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Your new movie Site 13
- in a few words, what is it about?
Site 13
is a Lovecraftian cosmic horror movie about Dr. Nathan Marsh who wakes
up in a mental institution from a 10 year catatonic state. He has to watch
the tapes from his last expedition to learn what eldritch horrors he has
unleashed on the world.
Now quite a bunch of
the movie was already shot back in 2003 if I'm not mistaken - so how did
the project back then come together even? It
originated as an improvised found footage movie with Tony Urban from Crazy
Ralph Films. I had worked on a few movies with Tony at the time and we
were both inspired by The Blair Witch Project and other found footage
films. What can you
tell us about the old footage's director Tony Urban, and about the shoot
as such? I
love Tony! He is amazing and inspired and a wonderful writer with a bunch
of books to his name now. Check them out on Amazon. The shoot itself was a
two day shoot in Friedensberg, Pennsylvania. We had a rough outline of
what exactly we were doing and I came up with a whole Lovecraft type
mythology for our story. We went out to the woods with a tent and camped
and shot the movie. Why was the project abandoned all these years
back, and what inspired you to revive it eventually? As
the DVD boom of the early 2000’s was drawing to a close, Tony decided to
make a pivot into photography and writing, so the movie was shelved. We
talked about the project a lot though. Kelly Ray, one of the other actors,
and I would always commiserate about how we thought it was some of our
best acting and that no one would see it. We always talked about how we
could change that. Then in 2016 I was coming off playing Macbeth on stage
and I knew that I had to have something lined up to work on next or I was
going to come crashing down. So, I came up with the idea of shooting a
present day portion and using the old footage as a flashback. What
were your sources of inspiration when writing your portion of Site
13, and how close did you stay to the original concept?
My
biggest inspiration was HP Lovecraft. I structured the story in the same
way as many of his stories, a narrator telling a story about the past run
in with unspeakable horrors, but in this case I used the videotape as the
story. Plus in Lovecraft’s material you can get away with not showing
the monster too much. Which from a financial standpoint helped a lot too.
And then when I was thinking cinematically, I took a lot of inspiration
from John Carpenter’s Prince of
Darkness. His whole Apocalypse Trilogy
really. What
can you tell us about Site 13's
approach to horror? I
really wanted to go with the whole creepy and dread building as the
approach. Cosmic horror. Existential horror. And then try to formulate a
human response to that dread. Lovecraft has such a nihilistic and
xenophobic sense to much of his work and this was an answer to that. A few words about your directorial
approach to your story at hand? The
big thing for me was to get the right people working on the project and
then let them do their job. I was really lucky to have Chris Steinberger
come on as my cinematographer. We went over all of our shots beforehand
so I knew what to expect and the aesthetic that we were going for. And
then let him do his job while I worked with the actors. I’ve been an
actor for years, so working with actors and helping to guide their
performance is always one of my favorite things to do. You also play the lead
in Site 13, both old and
new - so do talk about your character, and what did you draw upon to bring
him to life? And how much Nathan Faudree can we actually find in Dr.
Nathan Marsh? I
think there are aspects of the character that are me, but really it’s
just an alchemy of traits that I amplify or turn down. I may be not as
douchey as Dr. Marsh, but I certainly can be at times. Hahaha So, I think
the important thing to do with any character is tell the truth as much as
you can with the character's life and background as your tools. What can you tell us about the rest of
your cast, and why exactly these people? With
the old footage, I got very lucky with Kelly Ray, Nichole McFarlane and
John Wisnewski. Tony assembled all that. When it got to the present day
footage, Katie Gibson and Leila Quinn are both incredible actors that I
had gotten the chance to work on stage with while I was living in
Syracuse, NY and honestly, I just wanted to work with them again. I had
actually just worked with Katie on Macbeth where she played Lady Macbeth.
I figured if I was making a movie I would do whatever I could to work with
people that I wanted to have fun with.
A few words
about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? It
was a very intense shoot. We shot all of the present day portions of the
film in one week. It was incredibly long days and not much sleep. Luckily
we had such an incredible crew and everyone was working for the love of
it. So, we just toughed it out. The thing with doing micro budget is that
you have to get very creative and you have to do it fast. So, there were
constant decisions being made that would affect the entire shoot for the
day. But we didn’t really have the luxury of stopping to think if it was
possible. We just kept going. You
of course also have to talk about the post production process of splicing
the two movies together for a bit! I
got very lucky with the post production. I caught up with indie horror
legend Alan Rowe Kelly [Alan
Rowe Kelly interview - click here] just as he was coming off the promotional tour for
his last film Tales of Poe. He was looking for a new project and
generously offered to help. And then the madness began. Hahaha. We
essentially had to edit this movie three times. Once for the old footage.
Once for the new footage and then the third time to integrate the two
together into the final product. All told, between jobs, lives, and a
pandemic it took about four years. But we just kept going. Learning as we
went along. The $64-question of
course, where can Site 13
be seen? Right
now it’s on the festival circuit, so keep an eye out at your favorite
festival. Hopefully we’ll have a distribution deal in place in the next
few months and get it out everywhere this fall.
Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of Site 13? So
far the reactions have been wonderful. It’s a little tough to judge
these days since most film festivals are online, but the feedback that I
have been getting has been amazing. People are genuinely freaked out and
some have actually been moved to tears by the dramatic moments, which is
amazing to hear. Any
future projects you'd like to share? I
actually got the chance to cowrite Travis Stevens’ new film, A
Wounded Fawn, which is in post production right now and will be on Shudder
sometime this year. What got you into
acting in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on the
subject? I
went to college for acting at SUNY Oswego and had wonderful training
mostly in theater from classical styles and Shakespeare up to more modern
Sam Sheperd type stuff. What can you tell us about your filmwork prior
to Site 13?
I
worked primarily as an actor previous to Site 13. I’ve always done genre
work, because that is where my heart lies. Horror, sci-fi, that type of
thing. I like the weird stuff. I’ve played Bigfoot twice, a
killer
Easter Bunny monster in Kottentail, and I’ve done two zombie movies,
so I’ve covered the gamut.
How
would you describe yourself as an actor?
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One
of my favorite quotes about acting is from Spencer Tracy. “I show up. I
say my lines. And I try not to bump into the furniture.” I try to just
do my job. Do the job that’s laid out in the script. Whether it’s a
monster or whether it’s Shakespeare. I show up and I do my best to tell
the truth with someone else’s words. Actors,
filmmakers, whoever else who inspire you? Right
now, everything that Mike Flanagan [Mike
Flanagan interview - click here] is doing. His The Haunting of Hill
House was everything that I think horror could be. That being said,
John Carpenter and Cronenberg influence me a lot. Your favourite
movies?
I’m
going through a Korean Horror phase right now, so my current favorite is
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. I also LOVE this indie movie Banshee Chapter. And
of the classics, I love The
Thing, Prince of
Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, VideoDrome, The
Fly.
... and of course, films you really deplore?
After
making a movie, I realize now how much works goes into it, so I don’t
really deplore anyone. Or at least, I won’t say anything about it,
hahahaha! Your/your
movie's website, social media, whatever else?
Facebook:
@Site13themovie
Instagram: @site_13_movie
Anything
else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I
think that covers it all! Thank you! Thanks
for the interview!
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