Feature Category: Article

Legendary poster artist GRAHAM HUMPHREYS talks horror, his long career, influences, the evils of Photoshop, and more!

STARBURST: One of your most celebrated earliest works was the iconic UK theatrical poster for Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, a film which was soon to be dragged unfairly into the whole Video Nasty controversy. Do you think that the notoriety the film gained during this time helped or hindered your career?

Graham Humphreys: The Evil Dead got its UK distribution in 1983, two years before the Video Recordings Act came into law in September 1985. At the age of 23, two years seemed more like ten years at the time and I don’t recall any significant impact on my career during that period. This was for two main reasons, the first being that I was not particularly aware of most of the films that had become a target for the silly and hysterical tabloids, and thus oblivious to how their removal and savage editing might impact on choice or, indeed, the morality of an infantilised nation. Secondly, The Evil Dead had already been censored with a significant number of cuts for the theatrical, and therefore, simultaneous video, release. Mostly, these were simply to reduce the running time on particularly graphic scenes, although I think the eye gouging was almost entirely removed from the original version I’d been shown at a screening. So as far as I was aware, censorship was already in place for VHS. Of course I hadn’t really been introduced to the many European films and the rarely seen, contentious US art-house films that had begun to flood the shelves in the burgeoning VHS rental shops. As we know, many videos were pulled simply because of the titles themselves. It was enough that they sounded as if they might offend! My real introduction to, for instance, Argento and Fulci films came through Richard Stanley, whilst we storyboarded his first feature, Hardware. My film knowledge had been UK/US centric until that point, with the exception of televised European Cinema. If I had to identify any impact on my career, it will presumably have been positive. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in the UK around the time of the Video Recordings Act coming into law. So if The Evil Dead gave me my first entry into horror marketing, Nightmare’ cemented my position within the genre. It’s important to add that the majority of my freelance work at the time did not fit into the genre category. In order to earn a living I was working on a whole raft of other illustration commissions, completely non-horror related. It’s only in the last ten years that I’ve been working almost exclusively in the genre.

It’s heartening to see that you’ve routinely revisited the Evil Dead franchise many times over your career, including the recently sold out vinyl reissue of the original’s score, The Evil Dead – A Nightmare Reimagined; is there anything in particular about that series that inspires you to keep returning?

In truth, it’s not my decision. I am reliant on being commissioned for any job. Although I rarely turn down work, and only do so because of deadline or budget issues, it is always a thrill to return to an earlier title that has been so formative in my career. As with most artists, I perceive only the weaknesses in my work and each chance to make amends is welcome! I have to work within the limits of my ability and experience, returning to a title like The Evil Dead gives me a chance to experiment with ideas and techniques that I didn’t have at the time. The soundtrack you mentioned is an interesting example because the art is not promoting the film as such but rather an appendage, albeit an important one. My personal challenge involved not simply creating a cover for the film, but using it as visual resource. I wanted to use the four panels of the gatefold as a picture book. The cover is thus a rather restrained image compared to the blood drenched final panel within. The discovery of the taped recording is not an explosive gore-filled scene, but the moment where the horror begins, thus Ash is still looking clean and fresh faced. The tape reel is a direct reference to my original poster. A film poster has to capture the essence of a film in a single panel. The gatefold LP format is four such ‘posters’, two double spreads, each a separate chapter. My second version of the Evil Dead 2 poster, the licensed screenprint, was another chance to create a poster from scratch, as if seeing the film for the first time, yet also acknowledging that which had gone before. I suspect I’ll be returning to the woods again!

Speaking of that iconic Evil Dead 2 poster, how did it feel to see that piece so lovingly referenced by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the debut season of Spaced?

I didn’t see the original run of Spaced, so was unaware of the poster’s use. In fact, I think I was only made aware whilst preparing some ultimately unused concepts for a Shaun of the Dead cinema poster. Naturally, it was a thrill to finally see the series and how the poster was featured so prominently. When Tim inadvertently recreates the pose on the poster, it reminded me of how I’d photographed a friend posing in the exact same way to provide my reference for the original painting! I used a lot of Polaroid photographs in the eighties. Whenever you see a hand in a piece of my artwork, it’s usually mine. Even in the recent Blu-ray cover for Arrow films Blood and Black Lace, that’s me dressed in black! I used a camera on a 10 second timer!

Moving away from Raimi’s franchise, which other genre properties have been favourites to work on?

Aside from The Evil Dead, only A Nightmare on Elm Street provided a number of sequential commissions. I was a fan of the first film, after seeing a preview screening at London’s Scala Cinema. This was some months before being asked to illustrate the eventual UK poster campaign. I appreciated the risk Palace Pictures took by returning to my services. Nightmare’ was completely different to The Evil Dead and the last thing they required was the crude punk rock exploitation look of the 1983 artwork. Most clients pigeonhole artists’ work; I can’t imagine any other client would have had the foresight to make the decision. I then worked on each of the four sequels – the third was my work, though not an illustration – plus a number of Nightmare’ related jobs. Another film I’ve returned to – pun intended – is The Return of the Living Dead. I was unhappy with my original VHS cover, simply because I felt I didn’t have the skills to pull off what I’d intended – this despite the fact that people clearly liked the sleeve – so I recreated the art for a dedicated Blu-ray screening event, really as an experiment. Since then I’ve painted a book cover – Cult Screenings’ 245 Trioxin – and a Shout Factory US Blu-ray release. There was also a hybrid Re-Animator/Return of the Living Dead poster for the Cult Screenings Don Calfa event.

 

It’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of our readers miss the days of artwork posters and sleeves; why do you think that the studios and distributors moved away from the medium in the ’90s? 

Easy answer – Photoshop! It wasn’t an available tool until then. Photocomposition was an expensive process prior to the ‘affordable’ introduction of the software. The skills involved in splicing large format transparencies, re-photographing them and retouching using bleaches and dyes to hide the joins, made it the work of highly skilled artists. Even the early version of computer ‘comping’ involved using specialised facilities, desktop computing was still unaffordable for most designers… the expense was enormous. But I realised very quickly that unlike the tradition of transparency retouching, new computer ‘comping was entirely technology-led and often lacked the artist’s eye. Unfortunately, this is still often the case. High definition has replaced suggestion. I also suspect that as film studios found their talent ever more demanding of obscenely large fees, the need to make full use of an expensive face took over from merely expressing the film’s subject matter. Photography took over. It is slightly disappointing that in a market awash with Photoshop portraiture, there is also a new visual illiteracy. The beautiful posters created by Saul Bass are a prime example of how film marketing moved away from his symbolism to a new literalism, becoming infantilised by Photoshop. As Quentin Tarantino observed, contemporary film posters look more like ‘Vogue covers’. Pouting, overpaid actors retouched in high definition. Painted images are a springboard of suggestion and imagination. A photograph, no matter how beautiful, is simply that.

Conversely, the rise of home video distributors specialising in cult & classic reissues like Arrow and Eureka has created a hunger for newly commissioned artwork. Do you feel that the trend may ever come full circle and return to the mainstream at all?

That’s doubtful. Illustrated images are mostly used for reissues, ancillary campaigns or independent films with limited distribution, but rarely first run releases. However, I think that’s fine. In many ways, there will always be more freedom of expression where the reductive, corporate needs of accountants, executives and moneyed interns are factored out. Modern film marketing is led by money people, not art directors. It may always have been a ‘business’, but it often seems there is little encouragement for true mavericks or creative outsiders right now. In the same way that major releases tend to be franchises, sequels or star vehicles, the campaigns are reflective of a homogenised business where risk is discouraged. But hey, never say never!

Which artists would you say have influenced your style and, or, career?

It’s a mix. I take inspiration wherever it arises. From my early childhood, visits to the local library – I was fascinated by religious depictions of demons and hell – all easily accessible images of horror! And of course, the Bible is full of gratuitously shocking imagery. I didn’t have a particularly religious upbringing, though like many of my generation, Sunday school was just one of those things that you went to as routine. The promise of Sunday school outings to the coast was the biggest draw. It’s curious to look back and see that I was ‘confirmed’ as a Christian in my early teens – before I really understood the contexts and realities of ‘faith’. I’m now atheist. As an amusing aside, my nose bled during the confirmation! I also served at the altar in the local church. I consider it an induction into the world of ‘gothic’! I then found myself becoming aware of book covers and film posters; the magical touchstone for many was Dennis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. Tom Chantrell’s cover was easily the biggest catalyst for everything that followed. Some film posters stood out more than others, but many of the US posters seemed to be painted by jobbing artists with their own specialist areas – US civil war, cowboys, landscapes – and quite how they ended up providing some of the most memorable ‘disaster movie’ posters is something I’ve always thought was rather odd. I’ve named Chantrell, but in the UK, Vic Fair created some amazing work. From the US – Drew Struzan, Bob Peak, Richard Amsel and J.C. Leyendecker. The printed posters of Jules Cheret, Toulouse Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. The new generation of British illustrators that emerged during my college years. The work of Saul Bass and graphic artists too numerous to catalogue… Sometimes it might only be one particular piece of work from an individual’s entire output. But I also take inspiration from the abstract and tribal… and a particular love of Tibetan sacred art.

Many of our readers, and writers for that matter, will have grown up with at least one of your movie posters tacked to their bedroom walls; who or what adorned yours?

I should have added both Bruce Pennington and Roger Dean to that last answer. They both adorned mine! Now it’s almost all vintage posters – the Universal monster films, Corman’s Poe films and many of the Hammer Horror – there seems to be a lot of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price! But yes, back then I had a copy of Jaws, Earthquake and The Hindenburg as my first collected film posters.

How long would you say on average commission takes to complete?

Depending on the complexity, a painting might take anywhere between two and four days, maximum five. The fee often decides what time you can allow. If I spent two weeks on a job that was only covering the fee of one day, I’d be out of business pretty fast. The preliminary process – viewing a film, making grabs, the sketching etc. – can often be completed in a day. This time is generally not covered in the fee; I tend to quote on the painting process!

A studio or distributor gets in touch – can you walk us through the process of creating a piece?

It’s often been different in the past, but the process has been whittled down to a fairly simple set of stages. 1) The initial contact and acceptance of a job – once a budget and deadline has been mutually agreed. 2) Viewing the film, or materials, to get a measure of the subject and an understanding of how best to approach the project – the client will usually indicate upfront any particular requests… ie. required imagery or portraiture. 3) Selecting the imagery I feel works best, usually screen grabs, and sketching the various elements – portraiture is almost always traced from the photographic source using printouts – it’s the most efficient way of ensuring a likeness. Sometimes I’ll supplement the images with my own photography and web searches, or composite the grabs with other poses, or perhaps add a close-up to a wider body shot, to keep the best portrait reference. 4) Scan the pencil sketch elements into Photoshop and play around with compositions, exploring focal elements or key ‘moments’, always searching for the most impactful or meaningful combinations. 5) Email the layouts to the client and – all being well – agree on the preferred option. 6) Reintroduce the original photographic sources over my pencil layout, creating a crude photo-comp in Photoshop. 7) Print out the comp to the size I intend to paint. 8) Trace onto the paper – I generally use Bockingford 190gsm, ‘not’ surface – a pitted effect that allows for more texture when painting. 9) Use masking tape to secure the paper to a wooden board I use for the purpose. 10) Cover the paper surface in a wash of colours that will form the base of my colour theme, using splashes of additional colour or clear water to particular areas – always having a rough version of the finished item in my head. 11) During the previous process, the paper will buckle, forming ‘valleys’ where the paint will run into shapes and forms that will add a spontaneous look – the paper dries flat because of the taped edges – so once dry I’ll usually start by defining the darkest areas, the basic shadows and contours, almost a drawing rather than a painted image. 12) Then I’ll concentrate on the key portraiture, moving around the painting, most often from top left to bottom right, so as not to disturb the painted surface resting my hand as I paint, or using bits of clean paper to protect the surface. 13) Take constant breaks to keep reviewing with fresh eyes… one of the most important devices I also use, a piece of mirror that I constantly check the progress with. It has a two-fold purpose: to see the reflected painting as if for the first time, but also to keep in check the tendency to skew imagery. If you’re right-handed it’s easy to find a bias of angles from bottom left to top right, and in reverse if left-handed. Using a mirror to check this will quickly reveal the bias. 14) Complete the painting by ensuring important detail is included, portraits are as good as the paint will allow, and that there is a cohesion and balance to the overall layout. The addition of a few carefully administered splatters using a worn brush is the final stage. 15) A quick photo is often taken for the client to see the results and identify any glaring issues. Fortunately, these are rare. Then the final scan and any necessary final tweaks in Photoshop, usually adding a bit more extra bleed, but generally retaining the integrity of the original item. 16) Invoice and get paid!

It’s probably akin to picking a favourite child, but which piece are you most proud of?

Once a job is complete I tend to dislike it – it’s part of the natural process where you keep re-evaluating what you do, always striving to improve. Of course budgets and deadlines conspire against ideal results. For this reason it might take a year or two for me to regard a job as something I can feel comfortable with. I’m always trying to look through the eyes of a stranger, judging my work and finding fault… it’s the only way to move forward! So I can’t really identify favourites, just successes. My easy copout is always the same… the job I’m most proud of? I’ve not painted it yet!

If fans want to get their hands on your work, where can they point their wallets?     

The best place they can spend that money is on the final product – Blu-ray, LP or whatever – that way I’m more likely to be recommissioned by the client! However, my website has a section which shows what folio prints are currently available. There is no online shop, but my email address is easily found on the site and I can respond with prices etc. Very easy! The large format book Drawing Blood, published by Proud Gallery, is still available, though I have no access to stock. The gallery – proudonline.co.uk – will sell you one, as will Amazon. It’s a bit pricey – sorry, out of my control – but it comes in a special box and with a limited edition giclée print. People seem to like it! And any convention where I’m a guest, I’ll always have prints, booklets and posters. As my work is paint on paper, rather than digital, I have originals that I’m also happy to sell. Prices are set according to the amount of work and subject matter.

Are you able to tell us about any upcoming projects that our readers should be excited about?

Not without compromising the confidentiality of the client! But there are some fun items I’m currently very excited about personally. Perhaps a favourite film, a favourite TV series… I’ll say no more!

 

For more on Graham Humphreys’ incredible work, be sure to visit www.grahamhumphreys.com. To contact about prices and/or commissions, reach out using [email protected]

STARBURST readers of certain age and location will have fond memories of London’s Scala Cinema Club, which was a pre-Internet shrine to every cult movie imaginable. Twenty-five years since its last all-nighter, we get nostalgic with programmer-turned-historian, Jane Giles…

The Scala was the UK’s most notorious repertory cinema. Throughout the years of Thatcher and fear-mongering film censorship, it stuck two fingers up to the establishment with a mind-bogglingly eclectic menu, from Hollywood classics to arthouse obscurities to extreme gore. The brainchild of Stephen Woolley (who went on to run Palace Pictures), it was originally at the site of an old concert hall in Tottenham Street, Fitzrovia, before moving three years later to its legendary second home amid the grindhouse squalor of ‘80s King’s Cross.

2018 marks a double anniversary: the 40th birthday of the first Scala show and 25 years since it closed in a storm of controversy. Former Scala Programmer Jane Giles, who was personally prosecuted in the notorious A Clockwork Orange illegal screening case in 1993, has marked this auspicious occasion by writing Scala Cinema 1978-1993, which lavishly showcases every one of the cinema’s famous fold-out monthly programmes, alongside a month-by-month history that lifts the veil on a unique venue that Scala favourite John Waters described as “a country club for criminals and lunatics and people that were high… which is a good way to see movies”.

STARBURST: How did you discover the Scala?

Jane Giles: Well, I was born in 1964 in Crawley, which is near Gatwick Airport so there was not much going on there. When I left school, I fell in with a bunch of boys at Sixth Form College, and they’d go up to London every other weekend on some adventure, usually to see a band like The Cramps or The Birthday Party. My parents were quite strict about what I could and couldn’t do, but for some reason they thought it was OK for their 16-year-old daughter to go off with a bunch of punks from the local school band; they were called the Split Beavers… yeah, I know! One time it was to go an all-nighter at the Scala because the guys had been going there since the Tottenham Street days, where it started in 1978. By this time the Scala had recently moved to King’s Cross. That night I certainly remember Cronenberg being part of it, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Martin, and other things… it was a fantastic all-nighter, I couldn’t believe it. The guys I was with were quite snooty about it, ‘Oh, Tottenham Street was better’, but the minute I saw the King’s Cross cinema I just thought, wow. It was like a sort of gone-wrong version of the beginning of a Walt Disney film where you get the logo of the enchanted castle, a real kind of palace of dreams. I was amazed, I didn’t know such a thing existed. I had discovered repertory cinema at the Duke of York’s in Brighton, but there were such riches at the Scala. Every day there was something that you wanted to see. And the fact that you could stay up all night watching films. VHS was too expensive then, it wasn’t a staple in every student home like it became. So to be able to go and see five films for three quid was an amazing thing. It was a way of educating yourself about film. I really love film and I love music.

You became the programmer for the Scala in 1988 – how did you get the job?

The only thing I was good at school was art, but having done a foundation year, I was told I wasn’t good enough for art school. So in a fit of pique, I applied to study in Reading in 1982, where it was really easy to get in – nobody wanted to go to Reading! I did this thing called a BA in Combined Studies, which is basically film, drama, and art. What I didn’t know was that the film teachers were (acclaimed film theorists) Laura Mulvey, Jim Hillier, Stuart Cosgrove – big names. After that, I did an MA in film and wound up on a BFI placement in Regional Film Theatre Management in Ipswich. I was based at the Corn Exchange there, which is a haunted cinema, by the way! I was there for a year, just learning everything from projection to programming to box office, being paid literally tuppence, but it was fine because I was learning. In the course of that year, I saw a tiny ad the size of a postage stamp in the Guardian with the Scala logo on it that was so familiar to me from going there for several years, and it said ‘Programmer Wanted’ and I thought ‘That’s my job’. I applied for it, Stephen Woolley interviewed me, and I got it. I thought this was the way of the world. I thought work was that you saw your ideal job advertised in the newspaper, you applied for it and you got it, regardless of the fact I was 23 years old. It was effectively my first job – I’d only ever done things like cleaning toilets before that – apart from my training placement. But this was the way that Stephen Woolley was. He was only 19 years old when he set up the Scala. He employed people who were very young; it was a young person’s thing, it needed that energy. Maybe it was the stupidity of young people as well because we took risks that maybe older, more conservative, more conventional industry people wouldn’t take.

How would you describe the audiences at the Scala?

It was always very mixed, it just seemed to be everyone. People dressed to the nines, absolutely in the full Goth regalia, there were very eccentric old-age pensioners as well as very young people who bunked in because they had a burning desire to be there. And the Scala would take their money not out of a cynical desire to get an extra three quid, but because if a young person turned up at the Scala, they were kind of meant to be there – unless they were a rent boy in which case one would keep an eye on them! But young people had a sort of pull towards that place, and the reason why I talk about age is that obviously a lot of the films were 18 certificate, so some people were legally too young to be in the venue.

King’s Cross was very different back then, wasn’t it?

It’s quite posh now, but what was funny for me at the time was that I didn’t really see the vice around me in King’s Cross. I think I was blinkered, as sometimes you are when you’re a young person. I just saw the Scala glowing like a fairy palace in front of me, I didn’t see the prostitutes and the junkies. But by the end, it was very bad. By 1993, we had people shitting on the doorstep. There were crack dealers. There was a knife fight one night where the dealers burst through the doors to try and take refuge in the foyer. It was awful by that point, so bad. It was disgraceful what happened to King’s Cross in the name of re-development. They had to bring it really low in order to get all of the small businesses out. It was strategic and it was horrible.

The Scala prided itself in presenting hard-to-find movies uncut where at all possible. What were the challenges in getting this material onto the screen?

Pretty much everything at this time was on 35mm film or 16mm film, and this was actually really liberating because there were big collections of 16mm material. One of the unique things about the Scala was that it had an amazing 16mm projector fitted with a Xenon lamp, so it was almost as good as 35mm. The 16mm film catalogues were very, very rich both with Hollywood movies but also the highways and byways, because film societies and the educational sector were very strong before home video, so 16mm prints would routinely be made for a really interesting range of material. And 16mm prints tended not to get worn out in the way that 35mm did, and it was a smaller gauge so it was smaller to store. There was an organisation called FilmBank, which was set up by the studios to handle their non-theatrical 16mm collections. So one of the things that the Scala did that was not strictly ‘regular’ was to book 16mm film prints into a commercial cinema. We stood behind our ‘club membership’ status to argue that we weren’t commercial in the way of the Odeons and chain cinemas. It was a grey area to say the least, and mostly distributors turned a blind eye to it because nobody really cared so long as we paid our bills, which we did.

In the late ‘80s, the Scala hosted the Shock Around the Clock all-night horror festival, organised by former STARBURST writer Alan Jones, which was the predecessor to FrightFest. What are your memories of it?

Shock Around the Clock was intended to be a one-off event, as Alan told me, in 1987. And it was such a rip-roaring success that it was repeated in 1988 and ‘89. My first experience of it was in 1989 and I was amazed by it. It was not unusual for the cinema to be completely full, but what was unusual about Shock Around the Clock was that it was the first time I’d seen such a vocal audience. The audience could usually be quite noisy, interacting with the films, but with Shock Around the Clock it was a really special atmosphere. It also seemed to be very hot! There was literally sweat running down the walls, people passed out on the floor… I think it was a sense of people being so happy just to be there. Tickets were really in demand so people felt a real sense of achievement even getting into the building and being able to watch 20 hours of film, or whatever it was. There were horror films and there was gore, but it was not a reverent environment. People would cheer and whoop and make signs of distress, so it wasn’t an uncritical audience.

The Scala pulled off some great coups, such the being only place to see David Lynch’s Eraserhead in the UK upon initial release…

Oh yes, I’d completely forgotten that and it was a surprise to me when I did the research to find that it opened exclusively at the Scala. Critics really struggled with Eraserhead, they couldn’t find the language. It genuinely was something really different. The Scala programmed a whole ‘Cinema of the Bizarre’ season to contextualise it and to help prepare the audience. It included double bills of Nosferatu and Vampyr for a week before Eraserhead. But then, when it was into its run, to put on the Devo music film with it (In The Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution), that really helped, because it was kind of a post-punk rock, New Wave audience. One of the brilliant things that Stephen Woolley did in the early days of the Scala was to make that music connection, because he was a huge punk fan. By inviting bands in, by working with Tony Wilson of Factory Records and getting bands like Throbbing Gristle, New Order, and Spandau Ballet in, he made that connection with the music crowd. The music press was very strong then. You were always at the mercy of Time Out, there was no other way of marketing apart from through the print media so they gave a different angle, a different audience, and that was something that continued at the Scala all the way through to the end. When I was there, we had people like Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch, and Gallon Drunk. There were lots of music films shown as well and by the end, there was the ‘The Grey Area’, which was programmed by Chris Bohn from Wire magazine, showing Industrial Noise movies.

1981 Scala by David Babsky

The press often cites the famous A Clockwork Orange breach-of-copyright legal case as the reason the Scala closed down in 1993, but that wasn’t the real story was it?

The Scala moved into the King’s Cross cinema in 1981 on a 12-year lease. So in June 1993, the lease ran out and the landlord wanted to triple the rent. But Palace Pictures had gone bankrupt in 1992 and with Steve Woolley and Nick Powell being directors of the Scala as well as Palace, we couldn’t raise the finance to re-develop the cinema in order to pay the landlord’s elevated rent. Plus, there was still a compulsory purchase order on the building relating to the high-speed rail link. So it was those factors that ultimately conspired to end it. The thing with A Clockwork Orange is the legend that gets printed, but if the lease hadn’t expired, the Scala wouldn’t have closed down in 1993.

The book tells the story of the Scala as a historical narrative but also with a vast number of photographs and by reproducing all of the famous photo montage fold-out programmes. How did the book concept evolve?

The Scala programme was based on the American ‘Calendar Houses’ such as the NuArt in LA and the Roxie cinema in San Francisco. These programmes washed up in London in the hands of Stephen Woolley so he gave them to the designer and said ‘do this’. The Scala had been experimenting in its first year with different formats, but nothing really captured it until that concept. Suddenly, everything made sense, it was an absolute work of genius and people pinned them up on their walls, they collected them. I always wanted to write a cultural history and film history of the Scala. Then I met Harvey Fenton of FAB Press and he’d always wanted to publish a book of the programmes. I thought this was an impossibility because it’s very expensive and very difficult to do highly illustrated books; printing is very expensive. But Harvey had this mad vision to reproduce them legibly, so we had this huge conversation on what the book could be like and we just basically put my idea for a history book and his idea for a book of programmes together and did both. It’s huge, it’s enormous – as big as your forearm at least. It flattened me, this book. It’s like a sort of Victorian folly to have created it. Nobody has ever done this: to gather every single programme from a single venue. It was made possible by the Internet. We knew that crowdfunding was an option because Harvey had just done that with an update of Stephen Thrower’s epic Lucio Fulci compendium Beyond Terror, releasing it as a very lavish edition. I knew the Scala had a fan base because I’d set up a Facebook group for former staff and friends. People were swapping memories but also, crucially, swapping materials and photographs. So it suddenly became possible to gather all those things together and create this book. We had some help from famous people, like Jonathan Ross, in the film industry who put some money towards the production costs, which was great but it’s been a really foolhardy enterprise that has nearly bankrupted Harvey and nearly crippled me!

Arriving at the Scala back then, it always felt very exciting, almost ritualistic, signing up to your ‘membership’ status for the evening…

Absolutely right, there was something ritualistic about signing in and a sense of privilege to being a member of the Scala. You had the NFT or Everyman Cinema-type people who kind of looked down on us, but it was somewhere that anyone could become a member, whether you were a boy in an anorak or whether you were Boy George, literally. All of those people were members, it was really something that I think doesn’t exist anymore. It was a club that anyone could join, but not everyone wanted to.

Scala Cinema 1978-1993 is released by FAB Press on September 26th and is available to pre-order here. For information on programming and events UK-wide in September 2018 visit scalarama.com.

The opening film at Frightfest is always the pacesetter for the rest of the festival, which in 2019 will be celebrating its 20th anniversary as it becomes ever more popular amongst both old and new fans. The Ranger, directed by Jenn Wexler, tells of a group of punks wanted for the shooting of a police officer during a drug bust, who retreat to a cabin only to find themselves the target of a resentful park ranger.

STARBURST had the pleasure of talking to director Wexler, co-producer Heather Buckley and cast members Chloe Levine and Granit Lahu during the festival.

STARBURST: How many drafts of the script were there? And given the film’s surprisingly short (77 minute) running time, is there a “Director’s Cut” of the film?

JENN WEXLER: There were about two drafts written, and by March 2016 the final draft felt right and is similar in content to the version you saw. We did have a cut that came in at around 85 minutes, but my co-editor (Abbey Killheffer) felt some of it was indulgent. We then cut it down to the running time as we wanted it to be more like a roller-coaster ride for the audience.

The longer version fleshes out the relationships. There is an alternate scene in the Ranger’s basement which is in the “X” version, but the version we have released is the R-rated version. My producer Heather felt that this should have more of the feel of a punk song, three chords.

You used natural locations. How did you come to select them and did you construct any sets?

JW: We built one set so we could get the tax credit from the New York Film Office. The club sequence was shot at the Don Pedro Club, which closed shortly after we finished filming there. Heather and I went location scouting in up-state New York and found my dream cabins around Woodstock.

The make-up and gore effects are as effective as anything we have seen in other horror films. Tell us about your team and their background.

JW: We had a great team, led by Brian Spears.

GRANIT LAHU: I was in prosthetics for around 12 hours during one scene in particular. It’s rather uncomfortable and I was half-naked during that.

What were your filmic influences on The Ranger?

JW: I wanted to mash up 1980s punk films like Class Of 1984 and Return Of The Living Dead with other classics from the time like The Evil Dead and A Nightmare On Elm Street.

As actors, did you have much time to rehearse and did you improvise at all?

CHLOE LEVINE: We didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time whilst on location.

GL: There was one scene we did improvise, when I was chasing Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez) in the woods and I stood on this stone formation made by the ranger. We also added some New York-influence to the dialogue.

In terms of finance, how long did it take to put the package together?

JW: Well, it began with Larry Fessenden, another of our co-producers. Heather was my second.

HEATHER BUCKLEY: Another of our key players was Andrew Van Den Houten, who is a good friend of mine and had produced previously The Woman and Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. We then put together a teaser, and Andrew called me. Then Glass Eyed Pix and Hood River Entertainment came on board. Jenn is somebody who knows how to make a film of this type of budget.

As you reflect on your first visit to FrightFest, what key things will you take away from the experience?

GL: The community of it.

CL: It’s my first time in London as well, so it’s been so awesome to absorb both London and the festival itself.

HB: It’s been great to hang out with some great punk-rock people who love the horror genre.

JW: I would say the Frightfest community is incredibly loving, open and passionate about horror, and I do gravitate towards people like that.

How has digital film-making enhanced production on a film like The Ranger?

JW: We shot on the Alexa Mini, which gives a great cinematic quality to the images, but it is also lightweight enough so we can do great shots. I have shot on Super-16 which I did for The Most Beautiful Island, but for The Ranger, one thing I didn’t want was the 1970s look.

Finally, is there a particular genre you would like to tackle, or is horror the thing for you now?

JW: Horror is my thing.

HB: I like noir…

CL: I love horror!

GL: Similar with me, and I also like layered characterisation.

See www.theranger-movie.com for screening information.