The original Bordello Death Tales largely came about (as you can discover from the bonus features) because my friend and co-conspirator Jim Eaves and his wonderful wife Laura were expecting their first child. Jim wanted to get another project completed before his daughter’s arrival, and knowing that he wouldn’t be able to fit a feature shoot into such a tight timescale he came up with the idea of putting an anthology together.
He approached me about the idea after a premiere screening of his movie Bane (which I thoroughly recommend you go and pick up). I thought it was a great idea, since Jinx didn’t have enough cash in our coffers to support another feature shoot at that point, but would be able to commit to a third of a feature without too many problems. I suggested Al Ronald as a potential third director, who was, happily, also up for it. And it all just dropped into place.
This time around, rather brilliantly, Jim and Laura are once again expecting a child. Our date to lock picture is dictated partly by industry considerations and required release dates, and partly by good old-fashioned biology. The schedule this time has been crazier than ever, but I’m ridiculously excited about the movie and the footage I’ve seen so far. I’m hopeful that there will be a teaser trailer up in the next few weeks, and then hopefully you guys can start getting excited about it too.
The Battlefield shoot has also given me a chance to work with some of my favourite actors again (take a bow Jess Luisa Flynn and Geoff Sleight), meet some new actors (such as the wonderful Liza Keast, who stepped into a role at the last minute and was utterly fantastic) and also get to play around with rubber monsters and pyrotechnics in a way that we never really have before. It’s been a uniformly positive experience and has renewed my joy and enthusiasm for making films.
I’m already itching to go shoot another Death Tales movie, even before this one has been assembled (the three sections are always edited in isolation by their respective directors before being stitched together into one beast) but I’m also eager to go and shoot a feature again. House on the Witchpit is bubbling away on the back-burner awaiting the last piece of the funding puzzle to drop into place. The screenplay for Chainsaw Fairytale is getting close to completion but still has a question-mark hovering over its eventual destination; I wrote it expecting to sell it to someone else, but now feel strangely reticent to let it out of my sight.
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