“Monsters” was a short film idea I started developing with the knowledge that I would be attending Crypticon Seattle in May 2015 and the knowledge that actors Sid Haig and Michael Berryman would be in attendance. The idea was to show them this concept poster on my iPhone and simply ask if making a short film with the pair of them was a possibility for an Australian film maker with no feature film credits or major public exposure to his name:p However I never finished the poster in time and it seemed like a moot point to ask them about it (Especially without a completed script to show them either). Kind of wish I had now.
The idea was to make an “anti-horror film”, in the sense that ordinarily a sensation of dread and a succession of gory, violent imagery is the driving force (for most fans, I think) behind seeing a horror film. The intention was to film and treat the violence in such a way that would inhibit that enjoyment. This was in part motivated by watching interviews where Berryman discusses his personal distaste for horror films and an attempt to do something different with the horror genre. I’m always trying to be different☺
Additionally a sense of spectatorship and audience complicity would pervade the film, in a similar fashion to the way Haneke explores violence. Overall this would serve as a comment on horror films and spectatorship in general: why the hell do we enjoy seeing people mutilated and horrific acts perpetuated on screen?
The corpses of a family would be planted inside a hotel room by the two leads, Earl (Haig) and Robyn (Berryman), who are also lovers. Haig would represent the conventional masculine archetype while Berryman would represent the traditional feminine archetype. Their “job” as it were, is to create violent murder scenes reminiscent of serial killers, with cadavers provided by a mysterious agency they work for. Once inside the designated locations, they arrange the corpses and mutilate them, removing trophies, severing limbs etc.
Earl and Robyn are disgusted by their work, but are bound to it by a mysterious sense of resignation, compelled by forces larger than themselves.
With the figures of Earl, Robyn and Duke, Robyn’s homeless lover, a wider implication is made on society: as a civilization we need the “other”, figures which become scapegoats for all our fears, all the violence and “weakness” we are unable to accept in ourselves. These figures also serve to remind us to be afraid, afraid of being marginalized, afraid of the violence we are capable of inflicting on each other. Society literally employs people like Earl, Robyn and Duke to remind individuals to comply with the laws of society, from legislative laws to social expectations.
Synopsis:
Monsters Earl and Robyn enter a Hotel Room carrying body bags containing cadavers. Earl deposits a woman in the bathroom and following instructions outlined in their brief, proceeds to crush her face and skull with his foot. This abuse of the cadaver’s face is depicted in close-up, clinical, unflinching detail.
In the main room and unbeknownst to Earl, Robyn is conducting an affair via phone with another male lover, Duke, arranging to meet with him having finally decided to leave Earl. The stress of work and Earl’s reluctance to discuss his feelings has been creating ongoing tensions in their relationship. Robyn intends to tell Earl at the end of their current assignment and then be picked up by Duke.
This subplot was intended to create a stronger narrative inside the film after reflecting that the only story being told originally was the destruction of corpses by two mysterious figures. There was no interesting tension or subtext going on between the two leads without it.
At one point, after disemboweling the woman whose skull he has crushed, Earl discovers she was pregnant. He is unable to continue and tears the bathroom apart in a rage. It falls to Robyn to talk him down and console him; Earl breaks down in Robyn’s arms and reminded of the man’s sensitivity and passion, Robyn is unable to tell Earl he intends to leave him.
Earl starts cleaning up in the bathroom and Robyn hurriedly rings Duke to call off their plans. Duke is furious and hangs up, leaving us uncertain if he will comply with Robyn’s request or no.
Earl and Robyn are preparing to leave, packing away the body bags and a varied assortment of knives and implements used to mutilate the cadavers. There is a knock at the door. It is Duke, a homeless man who travels in the same circles as Earl and Robyn.
Duke confronts Robyn, forcing him to make a choice between him and Earl. Robyn chooses Earl and Duke, devastated, leaves. Earl and Robyn leave in their panel van; Robyn’s duplicitous loyalty to Earl and admission of his affair filling the space between them with a mix of relief and unease.
Bobo's
Wake is a horror film but also an experimental art film. I wrote the
script about a year before finally getting the chance to make it. The
script and concept was a reaction/response to my friend and collaborator
Nathan Armstrong's film "Oh, Hi Ken"
I
was really taken by the energy, violence, nihilistic humor and visceral
kick of his film and I wanted to make a film like it. The film got a
great audience response, groans, inward breaths and satisfied laughs,
and I wanted to experience a similar reaction to one of my films. I have
always liked the plays and style of playwright Samuel Beckett
(particularly the great Channel 4 series that filmed the entire Beckett canon) and combined this aesthetic with Nathan's viscerally charged template.
The
clown look is purely my interest in the Clown aesthetic, but always
with a dark, twisted bent. It is also possibly influenced by having seen
the film "Carnival of Souls"
The make up was designed by a make up artist in Canberra who had worked
with my cinematographer before and her designs were fabulous:
The
costumes each had a difference influence: Fran's look was meant to be
film noir femme fatale inspired, something like Kim Novak in "Vertigo";
Pearl's look was designed to be sensual with a Roman-styled dress, and
Robyn was designed to look like a tight, clenched business type or
perhaps a preppy, private school girl. Bobo's look was meant to be like a
leather clad biker, sort of "Rebel Without a Cause" or "The Wild One"
Essentially
the film was designed to be a kind of horror rollercoaster, with a
series of disgusting set pieces (stomach blood, eye pus, putrid amniotic
water etc), a morbid, unsettling tone and scant storyline (but an
implied back story). The film was meant to be a sensory experience
rather than an intellectual or narrative based one.
The
narrative as such, is this: a rouge, masculine, misogynist clown, Bobo,
enters the lives of three female clowns, a mother, Fran, and her two
daughters, Pearl and Robyn. Bobo romances Fran, has a domestic dispute
with her where Fran's right eye is punctured, moves onto Pearl and gets
her pregnant, then goes off and contracts a fatal venereal disease from a
clown prostitute before returning to Robyn, infecting her and taking
her as his fiance. Bobo then dies from the venereal disease and the
women hold a wake in his memory. During this wake memories of sensual
moments with Bobo are played out, jealousies come to the surface, Robyn
vomits blood, Fran ingests pus from her wounded eye which seems to have a
calming effect on her and Robyn gives birth to Bobo Jnr. Fran and Robyn
have made a pact, unbeknowst to Pearl, to kill the child. Fran
restrains Pearl while Robyn clubs Bobo Jnr. to death with a baseball bat
before promptly dying herself from the venereal disease she contracted
from Bobo.
I believe narrative can be overrated and I
have always reacted against conventional, commerce driven mainstream
cinema (Of which I consider the "Transformers" and "Fast and The
Furious" franchises to be prime examples of), or the supposed realism
and kitchen sink drama of "Neighbors", a show which unfortunately a lot
of the actors I've worked with aspire to and still value as a form way
above my surreal tastes. Most of the film students I worked with also
favored the conventional over the obscure; they all wanted to make films
in the style of the TV series "The Walking Dead" or "Oblivion". I don't
consider there to be anything wrong with the aforementioned TV series
and film, they are both well scripted and executed, it's just
frustrating knowing that your peers are buying into the same tired shit
that everyone else is making, that they are reinforcing the status quo,
that they will be producing films that make short film festivals that
much more dull and flavorless (and no doubt taking out top prizes with
their unimaginative, cookie cutter films with exquisite camera work, FX
and production values and fuck-all interesting in the way of story,
character or visual aesthetics), they will be making it that much harder
for anyone to make arthouse films and finally that they have no
interest in the films you enjoy.
The film was
originally meant to be shot rough and ready on the balcony of my unit,
with a very short turnaround in terms in getting the actresses on board,
setting up the shots, executing, editing etc. That never eventuated
because the actresses simply couldn't commit with such short notice.
Bobo was also never meant to meant to feature on screen except as a
photo, but he crept back in to augment the action with the women.
I
eventually resurrected the film a year later, partly as a way to
showcase the talents of a beautiful young Indian actress I hadn't been
able to work with earlier, partly as a way of working with a
cinematographer who wanted to collaborate with me, and I guess largely
because I hate material going to waste and having unrealised dreams in
my drawer.
The script went through several phases at
the prompting of my cinematographer, who wasn't comfortable working on a
project with no discernible narrative, but it didn't really work in
that form and so I eventually brought it back to the abstract structure.
The set I chose was an area close to my place of work as a Security
Guard. It is a strange, grassed park sandwiched between decommissioned
public service buildings, and the area has always looked very evocative
and dark at night. With filming it's always better to go with a location
you are familiar with and perhaps have some level of control over
(apart from the building's air conditioning vents and inclement
weather). I always saw this film as being played out in the open and at
night, in an unconventional or surprising setting, a strange wake held
by strange characters.
Bobo Jnr. was originally a
watermelon, a symbol for a child rather then the puppet child it
developed into. The original reference was meant to be comic (a common
circus clown routine involves smashing a watermelon with a mallet) and
economic - a cheap way to create splatter for effect while the actress
screamed in grief for her child convincingly. However, after the first
attempt to mount the film fell through, and by the time I came to
mounting the film properly, a Canberra puppeteer posted in one of the
many Canberra film making groups on Facebook with her project "Baz N Snags"
and the quality of her puppets inspired me to change the watermelon to a
puppet. I originally approached her to make the puppet, but due to time
and budget constraints ended up making it myself.
I
had to recast the actress for Pearl, as it was evident during rehearsals
that she hadn't been putting any work towards her performance and
simply had no screen presence alongside the other actresses. Pearl was
always going to be a difficult role for an actress to bring strength to,
as she is the seemingly passive, traditional (Let's say a 1950's woman)
maternal role sandwiched between the angrier, more contemporary and
masculine female roles of Fran and Robyn. Robyn even carries the
phallic symbol of a baseball bat. Why are Fran and Robyn masculine and
Pearl feminine? It probably has something to do with my desire to create
unusual, dynamic and interesting roles for women and to create contrast
between the characters and create certain rivalries. Incidentally,
Fran, Robyn and Pearl are the names of my Mother, Aunty and Grandmother
(nickname) respectively, though this didn't occur to me when I picked
their names, they were simply the first names that came to mind. What
this means in a Freudian, Jungian or psychological sense I haven't the
slightest idea, if anything.
Why a baseball bat?
Practically to kill the baby with, psychologically to suggest the
aggression and prickliness of Robyn's character and because I had one
and I think they're cool.
This was the first time I'd
had to let an actress go, which was distressing as I am a polite person
and don't enjoy telling people their acting is not up to snuff, but
ultimately resulted in a better actress coming on board who helped the
character come alive.
The production of this film was
difficult, drawn out and grueling. The film had a lot of time to gestate
and build, so it feels very "full" as an experience, which I like and
makes me think of one of my favourite Rolf de Heer films "Bad Boy Bubby".
I did several practical effects tests for Bobo and designed the effects myself.
Our
first night we shot for twelve hours, from 6pm to 6am. The second night
it was a little less. The third night took forever to coordinate
between all disparate parties and eventually happened about two-three
months later. There was also a fourth night of pick ups. There are a
number of reasons for this lengthy production period, partly my
responsibility, partly shooting at night, but they're not interesting or
necessary to go into here. I think I'm passionate about this film
because it had such a difficult birth and still somehow made it into the
world in good shape and won awards at a film festival.
I
experimented with the post production program After Effects, designing a
title sequence, visual effects (the opening and closing shots of Bobo's
ghostly image in the picture frame) and end title sequence. I created a
new opening title sequence when it was clear my original idea of having
titles on screen that receded in scale with the tiered structure Bobo's
photo sits on, wasn't going to work. I also wanted to explore After
Effects and used the film as an opportunity to play.
Sound
Design was done with a Canberra Tafe graduate, a regular of mine for a
couple of films made in Canberra. He was top of his class and it always
showed in his work. I wanted the sound design to be a mix of ethereal,
comic and horrific sounds. The music was done by a young musician and
film maker at the University of Canberra. It's fantastic, especially
when placed alongside his usual bent which is much more upbeat and whimsical,
and clearly demonstrates his adaptability.
It is also
necessary to say at this point that I know the tone and make-up of this
film, for better or worse, is influenced by my time spent studying Wicca
with a witch in Canberra. I eventually parted from Wicca after reading
up on the initiation ceremony which I believed to be more influenced by
cult (e.g. Freemasons) than religion or spirituality. Wiccan folklore
and aesthetics are rife in this film, though I did not intend for this
to occur, from the unknowable dark figures of the women themselves to
the occult nature of Bobo's ghostly visage in the photo frame. It
actually takes the well known Wiccan creation story - of the three-fold
Goddess who goes through three phases in her cyclic story (Maiden,
Mother and Crone) and the Horned God who impregnates her with himself
before dying to renew the harvest - and subverts it. In my film you have
the figures of Mother, Maiden and Crone in the respective ages of the
women, except in reverse order from left to right, with "Mother" (Pearl)
carrying the Horned God's (Bobo's) child. The Horned God is already
dead, but his seed will not go on to become him, as the Maiden takes the
child and kills it. I can only guess this subversion and attempt to
cease the renewal of the Wiccan legend is reflective of my struggles
with Wicca, though I made the film several months after breaking ties
with Wiccan and occult circles. I can't remember if I had started
looking into Wicca when I originally wrote this script but it's possible
- in any case I clearly hadn't resolved any of my mixed feelings with
Wicca since that time.
As a final note, it must be said that the opening titles and end credit sequence owe their look and design to Gaspar Noe's film "Enter the Void", which I have reviewed in an earlier post. I simply love the unsettling, arresting neon aesthetic.
