You would not know it by looking at his normal-in-every-way Aussie male exterior, but Larry Van Duynhoven creates movie moments that remain seared in your memory. From the infamous head drilling in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones to the battlefield carnage of Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge to the man-machine mayhem of Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, the special effects make-up and prosthetic wizardry of Van Duynhoven is legendary, both in the Australian production sector and to horror fans the world over.
His latest masterwork can be seen in The Furies, director Tony D’Aquino’s all-or-nothing homage to the stark, splattery slasher pics of the 70s (notably, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and the 80s (Friday the 13th, et al). Following the film’s recent screening at Fangoria x Monster Fest in Melbourne (where it won Best Australian Film), Larry Van Duynhaven spoke with SCREEN-SPACE’s Simon Foster before an enthralled crowd about creating horrible, beautiful viscera for your viewing pleasure…
VAN DUYNHOVEN: “When Tony came to Melb and we started talking about it, one of the first things I said to him was, “Can we get an R-rating?” And he said, “Sure, why not?” And I was frank, letting him know that so many horror films have been made over the last few years that don’t really hit a mark. I wanted to go a bit more crazy with the gore, otherwise we were only going to get three people in the cinema – you, and the producer and the projectionist. I told him, “Don’t think about Australia, think about the world” and he agreed and we kind of got on straight away.”
VAN DUYNHOVEN: “It was a $1.5million film, which is not a lot of money, but it forced us to really go for practical effects. And that was good for me. These days, you’re on-set a lot, and there’s a lot of just (overseeing) the CGI, that attitude of ‘We’ll put a bullet wound in later.’ There’s so much green everywhere, it’s just taken over. So, yeah, we got to do pretty much all of it practical, with just a couple of CG shots to clean things up later.”
VAN DUYNHOVEN: “I don’t normally get to blow up heads myself. We make it, give it to the special effects guy who then get to put their explosives in, do all that fun stuff. But there was no affording that on this budget, so we had to build the rigs. So me and my team got to do almost everything, which was nerve-wracking. I had another effects make-up artist called Sheldon Wade and a young assistant Rachel Scane on-set, so it was just the three of us, plus Helen Magaleki doing make-up and hair, who helped us a lot. It was a bit crazy, but a lot of fun.”
VAN DUYNHOVEN: “In the six weeks pre-production time, I worked with a conceptual artist called Seth Justice. He’s a good friend, so I rang him and had him on board right from the start, thinking up some cool designs; Seth’s quite smart, not like me. Tony came with some ideas, which were terrible (laughs). No, not really, but we’d sort of seen them before – bunny rabbits, stuff like that, from Donnie Darko and You’re Next, a bit jumbled. I was trying to persuade him to go in another direction. And he was very open, he’s very good like that, but coming up with an idea that suited (the premise) of the film was hard to do.”
VAN DUYNHOVEN: “Seth came up with some very cool ideas that we ran with. The guy that’s wearing human skin, we tried to make him resemble ‘The Scarecrow’ in The Wizard of Oz. Tony wanted this babyface-type of character, so we modelled that a bit on Pinocchio. It was fun to take well-known characters from different films and stories and interpret them in this way.”
THE FURIES will screen Thursday October 31 at 9.30pm in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest Takes on Australia 2019. Visit the event’s official website for full details.
Friday the 13th under the glow of a full moon seemed an entirely appropriate time for the Monster Fest team to launch the final wave of films in their mammoth 2019 program. The official program of the 8th annual horror hoedown dropped to excited gorehounds at Cinema Nova last night, most of which hung around for a special event screening of Travis Steven’s cult-hit-in-the-making, Girl on The Third Floor.
The announcement that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett’s Ready Or Not (pictured, above) and Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space – two of the hottest horror properties of the year – will have their Australian debuts in Melbourne meant that not enough hours in the day exist to accommodate the expanded roster of first release features, industry events, short-film sessions and retrospective celebrations.
After the Opening Night carnage on October 10, when director Rob Zombie’s 3 From Hell is unleashed, the newly-monikered Fangoria x Monster Fest Part VIII: Monster Takes Melbourne will blow out to October 18. This will allow ample time for the six World Premieres and 20 Australian Premieres on offer amongst the features, as well as four short-film showcases, four retro-sessions, two industry panel chats and a VHS swap-meet.
Richard Stanley’s return to the director’s chair with Color Out of Space is one of the most highly anticipated resurrections in recent cinema history. Best known for being fired from his ill-fated 1996 reimagining of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, Stanley’s adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft alien-invasion classic is his first narrative feature since 1992. Starring Nicholas Cage and picked up for US distribution by the team who backed the actor’s most recent cult-hit Mandy, the film bowed in the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness strand last week. Trade bible Variety noted that the film, “sports a directorial personality distinct enough to make one grateful for Stanley’s return.” (Pictured, above: l-r, Cage, co-star Joely Richardson and Stanley, on-set)
Featuring a star-making turn from Australian actress Samara Weaving, Ready or Not is the blood-soaked tale of a wedding-night parlour-game gone bad, forcing a shocked but increasingly self-sufficient bride to fight back against her new in-laws and their murderous intent. Also starring Adam Brody, Henry Czerny and a snarling Andie McDowell as the mother-in-law from Hell, the U.S. indie has proved one of the sleeper hits of the American summer, taking US$27million and earning a Best Picture nomination at the prestigious Spanish genre fest, Sitges.
Maxing out the Fangoria x Monster Fest schedule are such locally-made must-sees as Stuart Stantons’ No Such Thing as Monsters, a bush-set bloodbath earning comparisons to Wes Craven’s 1977 classic, The Hills Have Eyes; Tony D’Aquino’s splatter shocker The Furies, already earning global festival kudos; and, Justin Dix’s stylish haunted high-seas romp, Blood Vessel.
The always-popular retrospective screenings are fronted by the Australian Premiere of Stewart Raffill’s fully-restored 1994 oddity Tammy & The T-Rex (pictured, right), in which a teenage Denise Richards falls for a re-animated dinosaur that has become possessed with the spirit of her late boyfriend (the also-late Paul Walker). Umbrella Entertainment will debut their 4K restoration of Kimble Rendall’s 2000 slasher pic, Cut, starring Molly Ringwald and Kylie Minogue; the 30th anniversary of the Aussie no-budgeter Houseboat Horror will be celebrated with a post-screening QA; and, a rare showing of Brian De Palma’s 1974 rock opera Phantom of The Paradise will be accompanied by Malcolm Ingram’s fan doc, Phantom of Winnipeg, which ponders the question, “Why was the Canadian city the only place in the world that De Palma’s notorious flop was a huge hit?”
The selection of 10 horror shorts have been directed by Australian women filmmakers, with a wraparound narrative starring Andrea Demetriades (pictured, above) as ‘Clara’ and directed by Megan Riakos binding the diverse narratives.
The overarching plot focuses on Clara, as she begins to sort through her deceased mother’s home. She discovers a mysterious heirloom, the ‘Book of Dark Whispers’, filled with chapter after chapter of strange stories. Each weird tale reveals a new facet of the twisted human, or not so human, psyche. (Pictured, right; from left, 1st AC Carina Burke, Riakos, Demetriades. Photo: Lauren Orrell)
“Our motivation for making the film was to release more wicked and wonderful stories by women into the world, much as our protagonist unleashes powerful ideas with each page she turns,” says Riakos, director of the 2015 feature Crushed and NSW chair of the industry body Women in Film and Television (WIFT). “It’s a metaphor for the darkness that lurks within us all.”
In addition to Riakos, directors contributing to the project are Angie Black, Briony Kidd, Isabel Peppard, Janine Hewitt, Jub Clerc, Kaitlin Tinker, Katrina Irawati Graham, Lucy Gouldthorpe, Madeleine Purdy and Marion Pilowsky.
A high-profile roster of Australian acting talent is on board, including Asher Keddie (X-Men Origins: Wolverine; The Hunting), Anthony LaPaglia (Lantana; Holding the Man), Tosh Greenslade (Mad As Hell), Melanie Irons (Noirhouse) and Bree Desborough (Home and Away).
Riakos and producing partner Leonie Marsh are overseeing the project, with Deadhouse Films’ Enzo Tedeschi on board as Executive Producer and Briony Kidd, co-founder of female-focussed horror film event Stranger With My Face, serving as Associate Producer. (Pictured, left; l-r, Tedeschi, Riakos and Marsh)
It was while attending Kidd’s Hobart-based festival that Riakos found inspiration for the project. In June, she told IF.com.au, “The festival focuses on female filmmakers whose films take a unique approach to genre storytelling. I wanted to bring films like that to a wider audience.”
Following the CinefestOz launch, Dark Whispers – Volume 1 will seek further festival placement ahead of a planned 2020 theatrical season.
Even with a filmography that includes gorehound favourites like Blood Moon Rising (2009), Slaughter Creek (2011) and .357 (2013), Brian Skiba must have been in the most adventurous of creative moods when he decided to sign on for Rottentail, the blood-soaked and bawdy big-screen adaptation of author and friend David Hayes underground graphic novel classic. “The concept of a bunny man going home to seek revenge on high school bullies is just so out there, I knew that I wanted to be the guy to helm such a project,” Skiba says, securing a cast that includes Dominique Swain, William McNamara and an up-for-anything Corin Nemec in the title role (pictured, below; Skiba, left, and his leading man). “It’s okay to laugh, I promise,” the director told SCREEN-SPACE in a lengthy interview ahead of Rottentail's assault on select U.S. theatres from April 12.
SCREEN-SPACE: When did you first attach yourself to the adaptation? What was it about the creative minds behind the novel that you gravitated towards?
SKIBA: The writer David Hayes, who is a long-time friend, introduced me to Travis McIntire of Source Point Press and together the three of us developed of the film. I’d read the graphic novel and thought it was very funny with roots that dug into something much deeper. Rottentail is the typical David Hayes screwball humour with a twist of demented horror and a splash of social commentary. David was a huge contributor on my first feature, Blood Moon Rising. I can attribute a lot of my success directly to him and will always be grateful for his help and direction in my career.
SCREEN-SPACE: You mash-up some classic sub-genres - body-horror in the first act; the vengeful anti-hero in the second half. And there are classic ‘romantic literature’ archetypes at work, recalling Beauty and The Beast or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rottentail has legitimate roots in the great monsters of lore…
SKIBA: (Laughs) Thank you and yes, David and I are both English majors who love to mash genres. When we wrote the adaptation we were very focused on making Rottentail an anti-hero-monster who harkens back to the classic monsters mentioned above. We wanted the audience to cheer for Rottentail. With regards to him being “The Beast”, I think that’s a great example of how we wrote the relationship between Rottentail and Anna. Spoiler alert… I love tragic endings.
SCREEN-SPACE: Rottentail recalls the unleashed id of iconic characters like The Toxic Avenger and Brundlefly. What were the films and filmmakers that influenced you and your directing style?
SKIBA: I was that kid who would stay up all night watching every ‘B’ movie deemed “bad” by my parents that hit the antenna of my tiny 8” dial colour TV. Kids these days have it so easy; if they knew the positions I would lay in while holding that antenna, just so I could get reception. (Laughs) And then rental stores became a thing and that was a whole new addiction. Films like Bloody Mama, Children of the Corn, Rolling Thunder, Ice Pirates, Cold Sweat, Enter the Dragon, and Swamp Thing; directors like Sam Raimi, De Palma, Craven, Carpenter, Bruce Lee and the comedy of Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and Cheech and Chong. I remember the first time I watched John Waters’ Pink Flamingo and I was like, ‘Holy shit, that is a work of art.’ I love really big characters that have deranged motives for almost no reason, so Rottentail made sense to me.
SCREEN-SPACE: The aesthetic screams ‘80s VHS horror. There is an authentic ‘griminess’ about the design and look of this film…
SKIBA: I chose a hybrid of old VHS and that ‘dirty film’ look, to homage those old VHS tapes. There is something to be said about some 16mm grain, dirty pixels, a six-foot bunny-man, an evil preacher, and fifty gallons of blood. To me, that’s a film. Furthermore, you can’t just get the ‘grindhouse look’ out of a camera these days, you have to artistically create it, or re-create, and to me that process has become an art that I enjoy. Rottentail is a grindhouse homage to the films I loved to watch as a pre-teen during the ‘80s. (Pictured, right; Skiba with friend)
SCREEN-SPACE: Given that he’s also an ugly manifestation of angry masculinity, what elements make Rottentail a character for these times?
SKIBA: You have to look at the entire Rottentail story to understand why we designed his look like we did. In our current day of instant gratification, we’ve also entered the age of instant demoralization. It’s so easy to feel like a complete piece of shit after spending five minutes on social media. There is always someone richer, stronger, faster, sexier, better than you. Bullies can create a fake identity, go to someone’s profile, and virtually beat him or her up with little or no consequence. ‘Peter Cotten’ is the embodiment of a geek who has been abused all his life. As Rottentail, Peter gets everything he’s ever wanted, and then realizes that all he ever needed was revenge on the bullies who killed his pet rabbit and to get with his high school crush, Anna. The message that makes Rottentail a character for these times is: Attention bullies of the world! If you kill someone’s pet rabbit (or post shitty stuff on Instagram or Facebook) watch out! You never know what mutated son of a bitch will pop out and pay what’s due.
SCREEN-SPACE: What was the pitch to Corin Nemec that got him on board? What did he bring to ‘Rottentail’ that was so crucial to the character?
SKIBA: When we started casting Rottentail I went through a couple hundred actors but didn’t feel any of them were the right fit. I asked (casting director) Ricki Masler to call Corin Nemec, who is a great character actor and just maybe would do this part for me. A few hours later I was on the phone with Corin, who is a prolific painter and collects graphic novels. He read Rottentail long before our conversation and when I mentioned the title, and the fact he would play Rottentail, Corin was in. He studied the movements of rabbits, how they ate, even how they copulated. We had his fake teeth made months before we shot the film and he would call me with different voices while wearing the teeth around his house. When he walked onto set after two-hours in the make-up chair, I knew he was Rottentail. He embodied the role and gave us little gems that still make me laugh, even after seeing the film a couple hundred times. (Pictured, above; Nemec as 'Peter Cotten')
SCREEN-SPACE: What essential quality did real-world/non-CGI gore and prosthetic artistry bring to your film?
SKIBA: If I can do it practically, I will. I would study book after book as a kid on how to build creatures and models for film. The process fascinated me. When you apply prosthetics to an actor there is a soul under all that foam and latex that gives the character life. This is something that CGI can’t emulate. When David and Travis came to me and asked that I direct the film, I told them my one term was that Rottentail had to look amazing no matter the cost. I reached out to producer Josh Tessier and he called Todd Tucker, known for Mrs. Doubtfire and Pirates of the Caribbean. Todd doesn’t do every film that drops on his front door step, but after I pitched him my vision for Rottentail, he was in. His company provided our makeup effects, puppetry and special effects. I was very lucky to have such a great artist working with us.
SCREEN-SPACE: The thrill of seeing a man-rabbit on a killing spree aside, what do you hope your audience takes from the film?
SKIBA: I want them to laugh! This film has dumb moments, cheap moments, trashy moments, and just plain outrageously wrong moments. Laugh at it! Take ninety minutes of your life, let go of being politically correct, let the air out of the stuffy room! Forget the day to day grind that makes you an adult and re-live a simpler time, when we were all young and movies came in a little black box with reel-to-reel magnetic tape that sometimes made more noise than the single TV speaker. Because, even without the high-end, million-dollar visual effects, those movies were pretty damn good and really fun to watch.
Monster Fest will expand their current arrangement with Australia’s largest exhibition chain Event Cinemas to bring a greater degree of horror film programming to key sites nationally it was announced today.
Since 2011, Monster Fest has been Melbourne’s leading genre festival event; in 2019, it returns to the Cinema Nova complex from October 11th to 13th for the 8th edition of the festival. This will be five full weeks ahead of the traditional late November dates usually occupied by Monster Fest, a move deemed necessary to accommodate the new national screening roster. It is anticipated that the first round of the Event Cinema sessions will coincide with the Halloween trading period before rolling out through November.
Monster Fest director Grant Hardie (pictured, right) has overseen successful ‘Travelling Roadshow’ events beyond the Melbourne base in recent years and views this new plan as the natural progression in the organisation’s relationship with exhibition giant. “Since we started the festival our plan has always been to take it nationally and make it the largest and best known genre festival in this part of the world,” Hardie said. “This continued partnership with Event Cinemas in 2019 makes this a reality.”
Claire Gandy (pictured, below), Event Cinema’s General Manager for Content, attended Monster Fest 2018 to discuss with Hardie his vision for a national horror festival rollout. “Having seen the continued growth of Monster Fest Melbourne in the last few years we at Event wanted to bring that experience to some of our major sites around the country,” said Gandy, “and we are very excited to see how we can work together to make that a reality.” In 2018, the 100 year-old cinema chain paired with the horror festival to turn a limited release run of the Nicholas Cage shocker Mandy into an old-fashioned late night cult movie smash.
Last November, Monster Fest unveiled some of the most controversial genre titles of the year, including Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete with Mel Gibson, Jonas Akerlund’s Lords of Chaos and the latest provocation from Lars von Trier, the serial killer epic The House That Jack Built. The festival prides itself on supporting local talent, with Caitlin Stoller’s 30 Miles from Nowhere and Matthew Victor Pastor’s MAGANDA! Pinoy Boy vs Milkman having their World Premieres at Cinema Nova last year; it is envisioned these types of films will enjoy an unprecedented level of national exposure under the new initiative in large-scale auditoriums they may not otherwise occupy.
“In 2018 submissions increased by over 100%, and we had the strongest shorts program since the festival began,” says Hardie. “The interest internationally for Monster Fest is beyond our wildest dreams.” Submissions are now open for features, short films and expanded cinema projects for the expanded 2019 program.
Further information detailing the 2019 Monster Fest program and participating Event cinemas will be announced in the months ahead.
Friday, October 25, 2019 at 8:19PM 
