in Britain for the premiere of Cut on Friday.

ZG : That’s correct.

How did you get involved with Cut?

The internet age is a funny thing. I opened up my e-mail box one morning and Dominic [Burns - Cut’s Michael] had sent me a script for a comedy called The Ten Year Itch and he tried to get financing for it. He came close but he didn’t manage to do it, and he sort of disappeared for a couple of years. The next thing I know I’ve got another message in my e-mail box at the end of 2008 saying “Hey, you remember when we were going to do The Ten Year Itch? We couldn’t get financing for it, but we can get financing for this movie. What do you think about it?”. So I read it and I was like, I sort of feel like we’ve seen this movie before, and then he explained to me the whole thing about it being in one continuous take and that got me really intrigued.

It’s a very unique idea – where did that come from?

I’m pretty sure it was Dominic’s idea, ‘cause he presented it to me pretty much as a done deal and said “this is the way we’re going to do it”. I was intrigued by it because I basically thought it was pretty much impossible.

It must have taken a huge amount of rehearsing.

Yeah, it was much more like a play really. I mean, we probably rehearsed it for ten days and then shot it for about six.

You’ve done a lot of theatre in the past – do you prefer theatre to film?

I think both have really good qualities. Theatre you get the immediate reaction of the audience and immediate feedback. But film, if it’s good, you get to keep it forever and watch it forever, but if it’s bad the same rule applies.

What is Cut about?

It’s about five people trapped in an English countryside mansion suddenly under attack by people they don’t know for reasons they can’t comprehend. Most of the movie is kind of ambiguous, you don’t really understand what’s going on or why and hopefully that’s exciting. Towards the end of the movie they kind of reveal what is going on.

Is Cut a ninety minute film even though it’s one continuous shot?

Well… the way it’s done – it’s not ninety minutes, no – it’s a bit difficult to explain, you have to see it. The opening of the movie is shot just like a regular movie, and you think “wait a minute, I thought this was in one continuous shot?” but then it pulls back and you realise that the regular movie you’re seeing is on a TV screen. And then the credits roll and it picks up from where you saw the TV screen and the guy turns the horror movie off. From the second the guy turns the horror movie off it’s sixty-six minutes of new film and all done on one steady-cam shot.

There’s no room for mistakes there.

[Laughs] Absolutely not.

Is this the first British movie you’ve worked on?

I did a movie called Prince Valiant back in 1996 with Steven Moyer, who is now in True Blood, and we shot that in Wales, so I guess Cut’s my second. But I don’t really count the Prince Valiant one ‘cause it was so removed from civilization, it was like three weeks shooting on a heath.

That’s Wales for you.

[Laughs] Surrounded by sheep and hills. It was in the UK, but it didn’t really seem like I was part of civilization, it was like I was just shooting it in a field.

You work with Danielle Lloyd on Cut, which is her first feature film. She’s probably best known in the UK for being herself rather than as an actress. How was she to work with?

I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised by how she acquits herself in it. I don’t want to give away too much, but she’s only in the film for about three or four minutes. I would imagine people’s expectations will be surpassed.

Now inevitably, there has to be a question or two on Gremlins. How do you feel about people still recognizing you mainly for these iconic films, even though the last one was made twenty years ago?

It doesn’t bother me. You know, most actors want to be recognised for something as opposed to be being recognised for nothing. One of the reasons Robert Downey Jnr. decided to do Iron Man was because he’d been an actor for, what, twenty years and he’d done a tonne of stuff and there was a huge number of people who hadn’t really seen him in anything. And one of the reasons he did Iron Manwas because he thought “I’m guaranteed that people will go and see this movie and see my work in it”. I mean, if you look at Johnny Depp, he had been an actor for about fifteen years before Pirates of the Caribbean and a lot of people who watch films knew him and knew he was really talented but a lot of casual movie-goers had absolutely no idea who he was. And then he did Pirates of the Caribbean and everyone was like “Woah, who is this guy, he’s so great?” and I was like “Are you kidding me? That guy’s been around for fifteen years!” But, you know, not everybody follows movies as closely as cinema buffs, a lot of people just go to two or three movies a year – the big blockbuster ones – and they know about ten or fifteen actors and that’s about it.

You’ve managed to work alongside some horror’s iconic figures – Christopher Lee, Malcolm McDowell, David Warner and even Bruce Campbell. Who are you inspired by, personally, and who would you want to work with that you haven’t already?

Well, funny you say that about Malcolm McDowell, because even though we were both in Cyborg 3: The Recycler together we shot on separate days. I never met the man, even though we were in the same movie. I would love to actually work with him, because he’s one of my favourite actors – I saw Gangster No. 1 when it came out and I thought that was absolutely brilliant. That was a great British film.

Are there any parts you’ve turned down before that you now regret?

[Pauses to think] There are not any parts I’ve turned down I regret, but there are parts I tried out for that, boy, I would’ve loved to have gotten. But there’s nothing I’ve turned down that I’ve thought “boy, that was
stupid”.

Have you heard anything about Gremlins 3?

I haven’t heard anything yet, but that rumour literally just broke a couple of weeks ago, and that leads me to believe that they’re probably between six to nine months away from a finished script or an announcement or anything like that. Until that happens, I would have no idea if they would be interested in Phoebe [Cates – who played Kate in Gremlins 1 & 2] and I participating in any way, or whether they’re just going to reboot it. Who knows? It’s so impossible to tell. I’m hoping they’re going to do something like they’re doing with Ghostbusters where they have something like Phoebe and myself as the parents and us, now it’s been twenty years, having a couple of teenage kids.

People would want to see you back in it, so it would make sense to do something like that.

Well, if you go to any of the horror boards there seems to be two camps. A lot of people are like “I have no interest in the remake” and some people are like “bring back Zach and Phoebe or else I’m not going”. So there’s been a lot of speculation and chatter on the internet about it and hopefully I’ll have a reasonably good part in it. I really wouldn’t be interested in doing a couple of lines, walk-on thing; that’d be like “what’s the point in doing that?”

I’m hoping that Gremlins 3 and Ghostbusters 3 will be continuations and not remakes. Recently, they’ve remade pretty much everything from Halloween and Friday the 13th to Last House on the Left to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Are you hoping they stick to their guns and make it a third one?

Right.

They may of course move towards CGI and 3D – how do you feel about that?

Well, I really wasn’t that much of a fan of CGI until I saw Avatar, and the CGI in 3-D is so amazing.

It’s pretty epic.

[Laughs] It’s pretty epic. The real problem with CGI is that on 2-D it looks like a cartoon. With 3-D it looks much more like a real thing. I think 3-D is really cool if it’s done properly. I don’t think people should start doing regular movies in 3-D, like I can’t imagine why you’d do Gosford Park in 3-D. You’d have to something – it can’t be like a drawing room comedy – it has to be something spectacular.

Well, in regard to Gremlins 3, or the potential of it, would you prefer the puppets to come back or have them CGI?

I think probably a mix. I think that’s one of the false kind of things where people are like “Puppets? CGI? Puppets? CGI?” I’m like, why don’t we do a mix of puppets and CGI and do a little less puppets than the second one, as that one nearly killed everyone involved as there were so many bleeding puppets in it! Let’s throw some CGI in when we can, and use puppets when we can’t.

You’ve moved through the horror genre for over two decades, have things vastly changed in how horror is made and perceived?

[Sighs ponderously] That’s an excellent question. It’s difficult to say… but I would probably say… it’s actually a pretty complicated question. I guess some of the trends that I’ve seen have been, like… wow. It’s difficult. You know, in the 70’s there was sort of a certain genre like the original Last House on the Left – this kind of sadistic film, like what people call a torture porn kind of a movie. Then that went out of vogue and got replaced by splatter films during most of the 80’s. And now it seems like a lot of the horror films are combinations of splatter films and more torture porn films like Hostel and Turistas [released as 'Paradise Lost' in the UK], and basically a lot of the horror movies are about torturing people. My friend Cary Elwes was actually in Saw, which I thought was really brilliant, but then Saw 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were just about torturing people. I don’t think it’s good for the genre, I think it reflects poorly on the genre. You don’t have to make people suffer so much, and makes me wonder why people enjoy watching other people suffer.

I agree entirely. I’ve personally never been a fan of the torture-porn genre. But somehow it’s made horror more commercially viable for Hollywood. How do you think Hollywood perceives horror now? It’s always been viewed as the black sheep of the family.

Well, I think there was a period, like with The Ring (which was a great horror movie) where A-list stars started saying “horror’s really big now” and you’d have people like Jennifer Connelly doing Dark Water, which I thought was a cool movie too. So we started having these A-list people doing horror films and stuff like that, and we still do to a certain extent, but now it seems like because there was no great break-out hit horror movie starring a lead person [it’s unpopular again].

The Crazies is out this month starring Timothy Olyphant, although he’s not huge, he’s a reasonably big name.

Well even the Dawn of the Dead remake wasn’t that huge. What you need to do is a have some horror movies with a person starring in it, a real A-list kind of name, go through the roof. I think I Am Legend nearly came close to that –

The Will Smith vehicle.

Yeah, but in a way that was sort of like a sci-fi movie too, because it was the end of the world, apocalyptic.

It’s a strange genre, horror. You’ve worked in it for years, and your film previous to Cut was Nightbeasts – which was Wes Sullivan’s first feature since working in the animation department at Disney – an amazing crossover from animator to horror film writer / director.

Yeah.

Have you ever considered branching out into directing or writing yourself?

Funny you said that. I teach acting at NYU in the film department; it’s a bit difficult to explain the affiliation. I have nothing but NYU students as my pupils, and I have started directing short films with the kids, or with the college graduate programme. I have actually now started getting high-definition cameras, worked with actors, done the editing, been in the editing room, cut it together, added the sound, added the music and everything like that, so I have started making films – this film was only about nine minutes – now I’m going to start doing a couple more and move onto doing twenty minutes. And once you can make a twenty minute movie, I’m pretty sure you can make a ninety minute movie. Maybe not with sophisticated effects yet, but you can certainly do something like… I mean, I’ve got an idea to do a horror movie. My family’s country house is on this place called Shelter Island, there was actually a bad horror movie made about it, called Shelter Island.

That’s right.

Starring Patsy Kensit and Stephen Baldwin. I’m there every summer, and around this time in February it’s pitch black and unbelievably cold and deserted, and I thought it’s an amazing locale for a zombie movie. It’s so isolated and deserted.

Are you a big fan of the zombie genre?

I think it’s the best one. If I had to pick a favourite genre, I’d pick the Romero movies; zombie movies.

I think the entirety of the people at Gorepress agree – we love our zombies!

I can never get enough of them either. I just think it’s brilliant. It can shed light on human beings in so many ways too, you know, like Shaun of Dead is so brilliant too.

What’s your favourite zombie film in the last decade?

[Pauses for thought] Probably 28 Days Later.

That is an excellent film. What’d you think of the sequel?

I thought it was quite good. It didn’t get a lot of… I dunno. It’s strange, I see a lot of sequels and think “that’s really clever and interesting, good sequel” and people are like “nah, I didn’t like it”. People are difficult to please. I think people wanna go back and, for whatever reason, they want to see the exact same thing again.

I think that’s why Saw does so well, isn’t it?

Yeah, yeah, it’s the exact same thing.

So what’s next for you after Cut?

Well, ironically in about six or seven weeks we start shooting the original script that Dom sent me – The Ten Year Itch. And that’s not a horror movie.

So what’s that about?

It’s a nice bawdy sex comedy.

Is that set in Britain as well?

It is! It shoots in London.

Well, you can’t do a bawdy sex comedy unless it’s in Britain.

[Laughs] Exactly.

And finally, with the internet age as you mentioned earlier, what’s the most ridiculous rumour you’ve heard about yourself online?

That I was found dead in an apartment.

And that wasn’t true?

Well, you’re talking to me now, so clearly that’s not true…

Thanks for talking to Gorepress, Zach.

Thank you very much. Cheers.

With lead roles in British fare already in the bag, things look bright for Lisa McAllister who, this year alone, has major parts in two exciting upcoming horror movies; Dead Cert and Devil’s Playground, both under the umbrella of Black & Blue Films. Gorepress managed to grab a few minutes of her precious time in order to ask some pressing questions.

GP : It seems that these days most jobbing actors in the UK have to cut their teeth on bit parts in long established shows like Casualty before moving onto bigger and better, but your very first role was in feature film Number One Girl. Was it a little like a baptism of fire or did you already have acting experience outside of TV and film?

LM : I was very lucky to land a leading role straight off the bat! Everyone was extremely supportive. Previously I had done a short film called Carpet Garden Flowers, which had a great cast and crew. Other than that my acting career had been school plays and local youth theatre.

Had you always wanted to be an actress or did you explore alternative careers first?

Always, always, always! Although, I’m interested in the whole film making process, so have worked in various areas of production. I think it’s good to understand the importance of everybody’s role in the machine.

You worked with Doug Bradley and Lance Henrikson, and were directed by Jake West in 2006’s Pumpkinhead : Ashes To Ashes. What was it like being around so many people who are so well respected in the horror industry?

Fantastic. We shot it in Romania for a month doing night shoots almost all of the time. So we all became pretty close pretty quickly, you have to in those circumstances. Doug and Lance are brilliant actors, I learnt so much from just watching them. Jake is a fantastic director. The proof is in the pudding, he’s gone on to make Doghouse, which I think is great film.

Once Devil s Playground has wrapped you’ll have been a big part of 3 separate films that have all been produced by Black & Blue Films. What’s it like working with the same actors and crew time and time again? Is it like having an extended family on set?

I’ve enjoyed making all of those films immensely and am extremely flattered that they keep asking me back! Although I love the element of constant change that goes with my job, there is something so lovely about working with people who you know are not only incredibly talented and dedicated, but a bloody good laugh! I hope I am part of Black and Blue productions for a long time to come.

How did your affiliation with the production company come about?

Jonathan Sothcott gate crashed my birthday party So I blackmailed him with the threat of drunken photographs of him dressed up as a giant hot dog…. Just kidding! But he did crash my party…. Since then I have been lucky enough to get to know and work with one of Black and Blue’s other partners, the iconic British actor, Billy Murray. He has become a good friend and a great mentor in this crazy industry. I’m yet to work with Martin Kemp, but who knows, with some heavy hints he might audition me for his next film! I know the last one, a re-make of the horror film Exposé is looking great.

You’ll have tackled both vampires and gangsters in the upcoming movie Dead Cert and a zombie apocalypse in Devil s Playground, both of which have very exciting casts. Did you find it inspiring and/or nerve-wracking to be around such a well-established roster of UK talent?

A bit of both! I find the first day on set like the first day at school, a mixture of nerves and excitement. Both films have stellar casts. In Dead Cert I had quite a lot of scenes to do with Craig Fairbrass. Craig is a fantastic actor, not to mention a born action star! We wanted to make our characters and their relationship as real as possible, so that when the surreal kicks in the audience can really get behind them.

Devil’s Playground was a great production. As part of the lead cast I got to do a lot of my scenes alongside Danny Dyer, who I think is amazing, he has so many more strings to his bow than people realise. I can’t leave out how great it was to work with Jaime Murray, Myanna Buring, Craig Conway, Shane Taylor and Mark McQueen – the director, who I have no doubt is going to go on to do great things. Watch this space!

You also appeared briefly in The Dark Knight. Did you enjoy working on such a big budget blockbuster or would you rather opt for more intimate home-grown fare? Is it nice to have had the opportunity to experience both?

Absolutely, it’s great to be able to experience both. No matter how things progress with my career I think I will always want to do smaller projects too. You get really interesting stories from them that you don’t always get in big blockbusters, mainly because there aren’t as many boxes that have to be ticked, which allows for more artistic freedom. For example, I went to the premier of a film called Malice In Wonderland last night… Amazing! Simon Fellows has brilliantly directed Danny Dyer amongst others in a modern day take on Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in wonderland – A truly unique film that makes me proud to be part of the British film industry.

Finally, are you a fan of horror movies? If so, what are some of your favourites and who do you admire most within the genre?

I have to say anything with Christopher Lee. He really is the Godfather of Horror!

With several movies coming out this year alone, the future’s looking very promising for fledgling British production company Black & Blue Films. Recently, I was lucky enough to get the chance to ask one of the men behind the company; Jonathan Sothcott, a few important questions about some of his upcoming productions and his love for horror movies.

GP: So, having dabbled in journalism, had a book published, enjoyed a stint as The Horror Channel‘s Head of Programming and now producing films through your own production company, you obviously have a love for the industry. Was it a happy accident or is making movies something you always aspired to do?

JP: In a nutshell I always LOVED movies – some of my earliest memories are of seeing films like Jaws, Octopussy and Star Wars at the cinema. When my parents got a Betamax player I was thrilled – I always liked monster and action movies. The only thing I was any good at in school was English and I was a lazy student. I didn’t fancy University so dropped out at A-Level stage to become a film journalist – such unrealistic ambition! I wrote bits and bobs for a couple of magazines like DarkSide and Fangoria and managed to knock out a not very good biography of Christopher Lee and contributed to a few other books. I then somehow got picked up as a journo-for-hire on DVD releases of old movies – in the ‘making of’ documentaries and on the commentaries. I was pretty dreadful at them I think but was so excited to be learning about how films were made. I think it was pretty arrogant trying to pull off sounding like I knew what I was talking about at 20 but I had a lot of fun. I then got offered the job buying for The Horror Channel – dream job by any film buff’s standard. What I hadn’t anticipated was an acquisitions budget of about 37 pence, so I had to park that up fairly swiftly. And that was really what made me realize that I wanted to MAKE films rather than writing about or trading in other people’s. A long-standing pal of mine, David Wickes – a mentor, really – offered me the chance to learn the ropes of film production for a year. I jumped at the chance and learned so much from him. And then I decided to toddle off and actually have a go at this film making.

Your first feature film, Wishbaby; an urban British horror film directed and written by Stephen W. Parsons came out in 2007. How did that project come about?

Through a friend of mine named Simon Sprackling, who I’d worked with on the DVD extras previously. Simon was producing for Steve, who was an old pal of his, and he roped me in to help out. Steve is a real maverick film-maker, a bona fide one off and Wishbaby definitely was a one-off. I’m proud of what Steve achieved as a film-maker on a very low budget and I think it is a film that will grow in stature in time. It actually got pretty good reviews when it came out on DVD but hasn’t sold particularly well. Maybe it wasn’t the right time for the movie. It’s a pretty bleak portrait of London. I was terribly impressed to be involved with Steve because he was the punk singer in classic 80s cheesefest Howling 2 – Your Sister Is A Werewolf!

You have a few other projects on the horizon including thriller Gunned Down and mockumentary Just For The Record. You seem to be dipping your toe into quite a few other genres but the majority appear to be horror or an amalgamation of horror and something else. Would you say this is your preferred genre?

Just For The Record was picture locked last week. It’s a very quirky mockumentary about the film industry and was a lot of fun to make. It was a real change of pace. It should be out in the next 6 months. Gunned Down is an incredibly stylish crime script set in London and Marbella that I’ll be making in the Summer with Craig Fairbrass. It will be my fourth film with Craig and I’m so excited because he is at his absolute peak – I can’t think of another actor in London who is as good at the action stuff as him and after bashing zombies and vampires in Devil’s Playground and Dead Cert, Gunned Down is a real departure for him as a multi-layered leading man in a complexly plotted story. I can’t wait!

So what inspired your love of the darker side to cinema?

I love horror movies! I grew up on Peter Cushing Hammer House of Horror movies and had seen them all by the time I was twelve. In my teens I got into 80s and then modern horror. It’s a genre I really enjoy because it’s fun – monsters, action, scares, etc are the reasons we enjoy cinema. They might not be the most heavyweight topics but I like to be entertained!

The forthcoming Dead Cert combines gangsters and vampires. At first glance, the premise sounds a little like From Dusk ‘Til Dawn via Guy Ritchie, which could be an explosive combination of ideas. Who or what would you say are the main influences for this piece?

Yeah, or as I said to someone yesterday it’s Dracula AD 1972 meets Rise of the Footsoldier! The film does owe a debt to Guy Richie and I have two of the best actors from his rep company in it – Dexter Fletcher and Jason Fleymng. The film’s director Steve Lawson is really into his gangster stuff and when we were writing the script his knowledge of that stuff shaped that part of the script. My input was much more the vampire lore stuff – I love all that shit and when we were coming up with ideas about a secret order of vampire killers and adding all our new bloodsucker mythology to the mix I was having the time of my life. One thing I was very keen on though was that our vampires would be scary and evil rather than all romantic and misunderstood. I can’t have that in vampire films – they drink blood, sleep in graves and turn into rats… that’s pretty scary stuff in my eyes, never mind all that old love never dies bollocks.

Why do you think the Brit-crime sub-genre is so popular at the moment? And are you hoping to pave the way for a new batch of movies with the interesting combo of vampires and the criminal underworld?

I don’t think its at the moment, I think its evergreen, or has been since the 70s – Get Carter, Villain, Sweeney!, Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, The Krays, Sexy Beast, Lock Stock, Football Factory, The Business, Rise of the Footsoldier and so on. I think it’s a genre we do particularly well and one that makes great actors iconic, be it Caine, Dyer, Statham or Stanley Baker. I do think that crime and horror are great crossovers – two different types of underworld and I am looking at another genre crossover called Feral.

Did you consider anywhere else for the location of Dead Cert, or was London always the obvious choice?

Absolutely, but I didn’t want it to be a full on geezerfest where every other word was ‘cunt’ and all the characters do is drink lager and fight at football matches. There’s a bit of that in it but there’s also a real horror story in there too.

You seem to re-use the same actors in a lot of your output (Danny Dyer, Billy Murray, Colin Salmon, etc.). Do you find this creates a better rapport amongst the cast members and makes for a more enjoyable time on set?

I like the idea of a company of people both in front of and behind the camera. I have an incredibly talented regular crew including DOP James Friend, production designer Sophie Wyatt, costume designer Millie Sloan and my make-up girls Natalie and My who I try to use on every film – why change a winning formula? With the actors I am lucky enough to have good relationships with people I think are the best – as a punter as well as a producer I love the work of Lisa McAllister, Craig Fairbrass, Danny Dyer, Sean Pertwee, Colin Salmon etc etc and so it only seems logical to keep using them. And also the fact that we’re all mates and all go out together obviously makes it very enjoyable!

How did such a large number of hugely recognisable British talent get involved? Did you seek them out, or did they come to you?

I’m incredibly lucky to have Billy Murray as a partner in my company Black and Blue Films. He’s a British icon and everyone loves him. Aside from being a highly skilled screen actor he’s a very credible Exec Producer – Rollin With The Nines, Rise of the Footsoldier, Doghouse, Freight etc – and everyone wants to work for him. Through Bill I met and got to know Dyer, Fairbrass etc and we’ve all become very good friends. Other people I knew already – Lisa McAllister is one of my best friends. Victoria Silvestdt who was in Just For The Record, I have known for years. And some people we were lucky enough to have met as we went along such as Steven Berkoff, Phil Davis and Colin Salmon.

On the subject of your affiliation with Danny Dyer and Billy Murray, what did you think of Jake Wests’ Doghouse?

I really, REALLY enjoyed it. Dyer’s “bird flu” line was my favourite in a film last year. I thought it was funny, scary, very well acted and put together. Jake West is a very talented boy and I’m very proud of him. Everyone should go and buy it on DVD if they haven’t already!

Another of your forthcoming projects is the remake of 1976 video nasty Expose, directed by your Black and Blue Films cohort Martin Kemp. Where do you stand on the age-old censorship issue?

We shot that last year and I’m very happy with it. It was very low budget and Martin did a terrific job on it – he’s a brilliant director. Our version isn’t a gorefest really – I reckon it’ll get a 15 when it comes out. And the old one’s pretty tame now. But censorship is a hot topic always – I look at stuff that I wasn’t allowed to watch when I was a kid, or even a teenager – like The Exorcist – and it all seems incredibly tame next to Call of Duty! I think I’m pretty liberal. I think adults have a duty to censor what their kids see – in some ways I think it is better for people to have a sense of responsibility for themselves and those in their care, but I also see the flipside that not everyone IS responsible. It is certainly a tough one!

Finally, what else does 2010 have in store for you? Can we expect even more in the way of exciting British horror or would you like to explore a different direction?

Well I’ve just wrapped a big zombie movie at Elstree called Devil’s Playground with Craig, Danny, Lisa and Jaime Murray and that’s being released by E1 in September/October. We are currently out there raising the finance for Gunned Down and then it’s another horror remake, this time The Asphyx, a quirky 70s horror about scientists trying to trap the spirit of death. I’ve got an incredibly talented writer/director in Matthew McGuchan and he’s just about to start the second draft. That will star Alison Doody, who is an amazing actress and I can’t wait to get going on it. I’m looking at a couple of other 70s remakes too and I have a new spin on the Bram Stoker book Jewel of 7 Stars in development. And who knows – maybe sequels to Dead Cert and/or Devil’s Playground. And a non-horror, non-gangster romcom!

Directed by Paddy Breathnach and starring Arielle Kebbel, Red Mist focuses on a group of medical students who are systematically eliminated by a comatose co-worker. A bit like a modern day Patrick. It is currently available at all good DVD retailers
.

Back in May, I had a chat with writer, Spence Wright, to pick his brains about the movie and chat about his first experience in the pictures.

GP: Let me kick off with your standard first interview question, obviously Red Mist is the first major feature project you’ve worked on, so how did it come about?

SW: Well I’ve been writing for a long time, since I was in school and what have you, and during the whole 80’s VHS video frenzy I just fell in love with movies, and the first chance I had to tell my own stories I did. Eventually I started writing scripts, having written short stories. This particular story probably came from a couple of elements, one was the title. The term Red Mist, which has actually proven a wee bit controversial now because I understood it to be a pretty well known term, but it hasn’t turned out that way, a lot of people have asked what the hell this is about? Somebody thought it was the sequel to Stephen King’s The Mist which, although flattering, meant they were in for a bit of a shock.

There was something about the title, Red Mist that lead me to the idea of something taking us over, an all-consuming rage, and you hear about people talking about that, saying “The Red Mist just came down” “God, it was as if I was possessed.” Possession, again, it’s not something that is particularly new to us horror fans, but there was just something about it, and I had it in the back of my head for a long time, just the title. I also liked the idea of someone in a coma, I think the coma killer subgenre seemed to have a heyday in the late 60s/early 70s with Patrick, and the Psychic Killer and stuff like that. I’m learning there are a lot more movies about coma killers than I had ever heard of, some of the things I have apparently ripped off are great! My view is there’s always room for one more.

There is just something inherently spooky about a guy, very vulnerable, very weak, very still, who is capable of chaos, capable of projecting his rage through you. And the idea of someone trying to bring somebody out of a coma, but the person in the coma actually being more empowered in their coma than they ever were in their ‘awake lives’. It was just a strange sort of thing that started as a seedling in my head, a lot of my stories involve guilt and redemption, and the idea of karma, I think Stephen King said “if you mess with the bull you get the horns eventually,” and that pops up in a lot of my stories. Somewhere in the midst of; wanting to tell a story that involved Red Mist as a title and concept, the idea of a guy in a coma and someone trying to get free of their guilt, the story started to generate.

It was bouncing around in my head for a long time when I got news in 2006 that there was an upcoming slate of low budget horror movies, which in conjunction with Northern Ireland Screen were going to be made in Northern Ireland. To pen a Northern Ireland set horror film has been a long time ambition of mine. But the films had to be set in America. The reason being purely financial, sad as it is, the belief is that these films would primarily make money on the American DVD market. You probably know yourself, from seeing movies like REC being made into Quarantine pretty damn quick, the American market seems to have low tolerance for anything foreign, and so from a business perspective I could understand it.

Red Mist was the first film they wanted to roll out and the money it makes is supposed to generate enough to make the next, so I guess the Producers were trying to cover a lot of ground. I’ve had a steady intake of American set horror films since I was knee high to a Chucky Doll so the prospect of writing one of my own was a huge opportunity, not to be missed.

That dispels a few internet myths I had read about the pressure you had felt to relocate the story from Ireland to America.

I got involved through my friendship with Michael Kelly. He was a member of ‘Screenwriters.Ink’ a Belfast based screenwriting group of which I was also a founding member. Michael had set up his own company Geronimo Pictures and he was keen for people like me to pitch our ideas which he could take to potential financiers and the like. I’d long been the group’s resident Horrorhound so I guess my name popped into his pretty little head when he heard there were people looking to make horror movies in Northern Ireland. But it was clear, right from that very first meeting that these were to be American set films, particularly the first one that would have a budget of $3million, which sounds huge to me, but apparently isn’t that much

That sounds pretty big to me too!

Doesn’t it mate! I’m told that budget places Red Mist in the upper range of the low budget film market. And I think every penny can be seen on the screen, it has a polished look which exceeds most people’s expectations. I would also imagine landing a cast like Arielle Kebbel, Stephen Dillane and Sarah Carter didn’t come cheap! The remit right from the start, was low budget horror that would be filmed in Northern Ireland but set in America, and did anyone have ideas that would fit round that? So I went off to pitch my idea along with a host of other writers. I think I was the last to pitch and by that time they probably couldn’t be bothered listening to any more ideas and in some ways I wasn’t really bothered either! By then I just wanted to go home, it had been a long day and some (and I stress some!) writers are hard work to get along with, they have very vocal, mostly low opinions about almost every film ever made. Film Nazis! I have a genuine love for movies so most films I will like on some level. I find it depressing to be in a room with people who just constantly bitch about other films, so I remember thinking ‘I hope this goes well. But if doesn’t I’ll be glad just to go home!’ But I’m glad I hung around, we got talking. I had another idea I actually intended to pitch a Horror/Die Hard-type fest set in an office block, which I guess has been done, hasn’t it?

Psychocop 2 is set in an office block but that is all that is coming to me…

I must check that out. Basically, my idea had the Custodian of this office block obsessed with one of the secretaries, and he locked her in. His advances spurned, a stalk and slash frenzy ensues! I think it and P2 would have proved very similar although P2 is set in an office car park. Back then I thought that would be a good idea, because an office block could be made appear to be anywhere in the world, and this was long before P2 was ever heard of. But on the day my mind went totally blank, I forgot all about that idea and so I pitched Red Mist out of nowhere – the story of a girl who was trying to atone for her sins, be rid of her guilt and in so doing she unwittingly unleashes a vengeful monster. And their eyes lit up. There was something about it they liked. I think they were probably fans of Patrick which was one of those films I deliberately didn’t watch during the later writing phase. I had seen it, I remember Patrick’s big curly head, I remember him spitting on people and I remember it creeping me out as a kid because, much like you, I was watching horror movies at an age when I probably shouldn’t have been, and that would have been a very early one for me to have been watching. They liked the premise for Red Mist – a strong central protagonist, an unusual ‘monster’ and the revenge and redemption theme represented a new take and that got me in.

It was a long, long time in development, we bounced a lot of ideas back and forth about how this was going to work, but it was a bit of luck, being in the right place at the right time. It sounds like such a cliché, and as a writer that used to bug me, “how am I just going to bump into Steven Spielberg on the high street or in the butchers?”, but I guess it’s getting yourself into those environments where you can meet people and make contacts. I helped my friend and Screenwriters Ink Chairman Richard Crawford (The Abduction Club) with the screenwriting group. As well as a creative forum for exchanging ideas, studying the craft in an open (non-bitching) fashion, it also meant producers could come to the place where the writers are. To the source if you like. So a wee bit of luck, a few sample scripts up my sleeve and having an idea which blew the financiers skirts up was just enough to get me in the door and I started writing the bugger.

So how was it when you found out Paddy (Breathnach, director of Shrooms) was involved?

Well I don’t know, I used to just call him Mr. B, which was my way of getting round it. I’m supposed to be from Northern Ireland, ye’know?! I think it is Brannah. I’d heard his name but anyway, I hadn’t yet seen Shrooms, and I must confess all I knew about Paddy was that he did a film called I Went Down about greyhound racing, which I had enjoyed. Before I checked out Shrooms he’d already signed on. I’m trying to think of how long he was involved in pre-production, I guess it was long enough, by this time things were really starting to move. I caught Shrooms, which I enjoyed. Obviously, I like the idea of a horror film set in Ireland that is just fantastic. We’ve had zombie flicks – Dead Meat and Battle of the Bone and some mutated cows via Isolation. It was great to see an Irish Horror film and Red Mist, although filmed here, was never going to be set here so Shrooms got points for that straight away. I thought the atmosphere of Shrooms was good and it had a retro feel that took me back to the old ‘don’t go into the woods tales’ I’d grown up watching on VHS.

I felt the Red Mist script amounted to a different kind of horror film to Shrooms, the possession element alone meant its ‘horror’ would be derived differently, the tone was dark and the set pieces visceral. But there was also a chance to really ‘get in the pit’ with a strong main character. So I was both nervous about working with a Director on a soon to shoot production but at the same time excited by the prospect of what he’d bring to the table.

I think he is a great director, really adept at making the screen look fantastic, but maybe not the best at getting the most out of his actors…

It’s very difficult for me to be, even remotely, impartial about Red Mist, overall I felt Paddy and the cast did themselves proud. The cast were given latitude in their roles and Paddy was always keen to embrace their input. Likewise, he and I spoke long and often about new moments that were occurring either as a result of logistical necessity or via the organic, creative magic that kicks in during the rehearsal and shooting phase. There were challenges in the four week shoot – an ensemble cast, US setting, a host of set pieces etc but overall I think the story, direction and performances hold up well. Stylistically, and with the tight timetable to shoot Red Mist, I can’t remember how many shots a day they had to get, it was an enormous task, and the overall look of the thing is great.

It has been flagged that the latter stages of the film felt ‘rushed’. And whilst there were a few dropped scenes I’d love to have seen on screen, I’ll bet there isn’t a writer anywhere who doesn’t wish for ‘Just one more scene to be added here, or elongated there.’
Scenes that didn’t make the final cut are pretty well balanced against scenes and moments not in script that occurred organically, so all in all I’m a happy guy!

I suppose a lot can come down to individual taste. I’ve had particular plot moments hailed as ‘Shocking and Ingenious” only to have others refer to the same moment as ‘Same old!” Likewise, the performances may float some boats and not others. I think all we can do is stay true to our story and our characters and hope in so doing we bring something fresh to the genre.

What I loved about Paddy was how he “got” the script very, very instinctively; he has an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies. One of the things that had happened in development was that a lot of dialogue was creeping in, and it wasn’t down to any one person, it was just one of those things. As more feedback was taken on board from developers, the more Kenneth was saying via the Meat Shields (or possessed to give them their proper moniker!), and the less scary he was becoming, which I think applies to most of our horror monsters, take Michael Myers. So one of the first things Paddy did, he said “what Kenneth is to me is this embodiment of rage. He is just a guy that is stuck in the moment they were calling him “Freakdog” and he was humiliated, then he fell and hit the ground, and that’s all he’ll ever be, just this enraged thing.” So we started stripping away a lot of the dialogue from Kenneth, taking it gradually back to some of the earlier drafts, and I felt that was a great indicator that Paddy was in step with the spirit of the script. I have to say, tonally, and in terms of the look of the characters, and the sets, it was uncanny. I try to be quite sparse on description, because I want the reader to emotionally invest, but 9 times out of 10 the look of the movie matched the things floating around in my head, even the voices. There was a great casting and production team who worked round the clock to make that happen.

On a personal note, I got on very well with Paddy, he was an absolute prince throughout, he invited me onto the set, gave me a bit part in the background as a Doctor… which was later cut… maybe he thought I was stealing the limelight from Arielle… well… probably not.

I think we have more to see from Mr B, I’m confident he will return to horror in some way, shape or form. Its been suggested that Red Mist is better than Shrooms and maybe what comes after Red Mist will be the one that hushes any remaining critics in the horror world. Paddy’s approach to the material and the shoot was always positive. I think he possessed the right fusion of directing talent and calm temperament needed to see Red Mist make the transition from page to screen. And as my first time on set I couldn’t have asked to meet a nicer director, we have since bounced ideas back and forward on other projects. All told, it was a great experience working with him. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

So you mentioned the script a bit there, I’m pretty interested to find out where the term Freakdog came from…

Freakdog is one from my murky past! I used to be part of a dodgy bunch of guys, one of whom used to call people ‘wankdog’ quite a lot. (It seemed funny at the time!)
Well, he would call people lots of names actually and ‘dog’ would usually go on the end of it. Years later when I was writing Kenneth I thought about what two things would push Kenneth’s buttons? He already feels like an outsider, different, like he doesn’t belong, and “freak” seemed to do that, and then I thought ‘dog’ kind of told you about his standing on the totem pole. The reason it was snatched up as a potential title – Red Mist was liked by UK audiences but the Americans didn’t get the connection, and when they were cutting the trailer together someone noticed how often the word “freakdog” was used, and somebody said “well, maybe that’s our title.” At the time I thought ‘Aye, why not’ but in hindsight it is one of those titles that only makes sense once you’ve seen the movie, and I can understand people who thought FREAKDOG was going to be a movie about a murderous, mutated dog, so personally I am pleased it went back to Red Mist, because that was one of the three seedlings that helped create and give birth to the story.

I was pretty excited when I saw the DVD advertised on the back of Fango when I saw that the title had changed, I think as a title it makes a bit more sense.

I think that is one of the things UK audiences will appreciate; when I was on holiday in Wales I was talking to people we had met in a bar. I tried to work it into the conversation without saying “Oh, I’ve written this film,” but I asked, ‘have you ever heard of the term red mist?’ and everybody without fail said ‘Yes. It’s that feeling where you just lose control, and anger takes over,’ etc and it just reiterated its importance as a title. I got that response pretty much every time and in every place I asked it. So I was pleased, and I read Arielle was too when the title reverted back to Red Mist. I think it is a pretty classy title. Another interesting thing in regards to the script, one of the earlier drafts involved a lot of Kenneth POVs, and in those shots it was described that we were looking through a ‘veil of red mist’, what the world might look like to someone in a rage, and it was embedded in the early drafts, but as the POV shots dropped from the script I think that was a reason some people said, ‘well, maybe we can just go with Freakdog.’ It wasn’t just the POVs though, it was the fact it correlated with rage as well.

Is the version on the screen massively different to how it was written?

I would say 90% of the final script, ended up on screen, but the journey to that final script was full of changes. I think the biggest thing that changed concerned a time jump. The original script involved a group of teenagers having a party, they lured Kenneth there and got him to bring booze, because his dad was an alcoholic who made his own moonshine, a real nasty piece of work. These kids wanted booze because they were underage, so they brought Kenneth and there was an accident, in which a drunken Kenneth ended up comatose. Then we cut to fifteen years later. The kids have all since grown up and got over it in one way or another, but Catherine hadn’t. She was stuck, she was the one who lured Kenneth to the party and she had dedicated herself to trying to crack this enigma of Kenneth, and get him out of this coma (and to a degree out of her head). I loved the idea of paying in the present for something that you did in the past, when you were a totally different person. That really interested me. I remember myself and a guy that I went to school with running into another classmate from school. My friend said of the other classmate, there’s ‘God’s Gift’, which was a nickname I had given him in school. I just thought ‘Holy shit, all these years later and that guy still gets referred to by a name I gave him’. He doesn’t really give a shit, but what if he did? What if it really pissed him off, like “you gave me that awful name and now you’re going to pay.” He wouldn’t care that I was older, married or reasonably sensible now, he was just looking for some pay back and that really interested me.

The reasons for dropping the fifteen year gap came down to a couple of things, I think there was a casting issue of tying up the young kids with the older, more mature versions, and there was also something to be said for keeping it in the moment, where the wounds are still raw, everything is a lot more immediate and urgent. I think that was the biggest compromise I had to make, and even with that; the characters, set pieces and basic premise didn’t change much. So the short answer is it changed a lot from the early drafts, but in the last year of development it stayed pretty consistent.

That shift in time from kids to adulthood is very Stephen King, was that something that influenced you?

He does do it a lot, he did it in Pet Semetary, It… As you can see from my cheesy picture, there’s two shelves of Stephen king books behind me while I’m posing. (My Mills & Boons are one shelf out of sight!) It’s something King goes back to a lot, and maybe it is something in my head now, as I grew up with his books and it’s something that is touched on a lot in other things like Ghost Story, do you remember Ghost Story?

Yes, the Fred Estaire/Douglas Fairbanks movie.

That’s the one, it’s the same kind of thing, be it a 50 year past transgression rearing its head or something more recent as in ‘What lies beneath’, it’s a recurring thing. I think its just one of those parts of the horror landscape we will always revisit; I think particularly American audiences respond to that kind of thing. They very much like the idea of a cautionary tale. It was another good reason why it didn’t bother me that Red Mist was set in America, as I thought it fit the American horror market as I saw it at the time.

So in terms of casting, did you get any say in who they looked at, or was it all Paddy’s remit?

They threw some names my way and asked me to suggest a few people. To be honest when it came to the main characters I struggled and I still do, even writing scripts I can’t always put an actor in a role. I can hear their voices, I can tell you the kind of people they are but when it comes to saying ‘Do you know who would be perfect?’ I still can’t do that. In the main parts, I didn’t have any firm ideas, my suggestions would take the form of ‘a little bit John Hurt with a sprinkle of Brian Cox!’ or something bizarre. But anytime they threw a name my way I would check them out. And each time I did I found Paddy and the casting people’s instincts to be on the money.

The BIG moment for me in terms of cast was the read through in a hotel in Belfast. I read the script out, the slug lines, descriptions, interior E.R. and all that and the actors would jump in and do their lines and it was at that point … and this is going to sound naff and clichéd … but it’s true! … At that point everything changed for me. Arielle had introduced herself but it was only when her voice kicked in as Catherine, and like I was saying earlier, while I always find it hard to put a face or a specific look, when she spoke she had this kind of serious intensity which I always felt Catherine had. I was literally watching a character that had only ever lived and breathed inside my head being realized in the ‘real world’ and in a way which totally exceeded my expectations. In short Arielle blew me away. She was absolutely perfect for Catherine.

I’d say that’s pretty much true for the entire cast in that regard, the guy that played Sean for example was terrific, he’s a Scottish actor called Martin Compston. (Sweet Sixteen) I thought he was excellent. Sean was the guy we love to hate, utterly selfish and yet in his own way the most honest. I could go on about each of the cast but generally, I think they all brought something to the table that enriched what was on the page. I’m aware of the odd ‘Accent Anomaly’ that has been flagged but in the grand scheme of things they are few and far between.

I just remember thinking these guys can do this, ARE doing this! Andrew Lee Potts as Kenneth, was also blindingly good. The sly, disturbed guile to accompany his more sympathetic qualities made for an engaging mix. In one of the earlier drafts Kenneth had a stutter and it was taken out, I can’t remember why maybe it was suggested that we run with a draft without it and it never really came back. Andrew instinctively put in a stutter and it was just wee moments like that which just made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, they really did seem to be getting into these roles. Which made me proud and humbled at the same time if that’s possible!

If I had any regrets it would be that we didn’t have more screen time to give to some of the supporting cast because I think there was more to give. For example Kim, played pitch perfect by Sarah Carter – there was a bigger friendship between her and Catherine but we also wanted to try and build up the burgeoning love affair between Catherine and Jake. There were a few scenes with the brilliant My Anna Buring as Shelby which I miss, and one between Detective Carter and Catherine in the aftermath of Sean’s death. However, the read through and rehearsal phase resulted in a lot of organic changes occurring, between the characters and how they interacted with one another and as I said earlier, some old moments fall by the wayside allowing space for other moments to be born. To my mind it all evens out in the end.

I thought Arielle’s performance pretty much anchors the whole thing, she is clearly a very talented actress, and it makes the whole thing seem much more real.

That’s nice of you to say, and I agree with you that was the thing from the get go – this was Catherine’s story. I like the way, people can argue that maybe she went too far down the morally objectionable path, but I love the fact the Catherine wasn’t just a clean cut heroine. She was trying to do the right thing but deep down she also wanted to keep her job so she used the skills that she had to try and fix this problem. So we had this fantastical supernatural element being introduced to a ‘real world’ environment. Which calls for a different set of acting abilities; an ability to first ground the viewer in the real world of the story and then take them with you on a journey to some place else … some place a little darker. That took some serious acting chops.

On set Arielle was very approachable and really excited about embracing a more intense and mature role. Catherine really got under her skin in the months leading up to the decision to take the role. I don’t think we could have found anyone more suited or committed to the role. Likewise, I think Arielle and Paddy sparked off one another. They were on the same page in terms of changes they both wanted to bring to the role. There are some really good interviews with the cast on the ‘making of’… stuff where they talk about their roles and what they liked about them. For Arielle I think it was a chance to do something different and she just responded to it and I think she took it up a notch from what was on the page, she brought a bit more sensitivity to the role as well. I agree with you, I think she anchors it totally and that is how it should be because it was her story, Kenneth is the monster with all the horrible abilities but he’s really just there as the flip side to Catherine. Primarily, red mist was the story of how a girl tries to right a wrong and just makes things progressively worse until she becomes the opposite of what she was at the beginning. She ends up taking a life instead of saving a life. Whilst, this story arc may not be anything we haven’t ever seen before it’s still pretty interesting and I’m sorry to say it is sadly lacking from a lot of bigger budget horror movies of late. Arielle made Catherine her own. I was awed by how much she gave to the role and I think her passion and connection with the character of Catherine really shows on screen.

What have you got in store for us next?

Red Mist went to dvd in the states. It’s weird to think someone, somewhere is browsing a dvd shelf (or excavating a bargain bucket as the case may be!) and they’re picking up Red Mist and giving it a punt. Revolver have picked it up for a UK release this July!! We’re still very much hoping for a cinema run as well. Red Mist is available on pre-order from Play / Amazon and the like and I think-hope-pray it will be well received when it goes on general release here.

So with a first feature in the bag after all these years I’m trying to capitalize on the moment.
I’ve got loads of other projects on the go. I’ve completed Mourne which is the name of a mountain range in Northern Ireland. I think CS Lewis got some of the inspiration for Narnia from there… So here’s hoping! Mourne is a story about a group of students who are going up a mountain looking for Doran, a fellow student who has went missing. Doran is a ‘weed in tweed’, I guess, obsessed with Irish folklore because he believes he saw a Banshee as a child. So he goes missing and the police don’t want to know, they believe he is going to show up eventually. His fellow students have been teasing him a bit, which is another constant of mine, so they kind of get guilted into searching the mountain by Aisling (Doran’s elder sister) Here they all run afoul of a Banshee. It’s kind of like the Blair Banshee Project, you could probably call it that in the sense it takes an old legend and gives a bit of a contemporary edge. So that’s in development with Crawford Anderson Dillon of Hub Media. Crawford is trying to generate a bit of interest in the script. Local director Scott Morgan is lined up to direct. Scott and I met during Red Mist and continue to collaborate as we bounce ideas hither and yon. He’s a super-talented Director and long time horror aficionado and I think together we can do some great things with Mourne. We have just got some positive news back from the BBC and a few others but nothing concrete as yet. I think the sad thing is if Mourne were set in America it probably could have a named, no doubt very young, handsome cast and be made already! But I think the Ireland setting is important and worth fighting for.

I think if you take a banshee story out of Ireland, you are effectively taking the banshee out of it.

Exactly, I said I’m not doing it. Somebody suggested that, and I said no. I don’t remember the name of the movie, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, it was about Jack The Ripper popping up in Modern Day Arizona or some place because they brought over bits of London bridge! It was just a novel excuse for ‘Ol Jack the knife’ to kill American people I guess, and I’m not doing that. If this is about a banshee it is our chance to take something that is uniquely Irish. To try and put Ireland on the map as a place where you can tell an out and out horror story. We are well placed to do that with the banshee legend. So why shift it? You’re right man, what is the point?

The other project ‘Teenage kicks’ is one which I literally just heard has created a bit of a stir in Cannes. Produced again by Michael Kelly (Geronimo Pictures) and Cormac Fox (Vico films) , I have Co –written it with another Screenwriters Ink member John Cairns. Co-writing was a new experience for me but John was script editor on Red Mist and we’ve known each other a long time, so we usually know exactly where the other is coming from.

Teenage Kicks is I suppose, SKINS meets Lord Of The Flies for the Battle Royale generation! A bunch of teens plan to hold a rave in an abandoned leisure centre. But the night turns sour when an argument over dodgy drugs ends in murder. And so the body count rises! Another party gone wrong type scenario. The group decides they can dump the body and get away with it. They then split into two camps and trapped in this cavernous leisure centre they turn on each other. Its strictly more thriller than horror, I guess. Like kind of, I dunno have you seen Eden Lake?

Yes, I thought it was great

What would you call that? Like a thriller or a horror or…

I don’t know, it is kind of like a home invasion story but outside isn’t it?

Yeah.

Somewhere in between the two.

That where I feel this one lands, between the horror/thriller posts. We’ve been working closely with another Irish Director Peter Foott (The Carpenter’s Clumsy Wife) who has brought so much to the last few drafts. The tension is upped to the max, Peter has planned for some very striking and contrasting moods and visuals which really compliment the tone of the script … it has the potential to be something really, very special. There is not a lot of money available at the minute, but the project is getting a few Post Cannes bites, so we’re keeping everything crossed.

Its interesting in that how teenage kicks starts, judging it on the small amount of info you’ve given me, it seems to start in a similar vein to Red Mist, is that a message you trying to get across that drugs are bad or is it just a coincidence?

It’s a weird one actually, now you say that, its glaringly obvious – two parties that go wrong one ends in a coma and another ends in a death. Both involve drugs.
When I boil it all down I think what appeals to me about both those ideas is that cautionary tale aspect, the dilemma of doing the right thing in the aftermath of an event of any kind – what do we do? Do we go with the majority or do we stand up and say “Well this is wrong I’m not going to do that.”

In Red Mist, the focus is on how Catherine tries to right the wrong. Teenage Kicks is going to happen very much in the immediate aftermath. It all happens in one night. The death and the suggested cover up, sees simmering tensions boil over and old friendships torn asunder. When I say the drugs are bad in teenage kicks, what actually happens is they buy a load of drugs which turn out to be duds, the drug dealer has stiffed them. So it is never actually the drugs that make the people do anything. It’s more that when the drugs turn out to be bad the group implode, they turn on the guy who was tasked with taking all their savings and buying them. He ends up dead and then BOOM! The group are suddenly in a new place.

It’s a coming of age story that exaggerates and condenses the often vicious arena that is ‘growing up’ into one, brutal night. We plan on riffing on those familiar themes and indulging in some gory, thriller stalwarts but with some surprises along the way – like who takes the moral lead in this film isn’t the person you’d expect etc. All to try and make things a bit more fresh, interesting and most important of all exciting.

That sounds good!

Cheers, man. I think it stands to be a real edge of the seat, honest to god thrill ride. We are also excited that this kind of story has never been done in Northern Ireland before.

I have also just completed Runners. I call it a sort of cyber-voyeuristic thriller, I don’t know if that is a genre? But it’s an old idea of mine that was long due a revisit. As with Red Mist there is a kind of medical backdrop again. Chris is a Young Doctor who runs a shelter for the homeless. A superflu is wiping people out. No one really gives a shit about the poor. So people are dying and basically the shelter is getting run down. So Chris gets involved in some nefarious techno-voyeurism to try and raise the money to keep it open. Again, it is about trying to do the right thing backfiring. If you’re doing ‘bad things for good reasons’ or if you believe ‘the ends can justify the means’, then it’s probably not always going to end that well for you in one of my stories! Runners is with Generator and Producer Mark Huffam (Red Mist, CherryBomb and… Mamma Mia! which took horror to a whole other level!)
Local hero Terry Loane (Mickey Bo and Me) is in the Directors chair. And whilst the ink on Runners is still wet it’s already early, but very exciting, days.

Obviously you’ve got a lot on at the moment, is it quit your day job time?

I wish! (laughs) Well part of me wishes, I think I would go a bit Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I think I would go bonkers. Its ok, I’ve got myself into a system. I try to get an hour in before work, which is usually my most productive time because I know I only have an hour and the battery on my battered laptop only lasts an hour. I just brainpuke it onto the page and then fix it later. Then I do a few nights during the week and the rest of the time its marathon weekend sessions, days off etc. It’s a double edged sword, it keeps me sane while I work but it does get tough when the deadlines kick in. So maybe sometime down the line I would go on a 3-4 day week where I have days set aside for writing. But that’s on the long finger. At present I like that my 9 to 5 pays the bills whilst my writing brings in the odd bit of money for luxuries; holidays and the like. There’s also something to be said about not becoming some insular hermit, living in some cosy ‘movie world’ I like being around people … if only to plunder their life experiences for ideas!

One thing in my favor is that I do work quite quickly. I run the idea round in my head until it drives me and my wife half crazy and she eventually says “just go write that down because you’re not in the room. I can tell.” When that happens, that’s usually the ‘pin my colors to the mast’ point. The time to put the idea to the page. The ideas have usually been in my head for so long that when I do sit down to write either a first draft or a treatment it’s like an exorcism, it just pours out. It’s so cathartic, when you finally get that idea out.

And when it is out and it’s on the page peering back up at you it’s like stumbling on a fresh field of untouched snow. You know that eventually there is going to be a lot of other people coming to put their footprints down. But, for a moment at least, it’s just yours and that’s always a special feeling. Have no doubt about it… writing rocks!

Production stills provided by Helen Sloan/Generator Pictures.