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Your film Breath of Hate - in a few words, what is it about?
Breath of Hate begins as a
simple an utterly twisted love triangle of sorts. A pimp, a hooker and her
part time boyfriend. Soon there are three hookers and three escaped mental
patients meeting up for what turns out to be a sick-n-twisted evening of sex
and violence. The boyfriend wants his girl back, the pimp wants his money
and the mental patients? Let's just say they have some very curious wants and
needs.
How did the project come into being, and what can you tell us
about your collaboration with scriptwriter Wes Laurie?
Wes Laurie, Sean Cain |
Basically my deal with Wes Laurie was that he would fund two films. I
would write one of them and he would write the other. The first was Silent Night, Zombie Night and then, after trawling through
his billions of scripts, he picked Breath of Hate."Not only did
I really love the story, but I knew we could produce it at the budget he
was talking about.
There were some major changes made to the script. Wes had envisioned
a younger 'Hate', but I knew as soon as I read it I wanted Ezra
Buzzington to play the role. Some people just have an energy that's
perfect.
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Ezra Buzzington with Lauren Walsh |
Also, the choice of location was different than in the script. Wes had a
seedy looking rundown place that all the dastardly deeds happened, but
we couldn't find anything that fit. For some reason we found this very
sterile, austere mansion in Malibu which was the total opposite, but
that ended up working even better. Instead of being 'on the nose' about
what a horror film should be like we took a 180 degree turn and made it
more interesting.
With
Breath of Hate pretty much being about the seedy side of life - how
much can you relate to this world as a director (which might be a stupid
question)?
Anything seedy, like the spanking stuff and the whole foot fetish
toe licking is all Wes. He's kind of a weird dude who's obviously done
some interesting things in his life. He claims that he puts that into his
scripts because he wants to get Tarantino involved, but I think that's
just a ruse.
The part that I originally connected to in Breath of Hate was the love
story between the hooker and her white knight in shining armor. I think
most guys can relate to that. You know how Freud supposedly has these
'stages' which we go through to become a mature person? Well, I think one
stage of every man's life that he goes through and then (hopefully) grows
the fuck out of is the need to rescue women. How would you describe your directorial
approach to your story at hand? Wes, as a screenwriter,
is very hands off. I think once he finishes a script he just doesn't give
a crap anymore. He got it out of his system. Because I really liked the
script I wanted to stay as true to the work as possible... as cliche as
that sounds. But I have to now take this stuff printed on the page and
turn it into a motion picture. The way I like to work as a producer and
director is to hire people who I don't have to worry about. People who I
know will take the ball and run with it. Especially actors. I really hate
micro-managing people. I want actors to come in and make the role
theirs. Jason Mewes plays
the "romantic" lead in Breath of Hate, which might come
as an odd choice for some. So ... why him, and how did you get him?
Jason Mewes |
Well, when his name came up as being a possible Ned for Breath of
Hate it took me a second to wrap my head around it. But I
asked some of my lady friends what they thought about him, if they found
him sexy and all that, and to my surprise they did. So, I really started
taking a look at him and thought that this guy has a lot of charisma. Even
though I hadn't seen him play a romantic type lead I figured that he could
do a great job. When he started contacting him and getting his reaction to
the script it was positive. He was ready to really work hard on this role.
What
can you tell us about the rest of your cast?
I brought in a lot of people who I had worked with previously on Silent Night, Zombie Night. Jack Forcinito, Felissa Rose, Tim
Muskatell, Ricardo Gray. Because I knew they were all super talented
actors who had positive attitudes.
Ezra Buzzington, Monique Parent |
The biggest addition to my 'crew' was
Monique Parent. I met her through a mutual friend and knew she had a bit
of the killer in there so I hired her as Selma who is a bad, bad girl.
Well, it turned out to not only be the perfect choice, but we ended up
being great friends as well. I love working with people who I like. Life
is too short to do otherwise.
What
can you tell us about audience and critical reception?
We
originally had our premiere as part of GoreZone UK's Weekend of Horror in
October of 2010 out in London. The film was mostly done, but we didn't
have the opening title credits done yet and some of the FXs in the film
were still a bit rough, but they really seemed to love the film. At that
point I was on cloud 9. I thought I had goldmine! After that was San
Francisco's Another Hole in the Head genre festival and again it was a
buttkicker! Great reviews from those who came out and saw the film. The
audience oohed and ahhhed in all the right places. Same with Pollygrind
in
Vegas and then the Fangoria-sponsored festival in Indianapolis as part of
Days of the Dead.
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However, upon having my rep take it around to the major distributors we
kept getting turned down. The film's narrative has a very non-linear
quality to it, not unlike Pulp Fiction, and they HATED that. Just hated it.
It was weird. So I finally said screw this. I know this film is amazing
and that once it gets in front of an audience the distributors will have
to see what I do. But how to deliver it to that mass audience? That was
the question. I thought lets shoot for the moon and go theatrical. Sadly,
my investors were tapped out so I turned to Kickstarter. Let's have a one
on one conversation with the audience about watching the film. A kind of
'putting your money where your mouth is' type of thing.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vhf/breath-of-hate-theatrical-run
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Traditional distribution is pretty much dead anyway. Nobody is buying DVDs
anymore. All we get in the theaters are these superhero movies now. And
while I enjoy a summer blockbuster as much as the next guy, there's a giant
hole in my heart where all those quirky arthouse flicks used to be. I used
to watch weird stuff at the theater all the time! I love going to the
theater!! Perhaps this is where Breath of Hate will finally
get its chance. To bring back edgy and offbeat to the movies. There is an
audience out there for these more adult films. It's just a matter of
reaching them.
Your/your movie's
website, Facebook, Kickstarter, whatever else? You can
find our Kickstarter page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vhf/breath-of-hate-theatrical-run
Or our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breath-of-Hate/126286150599
The official page: http://www.breathofhate.com Thanks
for the interview!
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