Feast scribe previews directing horror debut
There is a reputable pile of genre films sitting on writer-director Marcus Dunstan’s desk: Deep Red, Suspiria, The Shining, Body Double. Well, maybe a lot of folks don’t groove to that last film (but this writer does), nevertheless, Dunstan is surrounding himself with good company while in post-production on his directorial debut Midnight Man for Dimension Films. Co-written by Dunstan’s longtime partner in crime Patrick Melton, Midnight‘s premise pits an ex-con, attempting to steal a jewel in a posh home, against a killer who has rigged the joint with traps. Oh, and the sicko has also kidnapped Stewart’s family.
When ShockTillYouDrop.com visits the offices of Neo Art & Logic – where Dunstan and Melton got their break with the Project Greenlight gross-out flick Feast – Dunstan is eight days into editing. His editor spins us a brief preview cut to a Trent Reznor remix. I have to keep mum on the details of what I saw, but I’ll tell you, it did beg me to ask the question, “What the f**k is happening to the cat?”
The editor laughs and Dunstan responds, “If you’re wondering what happened to the cat, wait until you see what we did to the dog!” To which he then regales us with a story about said canine that involves taxidermy and fire. Divulging much more steers us into spoiler territory.
The presence of Argento, Kubrick and DePalma’s works on DVD isn’t just for show. Dunstan explains these are some of the films that have inspired Midnight. That, and he’s borrowing a few music cues for temp music during the film’s assembly. “The first half of the movie is absolutely a thriller and then a horror movie literally unlocks the door and starts knocking everybody down,” he says. “Two movies collide at the dead center. So, we’re also coming up with a meditative Thief vibe and allowing that to run into the Tooth Fairy from Manhunter. Then shit goes bad.”
Dunstan’s editor chimes in, “Shit goes real bad!” then leaves the room allowing us to chat further about the production experience.
Shooting took place in Shreveport, Louisiana and “The first five days [featured an] explosion, flipping a car, we had rain, kids, stunts… After that trial, for the last week of shooting, we’re in the basement of a house, so the shooting momentum decelerated. It was almost like a flood that went down to a trickle. If one could survive the first week, you know you’ll be okay.”
“What I was satisfied with was that we were able to shoot film,” he adds. “Were we to use the [HD] F900 – it’s big – and we’re in a car shooting, we wouldn’t be able to do anything with that. Fortunately, with 16mm, the camera body is smaller and we were able to whip it around. It was just so bad-ass.”
Midnight also stars Michael Reilly Burke, Karley Scott Collins and Juan Fernández, but Dunstan exudes a sinister kind of glee when talking about pushing leading man Stewart through hell. “The second we began shooting we were on a road. We turn on our rain machines and we noticed his hair turned white, it was because the temperature had dipped to 27-degrees and he was freezing. He was lying on this road, keeping absolutely still.” On stunt duties, Dunstan found himself working alongside Death Proof‘s muscle car-straddling road racer Zoe Bell. “She was awesome, we threw her through glass, down stairs, impaled her – she played all of the women in the movie. That was just a treat!”
Right now, Dunstan still has a ways to go before completion. Between bouncing to the editing room down the hall – where director John Gulager is editing Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds, penning the new Hellraiser picture (with Melton), keeping tabs on Saw V and finishing his duties on Midnight Man, it’s all horror all of the time. Not a bad place to be and Dunstan is all grins about his position. Before we depart, we inquire about Midnight‘s tonal shifts which he is actively playing around with now.
“I’m being very picky about is finding the themes,” he says noting how music will play an integral part in the film. “If the killer has an insect motif, we’re picking all string-based music cues.” He holds up Body Double referencing Pino Donnagio’s work. “For our hero, we’ll go towards the Manhunter score, so he’s meditative in that vein. The two will hopefully collide musically as well as visually. What I love is this film has two guys dressed in black, one leans towards a different side of evil. The hero is a bad guy, too. So one is worse than the other.”
Source: Ryan Rotten
