Pulp Features

Christian James is the writer, director and producer behind horror/comedy, Freak Out which is described on the IMDb as “The best film about a camp vegetarian serial killer ever!”.

After graduating the prestigious Bournemouth Film School, Chris worked for generic T.V stations before returning to the world of education at Farnham Film School. Knowing he wasn’t on to a winner when on the first day he was booed for singing the praises of “Jurassic Park” and “Ferris Bueller” over that of Ingmar Bergman, things went from bad to worse. It was not a good time and, becoming restless making documentaries about stoned student life and short films with ‘twists in the tale’, he skipped the last term in favour of getting some work experience on “Entrapment”.

From there, he went on to make a satirical Star Trek documentary “A Bad Case Of The Klingons” and the award winning short “Hello Francis!” out of which “Freak Out” was born.

His favourite porn star is Jill Kelly and he managed to find some time to talk to Dale Pierce about horror, comedy and making low budget films.

Dale: First off, what interested you in horror films or horror comedy, which seems to be your main interest?
Christian: Horror was something I was fascinated by when I was younger. I was discouraged from watching Horror flicks, so naturally, that was all I wanted to watch. If I were to go down the road and rent a DVD I would steer toward horror, but when I’m making my own stuff I get more of a kick out of doing comedy. Originally we wanted to craft a ‘self aware’ horror movie, however since we first wrote “Freak Out” an entire post-modern wink, wink sub genre has been and gone. Even Horror spoof has made a (extremely bad) return. Luckily as we shot “Freak Out” we kept our collective fingers on the pulse of the movies around us. You could easily plot the trend and that enabled us to shift the focus of “Freak Out” toward comedy quite early on.

It’s strange how horror keeps getting spoofed, ha,haa, yes “Exorcist” recreations are still really hilariously funny and fresh…30 years on! We just decided to take the little things that horror buffs would notice and plant them in the background. Like the Blair Witch play, if you see it, great! If not it shouldn’t affect the scene you’re watching.

Dale: Did you study film anywhere?
Christian: Bournemouth. I did a National Diploma course there. It was basically the lecturers showing you how the equipment worked at the beginning of year one. Then you’d come back at the end of year 2 with a load of (mostly shabby) work. Some students would just turn up for the 1st day and the last day of the course, and they’d still get the same level diploma as a guy/girl who’d been working their ass’s off for two years. It was on this course I met fellow filmmaker: Dan Palmer. We fell somewhere between the two extremes. We’d usually attend, but get given really shitty jobs on older students’ productions (we were the youngest on the course). After a while we’d just grab a camera, skip a lecture and make our own stuff.

After that course I started a degree course in Farnham. It was pretty shaky stuff. Our first project was a documentary, edited in camera!!!! The week we started the course they purchased 13 NL edit systems. “When do we get to use them?” I enthusiastically asked. “Wait until you’re in the 2nd year.” You know you’re not onto a winner when the lecturer can’t be bothered to attend his own lectures, and this was supposed to be one of the top courses in the country. Hmmm, it was time to leave.

Dale: From the past, who were your favourite film personalities?
Christian: Strangely before I even knew film directing was a career option, I always admired guys like Joe Dante, John Landis, Sam Raimi and Steven Spielberg. I have never been much in awe of film stars. I once met Darth Vader in my local Beales store when Jedi was coming out. That’s probably the most awesome thing I’ve seen…Even if it was an out of work actor in the suite, I still thought it was the real deal.

Dale: Why don’t you tell everyone about your company? Give us the whole scoop on who works there and where it is, how and when formed, the whole bit?
Christian: Beyond Therapy don’t have offices at the moment. We all have office rooms in our houses. Yazz Fetto, Dan Palmer and myself run the company on a day to day basis. Dan and I live in Bournemouth, Yazz in London. 90% of our daily tasks involve e-mailing. There’s nothing exciting to tell really. It’s always more fun when we’re making something. It’s been a while, we’re working on getting another movie in the pipe.

Dale: Now talk all about “Freak Out”. What is the plot?
Christian: A young horror fan gets spooked by an inept stalker. It all goes horribly wrong and the wannabe whacko ends up out for the count. Seeing an opportunity to cast some light into his dull repetitive life Merv Doody decides to turn this camp, sitcom loving thesp’ into the ultimate movie maniac.

Dale: Where did you find the people to play in it?
Christian: Many of the supporting cast are friends. It wasn’t a case of writing a script and trying to get our inexperienced pals to play a part. Instead we’d write with people in mind. “Oh, that’s only a one line part, we can give that to the sound guy to do” etc, etc.

Luckily my co-writer and partner in crime, Dan Palmer, was playing the 2nd main part.

James Heathcote (who plays Merv) actually sent us the worst audition tape I think I will ever see. Dan actually said “over my dead body will that guy be in our film” however after a prank phone call in which James agreed to do nude scenes, we thought he might have the commitment needed to complete am inevitably long shoot. We met James with a view to playing a much smaller part, but we had him read Merv’s lines for convenience. As fate would have it he did damn fine job.

It’s so difficult to cast a movie when you can’t pay your actors. Once you’ve exposed them to celluloid, you’re committed to that person. You have to make filming fun, ‘cause if it’s a Brian DePalma type set, they just won’t come back for day 2. It’s an impossible balance to strike, you have to be strict, but you have to respect that people are giving up their free time, for free.

Dale: What about funding as that is always difficult for ‘indie’ people?
Christian: I can’t speak for other filmmakers, but it was very, very hard to get money. We wanted to make a fun comedy horror. Not patronise or preach to an audience. It seems that if you make a Brit film it has to tackle class struggles or some form of discrimination.

After a while we actually found ourselves having to lie about our nationalities to get funding from local arts grants. It’s a shame you can’t be honest with those guys. It was never, and never will be about the money for us, yet because we had a contemporary, linear story we were seen as a commercial film!!! Then you go and have an industry screening and half the execs in attendance come out and say “Great movie, never seen anything like it. Not very commercial, though” Ahhhh, how frustrating. This is just the tip of a very, very big ice-berg, but I’ll stop before I give myself an aneurism.

Dale: Are more projects planned?
Christian: Yes, loads. However I can’t go into detail yet. Keep your eyes peeled on www.freakoutmovie.com As soon as we can announce stuff it’ll be on there first.

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