Horror movies &stuff Interviews "Brotherhood Of Blood" writer/director's Peter Scheerer and Michael Roesch
We got a chance recently to talk once again with writer/director team Peter Scheerer and Michael Roesch, this time about their forthcoming vampire-actioneer "Brotherhood Of Blood", which hits DVD Tuesday October 14th as part of the Ghost House Underground series. In the film, which stars Victoria Pratt (House Of The Dead 2), Ken Foree (The Devil's Rejects), Sid Haig (Night Of The Living Dead 3-D), and Jason Connery (Wishmaster 3)...a vampire huntresses clan is wiped out by a powerful demon named Vlad Kossei. Even the vamps are afraid of Vlad, but he's not able to regain his full powers until he kills his brother. The vampire huntress sets out to seek vengeance on Vlad and stop him from regaining his full powers.
MR. H:Where'd you guys first come up with the idea for "Brotherhood Of Blood"?
Michael:We wanted to do this movie for a long time. We started as screenwriters, but like all screenwriters what we really wanted was directing movies. So we were starting to look for an idea for our first own movie as directors.
Peter:And BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD was perfect for our first own movie, as you can shoot it also for a low budget, without compromising the story. We started to develop the script, and then tried to get the movie financed. But it is very tough to jump from screenwriting to directing. We are really grateful that we were able to step up to directing.
MR. H:Did you watch other vampire movies to get some ideas for "BOB"? Or did you really want to make it it's own standalone vampire picture?
Peter:We saw some of the old movies with Christopher Lee to get a feeling for the classic vampire style and we studied lot of books about vampires.
Michael:As horror fans we watch most of the vampire movies when they are first released, but we didn't watch them especially again when we started to work on BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD.
MR. H:Who's idea was it to go with the title "Brotherhood Of Blood", as opposed to something more generic like "Bloodthirsty", or "The Bite"?
Michael:I think Peter came up with the idea for the title. We always like more to have a unique title, instead of a more generic one.
Peter:The story is not a typical vampire story. So we needed a little bit different title.
MR. H:You guys are making a great name for yourselves as a genre team, much like Patrick Melton and Jeremy Dunstan who wrote "Feast", "Feast 2", and "Saw 5". Only you two write and direct. How did you two first come together as a filmmaking team?
Michael:We're working on movies together since a long time, we actually started to shoot our first short movies with an old Super-8 camera when we were 12 years old.
Peter:And directing a movie is so much work, that you sometimes wonder how other directors manage it, who do it alone. This is maybe the reason why you see more directing teams today - like Rodriguez/Miller for "Sin City", the Coen Brothers, or many more.
MR. H:Has "Brotherhood Of Blood" been screened yet? If so...what has the reaction been to it so far?
Michael:We had the world premiere for BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD at the Sitges film festival in Spain. The premiere in Sitges was amazing. It is the biggest and best horror festival in the world, and the audience there really likes genre movies.The audience reactions are very good - we had the feeling that audience really enjoys the twists and turns in the movie.
Peter:After Sitges we showed the movie at some smaller festivals, but it was a honor to premiere the movie in Sitges. So many great horror directors had their movies at the Sitges festival, and to be part of this group with our first movie was really exciting.
MR. H:How many big action scenes does "Brotherhood Of Blood" have? Can you give us some details on those scenes without giving away too much?
Peter:BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD is more like a horror thriller, so there are no really big action scenes - we liked to do them, but you have to be realistic with your budget.
Michael:We knew that we would have only a small budget for BROTHERHOOD, and instead of having some cheap looking action sequences, we wrote it as a horror thriller.
MR. H:You managed to assemble a great cast for the picture.....Foree, Haig, Pratt, and Connery. Foree and Haig are obvious, but what made you decide to go with Victoria Pratt in the female lead over a more familiar or well-known genre scream queen?
Michael:Victoria is a great actress, and she really makes it believable that she is the tough hunter, that she is able to fight in this war against vampires, but that she is also very good in the quieter scenes.
Peter:She has a great physical presence. She has to torture vampires - and to make this believable she was the perfect choice.
MR. H:How much of the budget was spent on fake blood for this movie? I know most vampire movies have a budget list that reads "fake blood" second after "actors salaries".
Peter:We used a lot of fake blood in the movie, gallons and gallons.
Michael:Thank god the fake blood is not too expensive, so that it didn´t ate up our whole budget.
MR. H:What was behind the decision to film "BOB" in L.A. instead of a more gothic location like New Orleans, or Romania?
Michael:LA is simply the best place to shoot movies. All the actors are living in LA, and you have some of the best crews, and you have an endless supply of everything what is needed to shoot movies. For example, while we were shooting BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD one night we were running out of blood. We had only one gallon left, but several hours to shoot. But there was a store down the street, which sells blood for film productions all night. LA is really the only place in the world were you can order new film stock, or a huge crane, or 10 gallons of blood in the middle of the night.
Peter:Especially the actors make it really interesting to shoot in LA. They are often traveling for so many month every year, to shoot on locations throughout the world, so they are very happy when you offer them a shoot in LA, that they can drive home every evening. We made the experience that you really get bigger name actors, as they like the convenience to shoot in their home town.
MR. H:Vampire movies have withstood the test of time here and now in 2008. They always seem to turn a profit because alot of people are fascinated with vampires. What do you think is behind societies fascination with vampire films in general?
Peter:It's very interesting, when we started to work first on the script, zombie movies and Japanese remakes where much more en vogue then horror movies. But we liked our idea, and wanted to do a vampire movie. And now, in 2008, everybody wants vampire movies again.
Michael:The idea of getting eternal life, but for the price of constantly killing people, is very interesting for many people. Who would not want to live forever. But which price would you be willing to pay for eternal life?
MR. H:How much gunplay occurs in "Brotherhood Of Blood", and how much and what kind of firearms training did the actors have to go through?
Peter:We have one shootout in the movie. The problem with gunfights in low budget movies is that they need so much time. You have all the security meetings with the weaponer, you need to attach special protection shields in front of the crew and camera, and this really costs a lot of time. As you have not many shooting days on low budget movies, it is nearly impossible to shoot great action scenes in low budget movies.
Michael:We had a very good weaponer, one of Mike Tristano's crew. Mike Tristano is one of the biggest weaponers for movie shoots in LA, he did also HEAT and many more movies.
MR. H:Do you guys make any cameos in the movie?
Michael:No, just for the simple reason that we have no time while we are shooting. As directors on the set you´re really busy, and every minute somebody comes, and needs a decision, or a problem needs to get solved.
Peter:We feel more comfortable behind the camera.
MR. H:Will there be a "Brotherhood Of Blood 2"? Yes, no, maybe?
Peter:There are no plans for a sequel right now.
Michael:And we are more interested in working on our new movie, which will be based on a original concept, and will be not a sequel or a video game adaptation.
MR. H:Are there going to be moments in this film where someone gets turned but fights off their primal vampire urges to kill or drink blood? Because that seems to be a staple of the vampire movie subgenre now-a-days.
Michael:That's interesting, there are really many movies with this topic out right now. But the characters in our movie are not able to fight against turning into a vampire. If they are bitten, they are turning to the other side, with no way back.
Peter:In this aspect it's more "classical".
MR. H:What are some of your favorite vampire movies, do you have any other vampire movies in store for us, and will you be working with Uwe Boll again anytime soon?
Michael:Right now we are not working on another vampire movie. We just finished ALONE IN THE DARK 2, and are working on the script for our next movie now, which will be a horror movie again, but with a bigger budget this time.
Peter:As a low budget filmmaker, the good thing about vampires is, that they are cheap. You don't need much prostetics and when they have their mouth shut, you don't even need teeth. With a higher budget we are able to do something different.
End. Check out our Review of "Brotherhood Of Blood" Here!
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