West Discusses His Evil
Dread Central reports:
Ever since a reader contacted us a few weeks back to rave about Jake (Razor Blade Smile) Wests sophomore effort, Evil Aliens, it seems weve been getting more and e-mails about it every day. Of course this inevitably leads to hearing from the director himself, and thankfully West was kind enough to take some time to chat with me about, first and foremost, what hes been doing in the seven years since Smile came out.
‘Razor Blade Smile took 3 years to complete and was made for only 20,000 on 16mm and we got a UK theatrical release. After it was done I spent a year promoting it, and after that period I was pretty burned out. Palm Pictures/Manga asked me to pen a sequel script for Razor Blade Smile, entitled RBS II: The Devils Vendetta and took a year to write. It was pretty epic in sope and completely re-invented the Lilith Silver character to her full potential as a vampire screen icon. However, it was deemed too expensive (it only needed about $3 million) by Palm Pictures so the project stalled and is as yet unmade. After that I started work on a couple more scripts. Evil Aliens was the one that got everyone ‘bloody’ excited, and when I took it into Falcon Media they put up the money and the rest is, as they say, history.’
So how did he go from a vampire film to something as reportedly over the top as Evil Aliens? Where did the idea come from? ‘Being abducted as a child…no seriously, I thought that as everyone else was making or remaking zombie films, I should try and come up with something different. It struck me that the cool thing about aliens is they make great bad guys, especially if they’re pure evil. They look cool, have a mysterious back story and they can be killed by the heroes with complete impunity, which really adds to the fun!’
Indeed it does, but whats the fun of sticking said heroes on a farm in the middle of nowhere? ‘The idea of stranding the heroes (in this case a television crew & actors) on a remote Welsh farming island really appealed to me as a) The characters are in an alien environment and can’t even understand the locals and B) Once the aliens attack they have to tool up with the only available weapons, i.e. farming implements, to defend themselves. And boy are there some funky weapons on a farm! This gives a lot of scope for some super blood soaked set pieces!’
Since the juicy stuff has been brought up, I think its important to know just how much of Evil Aliens is done with real effects and how much with (shudder) digital. ‘I’d say at least a 1:20 ratio in terms of Digital to Traditional Prosthetics and gore.
Although theres a lot of Digital FX work it’s only because stuff like UFO’s and alien motherships etc. don’t exist in real life and are very expensive to build and fly. There’s way more traditional prosthetic and gore effect than anything else in this film. Life Creations came up with some awesome gore gags for the movie. We really get that blood flying! Everyday we ran out of blood!’
You know youre doing something right when you run out of blood every single day. So the obvious fear that comes up now is; is there just simply too much gore? ‘The story always has to come first, as without a satisfying structure you don’t get to enjoy the fun as much. However the story was written as a fun, gory splatter movie so don’t worry about it pussying out. It delivers!’
Excited yet? I know I am. The real burning question is, then, when the hell do we get to see it? ‘It sold to Content Film who will be handling the UK and US theatrical. At Cannes the films sold most major territories so will be coming out in most countries either theatrically or on DVD. I can’t say exactly when the release date is as it has yet been set. I hope later this year.
It should also be playing more festivals. We just won Best Film as the San Francisco Indiefest (Yet) Another Hole in the Head Fest, which was awesome, and the audience went wild for the movie. As soon as I have release dates and festival play dates I’ll post them on my site‘
Damn straight!
West also said that, in terms of who in Hollywood hed love to work with ‘Well the mind boogles…I’d love to work with Gary Oldman and put him in a seriously scary horror film as it’s rare to see such a high caliber actor in a genre project. Though from a sheer gleeful splatter point of view I’d love to see Bruce Campbell face off with a werewolf Angela Jolie (and I do have a pet project called Hellcats but that’s another story).’
Ohhhh…Campbell in a werewolf picture? Id be very hip to that, indeed.
Wests currently working on a haunted house flick called Scarehouse, but most of his efforts over the next few months will be spent getting the word out about Evil Aliens. Be sure to check out Wests official site for the latest updates.
Courtesy of Dread Central
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