An Interview with David King on Outcast, the Novelisation of his Movie PURGE

by Mike Haberfelner

November 2014

Films directed by David King on (re)Search my Trash

Your movie Purge has only recently been turned into a novel, Outcast - so do let us know, what are both movie and novel about?

Essentially, the rediscovery of the meaning of love in a world where such things are supposed to be forgotten and have become illegal.

Both the film and the book take place in a parallel universe where people are created by genetic engineering companies and programmed for roles in life. To fail to assume the role you’ve been created for is to become a Stray and be treated worse than a criminal.

That’s what happens to Layla Thomas when she becomes violently ill and has to flee from her sister’s upmarket salon on her first day of work as a BDSM mistress-slave.

How did the novelisation of Purge come together in the first place?

It was planned when I realised I would have to make the film on a minuscule budget. There was no way I could film many of the scenes originally written in the screenplay. So I decided to make a companion piece in the form of a novel.

So what can you tell us about Outcast's actual writer Marc Saville, and why him, and what was your collaboration like?

I had known Marc Saville for many years but under a another name which he zealously guards. I chose him because back in the 1980’s, I read his second novel which was a philosophical work with similarities to the kind of thing Paul Coehlo writes. I liked his style. It’s close to the way I write. Essentially I just gave him the original screenplay and invited him to turn it into a novel.

How closely does Outcast stick to Purge's basic storyline?

It follows Purge’s basic storyline to the letter but includes quite a few scenes which were not in the film and delves more deeply into the world inhabited by BDSM mistress-slave Layla Thomas. We also get to see her sister’s machinations behind the scenes and learn what happened to her and why.

You have told me the book has scenes which were too expensive or otherwise undoable in the movie - any examples?

There’s a chapter where Layla’s sister, Tanya - concerned about Layla’s situation - calls their guardians on the vidphone to ask if Layla ever came home drugged and totally out of it. It becomes clear in the book that their guardians were complicit in a Government cover-up but had little choice in the matter.

In another chapter, Tanya goes to see the Minister for Social Planning to try and get Layla’s Stray listing overturned. We learn he was one of Tanya’s BDSM clients and that he’d been warned Tanya’s programming had broken down but had gone on seeing her regardless. He is in fear of losing his own position and power and this ultimately causes Tanya’s death.

In the film, we only saw Tanya being tormented by unseen persons in her salon and lying dead at the end.

It was impossible to film the scene where she goes to see the Minister for Social Planning as it takes place in a huge Nazi-like mausoleum of a government building. The minister’s office has a banner thirty feet high. The characters are dwarfed by the architecture. We would have needed CGI to create this in the film.

Also, in the film when Layla leaves Harmon Cleves after the hotel room scene, she stumbles into some alleyway and collapses. In the book, she goes instead to The Shrine, the huge ANZAC memorial off St. Kilda Road in Melbourne. But in this parallel universe, the Shrine is disused, vandalised, and overgrown with weeds. No one can remember what it was originally for.

That, too, was outside our budget. It would have involved getting permission from the State Government which would have to get permission from the Armed Forces, and making the Shrine up to look abandoned and vandalised (providing we could get permission to do that) would have cost tens of thousands of dollars.

There’s also a chapter where Layla scavenges for food in rubbish bins early in the morning when garbots (garbage collection robots) are emptying bins and hosing down the streets.

None of this was in the film. It was logistically impossible to make something like an operating garbot on a budget like ours, let alone several, and to block off a whole city street so they could empty bins and hose it down. It’s Blade Runner stuff.

So for the first time, you can see what the film could have been like if it had been made on a budget of a few million.

Why make the film at all if so many scenes had to be dumped because of the cost and difficulty of shooting them?

Because there were two ways to make this film: one was the big budget mainstream way - spend millions to create a world. There’s no way I could have gotten that kind of money.

The other way was to do it as a no-budget experimental narrative underground film which focused more on the ideas than the eye candy.

I wanted to make a film which wasn’t just a straight-forward narrative with lots of visual whizz-bang but which used innovative tecchniques to get around the budget limitations.

Nearly all of the ideas in the ebook are in the film, they’re just not elaborated on as much or seen in all their glory as they are in the ebook.

When and where will the book be available to the general public?

Outcast is now available for pre-order from Amazon/Kindle. It’s available in most countries except those under exclusive contract to Kindle Select.

It goes on direct sale from December 15, so anyone who pre-orders it now will have it delivered to their Kindle reader on that date.

It will also be released to other ebook retailers (i.e. Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Oyster) via ebook distributor Smashwords.

Any future projects in whatever media you'd like to share?

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find David King at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find David King here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai

I have another screenplay called Hotel D’Arc, an arthouse fantasy-action film which mixes live action with Japanese-style anime. I’ve spent over three years trying to get it on the road with a decent budget.

Meanwhile, Marc Saville has turned the screenplay into an ebook called Nightkill and we plan to release it on Amazon/Kindle early next year. Keep an eye out for it... this time, you’ll see the big budget version first.

Your/your book's/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever else?

Outcast can be found at www.amazon.com.au/Outcast-Marc-Saville-ebook/dp/B00PQVW1EG

Thanks for the interview!

© by Mike Haberfelner

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