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Your new movie Night
Caller - in a few words, what is it about?
It's
about
a telephone psychic who receives a call from a serial killer,
predicting
his murders before he commits them. With the help of her
invalid
father and clairvoyant co-worker, they try to stop him before
he
kills again.
Obvious
question, why a psychic hotline, have you or would you ever call one, and
did you do any research on the subject? They were
popular
in the late 1980’s and 90’s with $1.95 a minute, 1-900 phone
number
commercials running day and night. I was always tempted to
call,
but I never did. Maybe I'll call one now to see what the future
holds
for Night
Caller. (Other) sources
of inspiration when writing Night
Caller? New York
Ripper,
Deep Red, Blood and Black
Lace, Lustig's Maniac,
Don't Look Now, Cruising,
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and
When a Stranger Calls
would
be the main cinematic inspirations. You of course have to talk about the
gruesome bits in Night
Caller for a bit, and how were they achieved? This was my 2nd time working with
the
GREAT Joe Castro [Joe Castro
interview - click here], who did a fantastic job on the gore effects. His
scalping,
stabbings and mutilated penis were phenomenal! So good in
fact,
I just worked with him a third time on Pig Killer. What
can you tell us about your movie's approach to horror? Nasty,
gritty,
bloody, unapologetic love letter to Fulci [Lucio
Fulci bio - click here]. Do
talk about your directorial approach to your story at hand!
Every
aspect from script to screen, I let my gut instincts guide, and
then
embrace what befalls me. Recently, I was approached to write a
script
based on serial killer Robert ‘Willy’ Pickton. I read up on
him,
watched a documentary, and then I still didn’t know how in the
hell
to make it work. Suddenly, I woke up in the middle of the night
with
the opening scene, and everything instantly came together. I
finished
the script in two weeks and it’s probably the best thing I’ve
ever
written.
Chad with Robert Miano |
What
can you tell us about Night
Caller's key cast, and why exactly these people?
I
wrote Night
Caller right after directing Exorcism at 60,000 Feet. I
had
such a good time with Kelli Maroney and Bai Ling, that I had them
in
mind for the two female leads. When I finished the script, it
bounced
around to my regular collaborators Robert Miano and Robert
Rhine
to try and secure finance to no avail, so I ended up optioning it
to
another production company. While waiting for that company to go
into
production, I went off and directed H. P. Lovecraft's The Deep
Ones
on the cheap. That was a success artistically and financially, so
that
sort of injected all of us with a dose of Roger Corman
inspiration [Roger Corman bio
- click here] to just get a few bucks together and crank out these
modest
budget, quick turn-around films. At about this time, the
production
company's option had run out on Night
Caller, so I
re-pitched
it to Miano and Rhine who got behind it on that smaller
budget
model. Miano then pulled in Susan Priver to invest/star, and
along
with a few other investors we were off to the races. A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? Lean,
mean,
with every penny on the screen. I'd say it was one of the tougher
shoots,
dealing with Covid restrictions and all, but with a ten day
schedule
the pain was brief.
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Chad with Joe Castro |
The
$64-question of course, where can Night
Caller be seen? Next up,
it
will be playing Midwest Weirdfest in March, and then 123 Go Films
will
give it a US theatrical release in April, followed by
DVD/streaming
in
May
- www.midwestweirdfest.com/
program#/night-caller-fri-mar-4-10pm/ Anything you can tell us about
audience and critical reception of your movie yet? It has been getting excellent reviews, winning some fests
and
starting to find its audience. I'm proud of it. That said, it was
rejected
by one festival, which said in part, "The whole purpose of
horror
is to provoke, to shock, to challenge. And your film does this
in
spades, but in the current climate, Night
Caller takes such a
provocative
approach to gender confusion that it could generate the
wrong
kind of controversy." So, I'm excited to see if their fears were
justified
when it gets a wide release. Any
future projects you'd like to share? We
just wrapped Pig Killer
with
Jake Busey, Lew Temple, Bai Ling, Kate Patel, Robert Miano, Silvia
Spross, Jon Budinoff, Elina Madison, Ginger Lynn, Cyril
O'Reilly,
Michael Paré [Michael Paré
interview - click here], Robert Rhine, Jennifer Drake, Cassandra Gava,
Susan
Priver, Scott Vogel, Kurt Bonzell and James Russo. With music
performances
by Gerard McMahon and Loud Sugar. Was truly the BEST
production
of my career.
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Your/your movie's
website, social media, whatever else?
https://twitter.com/SKATD
https://www.facebook.com/chad.ferrin/
Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Hope to be shooting the sequel to The
Deep Ones this summer... fingers
crossed! Thanks
for the interview!
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