THE LAST HORROR MOVIE INTERVIEW WITH JULIAN RICHARDS
Q: What was your intial inspiration for the film?JR: As a producer I was looking to make a low budget film, something I could fund privately without taking a huge financial gamble, something I could control and deliver to a high quality threshold and something I felt confident of making a profit. Most indie film makers aspire to do their own shoestring blockbuster but the majority fail because they try to do too much with very limited resources or are too derivative. My first plan was to do a siege movie; four characters in a room being attacked by something on the outside, but so many low budget horror films have already successfully used that formula (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, EVIL DEAD, DOG SOLDIERS) that I quickly abandoned the idea. It was around 1995 that I got commissioned by the BBC to produce SHOWBOYS (a video diary about my cousin who had embarked on a career as a male stripper). My cousin filmed it using a small digital camera and the end result was so intimate and revealing that I thought, wow, what if a serial killer did the same thing? Whilst the idea fermented, a cinematic revolution took place with the Dogme films from Denmark (in particular FESTEN aka THE CELEBRATION). And when this crossed over into the horror genre with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS, it gave me the confidence to use that format and formula to achieve my goal.
As a horror writer/director I was looking to do something original, something that would come into the genre left of field and leave a lasting impression. Well, that's easier said than done, as by definition genre is a type. Todays audience are all too familiar with the old tricks of the trade and for a while it seemed that the genre could no longer be taken seriously, hence Kevin Williams sattirical deconstruction in SCREAM.
But I was never into mixing comedy with horror, because the films that really influenced me were from the 70's; hardcore films that didn't pull their punches. Two that made a huge impression were HELTER SKELTER (which concluded with a close up of Charles Manson's face whilst text on the screen chillingly informed us that he would soon be released) and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE which opened with an ominous monolgue claiming the film was a reconstruction of a true life event. I remember being so convinced by the mythology built up around TCM that I visited the library and went through several micro-fisches of newspapers to read about what really happened. However, it wasn't until I read Stephen Kings horror bible, DANCE MACABRE and discovered what Orson Welles had done with his radio broadcast of WAR OF THE WORLDS (which convinced listeners that Earth was really being invaded by Mars) that a seed began to grow in my mind that connected with my ambition to produce a low budget horror.The conclusion I reached was that watching a horror film had become an all too comfortable experience. Violent, terrifying events could be viewed second hand from the safe distance of a theatre auditorium or living room sofa, and when the end credits roll, the audience could return to their lives, safe in the knowledge that what they had just witnessed only took place in the world of fiction. (I suppose you could draw a parallel here with 24 hour news; we watch people dieing of war or hunger in third world countries that seem so far removed from the comfort of our first world lives that we don't feel that affected, until two passenger planes crash into the twin towers and thousands of first world people lose their lives). So, in the first instance the idea was to make a video diary as if it had been made by a serial killer, using both format and formula to go deeper into the mind of our psychotic protagonist, and in the second instance, the idea was to test our audiences complicity with the crimes and make them question, not only their moral stand point, but also the reason why they get their kicks out of watching horror films. Could it be that they recognise some of themselves in the killer? And finally, once they feel uneasy or even guilty about being involved in such an atrocity, to reveal that, as a result of watching THE LAST HORROR MOVIE, they have unsuspectingly fallen victim to the killer's modus operandi. Some might call it punishment, others a wake up call, but to me it's down to having a twisted sense of humour.
'We're trying to make an intelligent film about murder
whilst actually doing the murders'
Q: When you started out making it did you have any idea that you'd be getting a theatrical release from one of the biggest names in American horror?
JR: THE LAST HORROR MOVIE was designed to work on video and I expected a straight to video release. Using BLAIR WITCH as a yardstick, my aim was distribution through Artisan, but at that time they were being absorbed by Lionsgate, so were not actively acquiring.
At Cannes, Steve Mackler of US distributor Bedford Entertainment saw the film and put in an offer for US theatrical as a first under the Fangoria label. They planned a release strategy similar to Vitagraph's BUBBA HO-TEP, and tied with Fangoria's magazine subscribership it seemed more attractive than the straight to video/DVD release that Lionsgate might have offered.
One of the problems with THE LAST HORROR MOVIE is that the MPAA refused to rate it, not even with an NC-17 and cuts with this kind of film would defeat the objective. I think other distributors would have had a problem, but Fangoria can take that kind of controversy on the nose by selling the film direct to its subscribers.
'And now for a little experiment'
Q: A lot seems to be being made about how 'disturbing' the movie is, but to me I think I enjoyed it much more because it was intelligent. Which one was more important to you, making it disturbing or intelligent and why?
JR: I think its intelligence makes it more disturbing. How somebody as insane as Max can so nonchalantly rationalise his crimes is really quite unsettling. We have several murder scenes in the film which are brutal and bloody, but it's the context in which Max uses them in his video diary that is the most disturbing - for example, the married couple who he stabs off camera whilst filming the others reaction. Max is constantly playing with our minds and making us understand that we all have a monster within, and relatively speaking he's not that different from us.
'Why are you still watching?'
Q: I noticed that during a few moments in the film we see tiny snippets of deaths that are never then touched upon again, it gave me the impression that there were several sequences cut from the film... Is that true? If so, what was cut and how much?
JR: Yes, we did cut several sequences from the film, mainly because I was looking to set the right tone and some of the murders that the writer had scribed were just too comical. In the context of a video diary it was quite difficult to strike the right balance between humour and reality, so anything that appeared contrived or conjoured up to serve some thematic or conceptual purpose, I removed. The balance I was looking for is similar to that in GOODFELLAS, when Jo Pesci winds up Ray Liotta in the bar - is it a joke or is it real? So, like Pesci in GOODFELLAS Max uses humour to drop his victims guard before he pounces.
'Sorry about this, it's his first time'
Q: You had the idea commissioned to James Handel to write a script for you. How much of writing was a collaborative process? Did you give him the idea to run with or did you have a hand in the crafting of it?
JR: I knew my beginning and end but there was a vast desert between and the only writer I knew that had the 'equipment' to fill that gap was James Handel. Given the nature of a video diary (long monolgues to camera revealing the mindset of the killer) I knew I wasn't looking for a regular screenplay writer, so instead I went for an academic, a doctor of philosophy who could tackle the subject matter like a thesis.
At first James was reluctanct because he thought that the serial killer genre had been done to death, but after much persuasion he wrote a first act which I was disappointed by. It was pure sattire and involved a B-movie horror film producer like Lloyd Kaufmann, so I went away and wrote the first ten pages, re-writing the killer as a wedding photographer. I gave these pages to James and bar the occasional brainstorm he completed the script with little interference from me.
However, we did have problems during the edit with the tone of the film which required some re-writing and re-shooting. In some scenes the comedy was undermining the reality and scenes like the woman being murdered with a frying pan tipped the balance to farce. So what I did is cut that scene to a minumum, then write another murder scene to plug the gap; the girl being strangled in the car park.
One other problem we encountered in the edit was that the writer had introduced a retrospective style structure towards the end of the film which I felt would confuse the audience. After the Assistant is killed we view a number of murders which were supposed to have been filmed whilst the Assistant was still alive, and now we were revisiting them after his death. I test screened this to some friends who all asked the same question - 'If the assistant is dead, who is behind the camera?' So I came up with a simple solution; Max recruits the drunk that we see in an earlier scene to replace the dead assistant.
'If life sucks, why go on living?'
Q: I'm curious about your thoughts on the chances of the film in the cinema. Are there high hopes?
JR: I think THE LAST HORROR MOVIE will go through the roof on video and DVD but we need a theatrical release to bring it to the attention of a wider audience. That's not to say that the film will not work theatrically, on the contrary, I have watched it at several film festivals with a full house and the reception was ecstatic. Watching THE LAST HORROR MOVIE in the cinema is an amusing experience. People don't just sit in silence, they respond audibly to both the horror and comedic ingredients, so the reaction becomes infectious. In fact, if you get the chance to view it in the cinema with a decent size audience, cast your gaze across the auditorium and look at some of the face expressions, it's hysterical. Some reviewers have even suggested that they prefered to see the film in the cinema and not on video or dvd, as it removed them to a safe distance.
'Take it from me, it ain't the movies'
Q: Besides Blair Witch, what other films inspired the mood and content in Last Horror Movie?
JR: War Of The Worlds radio broadcast - Earth is 'really' being invaded by Mars...
The Outer Limits - Do not adjust your television set...
Fu Manchu - Pirate tv broadcasts - 'We are taking over the world'
Helter Skelter - Charles Manson has served his sentence and will soon be released.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The film that you are about to see....
The House On Haunted Hill & The Tingler - William Castle, electric shocks and flying skeletons in the cinema.
Henry: Portrait Of A Serial killer - Henry and Otis' home video...
Snuff - Real or not?
Man Bites Dog - Documentary about a serial killer
Videodrome - Subversive transmissions
Blair Witch - Creating an urban myth
Series 7: The Contenders - Reality sattire
The Office - Golden Globe winning UK tv series
Marion & Geoff - UK tv series
Showboys: The Naked Truth - Video diary of a male stripper.
Bennys Video & Funny Games - A desensitised audience and complicity with the crime...
'Are you ready?'
Q: I could just see this thing driving parents insane, are you at all worried about it stirring any controversy?
JR: Anybody who might get offended has the choice not to watch it and if they stumble across it by accident, then half way through, Max invites them to leave anyway. THE LAST HORROR MOVIE is not pornographic or exploitational, it's an intelligent attempt to embrace the mutant. I don't wish to condone what Max does, but I do want to try and understand him. I do get frustrated when a politically correct establishment react against a film before trying to understand it or use it as a scapegoat on which to blame the ills of society; a simple solution to a complex problem. But as Max says 'Take it from me, it ain't the movies'. So I'm happy to be a cinematic agitator, ruffling feathers in the name of progress.
'If you wanted to be rescued, you should have owned less land'
Q: I thought Kevin Howarth was masterful in the lead role as 'Max', was he your first choice for your lead actor? How did you find him?
JR: The challenge with THE LAST HORROR MOVIE was that I couldn't cast anybody recognisable from other films, television or commercials. There were many actors I had worked with on previous films that I would like to have cast, but as this was mean't to look real, we had to go with completey unknown actors.
From the off, I had a friend in mind who I wanted to play Max, but after I commissioned James Handel to write the script it soon became clear that a different type of actor would be required. I'm from a Welsh working class background, so I saw Max in the same way, but James has more of an English middle class background and he wrote Max in his own eye, which is very much against the grain of previous celluloid serial killers. James also had an actor friend in mind, a boyish, public school type, but I just wasn't convinced that I could ever feel threatened by such a fop and I was also aware that the way James had written Max, we were in danger of alienating our audience through being overly smug. So, we cast the net wider and sought a neutral, classless Max. An actor that could handle the wit, charm and sophistication of James' dialogue whilst maintaining a rogue like quality and intimidating physical presence.
I must have auditioned about 60 actors, but when James and I saw Kevin's audition tape we both shouted 'That's him, that's Max'. So, we eventually found a happy compromise.
'I'll be seeing you'
Q: Did you run into any trouble with any of your actors when it came to the content of the film? Any objections to anything?
JR: No, the actors enjoyed the grand guignol, but I did have a problem casting Grandma. The first two actresses I chose were genuinely in their 80's, but both turned me down after reading the script. Eventually the part was accepted by Rita Davies, who was much younger than required but proved capable of playing older.
Some of the crew got upset whilst we were filming the married couple being stabbed in the basement. The atmosphere on that day was very disturbing. At lunch time I caught the script girl and assistant cameraman sat outside on the sidewalk with white faces, staring into space.
