Beautiful, intelligent and talented actress, Kim Bubbs is a stylish cross between Grace Kelly and Linda Carter in her demure. The charming, Canadian born actress of the drama Her Only Child and the upcoming Jack Kerouac movie based on his adventures as a young man, On the Road, took time out from her busy schedule to tell us about the new horror film she appears in, The Thing.

Starburst: Hi, Kim, how are you doing?

Kim Bubbs: Great!

Let’s talk about the highly anticipated prequel to Universal Studios’ The Thing and your character.

The movie’s a prequel to the John Carpenter film of the same name. I play Juliette, a French geologist assigned to a Norwegian scientific team in Antarctica. While conducting experiments in the area we discover something frozen in the ice that’s believed to be at least 10 million years old that isn’t anything like in recorded history. When it’s accidentally thawed out of its frozen state, it comes alive and begins to pick us off one by one, mimicking anything it touches. It becomes a psychological battle of wits because you don’t know who to trust as it begins to infect the team.

Where did you film the movie?

Up in the Toronto area and in some of the local sound stages. The director, Matthijs van Heijningen was terrific to work with! He took so much care in making sure the actors were well fed and warm throughout the filming. He wanted to remain true to John Carpenter’s version filming in the same area as the 1982 movie. He’s a big fan of John’s and has a lot of respect for him.

You can’t but not like, John. I worked with him on three pictures, Escape From New York, The Thing (1982) and They Live – he’s one of the nicest directors you could be on set with. He knows his shots and set ups inside and out and respects his cast and crew as they respect him.

That’s the way Matthijs was on our film.

John’s a good role model to have. Tell us about the effects work.

They were very impressive. Again, Matthijs wanted to respect John Carpenter’s work in the 1982 version and used puppetry in many of the scenes in order to have a continuity look to the 1982 version. There is some CGI as well, but the puppetry work really adds to the depth of the film.

I remember seeing Rob Bottin’s robo-dog Huskies when I first walked on to the Hartland sound stage in North Hollywood for the first time. I did a second take they looked so real. Was there anything like that on the set?

No. No, robo-dogs. (laughs)

What did you do to prepare for the character of Juliette?

I read John W. Campbell’s short story, Who Goes There?, watched some of the 1951 version and the 1982 version. I also read a lot of books on geologists to get a sense of what conditions and environments they work in. I watched Werner Herzog’s Encounters At the End of the World which is a fascinating look at the landscape and people who live and work in Antarctica. Have you seen it?

No, I haven’t, I will definitely check it out. Growing up in Canada, what were your influences on wanting to become an actress?

I had the best of both worlds. My mother is French and my father is English so I got to have a parallel childhood growing up learning a lot about people. Canadians consume a lot of American television and I was able to see a lot of shows that influenced my decision on being an actress.

Are you yourself a big fan of the horror and science fiction genres?

I love science fiction and horror films, but sometimes they tend to stay with you after a few days. I saw Jaws at a young age when I wasn’t supposed to, and it had an effect on me.

But, Bruce as they called it, was a robo-shark.

Robo-shark… tell that to a little kid!

I had a great time talking with you, Kim! I’m sure The Thing is going to be a big hit with the fans!

Thank you so much! It was great talking with you too!

The Thing is released October 14th in the US, and December 2nd in the UK

Quatermass and the Pitt’s star talks about the digital remastering of a timeless classic.

Starburst: You play Colonel Breen in Quatermass and the Pit. What are your thoughts on the character; would you, for example, describe him as the villain of the piece?

Julian Glover: Well, he’s not a villain, is he? And, anyway, when you play baddies as I have – which I’ve quite a career of doing – you can’t possibly go in thinking I’m the baddy. Even if it’s not in the script, you’ve got to invent why he does things. Breen is not a villain: he’s not out to destroy anything or to spoil anything. He got it wrong, completely and utterly wrong. Someone described him as the idiot of the piece, but I wouldn’t put it that far. He’s just not bright enough to understand what’s gong on. He’s a military man, middle-class background, probably gone to Sandhurst. He’s used to defusing bombs and stuff like that. That’s where he did his training. And he gets this unique situation, but when you find a bomb there are certain courses of action, and he follows them. He doesn’t want to know when people like Quatermass are nosing about. He doesn’t want to know about that because he knows about defusing bombs, and he’s got it wrong. So I wouldn’t say he deserved his ending. (laughs)

Colonel Breen has a particularly gruesome death scene. What was that like to film?

Uncomfortable. Make-up of that kind is very uncomfortable. There’s a lot of stuff stuck on your face. He had to be burnt, you may remember. I always thought it was rather a mistake for him to have his hat on. They made it sort of smoke. His face was in such a state that I think his hat would have burnt. A difference of opinion that I didn’t win on.

How do you think the special effects of Quatermass and the Pit compare to the CGI of today’s science fiction films?

Well, they are not as good. It’s remarkable what they managed to achieve in those days without any trick photography or digital work. The appearance of the locusts was really well done. It was done with models which for those days was very satisfactory. Today not quite so much. I haven’t seen the re-mastering. Have you seen that?

We have, yes, and thought it was very good.

I was told it’s terrific.

They didn’t get round to all this clever mastering, digital stuff until comparatively recently. Even in Indiana Jones, my death is quite a dramatic business. That took three days to film. They’d do my face, then take it away and work on it frame by frame. Each little bit was shot separately, which they don’t do now. The effects are absolutely remarkable; I mean, how did they do that! The latest Star Wars film: how did they do that! But earlier on – when I was coming up – and even as far as Indiana Jones, they were frame by frame shooting with film. So that’s the difference. But, of course, the effects are better and more spectacular. I think it’s quiet remarkable what they achieved in the older days.

I’m hoping that as a result of doing all these interviews, I’m going to be given a copy of it.

You’ve not had a copy yet?

I’m not asking you for one! (laughs)

Ahem. What are your thoughts on the underlying themes of Quatermass and the Pit: religion, black magic, and social unrest?

That’s one of the reasons why it’s successful. There’s a mysterious thing that we’re trying to understand. What’s so great about Quatermass is that ordinary everyday people go to the underground station, and suddenly this extraordinary, mysterious thing happens. You don’t discover what the mystery is until about three-quarters through the film, and up until then it’s about trying to work out what the bloody thing is? And when it breaks open and those locust things come out. Wow! It really is exciting. And it’s mysterious: what on earth are they? They are not fully explained. Which I think is a very satisfactory thing to happen in the film. You never get a full explanation. It’s not being lazy; it’s not bad script writing, absolutely intentional. They remain mysterious right to the end. And you never know, it could happen again. It’s the same thing in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That theme is the constant thing of it. My character has got the secret; he doesn’t know what to do with it. He just hasn’t got the last piece of the puzzle. And, of course, he gets that wrong, and our hero gets it right. Because he would, wouldn’t he?

Why do you think Quatermass continues to appeal to audiences 44 years after it was originally released?

It’s been a cult film for a long time. Nigel Kneal just knew how to write a script. It was an advantage for our film to have the television series as a precursor. We knew that it was a successful story, and that was why Hammer took the great risk. This was a big break away for Hammer, and it obviously paid off. We’ll have to see whether the modern audience like it. It will be very interesting to see whether it will get another cinema showing. That would be really great.

You’ve worked with many great directors over the years; what was it like working with Roy Ward Baker?

Oh lovely. He’s still with us, you know? He’s very sharp, very on the ball, knows exactly what he wants, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Nor do I, and nor should anyone who is any good at their job, in my opinion. So if people are misbehaving he doesn’t tolerate that. I wouldn’t say he was a charming man, but a good chap to be with. I like him very much.

You have had a long and established career in TV, film, and stage. You have appeared in both the Star Wars and the Indiana Jones franchises. How does Quatermass compare to your other works?

It’s a completely different story, of course, all three have what you referred to as this mysterious, secret core. Star Wars is a representation of a religious belief. Indiana Jones is bound up with the occult, secrets and magic, and so is Quatermass and the Pitt. I think the later films are more polished, but it doesn’t mean to say they are better. But it may turn out that this new version will come up to standard.

We think it’s a really good movie, and this new version does it justice. You won’t be disappointed.

Good, I’m looking forward to it.

Julian Glover, thank you very much.

Quatermass and the Pit (Blu-ray) will be released on October 10th 2011

Tom Holland has been a prominent figure in the horror movie genre since 1982, when he scripted The Beast Within. In 1983 he scripted the acclaimed follow up to the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho which revisited Norman Bates 20 years later. His place among the horror greats was assured in 1985 with his directorial debut Fright Night which went on to become a fan favourite along with 1988’s Child’s Play. Since then, he has carried on both writing and directing, adapting two of Stephen King’s stories for the screen. Tom recently took time out to talk to Starburst, reflecting on his career, and looking to the future of the horror movie industry.

Starburst: The first question is always going to be the obvious one – how did you get started in the business?

Tom Holland: I was an actor first, under the name of Tom Fielding. That was the a.k.a.

You worked on Bob Hope’s Chrysler Theatre, Combat, Felony Squad…

I did The Incredible Hulk, I guest starred in that with Bill Bixby, I think there I used the name Tom Lee Holland. I was in A Walk In The Spring Rain as Tom Fielding, that was a movie with Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn in 1970. I was a soap opera star in the sixties out of New York City. So I was an actor, then I transitioned over to a writer, then from a writer to a writer/director.

The first work of yours I remember seeing, and it made quite an impression was Psycho 2 in the early eighties. Now Psycho 2 the film is a very different animal from the sequel novel written by Robert Bloch.

Oh God yeah! There’s no similarity between the movie Psycho 2 and the book.

I remember being confused by that at the time. They both appeared in the UK at around the same time.

I think the book sort of gave the impetus to making the movie. What happened was the book came out and the producer, Bernie Schwartz, now passed away, thought it was a good idea, and he optioned the book – but I’m not sure about that. Anyway when they calmed down and they read the book they realised it was impossible to make it as a movie but they had the idea by then. They needed to find a commercial story for the movie and they hired Richard Franklin the director, and then Richard Franklin hired me.

How did you feel about sequelising something as iconic as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that early in your screenwriting career?

This was the second movie I’d written. The Beast Within was the first and that had not been a success and I didn’t work for an entire year. It had taken me five years to get to the point where I got a movie made with The Beast Within, which by the way I think is a very interesting movie for its time because it was a big effects movie. Now it looks very primitive, and you can certainly see the transformation aesthetic being born, so to speak, in terms of effects.

The Psycho 2 job was incredibly intimidating. We knew, Richard and I, that I was going to get killed by the critics, and so I probably worked harder on that script than I have on any other, to make it the logical successor to Mr Hitchcock’s Psycho. I really, really worked to make that the best movie I could because I just felt that critics were going to go in hating you for attempting to do it in the first place.

Did you work with Anthony Perkins on his dialogue? You seem to have hit exactly the same syntax that he had in the first movie.

I must’ve watched that first movie thirty times!

No, I didn’t work with Tony. The script is what got Tony to commit. Originally it was a cable movie. This was the early days when cable was just coming on. The studio, Universal, had no idea that they had anything that anybody would be interested in seeing. What happened then was that the script turned out to be (laughs) thank God, very good. Tony Perkins committed. The minute the media and the world heard that Tony Perkins had committed to do a sequel to Psycho, Universal was besieged with requests for interviews and for news about it. That was when Universal figured out they had a low cost feature film, as opposed to a cable movie. The backed in to it as a movie. They were almost forced in to it because of the fan interest. Even then, they did it incredibly cheaply.

That movie was made on the studio lot, I think we may have left once to get that shot of the burial in the graveyard. But other than that, 99.9% was shot on the back lot at Universal as was Mr Hitchcock’s original. The entire cost without the studio overhead was 3.8 million dollars.

When you think about it, they didn’t even pay to design a new house. They just went and pulled Henry Bumstead’s drawings of the original Psycho house, and we recreated it and we shot it. It was the same design that Mr Hitchcock had for the first one.

It was an amazing congruence of circumstances that made the film possible. The studio was paying no attention at all and was in a state of befuddlement that it was attracting all this interest, and they never bothered us. They left us alone and we shot the movie.

The only thing I did for Tony, when we were in production, is Tony wanted a scene that showed character, that showed how nice he was (laughs) and I wrote the toasted cheese sandwich scene for him. It took place in his room with Meg Tilley. I wrote that in the early part of production. Otherwise, the script was what it was, the way I wrote it before he even joined.

Fright Night is one of those iconic eighties movies that was way ahead of its time. What you did was you paid homage to the vampire movie lore, and you also made a self aware horror movie over a decade before the same idea occurred to Wes Craven with Scream. The protagonists in Fright Night know what they’re dealing with because they’ve watched the movies. The Peter Vincent character is a total fraud because he’s working from his experiences as a horror movie actor, how did you get that idea?

I grew up watching the American International (AIP) horror movies with Vincent Price, and the Hammer horror films and that is my loving homage to Hammer and AIP. Peter Vincent is named after Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. It was my memory of growing up being a horror fan, because in the United States, back in the sixties, pretty much the only place you could find horror was on the independent local TV stations. On Friday night, they would run something called The Friday Night Frights and they would start them at 11:00 at night. A lot of them had different local horror hosts. You’d have Zacherley coming out of a coffin or Vampira in a fog filled set. You’d have these men and women who were terribly hokey and comical. They had no money because it was the local stations. They’d throw up a black flat behind the host and they’d pontificate in Frankenstein type voices and I felt a great deal of affection for them. They’d have these God-awful horror films, and in-between the terrible stuff would be the Hammer and the AIP stuff.

That’s what’s so amazing about Psycho by the way, it was the progenitor of the modern horror movie.

It’s the first slasher movie isn’t it?

Oh boy, it’s the first one! Such elegance, such brilliance. Look at the complexity compared to Halloween for instance. Halloween was in your face, but Psycho took montage and it elevated it in to an art form in the service of suspense and terror. Hitchcock was a true genius. I think John Carpenter’s really talented – but Hitchcock’s a genius. I think even John would say that. But I don’t know (laughs).

But anyway, I’m off track – what was the question?

I think you’ve answered it. We were talking about Fright Night.

Fright Night, yes. What we’re talking about is called post modernism now, which is self reverential. I would suggest – I might be wrong, but I would suggest that that wasn’t so much Wes, as it was the screenwriter, Kevin Williamson. I don’t know him, I’ve never met him. So Fright Night was self aware. It stays within the situation, it never breaks the fourth wall and winks at the audience.

Scream takes it to a new level of self awareness. Post modernism/irony. I think that got tired. Not that I don’t think that Scream is brilliant, because I do. But now, we’ve had so many “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” films it pulls the viewer out of the dramatic situation in the film and it mitigates terror and it leads to comedy mixed with horror which is what you see predominating now. Once again, I’m not criticising because these people are friends, but you end up getting Hatchet. You end up getting comedy horror. That’s because people have lost the ability to scare the audience and that inevitable leads to farce. Farce is the exclamation point and the exhaustion of the genre.

In the same way Universal killed off their classic monster franchise of the thirties and forties by teaming them with Abbott and Costello.

In the late seventies, it happened with Love at First Bite with George Hamilton as Dracula. It absolutely finished off the vampire genre, until 1984 when Fright Night came out, which resuscitated it. When I made Fright Night nobody was making vampire films any more because they had become objects of derision. They were farce.

It’s like the last couple of episodes of Chucky. The doll has gone into camp and farce. When you do that, it’s because you have become self conscious. You can’t scare the audience any more. So they have to take a time out to the killer doll genre. I think it’s a cycle that you see with so many of the genres…. horror genres especially.

The genre changes and it reinvents itself again.

It always does.

Would you say that Child’s Play is the film that most people will remember you for?

Actually, Fright Night seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. We had a midnight screening (in 2008) – Tim Sullivan organised it. And brownie points in heaven for Tim, he and a guy named Jack Morrisey organised it at the New Art Theatre here in L.A. and it was sold out almost a week in advance. We got some of the members of the cast back together again, the editor, and Randy Cook, one of the effects guys. It was an interesting group. Randy ended up being the three time Academy Award winner for Lord of the Rings. He and Steve Johnson were the two effects guys on Fright Night so you see people’s careers progressing.

Anyway, we had this midnight screening at the New Art, and it was like the 24th anniversary or something like that, but there was just this huge amount of publicity and it was picked up by all the horror sites. It seems to me there’s more interest in Fright Night than in Child’s Play.

I think that’s because apart from one, way back when, Fright Night hadn’t been sequelised, whereas Child’s Play feels current because the sequels have kept coming over the 20 years. Child’s Play doesn’t feel like something from the eighties, it feels like something current even though there’s such little similarity between the let’s say, last sequel, and the first one that kicked the series off, which I did.

Back on Fright Night – the character that everybody remembers is “Evil Ed”.

(Laughs) Yes… everybody remembers Evil Ed. Tip of the hat to the actor Stephen Geoffreys who did a brilliant job.

Was the character based on somebody that you knew ?

(Laughs) He was based on every horror fan that I ever went to high school with. Listen, Charlie Brewster was me. Evil Ed was all my weird friends. If you were into horror back in those days, oh boy… “something was a little wrong with you”, you know what I mean?

I think you got the best performance out of Roddy McDowall in the latter part of his career in that film. In fact, I’d say that’s the best performance by Roddy McDowall outside of chimp make-up, if I’m honest.

I can’t remember now, but I wrote Class of 84 and he starred in that too. I remember him being very moving in that, but to be honest with you, I haven’t seen it in a long time. I could go on and on about Roddy. His passing was a terrible loss to the film community. Roddy was a walking, living history of Hollywood. Roddy did so much to help me as the first time director of Fright Night, he just loved film. He had the biggest collection of 16mm prints of anybody in town. Whenever I wanted to see a film and I couldn’t get a print of it, I went to Roddy and Roddy would run me a dub out of his personal collection. It was an absolutely astounding collection.

He also was friends with everybody. Every major actor. And he went back and maintained friendships, even go out to the Motion Picture Home and visit with the silent motion picture stars that even at that time, had been forgotten. He walked me around MGM, which is now Sony, telling me where this or that famous moment happened. He pointed out to me where Katherine Hepburn met Spencer Tracey. He was amazing, he’s been a child actor, he’d been through the creation of the studio system. He was just an amazing reservoir of knowledge. If you were a film fan hanging out with Roddy McDowall, it was the ultimate pleasure because he could talk about it so knowledgeably because he’d been there and knew it. He was a living, walking history of Hollywood and film.

If he liked you, and thank God, he liked me, he was very supportive. You’ve got to remember this film was my first directorial effort, and the fact that he took me seriously – he made so much possible for me. He and Chris Sarandon. Chris should not be forgotten either. He’s an extraordinary actor.

Chris Sarandon came back to work with you again on Child’s Play didn’t he?

Yes, and we also worked together again on a movie of the week called The Stranger Within starring Ricky Schroeder, which I directed. It got Ricky a Golden Globe nomination. The problem with television is that nobody remembers it.

Yeah – it’s disposable entertainment

The way things are going, I’m not sure that anybody’s going to remember movies either.

I’m sure we will.

Think so? God, the business is going through such massive changes the ceiling is there.

How difficult was it to get Child’s Play made?

Child’s Play wasn’t difficult at all.

From a technical point of view? Put another way, if you were making Child’s Play today and I believe somebody or other is, then probably Chucky would be all CGI. But CGI didn’t exist back then. How did you accomplish what you did? Were some of the dolls mechanical? Did you have short people in a Chucky suit and a mask?

Oh boy, this is a discussion in itself. It was a huge job. It was all animatronic, there were multiple dolls with multiple heads with different expressions. Pieces of the face were moveable. We had eleven puppeteers off camera operating the doll. Even then, it was almost impossible to make the doll work in a believable way. Things like tensile strength. It couldn’t really grip the knife. We had to do an aluminium foil cutout.

I used a little person for a lot of it, named Ed Gale, who did a brilliant job. I built sets that were big, but in scale. Or I shot down on the little person, so you didn’t have anything that referenced his size. I have a pirate commentary that I put up on the Icons of Fright web site. Tim Sullivan set it up, and he and I sat, with Chris Sarandon, and we did this commentary that’s up on the website (and iTunes), for Child’s Play. We did this outside of the 20th anniversary edition of the DVD. It’s not on the DVD. It’s probably the best commentary I have ever done. None of it is fluff, I went shot by shot describing how I had done the illusion of making you think that the doll was for real. It had been so long that even I was surprised by how much I’d used the little person.

I remembered that when the babysitter’s sitting there reading the book, the first murder, the act one break, and all of a sudden you see the doll run out of focus behind her across the archway? I couldn’t get that shot with the puppet. We couldn’t make the puppet work. I was desperate and I saw Alex Vincent’s little sister. She was like, four years old.

We put her in the Chucky costume and she ran from the teacher who was on the set, to her mother’s arms who was hidden behind the archway. The doll that you see running behind the babysitter is really Alex Vincent’s little sister, dressed in the doll’s costume.

I was doing things like that to maintain the illusion. I was making them up as I was going along whenever I ran into production problems because the doll was a bitch (laughs). And I’ll say one other thing. CGI is great for sweetening mechanical effects. CGI by itself looks like a videogame. I think that at least where it is right now, there’s something about it that I don’t believe. As they remake Child’s Play if they go to CGI, they’re gonna be in deep shit trouble. You can’t do all CGI. There should be a move back to the reality of mechanical effects, but using CGI to sweeten it.

Do you have any input at all on the remake of Child’s Play?

No I don’t. But God bless’em. I wish them all the luck in the world.

I’ve heard a rumour that they have Brad Dourif coming back to voice Chucky for the remake.

I would assume so, they’ve used him for every sequel.

So what’s the point of remaking or reimagining if they’re changing nothing. Surely it proves that a remake is unnecessary?

The point is greed (laughs). Corporate greed.

Did you have any input with any of the sequels?

No, I haven’t.

The franchise was the subject of quite a bit of controversy in this country following the murder of a small boy. The link was that a video rental store several blocks away had a copy of one of the films on their shelves. The middle class newspapers sensationalised the similarity of a closed circuit picture taken just before the crime with a scene from the film. The link was tenuous at best and resulted in a witch hunt against the horror movie industry.

Well, they’re selling newspapers aren’t they. No wonder old media is dying with that kind of rabble-rousing yellow journalism.

It reminded me of Frederic Wertham’s crusade against the comic book industry in the fifties, where he placed the blame of juvenile delinquency at the feet of that industry, causing the demise of the E.C. Company and their line of horror titles. I can only guess that the next scapegoat will be either video games or the internet itself.

It’s really a very hard discussion. I remember sitting there at a symposium that the Writers’ Guild had after Psycho 2. I was there on the symposium with Psycho author Robert Bloch whom I have a huge amount of respect for, and I think you’ll find he was a mentor of Stephen King. I remember Bloch criticising me for using too much blood in Psycho 2 and he was specifically referring to the shot of the knife going through Lila (Vera Miles)’s mouth. We had put that shot in, made the fake head, put the knife through the mouth, specifically for the heightened modern taste for gore at the time. Robert Bloch objected. I think what I’m trying to say is that the standard for sensationalism is a moving target. Every generation is shocked at the bad taste of the next generation.

It gives us something to assume the moral high ground on, I guess.

Right, but at the same time, and it goes for Five or Die too, you’ve moved in to an area of explicitness with torture porn, or what they’re calling torture porn, that assaults the senses and can lead to revulsion of shock, but is not terrifying. As the ability to terrify slips away, you get in to more and more explicit gore. We can debate that, but all I can tell you with any assurance, is that it’s going to change again. Even in our generation right now, you have this whole movement against torture porn. There is a reaction against the explicit gore. In that area, I no longer say that anybody is a fuddy-duddy or is outmoded, because I’ve seen that the modern taste of what is acceptable has shifted already three or four times in my lifetime.

You mentioned Stephen King. How did you feel about adapting two of his stories Langoliers and Thinner?

I felt great about Langoliers. I think Stephen is brilliant, just in terms of being prolific he’s got to be one of the most prolific writers of our generation for God’s sake. His output’s just amazing. 

Langoliers is a brilliantly constructed novella. It’s longer than a short story. It’s really his homage to an episode of The Twilight Zone I think. I don’t know whether he acknowledges it or not… but I think it is.

Thinner was not a success when it came out and I had the studio lean on me about the ending. The ending in the book is a very bitter ending and the protagonist loses. I think that when you read it in the book, its lack of commerciality was not as obvious as it was on the screen. What happened with that movie, and I’ve never had it happen with any other, was that the audiences absolutely loved the movie right up until the ending and then hated the movie. They hated the ending.

Because you’d left them with a bitter aftertaste?

They didn’t want the protagonist to lose, and that’s what happened in the book. I thought it was a brilliant character study. But what I learned was that when you’re dealing with a movie, the audience wanted the protagonist to win on some level, and he didn’t. So the preview audience hated the ending. Loved the movie, hated the ending.

The studio made me put this crappy ending on that was neither fish nor fowl. But if I had it to do over again, I would make it a bittersweet ending, which is to say that he lost, but he also won. The moral of the story, as Stephen King said, was that moral jellyfish get crushed in the end. I can tell you, after all those previews, it wasn’t the moral the audience wanted after having followed Billy as he fought to have the gypsy curse lifted.

So, I thought Langoliers was a terrific piece of material in every way, and I thought that Thinner was a great novel, but the ending didn’t work in film. Or, if it worked, then I never figured out how to make it work. And yet, I have all kinds of people come up and tell me how much they enjoyed the movie. Go figure.

I guess you can’t please everybody can you?

No, but if you’re making a movie, which is a mass entertainment, you’d better figure out how to do it if you want to have commercial success.

The next thing I’d like to discuss with you is an episode of Masters of Horror that you did.

Yes. Actually, I’m very proud of that.

We All Scream For Ice Cream.

We had some good actors in that. Lee Tergesesen, and kudos to William Forsythe.

Did you write the script?

No, David Skal wrote it, but I worked very closely with David on structuring the script. Then, David came in and did the dialogue for the characters. Anchor Bay put some quality in to that series. They put two million dollars in to every hour. So you have some very good effects in that show.

Having achieved your level of success with Psycho 2, Fright Night and Child’s Play now you’re been doing something exclusively for the web – Five or Die.

It’s my first foray into horror for the internet. It was an experimental and learning experience for me.

I guess by definition your audience reach is going to be wider, they can sit at home and watch this, but it’s smaller in scale. You have four actors.

Oh sure. With production values, it’s all about the challenge of getting something of quality on the internet that will hold people and being able to do it for no money. As of yet, unless you know something that I don’t there’s no business plan to bring an income stream in to the cost of production. Everybody thinks that everything on the internet should be for free, so until it becomes ad supported, which looks like the direction in which it’s headed, and until the ad rates become sufficient to pay for the cost of production, there’s no money in it. So whatever money you put in to production, you don’t see back. So until that problem is solved, it’s a very difficult medium to work in. At the same time, it seems to be where young males are. I thought it was something to do because it’d be fun to work in video, it’d be fun see what I could do for no money and having no production support.

One thing I’m unclear about, making a movie like Five or Die costs doesn’t it? You have your actors, equipment, editing… where does the revenue come from to cover all that?

Well, it doesn’t. It isn’t there. My problem is that I would like to do more on the internet, I’m thinking literally of setting up a website and asking for contributions if you like the show. Maybe I can get some money that way to pay for production. People forget, you have to at least give the cast & crew gas money to show up. And I have to give ‘em lunch for God’s sake. You can’t expect a bunch of people to turn up and work for free and not feed them. There has to become kind of business plan that emerges on the internet that allows people like me to pay his actors and his crew. Everybody has to live and here in America there’s no government supports like there apparently is for young filmmakers in Britain.

Like the lottery funding.

That’s right – we don’t have any of that here. What I did with Five or Die was we were all sitting around, nobody was working. So I called up a bunch of my friends like Paul Maibaum, the cinematographer. He’d shot The Langoliers for me. And I called Vince Gaustini for effects. He’d done Thinner for me. We were all sitting around and we said “Let’s put on a show”. We used my house. Three bedrooms in my house. I was fascinated by iChat, so I wanted to use something that used the internet, so we made Five or Die. I had state of the art effects with Vince Gaustini, and I had a terrific cinematographer with Paul. So we mixed professional Hollywood people with extremely low production values which is to say I shot in three bedrooms in my house.

I would like to go out and make more internet product, because the wonderful thing about it is there’s no suits giving you notes or telling you you can do this or not do that. There’s a wonderful creative freedom, but there has to be enough of an income to give the people who do the work at least gas and eating money.

Are there going to be further episodes online?

If I can find the money, there will be. I’m thinking of doing another series, or even a series of Five or Die shooting 19 minutes until I have a DVD, and then perhaps sell the DVD online to try and cover the cost of production. This is not a situation where you’re looking to make a profit. It’s a situation where you’re just looking to cover your expenses. But, at the same time, there’s something wonderful about it being there and you can click on it and look at it any time, day or night. What you have with the internet is the first worldwide distribution system that’s open to everybody. Then you have the problem. How do you market on that ? Well, I’m doing it now by talking to you, but I don’t know how many people the worldwide horror audience is. I know that you have to have something like 4 or 5 million hits on YouTube to make something like 40,000 dollars.

The move from analogue to digital is also allowing filmmaking to be more accessible to everybody because of the cost in production. What’s increasingly valuable is talent. It seems as though there’s only so much talent around at any given point. If you go on the internet and look, 99.9% of what you see is God awful. Of course, if you look at movies and television, you should think the same thing. But I’d love to get a website set up and I’d love to get young horror filmmakers to post on it.

While the world waits for further episodes of Five Or Die and Tom’s proposed website project to reach fruition, the visionary director has, in the meantime, gone back to his roots. He can be seen in a prominent role in Adam Green’s slasher movie gorefest, Hatchet 2 where he appears alongside fellow horror stalwarts Tony Todd and Kane Hodder.

For a man who resurrected Norman Bates, revamped the living impaired and unleashed a foul mouthed psychopathic doll on the world to the outrage of the U.K. tabloids – Tom Holland is a true gentleman of the film industry and deservedly a legendary director among horror fans across the world.

Once in a blue moon do you get the opportunity to interview an upcoming star who has manners, a quick wit and a humble demure. I’m talking about actor Ryan Gosling, whose new film Drive – a neo-noir caper with action, car chases and gunplay that delivers an intense smash-your-head-in-with-a-hammer-traveling-at-the-speed-of-sound explosion obliterating your senses – is out now.

Gosling plays ‘Driver’, a man of very few words, but makes up for it in action. Stunt car driver by day, getaway driver by night. Here’s what he’s got to say about the film and a little about him…

WSB: By far, this is one of the best films I’ve seen this year and your performance is outstanding! You have this Steve McQueen/Ryan O’Neal persona throughout the film. Tell us about your character.
RG: Thank you, especially for the comparison to Steve McQueen, though no actor could ever take his place. There are elements that people will compare me with Ryan O’Neal from the Walter Hill classic The Driver, but I looked at this character as someone in a John Hughes movie that walks into a happy scene with cotton candy, but who just happens to be carrying an axe and a severed head in his hands that ends up dripping blood all over that cotton candy. In the book, ‘Driver’ is a stunt man, but he’s also a film fan thinking that he’s the hero or wanting to be the hero in reality with psychopathic tendencies.  

Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.
He goes through a lot of emotional moments in the film that gives him this dark metamorphous. The director, Nicolas Winding Refn and I discussed this and we decided that ‘Driver’ is a metaphor for a werewolf.

Nice guy, but don’t get him upset when there’s a full moon out.
Exactly! As in the werewolf persona, he also justifies his actions.

Drive has this mythological, western, lone gunfighter feel to it. 
It’s basically a fairytale when you look at it. The driver is the knight errant, Irene, Carey Mulligan, is the princess that needs rescuing, Bryan Cranston is my trusted friend and Ron Pearlman and Albert Brooks are the dragon and evil wizard I have to slay. Though they play such bad guys in the film they’re the nicest and funniest guys you’ll meet.

That’s so true! When I first met Ron Pearlman at a benefit honoring Roger Corman, I thought I was talking to Joe Piscapo the comedian until I finally realized it was him! I mean, how was I to know? He wore all that make-up on the Beauty and the Beast TV show back then! We had a good laugh about it. Albert Brooks is a good guy too. He wrote and directed a film way ahead of its time called Real Life that starred Charles Grodin about a reality show filming the All-American family. I remember he shot the trailer in the red/green stripe process in 3D that played in the theaters. Years later, I ended up dating Grodin’s daughter from the film, Lisa Urette, for the longest time then we broke up. She was a talented actress, but it was the only film she ever did. I ran into her mom three months ago in Burbank and asked if she was around thinking I could rekindle the old flame.
So, what happened?

She’s got two master’s degrees, married, has an eighteen year old son and is living in Italy running a museum. 
Looks like you’re out of the running on that one. 

Gee, thanks for the observation. Speaking of people, Bob Tinnell (writer/director of the cult classic, Surf Nazi’s Must Die) says hello.
You know, Bob Tinnell gave me my first acting job. It was a film called Frankenstein and Me.

With Burt Reynolds. It was a good little film. 
Yes! Burt was only there for a day, but what a nice guy. I ended up taking that Frankenstein suit home and wearing it around a lot to try and frighten other kids on the block though the novelty wore off pretty quickly when they found out it was me. 

What were you like as a kid? What did you watch on TV or in movie theatres?
I grew up in Canada, so we had a lot of Canadian content TV, but I remember, when I was about six years old or so, and I saw a Friday the 13th movie and I thought – this is great! I had this Harry Houdini magic set that had fake knives in it, so I replaced them with my mother’s steak knives and took it to school one day.  I took the knives out and started throwing them into the wall in the classroom. The teacher intervened and needless to say, my parents were called in and I was expelled from school for the rest of the week. 

So what happened?
I couldn’t go to the movies any more and could only watch bible type programs on TV after that.

There’s been some talk of Oscar buzz with this film and Ides of March. How do you handle it?
I really don’t know what to say. Praise… it’s an interesting word. Most people out there when you’re starting out don’t give it to you or they don’t believe in your work or they themselves are too afraid to try what you’re doing and want to drag you down. The thing to do is just don’t listen to them. It’s about the work, how you feel and that in your heart you’re doing the best work you can do. Don’t let others influence you with negativity. Negativity is a killer and has stopped a lot of good people out there from pursuing their dreams. Believe in yourself.

Sage advice. I really had a great time talking with you and I look forward to meeting you again.
Same here.

DRIVE is currently on release in the States and opens in UK on September 23rd.

Director Ben Wheatley’s new film, Kill List, has generated some serious word-of-mouth buzz over the past few months. As a British genre picture it could well be destined for cult classic status. It takes the typical hitman thriller and presents it in a new, terrifying context.

Starring Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley and MyAnna Buring, the film sees a traumatised hitman taking up a new job offer that keeps getting stranger and stranger and stranger. Very recently Starburst chatted to the director about his movie, its reception and the mysteries within. 

Starburst: Where did you get the idea for Kill List because it’s such a different blend of genres?

Wheatley: It came from a lot of different places really. It started before we did Down Terrace and thought what kind of movies do we want to make and my producer said ‘you should do a horror film’. I did my crime film first but there was always the intention to do a horror film. It was in the back of my mind even when we did Down Terrace. The film, oddly, came from some casting ideas and I’d worked with Neil Maskell on a TV show and I really liked him. I wanted to write something specifically for him. We were gonna do something set in Jakarta, in the Phillipines, a mixture of a crime film and cop thriller and it never came off. I took the plot from that grew into Kill List.

It’s a very funny film too. Was that always something in the script, the humour and comic dialogue?

I had this question a lot on Down Terrace. They’re not comedies but they are characters with a sense of humour. So they’re funny but not funny in a stand up comedy sort of way. People deal with very extreme situations with humour.

When you were writing the script did you ever worry that there would be too much genre shifting.

As a viewer you’re trying to second guess what’s going to happen next and it feels very chaotic but when you see it as a whole, I think it makes sense. There have been a lot of reviews where people go ‘oh it’s just tacked on’ and I think well no it’s not if you think about it. It’s all been structured. We’ve had feedback of different reactions to the end and coming back a few days later and telling us they understand it more. I think this is where people – even critics – get confused as if we’ve made it up on the day and we don’t know what we’re doing. As a filmmaker you’ve got to know everything and have a plan.

My own response to the ending was seeing like some sort of mad job interview to work for the Devil. That’s my interpretation, I’m not saying that was your intent.

You can read it in a lot of different ways. I don’t think you necessarily have to have one idea. You can take from it what you want. In Sight & Sound they said it’s about him having combat shock in Afghanistan and he’s gone insane. But then there is this other level of him becoming… at the start of the film, Fiona, says she’s in human resources and she is… she scouts for these people who are potentially evil enough to be employed. There’s loads of criteria we just don’t know, but that makes it much more scary because if you knew specifically there would be no mystery.

Yes, I thought the cult was quite interesting. It’s very non-specific. It might be Satanic, it might not be.

Yeah, Christians would call them Satanic. I like to think they’re a religion beyond religion, that they were the oldest kind of religion in the world. 

Have you had audiences coming to you with their own interpretations of the film?

Yeah. There’s loads of stuff. There’s even blogs that have written about Biblical meanings in names and stuff and it’s really flattering. Some of what they’d got was really right and on the nose and other stuff I hadn’t a clue, to be honest. Other things were just so wide off the mark. We weren’t really making a comment on a specific cult or religion.

The character Jay goes through a transformation as the story progresses. Did you write a backstory for Jay?

There’s lots of stuff. Amy my co-writer and I… you have to know exactly what happened. Even the dull stuff… the TV movie version of the film which would reveal everything. We tried to make sure there was an internal logic to everything. 

The violence in the film is pretty hardcore and the scene with the hammer is insane. The film doesn’t offer typical horror violence does it?

It was always in the script that it would be pretty hard. I think there’s a few things going on. These characters get money for murdering people and you want to see them . You can’t paper over what murder is. You’ve got to take it seriously. When you see violence you can’t flinch from it.  Also, the film isn’t that violent really. It’s not like Hostel or any of those movies. In those films you don’t feel all that scared about the violence. The hammer scene, you feel in the lead up it’s going to cut away and it doesn’t. The scene doesn’t talk in the language of horror cinema or action cinema but a health and safefty video or snuff. If you bash somebody’s head in with a hammer it doesn’t explode like it would in a horror film, it’s something more muted. That’s what’s scary about it. It happens forty-five minutes into the movie, at the half way mark and you realised somebody you like, his job is pretty horrific. 

Jay’s increase in violent responses to situations even worries his partner Gal (Michael Smiley). 

They’re both pretty wanton and the most careful hitmen. They throw people out of windows and they think nobody is looking at them. If you’re that confident then you don’t worry about getting caught.

I’d like to talk about the laptop scene. There’s been plenty said in reviews about what is on the video they watch even though the audience never sees it and only hear screams and such. When writing it did you make a decision what it was?

It’s like Room 101. In that Joel Schumacher film, 8mm, they show you what Nicolas Cage’s character watches… the script by Andrew Kevin Walker is really scary but the reality of it is people in gimp masks and it’s not scary. It might be scary for some. But you’re putting a name and a face to the horror. If you just hear bits of it, I think that’s more terrifying than if you show it.

Now you’ve made Kill List do you want to work more in horror features or make different kinds of movies?

I want to do as much as I can. I’m doing a comedy next. It’s a much lighter film than Kill List and not as brutally dark. There’s also an alternate reality kind of film we’re doing with Nick Frost. It’s going to be a big thing and based on a comic strip I used to do. We’re in development to do something I describe as “Hill Street Blues versus monsters”.

KILL LIST is out now on DVD/Blu-ray

Most of us, when asked, has a program which was a formative part of our childhood television.  For many reading this magazine Dr Who will rank high .  For me however there was one show which stood out from all the others, The Ghosts of Motley Hall.  From the sinister, discordant, theme music to the crumbling facade of the mansion itself, everything about this show was ‘haunting’, each episode a mini, self-contained ghost story.  As it seldom gets an airing on television now, I was excited to recently discover the complete series on DVD.  Re-watching it as an adult, over thirty years after it was first shown, I was surprised at how sophisticated the humour of what was basically a kid’s afternoon show, is.

I decided I wanted to find out if my feelings were a result of mere rose tinted nostalgia, or if there was indeed something more to the show’s apparent timelessness.  Imagine my delight when ‘The White Lady’ herself, Sheila Steafel, happily agreed “to chat about Motley, one of my very favourite series”!  So I put it to Sheila, was I wrong to be so bewitched by a kid’s television show now that I’m in my forties?

“Although the three series (1975-77) of THE GHOSTS OF MOTLEY HALL  were made as children’s programmes, they attracted appreciative viewers of all ages. The reason may have been that the writer Richard Carpenter (affectionately known as ‘Kip’) and director Quentin Lawrence (ditto ‘Q’) as well as we in the cast respected our audience and never ‘played down’ to the lowest common denominator as many other TV programmes are inclined to do. We never thought of the series as anything but a serious, if somewhat eccentric, drama.”

Eccentric seems an apt description for a show which basically throws five disparate characters together with no other unifying denominator than that they are all ghosts.  Each individual ghost is as different from the others as day from night, from the woebegone White Lady herself, to the affable Elizabethan jester Bodkin, and it must have taken some judicious casting to bring each of the individuals so vividly to to the screen?

“Part of its merit was indeed in the casting. It would be impossible to think of anyone but Freddie Jones playing the blustering Victorian military ghost of Sir George Uproar, and who but Nicholas le Prevost could have brought the young, swash-buckling Restoration blade ‘Fanny’… I nearly said ‘to life’?  Arthur English of course WAS the Shakespearian jester Bodkin, and I still wonder at my luck at being cast as the anonymous White Lady, (I’m not a ghost, she would wail,I’m just a description!) It was a part to die for…. which I suppose in a way did! We four ghosts couldn’t leave the Hall, but Matt, the deceased stable boy, (played by a young Sean Flanagan) could, which meant the story lines weren’t altogether confined to the interior set. The estimable Peter Sallis as the nervous yet determined janitor completed the team of regulars, while the distinguished guest actors, different in each episode, contributed hugely to the quality of the series.”

Writers and directors alike (and I’m sure Richard Carpenter and Quentin Lawrence were no exceptions) are renowned for being fiercely protective of their work, which must prove difficult for performers.  According to Sheila however, this was not the case with their show, especially where one specific element was concerned. 

“Kip and Q decided we should each of us choose our own method of disappearing, but specified that as a ghostly function it would take quite an effort. In the event we all staggered unsteadily when we arrived anywhere, particularly Fanny, who always managed to land in the most unlikely and usually most painful of places. I decided that pinching the bridge of my nose as though expecting a huge sneeze would generate the energy I needed to materialise or fade.”

Speaking so fondly of her fellow cast and crew, I get the impression that the ‘diva’ish’ traits of the White Lady were resolutely restricted to her character.  With five such strong individuals, surely they rubbed each other up the wrong way at times?

“We had enormous fun making the programmes, but what was even more rewarding was that we became a genuine team… almost a family, and this trust and fellowship showed on screen. We would give lines away to each other, as well as crucial moments: Wouldn’t it be better if YOU said that, or did that?  And we were grateful for suggestions from one another, and even criticism. I remember Freddie taking me to one side after one of the White Lady’s excessive bouts of emotion and telling me as politely as he could that there was no need to be quite so realistic, because screwing my face up ‘didn’t make The White Lady as attractive as she should always be.’ Point taken.”

And how about what could almost be referred to as the ‘sixth’ character of the show, the dilapidated Motley Hall?

“The set itself was ‘permanent’, which meant that during the run of the series a studio was set aside for our use only, and with familiarity Motley Hall with its vast sombre, dusty hall, cobwebbed staircases, and secret passages became ‘home’.”

Apart from the humour injected by Richard Carpenter’s writing, and the individuality each of the actors brought to their own characters, the other lasting memory of the show, and an aspect which still works today even in our age of CGI, was the use of special effects.  The said effects, mainly consisting of the ghosts vanishing and reappearing at will, were never a ‘character’ in themselves so didn’t detracted from the storyline or interaction between the people – they were merely a means to an end.  That’s not to say that they weren’t state of the art, which could prove at times a little confusing for the cast.

“In those days special onscreen effects and visual trickery were new and challenging. As far as my limited knowledge goes, in order to make us transparent or disappear altogether, they removed the colour green from ‘the spectrum’, which meant that anything green wouldn’t be acknowledged by the camera. ‘A ghost’  would be shot against a plain green background, standing on a green cloth, with all the shadows eliminated. Then one camera would cover the scene, let’s say in the main hall where it was due to appear, while another would cover the ghost in the green area The two pictures were aligned for perspective and your position, the director Q would bring up the picture of the hall sans ghost, and then on cue fade the camera up on the ghost, and it would materialise.

By the mid 1970’s Sheila was well known to British audiences having appeared in such iconic television shows as The Frost Report and Z-Cars, and on the big screen in Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD in 1966 and Quatermass and the Pit the following year.  In fact she starred in quite a few things with sinister overtones, as she later went on to appear in the cult comedy horror Bloodbath at the House of Death with Kenny Everett in 1984.  However The Ghosts of Motley Hall was one of the first programmes in which she appeared, I think it would be safe to say, where all the characters had equal billing and she didn’t play second fiddle to someone else.  The show definitely brought out her feminine side, though being a trailblazer for spectral feminism wasn’t without it’s downside, particularly where her appearance was concerned. 

“The White Lady was one of the few opportunities I’ve had to play a heroine of sorts.  I loved wearing the wispy white robes, though from time to time they did trip me up, quite noticeably in one of the episodes, and the long wig, though not exactly ‘flowing’, added to the image. The long false fingernails, though, became the bane of my life on and off screen.  They had to be glued on each morning, and were inclined to come off under the slightest pressure, so I had to become adept at avoiding using my finger tips, and ordinary activities like eating and dressing demanded concentration and innovative manual skills. Peeling them off each night began to tell on my own nails, which started to weaken and discolour. I tried leaving the false ones on overnight, but would often be woken up by a painful jab inflicted by the odd fugitive nail lurking inside the bed, while the rest hung on at alarming angles.”

By the end of our conversation I felt glad to know that there’s nothing childish about my memories of Motley though, true to her character, Sheila left me somewhat enigmatically.

“If I had to choose, my favourite episode would be GODFREY OF BASINGSTOKE, with Ian Cuthbertson in a suit of rusty armour glorying in the role of the clankingly dull knight who had tripped head first into a well in the grounds of Motley, got wedged, and drowned. So painfully plodding was he, that The White Lady gratefully resolved to remain her anonymous self rather than finding her name was Mathilda, Godfrey’s affianced bride. I once asked Kip Carpenter if the White Lady actually knew who she was; and he did point out that when it looked likely her identity might be discovered, she managed to manipulate the situation in favour of her continued anonymity. As for me, I’m sure she knew exactly who she was, and I’m fairly sure I know who she was too. But I ain’t telling.”

Cleaver Patterson

‘WHEN HARRY MET SHEILA’ (personalised, signed autobiography) available from Sheila Steafel’s website: www.Sheilasteafel.co.uk

Lisa Bowerman is an actress, writer and part-time Bernice Summerfield alter-ego. But she is also director of – and barmaid in – Big Finish’s Jago and Litefoot series of adventures. Starburst took the opportunity to corner her with the Mind Probe last month, to see what all the fuss was about…

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Starburst: Hi Lisa – let’s start with Jago and Litefoot. Who are they, where do they come from, what makes them tick? Imagine we’ve never come across them before…

Lisa Bowerman: Jago and Litefoot were characters that appeared in the 1977 Doctor Who story The Talons of Weng-Chiang, set in Victorian London. Henry Gordon Jago is a Theatre Manager and Professor George Litefoot is a pathologist. An unlikely partnership, you might think – but as it turns out a theatrical dream team. They are – of course – investigators of infernal incidents!

SB: What is it, then, of all the incidental characters over the years, that has made Jago and Litefoot so ripe for spin-off?

LB: Simply the clarity and sheer exuberance of the characters. Robert Holmes created a great double act. Far from being stereotypes though, they’re men that the audience have real empathy for – there’s a believable humanity to both of them. As I’ve said, they really are an unlikely partnership… but in this case opposites attract. There’s clearly an affection between them, and both of them react to danger in their own individual ways… but together they’re the perfect team. Also, it has to be said that the actors Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin latched onto the characters like limpets – and never for a moment turn them into stereotyped panto characters. We as an audience simply adore them and care for them.

SB: And on that note, tell us about Big Finish’s involvement in the spin-off series itself. How did it come about?

LB: It was actually David Richardson, Big Finish’s Line Producer, who thought that we should have a punt at doing a Jago & Litefoot Companion Chronicle. Although technically they were never ‘companions’ as such, they clearly struck a chord back in the ‘70s as there was talk at the time of a spin-off TV series for them. All credit to Jason Haigh-Ellery who, when offered the idea, saw the potential. Subsequently the Companion Chronicle The Mahogany Murderers was so brilliantly received, it seemed almost a no-brainer not to go for a full series.

SB: So, the box-sets are stylistically quite a departure from The Mahogany Murderers, the Companion Chronicle that started Jago and Litefoot’s tenure at BF. Tell me why the decision was made to move from narrative to a play format?

LB: I think if you’re going to be doing all original stories, and a full four episodes, full casts are the only way to go. After all, the Victorian social landscape has so many wonderful characters to use that it would be a pity not to exploit that.

SB: And similarly, why box-sets rather than individual releases? Perhaps more importantly, how do the series arcs drive the writing and stories? Would that work less well if the stories were released over a period of months?

LB: You’d have to ask David Richardson the thinking behind this. On a personal level I think an individual play, although easily listenable to on its own – works so much better if there’s a narrative that runs through the entire series. There’s a neatness to it, and I also think we had such huge confidence in all the writers that we wanted to give the listener the full experience. Also, let’s face it, the design of the box itself is stunning. Alex Mallinson has done a superb job – who wouldn’t want to own something that beautiful?

David Richardson is the overall producer, Justin Richards is the script editor and together they’ve assembled a brilliant team of writers and sound designers who’ve all latched onto the characters and the era so fantastically – the box set idea really does work well as a whole.

SB: What do you think it is about Jago and Litefoot that works so well? What makes these series different from, say, the rest of BF’s output?

LB: I’ve probably answered that already in terms of the characters, but also the Victorian world lends itself perfectly to audio. It seems odd to say that fog is important – aurally, of course, that’s impossible… but the implication of it gives all the stories an ambivalence. Are things really what they seem? It’s also not purely sci-fi, although there are elements of it. There are ghouls and ghosts, murderers, monsters and the damned well unexplainable round every dark alleyway corner – as well as all the social aspects to consider. Also, it has to be said, not only is it laugh out loud funny but can equally turn on a sixpence emotionally. You really care for these characters, and I’m delighted that it appears that the fans genuinely love them.

SB: As a director, what are the biggest challenges with Jago and Litefoot, compared with the other audios you’ve worked on? Specifically, how do you cope with directing yourself? Do you find you have to give yourself notes?

LB: It has to be said that there are no particular differences with the other projects I’m involved with. The only things that are really challenging with full cast dramas are the budget restraints and organizing everyone’s availability. I enjoy this series so much, it’s an absolute pleasure to work on.

Luckily, with Chris and Trevor on board, we’re able to attract a really high calibre of cast – which from a director’s point of view is three quarters of the battle. Cast well, and generally everything else just falls into place. Actually, the only challenge I can think of is trying to keep the volume of the laughter down in the green room!

As to directing myself, it’s a bit like doing that thing of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. I always ask Toby Robinson and David to keep an ear out in the control room as I’m usually frantically trying to make notes on the script in the booth while listening to others, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep an ear out for myself!

SB: With series 3, we’ve seen Leela join the pair. How did that change the dynamic?

LB: Actually, I was a little worried at first as to how much the dynamic would change, and whether we’d lose anything; but I genuinely think it’s added to the mix. It’s always good to keep things fresh.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not into throwing the baby out with the bath water, and reinventing something for the sake of it – you just end up alienating the listeners. On this occasion, though, I really like it, and Louise is so great in the part. The chaps were delighted to see her back.

SB: Following Leela, are there any plans for Bernice, maybe, to show up in Victorian London? What would the dynamic between her and Ellie be like – apart from almost impossible to record?

LB: Well – it’s not been unknown for actors to spend their audio lives talking to themselves… think of all those clone stories! I’ve done a couple of Bennys like that, not to mention Toby Longworth in 2000 AD: Solo where he played all the characters, and also Katy Manning’s sterling work playing Jo and Iris Wildthyme in the same story, Find and Replace!! Benny’s already been down those Victorian cobbles – with Mycroft Holmes (in The Diogenes Damsel) although, come to think of it, Benny would have a jolly old time in the Red Tavern.

On this occasion, I’d like to see J&L keep in their own universe, with their own points of reference, villains and mysteries.

SB: Duncan Wisbey, the man of a thousand voices: what can you tell us about what’s coming up in series four to challenge his amazing talents?

LB: His amazing talents will be on display, never fear… it’s for the listener to try to spot them! He’s one of the most talented and versatile voice artists I’ve ever come across… also, and I don’t know if people know this, he’s also a stunning musician. How irritating!

SB: And lastly, on series 4 – Professor Dark: what can you tell us about him?

LB: Hmm.

SB: Lisa Bowerman, many thanks.

STARBURST puts ‘Stake Land’ Writer / Director Jim Mickle in the hot seat.

STARBURST: You were the co-writer of ‘Stake Land’ as well as director. Which​ role do you prefer?

Jim: Directing comes more easily so I’m much happier letting Nick do the heavy lifting on the script while I sink my teeth into the direction. I also really love editing since it can be a combination of writing and directing.

STARBURST: Is the finished film as you visualised it when you were writing the story?

Jim: I think it came out better then I pictured it. But also the entire process is constantly evolving in your head and you’re always having to make adjustments for reality, casting, scheduling, etc. So I don’t think it ever had one concrete vision in our heads. It was always drafts of what it could be and then the fun is opening up to collaboration to bring all of that to life.

STARBURST: Does having written the film, make it easier for you as a director to bring  ​the work alive on the screen?

Jim: Definitely. You have to know everything on the page backwards and forward. And having gone through so many drafts, it’s really important to know what worked and why, and how certain decisions shape the overall piece. All of that comes into question on set, so the knowledge of the script has to be almost instinctual.

STARBURST: You seem drawn to horror as a subject. What do you like about the​ genre?

Jim: I love the flexibility and the intensity of it all. Horror can be about escapist fun and it can be scary and disturbing. But it can also be used to critique larger themes in a way that can feel heavy handed in other genres. And it’s a great place to experiment. Genre audiences are the sharpest fans around so you really have to mix up techniques to leave an impression, and the fans encourage different looks, different styles, different sounds. With such high drama, it’s possible to create real emotional roller coasters without making a Meryl Streep movie.

STARBURST: Is there a place for gritty, in your face horror like ‘Stake Land’, amongst ​the plethora of stalk and slash teenage horror still so popular with ​mainstream Hollywood?

Jim: Absolutely. The audiences are there and they’re hungry for alternatives. It’s sad that the US ‘Stake Land’ release was so anaemic, because from everything else I’ve seen, people flock to it when given the chance to find it. But when we open on 1 screen in the states and ‘Priest’ opens on 3,000, there’s something wrong with the system. The audiences have much better taste than distributors give them credit for.

STARBURST: In relation to the previous question, who would you see as your target​audience with ‘Stake Land’?

Jim: People looking for a good old-fashioned story and good characters, whether they are genre fans or not.

STARBURST: What drew you and Nick Dimici to vampires as a basis for a story?

Jim: At the time there were no vampire movies around

, so our goal was to try and make them popular again, and this time make them scary. While we were shooting, the ‘Twilight’ movies came out and all of a sudden vampires are the new zombies. I think we liked they’re flexibility. It can be ‘Stake Land’ or ‘Near Dark’, or it can be ‘Let the Right One In’.

STARBURST: Vampires are a genre which has been done so many times before. What do you think you have brought it with ‘Stake Land’ that’s new and ​fresh?

Jim: We just tried to make them scary again, and to erase the current trends of making them sexy, vulnerable creatures, longing for love. They also were interestingly symbolic figures in a story about the end of a nation.

STARBURST: A number of the cast, Danielle Harris (‘Halloween’), Nick Damici (‘Mulberry Street’), and crew, Executive​ Producer Larry Fessenden (‘The Last Winter’), are horror regulars. Was ​this influential in their involvement in ‘Stake Land’?

Jim: Only in that those are the kinds of stories we love and gravitate towards. Nick and Larry were already friends, so that happened very organically. Danielle I was a fan of, but not from the Halloween films. I grew up on her TV shows and kids movies and later some of the action stuff, so that was more of a coincidence. But we all adore the genre.

STARBURST: What was working with Kelly McGillis (some might say she’s a​ Hollywood legend) like? How did you get her on board?

Jim: She’s an amazing person with an amazing outlook on acting and life. So it was an education in a lot of ways and her confidence in herself and what she does is infectious. In that case, we just sent her the script and she responded immediately. In some ways it was the easiest casting we did. It must have been meant to happen.

STARBURST: You’ve come up with a new way of getting rid of vampires. How did that ​come about?

Jim: That was all Nick. We wanted to shake up the mythology and he had a whole notebook filled with that kind of stuff.

STARBURST: Having seen the film, the locations (forests, deserted back roads etc.)​ are almost like characters themselves. How influential was the ​environment in which the story takes place?

Jim: Very. We shot on my dad’s farm where I grew up in Pennsylvania, so we were constantly writing for places and things we knew we had close by. In the second half, we moved to the Catskill mountains, where we knew we had the old bus, and cliffs, and rivers. We wanted to make a film about Americana and not about an apocalypse.

STARBURST: Martin and Mister are fundamentally loners, even slightly introverted​characters.  As a result the audience may find it difficult to sympathise ​with their plight, as you don’t really get to know much about their past ​etc. Would you agree with this?

Jim: I agree that they’re introverted and there’s not much about their past, but I disagree that that makes it more difficult to relate to characters. That was all very intentional. There is way too much talking and exposition in films nowadays, and no one respects the audience enough to let them draw their own conclusions or read into what is unsaid. Silence is incredibly underrated.

STARBURST: If audiences were to come away from ‘Stake Land’ with one thing, what ​would you hope that would be?

Jim: A new appreciation for horror films.

STARBURST: What have you lined up for the future. More horror? More ​collaborations with Nick Damici?

Jim:  Nick and I adapted a book by Joe Lansdale called ‘Cold In July’. Financing just came through so we’re hoping to shoot that this year. It’s not straight up horror, more of a southern-fried, violent thriller.

‘Stake Land’ is out in UK cinemas from today, and is reviewed here.

Ruggero Deodato will forever be known as the director of Cannibal Holocaust (1979), the most notorious exploitation film in the history of the medium so far, maybe even, ever. It stands aloft over other titles in all its demented glory. UK horror fans seem to discover it almost illicitly, especially, since until very recently it existed in a severely butchered cut. Knowledge of an uncensored version bordered on urban myth. Videotaped copies of the laser disc edition from Europe did the rounds throughout the 1990s to this very present day, possibly.

As po-faced and problematic as Cannibal Holocaust can appear Deodato captured something unique on screen in applying neo-realist techniques to pulp fiction material. Indeed, it is the film’s mastery of the medium which has the most impact. The raw power of Deodato’s opus has ensured its brutal legacy continues. Over the past thirty years the film has been labelled everything under the sun and more. It was cut to ribbons by film censors and banned outright around the globe.On 26th May, 2011, Deodato travelled to London to deliver the world premiere of his brand new ‘Director’s Cut’ to audiences at Cine Excess V. Starburst caught up with the director the next day for a chat about the movie’s enduring appeal and the endless controversy. The great irony is Deodato has never been exclusively a horror filmmaker and worked extensively in other genres and visual mediums such as television and advertising. Yet given Cannibal Holocaust’s reputation one would expect to be confronted with a mad, bad and dangerous to know sort, but Deodato is approachable, funny and pleasant. He even admits to feeling nervous before the interview.

Deodato speaks English well but preferred to answer questions in his native language as to better express himself. It is clear the director has been touched by the reception his movie and career have had at Cine Excess V and it was a pleasure to speak with him.

Starburst: If we go right back to the beginning, how did Cannibal Holocaust come to you as a project?

RD: I used to watch the about the Red Brigade and my son would say ‘turn off the television, Dad, I can’t watch this.’ So I thought when I make a movie why do they say it is unsuitable for people under eighteen years of age and yet there are all these violent images on the news?

There were, at the time, rumours flying around it was a snuff film. That must have bemused you?

I hired the actors in New York because I wanted young actors who hadn’t been in films and were unknown. I had them sign a contract that said they must disappear for a year after the film was finished. ‘To me you’re dead’. When the court case happened they genuinely accused me of having killed the actors! I hired the best lawyers in Italy and I screened the film. They watched the film and I thought, ‘that’s it, I’m going to jail’. To confiscate the film the authorities applied a public health law banning the importing of Spanish bullfighting in Italy and on the basis of this law they seized the film. I was fined millions of lira and given a four months suspended sentence.

Yet with all the controversy the film was a big hit, especially, in Japan.

Yes it was second at the box office that year behind E.T. That made $30 million dollars and Cannibal Holocaust made $21 million dollars.

Your new cut is to be released in September on Blu-ray by Shameless Films. When did you get involved in re-editing the picture?

It was a pleasure to come to the UK after so many years with the ban and re-cut – which are minor cuts, but the scene with the turtle in it deserves cuts. Anyway, I revised it from a conceptual point.

It isn’t much different, is it? You say there were a few minor cuts here and there. You used no extra footage at all?

The new cut hasn’t got extra footage because I didn’t have extra footage. This new edition contains extra contexts. The new cut is really good compared to the one in Switzerland where I went to a screening recently. I saw so many cuts it made it another film!

There’s been lots of discussion over the years about a lost scene involving piranha fish. Can you shed any light on this matter and did you actually film it?

I remembered this scene when a friend showed me a photograph still. I chose to cut the scene because the piranhas weren’t behaving in a realistic way. We’d hunt piranhas and we’d put them in water, but when we shot the scene on camera the water just made them look flat and not cinematic enough.

So you never completed it?

No.

You made two cannibal films: The Last Cannibal World and Cannibal Holocaust. What is it about this subgenre that appealed to you as a filmmaker?

The appeal is about contact with nature which was more in The Last Cannibal World. It was about the relationship between humans and the jungle. In the second one, I was much more concerned with style and the message. In some ways, I appreciate the first because it was harder for me to film. Cannibal Holocaust had the same motive but for me it was on another level.

During filming of Cannibal Holocaust, were you aware of the complicated nature of its message and how it could be misinterpreted?

I was aware of the message I wanted to put on the screen. Because it didn’t come from an intellectual context, some critics didn’t get it. I blame myself, in some ways, because maybe I was concerned about my ability to be understood. I put out so many messages about the media but critics – because I came from another background – blamed me.

The film is over thirty years old now and you made it before the advent of 24-hour news and infotainment. Can you say the media has gotten worse and even more sensationalist?

Yes. I put a film on screen which was against the media but they are worse. It’s a good point because my movie is now considered a cult movie all over the world but it’s peculiar because in Italy it doesn’t have the same cult quality.

The natives in the film: where did you find them?

When I shot Cannibal Holocaust I tried to shoot from an anthropological point of view, the Colombia and Brazil natives . I filmed at the boundaries of Brazil, Colombia and Peru in a town called Leticia.

How much set design and construction was there or did you find natural structures and places to use?

Some were natural and in some parts we built. The villages and the people living in the trees came from an idea we designed for the film.

I know it’s a very old and well-asked question, but what are your feelings now about the killing of animals in the movie?

The idea of the new cut was in some way to reconcile the old controversies. I’m quite surprised because the scene which caused most concern was the muskrat, which because whilst dying it made such a terrible noise.

Does it amaze you Cannibal Holocaust is still being discussed and seen to this day?

It’s very amazing! So many things have happened in the world and yet my film is still a figure of controversy. But I like that.

It’s one of the great horror films…

For me it is not a horror film because when I was shooting it I did so in the realist way, so, a few years go by and with conferences and debates, I can see it was seen as special but it’s not a horror film.

Over the years there have been rumours of a sequel. Is it wish-fulfilment on the part of fans or did you ever really have an idea?

Yes, I know about these rumours but the idea was superficial. I wrote a script but never thought about it seriously.

Do you think it has obscured your career as you’re not an exclusive horror director?

I’ve done all sorts of films: love films, comedies, fantasy films, entertaining films like The Barbarians. They all share my technique.

Cannibal Holocaust is your most famous picture, but what is your own personal favourite?

Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man, The Barbarians, The Last Cannibal World but people talk about Cannibal Holocaust so much, I’m convinced it is now the best.

Ruggero, thanks for chatting.

Thank you.

Screenwriter turned director George Nolfi took on a major challenge for his debut feature adapting a Philip K. Dick short story entitled Adjustment Team. Fans have every right to be apprehensive about a new movie inspired by the writings of the visionary novelist and short story writer. The films released have provided plenty of misses and only a few hits. Even the landmark masterpiece Blade Runner took a good ten years to receive its due.

The Adjustment Bureau sees Matt Damon and Emily Blunt play star-crossed lovers who ironically, in the grand scheme of things, should never have met. They do so after a mishap with time lines devised by the shadowy organisation. Nolfi radically interpreted Dick’s work into a tale of love and fate and even dared to have a happy ending.

Nolfi, as writer and director, manages to do his own thing whilst retaining key Dickian themes. It takes place in modern day New York where things are not quite as they seem. Once Norris discovers the existence of the bureau his world gets extremely complicated but he refuses to back down. Starburst recently spoke to the director to discuss taking on the legendary writer’s material, being unafraid to run with it into areas never imagined and why other adaptations failed miserably.

Starburst: Was the Adjustment Bureau a long-time project for you or something more recent?

GN: It was definitely a long-time dream project. My friend and later producing partner brought me a short story by Philip K. Dick about ten years ago and I optioned the story with my own money because I knew I wanted to write it. It’s been nine years of figuring out how to tell the story and took a few years of writing various drafts and setting it up with studios.

You must have been really taken with the material to wait so long?

I was working on other stuff and taking notes periodically for years. When I optioned the story my first movie got made as a writer and then my time was spent – about six years – doing the four movies as a writer that got made, and re-writes I wasn’t credited for. I was really busy as a writer and had no time to stop for six months to stop and nail the script. Finally I had some time to write and did a first draft in four or five months. I brought that draft to the producer and asked him to read it. I gave him the tone of what I wanted and the inner workings of the Adjustment Bureau. The character wasn’t quite there. We worked on David Norris in just a few verbal sessions. I got a call saying ‘come work on The Bourne Ultimatum’, which was another seven months of writing. I didn’t get back to it until after that. I gave it to Matt Damon and he said yes, in principle, and then there was a process of doing little re-writes… then we had to get it to set up!

Were you a fan of Philip K. Dick’s writing or did you just react to this particular story?

To be honest, I reacted to the concepts my producing partner pitched to me. I’d read a little bit of Philip K. Dick but I wasn’t a person who read a ton of sci-fi when I was a kid. I loved films like Blade Runner, Total Recall and, later, Minority Report. I knew it was fertile ground for other filmmakers but mostly it was the story and the ideas in the story. It’s a pretty extreme departure from the source material. That was something we talked about with the Philip K. Dick estate right up front. I told them I’d be going pretty far up field here. I think that’s the mark of a great writer, that the work can be interpreted in so many different ways. You don’t have to tell the story the way the writer did. You can move on from that. Look at Shakespeare. People are using the exact same words but telling the stories in incredibly different ways.

How did you arrive at the romance narrative angle then?

When my producing partner pitched the idea to me he said maybe it could be done as a love story. That made it a lot more interesting to me. It was a way to blend genres in a way I’d never seen. The concepts by Dick were very fresh but it appealed more with the love story. I’m always trying to do something a little different than things that have been done.

This is your debut feature. Did you have to put your foot down with the studio and say ‘I’m directing this’?

I optioned it with my own money because I wanted to control it and because I wanted to direct it. Not once did anybody say ‘hey would you give this to somebody else?’ Everybody was supportive of me taking that first step as a director.

One of my favourite things about the film is use of real locations. It really brings the film alive. Was that always the plan to shoot on the streets of New York?

It was. I love New York. I wrote the script set there and Matt Damon lives there a lot of the time. They have amazing tax credits. I always say it’s the only place in America where the headquarters of fate would be. It was a project that corresponded to all the different reasons to use those locations.

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt share a great chemistry. Were you surprised by that and how did Emily get involved?

Emily read the script and was interested in playing the part. At that point, I was actually looking for a professional dancer and she asked to meet with me and one of the producers. She was very charming and told me that she thought I was going to need a professional actress to do this role… and she was right! I couldn’t find anybody who was a dancer first and pull off the acting part, especially since they would be alongside somebody like Matt who is such a strong actor. She did a screen test with Matt and it was obvious into a few seconds of her screen test that she was the best one. She really delivered.

When it comes to Philip K. Dick adaptations why do you think a great majority fail?

I think that movies and short stories are very different things – even movies and novels are very different things. They have different elements of storytelling and it’s really hard to take one medium and make it work in another. His ideas involve radical shifts in reality and they make you think in philosophical ways. Whenever you try and make one of his works into a film you are getting into deep philosophical territory and it’s hard to place it there if you’re making it into something like Fast Five. How many movies are released per year and how many do you remember? How many do they want to own on DVD… at most ten or fifteen? I wanted to do a movie that when you watch it a second time you see new things and in a different light. I think people want to see The Adjustment Bureau again and they’ll see new things.

The climax of the film divided opinion. Did you write another version for it and did you shoot it?

What I wrote was the ending in the film. I considered two endings. One was they overcome the obstacle of the Adjustment Bureau and that’s in the movie. I also considered, which I’m sure some people would have preferred, where they get broken up and they meet again later and you get the sense that they may have a relationship. I just thought that second one had been done in the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and it reminded me of that Warren Beatty movie… I forget the name…

Heaven Can Wait?

Yeah that one. I wanted the theme of the movie to come out more clearly… this idea of no matter what the obstacles that are put in your way you can make choices that can beat it.

Have you any plans to direct again?

Absolutely. I put all my energy into The Adjustment Bureau and I’m just starting to figure out what will be the next thing.

Thanks George.

Thank you.

The Adjustment Bureau is released Monday 4th July on Blu-ray and DVD