Director: Thomas Lee
Writer: Thomas Lee
Producer: Thomas Lee
Cast: Thomas Lee, James D Messer, Toni Bird, me
Country: UK
Year of release: 2006
Reviewed from: screener DVD

Full Moon Massacre is the debut feature from teenage director Tom Rutter who makes films as Thomas Lee and posts on forums as ‘britsploitation’. It’s barely feature-length at 65 minutes but that’s still longer than recent Full Moon pictures (if you discount their glacial end credits) and is commendable brevity for a picture of this type.

Tom shot this for as close to no budget as makes no odds. Most of the cast are his mates or family, most of the locations are around his home and his werewolf is a rubber mask/handpuppet with pingpong ball eyes for which the adjective ‘unconvincing’ would seem to have been purposefully created. But this is a likeable and enthusiastic horror spoof with some suitably silly, Troma-esque gore effects and a few genuine, deliberate laughs (“Was it a poodle?”) in both the dialogue and the direction.

Lee’s full tally of credits is director, writer, producer, editor, photography, special effects creator and puppeteer; he also plays the main character (named Tom) but nobly and sensibly keeps his name off the list of actors on the sleeve.

Attacked by a werewolf in Newcastle, Tom returns to Birmingham where he meets up with his pal Jay (James D Messer) who has a new girlfriend named Kate (Toni Bird). Tom owes money to local wannabe gangster Dino (Dean Greatbatch) but has bigger problems in his regular lycanthropic attacks, which leave a trail of zero-budget death and destruction across the West Midlands. Into this mix comes Ken Mood, reprising his Axel Falcon character from A Home for the Bullets and its zombie-filled sequel A Grave for the Corpses (which I haven’t seen). The director of those two films, SN Sibley, gets an executive producer credit here.

Shot over a considerable period of time, reflected in the changing hair-lengths of some actors, Full Moon Massacre incorporates some footage from an abandoned zombie project, mostly around the Jay/Kate romance. This shows up briefly towards the end when the young couple are cowering in a garage from Tom’s lupine monster and talk about the threat as “them”. But on the whole, considering that this film was shot mostly on the fly with no real script and incorporates parts of another, unrelated film, Lee has done an impressive job of making some sort of sense out of the whole thing.

There is the expected over-the-top, tuppeny-ha’penny effects: arms ripped off, a tongue pulled out by the roots etc. It won’t fool or scare anyone but it’s all great fun. The director’s influences are obvious in the large collection of videos and DVDs in his bedroom, including numerous titles produced by Lloyd Kaufman or Charlie Band.

Lee keeps his camera tight on his subjects in many scenes, cutting backwards and forwards but rarely indulging in a two-shot or over-the-shoulder shot-reverse-shots. I suspect this could be because some of the dialogue scenes were probably filmed with the two actors separated by a considerable distance and a lengthy amount of time.

Andrew John (62 Pages) has a brief role and gets an ‘additional photography’ credit while the director’s mother has a cameo as a taxi driver (with one terrifically apt line: “This isn’t a taxi.”). Also in the cast are Colin Cuthbert, David J Nock (who was production assistant on The Killin’), Sean Kenney, Phil Wilden and Yours Truly as TV reporter Griffin Dingley. I certainly had a good time shooting my scenes and I hope that comes across (most of my stuff is halfway through the film but I also crop up in the end credits and you can catch even more of me in the gag reel on disc 2!).

Nobody is ever going to mistake Full Moon Massacre for a professionally made feature film. On the other hand, it’s a few steps up from the Dad-can-I-borrow-the-camcorder school of film-making. The characters are distinguishable and sympathetic, the sound is clear, the lighting is competent, the pacing is kept up and the fun and enthusiasm which went into making this film comes across. Being completely honest, this is going to appeal to friends and family of the people involved and werewolf or British horror completists. But far, far worse horror movies have been shown at little local film festivals around the UK.

Every director has to start somewhere, every director has to make that first feature. You learn from experience. Thomas Lee clearly has the talent and the determination to make movies and will, if he sticks at it, go on to bigger and better things. His debut is good, gory fun which, while it certainly doesn’t overcome is deficiencies, at least manages to distract the viewer’s attention from them.

MJS rating: B
review originally posted 28th February 2006

Director: Ivan Zuccon
Writers: Ivan Zuccon, Gerardo Di Filippo
Producer: Zack Ewans
Cast: Tiffany Shepis, Debbie Rochon, Suzi Lorraine
Country: Italy
Year of release: 2013
Reviewed from: screener
Website: www.ivanzuccon.com

Ivan Zuccon made his feature debut 13 years ago with The Darkness Beyond. Now, with his seventh feature, Ivan has come of age. Wrath of the Crows, coming to us a full five years after the terrific Colour from the Dark, is his most mature and accomplished film to date. But it’s more than that, it’s magnificent: a whole new level of film-making. In my opinion, this is a genuine, no-holds-barred, world-class masterpiece which finally establishes Zuccon as a globally important director. In years to come, perhaps this will be seen as an iconic title in the history of Italian horror (or maybe not - I’m notoriously bad at predicting these things...).

Wrath is also (if this stuff matters to you) by a considerable margin Ivan’s goriest film, with simply masses of blood and some superb prosthetics.

As so often with Ivan’s films, a somewhat rundown location is key to the story; in this case, a prison where a handful of inmates await the verdict of an unseen Judge, spending their days in bare cells with shit- and straw-covered floors. But, through some finely integrated stock footage, the story does take us outside the prison walls for some scenes. (We know it’s stock footage because there’s an elephant in one shot. It looks like Ivan’s working with a bigger budget, but there’s no way he’s hiring elephants.)

It’s clear that this prison, with its two uniformed, sadistic guards and a slavering, animalistic human guard dog, is not in the real world. This is a film of allegory, or metaphor, or fantasy, maybe nightmares. A gripping ten-minute prologue sees one prisoner offered freedom, then tortured - but cuts suddenly to the same character in a very different situation. Then cuts back equally suddenly to the prison. Is one of these a dream? Is either real? Or neither?

There is a natural assumption - and I’ll make it for you - that in a situation like this, we’re in Hell (or Limbo or somewhere) and everyone is dead. That’s along the right lines but there is much, much more to Wrath of the Crows than a simple ‘they were dead all along’ twist. This isn’t a film that builds towards a twist, it’s a finely wrought, expertly crafted exploration of morality, reality, brutality and fatality (and indeed fatalism) - but, as one expects from a Zuccon picture, never normality.

These prisoners, these lost souls in a borderline unreal world which, from their limited, caged viewpoint, could be as real as many a 21st century third world prison, are not simple cyphers who can be summed up with individual glib sentences. They are at one and the same time complex, real people yet also hollow shells of humanity. We know nothing about them except what we can see in their interactions and relationships with each other and with the guards. The interstitial scenes which take us outside the prison walls (and back? forwards? sideways? in time) tell us more but are not simple, pat explanations of how and why these benighted figures ended up in this hellhole, resigned to their fate. And they feed directly into the main story in a variety of sometimes startling ways.

Debbie Rochon, returning to Studio Interzona after her fine performance in Colour from the Dark, is Debby. The awesomely named Domiziano Arcangeli is Larry. Brian Fortune (looking exactly like a post-revolution, pre-execution Saddam Hussein) is Hugo. Tara Cardinal is Liza. These characters are individuals, united only by their isolated existence, sharing only Ivan and Gerardo Di Filippo’s carefully chosen words as days become weeks become years and they lose all memory of a life before prison. They never question what might be happening in the outside world. For them, there is no outside world. They have been locked away and forgotten.

Then Princess arrives: a new prisoner, with a different attitude. Dressed in an amazing crows’-feather cloak over a leather basque, she exudes a brash confidence that the others have lost, but intriguingly exhibits no overt defiance against the rules or the system, despite being penned into the same row of barred cells as the rest. Princess is as accepting of the filthy, bleak, sunless world of the gaol as the four others; in fact she almost seems to relish her new life and the chance to taunt, cajole and maybe even dominate her neighbours.

Everyone in the international cast, without exception, gives their all. As in the past, Ivan has coaxed magnificent performances from actors who all too often ply their trade in hoky B-movies where opportunities for characterisation are sparse. Debbie Rochon’s 18 other 2013-listed IMDB titles, for example, include Return to Nuke ‘Em High and Bikini Bloodbath Shakespeare. Those sort of gigs are fun - God knows I love Uncle Lloyd and can’t wait to see a new Nuke ‘Em High movie - but they don’t stretch an actor. Sometimes an actor wants to take their tongue out of their cheek and really, you know, act. Rochon is a fine actress, but like every other fine actress she needs the roles.

Tara Cardinal is a name I’m not familiar with but that’s because I’ve never been sent copies of Bite Nite, Quest for Comic-Con or Fable: Teeth of Beasts. I don’t think I’m prejudging these movies of which I know nothing in assuming, based solely on their titles, that they aren’t deep character studies. And Domiziano Arcangeli is another new name to me, although he has been making films since he was discovered at the age of eleven in 1979, with more than 150 IMDB credits, about two thirds in Italy and the rest following his move to Hollywood in about 2006-ish.

He was in a 1982 ETA Hoffman adaptation, Vampirismus, and that same year appeared in Antonio Margheriti’s Hunters of the Golden Cobra opposite David Warbeck (reteaming with both for 1984’s Ark of the Sun God). His CV is packed with legendary European directors albeit not necessarily their best-known - or best - works. So we find him in films by Lucio Fulci (Ghosts of Sodom), Aldo Lado (Ritual of Love), Umberto Lenzi (Demons 3), Tinto Brass (Paprika), Andrea Bianchi (Le Perversioni degli Angeli), Bruno Mattei (Capriccio Veneziano, Land of Death, Mondo Cannibale) and even a spell working for Jesus Franco (Vampire Blues, Red Silk, Incubus). (But interestingly not, so far as I can tell, Argento.)

Once Stateside, Arcangeli started out in such low-rent titles as Jeff Leroy’s Werewolf in a Women’s Prison, The Asylum’s Omen knock-off 666: The Beast and Sean Cain’s heartwarming festive classic Silent Night, Zombie Night. He was Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein Rising, Renfield in Waiting for Dracula (which he also wrote and directed) and Dr Van Sloan in something called Creep Creepersin’s Dracula. (Mr Creepersin has previously escaped my attention, despite making about 40 films in the past seven years; Arcangeli is also in his delightful romcoms Orgy of Blood, Alien Babes in Heat and Brides of Sodom.) My point is that Arcangeli has, like Debbie and Tara, paid his dues in the Z-league but, despite having actually worked with Fellini (an uncredited bit-part in Intervista but hey, it’s still good), it looks like he has rarely been stretched. Directors who average more than five films a year rarely provide the most satisfying opportunities for their casts.

Irish actor Brian Fortune has a less obviously cheap’n’cheerful CV: mostly Dublin-based shorts but with a few horror features including Dave McCabe’s Shackled, Eoin Macken’s The Inside and Eric Courtney’s An Irish Exorcism (maybe there’s an Irish Horror Revival...) plus he was in a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, which probably paid the rent for a few months. So: a quartet of solid, talented thespians, capable of turning their hands to anything but rarely given the opportunity to explore a story and characters as powerful and thought-provoking, as harrowing and haunted as Larry, Debby, Hugo and Liza. Great work by all.

But Princess is something else. Princess is Tiffany Shepis.

Seriously, if you retained any doubts that Shepis is the reining Queen of Horror, dispel them now, because in Wrath of the Crows La Shep is simply awesome. I won’t bore you with a canter through Tiff’s recent career - the IMDB is over there if you want to take a look - but I will point out how I have observed before that, when given the chance, she is a fantastic actress with a sympathy for the genre that shines through every role. Sometimes, amid the gleeful horror hoopla, Shepis finds a part - and a film, and a director - that she can work with: a complex mixture of confidence, vulnerability, mystique, danger, passion, torment, reproach, violence, horror (of course) and a dozen other personality traits, mixed in the right proportions to make a character cocktail. Stirred, not shaken. We saw this in Zuccon’s NyMpha, we saw it in The Frankenstein Experiment/Syndrome, and we can see it again here. (Frankenstein Experiment helmer Sean Tretta shot second unit for Ivan; he also has the envious position of being Mr Shepis.)

Princess is an amazing performance of an amazing role, standing out even among such a strong and well-handled cast. This is an extraordinary character: layers of understanding and mystery gradually peeling away as we start to find out more about who she is, and why. The other prisoners consider her a witch, maybe because of her costume if nothing else. What does she know? Where has she come from? What makes her different from the others? Should they welcome her or reject her, fear her or trust her? Shepis strides through the film, investing every syllable of dialogue, every glance, every movement, every frame with fantastical, horrific significance. I‘ve never seen her better than this.

So now I’ve gushed about the principal cast (and skipped through their filmographies), let’s return to the movie itself. This is more accessible and less obtuse than some of Ivan’s earlier work, which often prioritised elegiac qualities over straightforward narrative, but that is not to say that there is a simple story here or a simple structure. This is a multi-dimensional web of narrative which is so bound up with characters and settings - and indeed photography, editing, costumes, make-up... - that the film feels like a total cinematic package rather than just a story told on screen. There is a clear third act, a development of the story which introduces a new set of prisoners and I’ll not deny that I found that slightly disconcerting but it serves its purpose and does not in any way detract from the sheer enjoyment of this amazing horror film.

Ivan’s work has always been influenced to a greater or lesser degree by his love of HP Lovecraft but Wrath of the Crows seemed less Lovecraftian and in fact reminded me more of another much-adapted classic author (one whom, truth be told, I have always preferred). And that is Poe (and not just because of the corvid connection). Edgar Allan Poe was a poet: even his fiction has a poetic quality to it, a lyrical evocation of gothic imagery in contrast to Lovecraft’s reliance on things being ‘indescribable’ (both approaches have their merits). Wrath of the Crows is a film poem, and I know that sounds pretentious but that’s the impression that I got while sitting, spellbound for an hour and half. Every syllable of every word of every sentence has been carefully selected and positioned, and the same approach has been made to every camera angle, every lighting choice, every cut, every sound, every costume, every scattering of straw on the prison floor.

Just like a poem, the film only really works as a whole. That’s the main reason I’m not going into too much detail about the plot. Not because it’s unfathomable, but because a summary could never do it adequate justice. It would be like summarising a poem: well, there’s a raven which has learned to mimic a word and it perches on bust... See what I mean? Just like a cloak of crows’ feathers, Ivan has taken dark and rarely considered things then woven them together to create a satisfying, unexpected, extraordinary whole which works brilliantly in both what it does and how it does it. Taking that apart again wouldn’t leave a cloak, just a pile of old feathers.

One of the feathers that Ivan has woven into his witch’s cloak of darkness is a level of blood and gore above anything he has done previously but this is never gratuitous, never used to just titillate the baser elements of the audience (though it might well enhance their enjoyment of the movie). People are stabbed, people are beaten, people are bitten, people are mauled. Eyes are gouged, throats are slit, skulls are cleaved, teeth are pulled, a tongue is cut out. But every violent act - and its consequences, fatal or otherwise - feeds into the greater body of the film and is handled with the skill of a past master who loves and understand horror cinema.

And there’s religion, and there’s sex, and there's families. Because it wouldn’t be an Italian horror film without those. (Oh, and there are crows too, though quite how wrathful they are is hard to determine.)

This is the key to Ivan Zuccon’s success: he is Italian horror. He knows and loves this genre. But he is not is a slave to tradition; quite the opposite. Ivan is at the forefront of what, for want of a better phrase, I’ll call the Italian Horror Revival. The IMDB lists about a hundred Italian horror features released since 2000, seven of them Ivan Zuccon joints. So clearly something is going on but people aren’t seeing the bigger picture, just like the British Horror Revival (and potentially that Irish one I mentioned). Many people ignored the boom in fantastic home-grown horror because they believed that British horror would only rise again when Hammer returned. But The Woman in Black was an anomaly (and an over-rated one at that).

By the same token, Italian horror fans seem to live in expectation of the Second Coming of Dario Argento - but he is an old man who, however good his 21st century outings, is never going to make anything like Suspiria or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage again, no matter how many times his prophet Alan Jones raises people’s hopes. The best modern Italian horror is new and different and vital and low-budget and fiercely independent and contemporary and very, very Italian and it reacts against, at least as much as it is influenced by, classic Italian horror. I bet Ireland’s the same. Heck, I bet every country’s the same. They’re all just waiting for somebody to join the dots and realise what has been happening in the indie/DTV market while everyone was suffering from terminal nostalgia.

Ivan has moved on from the Italian Horror Revival. His last film premiered in London; this one premiered in Hollywood. All six of his previous features have achieved international distribution, something that virtually none of those other 2000-and-after spaghetti horrors have managed, a couple of latter-day Argentos notwithstanding. He is a cinematic force to be reckoned with, and Wrath of the Crows is the next step in his journey towards global acclaim.

So who else can we spot in this international all-star cast? Well, Suzi Lorraine plays a number of roles. She has more than 70 IMDB credits including Sea of Dust, Last Rites of the Dead, She-Demons of the Black Sun, Satan’s Schoolgirls, a bunch of Seduction Cinema crap from the early 2000s (under a different name - smart move) and a handful of BHR entries including Monitor, Three’s a Shroud and Dead of the Nite. Zuccon regulars Michael Segal, Giuseppe Gobbato, Matteo Tosi and Emanuele Cerman are respectively the head warden, the savage ‘dog solder’ he keeps on a lead, an executioner and ‘Spoon’, a trustee prisoner with OCD who distributes the slop (and has a disturbing interest in cutlery).

Gerry Shanahan is another Irish actor and another alumnus of Studio Interzona. Since making Colour from the Dark he has appeared in three gore’n’Guinness features - Shackled, Hotel Darklight, and Portrait of a Zombie - plus another Italian horror flick, Zombie Massacre (which also features Michael Segal, Tara Cardinal and... Uwe Boll as the President of the USA?). John Game, who plays the prisoner featured in the prologue, is a British actor who is also in a new Benelux film called A Warning to the Curious (which may or may not be an MR James adaptation). He’s particularly good in a physically demanding role and I suspect we’ll be seeing more of him in the future.

Other cast include Carl Wharton (Zombie Massacre again, plus British SF-thriller The Turing Enigma), Andreea Togan, Chris Pybus, Svetlana Bekleseva (also one of two credited Tiffany Shepis body doubles), Roberta Marelli (also co-producer), Marcella Braga (who was in an Italian Star Wars fan film!) and Ivan’s young daughter Miriam (in two roles, including ‘Young Debby’). To a man and woman (and child) they are all excellent.

Danilo Carignola and Elena Sardelli of leading Italian make-up effects house Crea-Fx provided the excellent blood’n’gore; what a busy time they must have had. Visual effects supervisor Luca Auletta worked recently on an intriguing-looking spaghetti horror-western, Undead Men. Antonio Masiero was the sound designer but there is no composer credited: all the music came from stock libraries. David Bracci, who has worked on most of Argento’s pictures since the late 1990s, gets an ‘additional special effects’ credit. The production designer, as ever, was Valeria Zuccon and the costume designer was once again Donatella Ravagnani. As with the cast, all those behind the camera worked their socks off and have produced outstanding work.

And holding it all together is Ivan, the director, the co-writer but also the cinematographer and the editor (“cut and shot” as his credits traditionally say). As director he leads his cast into wonderful performances, but they would go to waste without the exquisite camera-work, extraordinary lighting and spot-on editing. But this time, curiously, he is not the producer. That is someone named Zack Ewans, a name which returns precisely no hits on Google, not even an IMDB credit. Is it Ivan under a pseudonym? Could be: it is sort of a bit like his names reversed.

Look, I know this epic review has seemed like a gushing love-in, and I know that I always rave about Ivan’s films, and I also know that there are people out there who disagree with me and don’t like the Zuccon movie(s) they’ve seen (hey, some folk can’t stand the Beatles). But you all know by now that I only ever write honestly. I write what I feel about each individual film. And if I keep giving the impression that every Ivan Zuccon picture is better than the last one, that’s because in my opinion, each one is. I still recall that day in 2000 when I first met Ivan at Cannes (in a hotel suite being rented by Tiffany,as it happens - my god, we were all so much younger then).

Ivan’s career since then has been a journey, a progression through which he has taken his natural, God-given talent and refined his skills through a succession of fascinating horror films. And it has been a privilege to travel alongside Ivan on that journey towards Wrath of the Crows, eagerly unwrapping each new VHS tape or DVD as soon as it arrives and watching his body of work develop. Yes, Ivan is my mate. But I’ve had mates who have dropped their game and made poor films, or at least films which weren’t up to their usual standards. If that happens with Ivan, I’ll say so. (Or I’ll say nothing; if I ever don’t review one his movies, you’ll know I found it disappointing). So yes I know Ivan personally, and a few of the other names here, but I don’t praise things because I know the people who made them. I praise things because they’re great. And Wrath of the Crows is great.

I expect good things from an Ivan Zuccon film, but Wrath exceeded even my high expectations, and for that I have to give serious consideration to awarding it my highest rating. I very, very rarely give a film A+, not least because if I do, there will be nowhere to go if something better comes along. Perhaps Ivan’s next film will be even better than this one. But, realistically, I was so blown away with Wrath of the Crows, with the work of Ivan, Tiffany, Debbie and everyone else involved, that if I am honest with myself I have to say this is a perfect horror film. Instantly one of my favourites ever. I want to watch it again. Now.

Bravo maestro.

MJS rating: A+

I interviewed Sherilyn Fenn on the set of the thriller Dangerous Obsession on the Isle of Man on 1st October 1997, a film which was eventually released under the title Darkness Falls. This interview languished in my files until appearing in the programme book for the 2002 Twin Peaks convention Damn Fine Con.

How’s it going on the film, from your point of view?
“I think it’s going really well.”

Have you done any other films in the UK?
“I haven’t. This is my first one.”

So how are you finding it different from American films?
“I think people have a lot more fun. I don’t think I’ve laughed as much in my whole life as I have since I’ve been here. I’ve just laughed and laughed and laughed. It’s wonderful. It’s a better quality film than the things that are being made in the States. Ray Winstone keeps telling me that they’re just making better films here. So I’m actually contemplating moving to London for a period of time. I’ve been in Los Angeles for 15 years and I’m really really tired of it. I’m continually really uninspired by what’s being sent to me. Even by huge films that they’re doing there. It’s amazing. They’re just awful. I loved the script when I read it; it’s a wonderful character piece. I saw Ray’s work, like Nil By Mouth, and Tim Dutton’s work, and I just was really excited to be a part of it.”

What about the crew?
“Everybody is really good to work with. I brought my make-up artist from the States - so one friend along for the ride. But no complaints. I’m really having a good time! The Isle of Man is a little bit difficult, just because I have a three and a half year old and there’s not much to do here for him. Everything’s sort of slo-o-ow.”

How do you think perceptions of you as an actress are different between here and America?
“I’m not really sure, to be honest. It was interesting because a couple of months ago I had a meeting with a director, Mike Figgis. He could tell I was feeling low, and he was really encouraging me to come to England and to spend some time there, saying how different it is. Like, when you’re in Hollywood it seems like that’s all there is in terms of the business. He said to me, ‘You have a great body of work and you’d work all the time if you went to Europe. You should just go and get out of here.’ So from his perspective, he made it sound like it would be very positive for me to do that. But I’m not really sure what the perception is of me there, if I would work more there. But I suppose I’ll find out.”

In America, are you doing a lot of TV movies?
“Yes.”

Am I correct in thinking this is the first theatrical thing you’ve done since Boxing Helena?
“Hmm. No, I just did a film at the beginning of the year with Eric Roberts. That was a film. What are they calling it now? Encounter? Something like that. They keep changing the name around. It’s a family who have an encounter and how it messes up their lives and stuff.” [Directed by Timothy Bond, this was filmed as Men in Black and released as The Shadow Men - MJS]

When you say ‘an encounter’...?
“Like an encounter with an alien. Actually I’ve done a couple of things, but they’ve been smaller independent films. I did a film, Friends of Friends, and I did another one called Just Write. All of these since Boxing Helena.”

Do you like doing small, independent things? Are they more fun than the big corporate studio things?
“The big corporate studio things, I’m not necessarily considered for because, well, first of all I haven’t been in a studio film, which is interesting. MGM was the biggest studio that I worked with: Of Mice and Men. But, I’m sure you’ve heard, the way it goes there is simply: you get hired, regardless of if you’re right or wrong for the role, if you have made a movie that made so much money. So that list of girls, women, whoever they are, are considered and cast for all those roles. Not that I necessarily want to do them anyway. Because there’s very few that are big budget that have any substance or any depth or any integrity. They don’t do anything for me. So I find that in the independent world I find things that I’m more excited by. I’m more willing to take three months away from my son and feel happy to be doing it. And what I’ve done to help support that is to do a few television movies to pay the rent. And sometimes they’re really nice stories, sometimes they’re okay. It’s just the way that it is.”

You did The Elizabeth Taylor Story.
“Oh, that was really fun. That was really an event in terms of television. That wasn’t just a run of the mill thing, so I liked it. That was very difficult, but I loved having done her story.”

Did you watch a lot of her old movies to research it?
“Well, I’ve always been a really big fan, so I’ve known her work for many years. But what I got the most out of was live interviews with her. There were some wonderful, candid moments in those live interviews with her that to me really revealed who she was.”

Is there a difference between playing a role of a real person and just doing an impression of her?
“I fought to keep the integrity of the story because the producer was bringing in a horrible writer that was making it very soapy. They wanted many scenes of her when she was very overweight. I said, ‘I’m not doing that. I’ll do one. That is not this woman’s life.’ For me, it was just: I didn’t want to do an impression. She’s a lot like my mom in certain ways. My mother’s been married many, many times and grew up at the same time as she did it. Somebody that can keep believing in love like that, it’s remarkable. I just tried to play the truth of the woman; not the legend, not the stories that we hear about her. Because even when she was a child, you were seeing a version of her that was manipulated by the studios, so you didn’t really see her.

"I thought the closest she ever came to revealing herself was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and she lost herself in that role. It was cathartic for her to do that in a lot of ways, to let herself be that wild and that ugly and unattractive. Because the stories I would hear were: she could drink men under the table; she was like, ‘You fucker...’, then you’d see this beautiful, angelic-looking woman, and it was shocking, just shocking. Richard Burton said the first time he met her he saw her at this pool party across the pool. Then when he got closer to her she was just, ‘Oh fuck that!’ and he went like, ‘Whoa! Oh my God!’ So in the context of the script, which was really well written - what we could keep - in its original form.”

Hollywood biopics don’t have a reputation for being accurate, like The Buster Keaton Story. But have you ever found out what Liz Taylor thought of it herself?
“No, but a friend of hers - supposedly: she said she was a friend of hers - approached me, strangely enough, at my dermatologist’s office and congratulated me and said I did a really good job.”

Who would you have play you when they make The Sherilyn Fenn Story?
(Laughs) “I have no idea!”

What was it like 'working with' Humphrey Bogart in a Tales from the Crypt episode?
“It was odd. You were always acting to the camera. It was wonderful working with Bob Zemekis and Isabella and everybody was really nice. But it was just a weird experience because it’s all about the end product, so you’re just acting to the camera. Strange.”

Had they shown you the footage of Bogart they were going to put in there?
“No, but you know what they did? Sometimes they had a man there who looks like him. He does certain commercials, looking like him. So sometimes he would be there, but oftentimes it was just acting directly into the camera. But it was Humphrey Bogart. I starred with Humphrey Bogart.”

How familiar were you with David Lynch’s work before you got the role on Twin Peaks?
“I’d always loved and respected the work he did on The Elephant Man. It’s a devastating, beautiful, beautiful film. And Blue Velvet, which freaked me out completely! It was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’ - one of the more disturbing films I’ve ever seen. So I suppose that was it. I didn’t see Eraserhead until he requested that I see it, once we were working together. But I was very excited at the prospect of working with him. It was the only time I had gone up for television in my career up until that point.”

What is David Lynch actually like?
“I’m sure you’ve heard that description: 'Jimmy Stewart from Mars.' Yes. Because a part of him is really so sweet and pure and innocent. He’s like a big kid. He’ll tell me my take was, ‘Jim-dandy’. Or, ‘Doggone it, Sherilyn, that was cool.’ I don’t know. I forget now my little Lynch-isms, it’s been so long. I can’t think of other things he used to say. His direction is abstract. He doesn’t ever say, ‘Go do this,’ or, ‘Go do that’. He’ll just tell you some weird story, or when I did Wild at Heart he kept talking about, ‘The bobby pins, the bobby pins.’ Did you see Wild at Heart?”

Yes, I liked it.
“So you see, he’s wonderful. He’s very very creative and unafraid of taking chances. We’ll sit down and, ‘Oh, I don’t like this scene’. In Twin Peaks he rewrites this entire scene and has me dance in the middle of the room for like three minutes. ‘Just groove, honey. Just ke-e-ep moving.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. I feel like an idiot. What am I doing? Okay.’ Then you see it and with the music, he’s set this whole world up, this whole mood. I really respect him, he’s wonderful.”

What were these tentative plans to spin your character off into her own series?
“They had wanted to do that but I didn’t want to do it. My agent didn’t want me to do it.”

Would that have been David Lynch doing that series as well?
“Yes, he was talking about Mulholland Drive, he talked about doing, like 'Audrey Goes to Hollywood'. I don’t know what she was going to do in Hollywood! She’s driving along Mulholland in this convertible car... But it didn’t end up happening, obviously.”

How is David Lynch different from Jennifer Lynch who you worked with on Boxing Helena?
“Man - woman. Night - day. It’s a really huge difference. It’s completely different to work with a woman that is my age, maybe younger. David’s encouraged her, through his example of exploring dark places within oneself, but she’s less abstract. I was blown away by the script. I had heard all the stories and I didn’t want to read it. Then my agent said, ‘It’s a dream. Just read it. It’s pretty interesting.’ I was shocked that a 19-year-old girl had that perspective on relationships, that understanding. Then I met with her and we just clicked. Because we didn’t really meet - just once or twice, very briefly - on the set of Twin Peaks.”

Were you aware of all the fuss there had been with Kim Basinger?
“Uh-huh.”

Did that affect production in any way?
“No. I thought they were lucky to have lost her, frankly. I’ve never seen her do the kind of work that that role required.”

You did guest appearances in Cheers and Friends.
“Cheers was frightening, because I was like 19, and I think I had two lines. This big, live audience: I was so afraid, it was awful. But Friends was recently, Friends was a couple of months ago. It was fun, but I came out with the feeling that I’m just not a sitcom actress. (Laughs). You say a line and you wait for them to laugh, then you say another line and you wait... It felt weird to me. But it’s interesting and the energy is almost like theatre, I suppose, with all the people there. Matthew Perry was darling and really funny. All my scenes were with Matthew, basically, so it was fun. I like the show. I was happy to be part of it.”

What role did you play?
“I play a woman that Matthew meets and starts to go out with that has a wooden leg! And he judges me for my wooden leg and I judge him because he has three nipples. Like: how ironic!”

You started acting when you were 17 - was it something that you just fell into because you were in LA?
“Yes, it wasn’t something that I’d always wanted to do. My mother had met an agent who had spent some time in our house and kept encouraging me. I figured: why not? It looks fun.”

Had you done any acting at school or college?
“No. Make-believe stuff as a little girl in the basement: I did The Towering Inferno a hundred times. I was Faye Dunaway with curtains for an evening dress, but that was about it.”

Your mother was a rock musician and your aunt is Suzi Quatro. Was there ever any thought of you going into music?
“My grandpa - their father - would always ask, ‘What instrument do you hear when you listen to music?’ I’m like, ‘All of it!’ He’s like, ‘Well... then you’re a singer!’ And I love to dance. But I don’t like being up in front of tons of people. I didn’t have that in me to do it, the desire to be performing in front of a lot of people. If there’s a lot of people on a set, I get nervous. So it just wasn’t something I ever seriously considered.”

Do you go everywhere with your three-year-old son?
“Yes, everywhere. He’s been all over the world. He’s great. He’s the best thing in my life, the best thing I’ve ever done.”

What is Nightmare Street?
“This is a movie that I just did. Let me see the poster. That’s not even the daughter. I can’t believe they did that. There was a beautiful little girl played my daughter named Lauren and she was six. That little girl played... I wonder why they did that. Anyway, it’s a movie I just did for television. This is something I just did in Vancouver about three months ago. It’s a weird story. It’s basically: they’re asking you to believe that two places, two different realities, can exist at the same time. This woman, her daughter almost gets hit by a bus, and she goes after her. Then wakes up in a hospital and they’re calling her something else. She slowly has to work it out to try to get back to her child. It was interesting. It was different for television to try to do something like that. A really nice director, an Englishman called Colin Bucksey. It was really funny. But I can’t believe they did this poster. That makes me so angry, because I was so close to this little girl, Lauren. I still write to her, and that is not her. That’s another girl. She’s prettier than Lauren, maybe that’s why they did it.”

Colin Bucksey has done some episodes of Sliders and was doing some episodes of a sci-fi series, Space Island One, here on the Isle of Man recently.
“He was. He was here.”

Did you meet up with him while he was here?
“No, I didn’t. I’ll have to see him when I go to London.”

You’ve done quite a lot of sci-fi/fantasy things, like The Wraith. What were you in The Wraith?
“That was so long ago! Don’t bring up The Wraith! It wasn’t a good movie. And someone even got killed when we were making it and someone else got paralysed, so it was not good. That was with Charlie Sheen.”

Meridian, aka Kiss Of The Beast: is that another one worth forgetting?
“That is worth forgetting. That was: I go to Italy for two months and live in a castle. That was wonderful, but the movie is...”

What about Of Mice and Men? Lon Chaney Jr did a famous version.
“I never saw the original and, honestly, I’d never read the book in school or anything. So when I read the screenplay I just cried my eyes out. I couldn’t believe - it was just such a beautiful story. When I met with Gary Sinise, the director who starred in it as well, he just said, ‘You know, she’s always played - and she was written - as this horrible vamp. At one point, she threatens to get - I can’t remember the character’s name - the black man lynched. She’s horrible. And he didn’t want her to be that way. He said, ‘I see her as a sad angel, and lonely.’ She just wants attention, she wants to be loved, she wants people to talk to her: ‘What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you talk to me?’ So I was glad that he wanted to do that. He actually added a scene that was never written where she’s crying because Curly broke all her records. The only thing she has in life is her little records. So that was a wonderful experience for me, making something like that.”

With a really intense, emotional story, does that filter into the production. Can you keep morale up when you’re making something so sad?
“I think people were really happy to be a part of it. It’s wonderful when you can do work like that. You can open your heart and deal with human situations. We all have sadness in our life and things that we can draw upon. I loved it because I thought it was a love story between Lenny and George; they both need each other equally. I think people are pleased to be part of it and really excited.”

Would you like to do more adaptations of classics?
“Like that, yes. Like I say, that was just a great experience. I love John Malkovich, he’s a great actor. We ended up having so much fun. Those trials were going on then, with the guy appointed to the supreme court and Anita Hill and all that. We’d go home at night and watch these trials and argue about what happened. John’s like, ‘Oh, he fucked her. You know he fucked her.’ Making these Italian dinners and cooking. It was just a great, great time. They rented me a house, I had my dog there. We were out in the country. It was just really really nice.”

I’ve got this list of your work off the internet so it’s probably grossly inaccurate.
“Well, it’s probably not. It’s so funny, it’s so different than my resume. Because my resume is: scratch that, scratch that.”

What sort of stuff is on your resume that you’re proud of?
“I’m proud of Of Mice and Men, I’m proud of Ruby, I’m proud of The Liz Taylor Story. That’s surprising because it was a horrible shoot. It was six day weeks, 15-16 hour days. I was in every scene. It was a huge hair and make-up show. Not enough time for pre-production. I had two weeks to learn a dialect and I was doing wardrobe fittings inbetween. It was crazy. I lost so much weight. I was really sick during shooting, so I just kept thinking, ‘Just trust your instincts.’ I was so scared to see it, but when I saw it - I never like my work - but I was surprised that it worked. I liked Boxing Helena. I think it was an almost impossible story to tell. Although it has some flaws, I think it’s neat. I think it’s a really neat story, it’s a beautiful story.”

What about Two Moon Junction - are you happy with that?
“No.”

What has been your favourite role?
“I think Twin Peaks, I really loved Twin Peaks. She blossomed in a way that I never knew, and nobody knew, was going to happen. Because she was a very inconsequential character to begin with. Nobody knew that would happen. She just took on this life of her own, and she was such a brat. It was fun. It’s fun to watch that.”

My editor asked me to specifically ask you: when you made Twin Peaks, could you work out what the bloody hell it was about?
“No! I couldn’t! I’ll tell you something. When I saw the two-hour pilot, they screened it in the big theatre. When I left, I said, ‘I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m in this and I don’t understand it. This is never going to sell. Who’s going to watch this thing?’ So I was more shocked than anybody at what happened.”

Do you know what it’s about now?
“I think it’s just basically that on the surface things seem all one way, this nice little small town. But underneath there’s a lot of dirt and a lot of sadness and deprivation. Two girls in plaid skirts and sweaters, smoking cigarettes and talking about murder in the girl’s bathroom! That’s my kind of movie - I loved it!”

The big thing with Twin Peaks was: who killed Laura Palmer?
“The thing was, that was just a way to open the door to all these amazing characters in this strange world. The hard part about it was that you could be shooting for eight months and you only lived two days in the life of Twin Peaks. It was like: aargh!”

Did you work much with David Duchovny?
“No, but he was around when I was around. We’d see each other and talk, but we didn’t have scenes together. He was a transvestite in it, ordering, ‘Canteloupe Daquiri, please?’ He’s funny!”

As a film actress, how does a regular role in a big TV series affect your career?
“Twin Peaks was special because it was so groundbreaking. In the early ‘90s it really changed television a lot. A bunch of weird shows, like Northern Exposure, came on after that. And I got nominations for it - Emmys and a Golden Globe - and as a result of that, the doors went swinging open. I was meeting with Dustin Hoffman, I was meeting with top people, and I was a brat. I didn’t like anything, even then. It was crazy, I was very picky. In other words, I didn’t take advantage of what was happening necessarily then.”

You’ve just done something called National Lampoon’s The Don’s Analyst.
“Oh, that’s a film I did with Kevin Pollack. It’s a comedy that was really fun.”

Love Life?
“That was Friends of Friends, that film.”

Just Write?
“That’s another romantic comedy, with Jeremy Pivan. But these are small independent films. My brother just called and said Just Write won something at - I don’t know where - some little film festival. Love Life and Just Write are very small films, very small. It’s very hard for those kinds of films to bust out.”

What was your first film?
“My first film? You’re asking me about my first film? My first film was a thing called Out of Control where I just played this young girl. I had a small role. We shot it in Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia. Martin Hewitt, the guy from Endless Love, was in it. It’s these kids, this rich family take these kids, it’s their prom night or something. There’s a plane crash and they get stuck somewhere, and I’m like the little sister so I don’t say much! Which suited me just fine, because it was the first film I did. I was frightened.”

interview originally posted 29th November 2004

I interviewed Larry Fessenden in July 2007 and used a very small part of this to accompany a review of The Last Winterin DeathRay magazine.

What I particularly liked about The Last Winter was that it was a mixture of scientific horror, supernatural horror and psychological horror all melded together. What was your aim in terms of what sort of horror you were going for?
"I think you’ve hit it on the head. Those are the components that interest me. I’m obviously interested in the science of global warming and the changes that are going on all over the planet, particularly in these Northern climates. I’m interested in the psychology of these characters who find themselves in an increasingly untenable situation. And I have a deep affection for the real monsters and the old mythology of old monster stories. So I find myself getting into this soup of different approaches to the genre and that’s what I ended up with.

“I would say my films ultimately are about the constant battle between reality and imagined reality. The characters are dealing with very real trauma to the climate, very real things are happening around them, but they’re also suffering from some sort of mental breakdown as they try to process what’s happening. All that intrigues me. I have approached classic horror tropes before and tried to update them into the modern vernacular."

I must admit that I haven’t yet seen any of your previous films.
"You’re not alone!"

How has your work developed from your earlier movies?
"In a way, I keep making similar films. This is almost a combination of my first three films. No Telling had a rather ecological angle to it; Habit is a very psychological story about one man’s perception of his cracking reality; and Wendigo is about a kid who needs to conjure up a creature to make sense of his misfortune when his father gets shot. So in a way, this is a combination. It’s taking a more dramatic environmental crisis and putting characters in this world and they’re slowly starting to deal with it. I just find these issues extremely interesting: contemporary, social issues and basically seeing the real horror that exists in different storylines. And that’s what interests me. Like Habit is about addiction basically and a guy who’s an alcoholic and he’s convinced this woman he’s with is a vampire but it’s obviously a projection. It’s interesting how the mind plays tricks to deal with a difficult and arbitrary reality."

You wrote your last couple of scripts by yourself but on this one you’ve collaborated with a guy from New York named Robert Leaver. What did he bring to the project?
"Robby is just a great spirit and it was just so fun to have somebody to bounce ideas off. I hired him so I was still able to maintain control over the whole thing and pursue my own twisted logic and imagery but it was greatly liberating to work with another writer. Robby had a great gung-ho spirit and really understood the character of Pollack. We had a lot of fun working out all the angles. So it was just really nice to have someone to develop the ideas along with.

“Also my producer made a lot of contributions, not least of which is he took me up to Alaska. A lot of the script that Robby and I had written was then supplemented with the real information. Just actually seeing these vistas changed the way we saw the story because we had written these beautiful Alaskan landscapes with pine trees and great mountains and what I found in reality was that the area we were thinking of depicting in the story was very, very flat. That brought a whole new level of horror to the story, this idea of a claustrophobia in open spaces. My producer is very technical minded and he loves the details of the oil technology and all those potentials so it was a wonderful level with Robby and also with Jeff Levy-Hinte."

Why did you shoot it in Iceland?
"We looked, as I say, in Alaska and we were both taking in the scenery and also seeing if it was practical to shoot up there and it really became clear that there was not enough of a film community. And no film community would be welcome in the Northern clime where there really is the oil drilling and there’s a great deal of secrecy and just general antagonistic atmosphere to outsiders. They have a job to do and there’s issues of safety and then also they’re feeling that they don’t want prying liberals walking about.

“Then we went to Canada which was the logical place, also very flat, but I found that the snow would be unreliable and we just weren’t sure that we could get the landscape right. Then Jeff had some connections to Iceland and the producer Jony Sighvatsson. So we went there and we scouted and it was just a delightful array of locations and welcoming, experienced crews, so we set up the picture there."

I think that the Icelandic cinematographer makes a big contribution to the film.
"Working with Magni was absolutely spectacular. He’s a very young guy; I think he was 26 when we shot. But he was a native of Iceland and what I think was a wonderful move by myself and Jeff the producer was to embrace the idea of a completely Icelandic crew so they all knew each other and they were all very at home in this brutal weather. They knew the landscapes and they knew how to take a 35mm camera and a couple of lenses out on a skidoo and set up a shot, something that you just couldn’t get from an imported director of photography.

“Magni had a great sense of the light and a great love of the landscape so that just contributed tremendously. And we of course had a lot of films in common that we liked and that we referenced. We had a whole way of speaking in code about what we wanted to do. We called locked-off cameras ‘Gordos’ after Gordon Willis and handheld cameras were something else. We really had a great rapport and it was an excellent experience."

You’ve also got a terrific cast. What stands out is that there are no beautiful young people stuck in there for the kids to relate to.
"Well I must admit that I approach my films as stories about real people in real situations and, as you see, there was no real opportunity to have some young nubiles. That would be nice, I look forward to making that film of course. I’m going to make a movie about a high school next...

“But I was very interested in telling this story of the two main characters, played by Perlman and LeGros, just being guys who are working for a living, who have strong world views. Those world views clash and Abby, played by Connie Britton, is the woman who is somehow stuck inbetween. In a way, she is the everyman in the story. She is the one who is being told either that the world is going to collapse at any minute from global warming - the Al Gore sect if you will - and then there’s the other side of the coin which is: we must carry on with business and keep the economy strong, the gung-ho spirit that everything will work out if we just keep our nose to the grindstone. This kind of old-school, American spirit. Those two views are clashing and she’s in the middle, being torn between each point of view."

Was it difficult to create a fully rounded, sympathetic character for Pollack whose views are obviously opposed to your own?
"As I say, I feel like he represents this gung-ho American spirit which is something that even a raving liberal has to appreciate, the spirit with which this country was built and this kind of can-do attitude. It’s something that I had no trouble in embracing and having a deep affection for. What I wanted to convey is that he’s out-of-step with an encroaching reality and he’s unwilling to adjust. If I was making a commentary, that is what I’m trying to convey: that somebody can be wrong and still somewhat loveable and certainly compelling as a character. I wanted Ron Perlman in the role because I’d seen Hellboy and there is a grumpy character but there’s so much pathos and affection underneath the red skin that I knew Ron could bring that to this blowhard character that I was trying to depict."

Am I right in thinking that Douglas Buck shot a Making Of documentary on the film?
"Yes, Douglas is a great friend and we’ve helped each other and encouraged each other over the years with different projects. He wanted to come and make a portrait of my process. He’d already done a portrait of Abel Ferrara in the past. It was fun to have him over for four or five days to get some behind the scenes footage.

“Doug has remade Sisters by Brian DePalma and that has made a splash. I don’t know what will happen over in the UK with that. So he’s underway now. He’s hoping to make another feature this fall. So yes, the masterpiece will come but it just takes time sometimes when you’re working with the restrictions that come with these low-budget movies.”

How has the movie been received where it’s been shown?
"Well, all my films have strong reactions because of course they don’t fit neatly into the horror model. And now we have an increasingly extreme graphic violence which is what we associate with horror films. So those who come to see that are going to be sorely disappointed. On the other hand I think people who like horror for other reasons - for the metaphors, for the mood, for the potential titillation of a supernatural presence, all the things that horror actually has to offer - those people often are carried along with my style of filming. It’s always a love/hate thing and maybe that’s just as well. I always say if I’m objecting to my own culture in general, why would I expect it to embrace my work?"

Finally, what have you got planned next?
"Well, I’m involved with projects at different levels in different roles and I enjoy that. I’m producing a number of low-budget genre fare and other types of films. For myself, I expect to make a very low-budget film in Mexico if I can get my head together on that. So I’m interested now, after this luxurious budget and the demands that come with that, the expectations. I had no restraints but there’s still an implied restraint that you have to listen to more voices when you have an enormous budget. This was a small budget by most accounts but enormous by my standards. So I look forward to doing something very small that’s really not going to damage anyone’s pocket book but where I can be even more creative. It’s just for me to be able to jump around different budget levels and continue to push the envelope of my own twisted vision.”

website: www.glasseyepix.com
interview originally posted 22nd July 2008

Here is an unpublished interview with Robert Scott Field, the Japan-based, American actor who played Android M11 in Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah. Mr Field very kindly granted me this interview when he was a guest at the wonderful G-Fest convention in Los Angeles in 1999.

How did you get the role of Android M11 in Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah?
“I went to Japan as a baseball player professionally, and it didn’t work out. It’s a very long story so I’ll just say it didn’t work out. But while being there I happened to teach a little bit of English at a school over there, and a famous Japanese comedian wanted to learn English, so I taught him. And then I worked in radio, and then I worked on another radio show, and one of the other guests who was on the show with me was Mr Kazuki Omori, who is the director of Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah. At the time, because we did this radio programme together, he liked me and he wanted to put some foreigners into his movies. But just because I knew him didn’t mean I had the part. I had to go to an audition in Tokyo and at the audition they had me run, they had me lifting, they had me do a lot of things. They said, ‘You’d be perfect for the android part.’ And it just started from then. At the beginning, M11 was really not that big a part either, but as one of the scenes went really well, they said, ‘Hey this is great. We have to use him for some more.’ I got a very big script and a lot of lines and a lot of action scenes and it just went from there. It got bigger than life, actually. It was great.”

Had you done any acting before?
“In Japan I’d done a little bit in a few plays over there. I picked up Japanese fairly fast, so I’ve done a couple of comedy shows with Japanese comedians, and a few other things. But Godzilla was my first big break. So not very much at all, actually, but it just started from there.”

Is there a pool of westerners that the Japanese call on?
“There are about five really famous foreigners in Japan. One of them’s from Africa, and I think the other three or four are from the United States. I think they’re pooled into the same agency; I am not. I live in Osaka, which is about three hours away by bullet train from Tokyo; it’s the second largest city. So I’m not completely national yet. Saying you’re very big somewhere isn’t really good, but I’m fairly well-known in Kansai which is Osaka and Kobe and Nagoya and places like that. So I’m very well known there. I’m working to go national, and I’ve done a few television programmes that are national, so people know me from all over. But I’m pretty much freelance myself, I have my own agency now, and you just work from your connections that you get through different associations. That’s how it’s happened for me.”

How familiar were you with Godzilla when you took this role?
“As a child I loved Godzilla and in fact I thought he was an American monster when I saw that first movie. So I was really worried about it when he fought King Kong because I found out he wasn’t an American monster so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to cheer him on when King Kong was American! But I heard a lot of people who did the same thing, so I felt better about that. But yes, I’ve seen him since I was a little kid. I haven’t collected as many toys as everybody else here: this is really amazing - to see all the toys everybody is buying. But I’ve loved Godzilla ever since I was a kid; never thought I would be in a movie but I really feel good about that.”

Had you seen some of the new Godzilla films from the 1980s?
“Yes, I’d seen some of them. In fact I think I saw Godzilla Vs Biollante before I was even in his movie. So I’d seen what Mr Omori had done before. In fact I like Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah best of all; not because I was in it but just because it had story to it and the action was good. I thought it was a very nice movie.”

Did you get to watch any of the special effects sequences being shot?
“Yes I did. I got to see how they handled King Ghidorah - all the ropes that they have on him for the wings and the heads and the tails and everything else. It was a piece of work, it was really nice. Nowadays, they use some computer graphics and stuff, but still for a lot of their basic shots, they have - I don’t know - 15 or 20 people working on it at one time sometimes. Which is amazing - all that teamwork they have to go through.”

Did you dub your own voice?
“Not for the English version, no. I don’t even know who dubbed my voice. In fact, I didn’t even see the English version until about two months ago when somebody sent me the tape from the States. I wasn’t even asked to do it. I guess somebody else just decided to put it out. It’s an English voice, it’s not even my voice. It was kind of funny watching it. But in the actual movie I’m speaking Japanese and English at the same time, so the new voice is not mine.”

Some of your dialogue was in English?
“Yes, for example, ‘Time warp engaging now,’ or something like that, then throw out some Japanese. Simple English that Japanese people would understand. Then because I was an android I spoke like an android, a little bit stiffer than most of the humans. But apparently they seemed to like it very much.”

For some sequences your running is speeded up.
“In fact, to speed up my running they told me not to run as fast but to run in longer leaps so it looked like I was running faster when they speeded it up. So I did my best and that turned out pretty good too.”

Were you involved in promoting the film?
“Yes, I was. I went to all the previews, signed autographs for many, many hours at a time. I wore a Japanese kimono and they seemed to like that too. At the beginning they didn’t even know who I was. When they showed the preview, we did our part before some of them and after some of them too. So when I went to one where they’d seen the movie and then they saw that I was M11 they really got a big kick out of that. They just loved it, and I was signing autographs for three or four hours at a time before they had to make me quit. It was excellent, I was in heaven, it was just a lot of fun. I never thought I’d be famous in Japan.”

Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah has a really complicated time travel story. Could you follow it?
“When we were making it, I read the story so I could basically follow it that way. But as we were filming it, because we were filming out of order, I didn’t understand a lot of what we were doing. When I finally saw it I understood pretty much what was going on because I do speak Japanese, I understood what the Japanese actors and actresses were saying. So I basically picked it up but it was a little bit difficult at the beginning. You basically need to see it twice to understand it more.”

Did the Japanese cast and crew accept you, or were you seen as a bit of a novelty?
“At the beginning, I think most of the foreigners were a novelty. But in my case I speak Osaka dialect and it’s very big in Japan right now. Although we filmed most of it in the Tokyo area, they got a big kick out of my Japanese dialect. So we got along great from the very beginning. I would throw out jokes here and there and they would laugh about it. Mr Omori, who is also from Konsei, which is also in the Osaka area, he and I have got on very well ever since we did a radio programme together. So we’d throw jokes at each, and it worked out very well. They took me right in; I think if I was only a novelty it would have worn off after a couple of days, but we seemed to get along for the whole three and a half months that I filmed.”

That’s a hell of a shooting schedule.
“I wasn’t on every day, though. They had a lot of other things going on. But yes, it spanned over about three and a half months.”

What effect has this had on your career?
“I’ve been in one TV movie, and two other movies for the movie theatres. It’s done me well; it’s started something. In fact, I thought it would be a lot bigger than that actually, but a lot of people have forgotten that I was in a Godzilla movie until you remind them sometimes. The children all remember me but the adults don’t remember me all that well. But it did start me in a good direction, so now I’m doing radio and TV and lectures all over Japan. So it’s helped my career, given it a boost.”

Did they ever do an M11 toy?
“They were thinking about it, but apparently they didn’t get round to it, because I haven’t seen any. In fact, they were thinking at the time, because my character was so popular, they were going to make a TV series out if it, and probably not even base it on Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah. Just make an M11 series. And they started it but apparently, because the economic bubble had just burst in Japan, they never had the money or the funding to do it. So it never came around. But there’s always talk that it may happen sometime in the future. It would be nice - I’d love the job!”

Animator Joel Fletcher kindly answered a half-dozen e-mail questions from me in October 2006.

How did you become involved with Charlie Band and Full Moon Entertainment?
“Around 1994 I was hired by animator David Allen, who was Full Moon's visual effects supervisor. At that time, David was focused on directing his dream project Primevals. All of the hands-on work for any other films was mostly given to his crew to accomplish. I animated on numerous Full Moon films over a one year period such as Dragonworld, Oblivion, Subspecies 3 and Puppet Master 5. Then Full Moon abruptly shut down due to questionable business practices.”

What constraints of time, budget etc did you have to overcome when working on straight-to-video films like Magic Island?
“Almost all stop-motion projects are low-budget and therefore have time and budgetary restrictions. On a typical day, a shot is not set up and ready for animation until mid-afternoon, and the animation is expected to be finished before the day is over. I always strive to give each shot my best effort, but the quality does often suffer from lack of time. The animation for Magic Island had barely started when Full Moon went under. Fortunately the insurance bond company eventually stepped in to provide completion money. However, their main interest was to get the animation finished as soon as possible. Overall, the Stone Giant sequence from that film came out pretty well considering the circumstances.”

By 1995, dynamation as a special effects technique had pretty much died out: why did you decide to use it for the Stone Giant?
“The decision to use the dynamation technique for Magic Island was mainly due to the equipment available at Full Moon Productions. Effects supervisor Joseph Grossberg is an expert in the method, so it was a logical choice. Joseph shot the background plates and did the lighting and set-ups. I handled the animation, and sculpted the puppet and props. As far as I know, Magic Island was the last film to be released using the dynamation technique. Now that film audiences are more sophisticated in their expectations due to CG animation, dynamation is no longer a viable effects choice. It was great to have been involved in projects that used that dying art!”

What parts of The Nightmare Before Christmas were you responsible for, and what do you think of the new 3D version
“The Nightmare Before Christmas was one of the rare opportunities for animators to do their best work. The average time spent per shot was a week, versus one day on most other shows. My main sequence in the film was when Jack was launching his sleigh in the fog. I animated Santa Jack, the Mayor, the three Musicians, and the Skeleton Reindeer. Additionally, I animated several of the sequences where the kids in the real world get Jack's demented presents, as well as various other shots scattered throughout the film.

“Regarding the new release of the film, I found the 3D effect to be somewhat lacking. It is actually quite amazing that a 2D film can be converted to 3D, and the guys at ILM did an impressive job of simulating the stereo effect. But ultimately, it is simulated, not genuine 3D stereo. Having personally shot numerous 3D stereo photos of the actual Nightmare set-ups, I know more than anyone how the film should really look in 3D. So, I'm going to be far more critical of the conversion process than your average person.

“True stereo photography has an intimate, powerful, ‘you are there’ quality that makes 3D unique. This 2D to 3D thing reminds me of when studios were ‘colourising’ black and white films. It never replaces the real thing. To me, 2D to 3D conversion lacks the ‘wow factor’ that only film actually shot in 3D stereo can give. One thing I do like is the new digital 3D projection itself. It’s fantastic! Now if the studios would only combine that with 3D films properly created with twin cameras, and a cameraman who knows his stuff, they would have a superior product. If they persist with this 3D conversion, the audience will get turned off and lose interest fast.”

How and why did you move from stop motion animation to computer animation?
“Stop-motion projects were never really in very high demand, and were becoming even more scarce by 1995. Jurassic Park had recently been released, and I could definitely see where the wind was blowing for animation. I had been a professional stop-motion animator for over 10 years by then, so I was ready for something different anyway. So I bought my first computer and began teaching myself CG. Shortly after that, I was hired by Disney Feature Animation to join a very small crew creating the pilot film for Dinosaur.

“CG animators were quite rare then, and I was sort of a test case to see if a traditional animator could convert to CG. There was no training program, I just had to learn by reading the software manuals and asking questions from my co-workers. It all turned out well, because I became a Supervising Animator when Dinosaur went into full production. Unfortunately, I have not animated via stop-motion since then. If the right project comes along, I would love to return to the great art of stop-motion!”

What are you working on at the moment?
“Since returning from working on the King Kong film in New Zealand last year, I have mostly been working on smaller shows. I took a fair amount of time off to work on personal art projects, as well as creating my website to showcase my art. I've done a lot of commercials lately, and am currently doing a series of ads for the Montana's restaurant chain. They feature two talking taxidermy heads: a deer and a moose. Fun character work!”

website: www.joelfletcher.com
interview originally posted 23rd October 2006

Ron Ford has established a niche for himself, and a reputation, as a reliable creator of low-budget, independent films. Since 1994 he has written and directed (and produced and edited) nearly 20 films and has acted in many more. Among his best known movies are Mark of Dracula, Hollywood Mortuary, The Crawling Brain, V-World Matrix and the subject of this interview,Dead Season.

What circumstances led to the production of Dead Season?
“William Combs was a fan of my movie Hollywood Mortuary, and was also a friend and fan of its star, Randal Malone. His dream was to produce low-budget horror movies, and when he fell into some money, that's just what he did. He came to me and said he wanted to reassemble the Hollywood Mortuary team and finance a Randal Malone vehicle which I would write and direct. That collaboration became The Crawling Brain, which was the first movie I made which I felt eclipsed Hollywood Mortuary as my favourite work. It pretty much is the movie saw in my head, and I was quite pleased with it.

“Combs was so pleased with the picture that, even before he had a distributor for Brain, he decided to finance a second picture. Another vehicle for Randal Malone. We both wanted to try for something a little more dense and less campy. And William had a title in his head that he had always wanted to use: Dead Season. Well, that made me think of The Shining, a story that takes place at a hotel during the off season, when it is closed down. A lonely image indeed. I thought the location we had at our disposal would make a serviceable Bed and Breakfast, so that's what the hotel became.”

Was there anything you achieved with Dead Season that you haven’t achieved before, or which marks a progress from your previous films?
“Yes, I was much more loose in story structure here than in the past, allowing the story to find its own way rather than forcing it to conform to the normal three-act structure. I was much more conscious of the themes I was exploring. My focus was on them and the characters, not on finding places for shock scenes and excuses for exploitation elements. Normally, I am hired by a distributor/producer who wants a specific project to pigeonhole in the marketplace. Combs set me free and told me to make as good a movie as I could, as long as in it there were a few moments he could put into a trailer to sell it as a serial killer movie.

“It is a serial killer movie, but one turned inside out and inward on itself. The focus is not on the acts, or even the psychology of the killer, but on the people it affects and the unknown cosmic forces which brings them all together. Most of my other movies have been an attempt to make something fun, fast and entertaining only. Here, I went out of my way to indulge myself personally, knowing that my vision had plenty of payoff for the audience, too, and that nobody would leave bored.”

Was there anything that you wanted to achieve but couldn’t?
“No, it was conceived for this budget and was executed exactly as planned. I am really very pleased with it. If we had more budget we could have expanded some things and done them in a bigger way, but like I say, it was planned for this budget, so I didn't feel compromised.”

On a low-budget movie like this, how many drafts does the script go through before shooting, and what sort of changes were required once production started?
“Normally, on my own movies, I do two drafts. Same here. When I write a first draft though I am constantly moving back and revising things as I progress forward. I do that so much that I do feel my first drafts are more like third drafts. The first draft of Dead Season, the actual kill scenes were much more conventional; your typical serial killer movie-type suspense scenes. Combs thought the rest of the script was better than that and asked me to tone down the blood and do something different with the kill scenes. And am I glad he did, because it forced me to rethink it.

“That's when the scene with the philosophical lovers evolved; them discussing the nature of the fabric of reality just before they are slaughtered in their bed. It opens the movies and sets up the themes in a pretty unique way. Another kill scene that was changed was the one with the fighting couple, where the man murders his wife and then becomes a murder victim himself. Again, that was a more conventional stalk-and-kill scene originally. I decided to dispense with traditional suspense altogether and go for some kind of twisted, psychotic irony with those scenes.”

What is the reasoning behind casting ‘guest stars’ like Joe Estevez and Margaret O’Brien - is it just for name value?
“Name value and because I could. Doesn't hurt in selling the picture, and gives it more class than your average micro-budget shot-on-video movie. Plus, they are both friends that I adore and adore working with. Joe is an intense actor who is never used very well. He's great when he gets fierce and intense, so I wanted to exploit that, also.”

How content or frustrated are you, working at this level of film-making?
“If they can all be like the movies with Combs, I would be content the rest of my life. He gives me freedom and sufficient resources to do a credible job. The frustrations have been great working for others, though. They want what they want, so the creative freedom is much less. I feel, however, that I have been pigeonholed as somebody who can reliably deliver a marketable picture, and people have come to depend on me for that. Of course I would like to move up to larger budgets and bigger rewards. Until then, I will keeping plugging away, making movies any way I can.”

I met Ken Foree at the AFM in 1998 where he was promoting a forthcoming sci-fi project called Pale Dreamer. As far as I know, that film never got made but I was able to get this rather impromptu interview out of it.

How did you get involved with Pale Dreamer?
"How did I get involved with this project? Jeff Varga called me and got in touch with my agent and quite frankly they wanted me from the beginning. They sent me a script of Pale Dreamer and asked me if I was interested in getting involved. And I told them that yes, I’d read it; I said ‘I like this script.’ That was about a year ago. Then I got another call from Brian Thomas and he said, ‘We want you in.’ They contacted my manager and we started to talk about deals. I agreed to do it. We had a reading and I loved the script, I loved the characters and the other actors. We had an immediate rapport - we really got along. That nip and tuck kind of thing that was in this great script where we have a go at each other - and we had it going during the reading of the screenplay."

Tell me about your character.
"My character is a Moslem. He’s kind of the - well, I wouldn’t say Fred Stanford - but he’s a fix-it-all. He’s a great technician, he is a jack of all trades in terms of repairing and keeping a ship going that really shouldn’t be in space. It’s kind of a worn-out, overused hunk of junk that he keeps running with bailing wire and rubber bands."

Are you one of the good guys?
"I am the good guy and my partner is the good girl."

I would imagine that, being a tall, bald, black guy you get cast as the bad guy quite a bit.
"You know something? I’ve done about half and half. Most people remember me because I do sometimes - and I regret it - but I do intimidate by just standing here. I don’t have these sinister thoughts and I’m basically a teddy bear, but everyone thinks that I’m this imposing figure that’s always playing bad guys. I’ve played about half and half - I’ve played cops, heroes in all the horror films I’ve done - and people remember me for both. At this time I’m doing a series for Nickelodeon that goes out on Saturday nights at 9pm. It’s called the Kenan and Kel show and I play the father of a family."

That plays on Saturday mornings in the UK.
"It sometimes plays Saturday mornings here too - it switches around. And I’m the father. That’s comedy, although I still play a mean father because the kids are always getting me into something. I’m either getting hit with something or I’m slipping on something. Basically that’s what I’m doing. Some good guys, some bad guys, and now I’m the almost Cosby-like guy on a family situation comedy where I take a lot of hits from kids."

You’re best known for George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Does it help that you have that profile among the fans?
"Well, you know, I’ve worked with Romero and a lot of people remember me from Dawn of the Dead. There’s certainly a great following for that film. But also I’ve done seven or eight other horror films and a lot of TV work. So I think that’s a combination of all that and in this genre, what with doing Dawn of the Dead and it being a success. We opened Dawn and didn’t think it would play in America; I thought it would play in foreign markets. But we opened and in Variety we were number one the first week, the second week number two and the third week number three. And that’s not bad going against some of the top films in the country at that point. So it did very well and it’s one of the ones that I’m more famous for in this genre, but I’ve done about five or six horror films."

What are some of the other ones you’ve done?
"Oh heck. Well, The Dentist is one not so long ago. Death Spa, Phantom of the Mall."

You know what Death Spa was called in England?
"What?"

Witch Bitch.
"(Laughs) Appropriately enough! Absolutely. Whoever thought of that must have just thought: ‘This is what we have to call it’! Perfect, perfect. Let’s see: what else? Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - I think it was III! And a few others."

Do you find that when you’ve been in a few horror films, the horror directors associate you with the genre and cast you again?
"Not necessarily. I think I’ve got most of these roles purely through the audition process. I don’t think it was because I’ve done the other horror films. With this one, I think the people who wrote this screenplay had me in mind because of my work in horror. Basically I don’t think the others did. I just put in and won the job and that was it, plain and simple.”

Daniel J Fox, writer/director of Dreamscape, kindly agreed to an e-mail interview after I reviewed his film. When I sent him a few questions I had no idea that his answers would be quite so extensive and detailed.

What was the inspiration for Dreamscape and how close is the finished film to what you originally intended?
“The inspiration behind the film was two-fold: firstly a wish to shoot a black and white film and secondly to make a hard-edged, adult sci-fi thriller. The finished film is far more visually ambitious and plot-dense than the 20-minute short we set out to make but the intent behind the film is the same, showing a man believing he can live without consequences and finally getting his come-uppance. The additional material and increased use of special effects simply placed the story within a larger world, allowing some of the background characters to breath.”

What sort of balance did you aim for between special effects and production design supporting the story and a story which gave scope for production design and special effects?
“The script we started shooting in 2005 was for a more intimate and enclosed film, taking place inside - never really venturing into the ‘wider world’. The Conference Centre sequence was about as large as it got and that was using an existing location, which we thankfully had free access to. The intention was to film 90 per cent of the film using real locations but we quickly ran into problems when we started scouting exterior locations for the Sky Plaza building and the Man’s apartment. We were desperately looking for buildings that would give the film scale and scope and although there are some buildings in Liverpool that almost fitted the bill, filming them was another challenge in itself. Anyone who’s been to New York will know that unless you’re a few blocks away from a building, you don’t get any sense of scale. I lost the Empire State and I was one block away!

“Paramount to any film of this type is establishing the geography of the locations in relation to each other and events. My films, by the nature of their narratives, often cross cut between two, three, four locations in any given scene and one of the big lessons Vendetta taught me is how easily audiences get confused if your establishing shots are obscure or missing. Now for a normal low budget film this is relatively easy as your locations are usually houses, pubs, offices etc. The world we were looking to create was something a little more challenging and it just didn’t exist in the real world.

“This isn’t a problem restricted to low budget films. In Total Recall you get no sense of the city Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character lives in. The film settles for using a few glass and concrete buildings in selected exterior shots but you never feel you’re in the heart of a big city. It’s about mindset I think rather than pounds you have to spend.

“In 2005 we started experimenting with CGI effects using Cinema 4D for another project, so I initially asked Joe to model up an exterior view of the Man’s apartment for a handful of shots. These models were never used but they served as a springboard for all the CGI work that was to follow.

“The digital city, which took Joe over a year to build, suddenly opened up the scope of the film-making to an unprecedented degree. Of course there’s a certain amount of spectacle associated with any special effects work but from a director’s point of view it allowed me to start making films the way I’ve always dreamed of. If a location didn’t exist we’d simple build it. Having a simple shot like the Man looking out over the city from his apartment was simply a matter of render times and compositing in the live-action footage. The shot looks stunning but it also tells the story, placing the character firmly within his environment. The story could have been told without CGI environments but it would have been less credible and would have definitely felt like a £5,000 movie.”

What were the advantages and disadvantages to playing the lead role as well as writing, directing and producing?
“The main advantage is very simple: the film is complicated and features action, lots of dialogue and locations. To get an actor to commit to the number of days we were looking at, often at short notice as locations came available, was always going to be difficult. I was going to be on set every day we shot, I knew the script inside out, could write to my strengths and try to avoid my weaknesses. Practically, it was the only way to go to get the film made. If we’d had the money and the full crew, we could have shot the film very quickly, going from scene to scene, and I would happily have brought another actor in to play the part.

“Disadvantages: when you’re acting you’re sometimes unable to see the scene as a whole. Thankfully I have a good team in Mark and Chris so I’m happy to rely on them in those situations. The other main disadvantage is that 90 per cent of the time I place the camera, choose lens length and framing. To simply tell a DP I want a close-up is meaningless to me as the position of the camera and composition of the frame are as vital decisions as choice of costume or set. Putting the camera in the wrong place or with the wrong lens or lighting is like an artist using the wrong shade or type of paint. So while I tweak the lighting before filming a set-up, a member of crew often has to stand in for me, but this rarely slows us down and is simply a variation on what goes on in big budget features.”

What was the biggest technical challenge in making Dreamscape, and the biggest artistic challenge?
“If you put the high number of digital shots to one side for a second, without doubt the greatest technical challenge was looping practically every line of dialogue and re-recording every sound effect. My last film Vendetta used nearly all live-sound and it really brought the overall quality of the film down. The one scene we did dub was insanely tough to do but the results were stunning. A lot of Dreamscape’s locations were hardly sound-friendly so dubbing was the only way to go. ADR is a time-consuming process; getting a performance with life and energy away from the set is always challenging but not impossible and when you see or rather hear it in place, it’s worth the effort.

“Looping footsteps, coat noises, files being moved about, cups picked up and put down are just technical exercises - but by rebuilding the sound from the ground up you can be very specific about what you want the audience to hear. Also nothing is given to you, so you really have to learn not just to put in the necessary sfx, but also miscellaneous ones off in the distance that give the mix the random haphazardness of ‘real life’.

“All these recorded elements then had to be handed over to Joe who mixed them, adding suitable reverb and ambience tracks. Joe’s done several audio plays for Big Finish so he’s used to this kind of ground-up approach to sound. The difference here is the audio is subservient to the visuals and specific sfx are vital to certain visual aspects coming to life.

“The CGI effects were a technical challenge in many ways, but more of an artistic one. The models, which were built and textured by my brother, were detailed to a certain level and then, on a shot-by-shot basis, extra details or additional buildings were added as we used wider angles on the city or showed it from an angle we’d never intended to.

“I’ve shot miniatures before and there the main challenge is making sure (a) the models are big enough and (b) you have sufficient light to give you a believable depth field. In CGI the models are virtual so making them bigger or smaller is done at the click of a mouse. The more complicated the model the longer it takes to render; individual frames took anywhere between an hour and 15 hours! Depth of field is an effect applied to each frame as it finishes so that needs to be tested beforehand, as does the lighting. All this time you’re trying to give a sense of reality and scale, dirt, grime, weathering, atmospheric light - everything that location filming or miniatures give you for free.

“CGI is like painting with boxing gloves on - every time a shot comes out half decent it’s a shock and you study it like crazy to work out why this shot worked so well and the five previously didn’t. Towards the end we got very inventive with the shots and were able to match the lighting with the live-action much closer.”

Why did you opt for black and white photography in such a futuristic film?
“There are a few technical reasons and plenty of artistic ones. Firstly it has nothing to do with Sin City - which is not really a black and white movie, rather a literal extrapolation of the graphic novel. I was obviously aware that the film was being made but carefully steered away from the overly stylised look they were going for.

“I’m a huge B/W movie fan - Citizen Kane, Sweet Smell of Success, Touch of Evil, The Apartment, Seconds, The Manchurian Candidate, Avengers, 1960s Doctor Who - and I just love the look and feel that you can achieve. When we were originally chatting about making the film I pulled DVD after DVD off the shelf and showed them to Mark. Not for things to copy, but just showing how B/W give you a different mood and atmosphere. It also goes back to Orson Welles’ comment to Peter Bogdanovich: “I defy you to show me a good performance in colour.” Now while I don’t necessarily agree with that 100 per cent I do think B/W changes an audience perception of an actor and their performance. You strip out the colour and you’re left with a very stark, stylised world which immediately screams ‘this is a movie’ but also allows you in a strange way to focus on the performance.

“Dreamscape was shot on DV - which doesn’t have the greatest colour range, something I had found rather depressing on Vendetta. However well that was lit, I could never capture what I wanted. If you strip out the colour and reduce everything to shades of white and black you only have to worry about making sure you have sufficient contrast to give you a crisp, sharp image.

“Also, like film, video has to be balanced for daylight or tungsten (light bulbs). If you mix the light you will end up with the daylight blue or the tungsten orange - which is a sure sign of a low budget film. You can compensate by gelling either the lamps or any windows, but that takes time and with the speed we wanted to film would have been an added level of complications. Shooting in black and white you can forget colour temperature and just shoot the film.

“The other aspect I found appealing when shooting B/W is all about separation and that only comes about through careful design. When shooting with colour you can film a man in a light brown jumper against a grey wall and you will easily differentiate where the man stops and wall begins. In B/W there is always the danger that shades can mix and blend - which forces you to be specific about costumes, colours, patterns, wall papers, framing of shots, use of light etc.

“Also, from films like Minority Report I knew the benefits heavy grading of a film can give when trying to incorporate a high number of visual effects. A lot of modern film photography is so crisp, so clean, so artificial that you lose any sense of a real world. This is death for sci-fi which is all fake to begin with. If the look of the film is as plastic as the sets, you’re in big trouble. Starship Troopers and Total Recall: both are horrifically expensive films but they look like overblown TV episodes shot on very big but rather shoddy sets. You compare them to the mood and atmosphere they achieved on Lord of the Rings or any Ridley Scott film and the difference in quality is unbelievable.

“Now Starship Troopers and Total Recall have no excuse for looking cheap; they had lots of money and teams of technicians working on them. We had two or three people and a handful of lights but there was no way I was going to turn in a bad looking movie if we could help it. I never go into a project thinking ‘this is low budget so if it’s not perfect - oh well.’ If the lighting, special effects or a prop aren’t up to industry standard, I lose sleep. Black and white is like a free level of production design for a movie if you use it correctly - a layer of varnish which smoothes and eases often disparate elements together.”

Why is much of the film set in a convention centre?
“So much of film making at this level is down to practicalities. If you are a writer/director who understands that you can turn this to your advantage, you work with it and make changes to simplified things. The original script always had the trap set in the convention centre, the Man escaped and we never returned there. All of the scenes with the agents that followed were scripted to take place in the ‘Agency’ HQ. Very easy to write.

“About a week before we shot all the scenes with the Secretary in the Agency HQ it became clear the location we’d chosen wasn’t going to work and an alternative had to be found. The only one available was in the same building as we were using for the Conference Centre and there was no way an audience was going to believe they weren’t the same building.

“This is where a little bit of tinkering at the script level allows two locations to become one. A few lines from the Investigator about mobile command centres and the addition of the Conference Centre manager - and the Government agents had lost their HQ and were now dumped in the Conference Centre. The benefit of this was that they were out of their natural environment and didn’t have everything they needed at their finger tips, giving them a nice dislocated feel. They’re having to make do, sleep in the lobby, borrow offices, while they search the building for clues. It also allows for a bit of fun with the idea that: whenever a big security operation like this happens, how many people going about their day-to-day jobs suddenly go into limbo until the authorities have finished their work?

“For us, it meant we could light and shoot all the Secretary’s office scenes in one day, filming from two till nine at night. Let no one ever say I don’t shoot scenes fast and then collapse before the next day’s shooting. The building is interesting to film in, gives you lots nice angles, we did have the free run of the place which is always helpful and on this level of film making you have to use everything that’s free to the max.”

What is your background in film-making and how did you bring the Chat Noir team together?
”I met Mark (DP and co-producer) at High School and, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been writing scripts and he’s been editing them. He has a large folder somewhere in his house with over 15 years’ worth of scripts in various states of completion. These ranged from blockbusters to TV, new Star Trek films to horror movies - always sci-fi/fantasy, often with James Bond elements, always insanely ambitious!

“I’ve always had a fascination with film and TV - and even from a very early age in the mechanics and trickery involved. I was brought up on Captain Scarlet repeats, Doctor Who, Thunderbirds, Stingray and my tastes have stayed in that area. I like programmes and films that use all the tricks, crafts and arts to their fullest. A kitchen sink drama would have about as much appeal to me as a dose of botulism - there is simply no challenge. Also I like films and TV that entertain and take you places as a viewer. If I want to see ‘real life’ (which is a conceit anyway as all films are highly manipulative constructs) I’ll hop on a bus.

“Through my teens I bought every book on make-up, special effects, cameras etc. This was when making of books actually had something interesting to say rather than ‘we built it in a computer.’ The language of film to me is close-up, long, pan etc. but it also includes matte-painting, rotoscope, miniatures, forced perspective. These are never tricks for tricks’ sake, simply other tools in a director’s armoury. To me this is how films are made - the technique is never of interest, simply the result.

“I brought all these crazy ideas with me when I went to University in Wrexham. I turned up with boxes of puppet heads and prosthetics, folder after folder of storyboards for some minor sci-fi epic. I don’t think they really knew what to make of it all - but asked would I be happy filming on location. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but quickly learnt. The University didn’t have any studio space so any films had to be made on the streets or in whatever location we could be borrow or steal. Now this was a challenge, shall we say, for a fresh-faced student ready to make his version of Blade Runner or Star Wars but thankfully the group of lads on the course were just as insane as I was and we knuckled down to it and taught ourselves how to make films.

“Mark had no plans for university so I suggested he join the course. He’d just finished a stage management course at college (specialising in lighting) and jumped at the chance.

“Four years later I left with a rather swanky BA (Hons) first class - for a degree we’d convinced the University to create for our group. In that time I’d made a good number of films, music videos and promos. Mindfield, a sci-fi short, had make-up effects, prop guns, a miniature cityscape, a miniature nuclear missile complete with silo. In many ways it was a cut down, underdeveloped version of what Dreamscape would later become. Against university rules, it featured guns and fighting - but I didn’t care. This was the film I wanted to make.

“I made lots of mistakes and learnt what worked and almost immediately ploughed this newly acquired knowledge into making Vendetta. Filmed over two years as my final graduation project, Vendetta was made in the mould of Get Carter or my vision for Bond (hard and played straight - basically the approach Casino Royale took). Despite being a contemporary film, this didn’t limit the scope I had in mind. Location filming took place in Northern California (San Francisco and Eureka) on a holiday, doubling for Sicily of all places. Other locations included London, Greece, Wrexham and Chester. The film was entered for a number of festivals and won Best International Short Film at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

“I’ve obviously known my brother Joe - well, since he was born and it was just happy coincidence that he’s followed a career in music and sound. Also helpful is that we share a very close idea on what music should do in film, our tastes having been fashioned by the works of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone and Barry Gray.

“Chris Owen I met a university and I cast him in a small role in Vendetta. When we started work on Dreamscape I gave him a larger role but by then I’d got to know him a bit better and realised he was also a very talented cameraman and director in his own right.

“My sister Abi took on the role of executive producer towards the end of production, bringing a fresh eye to the project when Mark, Joe and myself were beginning to flag. She wrote and directed a documentary in 2004, which I helped her to film and edit. This won an award in San Antonio.”

What are your plans for the future?
“In the short term, getting the word about Dreamscape out there and hopefully finding a distributor for it. If that involves adding another fifteen minutes, that’s something we can do with ease. An extended screenplay has been written which adds a third act and also reworks several earlier scenes to clarify certain plot points. The scope of the film would go up another notch - as would the style of the film. The camera work, editing, music and acting were always designed to change as the film progressed:

“Act 1: Very composed shots, stylised acting, 1930s-ish. Act 2: More camera movement, more 1960s, Dirty Harry, acting a little more natural but still larger than life. Act 3: Camera very fluid, insane virtual camera moves, more hand-held work, Tony Scott-style lens usage and editing, very 1990s.

“Obviously any extension to the third act would continue the modern action movie feel, while scenes added earlier to the film would be tailored to the respective shooting styles of the act they are in.

“Cast and crew have put a lot of work into the film and while we have the press interest and good will, an extended cut, which we could get onto DVD, is probably the way we’re going to do. And who knows, one day both cuts may be out there on a special edition - it worked for Dark Star! I have several other feature screenplays in the last stages of development which we’ll be looking to get financing for. Dreamscape has been a testing ground for many techniques and going into any new project we’d of course take all that with us.

“Digital technology - be it cameras, editing systems or CGI - means that if you can imagine something and have the skill, you don’t need hundreds of millions of dollars to get it on screen. You can’t produce visuals to rival ILM, but you no longer need to be restricted by what you can practically film on the day. A more optimistic person would hope this would be the last nail in the coffin for the kitchen sink mindset that seems to permeate English film-making. Sadly nothing will change in the short term and English movies will continue not to make money. I however find the opportunities digital offers excite me the same way watching Thunderbirds or Star Wars for the first time did as a kid. Dreamscape is only a small taste of the kind of films I intend to make. You really ain’t seen nothing yet...”

website: www.chatnoirproductions.co.uk

In April 2000 I interviewed Freddie Francis over the phone about his contribution, as ‘consultant cinematographer’ to the short film Ghosthunter. I think this was used for a piece in Fangoria. Seven years later, when I heard that Freddie had passed away, I dug this out and posted it here as my own little tribute to a great cinematographer and a lovely old bloke.

I understand you were the consultant cinematographer on Ghosthunter.
"Well, no. I don’t wish to be referred to as that."

How should we refer to you?
"My involvement was... I mean, you know who I am, I’m sure. I’m the President of the BSC. We have several scholarships in the BSC: there’s a scholarship in the name of Freddie Young, one in the name of Ozzy Morris and one in my name. And the young boy who had my scholarship, Gavin Struthers, has almost finished his course at the film school. I thought he was quite good, so when these people approached me, I suggested that they let my scholarship boy do that. Of course, I was then involved on both sides.

“Unfortunately, as you probably know, the date when I agreed to sort of keep an eye on them, that went back so I wasn’t able to do much of keeping an eye on them, other than supplying them with my lad. And I supplied my gaffer, a man called Maurice Gillett who’s been with me since the war. He was in the army with me, and he’s a wonderful guy. He’s a wonderful guy to keep an eye on somebody, so I put him there to keep an eye on Gavin. So I wasn’t able to get involved at all during the shooting, except that I was able to get down there on the last day."

When they first approached you, what made you think this was a project worth lending your name to?
"Well, I always think... I fear for the state of the business in this country. There are so many kids want to get into it; too many kids actually, most of whom won’t get in. But I do think Gavin Struthers is a good lad, and I did think these people were keen, and I thought: get the two of them together and something good might come out of it. I thought it was a worthwhile project anyway. An awful lot of projects I get approached about I don’t touch, but this one I thought ‘Give it a chance’ mainly because of their enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is almost 110% of this business anyway."

Was it important that it was shot on 35mm when a lot of people now use video or DV?
"Not really. I think the source is not important. It’s the ideas supplied by the DP that are the important things."

Have you seen any of the footage yet?
"No, I haven’t. I saw them shooting some, and I gather they’re very keen and they’re going to start editing it pretty soon. So I think they’ll be in touch with me. I think they’re very happy with it anyway."

How does the Freddie Francis Scholarship work? Do you pick who goes on it?
"I think the BSC as a whole get a short list and then whittle it down. I don’t know what’s going to happen after Gavin Struthers finishes his course. Then I suppose somebody else will be allocated to my scholarship."

Do you work with the student on your scholarship as a mentor?
"As much as I can, yes. As a matter of interest, at the BSC we do a series of portraits of cinematographers. We film them, and we did a little filmed interview of me being interviewed by Ozzy Morris. And I got Gavin to go on the second camera, so I could keep an eye on how he works. One helps him all one can, you know."

When I saw you at a convention a few years ago, you said you didn’t want to retire because you didn’t want Rainbow to be the last thing on your CV. Now you’ve done The Straight Story, are you going to retire?
"Unless somebody offers me something I feel like doing. I’m not prepared to do just any old film. I did Straight Story mainly because David Lynch is a very dear friend of mine. He agreed to work my hours, and we had a wonderful time doing it. But I wouldn’t just do any film, willy-nilly."

William Franklyn has had a long career in film, television and radio, not to mention some of Britain’s best-known advertising voice-overs. I interviewed him in November 2003 when he was recording the part of The Book for the long-awaited third series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

You’re stepping into some big shoes, because if anyone was associated with Hitchhiker’s Guide it was Peter Jones. How daunting is it to take over the role so closely identified with another actor?
"Well, I knew so little about it. And it also happens that Peter Jones was a very close friend of mine. But none of this was something that I was even aware of at the time, because we did other things together. I remember him with great affection because I did a programme on the radio called Just a Minute and he warned me that two of the people on the programme - who will be nameless - would actually try and crucify me."

I’m sure we can work out which two.
"Yes, quite. This is going back quite a while. I think a Freud-ian influence did come into it, and also there was a Williams-type person... Funnily enough, he said, ‘Just give me a look when they start on you and I’ll come in and try and get you out of it.’ Which was very sweet. It was a very kind thing to do, actually. Anyway, we survived it all and I got to know Peter very well.

“I didn’t know this programme intimately until I actually went and bought the tapes and listened to it all. And I thought: Peter is so good - what the hell am I doing, doing this? But we’ve all moved on in terms of time, in terms of audience. What is interesting is: I’ve met a number of people in their late twenties, particularly males, who’ve said, ‘They’re doing that again? I’ve never forgotten it.’ And they remember it so vividly, they can even remember some of the dialogue. So there’s no question that I’m stepping into a new area altogether, which is fun.

“It’s really rather like the first time I was dropped out of an aeroplane: you really don’t know what it’s all about, and when you land you’re so excited that you’re still alive. It’s the same with this really. You start to do it and then you think: I seem to have survived it! And nobody is too horrifying. It’s part of the game."

You’ve heard how Peter did it. Presumably you’re not trying to copy him.
"Not remotely. I think there’s a lot of irony which is one of the things that I always look for because it lightens the heavy and very serious stuff. I’ve just literally heard it once and I don’t even think about that. I’m not a good imitator anyway by nature, so that’s very fortunate, that area doesn’t impinge on what I do."

You’re coming into a team who have all done it before. Have they accepted you as the new boy?
"Oh yes, they’ve been extremely kind and generous. Don’t forget, because all my stuff is solo, when it comes to actually recording I will come in and do all my stuff quite separately without anybody. I’ve been coming to the read-throughs to get the team atmosphere and the spirit of it all, as much as anything."

I know Peter had problems sometimes because Douglas Adams had a tendency to write very long lines of dialogue.
"That is your understatement for this year! I can tell you, when you get five-line sentences without a comma or anything, it does take a little bit of verbal strangulation to get it all sorted out so it all sounds like the most natural conversation in the world."

Have you worked with director Dirk Maggs before?
"No, I haven’t. Dirk is very helpful because he says, ‘Let’s try so and so,’ then says, ‘No, it doesn’t really work - do it the way you did it before.’ So it’s all very open-minded between the pair of us. I like him, he can direct me as much as he likes and we just see which seems to work best for the balance. So it’s a good relationship."

And you’re on board for the next series?
"Yes, I believe so. If I get away with this lot, then I’m down to do the next lot too, which we’re doing next year.”

interview originally posted 24th June 2006

I met German actor Benno Fürmann at Shepperton Studios in June 2006, on the set of Mutant Chronicles.

Can you tell me about your character?
"To Steiner, it’s really all about the mission. He’s been a soldier most of his adult life. He doesn’t really have anything to hang onto except what he does. The world is ripped apart and I think for once he has a feeling to fight for a good cause. If that would be the last thing he does, it’s worth spending your final days to try to make it a better place for future generations to come. Because that whole thing in general is so screwed up that there’s no hope the way it is."

What attracted you to this role?
"I think mainly the whole genre mixed with the people involved and obviously Simon Hunter flying to Berlin - meeting him and talking about the project got me hugely excited. But me being German, working internationally, I never did any genre/sci-fi/whatever, this kind of adventure that we are on a quest right now. This is a totally new thing to me. I did period pieces, I did drama. I had my stretch in terms of playing in different fields in this profession but sci-fi is just something they don’t do. I don’t even know whether Simon would approve of that: it’s not a sci-fi film per se, but it’s most definitely for me. Just the idea of stepping on a starship being charged by a coal-fuelled engine got me excited and made me want to be part of this."

It’s quite an international production. Were they specifically looking for a German actor?
"They were, I think. The way the script came to me is through Ed Pressman who I know from New York. He contacted me and said he would like to pass a script on and we took it from there. I loved it and wanted to meet the director and I’m very happy I did."

Do you have stunts and action sequences?
"Yes, there’s a bit of swordfighting, there’s a lot of firing around. I think I’m going to get the coolest make-up I ever had in a film because I’m going to be half-burned at some point in the movie, so that’s something I’m looking forward to for my showreel. But swordfighting is something I like. I like to do physical stuff, I like to choreograph fighting sequences. In this context it’s great because you’re in the future but you’re fighting with limited resources. You’re fighting with old-fashioned guns that remind you of the First World War. Mutants are, I found out during the shoot, tough creatures to kill so we very much rely at some point on swords. So it becomes almost this medieval-meeting-future kind of quest of fighting in an old-fashioned way. So for me that’s the fun of it."

Have you done other films in the UK before?
"I did do a film called My House in Umbria starring Maggie Smith that Richard Loncraine directed. We shot that in Tuscany and a reshoot of a couple of days with, bless him, Ronnie Barker when he was still with us. So those were my only two days of photography in Britain."

Do you have anything else lined up?
"In Germany I will do an independent picture after this. Most of the stuff we do is to some point independent. Right when I go back, I’m going to do three films back to back, one of them being in France and two of them being in Germany."

You’re obviously fluent in English but what’s it like shooting a film that’s not in your native language?
"It’s more difficult. On the day it’s not, but during the whole production. When you’re acting you don’t want to be concentrating on dialogue. You want to have it in your belly and your heart. It’s a bit of extra work to pound the words where they should sit when you’re doing your thing. But that’s basically all and on the other hand it gives you a kind of distance and an approach that’s a bit more distant. You just have to build a different bridge and that can also be very intriguing and exciting because in the beginning it can be a bit more artificial so it’s fun to go there and make this character your own and make these words your own. I love it. I don’t have a problem working in English.”

interview originally posted 8th October 2008

Director: Mike Clarke
Writer: Paul McGowan
Producer: Mike Clark, Peter James Coop
Cast: Doug Bradley, Phil Gwilliam
Country: UK
Year of release: 2013
Reviewed from: online 

There’s not really a great deal to say about A Hand to Play. It’s a nicely produced little short: twelve minutes long, one basic location and essentially a two-hander. It doesn’t, in all honesty, go anywhere or do anything particularly interesting or original, but it’s well-made both artistically and technically, including particularly good sound design (by James Rackham and Andrew Layfield).

Doug Bradley carries the film as mob boss Mr Trent, with Phil Gwilliam (The Superhero) as Joe, the young man who has crossed him. There are three non-speaking henchmen watching them. Most of the film is Trent explaining, in calm and measured tones, what the situation is, although Joe is fully aware of the situation, thank you very much. A red flag in any script is lines beginning “As you are aware...” because they signal an infodump: tell don’t show. I would really rather have found out about the situation more obliquely, and in a way that told us more about the characters, neither of whom has any real depth.

The film’s trailer and title suggest that it is about a card game to decide Joe’s fate but in fact this only comes in right at the very end and is simply pick a card, highest card wins. I found that disappointing. I was expecting the ebb and flow of a card game - whether that might be poker or whist or happy families - to shift the balance of power back and forth between Trent and Joe, illuminating their characters and throwing a light onto their personal/professional relationship. But there’s none of that.

Curiously, there is some stuff near the start about a threat to Joe’s family which seems bolted on to the plot. It’s set up then immediately forgotten and has no connection with the actual decisive card game bit at the end. That’s the sort of dangling plot thread that occurs far too often in features (of whatever budget level) but it’s odd seeing it in a film running less than a quarter of an hour because the brief running time makes it even more evident.

There is also a final twist which is kind of obvious. I mean, I’m hopeless at spotting twists and even I saw it coming.

So while there’s not a great deal of story or character here, we can admire Bradley’s typically fine performance as the sociopathic Trent, and Gwilliam does a good job of conveying the fear of his situation, even if the one thing we learn about Joe shows us that he’s not a particularly nice bloke either, immediately losing us any sympathy for his plight.

Mike Clarke’s direction is professional and well-handled, as is his cinematography. Chris Cronin, director of comedy horror short Working Title, handled the editing. Joel Catchatoor composed the score. Final note: the end credits are slick and fancy but slightly let down by a misspelling of hair/make-up artist Zoe McCaffrey’s name.

MJS rating: B

Originally posted on my main website in 2008 but removed, like the other reviews, to save my Webhost from receiving any more threatening e-mails from Richard Driscoll. Reposted in June 2013 in honour of Driscoll's conviction for tax fraud.

Before you start reading this, be warned. The full review is 22,000 words long.

See also Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

Director: Richard Driscoll
Writer: Richard Driscoll
Producer: Richard Driscoll
Cast: Rik Mayall! Jason Donovan! Sir Norman Wisdom! Crikey!
Country: UK
Year of release: 2008
Reviewed from: UK DVD

• ‘Lenore Murder Mystery’ 
• ‘The Woodlands Hotel’ 
• ‘Hotel to be Built on Witch Burning Site’ 
• ‘Hotel Manager Murders Family’ 
• ‘Death Hotel is Site of Witch Burning’ 
• ‘Horror Hotel in Murder Mystery Again’ 
• ‘Hotel Manager in Axe Death Spree’ 
• ‘Writer Buys Horror Hotel’ 
• ‘Horror Writer Kills Wife and Family’

See also Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4

Suddenly - and I mean, suddenly, as in mid-sentence - we cut to Anna sitting up abruptly in bed as Karl opens the curtain to reveal a New York skyline. This is a proper flashback in that it has sound and colour and characters from the actual film but it is completely inexplicable why we have suddenly flashed back. It doesn’t seem to be sequential for Anna - she hasn’t jumped in time and space. Or has she?


A steadicam shot through the woods shows us a dead body too briefly and obliquely to identify the person but I’m guessing it’s Steve as (a) Rachel was looking for him, (b) he was last seen with Victoria who is surely up to no good and now seems to be alone, and (c) he and Lewis are the only two characters we haven’t seen in the past ninety seconds or so.

In the cabin (good place to look!), Karl finds Anna in a trance, sitting on the floor, endlessly typing ‘DEATH’ on a manual typewriter. He shakes her awake and she assures him, “It’s here, Karl. The secret to what you’ve been looking for. It isn’t hokey-pokey like the past, it’s real.” No honestly, she says ‘hokey-pokey’. At that moment the trapdoor flings itself open with a bang which surprised me because, based on the earlier scene of Anna finding the trapdoor which conspicuously didn’t show us the trapdoor, I had assumed that they couldn’t afford, or simply didn’t bother to build, a trapdoor. But apparently they could, or did.

Continue to Part 3

See also Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4.

In the basement (which, I note, also has a typewriter), Karl and Anna explore the room or maybe she shows him the room or something. Yes, I’m calling it a basement for the sake of sanity because it’s underneath a building except of course log cabins don’t normally have basements. Unlike the room upstairs, this is fully furnished - if a trifle dusty - with numerous hunting trophies on the walls. Karl lights a candle (not sure why as Anna has a torch and the room seems considerably less dark than upstairs) and they find a ballerina music box.





Another thorny problem is working out in what decade the flashbacks take place. We are repeatedly told that the Carney family disappearance was two years ago (although we are also told that the Internetters have been doing this for both three and four years and that Saturday is the day after Monday). But when are the scenes in the hotel set? I’ve called them flashbacks - SSFs and NSSFs - but they’re really dream sequences or fantasy sequences I suppose, although they are still presented like old film. The palm-bedecked opulence of the place, the dinner suits and evening gowns, the obsequious staff in the washroom and especially the big band music suggest the 1940s, give or take a decade. But of course the nature of posh hotels is that they tend to look old-fashioned even today and there are still plenty of older couples who like to jive to a bit of big band boogie.

Is it significant that both the Carneys and the Internetters drive a car from around that era (possibly the same one)? Surely there must be some relevance in Lewis’ penchant for Glenn Miller and his ilk. But what? What does it all mean? Let’s face it, in a film which shows us people in 18th century clothes burning a witch and assures us that it happened in the mid 19th century, how can we use any on-screen clues to determine the era in which a scene takes place?

Continue to Part 4

See also Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Here’s an idea which has occurred to me as I write this review. Perhaps Evil Calls is the collision of two separate Richard Driscoll projects. Remember that he announced The Raven before filming Alone in the Dark and then, quite some time later, said that they were the same thing (or rather, that Alone in the Dark was the first film in The Raven Trilogy). The synopsis of The Raven 2: The Devil’s Disciple which is on the House of Fear site suggests that it is actually a film about George Carney. Furthermore it involves him meeting Alister (sic) Crowley which could place the action no later than the 1940s. This is plainly before the George Carney in Evil Calls was even born. It would mean that the events of ‘two years ago’ referred to in this film actually happened more than sixty years ago, which would at least make the hotel décor appropriate but which could, once again, only be explained by placing the entire story in a dimension without the expected rules of time and space. So that sixty years in the woods was actually two years in New York. That would make the ‘George Carney’ and ‘Victoria Jordan’ seen at the end… nope, still doesn’t work. They would have to be the original George Carney’s grandchildren, in which case they wouldn’t have known (and hated) their (great) uncle Vincent.





I was asked, recently, what constitutes a ‘cult movie’ (as in ‘and the people who make them’) and my definition is that a cult film (or book or TV show or whatever) is one which inspires interest beyond appreciation. ‘Cult’ is nothing to do with how good or bad a film is or how big or small it is or how popular or obscure it is or what it’s about or who made it. A cult film is one where, having seen it, you want to read about it, talk about it, write about it, argue about it, discuss it, dissect it, find out more about it.

In that respect, I believe that Evil Calls is the greatest cult film ever made.

MJS rating: A+/D-

Director: Richard Driscoll
Writer: Richard Driscoll
Producer: Richard Driscoll
Cast: Steven Craine (ie. Richard Driscoll), Linnea Quigley, Eileen Daly
Year of escape: 2001
Country: UK
Reviewed from: UK DVD (Film 2000) 

Kannibal is very possibly the worst British horror film ever made. Ever. At all. Bar none.

Ever.

And remember that I’m the person who found nice things to say about Virgin Witch...

When the same person writes, directs and produces a film and stars in it too, albeit under a different name, then you know you’re dealing with a vanity project, and that’s never a good sign. Is Kannibal as bad as The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Rock’n’Roll Musical? Not quite, but only because it hasn’t got any awful songs in it.

Richard Driscoll is a legend among fans of British horror movies. Well, I say legend; I mean joke. Here’s a succinct summary of the man’s career, courtesy of Pass the Marmalade webmaster Darrell Buxton, from a discussion on the British Horror Films forum:

“Driscoll produced and directed a terrible mid-’80s movie called The Comic, all about a stand-up comedian who murders a rival and buries him in the garden - for some reason the film is set in a near-future fascist Britain but it doesn't really make any more sense than the rest of the movie or add anything to it. Richard also produced the Fhiona Louise movie Cold Light of Day [One of the final releases by Screen Edge - MJS], which purports to tell the story of Dennis Nilsen but does so in an extremely slow and uninteresting way. Driscoll took prints of both films to the legendary 'Splatterfest' event, held at the Scala Cinema in King's Cross in February 1990 - but since we'd all sat spellbound through the amazing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and laughed our heads off at Rabid Grannies by the time The Comic was unspooled, Driscoll's film got a disastrous reaction from the audience and was almost booed off screen! He was last seen disappearing into the King's Cross night, clutching both movies (we never got to see Cold Light of Day and I eventually caught it years later).”

In 2001 Driscoll re-emerged with Kannibal, the most shameless rip-off of Hannibal imaginable. The sleeve is designed to look like the Hannibal sleeve, with ‘Steven Craine’ pictured a la Hannibal Lecter. (The stage name is because there’s already an actor named Richard Driscoll; he played a vicar in EastEnders.) Even the tag-line ‘Break the silence’ has been shamelessly - and meaninglessly - aped as ‘Keep the silence from breaking’. Without exactly following the plot of Silence of the Lambs or its sequel, Driscoll’s film lifts scenes, shots, ideas, images and dialogue wholesale.

Let’s say something good about the film. The production values are mostly top-notch. Sets are lavish, locations are impressive, props and set-dressings are luxurious, and there are large numbers of extras in scenes which require them. This is not half a dozen people trapped in one location. With second-unit work in the USA and Italy, the cost of this film must have been considerably more than many recent British horror flicks.

But... the direction is lame, the script (quite apart from its unoriginality) is banal, and the acting is almost uniformly dreadful. No, dreadful is too mild a word. The actors who are merely dreadful are among the better ones here. Let’s put it this way: if a six-year-old acted this badly in a nativity play, they would be recast as one of the sheep.

The overly complicated plot has Linnea Quigley, looking about a hundred (she was actually 42 when this was shot) and never removing her sunglasses, even when naked, as Georgina Thereshkova, heiress to a US-based Russian organised crime ring dealing in prostitution, pornography and drugs. She inherits this from her mother, who is found murdered in a grisly prologue; presumably she also inherited the extraordinary accent she uses. It’s meant to be Russian but sounds uncannily like Steve Martin doing his impression of a Frenchman.

We pick up two years on from Thereshkova Snr’s death, when Georgina has transplanted to London, hiding her activities behind a company called NewTech. It wouldn’t be a British horror film without Eileen Daly (Razor Blade Smile, Witchcraft X, Pervirella, Demonsoul etc) and here she plays Tanya Sloveig, Georgina’s PA. Within five minutes, bisexual Georgina has her PA pressed up against a corridor wall, has ripped open her PA’s jacket - no bra, quelle surprise - and is asking her, “Do you want to fuck?” Before you know it, she is mechanically manhandling her PA’s breasts while Eileen does her best not to look bored. Ten years ago this might have been erotic, or even interesting, but neither actress is an ingenue and frankly it’s enough to turn the stomach of the devoutest heterosexual.

Now, I like Eileen Daly. I’ve met her a few times. I’ve had breakfast with her. She’s lovely. But she’s not the world’s greatest actress. However, compared to Richard Driscoll himself - ‘Steven Craine’ - she is like a RADA graduate. Craine/Driscoll cannot act. At all. He’s not a bad actor, he’s a non-actor. Is he trying to mimic Anthony Hopkins? Quite possibly. Is he reading off idiot boards? Probably not, which is a shame as it might have improved his performance.

Of course, there’s no director to tell him what he’s doing wrong. And nobody else on set is going to say anything because he’s also the producer so he’s paying their wages. He ‘stars’ as a police pathologist called Kavanagh, who is actually the mysterious Quinn responsible for Valentina Thereshkova’s death. Honestly, that’s not a spoiler. Because you’re never going to watch this film. Not if you have any self respect whatsoever.

Watching Driscoll act is a painful experience. And there are lots of close-ups of him mixed into various other scenes and montages. The man’s barely off-screen, yet he has the presence and charisma of a house brick. There are a few people in the cast who can act. Steve Evans as Police Sergeant Webber is not bad, and Vass Anderson (Life Story, series two of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, and a small role as one of the elders of Krypton in Superman) brings some characterisation to his under-written role as an old guy who has taken over the US branch of the Thereshkova operation. Probably the best actor in the whole film is Tim Reynolds who has a tiny role as director of a porn movie about an SS Officer raping a nun.

Anyway, various people are being killed. “That’s five dead in the past six months, all young women,” says Webber as he watches Kavanagh remove cocaine-filled condoms from a prosthetic body so badly made and plastic-looking that it actually has a visible seam down the side. Next to go is Georgina’s cousin, drug baron Salvatore Sabine (fine old Russian name).

Then we meet the Inspector.

I have no hesitation in saying that Lucien Morgan is The Worst Actor In The World and I challenge you to find me a worse one. This man would be thrown off the set of a Santo movie. He’s worse than the American GIs roped in to play themselves in Junk. He’s shit beyond belief. He’s even worse than ‘Steven Craine’. Morgan’s previous greatest hit was as one of the ‘actors’ in the fake porno flick seen in An American Werewolf in London. In an extraordinarily over-the-top performance as monocled Inspector Lewis Reed, he mis-emphasises everything, pronounces words oddly, and his every stance, his every expression betrays the hideous truth that Somebody Told This Man He Could Act. No. No, Lucien, you can’t act to save your life. Become an accountant, a dustbin-man, an MP, anything. Just stop trying to act. You know why I’m not an airline pilot? Because I don’t know the first bloody damn thing about how to fly a plane! Do you see the analogy here?

Anyway, back to the overly complex plot... no, sod it, forget the plot. I already have and I only finished watching this crap thirty minutes ago. Imagine if you took all the memorable bits of Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, made them not as good, cast them with shit actors, jumbled them up a bit and filmed them expensively. That’s what you’ve got here. Parts of it make no sense at all (the sequence in Florence seems to have fallen in from a different film) and those that do make sense are boring, the only spark of interest being the gall with which the two better-known (and it goes without saying, better) films are ripped of. Even details like the chianti and the fava beans are included. (When I say ‘better’, this should not be construed as any suggestion that I thought Hannibal was anything other than a pile of crap. I also seem to be the only person in the world who can see the gaping plot holes in Silence of the Lambs. We now return you to your review.)

I’ve got nothing against B-movie makers producing cut-price cash-ins of A-movies. That’s been going on since Rocketship X-M beat Destination Moon into cinemas half a century ago. But normally it involves some degree of wit, some chutzpah, some alternative take on the basic concept. The Terminator a hit? Okay, let’s make Nemesis. Let’s just take the concept of a cyborg built like a brick shit-house travelling back in time and do our own spin on it. Not: let’s reshoot a bunch of scenes from The Terminator in a different order with shit actors and call it The Derminator.

And throughout this whole dreadful film you have the incredible non-acting ability of Driscoll and Morgan, frequently both together. It’s unwatchable, it really is. But they’re not alone. The very first voice we hear is a US newsreader describing the police discovery of Valentina Thereshkova’s death and the actress (let’s name the guilty: Mandy Adams) is more wooden than a stripped pine wardrobe. It doesn’t get any better after that.

All of which is a shame because, as I say, the film looks gorgeous (crappy prosthetics aside) thanks to cinematographer Peter Thornton (Out of Bounds/Dead in the Water, the Welsh western Guns of Honour, also camera operator on The Curse of King Tutankhamen’s Tomb) and production designer Bill Alexander (David Wickes’ versions of Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde, also art director on The Sweeney, Minder and Van Der Valk). The most extraordinary name in the credits is script supervisor Renee Glynne whose career in continuity extends from late 1940s Hammers such as The Man in Black and The Adventures of PC 49 to recent British horrors like Simon Hunter’s excellent Lighthouse, John Stewart’s The Asylum and, well, this. Along the way she has worked on such notable titles as Spaceways, Stolen Face, The Quatermass Xperiment, Fanatic, The Nanny, Curse of the Fly, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, A Room with a View, Beyond Bedlam, The Krays, Catweazle and, um, Delta Force II. What a career!

Kannibal is bad enough, but on the DVD you also get a commentary track by egomaniac Driscoll, singing the praises of his creation, and a featurette, The Making of Kannibal (as if anybody cared). As with the commentary, in The Making of Driscoll explains how good his film is - but this time you can marvel at how he is saying it with a straight face. He must genuinely believe the crap he spouts, because we’ve already established that he’s no actor. The film will appeal to people who enjoyed movies like Hannibal and The Silence of the Lambs, according to Driscoll. No, they’re the last people it will appeal to. Though it might appeal to people who have never seen - or even heard of - either film, perhaps, if anybody in the cast could act.

Oh, by the way, at the end Kavanagh/Quinn confronts the still-alive Valentina (Claudia Boulton in amazingly pisspoor make-up) in the same way that Hannibal Lecter confronted the Gary Oldman character. Turns out that Quinn has been bumping off her entire operation one by one in revenge for the accidental death of his wife during a bank raid by Thereshkova’s goons. Also, he frames Georgina for the murders and we finish with that same wooden US reporter being shown down an underground corridor, told, “Do not approach the prisoner,” etc - and it turns out to be Linnea in the cell doing a bad Anthony Hopkins impression, not Driscoll. Well, duh.

Anyway, back on the DVD there’s a trailer and a short film which is, if anything, even worse than Kannibal. Surely you lie, MJ! No sir, because Inspector’s Diaries is a solo turn by Lucien Morgan in ‘character’ as Inspector Reed. In this staggeringly amateurish nine-minute quickie (which seems to last for a good half-hour), Morgan/Reed talks straight to camera, taking us through the history of movies based on real-life serial killers: Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, etc. “We begin with this man,” he says. “Jack the Ripper. ... Who was he? ... Who knows ... who he was? ... Do you?”

I wish I could say that every single thing about Kannibal is shit, but it is very nicely photographed and the sets are good. However, as they say, you don’t come out of the theatre humming the sets. It’s such a tragedy that, while many British indie horror flicks are scraping funds together, Driscoll has somehow got his hands on the cash to make something this lavish. But the other tragedy is that no amount of production value can disguise the facts: the script stinks, the direction stinks, and the acting stinks.

Driscoll had hopes in 2001, as indeed he had ten years earlier, of setting up his own Hammer-style studio. Thankfully this has never appeared and his only subsequent film has been a thriller called Alone in the Dark which stars Driscoll/Craine again with Robin Askwith (proving that you can go downhill after Queen Kong), the ubiquitous Ms Daly and 1980s teen heart-throb Jason Donovan! (Still unreleased, this movie will need to change its title in order to avoid being confused with the video game adaptation directed by Uwe Boll. Or, being a Richard Driscoll production, it probably won’t.) Among his announced plans were such unsubtle homages as Blade Hunter, Harry and the Wizard and Legend of the Rings - ‘based on the best-selling book’: erm, which book would that be? - which were all promoted with full-page ads in the 2001 MIFED brochure, plus an all-CGI animated feature to be called ... Toy Monsters. In 2001 Driscoll attended a Fangoria convention in New York where he mentioned a film called The Raven starring Christopher Walken, saying he had already shot Walken’s scenes and that the film was “the Poe story with a Lara Croft spin on the material”...! (Apart from anything else: Poe’s 'The Raven' is not a story, it’s a bloody poem, you numbskull!)

The single scariest thing in this pitiful excuse for a horror movie is the final, post-credits caption: ‘The Kannibal will return’ - please God, no. And in the whole sorry, frankly tedious mess there is one moment of genuine entertainment, in The Making of Kannibal, when Richard Driscoll says of his masterpiece, “It’s like an opera version of Tosca.”

MJS rating: D-
No. E
No, that’s still too generous. F
Well, the photography was very good. Okay then. F+

Review originally posted before November 2004

Director: Richard Driscoll
Writer: Richard Driscoll
Producer: Richard Driscoll
Cast: Steve Munroe, Berdia Timimi, Vass Anderson
Country: UK
Year of release: 1985
Reviewed from: UK DVD (23rd Century)

I am about to damn this movie with fainter praise than has ever existed in the history of film criticism: The Comic is not as bad as Kannibal.

That is not to say it’s any good, or even adequate. It is, in point of fact, shite. It is boring, pretentious, completely incomprehensible, poorly acted and packed with godawful 1980s haircuts. In short, it’s like watching an amateur remake of a Spandau Ballet video.

But this debut feature from the man who might reasonably described as the British Ed Wood scores over his later picture in a few important ways. It is at least an original idea rather than a shameless rip-off of two successful Hollywood movies. The music isn’t bad (but, as they say, you don’t come out of the cinema whistling the - oh, hang on, that doesn’t work here, does it?). Most impressively, Driscoll himself stays behind the camera in this one and there is no sign of Lucien Morgan, the officially recognised Worst Actor in the World.

Nevertheless, this is a bad film.

Steve Munroe, a wooden actor saddled with a ginger mullet so unappealing that it suggests he was really bad in a previous life, stars as Sam Coex, a wannabe comedian (Munroe followed this with bit parts in Robin of Sherwood, Casualty and The Bill and a role in the Driscoll-produced serial killer biopic Cold Light of Day). But the local club already has a regular comedian on its books, Joey Myers (Jeff Pirie, who had recently spent two years as Eddie/Dr Scott in The Rocky Horror Show; he is credited as Jeff Perrier in the closing credits and Jeff Pine on the sleeve of the DVD). Frustrated, Coex kills Myers late one night and buries his body. Then, when the comedian fails to show the next night, Coex goes on instead and is a hit.

He becomes involved with a prostitute, Anne (the surely anagrammatical Berdia Timimi), who has some sort of secret agenda although it’s never made clear what that is. He also gets picked up by Joey Myers’ old agent Stan (Bernard Plant), who charges a staggering 80% fee for booking him into various dives. As his career progresses, Coex is haunted by visions, often involving the zombified return of Joey Myers.

Now here’s the odd thing: this all happens in a dystopian near-future even though this has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. Our only clue is an opening narration by a blonde woman, to camera, which seems to be based on the opening of Dune. This actress (who is presumably the Kim/Kym Stone credited in the opening titles but not at the end) tells us that in this world “people don’t live, they merely ... exist.” We then have a shot of a soup kitchen where a small squad of goose-stepping, jackbooted soldiers/cops march in and beat up a man - apparently for daring to crouch under a table.

The DVD sleeve tells us: “In a fascist near future Britain has become an oppressive police state, the drugged population is entertained by ‘the Comics’ who keep a smile on their faces while everything gets worse.” Precisely none of this comes across in the movie, even if you have read the sleeve and are actively looking for this stuff.

Instead, we get Sam’s rise to fame and a highly speeded up social life. When Anne tells him she is pregnant he asks her to marry him, on condition that she gives up the drink and drugs, although there has been no suggestion up to that point that she indulges in either. They have a little girl - there is a hilarious silhouette shot of a nurse holding an obvious doll up by its leg and smacking it - and before you know it his daughter is three and his wife is looking for work.

“But how can I help?” asks Stan when Sam asks him for a favour in this regard. “I’m an agent - I just find jobs for people.” Actually, Bernard Plant has several unintentionally great lines, my other favourite being “This is a hell of a place to meet,” as he settles down next to Sam in what appears to be a relatively quaint English pub.

The nightclubs themselves are mostly just collections of tables with people sitting at them; there is no attempt to integrate audience shots with shots of Sam, Joey or anyone else on stage which were very obviously filmed separately. Even the very limited laughter and applause (the paucity of which matches the material on offer, though I don’t think that’s intentional) doesn’t connect in any way with the ‘performance’ footage.

Despite what it says on the sleeve, the people in the audiences appear relatively affluent, rather than being a subjugated lower class kept in their place by cheap entertainment. There is no suggestion that the people in the soup kitchen ever get to visit a club. I get the impression that the combination of cabaret and stark class division is meant as an allegory for Weimar Germany but I could be wrong. Had The Comic been any good it could actually have served as a strangely prophetic look at Britain 20 years later, with a populace kept distracted by mindless entertainment while a right-wing regime dismantles democracy around them. But it’s shit so it doesn’t.

There is also some sort of subplot about a local bigshot named George Ellington (Vass Anderson, who was also in Kannibal) who waltzes off with Anne, who is some sort of gold-digger. Also, for some reason, everyone travels around in vintage cars (or in one instance, a horse-drawn carriage). ‘For some reason’ is a phrase that seems appropriate to most aspects of this film, although not as appropriate as ‘for no reason whatsoever’.

Sam’s nightmares are some of the worst-written, worst-directed, just plain worst parts of the film, although towards the end it’s difficult to tell one thing from another (though not in a good, enigmatic way; more in a bad, incompetent way). He even says to someone at one point, “It was all a really bad dream.” Ah, but if only it was... There is a particularly funny sequence not too far into the film where Sam appears as a sort of demon, body-painted green and with enormous furry eyebrows matching his carrot-coloured thatch.

It is absolutely impossible to follow what is meant to be going on in The Comic. Better minds than mine have tried and failed. Perhaps Richard Driscoll knew what he was trying to do but he completely failed to communicate that to the viewer. Which is in contrast to Kannibal, where we could all see precisely not only what he was trying to do but also how incredibly badly he was doing it

So, apart from Driscoll, who else has this film on their CV as a guilty secret? The cast includes Bob Flag, who was Dennis Nilsen in Cold Light of Day and was also in Calendar Girls, 1984 and Eat the Rich; Gary Twomey, who was in Robin of Sherwood and Taggart; Joy Lale, who subsequently became script editor on All Creatures Great and Small, then producer on Between the Lines and Ballykissangel and then died in a car crash aged 30; and Eddie Blackstone, who is now half a cabaret act called Tjay and the Bear. Simon Davies (surely not the Blue Peter presenter?) is quite dreadful as the club compere.

Cinematographer Alan Trow started as a stills photographer and went on to a busy career as DP on such movies as Xtro II, Project Shadowchaser I and II, Monolith, Cyberjack, Grim and Dragonworld. Special effects are credited to Chris Tucker who previously worked on Star Wars, The Boys from Brazil, The Elephant Man, Dune, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and the unjustly under-rated vampire picture Barry McKenzie Holds His Own.

The Comic was famously booed off-screen at its one British theatrical outing and subsequently surfaced very briefly on video. Twenty years later it surfaced on DVD courtesy of 23rd Century, a ‘company’ whose extensive range of bootleg films was on sale from pound shops across the land. Normally I deplore the purchase of bootlegs but in this instance my feelings are different. Given that out of my quid has to come a profit for the retailer plus distribution and manufacture costs, the people behind 23rd Century must make about tuppence ha’penny from my purchase. More to the point, I think that Richard Driscoll films are ones which can be bought on bootleg with a clean conscience because if any money went to the film-maker it might encourage him to make more of his rotten films.

MJS rating: D

Irish actor Brian Fortune starred in Ivan Zuccon's magnificentWrath of the Crows. In June 2013 he kindly answered some emailed question from me.

How did you come to be cast in Wrath of the Crows?
"A friend of mine, Irish actor Gerry Shanahan, had worked with Ivan on Colour from the Dark and said he had an absolute blast in Italy on the shoot. He suggested I send my details, CV/resume/show reel, to Ivan. I did and when he was casting Wrath of the Crows he contacted me through Facebook and we had a few e-mails to and fro... then he offered me the role of Hugo!! If only all castings were that fucking easy!!"

We are told very little about these characters or the metaphysical time/place in which they are imprisoned, so what did you have to work with in creating a believable, rounded character for Hugo?
"Well, I made a choice, that we were in Purgatory, and stuck with it... I had no idea what choices the rest of the cast had made. I had history from the script, that he was a killer of miracle-working priests and that was it really, the rest was up to me. I saw Hugo as a normal guy who felt he was justified and doing no wrong when he committed the murders. Hugo was quite insane but in his own mind he was a regular guy. That's the way I tried to play him anyway!"

How did you find working in Italy with an international cast?
"Well, Gerry Shanahan was right, working in Italy was fantastic! I was on set for 17 days and cast and crew really bonded. We became a family. Obviously I had a little google about the rest of the cast when Ivan offered me the role and I shat myself when I saw the profiles of Debbie, Tiffany and Tara. Horror goddesses with a huge catalogue of work behind them. We were doing night shoots so starting at 6pm, finishing 6am. It was summer so it was incredibly hot during the day and very humid at night. The mosquitos were a bastard, I got plenty of bites and had a bad reaction to them requiring prescription meds.

"The cast was made up of Italians, Irish, British, Canadians and Americans and we all got on so well. The Italians all had excellent English so there were no communication difficulties. Most of us still keep in touch. I was delighted to be invited to Buffalo NY last september to work on Model Hunger, Debbie Rochon's directorial debut. That came about because of Wrath. Tiffany is one of the leads in Model Hunger so it was brilliant to meet up and work with the girls again. Working with Ivan was great, he's a genius as you can see from Wrath and I'd love to work with him again."

You have appeared in several recent Irish horror features, including Shackled, The Inside and An Irish Exorcism: what can you tell me about these?
"Shackled was an experimental film... possibly two words that should never be put together in any sentence: experimental and film!! We were given a script to read through and familiarise... then told to throw the script away and improvise. I wouldn't like to approach a film in that fashion again... but no regrets, it was good experience.

"The Inside was a very intense shoot. I knew most of the principals well and we were all comfortable working together. We shot the film in a few days, again a night shoot. There was a script to stick to and a little improvisation here and there. We shot the movie in chunks, if you watch it you'll notice there are not too many cuts. The camera kept rolling, sometimes for 15 minutes or more capturing this absolute mayhem. It was exhausting, normally on a movie the camera will roll for a couple of minutes then cut. The content is pretty strong, extreme violence, rape, terror. A group of unsuspecting girls and one guy arrive at an old warehouse to do some cheap drinking before going out for the night. Three unsavoury characters are lurking in the shadows and bring a reign of terror when they burst onto the scene.

"At the premiere here in Dublin there were several walkouts, for some the content was too strong and for others the camera shake was too much of a distraction. I went to the loo half way through and I saw several girls in the foyer in tears. My character Eamo is without doubt the nastiest character I have ever played. I went to Frightfest in London when we screened there and I have to say the movie is much more suited to the smaller TV screen as opposed to the cinema... reason being the camera shake... a problem, some say, of a lot of found footage movies. The shake is much less obvious on a TV. It was a great experience shooting The Inside and I've worked with the writer/director Eoin Macken on a couple of occasions since.

"The Exorcism Diaries is another found footage movie, this one finds me playing a Catholic exorcism priest, Father Byrne. The location for this shoot was Ballintubbert House, a rather grand home, with beautiful gardens where Cecil Day Lewis, Daniel's father, lived as a child. The house passed through many hands and in 1990 actor John Hurt bought it and lived there for 10 years, a super location indeed.

"The film centres around a girl making a documentary about exorcism, so at all times it appears either she or her assistant are holding the camera and that format really draws the audience in. It's very well shot and acted. A great hardworking cast and great crew too. I can't say a whole lot about it really as it's only recently been completed. Suffice to say there are a few strange goings-on captured and a great build up to the finale. We are all very pleased with the outcome."

How healthy is the independent film sector in Ireland at the moment?
"The indie industry here is quite good. We have an abundance of talent across the board, writers directors, actors, DoPs, lighting and sound engineers and everybody else required to make movies. We are at a stage where more of these talented people are saying, "Fuck this, I'm not sitting around any more waiting for stuff to happen... I'll make it happen!" Some are able to muster up decent budgets too!"

What interesting projects do you have coming up?
"Well, I was contacted today and asked would I be available to shoot four extra scenes in a feature we shot two months ago, How to be Happy. It's a romcom... no, I'm not playing the romantic lead, hahahahaha, I'm playing the unhappily married villain who makes the lead, a marriage guidance counsellor's life hell!

"In July it's a bit of straight up drama, A Nightingale Falling. It's a period drama set in 1920s during Ireland's war of independence. My character Tom is the farm manager and longtime friend of the people in the big house. There are a couple of actors I'm looking forward to working with on this: Gerard McCarthy currently starring in The Fall on BBC and Tara Breathnach currently starring in Anne Boleyn also on the BBC. Oh, nearly forgot, yesterday I auditioned for Ripper Street, a BBC drama set in London's East End in the 1880s and shot here in Ireland, so hopefully I'll book that too!"