Fantasy Filmfest

I've been in Germany for a few days, as a guest of the Fantasy Filmfest, a great festival which tours round eight German cities across August and September. I was over to present screenings of 'Mum & Dad' in the last two cities on the tour, Munich and Stuttgart. Munich was first up, and after a ridiculously early start in the morning (my flight was from Stanstead at 8am, meaning I had to get up about 5), the first thing I had to do when I got there was to go and do an interview for the French/German TV station ARTE, along with Mark Tonderai, the director of 'Hush', also playing at the festival. The interview was outside one of the cinemas being used for the festival, which was a great little place with a cool courtyard outside and some homemade horror decorations like this: as well as a hanging noose, a plate of eyeballs and something which I saw online the other day, but was here in the flesh, a limited edition Barbie 'The Birds' figure:
The interview was good, but quite long, with the camera op roaming around handheld in between me and the director, getting really close-in (which isn't going to be most attractive shot, given that my face, after early rising and hours of travelling, looked like a handful of teabags hanging off a fence), and the questions focusing on the idea of this 'New Breed' of British horror film-makers - there were six or seven British horror films in the festival, most of them by first-time directors - and whether the perversity that runs through 'Mum & Dad' is 'typically British'.

After the interview we had the screening of the film, with a good sized crowd and a brief Q and A. The audience seemed to like the film ("You have made a very weird film" said one bloke, "Congratulations."), but if there's one thing I've noticed about German audiences as opposed to those in the UK, it's that they are very into precision - one person wanted to know exactly what was in the syringe in the film and how often it had to be administered to be effective. Either he was very detail-oriented or he was planning something very unsavoury...

After the film I went back to the hotel to crash out - feeling a bit like travelling salesman (which I guess I was), before getting up the next day to get the train to Stuttgart.

In Stuttgart I got the chance to see 'Hush' - which was great to see, because we've been trying to get hold of a copy (or even a trailer) for Mayhem for ages. The cinema was, again, a nice-looking place, inside and out:


'Mum & Dad' followed on straight from 'Hush' and we had a really good crowd in for the film. Afterwards, a load of people (around 100) stayed on to ask questions, including a lot that seemed to focus on my personal relationships:
- "Have your parents seen the film?" (No.)
- "Do you have any children and will you let them watch the film?" (Yes I do, and no, not until she's old enough (or tall enough to reach it down from the top shelf)
- "Is your wife supportive of the film?" (Yes.)

Maybe they all imagined that I lived on my own, defacing pictures of happy families or something.

The next day it was back to Munich again (for the flight), which meant another 3 hour trainride of this: and this: and this: before I finally got a few hours off in Munich. Then it was on to the airport, where I spent my last remaining Euros on the most Bavarian meal you can get as a vegetarian: before catching the flight home which I spent reading Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49', picked for the journey because it's a) light but b) so absurdly layered with meanings and intimations of conspiracy that I knew it would keep me going over the whole weekend (but is, however, a dangerous book to read when you're about to go back to writing because you end up wanting to call all your characters daft things like Oedipa Maas, Randy Driblette or Manny DiPresso) and watching nighttime northern Europe out of the window.

Came home to find that we'd been beaten to the festival's 'Fresh Blood' award by Jean-Claude van Damme. Damn, I knew we should have got Chuck Norris and Cynthia Rothrock for 'Mum & Dad'.

Frightfest

So, 'Mum & Dad' played at Frightfest 2008 - and went down great. We had a good-sized crowd (the Odeon West End is 800+ seats and we were pretty full for the screening), and we got a terrific response at the end. A lot of people stayed for the Q and A, with myself, Lisa, Perry, Dido and Ainsley, with some great questions and comments ("Yours is the sleaziest film I've seen at Frightfest - and I mean that as a compliment"), and a really appreciative round of applause for the actors. Revolver, who have picked up the film for distribution, organised a raffle for the audience, with tickets handed out beforehand and 'Mum' and 'Dad' handing out the prizes at the end. (Hey, maybe that's why so many people stayed for the Q and A...). The prizes were a set of kitchen knives ('Mum') and a toolbox ('Dad') which were both won by happy but probably slightly concerned audience members (I don't know if it's the best time at the moment to be walking through London with a set of knives...). Afterwards we signed a few programmes and spoke with a lot of the audience, with Perry being very popular, especially as he's also in Shane Meadows' 'Somers Town' at the moment. Someone kindly video'd a bit of it and posted it pretty much the same day

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much else on that day, as I had to do some press for the film, including an interview for Zone Horror and a weird one for Radio One, for a documentary they're doing for Halloween - weird, because the main questions they wanted to put to me were about torture porn, even after I'd said that a) I haven't seen the majority of the films they're talking about, b) I don't think 'Mum & Dad' is torture porn and c) I dont' even know what a definition of the term is. It all felt a bit two years ago.
I was so knackered by the end of the day (and also had to get back to where I was staying) that I missed Frank ('Basket Case', 'Brain Damage', 'Frankenhooker') Henenlotter's 'Bad Biology' which I really wanted to see. I actually got to meet Frank at the Frightfest party the night before and told him that his interview in a book that I've got called 'Incredibly Strange Films' (not the Johnathan Ross book of the same name, but this one which features interviews with people like Russ Meyer, Herschell Gordon Lewis Larry Cohen and Doris Wishman and articles on genres like women in prison film, mondo films, exploitation films, beach party films, Santo films and sexploitation films. It's great.) was really inspirational. He told me that, at the time, he was really embarassed about it being in the book because he'd only really made one film ('Basket Case') - but in a way, that's what's great about it, and about a lot of the interviews in the book - they're with people who aren't fully 'in' the industry and therefore have a whole different approach to filmmaking.

I stayed in London for the next couple of days, watching as many films as I could, including 'Martyrs', 'Let The Right One In', 'Midnight Meat Train', 'The Chaser', 'Eden Lake', 'Fear(s) of the Dark', 'Autopsy' and 'The Broken', and trying to avoid dying of scurvy by only eating takeaway food purchased from a Spar just of Leicester Square. I wish I could have seen more, but I'm obviously much more of a lightweight than the regular Frightfest crowd. Maybe next year, once I've built up my stamina...

Space Pirate Video

Well, the interview with Film4 went out on Friday, preceding the opening of the FrightFest season on the channel. They intercut me sitting in the crypt with a lot of mini-clips of the film, not spoiling much but giving a good sense of the atmosphere. I thought I came across okay, although my friend Mark (camera op on Goth Cruise, and co-tenant of our office) insisted on rewinding the clip straight afterwards (thanks to Sky+) and pinpointing the bit where I apparently looked 'actually quite insane'. Cheers for that.

In a weekend of screen appearances, I also went to see the cast and crew screening of Mark Devenport's 'Big Things', where I have a tiny role as a pissy pirate working in a fancy dress shop. It was a great turn-out for the film, especially seeing as it was on at 10am on a Sunday morning, and it was really good to see it on the big screen. Mark, for the first time since I've known him, was very nervous beforehand, but it sounded as though they got some really good audience responses. Most of the cast and crew were there, including Johnny Phillips, who is really funny as the on-again, off-again professional actor who auditions for the film-within-a-film. London-based, Johnny has been involved with filmmaking around Nottingham since he worked on Chris's 'One For The Road' as a bullying alcohol management group leader, and was around one day when I was writing the script for 'Mum & Dad'. I needed a story for dad to tell at the dinner table, and Johnny told me one about a friend of his who worked in a warehouse. The story makes it into the film, where it is told by Perry Benson - who happens to be one of Johnny's best friends, and had no idea that the story had come from him. It's like an intricate spider's web of coincidence and fate. Or something.

Also at the weekend, I did one of my periodic sweeps of charity shops in Sherwood, home of a treasure trove of Big Box Eighties VHS Tapes. This time I managed to pick up the second sequel to Psycho, 'Psycho 3' directed by Anthony Perkins himself, which I don't think I've ever seen, but which, apparently, has a plot based around 'Vertigo'..., and also a sci-fi film called 'Space Island' which I mainly bought because, although you can't see it here, it has a holographic cover! (Also, on the back it's got one of those great drawings you used to get on posters which seems to have been done by an artist with access only to the two stills of Ernest Borgnine and Antony Quinn which appear next to it
As the name implies, the film is a space version of 'Treasure Island' starring Borgnine and Quinn. It's a German and Italian co-production, directed by Antonio Margheriti (also known as Anthony M. Dawson), who also made 'Cannibal Apocalypse', 'Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye' and 'Castle of Blood'. He's got one of those great genre filmmaking careers that also includes titles like 'Hercules against Karate', 'The Unnaturals' and 'The Long Hair of Death'. (Oh, and 'Code Name: Wild Geese'...). Searching around, I found a great tribute website run by his son, which includes loads of trailers and clips.

The third purchase of the day was a real rarity - a DVD of 'Dark Shadows', the gothic Sixties American soap, produced by Dan Curtis ('The Night Stalker', 'Trilogy of Terror').
(I mean, 3 and a half hours for £2.99, that's got to be a bargain... ) I've only ever seen clips of the programme - which went out 'as live' on TV - but the story around it sounds really interesting, and it also partly feeds into another script idea I'm working on, set in New England.

Finally, and most terrifyingly, there was the one purchase I didn't make - this book: 100 per cent nightmare fuel. It's probably the most disturbing thing aimed at children I've seen since this: The Pop-up Safety Book, featuring a tiny clown with a knife and his pet raccoon. "Sleep well, kids. And don't have nightmares..."