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![[Kevin Howarth chats up the birds in The Last Horror Movie]](../images/features/lasthorror1.jpg)
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![[One of Max Parry's victims enjoys his 15 minutes of fame in The Last Horror Movie]](../images/features/lasthorror2.jpg)
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Congratulations, gents, on a disturbing piece of work. For the uninitiated, the movie centres on a perfectly erudite wedding photographer, who happens to be a serial killer with a fetish for videotaping his grisly exploits. Where did the idea spring from? Julian Richards: "After doing Darklands in 1997, I went on the fantasy film festival circuit for a couple of years. I thought I knew a lot about horror movies but realised I didn't, compared to a lot of people I bumped to! After watching so many, though, it occured to me how difficult it was to do anything different with the genre. It seemed so formulaic and predictable, and it's very easy to go wrong with it. Darklands was very much the product of a fanboy, while The Last Horror Movie is more the product of a critic. In a way, I wanted to attack '90s horror, which I think is horror-lite - the whole Scream thing. At the same time, I wanted to push the envelope with horror - some of my favourite films are in that kind of mode, like like Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer. Blair Witch was also an example of pushing realism further than it had ever been before. I did a documentary about male strippers called Showboys which used the video diary technique and it struck me how candid and personal it was. I thought, 'Imagine if a serial killer did the same thing'. That's the basic genesis of the idea." What about you, Kevin? Much of a horror movie fan? Kevin Howarth: "Yeah, I love horror movies. But I agree with Julian: it's very difficult to get something different made. In Japan and the Far East, there's a whole glut of very good ones coming through, but it is very hard to find a different, non-formulaic way of doing them. When I was sent the Last Horror Movie script it really fired me up. When you're a British actor, it's unusual to get in at the nub of something like that - it's a great feeling. British movies are either upper class tosh or a load of working class rubbish. There's nothing different in the middle. How many more films are we gonna see about East End gangsters? The problem with those films is that they don't travel very well, either. Having said that, everything's got elements of something else. It would be a bit arrogant of me to say that The Last Horror Movie is totally original. Twists are the key." The Last Horror Movie certainly has a unique approach and feel, but has been compared to the 1992 Belgian gem Man Bites Dog a fair deal. How do you plead? Richards: "We've been attacked a lot on that. It kinda annoys me, because I'm aware of the influences in the film, and I state them. But The Last Horror Movie is meant to be a departure from those things. Films like Man Bites Dog have taken the psycho-killer genre to a certain stage and I would hope that The Last Horror Movie takes it a stage further. It would be a pity, for example, if Man Bites Dog was the first and last reality-based serial killer film. Tarantino put it well, when he said that it's okay to steal from other films, as long as you put your own spin on it." Some viewers of Michael Haneke's unforgettable 1997 chiller Funny Games criticised it for morally questioning them while dealing in morally questionable wares itself. Your film also asks certain questions of the viewer. Have you experienced bad reactions as a result? Richards: "Some people thought we hammered home the message a bit (chuckles). I'm a great fan of Funny Games, but at the same time I felt it was a little too politically correct. It was saying that violence in films desensitises the audience. In The Last Horror Movie, we're saying that's not the case. Max says, 'It ain't the movies', so I was never looking to find a scapegoat. What I was looking to do, was embrace the mutant: the serial killer being the mutant. He tells the audience that they're not as different from him as they might like to think. It's a knee-jerk reaction to judge him, but if you take him to sit there and listen to the guy, he'll make you think about certain things. That was the exercise: encourage people to not be quite so reactionary, so they can understand more about the subject matter. " Howarth: "What I really love, is the great dark humour. A lot of times, Max has his tongue-in-his-cheek - he's almost taking the piss out of reality TV. He'd like nothing more than to wipe out the entire cast of Big Brother, just to make a point. But on the other side of the coin, there's some fantastic subtext going on. It's flattering that we've had very few bad reviews, but there was one guy in America who made a point of saying that I was too normal and too debonaire: not strange enough to be a killer. In other words, he'd have preferred me to have scars on my face, etc. That reviewers was obviously so used to watching a certain type of horror movie, because it was the biggest arsehole comment I've ever read, quite frankly." Richards: "It appears that people like serial killers to be in two moulds: either working class loner outcasts, with a reason to do what they do - in the Henry mould - or the superhuman serial killer like Hannibal Lecter, which is more Marvel Comics. But someone who is normal - next-door, everyday - makes people very uncomfortable." Howarth: "I saw an interview with Jeffrey Dahmer, and he was the most normal guy - you'd walk past him in the street. He was this blond, good-looking gay guy - and he was eating people, for God's sake! Denis Nilsen looked as if he worked in a bank." Any chance of The Last Horror Movie 2? That'd be the most ironic title ever. Richards: "It's funny, we were talking about a concept the other day. I had the idea of another serial killer trying to get one over on Max. A very different kind of serial killer." Howarth: "Jason Vs Max! Or Freddy Vs Jason Who Happens To Bump Into Max..." [Back To Top] [Features Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present |