Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I got to sit down with up and coming British director Jim Hosking at Fantastic Fest to talk about his creepy grandson/grandfather segment of ABCs of Death 2 appropriately titled G for Grandad.
As one would expect, this segment doesn't showcase the happiest of familial relations. The Grandson is a wanker and Grandad is a creep. They kind of deserve each other and when the short reaches its conclusion it goes into some crazy Miike territory.
I was most interested in talking to Hosking, best known for his darkly comedic shorts like Renegades, about the process of joining the crazy ABCs of Death circus, how involved he was in picking his letter, why he chose the letter and what the thinking was behind coming up with this twisted little story. Hope you enjoy the chat!
Quint: I'm curious how this process work from a filmmaker's point of view. My understanding is there's a lot of creative freedom. You get your letter and you go from there, is that right? Or did you get to pick your letter?
Jim Hosking: I picked my letter. You could either pick a letter or be given a letter. At first I said, “I'll take any letter.” And then I had a word with Andy Starke, who produced my film and runs a company with Ben Wheatley. I've got a feature script I've written called The Greasy Strangler and I thought “Maybe I'll film a bit from the Greasy Strangler, so I'll do G for Greasy.” This is a really long-winded answer, but I ended up changing because of production logistics and I changed it to Grandad.
It is pretty much complete artistic freedom. You could do anything. I ended up with a G, thought I was going to do one thing and ended up doing something completely different, which was quite fun, actually.
Quint: So when you decided against doing a bit from your previous material, did you sit down with a pen and paper and started going through G words that might work until you got to “Grandad?”
Jim Hosking: I probably was thinking about things that started with the letter G. I did think of Grandad relatively quickly. I was also thinking I wanted to shoot this in a house. I wanted to be in a simple location so I could be shooting as much as possible. What could I do within one location? It was a combination of who could these characters be? What rooms do I have? What could happen in these rooms? And somewhere along the line one of these things would start with a G. That was Grandad.
I went from there. If it's about Grandad, someone is calling him Grandad, so there's a grandson living with a grandad. Obviously somebody's going to die and there has to be some tension. I hadn't thought about the end, but I thought about all the rooms and the bedroom is the best place for something to happen. That's where you should feel the most secure, but it's also where you're most anxious.
I make comedy stuff, generally. I'm definitely not a horror filmmaker. That's not something I'd ever done before, so I was trying to think of something of an inventive, surprising entrance for the grandad.
Quint: And you succeeded in that, for sure. It's both creepy and funny, which is why I like it so much. You also brought a lot of production value to the segment as well.
Jim Hosking: I knew that we weren't going to have a lot of time to shoot. Andy, the producer, was saying that he thought we were going to have one day. I was very keen to have two days because I knew that I had a very old man in the film. He was 90. I also had some effects stuff, some prosthetics. You cut your cloth according to what you have, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible from a production point of view. I found a location that didn't require a great amount of dressing. I shot it in a simple, controlled way. I hoped maybe it would be a little bit like a breath compared to the films on either side of it.
Quint: I noticed you shot it pretty traditionally. The cuts are very precise and it's not all shaky-cam or anything.
Jim Hosking: It starts off and it's on a dolly and it's very controlled. The second scene is in a bathroom and it's a locked off camera, but we start with a little bit of movement. It's not until the bedroom that we go handheld. I don't even notice when I'm watching it. Suddenly everything is moving.
Quint: You cast this segment very well. I have to wonder if there was any concern voiced when the cast saw their eventual wardrobe... or lack thereof.
Jim Hosking: Actually it was really quite straightforward, surprisingly. I cast a friend of mine, Rich, who is a comedian in London. I cast him as the young bloke and I had to find this older guy. We used a casting director in London who sent us maybe 15 headshots of different older men. There was one guy who really stood out. He had long hair like Rich... I don't know, there was something about the two of them. They looked like they'd work together really well. He had the most incredible face, but I was concerned that he was very old and it might be too much physically, but also the subject matter.
But no, he had the most amazing attitude. I don't think he completely comprehended what was going to happen. He was saying while we were shooting, “Of course, I'm not going to actually kill him in the film, am I?” “Well, Nicholas, you are actually going to kill him because there has to be a death in every film...” And he'd go “Oh, okay. Great, then that's what we'll do.”
I felt that maybe because I'm sort of polite and cordial or whatever that I was maybe able to persuade him to do some things that someone who was a bit more heavy-handed might not have been able to.
But there was no problem at all. They had no problem being in their underwear or with the old guy with the pubic wig with a pair of prosthetic testicles he had to put on. He was totally fine with it. I've got a funny picture of him with me and I've got my arm around him with his legs akimbo, both of us smiling. He was amazing.
Quint: I guess I know what's on your Christmas card this year...
Jim Hosking: Yes. Everything. Happy Christmas, Happy Easter...
Quint: So, from the time you were approached to the time you delivered, what was the all-in time commitment?
Jim Hosking: It was quite a long time, actually. I think we were asked to deliver in November of last year, but we shot ours in the beginning of January and finished it relatively quickly. All in all we were given a load of time, but we did it all pretty quickly. Everybody pulled favors and it was a pretty quick process. Some of the films that I saw last night, like Z... he had obviously worked for months on that. But mine was a bit simpler.
ABCs of Death 2 is out on VOD right now and hits theaters this coming October 31st. Give it a rent, it's really solid. 'Tis the season afterall.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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