Your new movie
Millennial Killer - in a few words, what is it about?
Millennial Killer
is about a deluded estate agent luring young millennials to their deaths.
Is any of
Millennial Killer
based on an actual house hunt of yours, and/or what were your worst
house-hunting experiences?
I
have lived in some places where estate agents can be pretty dubious, but
not so much the hunt, more 3 months in and the flat starts to fall apart,
or pretty much every neighbour turns out to be a drug dealer who happens
to be a DJ!
(Other) sources of inspiration when writing
Millennial Killer?
Martin
W Payne the producer had a property and wondered if we could create a
story within a few days. So I thought you could do a slasher but with the
final girl being stuck in the repetition of seeing the kills, and an
antagonist who is very much a product of right wing propaganda.
To what extent can you actually identify with
Millennial Killer's
title character, a man who's no longer in tune with today's youth? The
interesting thing is how an audience takes to it, some audiences find him
scary, some find him funny. We set out to make an entertaining character
who is completely deluded... don't get me wrong, some agree and maybe
identify with him, but personally I think he's not a character to be liked! Do
talk about
Millennial Killer's
approach to horror! To
me there is the nastiness of repetition of knowing what's going to happen,
seeing each character with their hopes and dreams being ripped away. One
victim being stuck in that loop unsure why she has been chosen to witness
it.
At least to me,
Millennial Killer
also has a comedic side to it - would you at all agree, and if so, could you
talk about your movie's brand of humour for a bit? Personally
I wanted to make an entertaining horror film, and like all slashers you
need to find some of the characters annoying so you connect more to the
final girl. But also the film was improvised with actors I know that can
work with comedy especially Simon Berry, who I'd worked with on a comedy show
called Right Here Right Now for the last 3 years. I also knew Simon could
deliver comedy and horror from Toxic Schlock. A few
words about the flat Millennial Killer
was filmed at, and what was it like filming there? It
was a lovely flat, and as you saw furniture-less! We stayed on location for
2 days shooting about 70% of the film and then came back 2 months later
for 2 days of extra shooting. It was incredibly hectic in regards to
having people floating in and out, but we had set ourselves that
challenge. Most of the cast being close friends, we had a fun time getting
out of Portsmouth being dedicated to this film. What
can you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story at
hand? Setting
out to make an entertaining horror film that uses improv we wanted to
explore different lighting using giallo styles. We played with lighting to
give the nightmarish vibe of the master bedroom. Seeing as each room is
plain and regular, the master room needed to be built up to be something
hellish. We also like traditional slashers and wanted to give you enough of an
archetypal background to each millennial's motives to why they wanted to
move into the flat. Although you spend time with the killer himself,
there is no mystique to him, he is just the killer. This point we really
wanted to make clear with the story he tells of the old lady, he creates a
real vivd image of stereotypes before declaring he read it in the paper
breaking any real empathic connection. We had a lot of fun shooting that
section, Jackson Bachelor our DOP directed it and I was the DOP for the
scene, which was added during post production.
Do talk about your key cast, and why exactly these
people? Simon
Berry has been a good friend for the last 13 years and a key player in most of
Trash Arts films, and although he was not the original choice he jumped in and
made the role iconic. I am beyond grateful that he is the Millennial
Killer. Alice Mulholland brought so much character and empathy to Naomi,
the only really likeable character, she makes that believable, and if
anything brings some heart to the film. The rest of the cast I had mostly
worked with before and was glad they were up for being victims, knowing
again they give enough dimension to each millennial. A few words
about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?
It
was intense getting it together but I am so happy we kept coming back to
it with more ideas to make it stronger, and a dedicated cast and crew. Especially Simon agreeing to
have the hideous hair cut for so long!
The
$64-question of course, where can Millennial Killer
be seen? Millennial Killer
is released via Dark Side Releasing on April 28
th on
their website. Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of Millennial Killer
yet? The
audience response has been great, people being shocked and laughing a lot,
especially with the estate agent. The reviews have been great, but they see
the film as much darker than I see it, I see it a lot lighter than some
stuff I've made! Any future projects you'd like to share?
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Sticking
with serial killers, Millennial Killer
is like the killer with the big
plan that makes no sense but he's driven to enact it, the next serial killer film
we are in post production with is Decline. Decline's main character is the
outsider who is violently killing the vulnerable, because he cant recognise
his own mistakes. Ryan Carter is the lead in it and he is amazing, so I'm
pretty excited to get that out to festivals later this year. Your/your
movie's website, social media, whatever else? You can
check out what
Trash Arts are up to on Facebook: trashartuk - or check our
YouTube channel trashartsportsmouth. Thanks
for the interview!
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