The latest film from Howard J. Ford (The Dead) comes hot on the heels of Escape, which hit digital platforms last month. DarkGame sees a twisted gameshow streamed on the dark web in which murder is the cost for the ‘losers’.
STARBURST: What brought you to the project?
Howard J. Ford: The producer, Tom George, had been developing DarkGame before I came into the picture. I’d known Tom for years, I used to see him down at the film markets in Cannes or Berlin. We used to say we’d love to work together one day. Tom had messaged me saying, “I’ve got this script. Do you want to have a look at it?” He mentioned they had the possibility of getting Ed Westwick – he’s a brilliant actor and someone I wanted to work with. I remember seeing him in White Gold. I know he’s even more popular now as Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl. I thought that guy’s on fire, I like his energy. I read the first two pages of DarkGame and I thought, this is horrific. I’m not going to do this movie. I don’t mind doing a horror movie, and I will do more horror movies, but I don’t want to do things where it’s just getting chopped up, left, right, and centre, and there’s no great reason, or nothing intellectual happens. And I thought first two pages, this girl tied to a chair who ended up Sophie Rankin, who’s also, of course, co-star of Escape. And I was like, “how am I going to tell Tom I don’t want to do this film?” But then, after I got past that, I thought, “Okay, this is great writing”. There’s this really great detective thread, this presenter doing online murders, but using things like rock paper scissors and games like that, I thought, this has got enough of an intellectual story.
So you were conscious not to go into ‘torture porn’?
Exactly right, I don’t want to go into that. There have been a few films, like the original Saw, which is a decent movie that requires you to think. I’m not saying the others are not. I just think at some point, some of these movies became “let’s do more gore”. That’s fine. I don’t mind doing something that’s horrific and bloody, but I want to centre more on the emotions of it, rather than blood spraying everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a bit of blood spraying everywhere. But I hope I’m not going too far down that road without some sort of justification as to why and how it all unfolded. I was pleased with DarkGame. It’s this presenter being super cruel and horrific and doing some unbelievable, shocking things, but we’re not centring or lingering on the blood as such. You have to know that it’s horrific. You have to know someone’s dying and the implications of it. But I didn’t want to see the details. If you look back at Reservoir Dogs, the guy getting his ear cut off, and it’s horrific. That seemed to be the thing that people latched onto. It’s pretty nasty, but you don’t see it, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I’ve seen that movie a number of times. I’ve met the director and shared a burger and fries with him. It’s not full of blood; it’s implied.
Absolutely. Do you think it’s likely that something like DarkGame is happening on the dark web somewhere?
Another great question! I think it may not be as commercialised as having a presenter like our film, and it’s not in the public eye, but I sadly think so. I was interested in DarkGame because as much as the internet has an absolutely positive side – I’m able to talk to you because of the internet right now – but there are people out there misusing it. I didn’t go into the dark web because I didn’t want to delve into that, but I was aware of things that shouldn’t be happening. I don’t think it’s happening on the scale of DarkGame, but it could, right? Here’s the thing, if people knew in 25 minutes, someone’s going to be murdered, live on the internet. You click on this link, and you’re going to see this happen. The audience gets to choose, is it going to be death by chainsaw? Is it going to be death by baseball bat, lethal injection, whatever, horrific things. How many people would click on that link? Do you think everyone would say “This is so horrible. I’m not going to go on that link. I don’t want to see it. This is awful”. I think it’d get millions of views.
Yeah, we see things going so far on Twitter.
Yeah, here’s the thing: I don’t know what’s going on out there, but as a filmmaker, you spend all this effort making a movie. It takes so much energy. You compromise relationships, you do this, you do that, you really have to go out on a limb to do it. And there are a whole lot of people who can’t wait to jump on IMDb and go, “This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen in my life. Don’t waste your time watching it. They’ll say, “I watched the first five minutes. It’s absolute crap. Don’t watch it”. Why do they have this urge? You said you watched the first five minutes, so you haven’t actually seen it! There’s loads of people out there with a lot of dark, negative energy I’d love to think we’re entering into a more positive world, but there’s so much of this stuff that still needs to heal, and there’s a lot of people who can’t wait. I’ll bet you, I could meet these people in the street, and they’d be as lovely as anything. I don’t understand it I’d love to sit down with some of these people and go “So what was your objective? Why did you come on and do that?” You might trace it back to some sad happening in their life. I feel very sorry for them.
They do it for attention. Luckily, there’s a lot of positivity as well.
Funnily enough, as indie movies, you need support. It’s very hard to do it. You can’t please everyone. Some people love your film. Some people hate it. Some people think it’s all right – that’s fine. My number one aim is to make it entertaining. I think the worst thing is a film that is too long, too boring, and too self-indulgent. DarkGame unfolds at a reasonable pace. It’s weird having two film released within a month of each other [Escape was released last month] and they’re both tackling very dark themes.
And tackling things that do happen or may go on in the world.
Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I make a fair few TV commercials as well, and that’s always the happy world. Happy, smiling. No one gets tied to a chair in a commercial or anything like that. But this is the funny thing, the scenes that are really dark and really disturbing, where someone’s being killed or whatever, they’re the most fun to do. The actors have the most fun. They have the most laughs. The stuff that is really tense between them is when they’re having to do something be romantic or loving or whatever, those things generally can have tension in real life. The fun stuff is people being hit by wrenches. When the effects come involved, they do love it.
What was the hardest part of filming DarkGame?
The hardest part was a scene where someone was forced to drink drain cleaner. Some of it’s done on video camera. They’re obviously life on the internet, so we’re filming with our lovely top-of-the-range Alexa camera. But then some of it, we had to film using low grade video. I have the main camera operator doing his thing, and I do the handheld video stuff on my phone. I remember watching the actor and it really did look like the guy was choking his guts out. It was horrible. I’m trying not to linger on it, but you need to see it. You need to know they get they that this, this has happened. But then you go into the emotions of the actors, but the other people who are sat there, the captives, and trying not to listen to it and hear it. I thought the performances were really amazing. So that was the most disturbing for me.
Can you talk a little bit about the struggles of being an independent filmmaker?
I have to say, being an indie filmmaker isn’t for everyone. I’ve made 11 feature films now and for everyone that gets done, there’s at least two, if not more, that you try to get done. You put a lot of energy in, and you put in a lot of hope. If you’re to survive in it, you’ve got to learn to have your heart broken and just get up with the same amount of energy the next day. It’s very hard to do. It’s incredibly tough to get people to back your movies. Sometimes that’s the reason why I choose very commercial subjects. If your films don’t make money, you don’t get to make them for very long. It’s over, you lose investors’ money. I don’t think you could do that more than twice. It’s really tough. It’s tough for actors. There’s more content out there. The budgets are being squeezed, and that goes all the way down the line to crew and cast members. It’s tough out there, streamers are paying less. The film business is not a business I recommend! I know I’m doing it, but you never know where you’re going to be. You finish one movie, you never know if you’re going to work again. It’s very uncertain. People who watch indie movies support them. Buy them legitimately, please don’t pirate a movie. It’s so tough. I’m just so grateful for people who watch our movies legitimately. They’re going to keep film alive.
DARKGAME is available on digital platforms from October 21st.