Devon and Cornwall Film

Following yesterday’s interview with Hostel: Part II director Eli Roth, here’s a yap with special make-up effects supervisor Greg Nicotero. Look out next week for interviews with stars Lauren German and Heather Matarazzo. Hostel: Part II is out now. Click here to watch the trailer.

Is this a slasher film?

Greg Nicotero: Well, you know, I really love that Eli took the theme of the first film but changed the perspective.  I love that it’s the girls’ perspective. It just has such a different feel.  It’s not a bunch of guys sort of bopping around trying to get laid, which is what I really liked about it.  I like the sensibilities of this movie tremendously.

You’ve been doing this since 1988?

Yeah, we started KNB [award-winning sfx studio formed with Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman] in 1988.  My first movie was in 1984 in Pittsburgh with George Romero.

How much did your experiences on The Green Mile, Vanilla Sky, and Sin City help you professionally to be able to handle a film like Hostel: Part II, in which effects are very prominent?

Well, one of the strengths of our company is that we have a certain versatility. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I still feel like I get something out of every project that I do.  I was a horror movie fan growing up. I probably watched all the exact same movies that Eli watched. When you watch Cabin Fever you can see Sam Raimi’s influences; you can see George Romero and John Carpenter’s influences. But you know, you’re always learning and you’re always adjusting with the audience.  I mean, Eli takes these gags to the 10th degree, whereas a lot of other filmmakers would shy away from a girl whose face has been blow-torched.

How was the transition from the script to the shoot?  How did you
work together?

It was pretty seamless.  Eli really trusts us and trusts our judgment.  A lot of times, because these films are shot in Prague, and our studio is in Los Angeles, we spend a lot of time building stuff here, and then we will do tests.  We’ll have a brief discussion with Eli about what he wants to see, and then he lets us run with it.  Eli knows what we’re capable of and what we’re qualified to do, he really trusts that we’re going to engineer stuff that’s going to be to his liking.

Can you explain the process of creating the replicas of the different bodies and body parts?

What we were really successful with last year was we kind of re-engineered how we make fake bodies. There’s a company called Cyber Effects which has a machine that mills out a perfect, one-to-one replica of the body. The thing we’ve been doing differently is actually machining out armatures that have the exact joints that replicate the human skeleton. You run the body out of silicone, and you make the body solid. So the body actually weighs 70 or 80 pounds, but it’s got this perfectly-jointed armature in it. It can move. We’re constantly trying to use new techniques because audiences nowadays, they’ll get the movie on DVD and they’ll freeze-frame it and they’ll dissect every single shot.

Tell us about the inspiration for the look of the film?

Literally, you know, it’s mirroring a slaughterhouse.  The first film didn’t have quite that feel.  I mean, the first film felt much more industrial because of where they were in Eastern Europe, and it was the idea that they’re in that kind of funky warehouse with the basement.  But this movie definitely is much more.  And I think, again, because of the sensibilities of the women, to seduce a woman versus seducing a man, it’s completely different. There’s a lot more to it in terms of the contrast of the romance and the sexuality of it. Then you get into the brutal torture part of it.  I mean, it really is much more horrific.

Is it tough to still surprise audiences?

It’s very challenging.  The first Hostel, a lot of people didn’t know what the film was about.  Now the bar has been raised.  But I think that what Eli has been able to capture is that he’s been able to keep the material fresh by expanding on the death sequences.

Is it scarier because it’s realistic?

Absolutely. And that’s the big difference between a film like this and some sort of supernatural movie.  If it’s a ghost story or if it’s a monster movie, people generally don’t think about it.  But listen, we’ve all read headlines, and you’ve all heard horrible stories. You get on an airplane, you fly to a foreign country you’ve never been to before.  You can’t help but feel slightly uneasy. You know, I think one of the creepiest aspects of the whole Hostel franchise is the idea that these people that are committing these atrocities, it’s like they’re bored.  They have more money than they know what to do with, and they’re just like, “I’ve never tortured somebody before.  I’m curious to see what that’s like.”

What percentage of the film would you say uses visual effects?

Not very many at all.  As far as I know, there’s very little CGI work.  All the gags that we did were all practical and all on set.  There may be some matte paintings or there may be some mega-green screen shot here or there, but, you know, to my knowledge, this was much more a practical makeup effects movie than a digital movie.

What was the most difficult aspect of the project for you?

I think the likenesses and the heads are always a challenge.  Getting likenesses is still challenging.  Blood gags here and there. There’s a science to them because there’s an unpredictability about the blood - you know, how much blood is going to pump out and is it going to look right?  And then you’ve gotta clean it up and re-dress.  But I think this was really pretty straightforward.

How was your experience working with Eli Roth?

I love working with Eli.  Our contribution to his movies is very important and it means a lot to him.  So he makes a point of coming up to the studio and interfacing with us.  It’s like for him it’s a field trip.  It’s like going to bloody Disneyland for Eli.

Posted by Thin White Duke

Gore-nographic splatterfest Hostel: Part II hit cinemas today, and to celebrate we have an interview with director Eli Roth about the film. Stay tuned to D+CFilm over the coming week for interviews with special make-up effects supervisor Greg Nicotero, and stars Lauren German and Heather Matarazzo. Click here to watch the trailer.

Did you have any qualms about embarking on a Hostel sequel?

Eli Roth: I think everyone thinks of sequels in the context of the law of diminishing returns. But there have been some good ones. I really enjoyed Saw II, The Devil’s Rejects and 28 Weeks Later. But The Evil Dead 2 is the benchmark. I said with this that I wanted to go for Mad Max 2 and Aliens, I wanted to make a movie that takes the best elements of the first, what worked the best, and use that as a building block for the sequel.

So how do you approach that in practice?

I thought of it like Kill Bill: Volume One and Kill Bill Volume Two . Instead of  Hostel 2 it was going to be  Hostel: Part II. What happens if there’s no credits? If you just cut the credits out, what’s next?  I’m writing it from the point of view of the world’s biggest Hostel fan, which I am, so what do I want to see? What’s going to scare me? What would I be really psyched to see and what am I expecting? And what would be disappointing? That was how I approached the writing of it.

So it helps that you’re revisiting an established world that your audience will already recognise?

We don’t have to learn about it again through anyone’s eyes, we know what’s going on, so let’s follow Jay Hernandez [as Paxton] through, let’s continue that story  but also let’s introduce this other storyline of these girls and watch how they get lured there. Why would they go to this place? But we’re also going to follow the clients who have paid to kill these girls. We’re going to see that they’re not just sickos that want to get off on this, they’re guys who have this disturbed side to them but have never done this kind of thing before.

Do you agree that films like yours are reclaiming the horror genre for a more mature audience?

Definitely. I think in the late Eighties and the Nineties horror was dead. They came back in the form of the ghost movies, and people said everyone wants PG-13 movies. But if you look back at  The Ring, The Others, The Sixth Sense… at the time everyone was like, ‘see, everyone wants PG-13’. But that was Gore Verbinski, Alejandro Amenábar and M. Night Shyamalan directing those movies. You had three of the top directors in the world making those films. But I think in a post-9/11 world, with the images coming back from the Iraq War and the images from the YouTube phenomenon where the violence is so immediate and direct, people need something stronger to respond to.

There are, though, some critics who rail against the violent content and have coined the phrase ‘torture porn’. How do you respond to that?

What’s interesting is that when Hostel came out, the average budget of a horror movie was $80 million. I made Hostel for $3.8 million. Then when it opened at No.1 with $20 million and knocked out Narnia people were like: ‘What the hell is going on?’. And immediately the critics say: ‘Oh, it’s torture porn, people are getting off on the violence’. Actually, they missed the point of the movie. The point was that what scares people is the thought of someone who is using violence as a replacement for sex. The violence has become a sexual act because they’re so disconnected and so numb that they now need that violence to get off. There’s a lot of thought that went into this movie and it really stirred up debates.

Your experience from the first film was that some countries really embraced the movie, didn’t they?

Le Monde picked their ten best films of the year and put Hostel at number two. They said this was the smartest film they’d seen, a film on capitalism that has gone too far. That’s how I feel about what’s going on in Iraq. There’s people that just want money and lives are being sacrificed for it. Other people feel that way, it’s a response to something real, so when a critic just says it’s torture porn… to throw the film into a sub-genre of pornography, to me, says volumes about the critic’s limited capacity to understand what a horror film can be more than it actually says anything about the film itself. They think that just because there’s violence in it, there’s no intelligence.

Do you ever find yourself having to defend yourself to your mum?

My parents love them, they’re on set, they have cameos in the movies. My father is a psychoanalyst and a professor at Harvard and he told me how many of the other professors at Harvard have come up to him to talk about the films. I like movies that work on two levels.

The success that has come your way has been tremendous, but you’ve managed to retain control over your films, haven’t you?

After Cabin Fever  I turned down so many studio movies – like $25-30 million movies. I was really depressed and thought am I slitting my own throat? But Quentin [Tarantino] was like: ‘No, you’re doing the right thing, you’re following your own instincts and your own ideas’ and I said: ‘Alright, well I’ve got this other movie and I’m going to go and make it for three million bucks. Let’s just go and do it, no one will bother me’.  Then after Hostel, I got offered huge $150 million franchise movies, but I didn’t want to take orders from some movie star. It’s about my ideas, you feel like your ideas and your voice are connecting with people. I had more to say on Hostel: Part II, and I can say that it is better
and smarter.

Now that you have females as the main victims of the violence are you expecting double the criticism?

There’s no question. I always feel that there’s no violence in a movie, it’s not real, it’s a magic trick. Nobody really dies. But I’m very aware that as soon as you put women in this situation, all of a sudden people are like: ‘Wow, hold on a second’. It’s the difference between hunting a lion and hunting a deer. If someone hunts a lion, it’s like: ‘Wow, they’re brave,’ but if they’re hunting a deer it’s like: ‘That poor deer’. So, you have to write and design scenes that are scary and horrific, but that are also watchable. I don’t want people to feel: ‘God, why am I watching this, this is sick and sadistic’. I want people to watch and think it’s scary but they can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Your films do, in any case, have quite a female following, don’t they?

Teenage girls were a bigger audience than guys in Hostel. I went to theatres all over and there were gangs of girls going and screaming at it. There were kids that were 10 or 11 years old when September 11 happened. They’ve been told for years ‘You’re going to get killed’ or ‘You’re going to get blown up’. Every time you go on an airplane, they X-ray your shoes because you’re going to get blown up. Terror Alert Orange – DON’T TRAVEL! So, people have a reaction, all this stuff gets processed and processed and they want to scream.

Hostel: Part II is in cinemas now.

Posted by Thin White Duke

Follow the main cinema links for dates, times and matinee screenings.
Follow the title links for movie details, friendship and maybe more.

PLYMOUTH ARTS CENTRE

Catch A Fire (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Amazing Grace (PG) Click here to watch trailer 

Bamako (PG) Click here to watch trailer

TAVISTOCK WHARF    

The Gigolos (12A) Click here to watch clips

DARTINGTON ARTS/THE BARN

Ten Canoes (15) Click here to watch trailer

Kanyini (NC) Click here to visit official site

Zodiac (15) Click here to watch trailer 

EXETER PICTUREHOUSE   

Shrek The Third (U) Click here to watch trailer

Tell No-One (15) Click here to watch trailer

Water (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Days Of Glory (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Casablanca (U) Click here to watch trailer

SAVOY, PENZANCE      

Amazing Grace (PG) Click here to watch trailer 

Orchestra Seats (12A) Click here to watch trailer 

THE POLY, FALMOUTH     

Jindabyne (15) Click here to watch trailer

If you want your local arthouse or cinema club featured in the Arthouse Roundup, send some details to info@dandcfilm.co.uk      

We didn’t really dig the first one, but word is, the Godfatherly-titled Hostel: Part II is significantly better than its predecessor.

Which is fantastic news cos the original effort turned out to be a triumph of marketing over substance. It didn’t offer anything we hadn’t seen before and, more crucially, it wasn’t scary. At all.

We’re not expecting a huge improvement in the newie, but we like director Eli Roth’s cheeky sense of mischief and god knows there’s been slim pickings on the horror front lately.

So to that end, we’re gonna be celebrating the release of the movie tomorrow with a host of Hostel: Part II hi-jinks over the coming week.

We’ll be running interviews with Roth and special make-up effects supervisor Greg Nicotero, as well as stars Lauren German and D+CFilm-fave Heather Matarazzo.

In the meantime, here’s the trailer to whet your bloodlust. Be warned though - it’s not for those of a delicate sensibility. As Simon Bates used to say: “This clip contains nudity, violence and one use of the word ‘cum coma’.” Gore blimey!

Posted by Thin White Duke

The second Chew Digest screening event, presented in association with The Ocean Project, takes place tonight (Thursday) at Plymouth’s Barbican Theatre.

As well as a host of new content from the web-based Chew TV channel, the monthly shindig also gives young filmmakers the chance to show off their own work in a dedicated section for material submitted on the night.

There’ll also be a screening of Surfers Against Sewage’s View From The Green Room, featuring the likes of Glen ‘Micro’ Hall, Spencer Hargraves, Candice O’Donnell, Nathan Phillips and Shaun ‘Skippy’ Skilton.

Of course, we spend all our time sitting in darkened rooms rather than ‘hanging ten’ on ‘the beach’, so they could be just making these surf-type names up to tease us.

Anyway, the fun starts at 7.30pm and entry is a snip at £3. Like, gnarly.

Posted by Thin White Duke

Tonight’s Reel Indi event features a screening of Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo.

Part drama, part documentary, part orange-jumpsuit extravaganza, the flick focuses on the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charge.

There’ll also be plenty of books and magazines on sale, as well as organic refreshment. The fun (if that’s the right word for it) kicks off at 7pm at North Devon’s Tapeley Park. 

Click below to watch the Road to Guantanamo trailer.

Posted by Thin White Duke

One of the most highly anticipated Hong Kong movies in recent years, Dragon Tiger Gate was released yesterday on DVD through Cine-Asia.

It stars 27-year-old pop star, actor and all round superbuff hottie Nicholas Tse, who is already a veteran of Hong Kong cinema with over 25 movies under his (black) belt.

Hugely successful in Asia, Tse’s star is now beginning to rise in the West thanks to roles in the likes of Jackie Chan’s really rather good New Police Story.

Directed by Wilson Yip, Dragon Tiger Gate sees Tse lining-up alongside Donnie Yen for an ultra gratuitous display of martial arts excess. Oh yes!

Click here to watch a clip featuring a massive scrap in a restaurant - they’re gonna have to leave a fairly hefty tip after all this, wethinks.

Posted by Thin White Duke

Who doesn’t want to film live music events nowadays? More specificially, who does want to film a live music event? The Exeter Respect festival is looking for filmmaking volunteers to take part in capturing a record of the musical shenanigans from Friday, July 6 to Sunday, July 8.

If you’re interested put your hand up, step forward and email info@dandcfilm.co.uk.

Posted by Cptn

Young and old gather together, for VanLand - the community-based roving filmmaking team - has returned like Lazarus (sans caravan) to run more workshops in making and screening digital shorts at a village location near you, and it’s called VanLand Village Screen.

There are three parts to this Mediabox-funded VVS, as no-one calls it.

The first is the an investigation of teenagers past and present, to be based on real-life research drawing on the experience and skills of those aged between 12-20 or over the 55s. This is for June.

In September and October the project steps into the world of MTV and videos and unsigned band to be shown at gigs and online.

Then comes the cold November nights, and the gang will be popping along to a village hall near you to show the work and warm the cockles of your heart.

Want to get involved, then get in touch.

Contact Blind Ditch on 07754 232285 or, helpfully enough, contact@blindditch.org.

Posted by Cptn

We are officially very excited indeed about Control, the sexy new Joy Division/Ian Curtis biopic. 

It debuted at Cannes the other week, just one day short of the 27th anniversary of Curtis’ suicide, and won a buncha rave reviews.

Annoyingly, it’s not released in the UK ’til October but you can get a (rather comprehensive) taster of what’s in store by clicking below. Oh, and it’s quite funny watching Mancunian translated into French too. Sacre-fooken-bleu!

Posted by Thin White Duke

Follow the main cinema links for dates, times and matinee screenings.
Follow the title links for movie details, friendship and maybe more.

PLYMOUTH ARTS CENTRE

Jindabyne (15) Click here to watch trailer

Night Of The Sunflowers (15) Click here to see pictures

TAVISTOCK WHARF   

Oklahoma (U) Click here to watch trailer

DARTINGTON ARTS/THE BARN

My Best Friend (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Jindabyne (15) Click here to watch trailer

The Last Mimzy (PG) Click here to watch trailer

EXETER PICTUREHOUSE  

Black Book (15) Click here to watch trailer

Fast Food Nation (15) Click here to watch a clip

Jindabyne (15) Click here to watch trailer

Ocean’s Thirteen (PG) Click here to watch trailer

Sunshine (15) Click here to watch trailer

Night Of The Sunflowers (15) Click here to see pictures

Shrek The Third (U) Click here to watch trailer

Dans Paris (15) Click here to watch trailer

SAVOY, PENZANCE     

This Is England (18) Click here to watch trailer

Marie Antoinette (12A) Click here to watch trailer

THE POLY, FALMOUTH    

My Best Friend (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Away From Her (12A) Click here to watch trailer

Half Nelson (15) Click here to watch trailer

If you want your local arthouse or cinema club featured in the Arthouse Roundup, send some details to info@dandcfilm.co.uk     

The Exeter Picturehouse is lining up five films to coincide with the Exeter Respect Festival. Here’s what they have to offer.

Black Gold – which stirs up the coffee trade industry; Fast Food Nation – Linklater takes a bite out of the big burger brigade, based on a true story; Water – the award-winning film focusing on the plight of widows in India. Days of Glory – the true story of how Arab Muslims in the French colonies of North Africa volunteered to fight alongside the Allied forces against the Nazis. And The Forbidden Team – the tale of a trying to organise a team of Tibet exiles, in the face of FIFA and Chinese government opposition.

Black Gold and Fast Food Nation will be showing at the Exeter Picturehouse from Friday, June 22 to Thursday, June 28
Water: from Friday, June 29 to Thursday, July 5
Days of Glory: Sunday, July 1 and Monday, July 2
The Forbidden Team with be showing on Saturday, July 7 at 11am - this will be a free screening.

For the rest of your arthouse cinema listings check out the Arthouse Roundup on D+CFilm every Friday.

Here’s the Black Gold trailer, just to whet your appetite.

Posted by Cptn

Back in December we gave you 37 reasons to watch 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep, not least because doyenne of the Devon and Cornwall filmmaking community, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry said, and we quote, ‘it’s worth watching’.

Also. it won at the Berlin Film Festival. And her ’significant other’ did the score.

You can catch it tonight at the Exeter Phoenix, after Future Shorts. Worth the wait? You tell us. Here’s a taster.

Posted by Cptn

Future Shorts is making a bit of a name for itself at the Exeter Phoenix. The international collection of the finest in short film has decided to take up residence in the South West, once a month at least.

D+CFilm caught up with Bodge, one of the organisers, to ask what is Future Shorts? (we got pretty much what we just said, so instead we sobbed ‘if the future is so bright, why is it so short?’) Here’s what he said.

“What is Future Shorts? It is an innovative short film label that has built itself a reputation as one of the industry’s leading lights (’The true pioneers of petit cinema’ – claimed The Guardian, with an excruciating middle-class use of
French, non?).

“Most will know of them through their monthly film festivals screened in 20 venues across the UK. But Future Shorts also has a global presence too, with screenings all round Europe and as far a field as Japan, Canada and 
South America.

“In short, Future Shorts is no less than the world’s largest short film network. And at the Exeter Phoenix you can see a selection of some of the most interesting and thought provoking short films from around the world every third Wednesday of the month at 6:15pm.

“There are usually around 10 films per screening, ranging from a minute long to 25 minutes, and encompass any genre you can name, meaning you never know what you’re going to get, keeping it fresh, surprising and engaging.

“The next screening is tonight (June 20). Normal price is £3.50 but £2.50
for students.

“For more information or to be kept up to date with future goings on, check out the Future Shorts website as well as their Exeter myspace.

“Keep it short.”

And, of course, keep it reel (silence).