Well, TIFF has wrapped and with it Midnight Madness. As always, programmer Colin Geddes dropped a variety of genre films on the late night masses, including Acolytes, from Australian director Jon Hewitt. Jon answers seven questions about his kids ‘n’ serial killers movie, including the real-life events that inspired the film.

 

 

1. In your mind, what is this story about? Obviously the title of key.

On the surface Acolytes is a chiller (a marriage of thriller and horror) about a trio of teens who blackmail a serial killer. It’s a slow-burn story that inhabits that edgy and interesting space between drama and genre. We set up a believable universe and really get to know and like these fucked-up kids before we explode in ultra-violence, mayhem and death. Shocks, viscera, twists, reveals, kills – Acolytes makes space for all these tricks and tropes.
The story also works on a number of subtextual levels – as a tale of teenagers destroyed by sexual abuse; as a conflict between the primal and the human, as an expose of the evil that lives among us, as a contemplation of the depraved and psychotic.
The term “acolyte” has many meanings, but for me it’s a “follower,” a being with ambitions to be and do like someone else. Some of the twists and reveals of the movie are who admires who, who’s really doing what, who’s the real psychopath, who’s really in control, and so on.

2. Wolf Creek was based on a few different real life crimes that took place in the rural regions of Australia. What did you and your co-writers base this script on?

3. There are a lot of twists in the plot and few innocent characters, if any. Plus there are some particularly brutal sequences. What do you feel is the most horrifying aspect of Acolytes?

I love violence in cinema, and the cinema is certainly the safest place to get an experience of ultra violence. So, on a purely visceral level, the explosions of violence deliver a fair degree of the horror in Acolytes. We’ve gone for nasty realism over stylized splatter so it feels cool and believable: being mowed down by a gnarly car; being skewered by an arrow and having it pulled-out of raw flesh, brains bashed out by a brick, being tortured by a psychopath. The slow-burn narrative structure really adds to the impact of the violence because we’ve gotten to know the teen characters and (hopefully) like and sympathize with them, then suddenly we explode in trauma, violence and doom.
But the revelations of the depths of depravity in some of the characters is what really creeps me out. Kay Wright coming out of the darkness in the basement is my favorite “moment” – we think she’s just the schlep wife oblivious to her husband’s dirty deeds, then suddenly we realize she’s in on it, and not only that, she just might be the puppetmaster!

4. Could this story be easily transplanted to North America if Hollywood wanted to remake it, or is there something specifically Australian about it that wouldn’t transfer over?

Australia is the 51st state of the USA; we’re dominated by American culture, our politics are inextricably linked, we speak American. Hangin’ in Chicago is not that different, on a fundamental level, to hangin’ in Melbourne. I guess if there’s anything specifically oz about our movie, it’s probably that fuck-you larrikin demeanor that’s deep in our psyche – that laid-back up-for-anything approach to life and experience that might resonate as particularly Australian.

5. What’s your favourite serial killer movie?

I love ‘em all, but my faves would have to be Fritz Lang’s M, Michael Mann’s Manhunter, and an obscure gem from the 1940′s produced by the incredible Val Lewton: The Leopard Man. I’ve always wanted to remake that one. A leopard escapes during a publicity stunt and terrorizes the city, unleashing a murderous pathology in this mild-mannered public servant.

6. What keeps drawing you back to making movies about killers?

Violence, psychosis and death are primal forces in human existence that we’re increasingly divorced from. I think experiencing stuff like this in the cinema helps us to remain in touch, helps us understand, helps us assuage these urges. It’s also a safe place to do this, and much cheaper and more enjoyable than therapy. So I guess that’s why I’m drawn to stories that deal with these primal urges, and I can best riff on them in movies involving characters in extreme situations or states of mind.

7. Your next project is X, which is the second part of your King’s Cross
Trilogy – explain what this trilogy is about and how this film will fit into it.

The KX Trilogy are stories set in Sydney’s mythic red-light district Kings Cross, a very resonant area for us; mention it to any Australian and they’ll know about it, even though they’ve never been there. But Kings Cross doesn’t actually exist, not a recognized suburb in the post-code sense, so it’s more a state of mind. darklovestory (KX1) is a fairytale wrapped in a crime story. X (KX2) is an erotic thriller about a jaded callgirl and a fledgeling streetwalker who go through the night from hell. 5 Hits (KX3) is a real-time black comedy about five junkies trying to score. All the films happen at the same time and characters and situations interweave. They are all radically different in their form, so combined they work as a dialectic about storytelling and cinema.
The other film I’m currently shooting is Vampyr – an experimental horror about a brutalized woman who slides into homicidal madness. It’s ultra-low-budget because I want to make the most beautiful and violent film ever – something that is literally unreleasable – beyond Salo, beyond Martyrs. So it’s just me shooting on the RedCam with my star Belinda McClory for about 70% of the movie, no other crew or cast. It will take about a year at least to shoot. I want to show it at a few brave film festivals then drop it onto the internet as a “pirate” – it’ll be the only way to get it seen. This is my very personal dream project – something beyond anything out there!