The Last Horror Movie is a low-budget film from England which is currently making a buzz on the horror and indie film circuits. We were able to get a glimpse into the twisted mind of the film's director, Julian Richards.

(Editor's Note: This interview was conducted via email, because all our interns quit when we wouldn't give them free copies of Bubba Ho Tep, and the rest of us are too important to do transcriptions.)

Could you give us a bit of background on how you got into filmmaking?

As a child I had an uncle (Peter) who owned his own 16mm projector and the highlight of my visits to his home was watching a silent version of The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Another uncle (Rex) had already moved to the US in 1958 to audition for the role of Tarzan in a colour re-make. He wasn't a trained actor, but he was an athletic, handsome man who played rugby for the Welsh international squad. He didn't get the part but his consolation prize was landing the role of King Wongo in The Wild Women Of Wongo, a notoriously bad independent film cast from the Tarzan rejects. Meanwhile my father (Bill) had a super 8mm camera which he used to film family holidays and when I was 14 I decided to make my own 8mm film, shooting on weekends with my school friends as actors. By this time I was already a fully fledged horror buff, so naturally my first short was entitled The Curse of Cormac. By the time I was 18 I had made another four 8mm shorts including The Girl That Cried Wolf and Evil Inspirations which helped me qualify for a place at Bournemouth Film School (a three year undergraduate course). Art Bournemouth I made two 16mm shorts Pirates and Queen Sacrifice which won Best Film at the BBC British Short Film Awards. I completed my studies with a four year post graduate course at The National Film School where I made a third 16mm short Bad Company which screened at the 1993 AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles. My first trip to Hollywood resulted in a development deal at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment for an unproduced project entitled Calling All Monsters. Between 1994 and 1996 I directed several tv dramas and documentaries for the BBC and CH4 before writing and directing my first feature film Darklands in 1997.

Your filmography boasts some pretty dark stuff. What was the inspiration for The Last Horror Movie and Max Parry?

It's always been my ambition to make a successful low budget horror in the tradition of Night of The Living Dead and Evil Dead and when I left film school in 1993 I planned a similar seige-type story called Berserkers about drug manufacturers, armed police and archaeologists trapped on a remote island being attacked by re-animated celtic warriors. Using a government tax incentive, I tried to raise £160k to shoot on 16mm but couldn't find investors. Several years later the advent of digital video, Dogme films like Festen (The Celebration) and ultimately The Blair Witch Project gave me the confidence to persue my ambition on a much lower budget. After Dog Soldiers I felt I had nothing new to contribute to the seige genre, so I focused instead on The Last Horror Movie; a video diary filmed by a serial killer. I got the idea after producing Showboys: The Naked Truth, a video diary for the BBC about my cousin (Justin) and his experience working as a male stripper. I was impressed by the video diary format as an intimate and unobtrusive form of documentary film-making and thought, wow - if a serial killer did the same thing, what would he want to tell us?

But after Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Man Bites Dog I knew I needed more than just realism to make the project different, and that's when I came up with the idea of the killer recording his film over an existing horror video rental and using it to choose his next victim. Like Orson Welles in his War Of The Worlds radio broadcasts, I not only wanted to make the video diary appear absolutely real but I wanted to present it to an audience in a way that could be real, bluring the line between fiction and reality. I think people like horror films because they can experience second hand events that they would have no desire to witness first hand and what Last Horror does is break down that fourth wall comfort zone by suggesting that, as a result of watching the film, the audience are truly in danger. It also gave me the opportunity to have an ironic swipe at the the slew of predictable teen slashers which epitomised 90's horror.

How much research went into creating Max's backstory?

James Handel (the writer) and I discussed the serial killer genre and identified a number of characteristics which had already been explored and which had now become stereotypical; the blue collar loner or social misfit (Henry), the schizophrenic (Norman Bates), the gay sexual deviant (Geoffrey Dahmer). If there was an atypical reason for identifying somebody as a suspect we chose to avoid it, instead painting Max as a normal, everyday guy-next-door, which I think is much more disturbing. By casting him so attractive and middle class we inevitably brought comparisons with American Psycho (which I have not read or seen), but if we did use a character point of reference from a previous film it would have to be Bruno Anthony from Strangers On A Train.

Although Max is single he does get involved with his sisters family, especially his nephews, Ben and Nico. But he does question her happiness in living such a predictable, middle class, suburban life, playing mother and housewife to a dull husband/brother in law. This social critique crosses over to the weddings that Max video-tapes, revealing him to be a dilettante, disaffected from what is considered to be a normal life. I'm sure that most of us can relate to Max in the context of this social satire. He's not like them, he's like us.

Finally we did allude to the idea that Max's psychosis had been brought about as a product of grief having lost his parents in a car crash. We didn't want to dwell on this because we didn't want to give any easy, pat answers, but it does lurk in the background and is certainly a contributing factor.

Did you face a lot of obstacles breaking the 4th wall with your audience? Do you think you were successful?

A critic is set on fire during an early screening of Last Horror.

Everything had to look like reality being filmed with no sense of things being contrived or manufactured. The first obstacle to overcome were the special make-up effects, particularly on such a low budget. We employed Paul Hyett, a seasoned sfx make-up artist, and provided him with 10% of our budget to produce prosthetics for the scenes in which the wedding groom gets torched alive and the art student gets her throat slit. Next was the casting. For obvious reasons I couldn't use any well known actors, so I trawled through thousands of resumes and spent about three weeks auditioning hundreds of potential cast members. The shoot itself was radically different from anything I have done before. We used available light and shot every scene from beginning to end in one long, hand held, developing shot, without any cuts. This documentary style achieved a strong sense of actuality which I think is one of the most powerful ingredients in the film. We had to shoot up to 25 takes per scene before we had something that worked from beginning to end, and this was particularly complicated when the scenes involved special make-up effects. In post-production we discovered that the camerawork and image quality were too good for a home-spun video diary, so we used After Effects to push the image out of focus when things got too close to the lense, suggesting that the settings had been left on automatic. We also desaturated the colours, concentrated the blacks and 'filmized' the image to give the effect of analog generation loss.

The key issue was a question of tone, for which the writer and ultimately the director are responsible. It's common to portray realism as neutral, understated with very little humour, like Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, but James Handel felt that Max should have a sense of humour to provide a sort of comic relief to otherwise very dark proceedings. When we screened our first cut I became concerned that the degree of humour was working against the realism, as if imposed by the writer rather than coming naturally from the character, so I re-wrote and re-shot some scenes to harden the tone and maintain fourth wall convincibility.

Were we successful? It's hard for me to say, as I'm far too close to the material. Nor have I had the opportunity of watching it on video at home with an unsuspecting audience. I have seen it in the cinema with a full house, but that's a different form of presentation where the fourth wall is obviously just a conceptual idea. I think an audiences' reaction to a horror film like this will always be cynical - 'I'm not scared, of course it's not real, it's only a movie' - but as long as there is just 5% of doubt in their minds, I'm certain that the film will come back to haunt them when they are alone and vulnerable. As Max says, "As a result of watching this film our paths have become enextricably entwined".

Do you get the kind of gut reaction from your audience you initially wanted?

Absolutely. I wanted the blend of horror and comedy to be similar to that in Scorsese's Goodfellas - the scene in the bar where Joe Pesci is tormenting Ray Liotta. Is it a joke or isn't it? As soon as the audience start laughing, I hit them with something horrible which makes them feel uncomfortable about laughing in the first place. I have to confess to being a little nervous before the theatrical premiere at London's Frightfest. The film is designed to have its biggest impact on video and I was uncertain how a theatrical audience would respond. But I needn't have worried as their reaction was very audible; they laughed in the right places, winced in the right places and the collective look of discomfort on their faces during the more harrowing scenes really did amuse me. In fact it is this collective experience that enables the film to work as a theatrical release because the overt audience reaction becomes infectious.

Critics have compared The Last Horror Movie to Man Bites Dog and The Blair Witch Project. How do you feel about that?

It appears that some critics believe that the serial killer genre has been done to death and that nobody should ever make another serial killer film again. Comparisons to Henry and Man Bites Dog are inevitable, and its true, we were greatly influenced by these films. But rather than just copy them, we used them as a point of departure and I believe contributed something fresh to an over-cooked genre. As for our pseudo-documentary style, this has become a sub-genre in its own right and it would be a pity if Man Bites Dog were the first and last of its kind.

How did you find Kevin Howarth?

Originally, I had a different actor in mind - a blue collar guy with shaven head and a strong physical presence, but after doing a read through and listening to objections from James Handel, I decided to cast the net wider. James had a friend in mind who I also auditioned, but he looked like a children's TV presenter and spoke like an English public school boy (very middle class). I knew that if I went in that direction I would alienate my audience as much as fail to frighten them, so I auditioned another 30 actors, different types and ages until I found Kevin Howarth. Kevin was able to combine a classless sophistication with a strong physical presence and both James and I agreed that he was the man for the job.

He's extraordinary in the film. What kind of preparations did he make to get into the character?

We had him go out and commit a random killing....no, but seriously, despite my advice to do so, he avoided watching Man Bites Dog and Blair Witch, and from what I gather used the writer as his key point of reference, mimicking James' speech patterns and behavioral traits. I don't think Kevin did a lot of research, his approach is more Socratic; drawing from within, his own field of experience and interpretation. He also learned his lines back to front so instead of just reading them, he could make them feel organic, spontaneous, conceived in the moment.

The Last Horror Movie came out of your demented brain, but then you handed it over to James Handel. How much input did you have during the writing process, and what did Kevin Howarth bring to the table during filming?

At one stage I was thinking of casting James as the serial killer as well as getting him to write the screenplay, but he avoids public attention and is somewhat camera shy so we just stuck to the script. The reason I wanted him to write it is because he is an academic with a PHD in philosphy which equipped him to explore some very interesting and intelligent angles on how a serial killer might attempt to morally justify his crimes. He also has a very unique and often hilariously detached view on life which I felt could be similar to that of Max Parry (which is why Kevin Howarth chose to impersonate him). At first James was reluctant because he thought the genre had been done to death, but after some persuasion he agreed to give it a go. The first attempt was way off the mark and read more as a comedy spoof, so I re-wrote the first ten pages, establishing a more serious, realistic tone and then James took over. We had a few brainstorming sessions along the way where I contributed ideas, but ultimately James is responsible for much of the script and although it looks like it was improvised during the shoot, the fact is it wasn't, which is testament to James' excellent dialogue and Kevin's brilliant performance.

However, when I looked at our first cut, I realised that some of that farcical comedic tone from James' first attempt had crept back in and there was also a failed attempt at playing about with the narrative structure (a la Memento and Irreversible) three quarters of the way through the story which basically lost the plot. I therefore re-wrote and re-shot several scenes to re-establish a harder, more convincing tone as well as restructuring the third act to run as a straightforward A to Z narrative. James took issue with these changes and still disagrees with them today, but hey, I'm the director and although I always listen to my collaborators I don't always expect to agree with them.

This film asks a lot of challenging questions to the viewer. What was the ultimate message you wanted to convey to the audience?

With this being a video diary made by a serial killer, I think the question is more - 'what did Max want to convey to his audience?' In this context I think he was appealing to the monster within us all (the monster that enjoys violence as entertainment or the monster that watches death and destruction caused by third world poverty on TV, yet won't contribute anything to help) as a means of proving that he is not as far removed from us as we would like to think. He's saying, don't condemn me before first trying to understand me and by understanding me you may come to understand a little bit more about yourself, good and bad.

What was your reaction to winning the award for Best British Feature at London's famous Raindance festival?

I was pleased that the jury had the balls to give us the award. Raindance is known for supporting the independent spirit but other more established competitions in the UK tend to be quite conservative with awards being handed out to the usual suspects in a ceremony of incestuous back slapping. I was also pleased that a horror film beat out other non-genre fare, which apart from the Oscars won by Silence Of The Lambs, is very unusual. Too often the horror genre is looked down upon by the established industry as inferior, not far from pornography.

Can you explain the advertising campaign you used at Cannes and who came up with this clever idea?

During the Cannes Film Festival I came up with the idea of deploying a guerilla marketing campaign involving thousands of 'Murder: Police Appeal For Assistance' posters which had everybody convinced that a serial killer was at large in the Cote D'Azur. I used my girlfriend's cell phone on the poster and as soon as Kevin Howarth arrived in Cannes we started to receive calls: 'I have seen him, the killer...outside Hotel Majestic'. As a result, Last Horror became one of the buzz titles in Cannes with three sold out theaters and spontaneous applause at the end of each show (which is unheard of in a market screening).

What kind of release did this get in England and what can we expect here in the states?

"Look, I haven't seen American Psycho. Stop asking me that or I'll tear out your liver."

On June 18th, Last Horror had its first theatrical, week long run, in Austin, Texas, and over the next six months it will appear at independent cinemas across the States. In November Hart Sharp and Fangoria Magazine will release the DVD as the first in their Gorezone label. As the MPAA have refused to certify Last Horror, the theatrical release is unrated, but in order to qualify for an R rating the DVD will have to be censored. At the same time I think unrated versions of Last Horror will be available mail order through Fangoria.

What's in the future?

Through my company, Prolific Films, I'm developing a Hitcher-esque serial killer thriller called Long Dark Hours in which Kevin Howarth will play the killer. Meanwhile, to show a completely different side, I'm developing a romantic comedy called Love Bites, which is sort of a London take on Doug Liman's Swingers.
I'm also getting offers from Hollywood, so who knows what will be next?