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Neil Marshall - Unsung Cinema · Movie Meltdown

0:04
Speaker 1: My name is Alex Cox, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
0:18
Speaker 2: What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown's Unsung Cinema. I'm Brian,
0:22
Speaker 2: and in this series, I welcome a guest to discuss
0:24
Speaker 2: their involvement in film, and then we round out the
0:27
Speaker 2: episode talking about a movie that they enjoy that maybe
0:30
Speaker 2: doesn't get the respect that it deserves. And this episode, well,
0:34
Speaker 2: let me take you back a few years. Back when
0:36
Speaker 2: I first saw The Descent. The Descent is a masterpiece.
0:40
Speaker 2: A horror movie that works as so much more. I
0:43
Speaker 2: was blown away by that movie. And I saw the
0:45
Speaker 2: original cut, not the doctored US release nonsense. I don't
0:49
Speaker 2: acknowledge any of that. But I saw that and I
0:52
Speaker 2: was so impressed. And then I saw another very different
0:55
Speaker 2: movie a few years later. And I thought, this is
0:58
Speaker 2: amazing and crazy. And who made this? Well, It was
1:02
Speaker 2: the same guy. And then a couple years later, I
1:04
Speaker 2: unknowingly watched this sweeping epic, only to realize this is
1:08
Speaker 2: the same director. So over a matter of years, it
1:10
Speaker 2: dawned on me, without even trying, I'd found one of
1:14
Speaker 2: my new favorite directors. Then I went back and watched
1:16
Speaker 2: his first film, and since then he has continuously worked,
1:20
Speaker 2: lending his talent to different TV series and continuing to
1:23
Speaker 2: make films, most of which are based on his own concepts.
1:26
Speaker 2: I'm of course talking about Neil Marshall. A director and
1:29
Speaker 2: writer who has carved out his own area in cinema
1:31
Speaker 2: and to this day shows that creating your own films
1:34
Speaker 2: is something you can do. As challenging as the industry
1:38
Speaker 2: sometimes makes it, and we will talk about that along
1:40
Speaker 2: the way as well. And all that before we round
1:43
Speaker 2: out the episode with a discussion of Neil's unsung cinema
1:46
Speaker 2: pick Razorback, a VHS classic from the 80s directed by
1:50
Speaker 2: another impressive career filmmaker who gave audiences a horrific peek
1:54
Speaker 2: at Australia when a lot of people were still relatively
1:57
Speaker 2: unfamiliar with that part of the world. So I was
1:59
Speaker 2: looking forward to hearing about the influence of that movie
2:01
Speaker 2: on him as a director and how his overall journey
2:04
Speaker 2: led him to becoming the storyteller that he is today.
2:07
Speaker 2: So I say we get to that right now as
2:09
Speaker 2: we talk with Neil Marshall. Well, usually I'm kind of
2:15
Speaker 2: fascinated with people as kids, how they get interested in
2:19
Speaker 2: things and how they get into the industry. So I guess, originally,
2:23
Speaker 2: where did you grow up?
2:25
Speaker 1: I grew up in a city called Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the
2:27
Speaker 1: northeast of England. It's the same area that Ridley Scott
2:31
Speaker 1: comes from, originally.
2:34
Speaker 2: Something in the water. All right.
2:37
Speaker 1: Ridley Scott, Sting, Mark Knopfler. Yeah, there's a few people.
2:42
Speaker 2: That's impressive. So when you were younger, did you initially
2:49
Speaker 2: connect with film or was it just sort of the
2:51
Speaker 2: arts in general? What was it that you were kind
2:53
Speaker 2: of drawn to as a kid?
2:55
Speaker 1: I fell in love with film at a very early age. First, obviously,
3:00
Speaker 1: first watching films. Some of my earliest memories is my
3:05
Speaker 1: dad showing me the old Universal Classics movies. I think
3:09
Speaker 1: they were on there on the BBC late at night
3:11
Speaker 1: or something like that. And he's like, well, I was
3:12
Speaker 1: like five years old and he's like, come and wake
3:14
Speaker 1: me up and say, you've got to come and see this.
3:16
Speaker 1: Cause he loved them so much. And, um, and I
3:18
Speaker 1: remember seeing them like both completely entranced and terrified at
3:22
Speaker 1: the same time. Uh, but couldn't take my eyes off
3:25
Speaker 1: the screen kind of thing. So, um, I kind of
3:27
Speaker 1: fell in love with monsters from a very early age. Um,
3:31
Speaker 1: going to the cinema, like, um, it was, it was actually,
3:33
Speaker 1: it was my sister's birthday treat, but we went to
3:36
Speaker 1: see star Wars at the cinema. and I was seven
3:40
Speaker 1: years old and, and that transformed me completely in terms
3:44
Speaker 1: of like, I fell in love with going to the
3:46
Speaker 1: cinema then, I mean, as you would. So I started
3:49
Speaker 1: going to the cinema a lot in the seventies. God
3:53
Speaker 1: makes me feel so old. Um, as a kid, as
3:55
Speaker 1: a child.
3:55
Speaker 2: I'm right there with you. Don't worry.
3:58
Speaker 1: And then, then that all, you know, that all led
4:00
Speaker 1: to me seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, uh, when
4:04
Speaker 1: I was 11, um, And I literally walked out of
4:08
Speaker 1: that movie knowing I had to direct movies. I didn't
4:11
Speaker 1: know what directing movies meant, but I needed to do
4:13
Speaker 1: that job. And I think I also saw a TV
4:17
Speaker 1: documentary about the making of Raiders and that kind of
4:20
Speaker 1: filled in the blanks. It was like, right, that makes that,
4:23
Speaker 1: I get it. I want to do that for a living.
4:25
Speaker 1: And so that was my path set right there and then.
4:30
Speaker 1: And my best friend, a guy called Mike Johnson, his
4:34
Speaker 1: mom had an eight millimeter camera So like a week
4:37
Speaker 1: later or something, we got hold of that and we
4:38
Speaker 1: literally started making movies, really bad ones, of course, but that's,
4:42
Speaker 1: that's the process, isn't it? You know, we're teenage kids
4:45
Speaker 1: in his backyard making films and things like that. It's
4:48
Speaker 1: a passion that we both shared. We were both in
4:51
Speaker 1: love with movies. We were just trying to make them.
4:52
Speaker 1: We were like reading every episode of every issue of
4:56
Speaker 1: star log and, um, fantastic films and starburst and all
5:00
Speaker 1: these kinds of magazines. Cause it was the only access
5:02
Speaker 1: to information about movies back then. We didn't have the internet.
5:06
Speaker 1: there was a few books that we read, but mainly
5:08
Speaker 1: those magazines were our lifeline to reading behind the scenes and,
5:12
Speaker 1: you know, Cinefex magazine and things like that. Um, gaining
5:15
Speaker 1: access to a, an old comic shop in Newcastle. There
5:17
Speaker 1: was a sci-fi bookshop that had back issues of old
5:21
Speaker 1: magazines and things. So we both like just devoured this stuff.
5:26
Speaker 1: And he's now a successful screenwriter. He wrote Sherlock Holmes
5:28
Speaker 1: for Robert Downey Jr. and things like that. So, you know,
5:31
Speaker 1: we both, we both stuck with it, um, over the years. Um,
5:35
Speaker 1: But for me personally, it led into film school where
5:39
Speaker 1: I did a degree in media studies or whatever, which
5:43
Speaker 1: was in itself, the degree was utterly useless. Nobody's ever
5:47
Speaker 1: asked to see it in any of the jobs I've done.
5:48
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter. But the experience of being on
5:51
Speaker 1: the course and having access to the kit and making
5:54
Speaker 1: films and my final film, my graduation film was a
6:01
Speaker 1: 20 minute zombie action sci-fi thing. called brain death and
6:07
Speaker 1: uh that attracted interest from local filmmakers who started offering
6:12
Speaker 1: me some editing work when i graduated and that led
6:15
Speaker 1: to being a freelance editor for like 10 years through
6:19
Speaker 1: the 90s at the same time directing shorts and writing
6:24
Speaker 1: my first feature which ultimately would lead to be dog
6:26
Speaker 1: soldiers so that's kind of the journey Yeah.
6:30
Speaker 2: I think that is such a generational thing because I
6:33
Speaker 2: had those same steps. And I feel like every kid,
6:36
Speaker 2: maybe also because there wasn't quite as much stuff being
6:39
Speaker 2: thrown at you at that point in time. But like
6:41
Speaker 2: that Star Wars moment was like it changed so many kids.
6:47
Speaker 2: And I usually hear like just in general, like over
6:49
Speaker 2: the years, it's one of the two. It's either Star
6:52
Speaker 2: Wars or Raiders. So that like Lucas Spielberg one-two punch
6:55
Speaker 2: that came out within a couple of years is And
6:58
Speaker 2: every kid of that age was just like, this is it.
7:01
Speaker 2: This is what I want. And like it, it just
7:04
Speaker 2: changed that entire generation of kids. But I, I wonder
7:08
Speaker 2: now like what, because there's so much more being thrown
7:11
Speaker 2: at kids now, what, if you go ahead 20 years,
7:14
Speaker 2: like what are the key moments for kids now going
7:17
Speaker 2: to be?
7:17
Speaker 1: I don't know. I ask that all the time. I
7:20
Speaker 1: wonder like I, when I, when I, when I meet
7:22
Speaker 1: students and things like that, I'm like wondering what's the
7:24
Speaker 1: definitive thing that you saw that made it like, and,
7:27
Speaker 1: People don't come back and say, oh, I saw Harry
7:30
Speaker 1: Potter and I wanted to be a filmmaker, or I
7:31
Speaker 1: saw Avatar and I wanted to be a filmmaker. I
7:33
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just viewed in a different kind
7:37
Speaker 1: of way. Filmmaking is more accessible now than it was
7:40
Speaker 1: back then. There's a fantastic book called Blockbuster by a
7:45
Speaker 1: guy called Tom Sean. And he says in that book,
7:50
Speaker 1: because I think he's obviously of our generation, he says, like,
7:53
Speaker 1: what an incredible... um piece of luck and quirk of
7:56
Speaker 1: fate it was to have been a a young teenager
7:59
Speaker 1: when you know when Raiders of the Lost Ark came
8:01
Speaker 1: out um and it's not specifically that but the whole
8:05
Speaker 1: that told you the 80s period or whatever like how
8:08
Speaker 1: lucky we were to be in that at that particular
8:10
Speaker 1: time in our lives so yeah and I absolutely believe
8:13
Speaker 1: that so I don't I don't know what inspires the
8:16
Speaker 1: next generation.
8:17
Speaker 2: It's interesting because they all still keep wanting to do it.
8:20
Speaker 2: I mean, now that you have YouTube and kids making
8:23
Speaker 2: weird TikTok videos and like, so they're still drawn to it,
8:26
Speaker 2: but it is, it is a different inspiration now. And
8:29
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is because I can't figure
8:31
Speaker 2: kids out. So, yeah, but that's, that's another one just
8:37
Speaker 2: to kind of jump ahead a little bit as far
8:39
Speaker 2: as just the industry in general, because all of that's
8:42
Speaker 2: changed so much. Like, what do you sort of think
8:44
Speaker 2: of the state of things now? Because, it's so drastically
8:48
Speaker 2: different between, you know, the streaming options now and the
8:52
Speaker 2: people being able to shoot for, you know, a lot cheaper.
8:55
Speaker 2: And like, there's just so many things that have changed
8:57
Speaker 2: massively in the last 20 years that like, how does
9:00
Speaker 2: that factor into your life?
9:03
Speaker 1: Well, in some respects, I think it was, it's the
9:05
Speaker 1: same as it always was, which is all the equipment
9:08
Speaker 1: and the fancy technology, whatever it is, will only get
9:11
Speaker 1: you so far. At the end of the day, you
9:14
Speaker 1: have to have some kind of talent to back it up. And,
9:17
Speaker 1: you know, that'll get you the rest of the way.
9:19
Speaker 1: And so, you know, a lot of people are going
9:21
Speaker 1: to fall by the wayside. There's also and it was
9:24
Speaker 1: the same in my generation. I think of like of
9:27
Speaker 1: the 30 plus people that I graduated with. I honestly
9:31
Speaker 1: think that maybe me and one other person are still
9:34
Speaker 1: in the business because it's hard because it's really difficult.
9:38
Speaker 1: And when you get out of college and you find
9:39
Speaker 1: you're not getting any work and, you know, if you've
9:41
Speaker 1: got end up with like families and things like that
9:43
Speaker 1: to to support, then a lot of people do. fall
9:47
Speaker 1: by the wayside, because it requires such stubborn determination and
9:52
Speaker 1: single-mindedness just to keep at it. So that kind of
9:57
Speaker 1: separates the wheat from the chaff, as it were. But nowadays, yes,
10:02
Speaker 1: the technology is there. It's kind of a perfect storm
10:05
Speaker 1: at the moment because off the back of COVID and
10:09
Speaker 1: strikes and the changing technology and AI and all this
10:12
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, it's like there's more people who want
10:14
Speaker 1: to be in the business and there's less jobs than
10:16
Speaker 1: ever before, it would seem. Well, maybe not ever before,
10:20
Speaker 1: but certainly for a long time. And so, again, that
10:24
Speaker 1: competition is stiff. It's very, very difficult. I mean, if
10:27
Speaker 1: anybody asked me, like, do you want to be in...
10:31
Speaker 1: Should I be in this industry? At the moment, I'd
10:33
Speaker 1: be like, don't go near it. It's just like it's
10:36
Speaker 1: going to be just too difficult. There's other things you
10:38
Speaker 1: could do.
10:40
Speaker 2: Certainly simpler things.
10:42
Speaker 1: Simpler things. But I think if somebody takes... accept my answer,
10:48
Speaker 1: then they're never destined to be in the film business
10:50
Speaker 1: in the first place. If somebody says, no, you're wrong.
10:52
Speaker 1: I have to do this. This is what I have
10:54
Speaker 1: to do. And there's no other choice then. Yeah. Fine. Good.
10:56
Speaker 1: Go with it. Yeah, definitely.
10:59
Speaker 2: Well, going back that far, I guess, as you, as
11:01
Speaker 2: you get into that first feature, I mean, that's, that's
11:04
Speaker 2: impressive in and of itself, just putting one together, but
11:07
Speaker 2: at least like with that first, when you have it
11:09
Speaker 2: as sort of like a controlled situation, like you're mostly
11:13
Speaker 2: on set or you're you're in the woods so you
11:15
Speaker 2: can kind of swap out different visuals if you need to.
11:19
Speaker 2: So was, was that first movie just sort of figuring
11:22
Speaker 2: out the basics? I mean, you'd been doing it, you know,
11:25
Speaker 2: in school and stuff, but like it's being thrown into
11:27
Speaker 2: that first film.
11:29
Speaker 1: I had a pretty good handle on, on the basics
11:32
Speaker 1: by the time I made it. Cause I had directed
11:34
Speaker 1: some short films, things like that. I had a lot
11:37
Speaker 1: of time to prep for it. Cause I wrote, I
11:39
Speaker 1: wrote it in 90. I first wrote in 1995. I kept,
11:43
Speaker 1: rewriting it for the next five years or six years
11:45
Speaker 1: before I actually got to make it but during that
11:47
Speaker 1: time I was also shot listing and storyboarding and planning
11:50
Speaker 1: the whole thing in my head ultimately storyboards that kind
11:53
Speaker 1: of got thrown out because I hadn't factored in actors
11:57
Speaker 1: and how actors don't necessarily want to stand in one
12:00
Speaker 1: place all the time you know it was very kind
12:02
Speaker 1: of naive thinking but it was such a learning process
12:04
Speaker 1: to do that and at least I always had a
12:07
Speaker 1: backup plan that was like fixed in my head of
12:10
Speaker 1: like I could if I get these shots I know
12:12
Speaker 1: I have a scene So even if I'm going to
12:14
Speaker 1: deviate from it, I always had that foundation to build on.
12:19
Speaker 1: So knowing the film inside out before I ever shot
12:23
Speaker 1: a frame of it was a huge amount of help.
12:25
Speaker 1: Had I known it was going to take six years
12:28
Speaker 1: from script to screen, would I have done anything differently? No.
12:33
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I would have done exactly the
12:34
Speaker 1: same thing. I never once during those six years believed
12:37
Speaker 1: it never wasn't going to happen eventually. Like I just,
12:41
Speaker 1: I say it's just stubborn determination of like, I've done
12:44
Speaker 1: this thing, somehow it's going to get made. I don't
12:46
Speaker 1: quite know how. And it was just a process of
12:51
Speaker 1: a bit of luck, a bit of timing, a bit
12:52
Speaker 1: of determination, all sorts of things factored into it to
12:56
Speaker 1: get off the ground. I was also like, and this
12:59
Speaker 1: is symptomatic of the kind of films I wanted to make,
13:01
Speaker 1: was in the climate in the UK at that time,
13:05
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to make horror films. It was like the
13:07
Speaker 1: last significant horror film was something like Hellraiser. back in
13:11
Speaker 1: the 80s, but there hadn't been any significant British horror
13:14
Speaker 1: films for a long time. And the attitude that I
13:17
Speaker 1: received from the British film industry was, you know, that's
13:19
Speaker 1: not our cup of tea and we don't do that
13:20
Speaker 1: sort of thing here. We do Merchant Ivory films and
13:23
Speaker 1: things like that. So it was very, very difficult. And
13:25
Speaker 1: not only was I trying to get a horror film done,
13:27
Speaker 1: I was trying to get a werewolf movie done, which, again,
13:30
Speaker 1: nobody really touched upon in quite some time in any
13:33
Speaker 1: significant way, and certainly not in the UK. So it
13:36
Speaker 1: was considered wildly too ambitious for a first-time director. But
13:39
Speaker 1: I kind of embraced the fact that people were just
13:41
Speaker 1: saying it's too much and too big and too ambitious.
13:44
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, this is what I want
13:46
Speaker 1: to make because I actually want to make a film
13:48
Speaker 1: that's going to appeal to a global audience and not
13:50
Speaker 1: just a specific audience in the UK. I'm not making
13:54
Speaker 1: arthouse cinema. I'm not interested in kitchen sink drama. I'm
13:57
Speaker 1: interested in explosions and guns and werewolves and great one-liners
14:03
Speaker 1: and things like that because I grew up on loving
14:05
Speaker 1: American cinema. So I wanted to make a film that
14:07
Speaker 1: would work in America and work in the rest of
14:09
Speaker 1: the world. the film that me and my mates would
14:12
Speaker 1: go and see on a Friday night, I suppose selfishly
14:15
Speaker 1: I made it for myself. Somebody had to make a
14:18
Speaker 1: werewolf movie with soldiers.
14:20
Speaker 2: I mean, you kind of have to. With any movie,
14:23
Speaker 2: I mean, anything that you put that much time in,
14:26
Speaker 2: there's got to be a little of just fulfilling it
14:28
Speaker 2: for your own needs at that point.
14:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not only just to make a feature,
14:34
Speaker 1: but like I said, it was a film I wanted
14:36
Speaker 1: to watch. I thought, you know, nobody's making this kind
14:39
Speaker 1: of movie. And I was so inspired by, you know,
14:41
Speaker 1: all the way, you know, the Howling and the American Werewolf,
14:44
Speaker 1: but also like films like Aliens and Predator. I was like,
14:47
Speaker 1: I want to combine these two and make a sort
14:48
Speaker 1: of action werewolf movie. Nobody done that before. So it
14:51
Speaker 1: was like, I want to watch that movie more than anything.
14:54
Speaker 1: So I had to make it. Nobody else was going. Yeah.
14:56
Speaker 2: But that one, I can at least still sort of
14:58
Speaker 2: wrap my head around the containment of it. once you
15:02
Speaker 2: get to the descent, like how do you, like that
15:05
Speaker 2: one just seems overwhelming from the get go because I mean,
15:09
Speaker 2: you don't even have a cave for one. So like,
15:12
Speaker 2: I'm just from a, from, cause you were talking about
15:14
Speaker 2: even like trying to storyboard stuff on that first one.
15:16
Speaker 2: But when you don't physically have the setting you're going
15:20
Speaker 2: to be using, how do you start planning out the
15:22
Speaker 2: descent when you don't know where you're going to be exactly?
15:26
Speaker 1: Um, I only storyboarded certain sections of the descent. I storyboarded, um,
15:31
Speaker 1: special stunt sequences and visual effects sequences. And that's kind
15:35
Speaker 1: of become a rule with me now. It's like, I
15:36
Speaker 1: don't bother storyboarding scenes where it's like actors in a
15:40
Speaker 1: room or something like that, because I know that, you know,
15:42
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the guy who's like treats
15:44
Speaker 1: them like puppets and says, you know, you have to
15:45
Speaker 1: stand there and you know, whatever it's like, I want,
15:48
Speaker 1: I want to work with them and find the scene. So, but,
15:52
Speaker 1: but with your special effects and particularly with stunts, pre-planning
15:55
Speaker 1: is essential. So nailing those down. So on descent, yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: we did have a storyboard artist who did some great
16:01
Speaker 1: storyboards for certain sequences. And we followed those boards for
16:06
Speaker 1: the stunt sequences. And it's handy of like looking at
16:09
Speaker 1: the storyboard and saying, well, okay, it's the girls going
16:12
Speaker 1: down a whitewater raft, rafting thing, a sequence. So these
16:17
Speaker 1: shots will need to be the actors and I'll handle those.
16:20
Speaker 1: And these shots, we might need to do a second
16:22
Speaker 1: unit with some stunt doubles and in a different location
16:25
Speaker 1: because they're wider shots and, you know, all this kind
16:28
Speaker 1: of stuff. And that's ultimately how we did it. There
16:31
Speaker 1: was a, there was a mildest set of rapids that
16:34
Speaker 1: we could send the cast down. And there was a
16:36
Speaker 1: much more dangerous set of rabbits that we couldn't. So
16:39
Speaker 1: we sent the second unit off to grab shots of
16:41
Speaker 1: the stunt doubles going down there, which was quite a lot,
16:44
Speaker 1: which actually dies in weeks. But Hey, it works, you know?
16:49
Speaker 1: So yeah, the planning of that was interesting. And then, Again,
16:52
Speaker 1: it was so much luck and creativity that myself and
16:58
Speaker 1: the cast went caving as kind of a research trip
17:02
Speaker 1: to just get ourselves into the mindset and understand it.
17:06
Speaker 1: So we did the whole thing. We crawled through tiny
17:07
Speaker 1: little spaces and abseiled down waterfalls and all sorts. It
17:10
Speaker 1: was brilliant. But it taught us immediately that we cannot
17:13
Speaker 1: film this in a real cave. We will all die.
17:15
Speaker 1: There's just no way. And we're never going to find
17:18
Speaker 1: a cave that, fits all the specific sequences we need.
17:23
Speaker 1: So we can't film it in 15 different caves. So
17:26
Speaker 1: then it became, we're going to have to build the caves.
17:29
Speaker 1: And Simon Bowles, our production designer, thankfully found a system
17:35
Speaker 1: that was the spray on foam stuff that you could
17:38
Speaker 1: cast against real rock faces and use just a basic
17:43
Speaker 1: timber support structure, but like create these caves much cheaper,
17:47
Speaker 1: much lighter, much more durable. than ever before because the
17:52
Speaker 1: old school method would have been all plaster. And that
17:55
Speaker 1: would have weighed a ton and cost way more than
17:58
Speaker 1: we could ever afford. So little things fell into place
18:02
Speaker 1: and enables us to do it that way. And at
18:05
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there isn't a single real
18:06
Speaker 1: cave in the whole movie.
18:08
Speaker 2: That's amazing just because I just rewatched it and it
18:11
Speaker 2: holds together so well and you feel like you're in
18:14
Speaker 2: those caves and it's amazing that there aren't any caves.
18:17
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we deliberately shot it sort of almost
18:20
Speaker 1: documentary style of saying that there's not going to be
18:22
Speaker 1: any external light sources or magical light sources inside the caves.
18:28
Speaker 1: The lighting is what the actors or characters take with
18:31
Speaker 1: them as much as possible. There's a couple of little cheats,
18:33
Speaker 1: but on the whole, it was like they had to
18:35
Speaker 1: self light and that made it feel authentic. And also
18:39
Speaker 1: we constantly had the sets. There's like spritzing going on.
18:43
Speaker 1: So there's almost like mist in the air and water
18:45
Speaker 1: running down the walls and Just kept it feeling alive
18:48
Speaker 1: all the time. It didn't feel nice. And it wasn't.
18:50
Speaker 1: It was absolutely freezing cold.
18:53
Speaker 2: Well, and also the tension holds up so well. So
18:56
Speaker 2: as you're shooting, are you trying to find a way
18:58
Speaker 2: to sort of keep that in the shoot? Or does
19:01
Speaker 2: the tension sort of come together as you edit and
19:04
Speaker 2: put things together?
19:06
Speaker 1: It was a mix of both. There was a degree
19:08
Speaker 1: of tension on set because of the sets, because of
19:11
Speaker 1: how claustrophobic some of them were. I shot it in
19:15
Speaker 1: story order. once we got onto the sets, I shot
19:18
Speaker 1: the whole thing in story order. So as characters would
19:21
Speaker 1: get killed off, they would leave, they would be wrapped
19:23
Speaker 1: and gone, which kind of, you know, it raised the
19:27
Speaker 1: emotional stakes on set because it became quite sad as
19:29
Speaker 1: we got whittled down the cast. Also, I kept the
19:33
Speaker 1: crawlers hidden from them. I kept the crawlers completely hidden
19:36
Speaker 1: in terms of they never saw the designs. They never saw,
19:39
Speaker 1: they never met the actors playing the crawlers. They never
19:42
Speaker 1: saw anything about the crawlers until they literally met in
19:46
Speaker 1: a scene And I think that's helped generate some tension
19:49
Speaker 1: as well. they were apprehensive they knew they were coming
19:53
Speaker 1: but they were they were somewhat apprehensive about like what
19:55
Speaker 1: the hell are these things going to look like what
19:56
Speaker 1: they're going to do all that kind of stuff so
19:58
Speaker 1: that was fun that helped build up.
20:00
Speaker 2: Tension they are a sight to see it would it
20:02
Speaker 2: would catch you off guard if they just showed up
20:04
Speaker 2: all of.
20:04
Speaker 1: A sudden yeah they're disgusting slimy things um I mean,
20:09
Speaker 1: it was also, that was a reaction to having done
20:11
Speaker 1: more elaborate werewolf suits on dog soldiers and what a
20:14
Speaker 1: pain in the ass that turned out to be, was like,
20:18
Speaker 1: I wanted to strip it all back and very literally
20:21
Speaker 1: and have essentially like these ugly naked dudes that were
20:24
Speaker 1: running around in the dark and pallid and slimy and,
20:28
Speaker 1: you know, they'd gone blind and all this kind of stuff.
20:30
Speaker 1: So it was much easier for the physicality of the
20:32
Speaker 1: creatures and interacting with the actors and fighting and stuff
20:35
Speaker 1: like that.
20:36
Speaker 2: Well, I wanted it. hit a couple in this period.
20:38
Speaker 2: I know that's, that's, it's just interesting coming off of that.
20:41
Speaker 2: But then watching Doomsday, I'm like, I'm almost asking you,
20:47
Speaker 2: why would you sign yourself up for this? Because I
20:50
Speaker 2: love it, but there's so much there and so much
20:54
Speaker 2: you had to sort of take on in this, like
20:56
Speaker 2: so many different sets and environments and extras and costumes.
21:00
Speaker 2: And like, it just seems like such an undertaking that
21:03
Speaker 2: midway in, were you, what was I thinking?
21:07
Speaker 1: Uh, never. I love the scale of it. Also, like,
21:10
Speaker 1: so it was, it was a rare opportunity. I imagine
21:13
Speaker 1: if I'd made the descent, I don't know, 10 years later,
21:15
Speaker 1: then maybe off the back of that, I would have
21:16
Speaker 1: got offered some, I don't know, some Marvel franchise or something.
21:20
Speaker 1: God knows what. Um, but not that, that wasn't really
21:23
Speaker 1: forthcoming off the back of the success of the descent. Uh,
21:26
Speaker 1: what it did allow me to do was pitch a doomsday,
21:29
Speaker 1: which was an idea I had. And, you know, it
21:33
Speaker 1: just allowed me to go into, to, universal and pitch
21:36
Speaker 1: this thing and they said yes and i still look
21:38
Speaker 1: back and go i cannot believe that they gave me
21:41
Speaker 1: the money to make that film and to make it
21:43
Speaker 1: in the way that i made it and you know
21:44
Speaker 1: by blockbuster standards it's it wasn't huge it was 28
21:48
Speaker 1: million dollars but we went down to south africa to
21:50
Speaker 1: film it and i'd say we kind of got 60
21:53
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of production value out of that because
21:56
Speaker 1: it looks way bigger than it actually was but still
22:00
Speaker 1: when I made the descent for three so 28 was
22:03
Speaker 1: a lot and I got to had all the toys
22:06
Speaker 1: and honestly the bigger the scale the more I enjoyed
22:10
Speaker 1: it I wasn't daunted by that at all the more
22:12
Speaker 1: elaborate stuff the huge set pieces things like that I
22:15
Speaker 1: absolutely loved doing that big stuff and say I had
22:18
Speaker 1: all the toys I had you know camera grains and
22:21
Speaker 1: helicopters and all sorts of stuff to do uh hundreds
22:24
Speaker 1: of extras and amazing production design from Simon again, amazing
22:29
Speaker 1: photography from Sam McCurdy working in South Africa and just
22:33
Speaker 1: having this incredible landscape to work in and sets. And yeah,
22:38
Speaker 1: I loved it, but I still, but I still think, yeah,
22:40
Speaker 1: it's nuts. And also like, you know, they didn't demand
22:44
Speaker 1: that we had like a big American star in it.
22:46
Speaker 1: You know, we had Rona who was well known, but
22:49
Speaker 1: not like a huge box of star. They didn't pressure
22:52
Speaker 1: me into doing that. It was more of an ensemble and,
22:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I did get to work with Bob Hoskins
22:56
Speaker 1: and Mark McDowell as kind of the more established actors.
23:00
Speaker 1: But the rest of the cast is, you know, a
23:03
Speaker 1: lot of people I've worked with before, like Sean Pertwee
23:05
Speaker 1: and Darren Morfitt. And yeah, it was a good little ensemble. And,
23:08
Speaker 1: you know, we had just had a blast, absolute blast.
23:12
Speaker 1: Every day was just doing something completely mental.
23:14
Speaker 2: And different. So what spawned the idea originally? Was it
23:18
Speaker 2: just all the things that you grew up loving? Because
23:20
Speaker 2: it's like so many different movies packed into one.
23:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it was like a love letter to
23:25
Speaker 1: 80s movies, really, because I wanted to do something like
23:29
Speaker 1: a post-apocalyptic movie set in the UK because I'd never
23:32
Speaker 1: really seen anything like that. There has been a handful,
23:36
Speaker 1: but nothing like a sort of Mad Max type vibe
23:39
Speaker 1: in the UK. I was like, why can't we have
23:41
Speaker 1: one of those as well? Everybody else has got one.
23:43
Speaker 1: So I wanted to do a post-apocalyptic movie in the UK.
23:48
Speaker 1: But originally it came about because I had this vision of,
23:53
Speaker 1: futuristic soldiers squaring off against a medieval night. Uh, it
23:57
Speaker 1: felt very kind of Terry Gilliam esque. Um, and I
24:00
Speaker 1: was like, I set myself a problem was like, how
24:03
Speaker 1: could that circumstance happen without time travel? Cause I didn't
24:07
Speaker 1: want to do a time travel movie. And, um, and
24:10
Speaker 1: then came up with the whole, you know, the plague
24:13
Speaker 1: and the, all that kind of stuff. And people running
24:15
Speaker 1: around Scotland is dressed as knights in armor. Um, and
24:19
Speaker 1: it kind of, there was a, there's an insane logic
24:20
Speaker 1: to it of, you know, um, in a post-apocalyptic society,
24:24
Speaker 1: like in Mad Max or whatever, they don't have castles there,
24:27
Speaker 1: but I bet if they had castles in Australia, the
24:30
Speaker 1: Mad Max community would be taking over those castles and
24:33
Speaker 1: using them.
24:33
Speaker 2: The crazy people would move into the castles.
24:35
Speaker 1: Of course they would. They're fortifications, you know, huge fortifications.
24:38
Speaker 1: They've got everything kind of ready-made for them. Half of
24:41
Speaker 1: them are museums, which contain suits of armor and swords
24:44
Speaker 1: and weapons and stuff like that. So they utilize those,
24:47
Speaker 1: you know, when you're running out of bullets and running
24:49
Speaker 1: out of this, that, and the other. So it all
24:51
Speaker 1: kind of made some, insane logic to me. Um, but
24:54
Speaker 1: I also liked the, the fun that I could have
24:56
Speaker 1: with putting a little in jokes along the way so that,
25:00
Speaker 1: you know, our, our soldiers end up in a castle
25:02
Speaker 1: and this medieval weird hybrid characters living there. But there's
25:06
Speaker 1: also signs on the wall saying, you know, gift shop
25:08
Speaker 1: that way and emergency exit that way. So all the
25:11
Speaker 1: contemporary elements are still in there. Um, so it's fun
25:14
Speaker 1: doing that. A lot of fun.
25:16
Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah. Well, and then as far as moving into
25:20
Speaker 2: that next, like, again, the scale just kind of gets
25:23
Speaker 2: bigger because Centurion is just an undertaking, and the visuals
25:27
Speaker 2: on that are amazing. And moving into, like, getting Fassbender, like,
25:34
Speaker 2: was he game for how much you were just going
25:36
Speaker 2: to abuse him for the entirety of that movie?
25:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because weirdly, Centurion was like a third of
25:44
Speaker 1: the budget of Doomsday. but we managed to give it
25:48
Speaker 1: such scale with the vastness of the locations, you know,
25:51
Speaker 1: getting to film in the Highlands of Scotland, getting to
25:53
Speaker 1: film mostly exteriors and building some of these sets and
25:59
Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, we really, again, the brilliance
26:02
Speaker 1: of Simon Bowles and Sam McCurdy of making it look
26:05
Speaker 1: so much more cinematic and utilising visual effects to sort
26:09
Speaker 1: of give us armies of thousands when we only had hundreds,
26:13
Speaker 1: just little tricks of the trade. And then putting together
26:17
Speaker 1: a cast, Fassbender had only really done, he'd just finished
26:22
Speaker 1: shooting Hunger, which either had just come out or, no,
26:26
Speaker 1: it hadn't come out yet. So he was kind of
26:29
Speaker 1: just on the cusp, but actually auditioned him for a
26:31
Speaker 1: role on Doomsday, but given it to somebody else. And so,
26:37
Speaker 1: but I was always interested in him as an actor
26:39
Speaker 1: and came back to him for this and he was
26:42
Speaker 1: well game for it. And so he was, his physique
26:45
Speaker 1: was like, He was just kind of rebuilding his muscles
26:48
Speaker 1: after hunger. So he's very kind of lean, incredibly lean.
26:53
Speaker 1: But he was game for running through the snow with
26:54
Speaker 1: his top off in minus 18 degrees centigrade and all
26:58
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff and going in the rivers. And,
27:01
Speaker 1: you know, the whole cast, I really put them through
27:03
Speaker 1: it because those rivers and things like that were seriously
27:07
Speaker 1: cold and we had potential frostbite and all sorts of
27:10
Speaker 1: stuff going on.
27:11
Speaker 2: Well, it reads cold. So I was like, I'm assuming
27:14
Speaker 2: you guys are freezing.
27:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and I deliberately chose that. We shot it
27:18
Speaker 1: in January in the Highlands of Scotland, up on top
27:21
Speaker 1: of the mountains. It was seriously cold, seriously sub-zero. I
27:26
Speaker 1: didn't want the actors to be pretending to shiver. I
27:28
Speaker 1: wanted them to look cold and be cold, and then
27:30
Speaker 1: they could just focus on their performances, and they were
27:32
Speaker 1: fine with that. You know, I don't know. Everybody just
27:36
Speaker 1: mocked it, and they got into the spirit of it,
27:38
Speaker 1: and it just makes it look so much more authentic.
27:41
Speaker 1: It's the whole thing has a real feel about it.
27:45
Speaker 1: of being cold.
27:48
Speaker 2: And Olga is so amazing as your, as your, I guess,
27:50
Speaker 2: main villain, really. I mean, she certainly commands the screen.
27:54
Speaker 2: Did she get that character from the get-go or was
27:58
Speaker 2: it something you had to kind of clue her in
28:00
Speaker 2: as to what you wanted from the menace that she becomes?
28:04
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a process. You know,
28:06
Speaker 1: I think she was, she signed up for it and
28:10
Speaker 1: she was like, yeah, I'm well up for doing something
28:12
Speaker 1: like this. I've never done this before. But she would,
28:14
Speaker 1: she would often say like, can I not just say
28:17
Speaker 1: one word, just one word. It's like, no, no, you've
28:20
Speaker 1: got no tongue. You can like, you can just about scream.
28:23
Speaker 1: That's it. But you've got no tongue and we're going
28:26
Speaker 1: to show that you've got no tongue. So no, you
28:28
Speaker 1: can't say a word. But I honestly think that she,
28:32
Speaker 1: she embraced that and gave, I mean, it's like a
28:37
Speaker 1: silent movie performance. She just like gave 200% to the
28:40
Speaker 1: physical performance of what she was doing. And, and, carried
28:43
Speaker 1: a lot you know just an amazing role amazing role
28:46
Speaker 1: she's she's so well and it's brutal cool and the
28:50
Speaker 1: other key thing for me was she's both she's the
28:53
Speaker 1: villain but she's really sympathetic as well it's like she's
28:56
Speaker 1: had some really bad shit done to her so like
28:58
Speaker 1: you get it and i and i always wanted to
29:00
Speaker 1: blur the lines of that film of like telling it
29:02
Speaker 1: from the point of view of the invaders and where
29:05
Speaker 1: we actually support them but you know but you sympathize
29:09
Speaker 1: with the with the bad guys as well.
29:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's definitely got a horrifying backstory, so it sort
29:15
Speaker 2: of makes sense why she's as messed up as she is.
29:18
Speaker 1: And ultimately, you feel for her when she dies at
29:21
Speaker 1: the end. It's like you feel sorry for her in
29:23
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah.
29:24
Speaker 2: Well, again, I could run through yours all day, but
29:27
Speaker 2: we also want to get to our main movie, so
29:29
Speaker 2: I will usually give the breakdown here as we get
29:31
Speaker 2: into our film that you have chosen. Our unsung cinema
29:36
Speaker 2: feature is Razorback. The year is 1984. The director is...
29:40
Speaker 2: is Russell McKay. And the plot, according to IMDb, as
29:44
Speaker 2: a vicious wild boar terrorizes the Australian outback, the husband
29:48
Speaker 2: of one of the victims is joined by a hunter
29:50
Speaker 2: and a farmer in a search for the beast. I
29:53
Speaker 2: guess that's accurate as much as IMDb ever is, so.
29:57
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert, I'm assuming by now you've already seen this,
30:00
Speaker 2: but if not, fair warning. My question for you is,
30:04
Speaker 2: what was your history with this movie? Where did you
30:07
Speaker 2: first see it, and then what was your thinking when
30:10
Speaker 2: it came about?
30:11
Speaker 1: I didn't get to see it in the cinema when
30:13
Speaker 1: it came out. I did see it on VHS, so
30:16
Speaker 1: I guess I would have seen it, I don't know,
30:18
Speaker 1: 85 or the earliest, maybe 86. But what I do
30:24
Speaker 1: remember is it just absolutely... see it itself into my
30:28
Speaker 1: mind um with those visuals um incredible you know dean
30:33
Speaker 1: samuel's incredible photography but ross mckay's kind of video pop
30:38
Speaker 1: video sensibilities of uh making this kind of weird art
30:41
Speaker 1: house horror film a surrealistic thing with just stunning visuals
30:47
Speaker 1: um showing australia in its it's never looked so kind
30:50
Speaker 1: of dirty and grungy and sweaty and lots of flies
30:54
Speaker 1: and rats and mud and pig shit and stuff like
30:57
Speaker 1: that it's like he really captures you know an essence
31:00
Speaker 1: of this outback community that's just dangerous and and yeah
31:06
Speaker 1: it has such a vibe to it um i just
31:09
Speaker 1: remember when the opening title came on like the opening
31:12
Speaker 1: sequence is brilliant and then the title comes on And
31:14
Speaker 1: it's like, I've never seen that before. I just thought
31:16
Speaker 1: it was the most stunningly beautiful opening title for any movie,
31:19
Speaker 1: let alone horror movie. So yes, it was just all
31:22
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff. And I wasn't fully aware
31:26
Speaker 1: of Mulcahy's work at that time. I think that led
31:30
Speaker 1: me to kind of go, oh, what else has he done?
31:31
Speaker 1: And seeing, oh, holy shit, he did the Wild Boys
31:34
Speaker 1: video and all this kind of stuff. It's like, okay,
31:36
Speaker 1: that makes total sense now. But yeah, it kind of
31:40
Speaker 1: came out of the blue. I wasn't expecting something so beautiful.
31:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is one I, and it's interesting looking back,
31:46
Speaker 2: this has become like its own subcategory of movies. And
31:50
Speaker 2: you probably had a similar experience. I spent so much
31:53
Speaker 2: time at video stores that there are certain movies that
31:56
Speaker 2: I just know the box art more than anything. So
32:00
Speaker 2: this is one of those I remember being fascinated with,
32:02
Speaker 2: just the box art. And like I saw it so
32:05
Speaker 2: many times. And yet there's a bunch of them that
32:07
Speaker 2: I never even saw the movie until years later. But
32:11
Speaker 2: I was just like captivated by box art on so
32:13
Speaker 2: many of these weird projects at the time. And this
32:16
Speaker 2: was one of those. I just remember seeing that video
32:19
Speaker 2: box sitting there every time and just the artwork on
32:22
Speaker 2: that initial one was so cool. So it was years later. Yeah.
32:26
Speaker 2: But it was going back now and going, oh, no,
32:28
Speaker 2: this is the movie we're dealing with, which is kind
32:31
Speaker 2: of different than i expected going in um it does
32:34
Speaker 2: not make australia look fun at.
32:36
Speaker 1: All no not at all yeah it's definitely not it's
32:40
Speaker 1: not crocodile dundee that's for.
32:41
Speaker 2: Sure even that's a little uh that's the thing none
32:45
Speaker 2: of the australian movies make you like it they're not
32:47
Speaker 2: from the tourism board like even in crocodile dundee she's
32:50
Speaker 2: about to get eaten so like there's no good australia
32:54
Speaker 2: which kind of leads me to that at the time
32:58
Speaker 2: it wasn't called Osploitation but like certainly they were in
33:01
Speaker 2: the middle of that period did you kind of get
33:03
Speaker 2: into that knowingly or did you just sort of pick
33:06
Speaker 2: up certain ones over the years.
33:08
Speaker 1: Well yeah I definitely had certainly over that period of
33:12
Speaker 1: time because once VHS happened and I had access to
33:15
Speaker 1: you know so many more movies and video store and
33:18
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff and started devouring films but
33:21
Speaker 1: also more stuff was being on TV and I remember
33:24
Speaker 1: there was a fantastic series, like a film series on
33:27
Speaker 1: BBC Two in the UK called Movie Drome, hosted by
33:30
Speaker 1: Alex Cox.
33:31
Speaker 2: I've talked to him about that, actually.
33:33
Speaker 1: There you go. And he would regularly show just films
33:40
Speaker 1: I vaguely heard. He showed The Cars That Ate Paris,
33:43
Speaker 1: and I think I saw Picnic is Hanging Rock. Anyway,
33:49
Speaker 1: there was a lot of Australian cinema coming out. uh,
33:53
Speaker 1: being shown. And I grew aware of exploitation and, you know,
33:57
Speaker 1: of course, Mad Max and all that stuff as well.
33:59
Speaker 1: So I started to slowly fall in love with Australian cinema.
34:03
Speaker 1: And I, and I have ever since it's like, they
34:05
Speaker 1: just keep on producing like amazing films. Um, and I
34:08
Speaker 1: don't know why, I don't know why that is specifically, uh,
34:12
Speaker 1: something to do with the landscape or the sense of
34:15
Speaker 1: humor or the, uh, whatever the accents, I don't really know,
34:18
Speaker 1: but I just love Australian cinema. So, Razorback was very
34:22
Speaker 1: much part of that and became, to me anyway, became
34:25
Speaker 1: like a definitive Australian movie. The fact that it was,
34:29
Speaker 1: you know, I was watching the making of yesterday just
34:32
Speaker 1: to kind of catch up and the producer hired Russell,
34:37
Speaker 1: not knowing he was Australian until later on. So that's interesting.
34:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just seminal and part of that, very
34:46
Speaker 1: much a part of the Ozploitation movement.
34:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it's just that they lucked
34:50
Speaker 2: out and had several really good directors. I mean, you've
34:53
Speaker 2: got Russell, you've got Peter Weir, like all these guys
34:56
Speaker 2: kind of coming out of that point. And then we're like,
34:58
Speaker 2: because you think about it at that time, what other
35:02
Speaker 2: small contained areas cranking out the kind of stuff that
35:06
Speaker 2: Australia was that's like impressive.
35:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty unique. I mean, I think for whatever reason,
35:11
Speaker 1: there was a big government push at the time to
35:13
Speaker 1: produce movies there. And as I say, it spawned, some
35:18
Speaker 1: amazing directors, um, Roger Spott as well, and people like that. Um,
35:23
Speaker 1: and we also spawned some amazing DPs, you know, obviously
35:27
Speaker 1: Dean Semler and John Seal and people like that.
35:29
Speaker 2: So he's, he's amazing in this.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:33
Speaker 2: I think that's what struck me was the visuals. Yeah.
35:36
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's, that's, that's the thing. I also like,
35:38
Speaker 1: I literally just found on YouTube, there's a little video
35:40
Speaker 1: called the beauty of Razorback and it's like, yeah, there's
35:43
Speaker 1: just so many stunning shots in it. I mean, it,
35:46
Speaker 1: it's very eighties, you know, lots of filters and things
35:48
Speaker 1: like that, but I love it for that. And I
35:50
Speaker 1: was like, I missed, I missed the filters, get the
35:52
Speaker 1: filters back. And I, and I honestly believe that if, if,
35:57
Speaker 1: you know, if things had gone differently for him, I
35:59
Speaker 1: think Russell McKay had the ability to be like the
36:02
Speaker 1: next Ridley Scott or, you know, to be something in
36:04
Speaker 1: that vein, if he'd got the right scripts and the
36:06
Speaker 1: right project off the ground, because the work that he
36:11
Speaker 1: shows in this is, is, you know, up there with
36:13
Speaker 1: Ridley Scott's best. the framings the lighting the um the
36:18
Speaker 1: beautiful sunsets just so many so many stunning shots throughout
36:23
Speaker 1: even the even the wonderfully surrealist moments the dream sequences
36:26
Speaker 1: and things like that it's like wow where did that come.
36:28
Speaker 2: From yeah i didn't expect that right in the middle
36:31
Speaker 2: of it either.
36:32
Speaker 1: Yeah uh so there's like the dream sequences there's the
36:37
Speaker 1: use of the music throughout which enhances the visuals i
36:39
Speaker 1: think gives them that's that dreamy surrealist quality and just
36:43
Speaker 1: random production design thing. Like one of the very last
36:47
Speaker 1: shots in the film is Gregory Harrison walking out of
36:50
Speaker 1: the factory. And there's what appears to be like a
36:52
Speaker 1: fence hanging up in the roof. It's like wavy fence thing.
36:56
Speaker 1: And it's like, there's no reason for it to be
36:57
Speaker 1: there other than it looks great. Cause it's just stuff
37:01
Speaker 1: like that. And I just, I love that creativity going
37:04
Speaker 1: into a film, you know, which could be boiled down to,
37:07
Speaker 1: it's just a film about a giant wild boar, you know,
37:09
Speaker 1: it's jaws with trotters or whatever it is. People were joking.
37:13
Speaker 1: And I, I was kind of protective of the film
37:15
Speaker 1: at the time. If I wouldn't say it was just
37:17
Speaker 1: a giant pig movie, it's a lot more than being
37:19
Speaker 1: a giant pig movie. And actually the, the, the ball,
37:23
Speaker 1: the Razorback itself is. It's an element in the film,
37:27
Speaker 1: but it's not the scariest thing. The scariest thing is, um,
37:31
Speaker 1: the two guys is.
37:31
Speaker 2: The two killer creepy guys.
37:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, um, David argue, Chris Haywood are absolutely brilliant
37:38
Speaker 1: in this film and cracking me up every time. There
37:41
Speaker 1: are so many great lines. But they're just such a
37:44
Speaker 1: wacko performance of two psychopaths, psychopathic brothers. It's like, I
37:49
Speaker 1: love it for that. Absolutely love it for that.
37:51
Speaker 2: And that's the disturbing part is like, it'd be different
37:54
Speaker 2: because they come off very post-apocalyptic. They still seem like
37:58
Speaker 2: they're from another world where there are no rules, which
38:00
Speaker 2: I guess is Australia, essentially. But like, it doesn't even
38:04
Speaker 2: make sense why they're as like nihilistic as they are.
38:08
Speaker 2: They just seem like horrible people, but... you're like, well,
38:11
Speaker 2: they're driving this movie now.
38:13
Speaker 1: Well, I read it kind of like a Western. It's like,
38:16
Speaker 1: you know, they're the bad brothers who kind of live
38:20
Speaker 1: in the town and cause a lot of bother and
38:21
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so then they live out of
38:23
Speaker 1: the mine and things like that. So it felt very
38:26
Speaker 1: kind of Western-like iconography. I love Bill Kerr as well.
38:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's up there with Quint as
38:32
Speaker 1: one of the great, you know, one of the great hunters.
38:35
Speaker 1: And he also has the best line in the film,
38:37
Speaker 1: which is the whole... Something about blowing the shit out
38:40
Speaker 1: of a Razorback that brightens up my whole day. And
38:43
Speaker 1: his delivery on that is fantastic.
38:44
Speaker 2: See, that's the thing. Going in and it being Razorback,
38:49
Speaker 2: that's kind of what I wish there was more of.
38:51
Speaker 2: Especially then reading they spent like $ 250, 000 on that full
38:55
Speaker 2: version of the Razorback that they built. But you barely
38:59
Speaker 2: get a chance to see it. Like even that last
39:01
Speaker 2: scene is really the only time they make use of it.
39:03
Speaker 2: And even then it's kind of real quick shots because
39:06
Speaker 2: I guess they were afraid it It wouldn't read right,
39:08
Speaker 2: but I don't know. Even if it's a weird mechanical version,
39:12
Speaker 2: I kind of wanted to see more of this Razorback.
39:15
Speaker 1: No, me too. I'd rather see a slightly ropey mechanical
39:19
Speaker 1: version than a poor CG version. Oh, definitely. I can
39:23
Speaker 1: live with that. It feels like it's in the scene
39:25
Speaker 1: with them and it's something going on with it. Yes,
39:28
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have seen a bit more
39:29
Speaker 1: of it. I would like to have seen more of
39:31
Speaker 1: it because I know that they did a version that
39:33
Speaker 1: they wrapped a real pig in like a latex Razorback costume.
39:38
Speaker 1: And one of the best shots in the film, it's fleeting,
39:41
Speaker 1: but it's a silhouette of the Razorback on the horizon.
39:44
Speaker 1: And that was like a real, and the reason it
39:46
Speaker 1: looks so realistic is because it was a real pig
39:48
Speaker 1: with the Razorback. costume on it but you see it
39:52
Speaker 1: for like a split second maybe the reason they didn't
39:54
Speaker 1: use it so much is because it ended up looking
39:56
Speaker 1: terrible but for that split second it's like I believe
39:58
Speaker 1: in the Razorback there so I would have liked to
40:01
Speaker 1: have seen more like that but you know maybe maybe
40:04
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that less is more you
40:05
Speaker 1: know we would love to see more but maybe it
40:08
Speaker 1: would have spoiled the movie.
40:09
Speaker 2: Yeah I mean this is coming off of Jaws and
40:11
Speaker 2: that's certainly the trick of Jaws is you don't see
40:14
Speaker 2: him for most of the movie so I guess they're
40:16
Speaker 2: kind of playing that same game very.
40:18
Speaker 1: Much so yeah And doing it, you know, using all
40:21
Speaker 1: the tricks, point of view shots and things like that
40:23
Speaker 1: to do it instead.
40:25
Speaker 2: I do like the one that they built specifically to
40:27
Speaker 2: ram into vehicles because it does seem like it's a
40:30
Speaker 2: force of nature by the end there where it's just
40:32
Speaker 2: taking stuff out and just moving physical objects around it.
40:36
Speaker 2: So again, I would have kind of liked to see
40:38
Speaker 2: him just ram them into more stuff.
40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it would have been nice to appreciate the
40:44
Speaker 1: power of the Razorback as well. Like you could have
40:46
Speaker 1: seen it ram into a vehicle and, know actually knocked
40:49
Speaker 1: it on its side or something like that but uh
40:52
Speaker 1: understand just sell the power of the monster a bit
40:54
Speaker 1: more but yeah i mean on the whole it's just
40:57
Speaker 1: like i still i love it the way it is
40:59
Speaker 1: but you can always think of oh that could have
41:01
Speaker 1: been a little bit better i would have liked to
41:02
Speaker 1: seen a bit more of that um but that's yeah
41:06
Speaker 1: we weren't there in the in the heat and the
41:09
Speaker 1: dust with them so.
41:10
Speaker 2: Yeah definitely Well, then as far as the creature features,
41:15
Speaker 2: I mean, that was its own subcategory that I guess
41:19
Speaker 2: they were, I don't know how much they were knowingly
41:20
Speaker 2: getting in on it or they just sort of happened
41:22
Speaker 2: upon it. But did you get into those over the years?
41:26
Speaker 1: I've always been into creature features. You know, right from
41:30
Speaker 1: Frankenstein to Jaws through American Werewolf and The Howling. And,
41:33
Speaker 1: you know, it's no accident that my first movie is
41:36
Speaker 1: a creature feature and my second. I love monsters. I
41:40
Speaker 1: love I also like my uncle had a copy of
41:43
Speaker 1: the pictorial history of horror and all those black and
41:46
Speaker 1: white photographs of horror movies and stuff like that. So
41:49
Speaker 1: the monsters and things there, and he was an artist.
41:51
Speaker 1: So he used to draw me monsters all the time.
41:53
Speaker 1: I just make them up on the spot. Amazing imagination.
41:56
Speaker 1: So I've, I've definitely been a big fan of anything
41:59
Speaker 1: to do with monsters. I love, and I'm still, I'm
42:01
Speaker 1: still writing monster movies now. So, you know, can't go
42:04
Speaker 1: wrong with a good monster.
42:06
Speaker 2: Definitely. That's, that's the whole reason to do any of
42:09
Speaker 2: this really.
42:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think your other connections to this movie
42:14
Speaker 1: for me are when I was making Dog Soldiers out
42:16
Speaker 1: in Luxembourg, Russell was actually there making another film. He
42:20
Speaker 1: was making a film called The Lost Battalion, I think
42:22
Speaker 1: it was called, and staying in the same hotel. So
42:24
Speaker 1: I actually got to meet him then. And lovely, lovely guy.
42:28
Speaker 1: And then, you know, so just the chance encounters of
42:32
Speaker 1: meeting the director of one of your favorite horror films
42:34
Speaker 1: and Highlander as well. And then, uh, like just very recently,
42:38
Speaker 1: I got to see the 4k Highlander on a big
42:40
Speaker 1: IMAX screen and stuff like that. So, you know, Russell's
42:43
Speaker 1: always there. He's always, you know, I just, I just
42:45
Speaker 1: wish he'd done more. Like I'd love to see another
42:47
Speaker 1: Russell McCartney film.
42:49
Speaker 2: He's done a lot of stuff. I, I, again, I
42:51
Speaker 2: kind of forgot like how prolific he was there. Like
42:54
Speaker 2: even going back, there's so many, like at the time,
42:57
Speaker 2: pretty big, I mean, the fact that he did, you know,
42:59
Speaker 2: the shadow was like kind of the big movie of
43:02
Speaker 2: that summer. And like, It didn't quite catch on the
43:05
Speaker 2: way it probably could have, but, you know. Yeah.
43:08
Speaker 1: I'd like to revisit The Shadow. I'd also like to
43:11
Speaker 1: revisit Ricochet.
43:12
Speaker 2: I saw that on the list. I loved that at
43:15
Speaker 2: the time. I saw that in the theater. And I remember, like,
43:17
Speaker 2: just thinking it was a great action movie. And so, like,
43:20
Speaker 2: looking back and going, oh, he did that one, too.
43:22
Speaker 2: So he had a nice one.
43:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. As I recall, that one, like, very much fell
43:25
Speaker 1: into the whole, you know, Joel Silver thing at the
43:27
Speaker 1: time of action movies. But it seems to have been
43:29
Speaker 1: the one that's been forgotten about. But I liked it.
43:32
Speaker 1: I did thoroughly enjoy it. So I definitely want to
43:34
Speaker 1: track that one down.
43:35
Speaker 2: Great villain. Yeah, it's Denzel kind of just sort of
43:38
Speaker 2: catching on as like, oh, this guy, this is our
43:41
Speaker 2: leading man right here. Yeah.
43:44
Speaker 1: And Lithgow. Yeah, I mean, great, great cast. Yeah, there's
43:47
Speaker 1: a few of Russell's films I want to revisit for sure.
43:50
Speaker 1: I always enjoyed The Shadow. It's got some really great
43:53
Speaker 1: visuals in it. But yeah.
43:56
Speaker 2: The fact that he's still out there doing, I mean,
43:57
Speaker 2: he did one of the Resident Evil movies, and he
43:59
Speaker 2: did the Teen Wolf movie. Like, he's still out there
44:02
Speaker 2: making stuff.
44:03
Speaker 1: Excellent stuff. No, yeah, and I think his Resident Evil was, again,
44:06
Speaker 1: I think was my favorite of that whole group. He's
44:10
Speaker 1: had a really strong visual sensibility to it. But, yeah,
44:14
Speaker 1: I'd just see him do another Australian horror movie.
44:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like this is the time. You've got
44:19
Speaker 2: to jump onto that. So you do feel coming out
44:23
Speaker 2: of this movie, it did sort of attach itself to,
44:26
Speaker 2: like you said, the creature features, but even stylistically, do
44:30
Speaker 2: you feel like it sort of helped play into how
44:32
Speaker 2: you wanted to shoot and cut?
44:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the idea that a horror movie could
44:40
Speaker 1: be beautiful was a big thing, and I definitely applied
44:43
Speaker 1: that to The Descent, because I think The Descent is
44:46
Speaker 1: really beautiful in its use of color, things like that.
44:50
Speaker 1: I had less of an opportunity with dog soldiers, although
44:52
Speaker 1: I tried my best, but it was kind of shot
44:54
Speaker 1: on 16 millimeter and it looks very grainy and things
44:56
Speaker 1: like that. But descent definitely has a beauty to it
44:59
Speaker 1: that I don't think is appreciated as it should be.
45:01
Speaker 1: But certainly films like Razorback taught me that, that you
45:05
Speaker 1: can combine the two and still make it a scary film.
45:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to like look ugly and dirty, but then,
45:11
Speaker 1: you know, Razorback does that thing of like being beautiful
45:13
Speaker 1: and being dirty and grungy and, capturing that essence as well.
45:17
Speaker 1: So I loved all that stuff, trying to make things gritty.
45:20
Speaker 1: I think I definitely applied that to Centurion and Doomsday
45:24
Speaker 1: as well. So it had a distinct impact. My love
45:29
Speaker 1: of like synth scores as well, like some of the
45:32
Speaker 1: music on Razorback is haunting and I still listen to
45:37
Speaker 1: it today. Sometimes when I'm writing things, if I'm after
45:41
Speaker 1: something very surrealistic and haunting, then some of that ivor
45:45
Speaker 1: davis music and it's just phenomenal.
45:47
Speaker 2: Yeah and it holds up as as a movie but
45:50
Speaker 2: yeah i kind of it would be interesting to see
45:53
Speaker 2: if if he sort of revisits this idea and you
45:55
Speaker 2: see him go back and do a creature feature with
45:58
Speaker 2: the the effects you can do now again hopefully not
46:01
Speaker 2: cg but you know.
46:02
Speaker 1: Hey raise it back too please bring it.
46:04
Speaker 2: On yeah i mean there's there's still got to be
46:06
Speaker 2: crazy giant animals out in australia i mean that's all
46:09
Speaker 2: they have mostly and.
46:10
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Australia's full of them. But what about Razorbacks?
46:13
Speaker 1: Maybe do the multiple Razorbacks.
46:16
Speaker 2: Do the Cameron move. But there's a lot of them now.
46:22
Speaker 1: I'd be up for seeing that, totally. I'm just looking
46:24
Speaker 1: online here. It says that Russell's in pre-production on a
46:28
Speaker 1: film called Werewolf.
46:30
Speaker 2: Hey, wait, he's moving into your territory. Hold on.
46:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's going on there? We shall see. We shall see.
46:38
Speaker 2: Well, as far as your projects, do you have new
46:41
Speaker 2: stuff that you're working on or other stuff that you
46:44
Speaker 2: have been kind of toying with over the years now?
46:48
Speaker 1: I have multiple projects I'm working on. I'm working on
46:52
Speaker 1: at least two monster movies. So, yeah, a few things
46:56
Speaker 1: going on. I've spent the last few years just literally
46:59
Speaker 1: just writing and amassing a bunch of scripts to make.
47:02
Speaker 1: So I'm on the starting line with a few of them.
47:06
Speaker 1: which is trying to get cast attached so then we
47:08
Speaker 1: can get the money and then go and actually make them.
47:10
Speaker 1: It's a difficult climate right now, but you've just got
47:12
Speaker 1: to persist, haven't you?
47:14
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to ask. How different is
47:17
Speaker 2: it coming out of the era that you originally did
47:20
Speaker 2: versus this as far as just getting projects off the ground?
47:23
Speaker 2: How drastically different is that?
47:25
Speaker 1: Well, to be honest, I don't know that it's ever
47:27
Speaker 1: been easy. I wouldn't say it was ever easy to
47:30
Speaker 1: get films made. It started out difficult. It got a
47:33
Speaker 1: little easier at certain points later. You know, your career
47:37
Speaker 1: always goes ups and downs and lefts and rights and
47:39
Speaker 1: things like that. So there's moments when it's been a
47:41
Speaker 1: little bit easier for sure. And there are moments when
47:43
Speaker 1: it's been harder. But something comes along. And as I say,
47:47
Speaker 1: just sheer determination. What else am I going to do?
47:51
Speaker 1: I have no desire to do anything other than make films.
47:54
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm going to keep on doing one
47:56
Speaker 1: way or another.
47:57
Speaker 2: I guess it's a little late now to pick a
47:59
Speaker 2: whole new career.
47:59
Speaker 1: Exactly. Way too late.
48:03
Speaker 2: Well, do you want people to find you online, or
48:06
Speaker 2: what's the best way for people to see what's coming
48:08
Speaker 2: out next for you?
48:10
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm on Instagram, neilmarshalldirector, and also I have
48:15
Speaker 1: a website, neilmarshalldirector.com.
48:18
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good. Otherwise, I think that about does it.
48:22
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. This episode is a production of
48:30
Speaker 2: Movie Meltdown. Produced and edited by the Oddity Studios. With
48:34
Speaker 2: music written and performed by Andrea Davidson. For more on
48:38
Speaker 2: how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.