Chewing the Fat! Cult Projections Podcast #2

In conversation with Laurence R. Harvey, from The Human Centipede II & III, and Grant Hardie, of Monster Pictures.

Q&A with Alexandra Essoe, star of Starry Eyes

Cult Projections: How did you get the part of Sarah in Starry Eyes? Did you audition, and if so, was it anything like your character’s in the movie?! 

Alex: I did audition for Starry Eyes, and it was a very pedestrian process, not super-exciting, haha! I went in for my first addition, and then a call back, and then Dennis Widmeyer wanted to meet me for coffee because it was between myself and one other girl. So I just busted out all the film trivia I knew and hoped for the best.

CP: Are you much of a fan of horror movies? If so, what kind do you like?

A: I am a diehard fan of horror movies. I love anything in the supernatural realm. I love psychological horror. Anything from David Lynch to Clive Barker to Tobe Hooper. Sci-fi horror is another favorite. Anything that has serious style and atmosphere. I mean good storytelling is good storytelling, but horror as a genre is so limitless and requires so much imagination to be executed effectively. I just love it.

Alex with co-director Dennis Widmeyer

CP: Describe how Dennis and Kevin Kolsch directed Starry Eyes?

A: Kevin and Dennis would take turns helming different aspects of the shoot. Usually Kevin would work with the crew and Dennis would work with the actors, but for every decision they made they were on the same page. They would check in with each other on everything, and I really admire that. They both had such a clear vision of what they wanted; they were like a well-oiled machine. I didn't see them have a disagreement about anything, not even once.

CP: The movie has a kind of rambling, organic feel to it, was there any improvisation? How strict was the screenplay enforced by the directors?

A: Its funny, because I wouldn't say that they were strict about what was on the page, they were just so clear about what they wanted that everyone as a result was clear on what they had to do. There were moments that they would allow us to improvise dialogue only as much as it would help the reality of the scene. But they were still certain things that had to be conveyed, lines that needed to be said. Almost nothing was extraneous.

CP: There’s a distinct retro vibe to the whole atmosphere of the movie. How deliberate was this, and how did Kevin and Dennis convey the movie’s feel to you and the other actors?

A: Actually, the retro spirit of the film was one of the first things Dennis and Kevin wanted to convey to me. Right off the bat they said they wanted the style to be an homage to the era of late seventies early eighties horror, complete with theme music for Sarah. Movies like Rosemary's Baby, Carrie and, one of my favorites, Possession [Ed: one of mine too] were examples they cited. With a little John Carpenter thrown in.

CP: On imdb Starry Eyes is listed as being a co-production with Belgium. Was it always Kevin and Dennis’s intention to seek foreign funding or was it simply a case of finding the necessary budget by whatever means?

A: Well it started off as a kickstarter campaign, so really the top priority was to get it funded as well as possible, although we were overjoyed to receive funding from Belgium.

CP: It’s the kind of unusual, idiosyncratic, provocative, polarising horror movie that immediately generates a cult appeal. How aware were you at the beginning and during the shooting that you’d become involved with something quite special?

A: I felt that this project was special from the outset. I loved the script and the character immediately. I felt that the directors had a great feel for imagery and storytelling, and I was impressed by how specific they were about the kind of movie they wanted to make. Which is not to say that I expected the level of attention it garnered - which was an incredible bonus - but no matter what happened or how it was received, this is a project I was proud and, honestly, giddy to be a part of from the start.

CP: The international indie scene has exploded over the past ten years, partly due to the technology becoming more readily available, partly due to the number of film festivals popping up all over the world, and definitely due to the remarkable possibilities of crowdsourcing. But it also means there is a glut of independent movies. As an actor looking for good scripts, how do you sort through the rubbish from the potential gems? What was it about Sarah and the screenplay to Starry Eyes and/or the directors that piqued your interest?

A: I guess when choosing a script the first thing is to decide if I think the story is interesting. If so, then there are certain questions I have to ask myself when reading said script. Do I care about the character(s)? Do I want to know what happens to them? Am I curious about what happens next? Is this a movie I would watch? If I can answer yes to those, I'm interested. Huge bonus if the dialogue is on point. With Starry Eyes I could easily check those boxes, so for me it was a no-brainer.

Alex with co-star Amanda Fuller

CP: The role of Sarah is demanding, to say the least, but what parts of the whole movie were the most fun to shoot, and what parts were the most difficult? Was it a long shoot? Did Kevin and Dennis shoot a lot of stuff that didn’t end up in the movie?

A: Hands down, the climax of the movie was the most fun to shoot. That might be the most fun I've had shooting anything. That and the chrysalis stuff, even though it was freezing cold. So cold, my god! And the audition scenes were a blast. The stuff with the producer was tough, it feels awful to play a character you care about in a position like that, just as I'm sure it would feel awful to actually be in that situation. Luckily, Lou Dezeran was a total gentleman and professional. The mealworm in my mouth was traumatic, too. It's funny, we only had an eighteen-day shoot but we easily shot an extra forty-minute to an hour's worth of footage. I don't know how we did that, but most of those extra scenes are on the DVD.

CP: So how much do you believe in the dark truths that Starry Eyes presents in terms of the fictional Astraeus Pictures, and the real Hollywood elite and their motivations and exploitation? Is Starry Eyes just a blackly comic-edged horror movie or is it a much more disturbing mirror to the industry it is inherently part of?

A: I find most often it's the cynicism of Hollywood that's represented in film; the reputation it has for corrupting the innocent. That is, I think, the predominant theme in movies about Hollywood. What I like particularly about Starry Eyes is that while that theme is present it is not accompanied by the usual representation of the lifestyle and the rewards. It is completely from the viewpoint of an outsider. I personally don't have any experiences that even come close to what Sarah endures. I've heard stories, and I'm sure that at one point these casting couch "agreements" happened quite frequently, especially before there was a union for actors. I hope that young girls are not put in positions like that any more, though I'm sure that they are. Coercion is a very insidious thing, to promise someone everything they've ever wanted if only they would compromise themselves for a moment. What these hopefuls don't realise, is that one moment in their life has the ability to haunt them for the rest of their lives. NO ONE is in the business of making dreams come true. I would hope that anyone faced with a decision like that would remind himself or herself that it's not necessary to trade your self-respect for instant gratification, and I think Starry Eyes almost pleads with the viewer to remember that.

CP: Finally, do you have any more twisted horror movies on the horizon?

A: I actually have a few things coming out in the fall. A horror anthology, and two thriller/horror flicks. The anthology is called Tales of Halloween, and Axelle Carolyn, who directed a great movie called Soulmate, directs the short I’m in. Then there's Maternal Bonds, directed by Chris Sivertson, who co-directed All Cheerleaders Die with Lucky McKee, and then there's a movie I just shot called Faceless by Marcel Sarmiento, who co-directed Deadgirl, which I love. I also got to work with Brendan Sexton III, which was exciting; he's such a gifted actor.

CP: Thank you for your time Alex!

Starry Eyes is distributed on DVD/BD by Monster Pictures.

Q&A WITH RICHARD KUIPERS, PROGRAMMER OF SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL'S FREAK ME OUT SECTION

Cult Projections: You’ve been a film critic for Variety for eleven years, how did you land the enviable position of programmer for Sydney Film Festival’s Freak Me Out section?

Richard: In 2010 SFF director Clare Stewart asked me to programme a vampire movie retrospective. Clare had already initiated the Freak Me Out sidebar but the rougher end of the horror spectrum wasn’t really her thing. I’d known Clare for some years already and she knew for sure that the rougher end of the horror spectrum was definitely my thing. The vampire movie programme was a success so Clare asked me to take over the reins of Freak Me Out in 2011. This is my fifth Freak Me Out and I’m deeply grateful for the support SFF director Nashen Moodley and SFF Programs Manager Jenny Neighbour have given me and the sidebar over the years.   

CP: As the Freak Me Out programmer you are involved directly with the acquisition of the movies, pulling from your experience, not just as a critic and enthusiast, but as a curator and producer. What is the hardest part of the job? What’s the best part?

R: The hardest part is narrowing down the field to six or seven titles and getting the balance right. I love a cinematic bloodbath and as much as anyone and I could easily select nothing but gore-shockers each year. But that would be to pigeonhole FMO as purely horror of the traditional kind and deny so many wonderfully strange and weird films that aren’t “horror movies” a chance to be seen in Sydney. Luckily I’ve had a fair degree of experience as a television and documentary producer and film critic, which helps in understanding audience interest and anticipating audience reaction to films. Whether you’re making films or curating a film festival programme you are there to give your audience the best possible viewing experience and value for money.  The best part of FMO for me is watching people you’d never expect to see in the same audience going ape for a Freak Me Out film! If I can bring together hardcore horror hounds, cinephiles and curious “general viewers” in a darkened room and scare, thrill and excite them I’m delighted. Horror is the foundation of FMO, to be sure. Genre buffs that regularly attend FMO are like family to me now. I love them for turning out in numbers and keeping this SFF sidebar alive. My mission via FMO is to encourage the audience that’s hooting and hollering at the hilarious carnage in a film such as Deathgasm to also check out more artsy offerings such as the very strange and beautifully composed Goodnight Mommy. On the reverse side I’m always doing my best to nudge regular moviegoers and the intellectual set to get on down with a cracking good haunted house offering such as We Are Still Here. My constant aim is to select films that will play to the dedicated core audience and also encourage viewers to step out of their comfort zone – even if that zone is awash in blood-soaked mayhem! That’s why films such as Spring, German Angst and The Invitation become FMO selections. They deliver thrills, chills, blood and guts ands also have something to say about the human condition. I want audiences to trust FMO to deliver something special each and every time they buy a ticket.

CP: What international film festivals do you rate highly for their programmes?

R: For genre/fantasy films the leaders for me are Sitges (Spain), Fantastic Fest (USA), Fantasporto (Portugal) and Brussels Fantastic. I also love BiFan (formerly PiFan) in South Korea. It’s not as well known as it deserves to be, but I think that’s going to change very soon. It houses the Network of Asian Fantastic Films initiative which is very exciting. SXSW Midnighters and Toronto After Dark sidebars remain vital showcases for genre films within high-profile festivals. Elsewhere I rate Cinemalaya (Philippines), Hawaii and Busan film festivals very highly.

CP: Your first year directly involved with Sydney Film Festival was to put together a mini-programme of vampire movies. If you could return to a couple more specific sub-genres of horror/exploitation, what would the programmes be of?

R: Where do I start! There are dozens of potential programmes leaping around in my mind all the time. Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich needs to be recognized with a retrospective. Same goes for Jess Franco, the most prolific filmmaker of all time. The ultimate would be an Andy Milligan retrospective, though I’m not sure the world will ever be ready for it …

CP: What three “Freak Me Out” style movies would you love to see on the big screen, regardless of their availability or the condition of the print, etc?

R: Today my dream FMO-style triple-header of films I’ve never seen on the big screen would be The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), Succubus (1967) and Begotten (1990). It could be three different titles tomorrow, but today that’s what I’d like to watch.  

CP: Of the four years you’ve been the FMO programmer what have been some of the highlights? What screening has had the best response?

R: The undisputed all-time FMO champion (so far) is Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2011). It brought the house down at both screenings and was voted number 4 in the SFF audience vote. The reaction at FMO helped the film get a limited theatrical release, and I couldn’t be prouder. I remember big reactions to Hobo With A Shotgun (some people walked out it was so violent; others were cheering every time Rutger Hauer pulled the trigger). J-sexploitation-horror Mutant Girls Squad certainly got the audience’s pupils popping. I particularly liked the sheer insanity and deadpan hilarity of J-fantasy The Warped Forest; both of Jim Mickle’s films We Are What We Are and Stake Land were terrific modern horror movies and Cheap Thrills [Ed: Love that movie!] was a dazzling debut by E.L. Katz. I’m thrilled that people still stop me years later to comment how much they liked and remember “small” FMO films like OK Good, Septien and End of Animal. I’m leaving aside all 2015 selections from this list for now.  All I will say is that I believe this year’s programme is the strongest FMO yet.  Plus, we return to the drive in with the fabulous ‘50s double feature of Them! and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

CP: No doubt you’ve been a cult cinema fiend for as long as you can remember, what movies as a lad and/or adolescent cemented your love of such subversive/transgressive fare?

R: If there’s a single day that “changed my life forever” and set me on the path of seeking out subversive, transgressive and aberrant art it was a 7-film Andy Warhol marathon at the Forum Cinema (700 George St.) when I was 16. Flesh, Heat, Trash, Lonesome Cowboys, My Hustler, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula. The perfect corrupter of youth from the glory days when it was so easy to get into R-rated films when under 18! (I took a day off school to see Caligula on the big screen, but that’s another story …)  Going back a bit from there it all started from about the age of 10 with Hammer Horror films on Channel 9 when it showed midnight-to-dawn movies. Titles like Lust for a Vampire, Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. Then Channel 7 showed Freaks and The Vampire Lovers on its Friday night Creature Feature slot when I was about 15. From there we go to Scanners at Merrylands Mall cinema. At the Walker Street Cinema (North Sydney) there was The Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue, To The Devil a Daughter, Raw Meat, Solaris, Slaughterhouse Five, Stalker, and Deep Red. At the Valhalla in Glebe I remember Plan 9 From Outer Space, Multiple Maniacs, Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Eraserhead, El Topo and Guy Maddin’s early films. Elsewhere I recall Dawn of the Dead at the Miranda Forum, The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle at the Roma in George St, Final Exam and Fear No Evil double-bill at Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Man From Deep River at Caringbah drive-in. Then there’s just about everything ever screened at the legendary Mandolin cinema, and the 1980s Hong Kong action spectaculars (Tiger on Beat, City on Fire, Hard-Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, Possessed, Blonde Fury, She Shoots Straight, Centipede Horror, Red Spell Spells Red, Haunted Cop Shop etc, etc,) I was lucky enough to see at the Chinatown, Hoover Twin and Australia Cinemas. This list could go on and on. Is there no end to this madness? I sincerely hope not.

CP: What cinema(s) in Sydney do you miss the most, and why?

R: My favourite cinemas in the 1975-1995 pre-multiplex total domination era were The Valhalla in Glebe (half the audience stoned, but always well behaved), the Mandolin at 150 Elizabeth St (that lobby, that wallpaper, those fantastic indie film hits, one after another) and the Walker St cinema in Nth Sydney (what was a superb little arthouse/grindhouse venue doing in an upscale place like that?). I also liked the Town cinema on Pitt St (“topless usherettes will show you to your seat”), The Roma on George St (rats running across the floor, trains rumbling beneath). Out in the ‘burbs the Merrylands Mall cinema was definitely the scariest place in town. I’ll never forget missing the last train home after the late night double-header of Vampyres and The Case of the Smiling Stiffs and wondering if I’d ever get home alive. These cinemas had character and history. Their walls spoke to you.    

CP: How has the role of film critic changed over the years, for you personally, and in the bigger picture of the industry as a whole?

R: Like every other aspect of life the internet and social media have changed things profoundly. Reviews need to be posted faster now than ever before. This means there’s rarely time to let some films “sit” for a while before filing the review. That’s both good and bad, depending on the film. The sheer volume of films being made has also had a huge impact. There was a time when Variety covered just about every film in every middle and high profile film festival in addition to new films in general and limited release. That’s impossible now owing to the deluge of films and proliferation of film festivals in the past decade or so. We also review many films now from Internet links. This was unheard of just a few years ago but now it’s essential. It’s great that so many more films can be made with digital technology but the marketplace has become saturated as a result. Film has also become devalued; it’s just another commodity on instant access and is struggling to maintain its prestige. That’s why film festivals are more important than ever before.

CP: Where are the best horror movies coming from these days? What makes these particular movies and/or filmmakers so exciting to horror fans?

R: There are always good horror films being made by US indies and a scattering of good stuff from South Korea, Thailand, Japan and across Europe but if any one country holds the horror championship belt right now it’s New Zealand. Just in the past few years NZ has cranked out a line of winners including Housebound, Deathgasm, The ABCs of Death, The ABCs of Death 2, Turbo Kid (Ok, a sci-fi actioner in co-pro with Canada, but still a cracker), What We Do in The Shadows, and I Survived a Zombie Holocaust. There’s a fantastic streak of deadpan humour in so many NZ horrors that reminds me of the Aussie larrikin humour that made so many ‘70s and ‘80s Australian movies enjoyable. Sadly we seem to have lost that spirit here. There are big lessons Australian horror filmmakers can learn from those across the Tasman. That said, I like what I see in recent Oz horrors such as Wyrmwood and The Babadook.

CP: If you had to pick just five horror movies that encapsulate, as a whole, everything about the genre that you love, what would they be, and what element about each movie you admire so fiercely?

R: OK, but I’m going to “cheat” a bit here, with good reason!

Dawn of the Dead (1979). Perfection in horror. High level gore and high level social and political critique.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Unrelenting terror with very little explicit physical horror.

Bad Taste (1986)/Braindead (1992)/ Evil Dead 2 (1987). Impossible to separate these two Peter Jackson masterpieces and Sam Raimi’s superb sequel as the best horror comedies of all time.   

Possession (1981). Pure psychological horror insanity.

God Told Me To (1976)/Q, The Winged Serpent (1982)/The Stuff (1985). Larry Cohen is the most underrated and underappreciated horror filmmaker so he gets three highly deserved mentions here. Idiosyncratic, subversive and exciting.  

CP: Thank you for your time Richard!

R: You’re welcome!

Richard holds a SFF Freak Me Out teaser talk presentation at Newtown Library. Thursday 28th May, 9pm. Always a hoot.

Richard and Ant Timpson (producer of Deathgasm, Turbo Kid, Housebound, and both The ABCs of Death anthologies) indulge in a seriously fun chat about all the things that make horror movies so weird, wild, and wonderful. Sunday 7th June, 6:15pm – 7:15pm, Treasury Room, upstairs at SFF’s The Hub.

For the full Freak Me Out programme please click here

Q&A with Bianca Bradey, co-star of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead

Cult Projections: How did you score the role of Wyrmwood’s co-star Brooke?

Bianca: I actually never even auditioned. The Roache-Turner brothers saw my showreel, I had a coffee and a chat with Kiah, the director, and they offered me the role. My flatmate at the time worked with him, and recommended me for the role. We met in a dingy little cafe on Oxford Street in Surry Hills, and just instantly got each other and had the exact same vision for Brooke. I know they had been searching for the right person for the role for a while. And thank fuck they saw something in me: luckiest day of my life.

CP: What was it about the Roache-Turner brothers’ approach and/or screenplay that appealed to you?

B: The thing that first got me was the character breakdown and description of Brooke. She was so strong and intriguing. It was a role that every actress would dream of portraying. You would have to be an idiot to turn it down. And then I saw the seven-minute teaser trailer they had made and the look and feel and professionalism of it just blew me away. It just had this amazing quality to it. You could tell just from that small teaser that the brothers had something special, and that Wyrmwood was something that only comes along very rarely. If you are lucky enough to get a chance to work on it, you jump at it.

CP: Were you much of a genre-movie fan - especially horror/exploitation/action - before making Wyrmwood? If so, what genre movies are amongst your favourites?

B: I am actually a huge pussy when it comes to horror films. I can’t watch them alone. And I definitely can’t sleep alone after them ... But I have always had a sick, morbid fascination with all things “zombie”. They scare the shit out of me. I absolutely loved 28 Days Later; so desolate and lonely and horrifying at the same time. But I also love vampire stuff. I think deep down I’m just a 13-year-old girl who wants a sexy vampire to come and bite me and live forever. Very corny.

CP: What movies, if any, did the brothers tell you to watch in order to prepare for your role?

B: I watched as many zombie films as I could. The original Dawn of The Dead, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead .... All of them, from across all genres. I think I just wanted to live and breath zombies. But I also watched films with strong female protagonists. So Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Underworld, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ... Because I wanted to be inspired by the amazing hot, tough, sexy women who are strong and independent in their own right. Who don’t need men. Because that’s how I saw Brooke.

CP: Tell me a little about your acting background, how did you get into screen acting?

B: I always wanted to be an actor, even when I was a little girl. I was always in some play, or musical, or performance over the years. But I was also incredibly shy growing up. I had huge stage fright. So I kinda stopped doing it for a few years ... But then one day I woke up and just said, “Fuck it. You only live once. I can’t not pursue my dream, for fear of what other people think, and fear of failure.” I didn’t want to waste my life anymore.

CP: Wyrmwood was made over four years, how much time each year did you spend on set? It must be a pleasure to finally see it complete; did you ever wonder if the movie would ever get finished?

B: I only worked on the film for around eighteen months. I know the guys shot a lot of stuff prior to me coming on board. We would shoot on weekends, sometimes with several months in between. It was tough keeping continuity. Stopping and starting with a character means you have to get back into that same head space somehow each time. Which is a bit of a headfuck. Trying to look exactly the same the whole time. Bit of a mission. As soon as it finished I dyed my hair bright pink. I was just so excited that I could finally change my appearance. You never know when you’re making an indie film if anyone will ever get to see it. I’m just so glad that this one is getting out there. It’s amazing. Though hardly surprising really, Kiah and Tristan have done a brilliant job. I’m so proud to have been a part of it.

CP: Your character, Brooke, is fast becoming something of a cult favourite heroine amongst those that have seen the movie. The role is very physical and demanding, tell me a little about the difficulties you faced during the shoot, but also the rewards.

B: God it would be amazing if Brooke became a cult favourite heroine!! It would be a dream ... I’m just so glad that she is being so well received, and most importantly that female audiences are loving her as much as the men. We really wanted to make her appeal to both sexes. She had to be smart, strong and independent, someone who takes no shit from anyone. But you still gotta throw a bit of sex in there. No fun without that. It was the most physically demanding role I have had to play so far. I did some kickboxing and circuit training with an MMA trainer friend of mine. Which was very out of my comfort zone. But something I really enjoyed, and I would love to get to do more of it. In real life I’m more of a yoga and dance kind of a girl. Which is just slightly different ... It’s always great to get the opportunity to explore things you wouldn’t normally do!

CP: How fussy are you as an actor? If you could choose between making more independent, low-budget genre flicks, but not as well paid, or being part of a successful television soap or a few big-budget mainstream movies here and there, where does your passion lie?

B: My passion definitely lies in drama. I love little, small budget, beautifully shot indie stories about people and relationships. Great in-depth, insightful, well-written scripts ... But at the same time it’s fucking fun pretending to be a larger than life action hero type of role. When do you get to dress up in skin tight outfits and fight bad guys in real life?! Who would day no to that? Ultimately, I just love acting. Exploring what makes a certain character tick. I just want to do this for the rest of my life. And while you need money to live, it really doesn’t matter to me much in the grand scheme of things. I’d rather be happy and fulfilled and doing what I love.

CP: Wyrmwood will no doubt enjoy cult status in the living room, but it’s the kind of movie that demands to be seen on the big screen, loud, and with a lot of people. How important is the cinema going experience to you?

B: I love going to the movies. I know our society is changing, and people can just illegally download all the films now as soon as they come out. But it isn’t the same. There's an atmosphere in the cinema that you just can’t recreate. It’s special. And you also can’t get choc tops at home. Totally not the same thing.

CP: Genre movies like The Babadook and These Final Hours were very well received critically, but failed to make much impact with Australian audiences in the cinema. Australia makes great genre movies, but they seldom perform well at the local box office, do you have much of an opinion on this dilemma?

B: I think it’s sad that Aussie films generally don’t do well at the cinema. But it’s just part of life really. I think as long as people are loving the films we are making, that’s all that matters. You can’t tell someone how they should live their lives, and you can’t make someone go to the movies to see your film. You just need to concentrate on doing what you love, and putting it out into the world. And hope that other people will appreciate it. You do it for the art and for the love.

CP: Do you have any other cool genre flicks lined up?

B: No other genre films locked in at this stage ... I am in talks for some up coming projects, but nothing locked in yet. At the moment I am just about to shoot season four for the web series Starting From Now. So far we have had nine million views in less than a year. It’s had a great response from all over the world. We are about to start a crowdfunding campaign for the new season. So fingers crossed it all gets off the ground!!

CP: Thank you for your time Bianca!

Chewing the Fat! Cult Projections Podcast #1

In conversation with Kiah Roache-Turner, director and co-writer of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead

Q&A with Hussein Khoder, assistant director of MUFF

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival has announced its Call For Entries for 2015. It's the 16th year of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and the theme this year is “It's Killer”. I threw a few questions at Hussein Khoder, the festival’s passionate young Assistant Director and shorts programmer.

Cult Projections: How long have you been involved with MUFF? How did you become involved?

Hussein: This year would mark four years working with MUFF. Back when I was in film school I was looking for stuff I could do outside of school and I saw MUFF were looking for volunteers. I already knew what MUFF was and since they played the kind of films I love I just had to be part of it. I sent an email and now I am here.

CP: What is it about MUFF that excites you? What is it about Festival Director Richard Wolstencroft that inspires you?

H: MUFF is all about supporting the underground film scene and is always supporting and screening the films that other festivals don’t and won’t screen. I remember hearing that Melbourne International Film Festival banned the film Bruce LaBruce’s L.A Zombie and Richard’s response was to play it at a protest screening.  That made me love him so much since he is as against censorship as I am.

CP: In five words describe the criteria that will probably guarantee a filmmaker’s inclusion within the MUFF programme.

H: Be controversial, different and unique.

CP: What are a few of the past features and shorts that have played at MUFF that have left a lasting impression on you?

H: I have thought really hard and can't think of any films that have screened at MUFF that left a lasting impression. There were some films that were really good and I really loved them and there were some that were not.

CP: Do you feel there are any taboos in cinema that remain to be broken? If so, should they be?

H: Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think there are any taboos in cinema that remain unbroken. Every single taboo I can think of has been broken and has been used in films I have seen. However if there are taboos that haven't been broken I do think they should be. Cinema should be about pushing the boundaries and making the viewer uncomfortable.

CP: What should underground cinema provide that mainstream cinema doesn’t? How much easier, or harder, is it to find suitable content?

H: The big thing that underground cinema should provide is films that are different, more unique, and to approach things in different ways. I had a short film last year where the director built his own camera just so he could shoot it the way he wanted. That to me is what underground films should be about. Finding suitable content has never been hard since there are always people out there that don't want to involved in the mainstream and continue to make underground films.

CP: Tell me a little about your own filmmaking experiences. What have you made, and what are you making?

H: I have made a few short films while I was at school. They were a massive learning experience for me. I learnt about what I should and shouldn't do. Since finishing I have been focusing on my writing and at the moment I am about 80% finished with writing one feature and another one I am collaborating on with a friend. I am hoping to, at least, begin shooting one of them by the end of the year.

To find about more about the Call For Entries visit muff.com.au

Women in Horror Month - Q&A with Ursula Dabrowsky, writer/director of Inner Demon

Cult Projections: What’s the earliest memory you have of “horror”, either on television or in the cinema? How old were you and what effect did it have on you?

Ursula: I grew up Catholic in small town Quebec and when I was a kid, around 8 or 9, every Easter, they would screen The Song of Bernadette on television. It’s a 1943 black and white religious film about a French teenage girl, Bernadette Soubirous, who experiences vivid visions of the Virgin Mary.  I saw this film many times as a kid and it used to freak me out. I lived in fear that the Virgin Mary would suddenly make an appearance right in front of me, in some dark corner of my bedroom or somewhere in the house, in the same way she appeared before Bernadette. You could say it was my first experience of a supernatural horror film and it scared the hell out of me.

CP: What was the first “restricted” movie you saw? Was it on VHS or in the cinema? How “adult” in terms of its horror content was it?

U: A girlfriend and I were underage when we snuck into a reparatory cinema screening of The Exorcist. I remember we both laughed when Regan’s head twisted right round and when she spoke with a demonic voice. Maybe it was nervous laughter on her part, but I remember it just didn’t do it for me. I seriously thought it was comical. And then came the masturbation scene with the crucifix. It was horrific. That shut me up, quick smart. That scene still traumatises me to this day.

CP: Did you watch much horror during your adolescent years? If so, what three movies stand out?

U: Jaws, Christine, and Carrie made the biggest impression on me growing up. But I wasn’t a big horror fan in my teens. I didn’t live near a cinema, so I lost myself in books. I was an avid reader, a total bookworm. I would go to the library at least once a week and would take out a mound of books and have them all read within a month, sometimes in a few weeks. I hated coming out of my room to deal with the real world. I started writing in a diary when I was ten, a habit I’ve never outgrown. In fact, my plan at the age of 12 was to become a writer, not a filmmaker. It wasn’t until I was studying English Literature at uni and my flatmate at the time berated me for studying English and not film, telling me that film was the 20th Century art form, not novels. She was the one who encouraged me to apply to film school. I would have never though of it if it hadn’t been for her.

CP: What were some of the movies you watched as an adult that made you want to become a horror filmmaker? Why these ones?

U: Horror came to me much later in life, but once I discovered it, I’ve been making up for lost time. I went to film school in the 90s and was living in Montreal and the filmmakers that inspired me back then were part of the American DIY crowd. Filmmakers like Spike Lee, Susan Seidelman, Jim Jarmusch.  All New Yorkers. I was heavily influenced by their DIY punk ethic. They inspired me to make my first self-financed feature film, Getting the Dirt on Trish (2001). I started shooting the film in ‘96 and finished it five years later. Trish was a comedy thriller although it wasn’t meant to have any comedy in it at all. I’d always been drawn to crime and mystery novels and suspense films. I wanted to make a suspenseful film, a la Hitchcock, but I cast my friends in the film and, well, I guess I had amusing friends and the comedy just seemed to happen and I decided to keep it in there.  In 2003, I watched a Japanese film called Ju-on: The Grudge and I had an epiphany watching that film. It was such an intense and powerful experience that I was inspired to self-finance and shoot my first psychological horror feature, Family Demons. I wanted to see if I could recreate that sense of impending doom that I felt watching Ju-on. In that same year, I watched Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and I got the same chills watching that film. And that was it, really. Those two films did it for me and I was hooked. I really “got” horror cinema and have been obsessed with the genre ever since.

CP: What do you think about the ongoing criticism directed at the horror movie genre: that it’s a cheap, tawdry, offensive, misogynist, repulsive, unintelligent avenue for exploitation measures?

U: Some of it is, some of it isn’t. I tend to ignore people who spew toxic ignorant black gunk out of their mouths and onto the Internet.  

CP: Despite the criticism the horror movie industry has escalated in the past ten or so years, in regard to the number of movie’s released worldwide. Why do you think so many horror movies are being made?

U: To make money, I should think! Producers, production companies and film studios have finally caught on and are now aware that there is a much larger audience for horror films than they imagined and they are taking advantage of it. Most sales agents/distributors now have a horror “arm” (ie: Arclight/Darclight). If there was a glut of cheap and nasty horror films out on the market before, now it’s even worse. Unless your horror film is a massive hit at an A-list film festival, it’s become even more difficult to be discovered or noticed. Horror audiences have an incredible variety of horror films to choose from now but despite that, I personally still find it difficult to find great horror films. They continue to be few and far between.

CP: What do you think of the term “elevated horror”?

U: It’s a marketing and distribution term used to differentiate B grade horror films from horror films aimed at a more sophisticated horror audience. It helps package a film for buyers and sellers. I don’t think it’s a term used by horror fans. To them, horror is horror.

CP: As a filmmaker what excites you about a horror movie? What are three elements within a horror movie that interest you the most in terms of cinema - in its purest sense?

U: Everything about a well-executed horror film excites me. The story, the characters, what’s at stake, the special effects makeup, the use of prosthetics, the camera work, the lighting, the direction, the performances, the sound design, the music score ... All of it. I’m excited about watching and experiencing a horror filmmaker’s mastery of the craft. I get super excited when I see all these elements come together perfectly. And when they don’t, I think about why it didn’t work. This helps me learn my craft. Usually the horror films that don’t grab me are the ones where the script was weak or they’re about something that doesn’t interest me. I tend to prefer metaphysical, psychological and/or philosophical horror. Horror films need to be about something to work for me. They need an added layer, a depth, a metaphor that represents something that adds interest. I aim to create my own horror films in the same way.

CP: What five horror filmmakers, and their films, understand, implicitly, what makes a great horror movie?

U: Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs, Srdan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film, Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, The Birds), Roman Polanski (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby), Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on: The Grudge).

CP: What are a few female roles within the horror genre that are memorable for you?

U: Sissy Spacek (Carrie), Mylene Jampanoi (Martyrs), Beatrice Dalle (Inside, Trouble Every Day), Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror), Isabelle Adjani (Possession) and recently, Essie Davies (The Babadook). I also have to say that Sarah Jeavons did an incredible job in her first acting role in Inner Demon. I think she’s up there when it comes to memorable performances.

CP: What’s your favourite horror movie directed by a woman?

U: Mary Harron’s adaptation of Bret Easton’s Ellis’ American Psycho.

CP: Tell me a little about the making of first two parts of your Demon trilogy: what did you enjoy most about the process of Family Demons and what did you dislike the most? And what about Inner Demon?

U: Making Family Demons had its challenges, but when I look back on the experience, it was a joy compared to the making of Inner Demon. Inner Demon was particularly challenging. So much so, there were times I felt as though Inner Demon was cursed, that’s how bad it got. It seemed that for every one right thing that would happen, five things would take its place and go pear-shaped. But you know the saying about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? It’s true. I have grown much more resilient from the Inner Demon experience. I have gained more experience. I have learned heaps more about what to do and what not to do and I’ll be carrying those lessons over to my next film. In fact, I’m so looking forward to making my next horror film and putting those lessons into practice because, as much as I think Inner Demon is a strong film, I know I can do even better.

CP: Has the screenwriting process got any easier? What part of the entire filmmaking process do you enjoy the most and why?

U: The screenwriting process never gets easier.  Not for me. In fact, it’s getting harder. The more you become aware of the importance of the screenplay in creating great work, the more pressure there is on the writing process. There is pressure to get it right and pressure to surpass what you’ve done before. Writing is my least favorite part of filmmaking. How ironic, eh? Here I was at the age of 12, wanting to be a writer. Be careful what you wish for!  I find screenwriting utterly grueling. My fear is that the audience will find my stories predictable. So I work hard to avoid that. When I’ve completed the shooting script, there is a real sense of accomplishment but the writing process itself is draining. Directing is also difficult, working out the kinds of shots that will best visualize the script, making it all work, being on top of everything, etc. It’s all hard work but I want to get really good at the craft, so I put a lot of effort in. Besides, I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t love it and a large part of me clearly does. I would say what I do enjoy because it comes more easily to me is casting the actors. I enjoy meeting actors. I find them fearless, brave souls and really appreciate their energy and what they bring to my work. I usually go with my instincts and my emotional responses to find the right person for a role. So far that has worked for me.

CP: You worked with low-budgets for the first two movies in the trilogy. I know you hope to have a proper budget for the third. Specifically, what three elements do you hope to have for Demonheart, that as a filmmaker you were unable to achieve or indulge in with Inner Demon?

U: So far with my films, I’ve taken on all the roles of writer, director, and producer. Main reason I do this is because I can’t find anyone else who is as committed as I am to getting my horror films made. I now hope to find an experienced producer who can help me seek financing for my next project and can see the project through from start to completion. Once a decent budget is made available, everything else I’d like to have for the next project will fall into place. I can negotiate for things such as having more time in pre, prod, and post, the crew I’d like to work with, building a studio vs shooting on location, things like that.

CP: Do you think there should be taboos in the horror genre?

U: You’re talking to someone who thinks A Serbian Film is a horror masterpiece. So no.

CP: What do you think of the whole recent taming of the horror movie, with directors being told to re-cut their movies in order to appease the censors and fit with executive producers’ demands for more bums on seats? It’s rife in Hollywood, but how much of an effect will it have ultimately on the wider indie and underground scene?

U: Censorship. It’s a two edged sword. On one hand, you want filmmakers to be free to create what they want, but on the other hand, that freedom can be abused. What crosses the line for some, may not for others. It’s an ongoing debate. I don’t have all the answers to that question. I haven’t had to face a censorship board asking me to make cuts to my films. I hope I never have to. But if I did, I would hope that my sales agent or distributor would fight for the film to be shown to audiences the way I intended.

CP: And finally, if you could adapt any horror novel and remake any horror movie, what would they be?

U: I still have original ideas for horror films that I'd like to look at doing before I start thinking about adapting a horror novel. As for a remake, I would love to have a go at Bo Arne Vibenius' They Call Her One Eye (AKA Thriller - A Cruel Picture). I'm surprised it hasn't been done. But really, I would hope that I can keep coming up with original ideas, no matter how much I bitch about how hard it is to write, so that I won't have to rely on adaptations or remakes.

CP: Thank you Ursula!

Q&A with Ashley C. Williams, star of Julia

Cult Projections: You’ve been acting since the age of ten, but made your feature film debut in The Human Centipede at the age of 25, what were all those years acting on the stage like? What was the most important technique you brought from the stage to the screen?

Ashley C. Williams: When I was a young girl my goals were very different. I wanted to be a musical theater actress on Broadway. I was singing and dancing in musicals and playing lead characters like Annie, Tiger Lily and Anne Frank. But I had no technique yet. Then I went to acting school and they ripped me out of all the habits I had developed. I had to start with a clean slate. Being at acting school in NYC, I actually understood that I wasn't meant for musicals. I started developing a certain depth, technique-wise, that I found fascinating and was able to really achieve in a believable way. This began the process of realizing my new goals. After graduating school I did a lot of underground theatre which actually propelled me into wanting to do film. A few times I worked with renowned Italian director Dario Di’Ambrosi at the La MaMa Theatre in the East Village. Those days were incredible because that's where I really learned to let go and expose my darker side. If anyone knows his work you'll know what I'm talking about. Dario loves playing around with the deeper, darker, psychological behaviors that are naturally in the human condition and I became fascinated with that. Dario directed me in a very experimental piece of theatre where I played a schizophrenic girl. Somehow working in a tiny intimate theater, being as exposed as I was combined with the type of character I was playing, I developed these tiny nuances that are really great for the screen. With theatre everything has to be big and overdone so that the audience can hear you and see your movements. I found it just too unrealistic for me. I wanted to be apart of storytelling that captured these real intimate moments, what's happening in the eyes (which i think is what I bring to the screen) and the simple movements of body language etc. The depth you can achieve with this type of medium is quit compelling. Audiences don't get to see that on the stage. 

CP: What was it like working with Tom Six? Did you have any idea The Human Centipede would become the cult favourite amongst horror fans that it has?

Ashley: Working with Tom was very easy. It was a collaborative process. Even though the vision was his, he really let us have a lot of freedom to explore what it really would be like for someone to be in that situation. I had no idea the film would be so globally recognised. All of us were very surprised. We were just hoping it would get into some festivals.

CP: Had you been much of a horror movie fan before The Human Centipede? If so, what are five of your favourites? What have you seen of late that impressed you?

Ashley: Yes. My favorites are The Shining, Jaws, Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth and Orphan. A couple smaller arthouse films I've seen recently that I thought were pretty original but almost too artsy for me, were A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Under The Skin. Both had very interesting, original concepts and were almost like a meditation while watching them. Really beautiful films with great acting. But other than those two I have not liked any horror films that have come out recently. It seems that everything just keeps being remade. No original stories anymore.

CP: Tell me a little about the casting of Julia. Were you sent the screenplay? Did Matthew C. Brown contact you directly? What was the audition process like?

Ashley: Yes, a whole package was sent to me including the screenplay. It was sent from a former management company of mine Zero Gravity who just so happened to be producers on the project. The casting director sent me the materials and said that after I read all of it, if I was still interested, the director would like to meet with me that very night. I was very impressed with the script and his work in the short films he had done prior. So I met with him and we worked for about 3 hours at the production office. We read from the script and because the DP and makeup artist were already in town they did a screen test and i did some improvising with the director.  I could tell right away that he was someone I would want to work with. We instantly connected.

CP: The Human Centipede was one thing, but the role of Julia is an incredibly demanding one to undertake, physically, emotionally and psychologically, and in a more realistic way. Did you find it daunting at all? How did you make it a positive experience, when it’s such a dark place to go?

Ashley: Honestly, I just had to throw myself in it. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I was really ready for a role like this. I think through all the darkness I had to conjure up, somehow I was able to really enjoy the journey as the actress and as Julia. Working with Matthew and the rest of the team was the positive side of all of it. There was an incredible energy on set. Probably cause we were all so cold and numb that we were forced to just work hard and get through the day. No but really I think it was just a common love of the material we were all creating together. It was a very magical time.

CP: What was it like working with Matthew Brown? Did you rehearse much? How was it returning to New York City?

Ashley: No, there was no rehearsing. I was cast 3 days before production started. Working with Matthew was like working with a part of myself that was not yet exposed to the world and I felt vulnerable at first, but soon realised that I needed to let myself be taken over, if that makes any sense. He has a way of bringing stuff up in me that's not damaging but perhaps more healing than anything. We had some private chats about personal things that I've gone through in life and he used some of those to talk me through dark bits that I needed to get to. He was incredibly protective of me too, which felt really nice considering all that I was going through on set. I was still living in NYC when we shot this film. But it was nice getting to know certain parts of Brooklyn that I had never been to before. Especially the small China Town in Brooklyn where Julia lived, it really opened my eyes to a different kind of beauty.

CP: Had you seen many of the Asian gangster/revenge movies that inspired Matthew? Did he make you watch them all?

Ashley: No, I had not. I didn't have a lot of time to watch them. Especially since some of them weren't available on Netflix etc. at the time. But I knew what kind of style he was going for. He mostly had me listen to hardcore underground techno in prep for scenes and he gave me Jean-Paul Sartre's Saint Genet to read. Which really opened my eyes to realizing the beauty in the “evil” I was doing and really owning who I was becoming as Julia. 

CP: Your character is in most of the movie, but doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, how challenging was that as an actor?

Ashley: I actually had a lot of help from the director on this. He talked me through a lot of the moments that had no dialogue. There was something about his voice that really propelled me into it. I used what he was doing as if it was almost like my inner self, this other voice; my subconscious. But it wasn't as challenging as some people might think. There were other deeper challenges like getting into the mindset of a "killer".. But even then it wasn't about her being a killer but about her awakening to her true self. Finding a place in the world she fits into that makes her feel alive.

CP: You share an intense on-screen sexual tension/chemistry with Tahyna Tozzi, what was it like working with her?

Ashley: Tahyna was a gem to work with, very professional. We didn't have a lot of time to get to know each other before shooting so we had just dive into it. She's also very beautiful and strong, so the chemistry for us came naturally I think, which of course helped in creating the tension we needed for the film.

CP: Rape-revenge movies (when made well) are a powerful horror movie sub-genre, but they tend to polarise audiences. Have you seen many? Do you think there are areas that are still taboo in horror movies, or do you think the darker the material the more interesting (providing the script and direction is intelligently handled)?

Ashley: For me, I prefer the darker, realistic, more intelligent material. I don't really know much about the “rape-revenge genre” so I can't really say much on the subject. I've only seen a couple. But it is something that divides audiences. Some people can't handle it especially if it's done in a realistic way. There are some out there like Irreversible that really shook me to my core. There is a ten-minute rape scene in there that's shot in one set up in real time. It's really gruesome and I remember silently crying and shaking while watching it. But then that scene was over and the movie was beautiful and really cleverly done. But that being said this is something awful that happens in every day life so filmmakers should be a bit sensitive to it. In Julia's case it's not really about the rape, it's just a component of what propels her into the woman she was inevitably going to become anyway.

CP: What are the elements about Julia – the movie – that make it so compelling, so cinematic, so memorable?

Ashley: I believe that the soul of the film comes out in the dark enigmatic style and imagery from what Matthew created and also what his cinematographer, Bergsteinn Bjorgulfsson, captured. The darkness paired with the light, the ecstasy and the journey that you go on with Julia. Also how much you care for her, the music that just pounds into you making you vibrate in your seat wanting more. I feel that each scene spills out this cold, dark edgy cinematic ecstasy that just flows and doesn't stop until the credits role.

CP: Thank you for your time!

Q&A with Ant Timpson, producer of The ABCs Of Death and Housebound

Cult Projections: I came to the early Incredibly Strange Film Festivals at the Paramount Cinema in Wellington New Zealand. The destruction of the piano on stage was a memorable event. What have been some of the movie highlights from that festival in the past twenty years? Have you ever had a movie banned or received personal abuse from outraged patrons?

Ant Timpson: Our destruction of The Piano with sledgehammers on stage, with myself as Holly Hunter and my buddy Mike as Anna Pacquin, was in the inaugural year of the festival, 1994. There are way too many highlights to even begin to go down that nostalgia path. We blew a lot of minds over the years. To this day I still have people coming up and saying something like “Psyched by the 4D Witch altered my perception on the world”. We got into numerous tussles with the Society For The Promotion of Community Standards. They worked out a legal loophole to hold up films from festival screenings – so it became very personal. We ended up battling in High Court over films like Irreversible.  Outraged patrons hardly ever. Our advertising and promotion was so over the top that anyone attending and then complaining about content could be classified as severely mentally challenged.

CP: Your 35mm film print archive is apparently the largest personal collection in the Southern Hemisphere, what are your five most prized prints? When did you start collecting and will you stop?

AT: I guess the top five wouldn’t have anything to do with value or rarity, it’d be the ones that have given myself, friends and audiences the most enjoyment… in no order, The Naked Prey, Manos Hands of Fate, Story of Ricky, Boarding House, Pink Flamingoes. I started print collecting in the late 80s – I think Shogun Assassin was my first print.

CP: What’s your two cents on the whole film vs. digital aesthetic/politic?

AT: Film is your oldest friend. Digital one of your facebook “friends”.

CP: Boom! What five horror and/or exploitation movies changed your life?

AT: Well having kids “changed” my life; films like The Exorcist, Jaws, Behind the Green Door, Kill Squad, Boarding House impacted my world in other ways.

CP: What are your five desert isle blue movies?

AT: What does “desert isle blue movies” mean? Are you asking for my fave XXX films? Okay you asked… Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, Raw Talent, Talk Dirty To Me, Barbara Broadcast. [Ed: And I bet he has 35mm prints of them all too!]

CP: Tell me a little about the nightmare that inspired The ABCs of Death.

AT: No actual nightmare involved – just the fusion of two things I liked – kids alphabet books and anthology films.

CP: Do you have a personal favourite segment or two from the first ABCs of Death?

AT: Yes but I can’t really play favourites in public as I know all the directors involved.

CP: I hadn’t heard of many of the directors who’ve contributed to The ABCs of Death 2, how did you compile the list of contributors? Were there many who turned you down?

AT: Then you need to start watching more films then Bryn! Most of the directors involved with Part 2 have had some sort of presence in the genre world either with a strong first feature or a knockout short. All of the producers involved put forward names and we compiled a list of people we liked and then we went hunting. Some who ended up on it had approached us originally and said if we do Part 2 we want in. Yes we had a couple turn us down but mainly we couldn’t approach certain directors because we couldn’t have any signed to the DGA involved. So we had to nix many that were interested.

CP: You grant your contributors complete artistic freedom, but have any filmmakers delivered a segment that caused you grief in terms of being too long, or simply not good enough for inclusion?

AT: Well we say we grant them total freedom but here’s the rub…. they still had to deliver a segment that wouldn't cause Walmart to pull the title off the shelves (which happened for Part 1) after receiving complaints from concerned citizens. So we say we don’t censor or edit the directors but we do provide legal guidelines to satisfy our financiers that the finished film could be sold. Some ignore our plea for condensed running times and show us a rough at 9mins – three times longer than planned. So we give a lot of feedback and many are happy with tightening them segments. There really is zero fat in the finished film. It’s lean and mean.

CP: How many more ABCs of Death can you foresee being made? Is there any way the bar can be raised for future compilations? Or do you see it simply as a great continuing platform for lesser-known directors?

AT: They are a lot of fun to be involved with but they are an administrative nightmare. We also ask a lot from the directors for a pathetic amount of money. It really is a labour of love for all involved. Tim and I are partners so we need to agree to move forward – the minute they’re not fun and/or we lose money then we’ll pull the plug. Personally I think they’re like the ultimate visual mixtape for fans or the bloody best Whittakers sampler box ever conceived. They definitely showcase new talent but speaking as a fan I just think it’s fucking fun and there just isn’t enough fun in genre films these days.

CP: What are a few of your favourite segments in ABCs of Death 2?

AT: Again I’ll choose the right to remain silent. I’ll just say they’re all great.

CP: Congratulations on Housebound, it has been getting rave reviews; did you know it would be that successful? What is it about the screenplay and the direction that makes it so broadly appealing? Would you describe it as a comedy first, or a horror?

AT: I certainly thought it’d find an audience, which was the primary reason for becoming involved with the film. I also have known [director] Gerard for a long time – we go way back to when he won the inaugural year of my national film comp 48HOURS. He’s a gifted writer with a cracking good ear for dialogue. He’s a good study as well which served the film well after he analysed what made other genre films successful and then applied his skill set on top of those strong foundations. To me it’s an in-betweener – it’s being sold as a horror but the comedic elements are just as strong. It’s a good film and I think that’s probably the way to describe it – we get bogged down with categories sometimes and you lose your way a bit. It makes marketing easier though if you can pigeonhole a film.

CP: You directed a short, Crab Boy, ten years ago, any desires to return to the director’s chair? If you could remake ANY movie, what would it be, and whom would it star?

AT: I honestly don’t think I have the patience or focus to be a good director and there are enough mediocre folks out there cluttering up the bandwidth already. I’m not adverse to remakes on principle like many are – they’ve always had a place in a cinema. Online fans that don’t know the history of cinema are always the most vocal … and usually the dumbest unfortunately. I wouldn’t mind remaking The King of Comedy with Dave Letterman as the Lewis character & Michael Fassbender as the De Niro one. How’s that for sacrilege?

CP: I dig. What are your favourite film festivals around the world?

AT: Anything with great bars and/or beaches is AOK with me.

CP: Thanks for your time!

Q&A With Leigh Janiak, co-writer and director of Honeymoon

Cult Projections: Prior to directing your debut feature you worked as a producer’s assistant on several big budget productions, had you always intended to direct when the time was right? What were your aspirations when you first entered the film industry?

Leigh Janiak: My job was in an office in Los Angeles. I read scripts, looked for new ideas for films, etc. In any case, I moved to LA after leaving a doctoral program at the University of Chicago to pursue filmmaking. My goal was always to write and direct, but along the way I needed a day job and working at a production company gave me great insight into the “business” side of things. Even though it wasn’t what I ultimately wanted to do, I think my time there was invaluable.

CP: Tell me a little about the Honeymoon screenplay you co-wrote with Phil Graziadei, how did it originate and what was the collaboration process like? Had you been working on it for a long time before it got the green light?

LJ: Phil and I had been writing for years, trying to break into the studio side of the business. This resulted in a lot of great meetings, but no script sale and certainly not production. We started writing Honeymoon in 2011 with the idea that we were going to make the end result of this script, no matter what -- as such we tried to be strategic in limiting cast, location moves, etc, without compromising narrative because we had no idea what our end budget would be. When we finished the script I sent it to Patrick Baker, who I had worked for at one point during my day job at Misher Films and who had since become an independent producer. Patrick came on board right away and it took about another year for him to raise our financing, all through private equity.

CP: How did you find your two leads? They give excellent performances, have you had a background with actors at all?

LJ: Thank you! Rose and Harry are great. We didn’t have a casting agent since our cast was so small. I had seen Rose on Downton Abbey and she had been on her first season of Game of Thrones.  Rose didn’t yet have an American agent, just one in the UK, so Patrick emailed our materials to him and then we had no idea what would happen. It was kind of like, well that went over the ocean, probably a long shot, but then she responded to the script and lookbook. I Skyped with her a few times and we had our “Bea.” Harry I had seen in a bunch of indie films and was a big fan. When I saw his name on a long list of actors that had been submitted to us I was very excited because I knew how talented he was. He read for me and there was just never any doubt. He was perfect. As far as my background with actors, I had done a lot of theatre myself growing up, in high school, etc, and I think that was invaluable experience. I think anyone who wants to be a director should spend a little time on the other side of the camera or on stage, at some point. There’s no other way to fully understand the vulnerability that an actor feels and the trust that they have to put in themselves, their fellow actors, and of course, the director.

CP: Did you always intend to use English actors and have them perform with American accents? It’s curious, as the movie has a distinctly European atmosphere, even retro in vibe.

LJ: I certainly didn’t intend on casting English actors. Rose and Harry just turned out to be the perfect fit. But as for the “European” atmosphere -- I take that as a compliment. Thanks!

CP: It’s a wholly original movie, but – and this is meant as a compliment – it also reminds the viewers (especially the horror/sf geeks) of several other movies. What movies and/or filmmakers influenced and/or inspired you during the directing? What about with Phil during the screenwriting?

LJ: With Phil, we started out with this idea of wanting to take a “bigger” sci-fi concept and tell it in a more contained, grounded way. So we thought about big alien invasion movies, lots of them, but most notably, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We liked the idea that Body Snatchers seems to get retold generation after generation and for us, making an intimate body snatcher movie about a couple on their honeymoon seemed to make sense and would allow us to explore these ideas of identity and how well you can ever really know another person. So Body Snatchers was a huge influence, as was Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, and countless others. Picnic at Hanging Rock was one, in fact!

CP: Nice. The movie is swathed in a delicate, but deliberate sense of mystery, a dream/nightmare fabric of paranoia, if you will. Describe the importance, as a filmmaker, to manipulate the audience, to temporarily confuse them, then to reel them in both emotionally and psychologically?

LJ: You know, I think more than audience manipulation, it was really about tying our point of view as an audience with Paul’s. I wanted to explore everything through the eyes of this man who feels secure in his relationship, who loves Bea completely and fully and watch as this outside event seeps in and starts to poison it. I felt that if I could make this alliance with Paul and the audience, then it would be emotionally and psychologically painful and terrible when things between Paul and Bea ultimately are pushed the edge.

CP: Honeymoon is as much about body horror as it is about the way women and men relate to each other, or don’t. Did you always intend the movie to end the way it does?

LJ: Certainly the “ending” of the film for me was always intended to be the final Paul and Bea interaction on the lake. Honeymoon is about how a relationship falls apart because of an outside force, and so it was always this trajectory of their relationship I was most interested in and not the outside event that caused that dissolution.  I felt that there needed to be a bit of resolution with those outside forces, hence the ultimate scene with Bea leaving the cottage, but again, that’s almost incidental to what the narrative really is about.

CP: Honeymoon feels very much like a personal vision that hasn’t been tampered with by executives. So, what is your opinion on horror movies that obviously submit to a happy ending, pulling it out like a rabbit from a hat? What about the whole PG-13 attitude of Hollywood, forcing horror directors to deliver watered down versions of their own movie to appease a commercial viability? Would you succumb to this contractual obligation if it meant you’d have a big budget to work with?

LJ: I feel very thankful that my producers ultimately let me tell the story I wanted to show without submitting to more traditional “concerns.” For me, whether it be in horror or another genre, it’s really about understanding who your audience is and what your final hope for your film is -- This PG-13 neutered horror reaches a wide audience that wants to go to a theatre with friends or on a date and have fun -- to be scared in a way that feels familiar, but satisfying. And so I think that’s largely what you need to provide if you’re trying to reach a wide audience. That said, I certainly aspire to reach wider audiences with larger budget productions, but I believe that films can still be great and original while doing so.

CP: If there were five science fiction and/or horror movies left in the world, what should they be?

LJ: Oh man! This is a TERRIBLE question! So hard! OK. Completely off the top of my head with very little thought and I’m sure leaving out tons of great ones:  Alien. Rosemary’s Baby. The Shining. E.T. Back to the Future.

CP: What appeals to you about genre filmmaking? Will you continue to make movies in a similar vein to Honeymoon? Can you divulge anything about your next project?

LJ: I think that genre films have fewer boundaries and more room for exploring the edges of imagination than something like a straight drama or comedy. I certainly think my future projects will tend to end up in some kind of genre space. Sci-fi, definitely. That said, Phil and I actually are in the process of trying to set up our next thing - it’s a TV limited-series project. It has some genre elements, but is incredibly grounded and focused on a woman’s journey into a dark underground.

CP: Cool. Thank you for your time!

LJ: Thank you!

Honeymoon screens as part of Sydney’s A Night Of Horror International Film Festival, Saturday, November 29th, 5pm, Dendy Newtown.

Q&A with Matthew Kennedy from Astron-6

Cult Projections: How did Astron-6 come about? What is the origin of the name?

Matthew Kennedy: Astron-6 (the name) came from a collective love for 80s VHS distribution companies. We were all competing filmmakers in a Winnipeg short horror film festival. We were hard on each other because we were all envious of one another's work. Eventually we decided to join forces (I think it was Adam that extended the olive branch). The rest is genre history.

CP: How does the writing and directing duties get shared in pre-production, on set, and in post?

MK: We all tend to have a shared vision and similar sensibilities. We agree on basically everything and the responsibility sharing comes naturally from that. Typically one or two of us are the champions of a project or concept and the rest of the group will fall in to help anyway they can.

CP: What formal training, if any, have you had?

MK: Conor and I studied film and acting. Steve took a few film courses. Adam and Jeremy are self-taught.

CP: What five filmmakers do you hold in high esteem? Why?

MK: David Lynch, P.T. Anderson, David Wain, Alex Cox, John Carpenter. I think most people know what there is to like about these filmmakers.

CP: Your movies fuse and meld genres and tone. Is this something you will continue to do or will Astron-6 one day make a straight genre flick?

MK: We like mixing tones and I'm sure we will always do that to an extent. We're not against making any kind of movie though and would make a straight movie if the inspiration were there.

CP: What five gialli do you consider essential viewing?

MK: Tenebre, The Beyond, The New York Ripper, Blood and Black Lace, Opera.

CP: Are there taboos still in cinema? As horror and transgressive filmmakers how important is it to push the boundaries?

MK: We aren't really interested in pushing boundaries or being taboo for the sake of being taboo. We just want to do what's never been done. We also just want to make movies we want to watch.

CP: What are five of the most "shocking" movies you can think of?

MK: American Pie, American Pie 2, American Wedding, American Reunion, Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom.

CP: What five elements are the most important when making a low-budget horror or exploitation flick?

MK: Good practical FX, drive, perseverance, low self-esteem, free food.

CP: How important is nudity? Eroticism? Sleaze?

MK: It's not, but helps with production value and exposition. People take a film with nudity in it a little more seriously.

CP: How important is the realism of violence on screen?

MK: If you want it to be bothersome it has to be real.

CP: If Astron-6 were given the chance to remake any movie, what would it be? Would there be a completely new angle?

MK: We'd like to remake any of the movies that have been remade and do it right. We'd also like to remake Crocodile Dundee, but set it in Canada ... at a Subaru dealership?

CP: Ha! Thank you for your time!

An Evening With Astron-6 with special guests Matthew Kennedy and Conor Sweeney - short films and Q&A at A Night Of Horror International Film Festival, Dendy Cinemas Newtown, Sydney, Monday, November 24th, 9pm.

At Monster Fest: The Monster Fest Academy Of Horror And Mayhem featuring Matt Kennedy and Conor Sweeney, Wednesday November 26th, 11am, AND Father's Day screening with live commentary from Matt Kennedy and Conor Sweeney, Friday, November 28th, 10am, Monster's Lair, Yah Yah's, Collingwood, Melbourne.

Q&A with Jason Bognacki, writer/director of Another

Cult Projections: Another originated as a short film. Was the short produced only to secure funding for the feature, or did you always intend on making the feature version?

Jason: Another did not start out as a feature; pretty early on in the production of the short film we decided we wanted to finish it as a full-length feature. The film was self-financed so the idea was not to get funding based a proof of concept short film.

CP: How important is storyboarding? Do you improvise much during the shooting process?

J: Storyboarding and shot planning are really key for me and especially on Another as the film relies so heavy on the power of the visual experience. But that being said after all that prepping my favourite part is throwing all that away and truly being in the moment with the actors and building the scene.

CP: You’ve shot all your own films and edited them as well. Do you shoot with the editing in mind, or do you prefer to have multiple options during the editing process?

J: Working with the low budget and time restraints on Another it was really necessary to shoot for the edit. I would love to have had the luxury of multiple options and alternate takes during the editing process but it just wasn’t an option on this project. A few of the scenes I literally used every piece of footage we shot.

CP: Would you consider using a cinematographer and editor, or do you prefer to have that complete control over the look and rhythm?

J: I am very comfortable directing with a camera in my hand, but at times it would be nice to hand off the camera and really concentrate on the performances. I did have a great Assistant Camera, Matt Stiller, who really helped in those types of situations. Much of the story comes together in the editing so I don’t think I’d ever truly give up that piece of the process.

CP: Tell me about the casting process. Was it easy to find the right actors for the roles? How do you weigh up an actor’s appearance with their performance?

J: The cast came together quite organically. We found and cast Paulie Rojas (Jordyn) after auditions in Los Angeles and soon after we got together with Maria Olsen as Jordyn’s Mother. I’d worked with Maria on a previous project and kept her in mind for future films, she was a perfect fit. When the search began for Jordyn’s Aunt Ruth, Maria suggested her friend Nancy Wolfe, when that missing piece was filled in we knew we had a film in the making. During casting I am looking for true character, someone unique, someone who can bring multiple layers to their performance, someone who asks questions and tries to get to the bottom of the emotions in the scene, someone who explores the motivations and really owns and bring to life the character.

CP: Another is the demonic love child of Jess Franco and Dario Argento. What films of these two hugely influential European directors inspired you? What elements of each director do you admire most?

J: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Lesbos Vampyros come to mind as inspirations to my art of filmmaking. Argento has such a great sense of extreme style and experimentation, the nightmarish beauty of his earlier films and his ability to pull together so many other great artists into his vision is truly inspiring. I find Jess Franco’s films strangely fascinating, it’s easy to get lost in them. I think I am more inspired by the mystery surrounding his films then the actual films themselves. With all his pseudonyms, multiple cuts and recuts, his alleged 200+ film catalogue, and his apparent influence and collaborations with American cinema greats. If Argento is the maestro then Franco is the abstract auteur of the art house.

CP: There is also a dreamy David Lynch vibe floating through Another. What is your favourite movie of his and why?

J: It’s hard to choose really but Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet come to mind. In his later films, Lynch has really mastered exposing the surreal and uncanny in the everyday. To me these films are more horror then thrillers/mysteries … and contains some of the most chilling scene committed to film.

CP: Do you see cinema as still having any taboos, and if so, what are they? Should horror filmmakers be expected to push boundaries?

J: You know every time I think I’ve seen everything I am surprised by a film, but for the most part it seems like we are entering the age of the remake of remake. I think its up to the independents to really push the boundaries and shake up audiences. There is plenty of new ground to cover.

CP: What elements in the making of a horror movie do you rate as the most important?

J: Planning, Planning, Planning. When making a horror film like Another with little to no crew and limited time, and budget, planning was our best friend. Fitting everything to our days and maximising every moment we had with our cast was an absolute necessity. Getting the right people involved with the project was paramount as well. I’d take a small committed crew that really wants to make the absolute best end product, over a large apathetic group of “professionals” who are just there to collect a paycheck. Passion… did I mention passion? That too J

CP: All of your films have a beautiful woman as the central figure. How important is sexuality in a horror movie?

J: I am more interested in the strong characters of these women, and the struggles they are going through, it’s just a bonus that they are captivating.

CP: Another is a beautiful looking movie that dances with the grotesque. What do you love about shooting on digital? Could you have achieved the same look for Another if you’d been using 35mm? Are there any drawbacks at all to shooting on the Red cameras?

J: I would love to have shot Another on 35mm in keeping with the films 70s feel but the budget was just not there to even attempt it. The ease of use, resolution, look and flexibility in post when shooting “raw” footage on Red cameras far out weighed any longing for analogue mediums.

CP: How important is cohesion in a movie’s narrative? How obliged is a director in making a movie understandable to its audience?

J: Cohesion in narrative structure is important in telling any story but the manipulation of the story structure can open up frightening new worlds to viewers. Its not a director’s sole purpose to guide an audience thru a series of events telling a story… its more their duty to upend viewers expectations and open up new realities. Films like The Red Door and Another can be thought of almost like a lyrical song, a piece of music, or a work of art… its possible to see something different even upon multiple viewings. With Another I am dropping the audience into Jordyn’s world, and they are forced to make sense of the demonic schizophrenia that is terrorising her. Making the audience work a bit to sort out if what Jordyn is experiencing is real or some darker influence on her viewpoint was intentional. This subtle playing with structural expectations sends the viewer deeper into Jordyn’s nightmare and has an almost subliminal effect on them, and at times the audience is experiencing her journey on another level.

CP: The production values are high on Another, yet for budgetary reasons you’ve kept your cast and location shooting to an absolute minimum. What was the most expensive part of making Another?

J: Doing most the post myself I really tried to put every cent up on the screen. Outside of all the time I spent on the film the biggest expense was probably pay role. I made certain everyone was paid for the time they put in… no deferments.

CP: You’ve mentioned that you intend to make a feature from your earlier short The Red Door, is this still on the cards?

J: I still plan of completing a companion short that will play along side The Red Door, called Beyond The Red Door. It’s been shot for the most part but like The Red Door I want to write the music for Beyond, but finding the time to compose it is proving difficult.

CP: Thank you for your time Jason!

Another screens as part of Sydney’s A Night Of Horror International Film Festival, Saturday, November 22nd, 5pm, Dendy Cinemas.

Q&A with Isaac Ezban, writer/director of The Incident

Cult Projections: Your impressive short, Nasty Stuff gloriously bathed in Lovecraftian horror. Now your debut feature delves into intellectual science fiction. Are you more of a horror fan, or more of a science fiction fan?

Isaac: Well, I guess I’m something in between. You can tell I’m a little bit of both, with a foot on both worlds. Science fiction and horror movies are the two kinds of movies that I enjoy the most and that inspire me the most. On the horror side, Lovecraftian/Cronenbergian/buddy-mutant horror is, I guess, my favorite (and that was my biggest inspiration for my short film Nasty Stuff), and on the science fiction side, I really enjoy intellectual/metaphysical sci-fi, and also psychological sci-fi, kind of like in The Twilight Zone, in the works of writers like Philip K. Dick, Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, etc., or in the early films (watch out, I said early films) of filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan or Alejandro Amemabar. The science fiction that is more like character sci-fi, more focused on the characters and on seeing everything through their perspective, then on big high-budget special effects. So that is the sci-fi that inspired me to do The Incident. I love both kinds of film. I also like when sci-fi combines with horror in the same movie (kind of like The Fly or Alien), although that is not something I have done on my own films (well, maybe a little bit on Nasty Stuff), it is definitely something I would like to work on in the near future. My second futuristic film, The Similars, which I just finished shooting on August and is currently in post-production, also has some kind of weird buddy-horror sci-fi … hopefully you’ll be able to see it next year.

CP: What are some of the horror and science fiction movies that impressed you as an adolescent? Were they any particular movies that had a firm impact on you wanting to become a filmmaker?

I: I have known I wanted to be a filmmaker ever since I can remember. I know that phrase sounds like a big cliché, but in my case, I swear it’s completely true! Ever since I can remember I was a storyteller, I used to write and tell stories as a child, made short films in school, and wrote four short novels in high school. As for films, some of the big influences I have on the horror or sci fi genre and that are influences I try to pay homage to my work are: Alejandro Amenabar’s Open Your Eyes and The Others, David Cronenberg’s The Fly and The Brood, Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko and The Box, Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Memento, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Wachowski’s and Tom Tykwer’s cloud Atlas, John Carpenter´s The Thing and Halloween, M Night Shyamalan’s Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense and The Village (not his new movies, of course), David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and A Nightmare On Elm Street, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Vertigo and The Birds, Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich (as a writer) and Synecdoche, New York, Joon Ho-Bong’s Mother, The Host and Snowpiercer. And many more!

CP: The Incident is very much in the realm of “the beyond”, that elusive interpretative void that could be heaven, could be hell, could even just be a perpetual purgatory, or limbo. Did you deliberately want the movie to have this obscurity, this cryptic element?

I: At some point of the movie (and I’m sure the people who have seen it will understand now which point I’m talking about, I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t), I could be accused of maybe trying to explain too much … But then, as the movie ends, the audience remain with a lot of unanswered questions. That was exactly my intention: I wanted the main theory, message, philosophy and logic behind my film to be fully explained, but I wanted to also leave a lot for the imagination of the audience. I hope to have had that exact balance (kind of like when you eat a slice of pepperoni pizza that is extremely greasy, but then you take some Losec or any pill to avoid reflux, so you’re in good balance [ED: you’re funny]), I wanted to have that balance: an extremely long, over-exposed explanation contrasting with extremely weird unanswered questions without any explanation. In that last matter (the matter of the unanswered questions, the matter of the things that remain unexplained), that’s where I believe that realm of “the beyond” fits in the movie. I really wanted to leave that part open for the audience’s imagination, to have them trying to figure out the end for days or maybe even more. It was very important for me that the audience wouldn’t go out of the theatre knowing exactly who or what caused the incidents. Some can think it’s a religious thing, caused by God. Others can think it’s a sci-fi thing, cause by machines, or aliens. I like leaving that part open!

CP: There seems to be a Biblical reference - Jacob’s ladder – rearing its head in the road sign “Jacob’s Cabin”, and, of course, there is the office stairwell. Are you a religious person? Tackling theological elements within a horror or science fiction story can be tricky, even alienating, how much of a concern was that as a concern as writer/director?

I: I’m Jewish, and I love my religion, but I follow Jewish traditions mostly as that: as traditions. By this I mean, I enjoy the religion more as a tradition I get to share with my parents and brothers, because that’s how I was educated and that’s how I want to educate my children, but just because of the tradition, I mean, just because my parents educated me like this and their parents educated my parents and so on. By this I mean, I wouldn’t consider myself a very religious person, I’m more like a traditional modern Jew. I believe in God, but I’m not a very religious person. So, to tell you the truth, I never really thought a lot about religion as I was making this film. And actually, as dumb as this might sound, I wasn’t even considering there was a religious message or subtext behind the film.

It wasn’t until when the film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest (Austin, Texas, September 2014) that a lot of people approached me in the end and told me: oh, this is so much like Christianity, sins, purgatory, etc. And I was like … “Oh my god, you’re completely right!” Some of these people couldn’t believe I was Jewish and not Christian! But that’s something I really enjoy as a filmmaker: when people find something in my film I wasn’t even aware of, especially if it’s something as deep as religion. Oh, and by the way, the sign that read “Jacob’s Cabin” was not put there for religious reasons at all, it was not a Biblical reference … sorry to disappoint you, it was a Lost reference! Yes, the biggest influence on my film of all was the TV show Lost! The film is full of references to Lost. Of course, like any other fan, I also hated the very last episode, but other than that, I simply believe it is one of the greatest stories ever told (considering TV series, comic books, novels, films and any medium a human being can have to tell a story). It is so complex and rich in every possible way.

CP: I never watched Lost, so I can’t really comment, but many reviewers of your film discuss the references. There’s the stairwell that repeats itself and the country road that does that same. Were there any other movies or stories that featured a similar kind of Mobius strip that inspired you?

I: I’m a huge referential guy, I loooove references. And I love filmmakers who show their references pretty clear (kind of like what Quentin Tarantino does), so other references for The Incident are The Twilight Zone, the work of writers like Philip K. Dick, Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and other films like Cloud Atlas, Holy Motors, Inception, Lost Highway. Cloud Atlas was a big reference point especially in the narrative, maybe not even the movie, but more the novel, written by David Mitchell, in which it’s based on. When I read Cloud Atlas I was impressed by what he accomplished: telling you six different stories, and every time you were hooked into one, he jumped into the next, leaving you wanting to know what happened in the previous one. I said, “Holy shit, I want to make a movie like that!” And then I started writing The Incident. Inception was a big reference also, especially in the way that movie deals with alternate realities and the way they affect time. I know Inception is much bigger and more ambitious, but I was, well, trying to make my small, indie version of Inception. The works of Escher inspired the idea of infinite landscapes. The idea of the infinite staircase came from the 10th storey staircase I used to go up every Friday with my father when we go for Shabbat dinner at my grandmother’s house, which is on the highest floor. One day I wondered: what would happen if the stairs never ended? The idea of the infinite road came mainly after a picture I saw book a good writer friend gave to me, The Mysteries of Mister Burdick. And then I just mixed everything up.

CP: Tell me a little about the production. It looks like it was a continuity nightmare. Where did you shoot the office stairwell, and where did you shoot the country road and the service station?

I: It was indeed very hard, especially because it was a very low budget movie, and because we shot in two completely different places. It not only featured very different scenarios, but also completely different locations, so for logistics and everything that happens with a crew working on a film, yes, it was very hard. The stairs part was shot on a 17-storey building in Mexico City, near the area of Churubusco. It was a residential building, brand new, 30% occupied only, and that’s maybe why we could rent the stairs for our location. At a certain point some of the neighbours came in and it was very funny what they found. Nine floors decorated like this. It looked like a pretty strange museum. The road was shot on the state of Hidalgo, a two-hour drive from Mexico City, in the town of Zempoala, near the city of Pachuca (capital of Hidalgo). It was a 6km straight road that nobody uses because they opened a new road. It was just what we needed. We got really lucky finding these awesome locations. It was very funny, as an experiment, we used to ask the crew: if you had to stay on an incident in one of these two places, which one would you choose? When we were shooting at the stairs, they all said: the stairs suck, so claustrophobic, etc, I’d rather be locked on the road. But then when we were on the road, we asked the same, and after experiencing sunburn, mosquito bites, etc, they all preferred the stairs.

CP: When you have a low budget, how important is location shooting compared to shooting on a soundstage or restricting the action to interiors only?

I: Well, I shot my first film The Incident on location and my second film The Similars on a set (we built a 1968 bus station), and I can definitely tell you, if you don’t have a big budget, don’t do a built-in set, it has to be location. In The Incident, it was the great locations that saved us, as they fitted the story perfectly. For The Similars it was still an independent movie but we had a little bit more of a budget and building a set was the perfect choice for that film, but if we would have had no budget, it would have been terrible. If you don’t have a budget, you don’t have the resources to make it look real on set.

CP: As a screenwriter what part of the process do you enjoy the most, for example, creating the characters, writing the dialogue, re-writes, swapping scenes around, etc?

I: Definitely the part I enjoyed the most was when I first put all the story together, in the treatment, even before starting writing dialogue or anything in screenplay format. When I just came up with the idea of how it would all add up and had the treatment ready, and I was like “Oh, this could be a good screenplay”. That was my favorite part. That is my favorite part, always.

CP: As a director what part of the production do you enjoy the most, for example, casting the actors, principal photography, editing, etc?

I: Well, I enjoy everything, but I’m usually more nervous on all the preparations and pre-production, and then during principal photography, I think that’s what I enjoy the most, because that’s when I’m doing what I love the most: directing a film. Although that is also the hardest part of the process, the part where you’re more tired and that is also the most risky part, the part where anything could go to hell, the part where you could die and no one would know how to finish this film. But all that adds a risky interesting flavor. I love it. I tend to be a director that thinks about editing even from the screenplay. My editors must hate me, haha! But post-production is also kind of frustrating, because it takes forever, a lot of the post-production processes don’t depend on you so you can’t really control the timing, especially if you have no money for this process. But what is cool about post-production is that somehow you’re still into the film but you also are a little bit more relaxed, you have time to work on some other stuff as well.

CP: What is your opinion on the current state of the international horror movie scene, of the science fiction scene?

I: I like that it is growing a lot. I like that there are a lot of film festivals and institutions that support horror and every time more emerging filmmakers take on this awesome genre. I also love the fact that, although horror and sci-fi are sometimes done very independently, horror is also one of the most commercial genres; it makes a lot of money at the box office. So at least with horror you can have a good chance of making a good film that makes a lot of money also. I also like the fact that, to make horror or sci-fi with low budget, you have to get creative. And I love that challenge. Nowadays, it is somehow easy to make a film than it was twenty or more years ago, with the new digital cameras, etc, lets just say, making a film is still fuckin’ hard (everyone that has made a film must know that), but getting the right materials, camera equipment, etc, is easier these days then it was before, to get a small camera that will deliver good quality, etc. So, nowadays, because it is easier to make a film, there are more films getting made, and because of that, suddenly now the ideas behind a film get more important. Creativity is more important in these days then it was before, and I love that challenge.

CP: As a filmmaker do you feel obliged in any way to your audience in terms of narrative complexity? Or do you agree with David Lynch’s opinion that we don’t understand everything in life, so why should we understand everything we see on the screen?

I: I truly believe that all films should explain a lot but also leave a lot for interpretations. I believe it is indeed possible to have the best of both worlds. Films should stand on their own, without the little head of the director needing to pop out of somewhere and explain it. So they should be consistent and logical.  But they should also, always, leave something for interpretation and for the imagination of the audience. I hope The Incident is a good mix between those two.

CP: How important is the meaning of a movie? Should every movie have a “message”, or can some movies operate purely as sensory vehicles, as “pure cinema”?

I: I believe those two kind of films can work fine. Some movies can have messages. Other movies can simply be vehicles, entertainment. Apart from being a filmmaker, I am a big film fan, and I enjoy both kinds of movies. But definitely, the movies that change my life are the “message” movies.

CP: Thanks Isaac for your time!

I: Thank you! Thank you for these great, interesting questions! And, remember ... The only way out is to keep going.

The Incident screens as part of Sydney's Fantastic Planet Film Festival, Thursday, November 27th, 7pm, Dendy Cinemas.

Q&A with Jason Trost, writer/director of How To Save Us

Cult Projections: The cinematography of How to Save Us is a standout feature, the use of the Tasmanian landscape stunning. How much of the visual narrative was storyboarded? Was it based on extensive location hunting? Was there much improvisation in terms of where you shot?

Jason: Thanks a lot. I’m super proud of it. My DP Phil Miller did an incredible job. We only storyboarded a few scenes, the more intricate, “Ghostly” ones. But we generally just had a rough shot list of what we needed. Both Phil and I know the editing process, which I feel really helps when making a movie because we know what shots you actually will need in the editing room. I devised a rule early on with the movie we could follow if we were ever to get into a tight spot or were particularly brain dead after lugging equipment around, which happened a lot considering we only had a four person crew including me. The rule was, we could never move the camera. I always loved in old Survival Horror video games when the characters just walked from static surveillance shot to static surveillance shot. The sense of isolation it gives you is great. Because for me, the second I see a camera movie, I know someone was there operating it. I wanted to make the viewer feel like they were just as alone as our heroes.

CP: What did you shoot the feature on? Do you have any kind of preferences in terms of cameras and post-production tools?

J: This is kind of a funny story. Originally I bought the Blackmagic pocket camera and I was like, “Screw it, I’m just going to get a tripod and go shoot this movie myself!” Then literally a month before I flew to Australia, Phil met me at a bar and had seen the teaser trailer I put together to raise money and was like, “Slow down, I have an epic, this idea is rad” Then I was like, “We physically don’t have the money in the budget to fly you to Australia.” Then Phil threw down a Delta credit card and said something along the lines of, “I got miles!” And just like that, I had a DP and an epic and my ass was saved.

But as far as actually answering the rest of your question, I don’t really get caught up in the whole, “Who has a bigger camera” obsession that most filmmakers get caught up in. My theory is, it’s about what you put in front of the camera that makes the movie look great. You know, the performances, the story, the costumes, the production design. You can have the best camera in the world, but it’s not going to make a shitty actor in a white room look like a real movie.

CP: The story is heavily immersed in the world of the supernatural, yet the narrative backbone is an intimate one, something that feels very personal. Can you tell me a little about the origin of the screenplay?

J: It is indeed very personal. Everything I make is. If it isn’t how the hell do I know what message I’m trying to convey? I had the idea for a movie about a guy wandering around in a sort of ghost apocalypse for a year or two before I actually wrote anything. I could just never quite crack it. It was always the debate of, why would anyone want to watch one person for 90 minutes. Then a couple of dominoes lined up. First, my girlfriend took me on a vacation to Tasmania and I immediately feel in love with it. It’s haunting but beautiful, the scenery changes every ten miles and it feels abandoned. All things that help if you want to make a movie for nothing. So I kind of came up with the bare bones story structure and a list of locations I could use in my head while we adventured around. Then I saw the movie Gravity. Which love it or hate it, it reminded me that you can just watch one person on screen for 90 minutes and it can totally be engaging. The third domino was seeing my entire family all together for the first time in ages in one place at Christmas and something inside of me awoken. Then everything just fell in line and I hammered out the script. 

CP: Do you believe in the paranormal? Do you believe in malevolent ghosts? Or was the realm of the supernatural there more to facilitate the sub-plot of the family inter-relationships?

J: I definitely believe in the paranormal. I’ve seen things, people who I’m very close to have seen things, it’s just too much to ignore for me. The tricky thing was sitting down and thinking about what ghosts could actually be and why only certain people could see them. It’s usually damaged or abused people so it seemed like that could be a good thread to tie their worlds together. Believe it or not, there was an early draft of this script where we explained them as dark genies from millenniums ago. Save that for the sequel, ha.

CP: A distinct air of melancholy permeates the movie, was this atmosphere something you conjured deliberately, or was it something that came about in the editing process?

J: It was always supposed to be a super dark film. I think anything that actually tries to say something kind of has to be to get it’s point across. I definitely lightened up on the tone in post. Originally it was much darker, much bleaker. I had to thin some of that out because I think it became exhausting for people to be bummed out for that long and by the time you’d reach the end, you wouldn’t care about the message.

CP: Tell me about your approach with the use of sound design and score. It is used to great effect in How to Save Us, but is never heavy-handed. Did you have the composer in mind from the beginning?

J: Thanks. The sound has been a big battle on this movie for me. I learned a lot from my previous films about sound and wanted to employ it in an interesting way in this film. Again, if you’re going to have a last man on earth movie, it’s got to sound interesting to keep people’s butts in the seats.  I’ve known the composer Tori Letzler for several years. She’s been a good friend of mine and we’ve been trying to do something together for a while. She’s a fantastic vocalist as well as a composer so I always knew I wanted something where we could use her voice front and center. I won’t blow it for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, but I always wanted the score to be the voice of one of the “Characters” in the movie. And Tori knocked it out of the park, considering she did the whole thing on a laptop on her weekends off from her real job. I’m forever grateful to her, because music really is at least half of your movie and can make or break it.

CP: How to Save Us is in some ways as much an alternative road movie as it is a science-fiction-horror movie. What, if any, movies influenced, or inspired you during the writing and directing process?

J: A lot of movies inspired this, but truth be told, it was more video games. I grew up playing a lot of Silent Hill and Resident evil and those games are chilling. I always love world building. And for my money, video games just do it better than movies. I think it’s way more interesting than jump scares. And I’m not the biggest fan of one location movies, I know they can be done well, but like these games, you’re constantly exploring, going further down the rabbit hole. That’s what I love in video games and movies alike. Going on a journey, but it’s not something you usually see with horror. Though John Carpenter, especially, The Fog had some serious inspiration on the movie.

CP: The CGI effects are used sparingly, and effectively. What is your opinion on the use of CGI vs. practical effects, especially in horror and science fiction movies?

J: Thanks you! That’s a relief. Been sweating on that one. I think practical always wins, especially in horror. I feel like the second your brain registers that something is fake; it turns off and goes into autopilot. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had any nightmares about a CG monster. I still have nightmares about all the man and suit movies from my childhood. If it looks like you can touch it, you believe it can kill you. I think CG can be a great additive but should be used only when absolutely necessary.

CP: How to Save Us has an apocalyptic tone, but offers hope. How important is hope in horror movies, or should it be entirely optional to the writer/director?

J: I think everything should be optional to the writer/director. The second we try to say what the industry standard is we start getting 8 superhero movies a year. But jokes aside, I love hope, I think it’s super important for me and people everywhere to remember it’s always there, no matter how dark it gets. And that’s what I love about movies; they can remind you of that when nothing else can. Honestly, I’d rather make movies about hope, because I’m staring at whatever I make for at least a year straight, and watching something that’s just miserable for a year can be pretty miserable ha.

CP: You are the very definition of an independent filmmaker on the rise, a maverick even. Are you prepared to divulge any of your rules or secrets to budding filmmakers, in terms of writing/pre-production/shooting/post?

J: Those are very kind words. I have no idea if I’m on the rise or not. Every budget of mine has gotten smaller since my first movie and it’s been increasingly harder each time to find money. But I’ve definitely found a comfort zone of how to make a movie for nothing. I’d love to go on for several paragraphs about how I do what I do, but then I might be out of a job. If there’s any one things I could say it’s, Impossible is just something quitters say to feel better about themselves. 

CP: How to Save Us is your fourth feature, in as many years. One could justifiably describe you as prolific, is this kind of intensity something you hope to continue?

J: I have no idea. Every other day I’m either quitting the film business forever or starting another script. Hopefully someday soon, I’ll get paid to do what I do and I can finally call this my career. Until then, God only knows ha.

CP: No doubt you’ve got several projects on the boil, what can we expect next from Trost Force Productions?

J: With any luck, a paid vacation!

CP: Thanks for your time Jason!

How To Save Us screens at Fantastic Planet Film Festival, Saturday, November 22nd, 9pm, Dendy Cinemas, Sydney AND at Monster Fest, Wednesday, November 26th, 5pm, Yah Yahs, Melbourne.

Interview with John Jarratt, star of Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2

Cult Projections: Were you much of a horror fan when you signed up to play Mick Taylor? If so, what are some of your favourite horror movies?

John Jarratt: I wouldn’t call myself a fan of any particular genre, I just like good films. The ones I like are the ones that are believable, like Cape Fear and Psycho, those kinds of things. I’m not so much into the Freddy Krueger stuff. I don’t mind the vampire movies, if it’s got a bit of fun in it, some comedy, y’know? I like scary where you think, “Geez, that could happen.” I think they’re very scary. The other ones don’t do it for me so much.

CP: Funny you should say that, because when Wolf Creek was released it was the kind of unbridled, realistic nightmare that a lot of horror movie fans had been waiting years for. Were you concerned at all, at the time, that maybe it was too extreme?

JJ: No, it’s part of what life is, y’know, that’s what happens. And what a good movie business does is mirror what happens in life situations, and it’s been happening since Adam was a boy.

CP: What do you think made Wolf Creek so successful?

JJ: I think, basically, it’s an iconic, outback, Aussie kind of larrikin, in the Croc Dundee kind of tradition, but gone wrong. There was all the entertainment of the larrikin Australian, and then you add psychopath serial killer to the mix and it’s pretty a potent brew, and definitely hard to watch for some, but that’s definitely what drags them in.

CP: Do you know if it was always Greg’s intention to make another Wolf Creek, because there was such a long gap between the two movies?

JJ: We always wanted to make another one, especially if the first one was successful, which it was. It took a long time. He went on to make another big film, straight after that, that took a fair bit of time, then we got down to writing the script, and Greg put the script together, and then I worked with him on it, and we were determined to make it better than the first one, or as good, at least. So it took quite a while to get to that point. And then we had a bit of a problem with one of the investors, the first time round, so we had to re-group, and then suddenly eight years had gone by.

[both chuckle]

CP: The character of Mick Taylor, certainly by the second film, has become almost an anti-hero, or at the very least, a villain the audience are encouraged to root for. Do you think this was the intent of Greg’s, or did you have a hand in the character’s direction?

JJ: We liked the idea that Mick, in the first one, you only see him in the last half of the movie, but he’s got a great sense of humour. If you took the psychopath serial killer out of him, he’d be a quite a fun bloke to have a beer with, y’know? The comedy works well. Because funny stuff happens to the police in the beginning, our hope was that people were laughing and then thinking, my God, I’m laughing at that, that’s not right! It’s like in Goodfellas when they’re stuffing the guy into the boot and Joe Pesci is so funny, you’re laughing your head off, thinking this isn’t right. I think that’s kinda what we’re going for.

CP: It seems Wolf Creek 2 was designed to appeal to American audiences, and was apparently cut so as to avoid the dreaded US NC-17 certificate -

JJ: No, that’s not right. It was made to entertain the entire planet. MA (15+) was Village Roadshow’s idea, for Australian cinema release, so they could get fifteen-year-olds and above to watch the movie so a little bit of the scary stuff had to be taken out for the cinema release, which enabled them to sell it a lot easier. But the DVD release has got all that stuff back in again.

CP: Okay, gotcha. So in the States then, it will go out domestically “unrated”? Would it be too extreme for the American “R” certificate?

JJ: No, no, from what I can make out it’s on Blu-ray and DVD in the States, exactly the same as ours.

CP: Wolf Creek 2 is less a straightforward horror movie and more of an action-thriller that edges into horror, certainly in the last part of the movie. And the black comedy is much more prevalent than in the first film. Why do you think Greg moved away from the darker tone of the original, at the risk of losing the fans of the original?

JJ: Y’see, I disagree with that. I think, if you look at the first movie, the monster doesn’t come out of the cage ‘til halfway through the film, and when I do come out I’m cracking jokes; “If I tell ya, I’m gonna have to kill ya,” and “That’s not a knife, this is a knife,” and “Sydney – poofter capital of Australia.” There’s gags all the way through it. We threw an F100 off the cliff, and then I chase them in a Mad Max sequence in the Statesman, and to me [Wolf Creek 2 is] just ninety minutes of that, instead of half a film of that. I think he was funny in the first one, and he’s funny in the second one, but you just see a lot more of it. You think it’s different, but it’s not really that different, as far as I’m concerned; in my playing of the character. You get him from the get-go, and it’s ninety minutes of it, rather than fifty minutes of it.

CP: Perhaps it is the audience’s familiarity with Mick Taylor.

JJ: Well, you see more of him, so you learn more about him, but he’s basically doing exactly the same thing as he did in the first one, but he’s doing it through the entire film, and it’s not an F100, it’s a Kenworth. It’s a bigger truck.

[both chuckle]

JJ: We got a bit more money, but apart from that, we chuck him on a horse, there’s a few different things happening, but it’s basically it’s the same ol’ Mick chasing backpackers. You can’t beat him, you can’t get away from him.

CP: So you and Greg were never concerned during the making of Wolf Creek 2 that you might be running the risk of alienating some of the fans of the first film because of the nature of the second one?

JJ: No, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it! I think we were true to the first one, it’s just that now the monster is out of the cage from the first scene, and you just cop him the entire way, and that makes it more of a chase film than the first one, more of a chase-thriller. But that’s because you’ve gotta fill ninety minutes out with Mick, not fifty.

CP: Both movies claim to be based on true crimes, and there’s the inspiration from serial killer Ivan Milat. Did you read up much about him and his crimes?

JJ: For the first one I read a lot about him, and the second one I didn’t bother, because I’d read about it already.

CP: Who is Mick Taylor to you?

JJ: Well, he’s not Ivan Milat, or any of those; he’s fictitious. If you take the psychopath and the serial killer out of it, the character is based on my dad. A big raw-boned, outdoor kinda guy, very funny, everyone liked being around him, but he was a tough old bastard, took no prisoners, country boy, and he had a really deep voice. I haven’t got a really deep voice, so I put the croaky voice in, and add psychopathic serial killer to that mix, and that’s Mick.

C: And that’s Mick.

JJ: An impersonation of my dad.

[CP laughs]

CP: Are you confident we’ll be seeing more of the sadistic adventures of Mick Taylor? He may very well become our next Chopper Read!

JJ: Next Chopper Read? That’s weird. Okay. I prefer the next Hannibal Lector, when he did three or four films, than a real person.

CP: I meant as an iconic Australian criminal.

JJ: Oh, okay. Alright.Well, if people are kind enough to buy the movie, and not pirate it, we might make a profit out of Wolf Creek 2. Just become aware if you want to do a pirate download of a movie, do it to a Hollywood blockbuster, not independent films - from any country, not just Australia - and then we might get profits. If you could download a new BMW, that’d soon put an end to it. I think we’re up to a million pirate downloads of the movie already. That’s a lot of money lost.

CP: Yeah, it is a worry.

Wolf Creek 2 has been released on DVD (rated MA) and BD (Director's Cut rated R) by Roadshow.

Interview with Andrew Semans, director/co-writer of Nancy, Please

Cult Projections: So tell me, how did the screenplay to Nancy, Please come about? It feels as if it could be autobiographical.

Andrew: Well, actually, it is and it isn’t. The way we came about with the story is I like to come up with an incredibly simple conflict, or an incredibly simple situation, something really rudimentary, and then think about it very intensely, put pressure on it and see what happens, as I elaborate on this very simple concept, and try and flesh it out with characters. I was writing a different script at the time, and it really wasn’t coming together. So I got together with my co-writer, Will Heinrich, and we said let’s come up with a new story, and let’s base it around the simplest conflict we can think of, and then we can go from there. So we said, ok, what about this conflict: one person has this one thing that another person wants and they won’t give it back. Okay, that’s a really simple conflict. So who are the people, where does it take place? So we just started plugging in characters. What is this thing that the other person wants back? Who are these people? Where are they? Over time personal things and personal experiences began to find their way in. And it gradually did become a very personal movie, even though we started off in this very dry and very academic way. Nothing like this has actually happened to me, but it is thematically autobiographical.  I lot of the things the main character confronts I have confronted.

CP: How would you describe the collaboration process with Will, in terms of the screenplay? Is the dialogue written together?

A: We would get together and come up with a rudimentary outline of the script and describe each scene; what might happen in each scene, and who was there, and what it was about. Then one would go and write the scene, and then pass it to the other who would do a re-write, and then we would talk about it. It was a lot of passing back and forth. It was written in bots and pieces over a long period of time. We were both working on other things, so we would do it when we could, and gradually over time it got finished.

CP: The movie is essentially a four-hander, Paul, Jen, Charlie, and Nancy. Each character is in juxtaposition against the other. But Nancy is the real enigma. Why did you have her character shrouded in such mystery?

A: We liked the idea of the character of Nancy being larger a projection of what the main character thinks she is, or of whom he wants people to think she is. He’s largely writing this story in his mind, though not literally, it’s not a fantasy. This is a situation the main character consciously or unconsciously is perpetuating, and it’s very, very important to him to have an enemy, a villain. Someone who is persecuting him, in order for him to feel victimized, and feel self-righteous, because that’s what he wants to be, and he stays that way most of the movie. So we thought, let’s illustrate this character almost entirely second-hand, through another character, almost like a mythological monster. But then as the movie goes on the idea that this man’s accounts of Nancy and her doings are maybe somewhat unreliable, and that only at the end of the movie do you get to hear from Nancy herself.

CP: The narrative raises far more questions than answers, how important was it to provide the viewer with images, such as the dead cockroach and the bloodied drill bit, and even character decisions, and imbue them with a dream-like logic and rationale?

A: I like the idea of taking this movie, which is set in the real world, a very, very mundane environment, and give it overtones of a thriller, a horror movie, but it never becomes a thriller or a horror movie. I imagined in the main character’s mind that he thinks he’s in a thriller or horror movie, or he wants to be in thriller or horror movie because he wants to see himself as a victim of a great injustice, or a great evil, but of course he really isn’t, but he has fantasies that lean in that direction, but the banal reality remains, and it never becomes the movie that the main character wants it to become. But we wanted to include these elements and nods to the horror movie.

CP: Yes, well, that’s what makes the movie so interesting is your blend of genre elements; there is a relationship drama at the heart of the story, that’s fused with a black comedy, nods to a thriller, hints of existential horror, and even, dare I use it, mumblecore, it tries that jacket on for size too. What makes Nancy, Please so interesting is the subtle blend of genre elements; there is a relationship drama at the heart of the story, fused with black comedy, thriller nods, even a hint of existential horror. And there’s the mumblecore jacket it tries on for size too.

[both chuckle]

CP: The performances are uniformly excellent, was casting difficult?

A: Not particularly. We had an extremely short production period due to a variety of factors so we cast the movie very, very quickly. We cast it very conventionally through auditions with a casting director. Because it happened fast we couldn’t see that many people, or have callbacks. Luckily people came through the door that we really liked, and we cast them. The only exception was Eleonore Hendricks who played Nancy. I had seen her in a few other movies, and we reached out to her specifically for the role, and thankfully she was interested, and came onboard.

CP: Eleonore, she was excellent. You want more screen time from her.

A: Yeah, we liked the idea of withholding her character, a bit like Jaws. You’re not going to see the shark! But it was a hard thing to do, because Eleonore has real on-screen presence, and she’s such an interesting person to watch.

CP: Do you think the indie scene has become mainstream? Is there a glut, because it’s so easy to make a feature, budget-wise, but harder to get your movie seen and talked about?

A: Shit, this is a very complicated topic and I don’t know if I can speak intelligently on this. From a filmmaker’s point of view, the fact that the technology has reached a point where you can make a movie that looks and sounds good for very little money is a wonderful thing. It’s fantastic. Nancy, Please was made on a very low budget, and ten years ago we never would have got it made. It was because of the advances in the technology that allowed this movie to be made on this very low budget. So that’s terrific. Are there too many indie movies? I don’t know the economics of the situation well enough. There can only be too many movies if good movies are being crowded out because there are so many mediocre movies, and that would be terrible. I don’t know if that’s happened. I do see brilliant movies being neglected, but it’s not because so many other little mediocrities are getting a lot of attention. I don’t know, man …

CP: I know, it’s a day’s worth of discussion, at least.

A: It is. And what are you going to do about it? People wanna make movies, and they’re gonna keep on making them.

CP: Of course.

A: I think, by and large, that kind of democratisation of the art form is terrific. It allows a lot of people to make movies that otherwise couldn’t. Are there drawbacks to that? Probably, but ultimately I think it will be good for the form.

CP: Thank you Andrew, I look forward to your next feature!

A: Alright. So do I. 

Women in Horror Month - Five Do Five Q&A

Five women do five questions. 

In support of the fifth annual Women in Horror Recognition Month I asked five women in the horror industry to answer the same five questions; getting down to the nitty-gritty of what inspires them, compels them, fires them up. Their responses were awesome.

Ursula Dubrowsky is based in Adelaide, Australia. Ursula is in the throes of a “demon” trilogy. Her first feature, Family Demons, was released in 2009, the anticipated follow-up, Inner Demon, is in post, and she’s completed the screenplay to the third part, Demonheart.

Cult Projections: What three horror movies do you consider the most powerful in terms of atmosphere, viscera and/or suspense?

Ursula: Martyrs, A Serbian Film, The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence).

CP: What three elements of horror cinema excite and inspire you the most?

U: Story, story and story.

CP: Identify something about humanity you’ve seen on screen that deeply troubles you and/or a taboo you would like to break, or seen broken, in horror cinema.

U: Mental pain and suffering, psychological abuse, nihilism.

CP: Name three women you’d love to work with.

U: Mandy Walker (DOP), Veronika Jenet (Editor), Angelina Jolie (Actor)

CP: If you were to adapt a novel, or short story, for the screen (either prose or graphic), what would it be, budget restraints aside?

U: Simone de Beauvoir's The Prime of Life (1960).

    Isabel Peppard is from Melbourne. An animator of two short films, she's about to make her first feature.

Cult Projections: What three horror movies do you consider the most powerful in terms of atmosphere, viscera and/or suspense?

Isabel: Well, obviously it’s very much a personal preference but I would say;

1. Kubrick’s The Shining

2. Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby 

3. Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist

All iconic films with strong, stylistic elements of viscera and suspense.

CP: What three elements of horror cinema excite and inspire you the most?

I: 1. I love the use of horror and flesh as a metaphor for psychological and sociological states of being.

2. I’m inspired by films that create their own original worlds and mythologies.

3. I’ve always been deeply attracted to blood, viscera and monsters, all of which I find exciting and inspiring.

CP: Identify something about humanity you’ve seen on screen that deeply troubles you and/or a taboo you would like to break, or seen broken, in horror cinema.

I: I think we have become desensitised to sexual violence against women in the horror genre. I’m not saying it’s never been done but I am certainly interested in exploring the idea of inverse rape revenge films where the sexual violence is playing to the female gaze. Not saying it makes it right; I just think it’s interesting to see things from a different perspective.

CP: Name three women you’d love to work with.

I: 1. I am working with Jennifer Lynch at the moment; she is mentoring me as I am starting work on my first horror feature. She is a fantastic writer and director. I especially loved Chained, which I found absolutely terrifying when I saw it on the big screen!

2.I think Asia Argento has a very interesting screen presence and I’d love to work with her on a project one day.

3. Caroline Thompson wrote Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, amongst other things. I would love to co-write a gothic fairytale horror feature with her some day.

CP: If you were to adapt a novel, or short story, for the screen (either prose or graphic), what would it be, budget restraints aside.

I: That’s a tough one! I usually write my own original material based on my experiences of the world so I haven’t really thought about adaptations. It would probably be a fairy tale of some sort, as I love the way that they present elements of the naïve and grotesque side by side.

Briony Kidd is best known as the Festival Director of Stranger With My Face, an acclaimed female-centric horror film festival in Hobart, Tasmania.

Cult Projections: What three horror movies do you consider the most powerful in terms of atmosphere, viscera and/or suspense?

Briony: The Haunting of Julia, The Innocents and Picnic at Hanging Rock are three of my favourites.

CP: What three elements of horror cinema excite and inspire you the most?

B: I like eccentricity (e.g. strange or counterintuitive music choices), frightening levels of melodrama and emotion (e.g. psycho-biddy stories, Bergman, Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger) and practical effects.

CP: Identify something about humanity you’ve seen on screen that deeply troubles you and/or a taboo you would like to break, or seen broken, in horror cinema.

B: Women's anger and violence is under-explored in cinema so there haven't been very many great female monster characters yet. I think the taboos are more to do with storytelling and character than any specific act.

CP: Name three women you’d love to work with.

B: Tricky ... But off the top of my head, Amy Seimetz, Angela Bassett and Yancy Butler.

CP: If you were to adapt a novel, or short story, for the screen (either prose or graphic), what would it be, budget restraints aside?

B: Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels, or Lois Duncan's Stranger With My Face.

The Twisted Twins are from Vancouver, British Colombia. Sylvia and Jen Soska have two features under their belt, the trashy Dead Hooker In a Trunk (2009), and the slick American Mary (2012), both of which have garnered them an impressive following.

Cult Projections: What three horror movies do you consider the most powerful in terms of atmosphere, viscera and/or suspense?

Sylvia: Atmosphere would have to be Sinister - I love how it would be so unrelentingly disturbing, then comedic to put you into a false sense of security to torture you again. Such a fun film, I watch it a lot - it never loses the effect of getting under your skin.

Viscera would have to be Martyrs. I see a lot of backlash regarding the use of gore in a film, but I feel there is no such thing as too much as long as it serves the story rather than being a band-aid for poor filmmaking/story telling.

Martyrs grabs you instantly and doesn't let go as it one-ups-itself through an epic tale of misery, suffering, and the power of a victim.

Suspense would have to be A Serbian Film. I was warned before I watched it, but it sucks you into its world and you forget the warning because it's made so damn well. You are forced into this very dark place and then brutally relive the greatest sorrow through the misplaced fuzzy memories of the lead character. It won't scare, it scars.

CP: What three elements of horror cinema excite and inspire you the most?

S: What I enjoy about horror is the ability to tackle real world issues while still allowing the storyteller the ability to be somewhat in fantasy. I think you can talk about things that are important without preaching in a fascinating way through the medium. I like scaring people, or rather surprising them - it's up to them whether that shock results in fear. Seeing an audience react in a darkened theatre is the best experience for me. Lastly, I love make up and FX - I can never get enough of those artists work. I don't think I could go to set if there isn't blood there.

CP: Identify something about humanity you’ve seen on screen that deeply troubles you and/or a taboo you would like to break, or seen broken, in horror cinema.

S: The epidemic of a lack of original thought in the arts deeply troubles me. You can only go so far creatively by re-hashing the same stories, but people are so afraid to take a risk on a new idea. Art is what defines us as humans, so good art from different perspectives is very important to me.

CP: Name three women you’d love to work with.

S: Mary Harron - she's the reason why I got into directing, Jen Lynch - she's fearless and completely brave in her filmmaking, and Katharine Isabelle - she's my muse, I cannot create without her and I hope that I never have to.

CP: If you were to adapt a novel, or short story, for the screen (either prose or graphic), what would it be, budget restraints aside?

S: Deadpool. Jen and I are long time comic nerds and Wade Wilson's stories really appeal to our sensibilities. I know that there is a film in limbo in the works, but I want to tell that story very badly in a way that will make my fellow fans and the studios very happy.

Cult Projections: What three horror movies do you consider the most powerful in terms of atmosphere, viscera and/or suspense?

Jen: Atmosphere is would have to say Antichrist. Spoiler Alert: when Willem is hiding from Charlotte and that crow starts screaming, I started yelling at the screen for him to just kill himself. I wanted out. I didn't want to see what the next level of crazy was going to be. I couldn't take it. I never want a character to just off themselves and get out of a film, so that was memorable. Lars has one hell of a way with atmosphere.

Viscera? Sylvie said Martyrs so I'll go with Inside. It was just a non-stop shit show, just pure, violent madness. It was incredible. We like to play this game where we each blindly pick a horror movie and watch them back to back. One day Sylv picked Martyrs and I picked Inside, and that day became legendary. We just sat there after like, "What the hell just happened?"

Suspense? Funny Games. The tone of that film is incredible. There is so little blood, but the tension is so real and the reality of the whole thing just puts it over the edge. The camera work and edit are superb, as well as the acting and material, of course. It's those long pauses and moments of air that just sit with you that make your stomach turn.

CP: What three elements of horror cinema excite and inspire you the most?

J: Originality. If I'm taken or shown or get to experience something new, I am so deliriously happy. I can see a screen shot or a mini clip and just have to see something. North American horror is so formulaic by in large. I hate that. Give me risk and strange and indefinable any day and I am one happy girl.

Artfulness. I love to see the beauty in unconventional things or even awful or terrifying things. Nothing has to look ugly, even when the content is disgusting.

Empowerment. Horror is a place where the final girl evolved from Laurie Strode to bad-asses like Ellen Ripley. Being a bit on the little side always made me feel strong when I saw these incredible femme fatale final girls. I love seeing someone evolve and rise up to face their demons. I love an underdog.

CP: Identify something about humanity you’ve seen on screen that deeply troubles you and/or a taboo you would like to break, or seen broken, in horror cinema.

J: I cannot believe we live in a day and age where most women will be sexually assaulted and most people just turn a blind eye to it because it is so common. And men, too. Being a man it's even more shameful and taboo to openly speak about rape and sexual assault. I find it so disgusting. I don't think there is enough of a deterrent, legally speaking or even based on the reactions of society, to prevent people from going around doing whatever they want and then blaming the victims with slut shaming comments like, "what were you wearing?" It's disgusting to me.

CP: Name three women you’d love to work with.

J: Everyone Sylvie mentioned, but here are three others: Tristan Risk, Chelan Simmons, and Debra Sullivan. And I'll be working with all three sooner than later.

CP: If you were to adapt a novel, or short story, for the screen (either prose or graphic), what would it be, budget restraints aside?

J: I want to bring Clive Barker's Abarat to life more than I can even express. It's such an important and beautiful story for so many reasons. Budget would have to not be an issue as the world Clive creates and the creatures and characters are so astoundingly elaborate and unique. That would be a dream come true.

Interview with Adrián García Bogliano, writer/director of Here Comes The Devil

Adrián García Bogliano is a maverick stylist. Born and raised in Spain, he resides in Argentina. As a young man looking to become a filmmaker he was heavily influenced by the movies of another stylist auteur, Brian De Palma, and as a writer/director he continues to refer to the movies of De Palma whenever he is about to make a new feature.

Bogliano’s latest however, Here Comes the Devil (2012); a dark, moody, supernatural affair set in Mexico, takes inspiration from one of Australia’s greatest contributions to the art of cinema, Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), a deeply mysterious delve into the beyond, and the beyond’s insidious groping in return. Another influence on Bogliano’s tale of demonic abduction is the surreal, metaphysical works of yet another maverick stylist, Richard Stanley, who made the savagely dysfunctional sf Hardware (1990), and the tenebrous spiritual shenanigans of Dust Devil (1992).

Cult Projections: Where did the supernatural story for Here Comes the Devil originate?

Adrián: All these elements they have here in [the Mexican] culture. It was a very big change for me to see all these celebrations, Day of the Dead, all these things that are culturally different to what I am used to seeing in Argentina. In particularly, when we started thinking of shooting a film in Tijuana. Tijuana has all these stories about the devil, and these very strange things that have happened there, and it has a particular charm. It’s a very special city. When we started to talk about the idea of making a film there, I thought it had to be a supernatural film, and the funny thing is that I wrote this story and the basic reference was Picnic at Hanging Rock, but then I added this specific idea of some sort of demon, or entity that lives in this cave. And when we went to Tijuana and were scouting, we were scouting in a different location, somewhere that was very complicated to shoot, another series of caves and hills, and an old man pointed to a cave and told us that in that cave there was a story of a demon living there. So the same thing that happens in the film is also folklore, something they believed in.

CP: Atmosphere is one of the strongest elements in all of your movies. Roman Polanski once said that “atmosphere” is the most important element in a movie. How do you go about creating such a rich atmosphere, particularly on a low budget?

A: To me it all has to do with the cast. As much as possible I try to create interesting characters, or people you can relate to. For me, that is one of the biggest problems - mostly with horror films - that you can’t relate to the characters, so you can’t find anything interesting from those characters, and then you don’t care about what happens to them. But that’s pretty obvious really. That’s something that happens all the time on horror films. So I think the first thing is to create interesting characters, but more important than that is actors that can give more depth to those characters, and if you find that, then whatever they do will be interesting. So that’s the first basic thing: interesting characters, an interesting situation, and then, y’know, you can have more blood, less blood.

CP: You like improvisation, so how important is the screenplay and dialogue during shooting, compared to the story as a whole?

A: Well, y’know, I made my first movie [Rooms For Tourists (2004)], and it took me four years to make, and it was hell; it was really, really difficult. When I was finishing it I thought I would never direct another movie. There was a big economical crisis in Argentina in the meantime. One of the biggest problems was that I wanted everything to be exactly as I wrote it. Every single piece of dialogue, every single thing the script described had to be exactly as I imagined, and that’s why it took me so long. And then when I was finishing it I decided to go and shoot another movie for the sake of it, just find a bunch of actors, we had a thirty page script, and I just decided to go on and do it with whatever I had, with a bunch of great actors, and just find things I could use, and leaving a lot to the actors, allowing them to improvise, to do a lot of stuff, and that movie, Scream The Night (2005), was a very small film. That film gave me back the joy of shooting movies. So after that movie I always try to be very specific about what things are important for the movie, and I try to surround myself with creative people, and let them give me all they have. That’s very important to me.

CP: You often have beautiful women in peril - I suppose that’s the Brian De Palam influence coming through - what is it about the female gender that appeals to you as a filmmaker, so strongly?

A: That is something that started from my first film, and I made that kind of film for my first four films; Rooms For Tourists, Scream The Night, 36 Steps (2006), and I’ll Never Die Alone (2007). Those films are groups of women and their relationships. After that I started to make different things. But to me the relationships of the women were always very appealing, something that I always found fascinating; there were a lot of women surrounding me when I grew up. It was very appealing to me from a few movies of Dario Argento also, Phenomena (1984) or Suspiria (1977). But then I found a couple of years ago, when I came to Mexico for the first time, I found another director, Carlos Enrique Taboada, who made just horror films and all of them have just female characters. I found a lot of common elements between his ideas and mine, completely fascinating. It always happens, it’s not great, actually, it’s just the way it is; I start writing films where female and male characters have the same importance, but there is something along the process; either writing the script or making the movie, where the male character becomes less important, or less interesting than the female character. It actually happened on Here Comes The Devil. At a certain point the character of the husband becomes less interesting.

CP: I’ll Never Die Alone is one of your most powerful films. How important is sexuality in a horror movie?

A: To me it’s important in all of my movies; sexuality is always there. To me it’s as important as comedy is to some other horror directors. To add these comedy elements when you’re so concerned about death, so you give the audience a break with the comedic element, but to me it’s the sexuality. The sexuality represents more or less the same. Not always. It’s something that takes you away from that horror. Not in the case of I’ll Never Die Alone, of course. With I’ll Never Die Alone I wanted to make homage to these films of the 70s that really impressed me so much when I was a kid.

CP: What is the most disturbing movie you've ever seen and why?

A: I don't know which one is the most disturbing. I can think of the Spanish film Coto De Caz - the rape and revenge film by the director of The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue - which was the first film that I remember being disturbed by. Then films like Funny Games, Unhinged, Irreversible, The Penthouse, or Sleepaway Camp. The last one that really disturbed me was Danny Steinmann's The Unseen. I didn't see it coming at all and I think that works better for me, when you think you know what you're seeing and then the movie surprises you and grabs you by your guts.

CP: Will you continue to make original low-budget horror movies? Do you think you’ll ever be seduced into directing a remake, or a big budget movie, or adapting a popular book?

A: I don’t know. I’m really comfortable doing these kinds of films. I’m working now with a bigger budget than I have in the past, so it’s more comfortable to try other things, but this is the place I feel better. If it was the right project, something interesting, I could try to do it, but I think that I will always come back to making these kinds of movies. I wouldn’t have an excuse to not be making movies. I’ve made movies for so little money that I think right now I can handle it again. Many directors think that they have to go bigger in terms of budget all the time. For some people it’s impossible to think about making a big movie and then doing something indie again, and I don't feel like that at all. I think the important thing is to keep making films, try to improve as a director each time, but not necessarily to translate that into bigger budgets, but into better movies.

Here Comes The Devil DVD is released by Accent Film Entertainment on February 19th 2014.

Interview with Najarra Townsend, star of Contracted

Cult Projections: According to imdb your second movie acting experience was a horror feature – Menace. Had you watched much horror before, have you watched much since?

Najarra: As a child my mom introduced me to Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining and classic horror films. But I don’t know if I was ever a horror movie lover, it was just part of life. And [Menace] as a first feature experience was amazing because I got to see all the horror films’ secrets, and it made horror films not as scary, but more interesting to me, for some reason, so it was really, really fun, and since then I’m obsessed with horror films, I love them. I can’t get scared enough.

CP: Off the top of your head what are some of your favourite horror movies?

N: Um, I’m so bad with favourites. I love The Sixth Sense, it messes with your head, it’s so good. The Conjuring is really good. I also like the classics that I grew up on; I love Rosemary’s Baby, I love The Shining. I love A Nightmare on Elm Street. All these movies were mind-messers, y’know?

CP: Yeah, yeah. The first Nightmare definitely, but they get kinda cheesy after while, those ones.

N: Yeah, they kinda all do; Friday the 13th goes on for, like, ever.

CP: You’re been a bit of a darling of the indie short film scene. Your resume of short films is quite extensive. Are you likely to continue acting in shorts now that your feature career is expanding, even though shorts films have less of an audience because they only get seen in festivals?

N: I’ve been doing shorts forever. I started in shorts as a learning experience. I did a lot of student films, so I was working with a lot of college students, so I got to learn what they learned, all the behind the scenes stuff, and it was really educational. But I’ve been doing features consistently for the past ten years now; so independent feature films are my heart and soul. I just love them. And I don’t know if I’d ever stop doing them. Of course I would love to have a TV show or be in bigger films, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever stop doing the independents. I love guerilla filmmaking. I love the families that are formed ‘cos it’s such a smaller, intimate set.

CP: What creative characteristics do you look for in a director, or is the screenplay always paramount?

N: Most of the time I’m working with directors for the first time. I like to see their previous work to get an idea of what kind of filmmaker they are, and if I connect with it, but also if I connect with them as a person. I’ve been on films before where I’ve had directors where we don’t communicate the same, we don’t see things the same, and it’s really difficult. It’s a good learning process … but it’s hard. So I usually have a meeting with the director before I sign on to a film, just to make sure we both like each other, and are going to be okay working long days with each other for while.

CP: How did you get cast in Contracted? Had Eric [England, the director] seen you on stage, or in a short? Did you do many auditions?

N: I actually worked with the co-producer, and he played Riley in the film, his name is Matt Mercer. I had worked with him on a short about two or three years prior. He Facebooked me and asked me if I wanted to come in for a film he was producing, and I read the synopsis, and I looked up Eric England, and I was, like, sure, I’ll come in for this. So I had an audition, and I had a call back, and that was Eric and the other producers, and then that was it, I agreed to do it.

CP: It’s a great performance.

N: Thank you.

CP: Have you seen a film called Thanatomorphose?

N: No. I’ve been reading about it.

CP: There are weird similarities between it and Contracted. The body horror.

N: I watched the trailer; it looked terrifying.

CP: [laughs] You must look at the poster for Contracted and think, I look great there.

N: I did not expect them to use that at all! It was jarring. My dad called me actually, minutes after it was posted, almost in tears, saying “I’m so traumatized right now, I never thought I’d see you looking like that.”, and I was, like, “Dad, it’s hair, it’s make-up!”

CP: So, what was it about the screenplay of Contracted that interested you, excited you even?

N: I just really liked this take on something that we see a lot. You see this genre a lot, and this was just a way about it that I’d never seen before. And it was a quick read, and I was really grossed out, and I reacted so much, just by reading it, that I wanted to see it as a movie! I wanted to be a part of it. I really liked “Sam”.

CP: She is a very likable character. You really empathise with what she’s going through. It can weigh heavily on an actor, especially since you’re in almost every scene, but you did such a great job.

N: Thank you.

CP: What’s your approach to screen performance, as opposed to stage? Do you like improvisation?

N: I grew up with doing theatre, but I haven’t been on a stage in almost ten years, it’s been a while. Which is kind of sad, now that I’m thinking about it, because I loved it.

With film … [pause] … Every time I get a new character I find the back-story. I’m me playing somebody. I always need to find something relatable. I love talking to the director, the writer - if possible – and then finding fun characteristics. Wardrobe always helps, hair and makeup, everything that goes into it totally brings the character together. It’s just all of it.

CP: Did you find the role of Samantha any more or less challenging?

N: I definitely think it was my most challenging role to date, just with everything she’s dealing with, and trying to hide it all, and trying to figure out the whole body stuff. She’s essentially dying from the inside out. So to try and put yourself there, it was a lot to do, and then with makeup on top of it, I would spend about three or four hours in makeup. And makeup always makes me feel super-relaxed, so my energy gets low, and then I have to bring myself to a different place. There were a lot of elements. So it was definitely challenging, but it was also the most fun I’ve ever had.

CP: Well, that’s important. You’ve gotta have fun at the end of the day.

N: Totally [laughs]

CP: How important is gender in a horror movie, from your point of view? Is a horror movie more effective if the lead is a female?

N: You know, that’s a hard question ‘cos I’m a female, so of course girl characters are more relatable.

CP: How different do you think Contracted would’ve been if the lead character had been male?

N: I think it would’ve been really different. I do actually.

CP: I don’t think it would’ve been as interesting.

N: There’s something so personal about sex, and everything that’s happening to her body. I mean, I’m sure if it was a man it would be awful too, of course, but there’s something intimate about it. Oooh, I dunno! Oh! I never thought about that! Huh. You’ll have to ask Eric; why didn’t you choose a guy? Huh! [pause] It would’ve been really, really different, because the whole way she gets it. Because technically she’s roofied, but then people have been saying that it was date rape. But now, of course, to Sam – to me – it wasn’t, so I don’t know how it would’ve played out with a guy. That’s interesting.

CP: What aspects of stage acting do you love, and what aspects of screen acting do you love?

N: I really love stage. The whole process of learning the whole thing, rehearsing the whole thing, performing the whole thing, night after night, is a very alive feeling. It’s so powerful with an audience. Each audience, you get their energy, so each performance, each night would be different, depending on how the audience reacts. That’s a feeling you definitely don’t get with film. But I was always more attracted to movies. I like being small and natural and really feeling what I’m feeling. And on stage you have to play, you have to project. Film is like therapy to me. I really, desperately need it! So I’ve always been more attracted to it.

CP: You love the indie scene, would you jump at the opportunity to act in a big-budget commercial Hollywood production, even if it meant leaving behind the indie scene for while? Or does that not appeal to you?

N: I mean, leaving it for how long?

CP: Therein lies the Rub.

N: I love acting. I don’t know what I would do without it. I couldn’t do anything else. So if I were lucky enough to be successful enough that I can do big movies then of course I will, but that doesn’t mean that I would ever stop doing indie film. I can’t not work. If I’m not doing anything I lose my mind. So I know I’ll always stay busy. But if I’m doing big movies, or a TV show, I’m gonna want to take the time out to do that independent film. It just gives you a different feeling. Because I’ve been on bigger sets and it’s awesome, and the food’s amazing, and the money’s great, but it’s just a different feeling. It’s almost like a more lonely feeling. But with an indie you are family, you don’t hang out in a trailer, you hang out with each other, and I think it’s just a better experience.

CP: What are you looking forward to? Are there any other directors you’d like to work with? Have you got something lined up with Eric again?

N: No, not with Eric. He’s working on some stuff. We kinda bounced some stuff back and forth, but nothing’s set up. The whole shooting experience of Contracted was amazing, and I want to work with everybody all over again. Forever if possible.

CP: That’s good.

N: Yeah, it’s awesome. But as of right now, I shot two features last year, so they’ll come out this year, and I start shooting on a film next week. That’s another weird thing with indies; you don’t ever know what’s going to happen to them.

CP: It’s so much easier to make a feature now, but so much harder for that feature to be seen, once it’s been completed. It’s a kinda weird Catch-22. It’s great that the works there, and it keeps you happy, because you love the process.

N: But I don’t have any control with the finished product, I only have control over what I do, it’s always weird. It’s always fun to see the finished product, because who knows if it’s going to be anything like you thought it would be, as an actor.

Q&A with Dale Trott and Damien E. Lipp, writer/director and actor/producer of Beckoning The Butcher

Cult Projections: Dale, tell me a little about Killervision, your first feature; what did that cost, and how was it received?

Dale: Killervision is a supernatural thriller about a young man who acquires a brain injury following a traumatic car accident. Through his injury he begins to see images of his friends getting murdered while watching B-grade movies and when they start happening in real life he has to find the identity of the murderer before he becomes the next victim.

It was an amazing experience being on set. Everyone involved put in so much time and energy and the whole process taught me a lot about not only making the film, but also how to get it out into the wide world. Its budget was bigger than that of Beckoning the Butcher as we were shooting for a solid month and needed a lot more locations and prosthetics for the special effects. It's been very well received! I recently spoke with the head of Silverline, our sales agent in Los Angeles regarding worldwide distribution.

CP: Damien, how long have you and Dale known each other? Did you attend any kind of tertiary acting school? Stage?

Damien: I have known Dale since 2008 when I auditioned for one of his short films Closure. I studied at BAPA (Ballarat Academy of Performing Arts), I have studied in Los Angeles, and throughout numerous acting schools in Melbourne.

CP: Dale, what movies made you want to become a filmmaker? What found footage movies have really impressed you?

Dale: Since I was a kid I've really loved big action/sci-fi spectacles like The Terminator or The Matrix. The idea of being involved in creating something as cool as someone dodging bullets or chasing a motorbike in a truck was definitely appealing. Although it sounds cliché, during film school I was exposed to classics like Citizen Kane and Fight Club and it helped to foster my passion for amazing storytelling. Although I'd still love to do the bullet-dodging motorbike one day, that little kid inside now gets crazy excited over great character development and dialogue.

 In terms of found footage, I really loved movies like The Tunnel, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and the first Paranormal Activity. All of them had amazing atmospheres and used the locations/characters in interesting ways to build the scares.

CP: How did you find and secure the amazing farmhouse location for Beckoning The Butcher? Where exactly is it? How big was the principal shoot crew?

Dale: Damien secured the farmhouse from his connections deep in country Kerang. When I wrote the original script in June 2012, we actually had another house nearby in mind. We changed location about a month before principal photography due to possible snake hazards (the original house was surrounded by very tall grass). Originally there were a lot more rooms to play with, so when we changed locations it was a challenge working the script into the new house but we got there! The principal shoot pretty much had no crew. For the found footage segments it was just the actors and myself with mainly Damien holding the camera while acting. I felt this really helped build up the atmosphere for everyone as we truly felt alone, plus the actors had complete free reign to act out the scenes without Damien needing to worry about getting a boom or light in shot. We also had the incredibly talented Teaghan Barnard and her team come down to do makeup for the special effect shots on the weekends. However, when we shot the interview segments a month later, we had Jonathan Burton and Alex Joseski behind the camera and lighting, and Reece Russel on sound. Both shoots had very different vibes. The found footage felt more relaxed and was just like six friends hanging out most of the time, whereas the interviews, while still fun, felt more like a traditional set where it was a race against time to set everything up. Everyone involved put in so much and it was a blast to work with them all.

CP: Dale, apparently you shot the movie very quickly. What was your shooting ratio like? How many takes would you get Damien to do, and the other actors when they were operating the cameras, before you were happy with the footage? It must have been time consuming because it wouldn’t have been easy to have a video-split for each camera, or was it?

Dale: I feel that we stormed through a lot of the found footage shoot because we didn't have to wait for lights or sound to be set up. Because most of the shoot took place at night we could discuss the scenes were going to shoot in the afternoon, then just rock up to the set once the sun had set, do a block through and then smash it out without having to do too many takes. It was pretty funny, because I couldn't actually see what the actors were doing or what the cameras were seeing. I had to hide way out of shot in another room of the house when the action was taking place, so once we all thought the take was amazing, we'd take the SD card out of the camera and watch it back on a laptop. I was pretty much always pleased with what Damien and the guys were doing when they had the camera so our shooting ratio would have been around 1.5:1. The only thing we had to watch out for was the wiring on the roof. Because the house had no electricity or running water, the roof was covered with extension cords, which went to a generator outside. The same was with the interview scenes as we didn't have much camera movement during the interviews and I had worked with the actors before they had arrived in Kerang. I also used every second of cutaways we shot in the final edit.

CP: All the performances are naturalistic and convincing. Tell me a little about the audition process; how easily did you find the individual actors, what were their backgrounds (ie short films, stage, TV)?

Dale: The audition process was a lot of fun. We did a few exercises with the actors to not only see how they could deliver the dialogue, but to see what they could bring to the characters from their own personalities. We were really blown away by the auditions and the amount of talent that showed up. The actors who secured the roles had a lot of experience under their belt in films, stage and TV, so not only did they all bring a lot of talent, but we gelled really well.

CP: Do you believe in the supernatural and/or the occult at all? What’s the scariest movie you’ve each seen?

Dale: I don't really believe in the occult or supernatural but there's always that little voice in the back of my mind that says it could be real. However, I've convinced myself there's always a logical explanation. I'm way more scared of spiders, so while the actors were afraid while summoning a ghost in a 100-year-old farm house, I'd run out of the house screaming if I saw a tiny daddy long legs. The scariest movie I think I've seen is probably a French film called Martyrs. Although I felt it went a bit “gross-out film” in the end, it succeeded in that it really grossed me out.

Damien: I actually don't believe in the supernatural. I had a crazy experience when I was on set though, I went out of the house to do my business, and it felt like there was a man behind me and he jumped onto my back making me run back into the house screaming and terrified. The scariest movies I have seen would probably be Ju-On: The Grudge, Shutter, Paranormal Activity - due to sudden loud sounds that startled me, and the anticipation, and long drawn out pauses - rather than believing in the supernatural. Also parts of The Hills Have Eyes I found more disturbing, than scary, so I can’t really put the finger on just one film.

CP: What about the other actors, were they fans of horror movies?

Dale: I'm not too sure, but I don't think so. I think the guys might have seen and enjoyed a few horrors, but I don't think they are major horror buffs.

CP: Dale, what are the most important elements in a horror movie? What do you see other horror movies failing to do?

Dale: I feel that the majorly important aspect is to build an atmosphere and to have likeable characters, and just like any film genre, that comes from a great script and great acting. You can have all the amazing blood, gore and special effects in a horror movie, but if people really care about the characters (and can logically understand why the characters are doing what they do) the scares feel more real and hit closer to home. In researching Butcher I watched some horror films where the characters would just do really stupid and annoying things in order for the production to throw more blood out there or to have the actress get naked and I found that to be more frustrating than enjoyable.

CP: Damien, did it concern you at all that Beckoning the Butcher might be just another mediocre effort in a glut of found footage flicks, or did you know from the start that Dale’s concept and his deliverance could push the movie to the top of the pile?

Damien: As soon as I read the first draft of the script, I knew that this would be a dealmaker. Dale has once again delivered a high standard of writing. It shows that I couldn't sleep without looking in the cupboard before the lights went out in my room.

CP: Dale, some would say making a found footage movie is a piece of piss, but the reality is, it’s a tricky one to get right, because you have to justify every camera shot and movement, and even more importantly, you have to justify why someone scared out of their wits would even bother to keep shooting. Tell me a little about how you approached this in terms of the screenplay and then when it came to shoot.

Dale: It's a really tough thing to justify. A lot of the material that inspired Butcher came from people uploading themselves performing rituals like The Midnight Game or One-Man Hide and Seek onto YouTube, so I decided to write the lead character as an aspiring internet celebrity with his own channel who tests these rituals. I wrote Damien's character and developed it with him so that he'd be the kind of guy who would document these things to feed his agenda for his channel. When people start to die, I feel that this changes a little and it's more about documenting these strange events to provide a logical explanation or to stop others from suffering the same fate.

CP: Damien, distribution costs aside, can you tell me how much the movie cost in the end?

Damien: The total cost of the film was $3,000.

CP: Dale, how did you decide on what cameras you were going to use? Did that small camera really have night vision or was that something you invented for the sake of the narrative?

Dale: I really wanted to have multiple cameras to cut between during the found footage segments, whether that came down to phones or security footage, just because I feel that it's a good tool to use for building the atmosphere. That old camera really had the night vision capabilities and I've always loved how eerie everything looks through its lens so I just had to write it in!

CP: Is there an ongoing future for the found footage genre? Most of them deal with the supernatural; I’m surprised there haven’t been more “snuff” related movies, but most likely because they would be a much harder sell. Do you think there are still taboos in the horror genre? Should they remain, or do horror filmmakers need to keep pushing the envelope?

Dale: I think that there are always new ways to shock people, and I'm all for doing it. I think there's a lot to play with in terms of medical taboos (like The Human Centipede) or sexual taboos (like A Serbian Film) and although it's not everyone's cup of tea, there's definitely a market out there for it. Some people enjoy watching the envelope being pushed and so long as it's justified in the storytelling and it's told in an interesting way (not just a solid 90 minutes of people getting abused), then I say bring on the blood! As for found footage, as long as it's understood that it's just a tool and not relied upon too heavily as a gimmick, I think that there is still a future for it.

CP: Which horror directors and/or movies of recent years have really impressed you?

Dale: I'm a big fan of James Wan's work. I'm in love with the editing and the writing of the first Saw movie, and really enjoyed Insidious and The Conjuring. Can't wait to see how Insidious: Chapter 2 plays out.

Damien: I am actually not too massive on the whole horror genre. I appreciate people that do a great job on a small budget. I liked Greg Mclean’s work in Wolf Creek. I am a fan of Christopher Nolan; I love EPIC!!! I love his big productions.

CP: Dale, it’s early days, but what’s next on the cards? Another horror movie I hope!

Dale: It's still very early days, but there has been some discussion between Damien and myself about possibly tackling a brutal action movie. Although there may not be horror elements, there will definitely be tension and blood. Lots and lots of blood.