Directed by: Alex Chandon
If you have been reading our news section over recent weeks, you will notice our Number One Reporter Matt Wavish has been getting rather excited over the upcoming horror flim Inbred with good reason may we add with the film gaining early buzz within the horror circles. The British Based horror which sees four young offenders and their workers spend a weekend in the remote Yorkshire village of Mortlake. The sleepy town which prides itself on keeping themselves to themselves seems a perfect backdrop for these troubled teens, but when a minor incident with locals rapidly escalates into a blood-soaked terror, the weekend away comes a deliriously warped nightmare.
When the Film Director’s Alex Chandon kindly agreed to take time out for a quick chat with HorrorCultFilms, Matt jumped in his car and travelled all the way to Mortlake, set in the backdrop of Yorkshire to meet this talented man and the chat went from a discussion of his new film to that of re-makes and of the Evil Dead films (but do not pick which one!)
Within this exclusive feature, we will not only be bringing you the trailer to Inbred, but also a treat for our readers will the first feature of Alex Chandon, the surreal five minute short Borderline which showed an early case for the talent of a man who is destined to be one of Britain’s best horror directors……..
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4r2cv_PSt8[/youtube]
ALEX CHANDON TALKS TO MATT WAVISH!
Tell us a little about yourself, you influences and what inspired you to become a filmmaker.
Hi. Well I’m a middle aged Londoner who has been into films, especially horror films for most of my life since my mum took me to see JAWS when I was 6 years old. I got into Hammer Horror films and FANGORIA magazine at a young age. In my early teens video films became available and I lapped up all the goriest ones I could rent out, back then that was pretty much anything. I was bought a super 8mm camera aged about 11 and taught myself the art of film making through warped little animation films or very short FRIDAY 13th inspired gore films with my mates. The films that inspired me most at an early age were EVIL DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD and BAD TASTE. Tom Savini’s books on how to do special FX was my bible for a while. Magazines like Cine FX and Cinemafantisque I bought monthly, and they revealed so much about the making of films and taught me lots. But nothing beat being hands on and I was lucky enough to have lots of friends willing to help out on films and get covered in ketchup… so I learnt by practice and making mistakes, a process that unfortunately a lot of young film-makers think they can avoid nowadays.
Your new film ‘Inbred’ looks rather nasty, however the violence seems necessary to tell the story. What is your view on the current trend of torture-porn in horror?
A still from the Alex’s upcoming film, INBRED
INBRED is nicely nasty. Its not misogynistic and it doesn’t dwell on nastiness like ‘torture porn’ films, which, in general I just don’t get on with. I like watching films as a source of entertainment. I was never into the more sadistic rape ‘n’ slice video nasties and these newer ‘torture-porn’ versions are just bigger budgeted versions of the same… with more explicit and better gore FX. Seeing close ups of wounds accompanied by 90 minutes of screaming isn’t my idea of fun. I always enjoyed films that deliver to the audience something exciting… and not just endless scenes of pain, which in actuality is a really easy way to make horror films. Its still cheap and nasty to me however millions you lavish on them. INBRED, I hope, harks back to the more ‘fun’ horror films of the 80’s like EVIL DEAD, RE-ANIMATOR and BAD TASTE.
Is your new film ‘Inbred’ based on any real life experiences?
No, thank god. I’ve been in a few mad situations but happy to say none this mad! INBRED is based on a synopsis I first wrote in 2001, right after CRADLE OF FEAR, my last feature.
Alex directs the actors in INBRED
How do you prepare your actors their difficult roles?
I had the absolute of pleasure of working with amazing actors on INBRED, more so than on any other film I’ve made and the experience was so rewarding. They taught me a few things about preparing actors for scenes, especially where we wanted a very naturalistic style to the dialogue. So the key to that is do a bit of preparation with the actors before the scene, ideally away from the set. If you give actors those moments they give you so much more. I also will explain the most difficult scenes when I do my casting sessions, so that no-one has any surprises on the day. I also compromise with the actors on occasion, and listen to what they want , and sometimes actors come up with excellent ideas to improve their character or a particular moment.
What is your favourite horror film of all time and why?
JAWS… the only film to properly give me nightmares for weeks. The only film to scare me so silly I still have a fear of deep water. JAWS scared me and inspired me in so many ways. To this day it remains a masterpiece of film making. I think it is definitely a horror film. But if you’re asking about a more typical horror film, one aimed at adults then I would say that’s a bloody hard question as I like so many for different reasons. But I would go for EVIL DEAD/EVIL DEAD 2… don’t ask me to pick between them. They changed my life. They for me epitomise was a great horror film is… scary yet darkly humours total entertainment, well staged escapism, tongue-in-cheek gore and violence.
With recent ‘realism’ hor
ror films like ‘Eden Lake’ and ‘Wolf Creek’, and the continued trend of films like The Hills Have Eyes Wrong Turn, where do you believe your movie fits in?
It probably doesn’t. Closer to WOLF CREEK to be sure, which I really enjoyed. We avoid the cliches of modern film making like ‘chimpanzee-shaky-camera-moves’, de-saturated look, MTV style editing… and instead went for a 70’s and 80’s aesthetic with longer shots, well composed… let the actors have time and space to act… let the gore be nice and visible… basically allow the audience to enjoy the film we hope. I don’t get the whole horror remake market. Why remake such iconic movies whose basic premise is rather straight forward in the first place. Make a zombie film… you don’t have to call it DAWN OF THE DEAD, though to be fair that was Mr. Znyder’s best film and a good remake apart from the stupid ‘super-truck’ ending. Make a film about people with telekinetic powers by all means… but don’t call it SCANNERS. Make a film about mutant rednecks but why call it HILLS HAVE EYES? Make a stalk and slash movie… but to call it FRIDAY 13th.. or worse still HALLOWEEN… its painful to see these masterpieces being shat on. Its not as if those films had original plots. Its totally blatant and shameless cashing in by the big studios who seemed to have forgotten that there are talented writers and film makers out there who don’t want to make remakes all their lives. Its sad to think that whole generations may miss the glories of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW, FRIDAY 13th etc and instead just refer to the remakes. Grrrrr!!!!!!
Tell us a little about your previous films Cradle of Fear and Pervirella, where did your ideas come from?
PERVIRELLA, made in 1997, was based on a prior film by Josh Collins, the film’s producer. I think of it as more Josh’s film than mine. Josh had movie influences that he asked me to embrace for the film, which I did, stuff like Russ Meyer, Terry Gilliam and Carry-On films. It was great fun to make, I look at it now and I see too many flaws to really enjoy it. But its fun in a very kitsch way… not for everyone. If I had a spare 3 months I would like to get my hands on a decent quality master tape, if one ever existed, and do a revamped version.
I’ve written and said so much about CRADLE OF FEAR that I’m sure anyone interested could find some of my interviews online about the film. Made in 2001 I think it was a few years ahead of its time with some of its story ideas, especially THE SICK ROOM, the story about the guy who gets obsessed with a snuff site on the internet, the shot on video aspect, and our marketing online strategy. It remains a firm favourites with many horror fans who can get past the whole ‘Dani Filth’ and ‘Cradle of Filth’ link. COF were massive at the time and I had directed their music promos and it was a coup to get Dani in the film with the bands support. From the start I didn’t want to make it a COFilth film, and that shows I think.
I wanted to homage the anthology movies I love, like ASYLUM, TALES FROM THE CRYPT and CREEPSHOW… and to that extent I think we did a great job of connecting the stories around a sub plot involving Dani Filth and his deranged father, Kemper the child eater. The film was a success, and still is, based on how pirated it is! I see piracy as a form of flattery. I don’t agree with it in the case of independent films like ours… although the film did really well we hardly made any money due to a crappy distribution deal we signed. Read the small print kids!
I watched it recently on the Horror Channel who screen it now and again and I still enjoy it lots. I have strong plans to do a re-edit, directors version… as it was always too long… and also it was completed before I became an expert in After Effects and digital image manipulation and compositing. I would love to polish up CRADLE. I’ve had to wait till last year for all the rights to revert back to me and no sales deals on going. Hopefully might find a supporter/ backer to enable me to do this revamp before too long. I would use the opportunity to compile all my early splatter films like BAD KARMA and DRILLBIT into the same release and make it extra special.
How did you decide on the location of Inbred, was there a reason to based it in Yorkshire?
An old pal, Paul Shrimpton, fellow horror film maker, lives in Thirsk, Yorkshire , where we shot the film. Paul and I have been mates since the 90’s and helped each other out on film projects and script writing. I wrote INBRED without a specific region in mind… the only thing important was that the locals had a rather thick accent and the area was suitably ‘rugged’ so that a hidden village might exist there away from the towns and cities… so that to me was Ireland, Scotland, or up North England somewhere. Paul showed me some locations around Thirsk when I was considering making another film there, the year before INBRED, a fun script called JUNKYARD KILLER. The locations near Paul were so inspiring, and the local people were all dead keen on helping out that it wasn’t a hard decision to film INBRED there, and set the film in Yorkshire. No-one mentions Yorkshire in the film, but we used that setting in our first teaser trailer, to great effect.
What are your plans for the future, and what can we expect to see next from you?
I loved making INBRED, despite it being another very ambitious relatively low budget movie. It made me realise that I am so cut out to make features rather than short films or rather than just doing digital effects, which had been my course of direction after CRADLE OF FEAR. And so I really hope and pray that INBRED will once and for all persuade people that I am a serious and mature (ish) film-maker bursting with ideas, scripts and enthusiasm and that I will find making the next films easier and easier. I would love to make a reasonable wage from film-making, a factor that has alluded me up to now, so that I can safely do this as a living. I have four full scripts, written the year prior to INBRED, which would demand a slightly bigger budget, that I would love to make, I also have many good ideas for other projects. I would be happy continuing to make audience pleasing films like INBRED, but would also love the challenge of making something slightly edgier, perhaps more psychological. And also I would love to direct someone else’s script… if I loved it… or to collaborate with a producer on their pet project. I have proven I have a lot to give and just want the opportunity to make more films. 10 years between movies is not ideal! I would love to be another feature next year.
>Finally, if you had the chance to spend an evening in a pub to talk movies with any director, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
I think Martin Scorcese… or Spielberg… purely because they are both complete masters and heroes to me and they both came through the 70’s, a golden age of film making in my book and so they would have stories from that era that could enthrall me all night. I have heard Scorcese is a delight and lovely chap and so he’s my first choice. Steven would be my back up plan!
Can I just say how much of a pleasure this has been meeting you Alex, and I really hope we can do this again..
Thanks very much for the questions. I wish HorrorCultFilms and all who love horror and cult films the very best wishes. Please go and see INBRED and support independent film makers like myself so we can make more movies to please you all.
Matt Wavish and HorrorCultFilms would like to thank Alex Chandon in giving up his time to talk to us at HCF, and we wish Alex all the best for the future and most of all, looking forward to watching Inbred when it finally gets a released date.
Keep an eye out for Matt’s review on Inbred soon on HorrorCultFilms
For Further articles on Inbred that Matt has covered, please follow the links below!
https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2011/03/inbred-trailer-a-yorkshire-version-of-eden-lake/
https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2011/05/latest-inbred-trailer-continues-the-madness/
Here at HorrorCultFilms we can bring you Alex Chandon’s acclaimed surreal five minute short BORDERLINE which has won massive fans and praise over the years. Made in 2006 for no money and in the space of two afternoons in london with a mini dv camera, this is one of the most fantastic short films you will see and highlights the talent that was all set to emerge from this highly rated director.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7HX28TugSw[/youtube]
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