Your new movie Inheritance
- in a few words, what is it about?
After
the murder of their parents, Nick (Michael Kenneth Fahr) and Steve
Wellington (Christopher Sarlls) are left to share their inheritance.
Neither likes the idea of sharing but when the masked figure shows back up
to finish what was started, everyone will learn the hard way that blood
runs thicker than water.
With Inheritance
being a slasher of sorts, is that a genre at all dear to you, and some of
your genre favourites? And what do you think makes your film stand out of
the crowd? I
do enjoy slasher films, especially the ones that have a mystery/suspense
angle to them. I also love all types of horror but I’m really
fascinated by the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho is one of my
favorite films. Another all-time favorite of mine is Scream.
Some other horror films that I really enjoy are Halloween,
I Know
What You Did Last Summer, Saw,
Gremlins, Friday the 13th (original
version) and Black Christmas (1974 original
version). I think what
makes Inheritance stand out is the mixture of sub-genres. It is a
slasher but it’s also a murder mystery and it has some drama and
suspense to it. I tried really hard to not give the killer away and
make the characters completely different from one another. (Other) sources of inspiration when writing Inheritance? Honestly,
when I write, I don’t have particular films in mind that I want to model
my script after. I just develop the characters and break the plot
down as detailed as I can before I begin to write the script. Then I
go from there, things usually change the more I write as things unfold.
I do always try to make sure that it’s something I would watch though.
I mean if I’m bored writing it, who’s going to want to watch it? Going
through all the characters in your movie, many of the leads at least are
not particularly likeable by design - so who could you identify with the
most, and why?
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Well
for me being the writer, I had to identify with all the characters
(likable or not). I think a common trend is to group a character (or
person for that matter) into strictly good or bad or likable/unlikable.
So I hope people look more at the situation that each character is in at
different times to understand why their behavior is the way it is.
For me personally, I really like the sassy bitchy characters. They
are more fun to write and way more fun to act. But with all the
characters, I tried to give them more substance than just nice or mean.
There are roughly 16 characters, so hopefully there’s a bunch that people
will like. And well, if they don’t at least they can probably
count on a good chance the character will get killed in the story - haha! The characters that I could identify with the most are
Sam (Michael E. Hambrick) and Nick and Steve. BUT my favorite
character in the film is Aunt Rhonda (M. Catherine Wynkoop).
What can you tell us about Inheritance's
approach to horror? The
approach was to mix a murder mystery with a horror/slasher. However,
I wanted to mix up the genres and go outside the box by being as creative
with the story as I could. Do talk about your overall
directorial approach to your story at hand! My
approach to directing was really to put myself in everybody's shoes.
Everyone has a specific job and they are more focused on that job and not
so much on the big picture. My job was to keep the big picture
intact and stay true to the story as best we could. I had gone over
all the scenes with Devin Ramey (cinematographer), so we were on the same
page of how the scenes were going to be shot. Some things in the
script worked great on paper and didn’t translate as well on film so I
had to come up with solutions fast on set. My actors and
cinematographer helped with some of those decisions. I tried to direct the
actors the way I like to be directed and really speak to them in a way
that's easy to relate to. I also listened to any input they had
about their characters in particular scenes. And worked with them
through that process. I’ve been on sets where the director
wasn’t very vocal to the actors what they wanted from them. I
didn’t want anyone to have any confusion on
Inheritance.
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You also
play the lead in Inheritance
- so do talk about your character, what did you draw upon to bring him to
life, and did you write him with yourself in mind from the get-go? I
play Nick Wellington (one of the two brothers) and I did write him for
myself from the start. Nick will come off as being mean or tough,
but really I think he’s misunderstood. He’s dealing with a lot
after his parents death and the situation with his brother, Steve.
He knows what he wants, and above all else, he’s not going to let
anyone get in his way of attaining what he wants. He definitely
isn’t afraid to put people in their place. That’s a good
question, what did I draw on to bring him to life. Honestly, he’s
not based on anyone in particular and he’s definitely not like myself,
but if I had to take myself and put myself on amped super crazy steroids
in another world, then maybe that would be Nick? Haha, I have no idea.
What
can you tell us about the rest of your cast, and why exactly these people? I
can tell you that I loved my cast! Like anything, we had auditions
and then cast the roles based on the auditions. When I knew I was
going to be doing this film, I wanted to make sure I had the right people
in the roles as well as the right people on set with me (since I was
directing and acting). So I had reached out to some people that I
had acted with before in other projects and asked them to audition for
specific roles. The cast that I had worked with before on previous
projects were Christopher Sarlls (who plays my brother Steve), Christopher
Patrino (Nigel), M. Catherine Wynkoop (Aunt Rhonda), Gail Yost (Maria),
and Sharla Darcus Moore (Jessica). The other actors that I got a
chance to work with for the first time are Justine Renee (Laura Sanders),
Charles Chudabala (Ricky), Paul Saulo (John Wellington), Amy DeMilo (Emma
Wellington), Essex O’Brien (Topher), Rebecca Fiallos (Sally), Michael E.
Hambrick (Sam), Rick Teliga (Kyle), DeQuan Mitchell (Fabian/man at the
desk) and Monica Sos (Debbie). A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?
We
filmed Inheritance for a total of 14
days. We split up the schedule
into three different weeks with some days off in between. I barely
slept most of those days for more than 3-4 hours. Despite being
tired, the on-set atmosphere felt really creative to me. I don’t
know how to explain it, it was very magical. Everyone on set wanted
to do a good job and wanted the film to be good. Devin Ramey
(cinematographer) and Zach Rohrer (sound) did a great job behind the
scenes. The
$64-question of course, where can Inheritance
be seen? We
are currently doing film festivals before distribution is decided on.
Right now the first public screening is in the USA in Tampa, FL on March
20th, 2021 at The Grindhouse Video Film Festival at Tampa Bay
Screams.
I would say the best thing to do is to like the Inheritance
Facebook page
@inheritancemovie21 to get up to date information regarding the film.
Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of Inheritance? So
far we have been accepted into 6 film festivals (worldwide) and won at 5
of them. Grindhouse Film Festival (Tampa), Prague International
Monthly Film Festival (Prague), Paris Film Festival (Paris) (Best Horror),
Hollywood Blood Horror Festival (Los Angeles) (Best Feature), Foreman Empire International Film Festival
(Atlanta) (Best Actor,
Best Score, Best Production Design, 2nd Place for Best Mystery/Crime and
3rd Place for Best Producer) and Honorable Mention at Athens International Monthly Art Film
Festival (Greece). There are a lot more festival submissions I am waiting
to hear the results on. Any
future projects you'd like to share? The
next project I am acting in is Window With A View, that will film later
this year in Kentucky! I play Sheriff Dempsey. There may or may not be a
sequel that I write soon to Inheritance.
I haven’t made a final
decision yet. Your/your movie's
website, social media, whatever else?
My
Instagram (Michael Kenneth Fahr) is mkf2411
Inheritance Facebook
page is @inheritancemovie21
Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have only forgotten to ask?
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Just
thank you to everyone who supplied us with locations for the film.
And all the crew and cast and IndieGoGo supporters! Special thanks
again to Christopher Patrino and Charles Chudabala for really helping me
out behind the scenes. Anyone else I didn’t mention that I need to,
Dustin Hubbard [Dustin Hubbard
interview - click here], Evan Joseph, Luke Schwartz, Justyna Miesch, Scott
Thompson, James Spradley, Matthew Festle, Daniel Dixon, Jerry Hunter,
& Okeye Mitchell.
Everyone
check out the teaser trailer up on
https://youtu.be/hixludUsj6o
(Inheritance trailer 2021) and
the IMDb page
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10472094/
Thanks
for the interview!
Of
course, Thank you!
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