I know we've talked about this before,
but do bring us up to speed: Your new movie There's
No Such Thing as Zombies - in a few words, what's it about?
Humankind is struck a deadly virus, but many choose not to
believe in it. And amidst all this, a love triangle, with one of the three
being a zombie. With
There's No
Such Thing as Zombies being a zombie movie, is that a genre
especially dear to you, and what do you think makes your movie stick out
of the crowd? As a horror fan as big as I am, one's pretty
much bound to love zombie movies. And who doesn't love George A. Romero's
original Living
Dead trilogy or the Blind
Dead movies, Lucio Fulci's Zombie
Flesh Eaters [Lucio Fulci
bio - click here] or even the classics like I
Walked with a Zombie or White
Zombie. I also love bad zombie movies, all the way from
1941's King of the
Zombies to Italian zombie schlock like Doctor
Butcher M.D. (which actually also had live cannibals in it, just
for good measure). That said, not too much into more modern stuff, The
Walkind Dead never did it for me, nor World
Wer Z or Zack Snyder's Army
of the Dead. The ptoblem with these is, they take pulp and trash
cinema tropes and try to make them mainstream, without really adding
anything meaningful to the formula. And that's where we come to
the point what makes our film different, I didn't go for a bloodbath with
a faceless zombie mob but made the main zombie very much a character, maybe the
most likeable character. And also of course I pushed the comedy scale to
11 and played the satire card (which actually harks back to Romero's early
zombie movies, especially Dawn
of the Dead). You see, to tell you the truth, even if I love
zombie cinema, I wasn't especially keen on making a traditional zombie
movie that only plays variations on a theme. But as soon as I found a
fresh approach ... well, and the rest is history. (Other) sources of inspiration when
writing There's
No Such Thing as Zombies? One of my key
inspirations was my own debut as a scriptwriter, A
Killer Conversation, that proved to me that yes, you can make a
feature about three people in one room - but also on the flipside showed
me why it's a good idea to go a little bigger (within budget limitations
of course). Actually, originally There's
No Such Thing as Zombies was to be a sequel to A
Killer Conversation, it just gradually grew into a different
direction. Other inspirations were classic love triantle
movies, from the epitomy of them all, Casablanca,
to Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim. And then there was also
B-movie cinema in general - basically if you have only a limited budget,
it's best to write with that in mind. And watching other movies that
overcame financial restraints can be very helpful with this.
Do talk about There's
No Such Thing as Zombies's brand of humour? That's
an unexpectedly hard question to answer, since while I do think I've got a
very distinct style of comedy, on analysis the incluences come from all
over: There's of course a good deal of satire in this one, especially in
the newsroom sequences, there are parodistic elements throughout, but
there are also sitcom situations, silly oneliners, sexual innuendo and
even the occasional "what the fuck"-moment. So it pushes into
many directions, which I think sits well with a general audience. The one
thing this is not however is gross-out comedy, despite the film's horror
theme. What
were the challenges of bringing There's
No Such Thing as Zombies to the screen from a producer's point of
view? Everything, really! I mean, this was the first
feature film I've produced, and the short we've worked into this (the
newsroom sequence starring Lynn Lowry [Lynn
Lowry interview - click here]), Talk
of the Dead, was the first short I had ever produced. So naturally
I was scared shitless. I remember, when I hired my leading lady (who also
ended up producing with me) Luana Ribeira [Luana
Ribeira interview - click here], I made her all sorts of
promises - and when I re-read that message later my first thought was
"how could I have been so full of myself?" The message was
really cringe-worthy. That said, I managed to keep all my promises, but
that was above everything pure luck. More seriously though,
things went smoothly until the film's original producer, leading lady and
director (in that order) jumped ship. I believed in the project though,
also because I had already hired Lynn Lowry from the original The
Crazies and figured with her involvement alone we already have a
winner on our hands. So I was looking for replacements for the now vacant
positions, in parts until one month before the shoot, but that's not
always super-easy in a land (England) you don't live in and have hardly
ever been to. So ultimately I ended up working with some people I had even
never met before (including the director), and that made things a little
bit ... well, let's say interesting. Hats off to my leading lady Luana
Ribeira, who jumped in as producer when I asked her to, and who assembled
a crack team on short notice.
What can you tell us about your collaboration with
There's No
Such Thing as Zombies' director Eddie Bammeke [Eddie
Bammeke interview - click here]? Yep, he's the one
who jumped onto the project only one month prior to the shoot, upon
Luana's recommendation. And what can I say about him? I think apart from
us both being a bit crazy and being very passionate about filmmaking, we
have very little in common, he's an extrovert which I'm definitely not,
he's excited where I'm reserved, is always talking where I'm short on
words, and is opinionated where I'm diplomatic. And really, that works
just great when it comes to collaborations, we're just complementing one
another really well, also because of our vastly opposing charactes neither
of us sees the need to play alpha dog because each can respect the
strengths of the respective other. We have since There's
No Such Thing as Zombies worked on quite a number of projects
together and have launched our own production company, aptly named Bammeke
and Haberfelner Worldwide Ltd., and have become close personal
friends over the years as well. You also appear
in front of the camera in There's
No Such Thing as Zombies - so what can you tell us about your
character, and did you write him with yourself in mind from the get-go? Oh
that was really more of a vanity thing. You see, I'm writer, producer and
editor of There's
No Such Thing as Zombies, so the one who opens and the one who
shuts the door on this production, and I have put a lot of my personal
funds into the budget, and yet usually on films the actors and directors
get all the attention. Not that they don't deserve it at all, and really I
know it's just part of the game, I'm not jealous per se - I just figured
if you want some visibility, you better get in front of that camera. And I
know for a fact I'm not the worst of actors ever - not the best, either,
I'm not saying that, and I have no aspirations to become a leading man,
but I just knew I could do my one line before being killed by a zombie
justice ;) Do talk about the rest of There's
No Such Thing as Zombies' cast, and as writer/producer, how much
of a say did you have in the casting process?
Well, it's a cast I really felt blessed with, and I have worked again with a good many
of them since. So where to start? Probably my leading lady [Luana
Ribeira interview - click here]: As mentioned, she came in as
a replacement for the original leading lady, but she was a gift from
heaven - not only did she help out producing when I needed someone to and
got director Eddie Bammeke on board, she also delivered a really funny
performance. She once told me she was initially hesitant to accept the
role as she had never done comedy before, but you wouldn't guess when you
watch the movie, she seems to be totally in her element ... and has done quite a
bit of comedy since. On to the two leading men, Rudy
Barrow [Rudy
Barrow interview - click here] and Rami Hilmi [Rami
Hilmi interview - click here] - I've already known them from A
Killer Conversation, so they were a known quantity, and I've
written their roles for them - and they disappoint when it comes to
delivery and also show great chemistry, which is well-needed for a project
like that. Our guest stars from the US, horror icons Debra Lamb
[Debra Lamb interview - click
here] and Lynn Lowry [Lynn
Lowry interview - click here]: Well, you can't go wrong with actresses of
their status and experience - and boy, both of them delivered in spades,
Lynn as the big business zombie denyer and Debra as the hilariously
serious but quite incompetent zombie investigator. You know, when you hire talent like this,
it's also for name recognition, but both of them are really pillars of the
film, I really couldn't imagine it with their marvelous performances. And
both of them have become good friends of mine, and I pride myself to have
worked with both of them again more than once. Then there's
Scott Hillier as Debra's not very bright partner - he has probably the
silliest lines in the film, stuff like "You can't eat monkey brains
like that," and his delivery's always spot on. He sure gets some of
the biggest laughs in the movie.
Also a shout-out to all the cast from Talk of the
Dead, Paul Sutton [Paul
Sutton interview - click here] as over-confident zombie
hunter, Rachel Brownstein [Rachel
Brownstein interview - click here] and Alexander Fernando [Alexander
Fernando interview - click here] as news anchors, Martina
McClements as resident zombie, trance singer Marcella Woods, internet
comedian Reis Daniels and everybody else on that shoot - they were all
fantastic!
What can you tell us about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? As
scared shitless as I was (see above) the shoot (or rather shoots, as the
newsroom scenes that actually comprised Talk
of the Dead were shot almost two years prior to the film's main
body as a proof of concept) went smoothly, so much so that we wrapped one
day ahead of time. And that I've worked again with most of the cast and
crew of There's
No Such Thing as Zombies on other movies is really a testament
that we gelled rather well. The
$64-question of course, where can There's
No Such Thing as Zombies be seen? That's an easy one:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CMBRQVV2
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CM9ZHPD3/
Vimeo (worldwide): https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tnstaz
It took quite a bit from the film's wrap to its release - so what can you tell us about
that journey, and about lessons learned?
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The main lesson here, you can't do everything on your own. Now we shot the film, or rather
its main bulk in 2017, and I had a cut ready that we showed at a handful
of festivals in 2018 - and then we got into the more serious world of
distribution, and I just had to admit to myself, what we did wasm't really
up tp
scratch. Now I place this solely on my own shoulders, the actors were
great, the direction, camerawork, effects, everything were on spot. And to
blow my own horn, the editing was very alright, too. But sound and colour
grading were at best adequate but by no means good - and that's not easy
to admit to oneself even, but eventually I just had to concede, given the
time I had already put into this, but eventually it became clear I had to
hand the thing over to professionals to make the thing not only alright
but actually good - and I'm really happy with the results I got mind you.
Again, the lesson here's you can't do everytnhing on your own, and not only
is filmmaking a team sport but also post production. As for the time
aspect - yes of course, things take time ... and then Covid hit, and
suddenly things took much more time, so maybe not ideal timing (though in
some ways it might have been, see question below).
Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of There's
No Such Thing as Zombies? Not to blow my own horn,
but we had a short festival run with the original cut in 2018 that netted
us a couple of awards. Still we knew we needed a rework, and after a
lengthy improvement session, we premiered the film as it's available now
in 2023 in Cannes - now sure, we didn't win any Palme d'Or or
anything, but to show one's film to a rather packed house at one of the
most prestigious film festivals there is is quite an experience in itself,
and hearing peiple laugh throughout as well is ... well, just brilliant. As
for critical reception, I'm happy to say it's mostly positive (and there's
no movie that's 100% positive, heck, I've heard people thrashing Citizen
Kane upon its release). What I really love though is that many people saw a connetiion
between There's
No Such Thing as Zombies and Covid, calling our movie a reaction
to the pandemic - which is total hogwash as the film was scripted back in
2012, filmed from 2015 to 2017 and saw the dark of a projection room for
the first time in 2018 - back when Corona was nothing but a beer you get
with a lemon attached to it. But I seem to have struck a chord there,
which needless to say made me rather happy, especially seeing that some
zombie movies seemed to be rather antiquated post-pandemic.
How do you deal with
negative reviews, actually? The main thing is, don't let
them deter you. I mean, there's a whole lot of different
"genres" of negative reviews: There's the constructive negative
review, which you can actually take something away from, learn from
really. Thing is, no film is perfect, and if someone tells you
where you've gone wrong, you might take the right turn the next time
around, Then there's also people who just didn't like it becaue it didn't
resonae with their personal tastes - which is really something one can't
control, Not everybody likes zombie movies, I get it, others like their
zombie movies gorier, fair enough. One just can't please everyone. Then
there's what I'd call "unqualified" reviews. Didn't get this on There's
No Such Thing as Zombies but on A
Killer Conversation, where someone complained that it wasn't a
gore movie - well, no shit, I sent you a press kit beforehands that didn't
even suggest it was, so why were you expecting gore? So you can't really
take this kind of criticism seriously. Last kind of critics are the haters
... well, they'll just hate whatever you're doing, so why even listen to
them? The gist of it, of course nobody likes bad reviews, but
nobody's immune to them, and it's best to take them all with a
grain of salt, and if possible take away something positive from them if
you can, in a learn-and-grow way. Any future projects you'd
like to share? There's always plenty: There's Espresso
To Die For, starring Lynn Lowry and Debra Lamb, together on screen for
the first time, which has been in post for waaay too long now but which I
hope to have out before too long. This one's just frigging hilarious, if
you don't mind me blowing my own horn. Talking hilarikous, there's also It's
Luana, a sketch show featuring Luana Ribeira that's going to be
part of her Dauntless TV channel, out very soon. I do appear in
front of the camera in both of these. Speaking of in front of the camera,
I'm also in Geezers by Ciaron Davies [Ciaron
Davies interview - click here], my first acting gig I didn's
script myself, so really can't tell you how good I'm in it, but Ciaron
told me he's rather happy with my performance. And then there's also Confusion
and the Survivor, a techno gangster musical that's still in
production I've co-written with Eddie Bammeke [Eddie
Bammeke interview - click here],
who directed, and which is just mad whack! And that said of course, the
nesxt project is always just around the corner, just waiting to happen. Your/your movie's website, social media,
whatever else?
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Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
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Movie: https://theresnosuchthingaszombies.com/
and https://www.facebook.com/theresnosuchthingaszombies
Trailer: https://youtu.be/tOV5Jfa1aFE Talk
of the Dead (full short): https://youtu.be/TeQIV5eRmuk Company:
https://bammekeandhaberfelner.com/ Personal
Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063756495533 And
of course, get There's No Such Thing as Zombies at:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CMBRQVV2
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CM9ZHPD3/
Vimeo (worldwide): https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tnstaz
Thanks for the
interview!
And thank you for taking the time (he said rather
schizophrenically).
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