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Your upcoming movie Sinister Nicky - in a few words, what
will it be about?
Sinister
Nicky is a horror comedy about a middle-aged married couple, Bill and
Helen, who acquire a strange looking garden gnome as a house warming
present. Once they welcome the gnome and give him his own little spot in
their garden, strange goings-on begin to happen leading to tragic
consequences. Obvious question of course, why a
garden gnome? And your personal take on these abominations of nature? The
idea came from co-director and writer of the story Steven Brown. A friend
bought him the gnome and around the time his cat was killing a lot of
birds in the garden and it almost looked like the gnome did it. So there
was an idea right there. So the idea didn't come from a fear of gnomes or
anything just from an experience that could be developed into a film.
Those are always the best ideas. We then looked into it and found that
there was very few horrors about them, so it seemed like a good one to go
with. From
what I know, Sinister Nicky pays hommage to old school slasher
cinema - care to elaborate on that influence on your movie? Well
when Steve sent me his treatment of the idea, I immediately pictured it as
a slasher with the gnome stalking his victims like Michael Myers from John
Carpenter's Halloween. This to me is comedy gold, I wasn't interested in
anything like Chucky, Leprechaun or any other comical slasher villains as
influence for this, that has been done to death. I liked the idea of it
playing out like a straight horror but the comedy coming through on its
own because it's well... a gnome. This is something Sam Raimi does so
well, so Evil Dead and
Drag Me To Hell are big influence on Sinister
Nicky.
Edward Harvey, Steven Brown |
Other
sources of inspiration when dreaming up Sinister Nicky? I'm
a big fan of dark British humour, so the elements of comedy within things
like dialogue are very inspired by League of Gentlemen. What
can you tell us about your co-writer and co-director Steven Brown, and
what's your collaboration like? Well
this film felt an evolved version of our earliest films where Steve and I
just picked up a camera got a few things together and shot something. Our
very first one The Guest had me dressed in a dark suit and hat chasing
Steve and trying to capture his soul in a teapot! Haha! We wanted to
capture the spirit of those days but at a pro level.
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Stefan Auton |
How would you describe Sinister
Nicky's approach to both horror and comedy? I
kind of covered this with earlier questions, the key for me is to have the
horror played straight and everything like the score and the sound scary
as it can be and the comedy come from some of the things the characters
say and the situations. For the
gorehounds among my readers - what can you tell us about the effects work
in your movie?
Well
we're hoping to get a practical FX artist involved but haven't got one
confirmed yet. Nicky has a thing for blackbirds though and likes nothing
better than slaughtering them and eating them. So picture that if you will
;) Do talk about the overall look and feel
of Sinister Nicky? John
Carpenter's Halloween meets
League of Gentlemen's humour. In order to get
that pro horror look it needs to be shot really well, so we've got Chris
Newman as our Director of Photography, he made zombie horror look like a
thing of beauty with the locally made feature Wasteland.
Jenn Day |
Anything you can tell us about
your projected cast yet, and why exactly these people? The
lead role Bill is played by Stefan Auton, a favourite of ours. He's been
in 3 other shorts of ours and is always great so I kind of wrote the
character with him in mind from the word go. He has a naturally flare for
comedy so he will take this in his stride very well. Helen is played by
Jenn Day a favourite of the local film community and with good reason, she
is very talented and there's very little she can't do in my opinion so I
approached her early on in the writing stage and she loved the script
right from the early draft stages. I think the dark humour appealed to her
so she was on board very easily and we were delighted.
As
far as I know, your film's still in its fundraising stages as we speak -
so do talk about your campaign for a bit! The
campaign has been an interesting experience, for our first go at this way
of funding I think we've done pretty well so far but we've learned a lot
too along the way. We will definitely approach some things differently if
we have another go at this in future. The marketing has been fun though,
we have frequently released parody posters of classic films: The Gardening
(The Shining), The
Gnomen, Gnome Alone etc. that has all been so much fun - http://igg.me/at/sinisternicky
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Once your
funds are raised, what's the schedule, and any idea when and where the
film might be released to the general public yet (however tentatively)?
We
aim to shoot the film as soon as we can get everything sorted. So it could
be as soon as March. It will be a long 2-3 days shoot and hopefully no
more than a couple of months in post-production. So we're hoping it will
be ready to be sent to festivals in the summer this year. Usually a
festival run is 2 years but it could be cut shorter than that. The film
won't be released publicly until after it's had a good run. That's why we
urge people who want to see it any sooner to contribute to the campaign. A
contribution of £10 will earn you your own download of the film once it's
done. Any
future projects beyond Sinister Nicky? Me
and the Enigmatic Productions team always have ideas for project, it's
always just about picking the right ones at the right time. I think
personally I would like to tackle something with a lot of drama in it but
still have a dark edge to it. I have a script in mind written by an actor
friend and I'd like to direct it so that could be my next project. Your/your
movie's website, Facebook, IndieGoGo, whatever else?
Facebook
for Sinister
Nicky: https://www.facebook.com/Sinister-Nicky-Short-Film-1049831148381687/
IndieGoGo: http://igg.me/at/sinisternicky
Facebook for Enigmatic: https://www.facebook.com/productionsenigmatic/
Twitter: @enigmatic_uk and @EdwardWLHarvey
Website: www.enigmaticproductions.co.uk
Thanks
for the interview!
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