Your latest film is called Stars
Will Perish - what can you tell us about that film?
Stars
Will Perish
is based on a story of an Australian writer, Brian
Sands, who has already worked on several scripts with us in the past. It's about a
young jealous actress who kidnapps the star of the show she is in so she
can replace her. Although we had some similar stories in the Unhappy End-series this one is much, much darker.
We had a great location for
shooting, like in the old Universal horror movies with Bela Lugosi
[Bela Lugosi bio - click here]
and
Boris Karloff [Boris Karloff
bio - click here]. It was much fun.
Stars
Will Perish stars Maja Loom in the victim-role, something
she played in quite a few of your past films. Why do you like to cast her
as the woman tied up? Maja Loom is one
of the most beautiful women I've ever met. She is kind of woman very
similar to the heroines of the 70's comic books and TV shows like Superman
and Wonder
Woman. In fact she looks like Lois Lane or Wonder
Woman or a Stan
Lee/Marvel-heroine. Actually I first intented to offer her the part of
the bad girl in Stars
Will Perish, as I think she can also play the bad
girl part and I hope next time she will play such a role. But when we knew
Micaela Schäfer would also be in the picture it was hard to decide who
would play which part and I really had no idea. In the end, I thought
Micalea would be better as bad girl and Debby better as victim in this one
and I think we made the right decision.
Maja Loom |
Déborah is a wonderful model-actress and she has a certain knowledge
about how she looks onscreen. She is very tough and very cool, totally
great in horror movies and thrillers as she manages to always look great
and beautiful in the most horrifying moments. She is the kind of actress
you saw in many US series, especially the Aaron Spelling shows. I love
Aaron Spelling. He did such an amount of wonderful programs, and he cast the
most beauriful girls in Hollywood. His shows were fun, action and glamour
with all those wonderful actresses like Stephanie Powers and Heather
Locklear. Debby is same type of glamour girl and looks always very tough
even when she is bound and gagged.
Micaela Schäfer |
How did you get Micaela Schäfer to star in your films?
I knew her from TV shows of course and contacted her. We met in Berlin
and talked about Last Laugh. She liked the script, and later we worked on
several other projects. Micaela is one of the most beautiful
faces in German TV, and she also works as a model in foreign countries. She is
a very fine actress with a wonderful, clear voice.
Stars Will
Perish is the first film of your Nightmare
Follies-series. How does that series differ from the
Unhappy End-
and the 7 Nightmares Girl-series
- especially since all three series are
essentially about women tieing each other up and torturing each other?
Unhappy End
is a series of funny thrillers with a funny unhappy ending like in the old
Alfred Hitchcock Presents series.
Nightmare Follies is a 60 minute program much darker than
Unhappy End.
7 Nightmares Girl
is a fantasy-horror series with more action and
more locations and bigger cast. It's shot in different countries like
the James Bond-series
- so every 15 or 20 minutes or so you are
in Berlin, Vienna, Los Angeles, London ... and it features fighting scenes. And the story
is at first sight fantasy about witches and the Devil, but if you are a
little bit aware of what is going on in politics you soon realize there
is much more in the script as far as religion and politics is concerned
... but of course in the first place it's action, horror and fantasy.
Where
will the Nightmare Follies-series
take us next? We have some more scripts. A dark kidnapping story is next I think.
Almost all of your
films involve some sort of bondage, more often than not as a central
aspect of the plot, but there is actually no sex or even nudity (but
pretty girls aplenty) in your
films. Will that ever change, will you ever push the envelope regarding
sexual content?
The series we are shooting are little bit like the old Republic-serials
[Republic history - click here]
or John Willie's comic books. It's not the kind of bondage/SM like in movies
like Histoire d'O ... I think nudity would ruin our stories
completely. We have a certain kind of violence but we go not beyond a
certain point, like in the Roger Moore James Bond movies.
You can show violence and torture, but in a nice way. Roger Moore once called
it Disney violence.
As far as bondage is concerend, bondage is an integral part of thriller
and horror movie history since the Perils of Pauline-days, and I just like
the idea of the beautiful heroine tied up and gagged in a horrible trap
and she has to find a way out like Diana Rigg in The Avengers or Linda
Stirling in Tiger Woman.
Especially your last handful of films seem to
be entirely populated by women, with no men even in supporting roles (the
legendary Lloyd Kaufman in the
7 Nightmares Girl-series of course being an exception to the
rule). Why is that?
The male actors I love all are dead or very old. My favorite actors are
James Stewart, Peter Cushing, Maurice Chevalier, Cary Grant, Gene Kelly,
Fred Astaire, Vincent Price. I'd love to shoot musicals or horror
movies with any of them, but they are not around anymore.
Lloyd Kaufman is an excepiton, he is such a great actor, but of course in
the first place he is a producer-director. I learned a lot from him, and he
is one of the coolest guys in the business.
Actresses you'd love to star in one
of your movies, no matter how improbable/impossible?
Actually the same problem, most actresses I'd love are gone or very old
now. Maureen O'Hara, Samantha Eggar, Linda Stirling, Kay Aldrige, Lorna
Gray, Diana Rigg, Lee Grant, Caroline Munro [Caroline
Munro bio - click here], Carole Bouquet, Carole
Andre, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Glynis Barber, Brigitte Bardot, Sylvana
Koscina. On the other hand, we are lucky to work with the most beautiful
actresses and models from all around the world. You really can't ask
for anything more. I don't think it's easy to top Maja Loom,
Micaela Schäfer, and Wenke Baumgart who looks like Supergirl. Katja Bienert
[Katja Bienert interview
- click here] was one of the busiest and most attractive actresses in Germany also
shooting in Spain, Italy, France and Hollywood productions before she
started producing and management. We had the most beautiful actresses
and models from German and US television in the Unhappy End
series. So no idea
how we could top that.
Judging from recent stills, the
7 Nightmares Girl-series is taking a turn towards action. What
can you tell us about that? Yes, in the
7 Nightmares Girl
we have more action, fighting, sword and dagger scenes, tighter pacing, a bigger
cast, many locations in different countries. It's a mixture of Republic
[Republic history - click here]
and James Bond and
Hammer horror. I think
it's the best we ever did so
far.
With your two new series,
Nightmare Follies and
7 Nightmares Girl, will there ever be new episodes of Unhappy End,
and if yes, in which direction do you plan to take the
series? Yes, we will do new
Unhappy End episodes around
every two years, but more 60 minutes episodes instead of 30 minutes. Any other future projects you'd like to talk
about? A movie about Rommel in Africa. And all parts are
played by women. Your website/MySpace/whatever else, and where can
your films be ordered?
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Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
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We will set up another website for the Nightmares and hopefully update
our www.gatorgroup.de
and the myspace site www.myspace.com/mralgator.
Everyone can reach me by email: MichaelMHuck@aol.com.
Anything else you are dying to
tell us and I have just forgotten to ask? I think we should
clone Kaiser Wilhelm so he can come back to save us from Merkel and
Westerwelle. Thanks for the
interview!
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