David Lyons as Jimmy in Storm Warning
It seems a pity that Jamie Blanks latest film, Storm Warning, is heading straight for DVD in the UK, considering it is far better quality than many films that make the multiplex, but he is resolutely upbeat about the move.
"It's the Weinsteins' decision and purely financial," he says, admitting, "If we'd delivered the movie on schedule when we were supposed to we would have come out before Hostel II, and a few of those other extreme horror films kind of under-performed and I think it was a safe bet for them to go straight to DVD."
Its strange that he mentions Hostel, since his film - in essence a twisted take on Goldilocks And The Three Bears as a couple of city slickers come to face with violence in the Aussie boondocks - has more in common with older revenge flicks from the Seventies and Eighties than the backpacker torture films.
Blanks agrees. "I didn't really want to make a film like Hostel. As much as I'm glad those films have done well - I think it's good for the genre – they're a little unpleasant. They're not really to my taste. I'd rather see a couple of guys surviving an ordeal and inflict the pain on those guys who deserve it."
When it comes to inflicting pain on the bad guys, there's plenty of that here. The script by Everett De Roche puts you firmly on the side of Pia (Nadia Farès) and husband Rob (Robert Taylor) in their battle of wits with outback villains Brett (Mathew Wilkinson), Jimmy (David Lyons) and Poppy (John Brumpton). And Blanks admits the nastiness was too much for even him to stomach initially.
"I've always wanted to work with Everett De Roche." he said. "But when I first got the screenplay for Storm Warning, I actually thought it was too extreme, and my wife talked me into doing it. It was actually that one key scene that really threw me – the condom scene – that I didn't know how I was going to put that on camera, but she talked me into it and I met with Everett and I decided to go for it.
"I wanted the violence to be shocking and come out of nowhere, and always make sure that it was the girl doing the inflicting of the violence rather than being on the receiving end, I just thought that was more palatable. But I was trying to make it quite shocking, I really wanted her revenge to be fierce.
"I was very upset to learn that there was a film about to come out with similar scenes [Teeth] – this script was written 25 years ago so it was just my luck, just the luck of the draw."
Blanks got his big break in Hollywood after he shot a 'trailer' for horror spoof I Know What You Did Last Summer - hoping to get the director's job. Sadly for him, the role had already gone to Jim Gillespie, but producer Neil Moritz liked Blanks' style. When he was looking for a director for later project Urban Legend, the Aussie director was the first person he sent the script to. After the finished product was a commercial success - taking £18 million in the first seven weeks at the box office - despite a mixed critical response it was only a matter of time before Blanks got another stab at the genre. But when follow-up Valentine, starring David Boreanaz of Angel and Bones, failed to cause a critical stir in a saturated market, Blanks seemed to fall off the map.
Now he has returned to his Aussie roots, shooting his latest film back in Oz, where the horror industry is enjoying a resurgence thanks to the success of the likes of Wolf Creek. Blanks says that shooting outside the system is a mixed blessing.
"It was difficult. I had more creative control over the movie but the schedule was about half what I had had in the past with my studio films, so I learnt how to operate at warp speed on this one. I didn't really have a lot of time to finesse my shots, I just had to get in there and get it done."
He was helped in the speed stakes by working, for the most part, on a studio set.
"That really helped prolong our continuous lighting plan. We also could shoot during the day rather than have to go to some location and freeze at night time, so that made it a lot easier."
When it came to the slow delivery of the movie then, it wasn't the shoot that was the issue, but the special effects.
 |
Despite the lack of water, Blanks was more than happy to return to his homeland to shoot the film.
"Both my previous films were shot in Canada, so I've always had the Commonwealth experience which has been really nice, but I had a lovely time shooting in Australia. I got to work with a lot of my friends - actors who I'd known for years and crew members that I'd wanted to work with, so it was lovely, and I really want to try to help build up a bit more of an Australian genre industry over here."
But it wasn't all plain sailing on the set. Despite the cast all getting along well, thre is much talk on the DVD about Blanks sacking the dog. So, why was he hounded out?
"The good news was it was very safe to have around the cast and crew…" says Blanks. "The bad news was it wasn't very menacing. It wouldn't stop wagging its tail, it didn't know how to growl at anybody – it just wasn't working out. As much as I loved that dog, I really had to let it go."
The replacement dog - used in key scenes - certainly has a serious level of snarl, but considering the animal wrangling problems it's probably just as well they opted for an animatronice wallaby - which performs a key role in the torment of Rob and Pia.
"The wallaby was 100 per cent special effects creation – there were no real wallabies used," says Blanks, adding wryly "I wasn't really going for reality, as you might guess when you watch the film."
Thankfully, the cast were keeping it real. Blanks explains how he came to cast French actress Nadia in the central role.
 |
Blanks has also turned his hand to scoring on his latest film.
"I very much enjoyed the sound design part of the movie," he says. "I did a little bit of stuff with John Brumpton, just to make him just a little scarier. And also at the start of the movie, I did a little bit of stuff with David just to shift his voice down the slightest bit, just to give it an unworldly kind of feel."
And when it comes to the music itself, he admits "John Carpenter is my hero."
But isn't it difficult to convince producers to let him take on the dual roles?
"Less so now. I was trying to score Valentine but it really just didn't work out, Warners just weren't going to back me as a second time director and first time composer. So that was another advantage of working in Australia, it was something I could push through and stand my ground on. And now that I've done it before, it's just one of those things, everyone is okay with it now, I just had to do it the first time."
Long Weekend will see him team up with De Roche again to remake the film about nature's revenge on an urban couple, played by Jim Caviezel and Claudia Karvan.
"I'm in the middle of editing and scoring that movie. It will come out hopefully at the end of the year," he says.
"I think it's the first remake there's ever been of an Australian film. I love the original, so it was really easy for me, also working again with Everett was great. I also loved my cast. It's a very different shoot. This one was shot entirely on location with no CGI at all, so it was a nice counterpoint to Storm Warning."
Looking further into the future, he says he doesn't want to simply confine himself to the horror genre.
"I would love to do an action movie." he says. "Long Weekend is more of a drama and a thriller than a horror, so that was kind of me trying to step out of that a bit. It's just one of those things, it pays to specialise when you're starting out in this business because it's hard enough to get a movie, if you don't really specialise in one particular genre then I think it's much harder as a first time director to kind of get your foot in the door."
It seems now the door is open, there's no holding him back.
