About a quarter of the way though this year’s FrightFest, HeyUGuys took some time out from film watching to meet SOULMATE director and horror connoisseur Axelle Carolyn who was in town for the European premiere of her new genre anthology film TALES OF HALLOWEEN (the closing feature at this year’s FrightFest).
What we didn’t expect was that her husband, THE DESCENT and DOG SOLDIERS director Neil Marshall, would be joining us.
Carolyn (the film’s mastermind) and Marshall (director of anthology segment “Bad Seed”) sat down with us to discuss the anthology, film censorship, the various industry roles Axelle has had over the years and what fires her unruly passion for the supernatural and macabre.
How did you go about gathering such a wide variety of directors for Tales Of Halloween?
Axelle Carolyn: We were really lucky to have a group of friends who are really into the same stuff. This whole mix of directors, actors, writers and journalists who live in LA and absolutely love horror. Over the years we’ve been saying that we should all do something together and try and find a project we can all work on but I couldn’t come up with a concept. Which was a shame when you have so many people like Neil Marshall, Darren Bousman, Lucky McKee and Mike Mendez around you.
Then it came to me: we spend so much time celebrating Halloween, I mentioned to Neil that we should make an anthology film. Neil thought it was cool then I mentioned it to our friends and by the next Wednesday we had put together half of the directors. Then by the following Saturday we had Epic Pictures on board as producers. It was the quickest I’d ever known for a project to come together.
It’s probably not since the 70s and 80s that anthology horror films were last so popular, what made you think it would work?
Neil Marshall: We had been talking about us all working together for years, since we’d all met and an anthology film is the only real option for us to do that. We’re not all going to direct the same film so the anthology was the only way to really make that happen. For a long time anthology films have not necessarily been very popular but recently, in the past couple of years at least, they’ve been coming back with The ABCs Of DEATH and the VHS movies so suddenly it had become much more of viable entity. And we were certainly also inspired by the likes of CREEPSHOW and CAT’S EYES.
Axelle Carolyn: We wanted to do something that was different from recent anthology films. CREEPSHOW has this playful, spooky tone that isn’t really scary and it isn’t really totally funny either but it’s kind of treading the line. It’s just fun and that’s what we wanted to do. We didn’t just want to gross people out or be shocking. Halloween is more about playful, spooky happenings.
The Grim Grinning Ghost character in your segment, Axelle, has quite a unique and terrifying look. Where did the idea for the creature come from? Were you inspired by other famous horror icons/ figures?
Axelle Carolyn: I wanted to do something that was scary but the concept was not just about events that were happening on Halloween night. It’s also about Halloween itself. So I studied the urban legends and myths online and I found something I hadn’t heard of before. In some regions of the US they believe that on Halloween, if you hear footsteps behind you, you shouldn’t look back because what you see might not be something you like. It was awesome because straight away that conjured up ideas for me. People looking ahead while something got closer behind them, the feeling of breath on the back of your neck. I wanted to take that idea but subvert it as much as possible. It was really fun to do and in the end it became something that will hopefully make people jump.
Do you feel that audiences, especially horror fans, are becoming too used to conventional scares and desensitised?
Axelle Carolyn: I don’t think so. I think audiences are more sophisticated now and know what to expect from a horror film. They have a better understanding of how a scare is crafted and that’s why it’s interesting to try and play with those expectations. But if you construct it in a very traditional sense they will know. When certain music is played they know that something is going to happen but I wouldn’t say they’re desensitised, just more sophisticated.
Neil Marshall: It’s kind of like a magician trying to pull a trick and get a scare out of an audience. Using a sleight of hand, distractions, what’s going on with this hand but actually the trick’s in the other one. Pretty basic stuff. Just making them look over there while the scare’s over there.
And Neil your TALES OF HALLOWEEN segment “Bad Seed” featured an evil, killer pumpkin. How did you come up with that?
Neil Marshall: Oh I don’t know, I think it was shopping for vegetables. I can’t remember. Or maybe I was carving a pumpkin. But as soon as I had the idea everything else fell into place from that initial notion.
Axelle, you started out as a Journalist but have also been a Publicist, Actress, Make-Up Artist, Novelist. Do you think directing is where you’re meant to be or will you carrying on working in other professions?
Axelle Carolyn: I’ve always wanted to work in film and I’ve always wanted to do something like writing or something creative but it’s very hard to get there so I grasped every opportunity I got over the years. I studied law originally and graduated from Law School. Then around that time I was online writing on the message board for this website. I mentioned that I was going to a festival in Brussels and someone got in touch with me asking if I would be interested in interviewing Stuart Gordon who was going to be there. That led on to meeting Brian Yuzna who invited me to the set of his new movie in Spain. So I went along to that and wrote about it for Fangoria and that’s how I got into film journalism. A role in publicity came after that because it felt like a natural step and I got hired as a temp in a film publicity department.
I got into acting because I was on the set of DOOMSDAY and I got to do some of the make-up on my face and then I got onto the cover of some magazines and people were saying “So you’re an actress?” and I was like “No!” but then I thought that maybe I should try it out, so I did that a little bit of that and everything soon combined and helped me form an understanding of the bigger picture and how different areas worked which was really useful.
I have always been writing since I was a kid but directing is that one thing where I had to make a conscious decision to get into it. It took four years but it started at that moment where I decided that I didn’t want to be an actress anymore. I made a few short films but when I was on set directing for the first time, I realised that was where I was really supposed to be.
And all your work has been within horror?
Axelle Carolyn: Yeah, that’s my thing.
Can you see yourself making films in other genres?
Axelle Carolyn: I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of doing something that might be more of thriller or action film but I love horror and the supernatural too much.
Who are your favourite directors?
Axelle Carolyn: Oh God, besides all the guys from TALES OF HALLOWEEN? I usually mention David Cronenberg because he’s had this amazing career and a style you can recognise. Every one of his movies is different from the last but he is very consistent. I like people who can bring something unique to what they are doing. Tim Burton for sure because I grew up watching his movies. Maybe less of his later stuff but definitely early Burton.
I also saw a lot of French films recently that I originally watched as a kid and rediscovered like EYES WITHOUT A FACE and LES DIABOLIQUE. I love classic, old black and white horror cinema. Films like THE HAUNTING. That’s the type of question that, not being on the spot, I could talk about for thirty minutes because there are so many.
What got me into horror when I was younger was my grandfather putting, what he thought was, STARSKY AND HUTCH on a TV in my bedroom and then leaving me on my own but it turned out to be SALEM’S LOT. Was there a similar moment like that from your childhood that kick-started your passion?
Axelle Carolyn: When I was a kid I was always into the darker side of Disney. Disney had these Halloween cartoons and especially the famous skeleton dance. At the time I could only see it whenever it was on TV which was maybe once a year but that was the best two minutes of my life. That was the start of me liking spooky things but I couldn’t watch horror movies until I was about fifteen or sixteen because my Dad wouldn’t let me so I read a lot of books instead. I read most of Stephen King by the age of twelve. I got into horror mostly through books.
A lot of horror elements tend to work really well in kids films for some reason. Like the severed Queen’s head in Return To Oz and the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Axelle Carolyn: Yes and some kids really react to that. For me skeletons and ghosts were the two scariest things in the world.
You had some problems with the BBFC on your first film SOULMATE after they cut the opening suicide sequence. What are your views on censorship and did they change after that?
Axelle Carolyn: I think it’s fine to give people guidelines and to indicate whether you think something is suitable for kids or not but I don’t agree with censoring for grown ups. In the US, if you say that you won’t rate a film, there all still all kinds of alternative markets for you to release it. You can even screen it in some theatres as I understand but in any case it is not against the law. They advise people not to go and see it if they are under seventeen and I think that’s totally fine. But in the UK, to prohibit selling a movie because it’s been refused a rating is crazy and in the case of my first feature SOULMATE it’s just insane.
I don’t know if you’ve seen SOULMATE but it’s pretty tame. It’s a gothic romance, like a spooky Jane Eyre and is not much scarier than that. I really thought we would have a 12 rating but we then submitted the film and they said “unless you make sixteen seconds of cuts you’ll have an 18”. So my little gothic romance is a video nasty in it’s full shape. Those sixteen seconds of cuts made the whole thing look so silly and so I decided to cut the whole sequence. They still gave me a 15 even though there is no other blood in the film and there’s not as much as someone saying “fuck”. I don’t get it.
A lot of the ratings tend to change over time. Cut scenes get re-inserted and films re-classified.
Axelle Carolyn: And they cut my film in the same week that they allowed NECROMANTIK to be seen uncut for this first time. So NECROMANTIK is fine but my movie is not. What the hell?!
Neil Marshall: And you can see the deleted scene on youtube.
Would you go back to horror Neil?
Neil Marshall: Absolutely! I am itching to do another horror film if I can find the right project or script or get one of my own made. Certainly. I love scaring people.
You’ve been directing TV for while now with episodes of Game Of Thrones, Hannibal and Constantine. How does it feel coming back into films again with TALES OF HALLOWEEN?
Neil Marshall: Very exciting, particularly to get back on the festival circuit. To just go ahead and write and direct a story of my own then take the film around and visit places I haven’t been to for a while. Yes, to have a movie coming out is definitely fun. And also you have the creative freedom you don’t necessarily get in television. There are certain constraints due to the number of days you have to shoot and the budget you have to work with but other than that you can just do what you like.
You have had quite a few films in development. You were attached to the remake of TROLL HUNTER at one point. Is that still happening?
Neil Marshall: Film ideas get talked about a lot but what’s interesting about TALES OF HALLOWEEN is that it was pretty much been conceived and financed within the space of a week which is unbelievable. Meanwhile other film projects are talked about for years and never happen.
Will you be moving on from TV work then?
Neil Marshall: No, TV came along at an opportune moment when it was difficult to get features made. A lot of the ideas for projects that I wanted to do, fell into the mid-budget range that nobody wanted to make. I’m not very good at making ultra-low budget films. I wasn’t getting the mega-budget offers and nobody wanted to do the kind of mid-range films I had been making anymore. So the chance to work in TV happened at a great time and I have really enjoyed it but I have not given up wanting to work in features. I would like to work in both fields.
There seems to be a lot of great horror films bypassing cinemas altogether and going straight to DVD now. Films like SPRING, HONEYMOON and MIDNIGHT SON. Do you feel mainstream cinema going audiences are growing tired of horror or are they unfairly being denied the opportunity to see these films more widely on the big screen?
Axelle Carolyn: Unless you make a film that has some value of being seen on the big screen, which is usually a spectacle with effects and 3D, most people are happier watching it at home. With independent horror, which is where the most daring and interesting stuff is being made but on a low-budget, it’s very hard to make something that has the visual spectacle you would expect from a film in the theatre.
Most horror movies released in theatres try to get to that event movie level but that is not what makes a movie scary. It’s usually when you keep it down-played, low-key and simple. Something like SPRING is slow and contained. STARRY EYES has nothing that explodes in your face. You can watch those films on your TV and be fine with that. But TALES OF HALLOWEEN falls in between. It’s a good party movie which you can watch at home with your friends but it also works in the theatres. So far I have seen it twice with a big audience and it was amazing both times. People laughed, screamed and applauded and it has the kind of stuff you can discuss with friends afterwards. In the US this year we will have UMD and theatrical releases on the same day. I’m interested to see how that works out. I hope a lot of people see it on the big screen because it is better as a shared experience.
It must be quite exciting for you both to have it as the closing film at FrightFest.
Axelle Carolyn: Yeah it’s amazing! To see it with this audience and people who will recognise all the cameos. A lot of the directors who worked on it have been here at FrightFest and have presented their films. So I’m hoping people will recognise some of them. Some of the cameos in the film are easy to spot like Joe Dante, John Landis, Stuart Gordon but who you’ll see depends on how much you are into horror. Will you recognise James Wan or Drew Struzan?
Do you think film-makers working with lower budgets nowadays should be embracing their limitations more instead of showing they can make expensive looking films at a lower rate?
Axelle Carolyn: I can’t speak for everybody but personally, as much as I would like to make giant amounts of money, I’m really happy with the medium that we get to play with right now: within the smaller budget range between one and five million. There’s so much you can do with that kind of money. There are limitations and you have to think small in some ways but you can also be very ambitious. TALES OF HALLOWEEN was made for very little money and we managed to pull off some amazing stuff. There are so many great visuals including Neil’s pumpkin effects.
It’s about being creative, keeping things contained, being clear about what you want to do and having a good concept. There’s some stuff that I’d like to do that would require a bigger budget. I would love to make films abroad. I have an idea for something that I would love to shoot in Peru but I that would require a slightly bigger budget than what I am used to. Who knows, maybe there is a way.
