Horror movies &stuff Interviews "Side Sho" Director Mike D'Anna
Horror movies &stuff recently chatted with Mike D'Anna, Director of the upcoming indie horror pic "Side Sho". Due out in 2008...the film follows a suburban family on vacation in the backwoods of Florida who venture off the main highways in search of historic roadside attractions. However...they instead find much more than they bargained for, including a family of inbred mutants who have terrifying plans for their daughters.
MR. H:From when you first started out, up until now...tell us how you became a director in the business?
Mike:Well, I've been writing & directing movies at some level since I was about 10 or so, but the background I came from didn't offer me the means to take the film school route, so to speak. So, I got my professional start by landing a job as a gofer at a small production company that made cheap, local commercials & the like; within a year or so I was the lead editor, and I took what I had learned there & plied my trade in the documentary field for several years, moving from editing into producing & directing, while continuing to write my own projects on the side. In 2004, a chance meeting at a local horror convention brought me together with my future partners with whom I would go on to make SIDE SHO.
MR. H:Did you come up with the idea for and ultimately write the script for "Side Sho"?
Mike:I did not; the credit for the story & screenplay goes to my partners Frank Fox & his wife Paula; lifelong fans of the genre, just like myself.
MR. H:Take us through exactly what "Side Sho" is about?
Mike:It's about a nice American family who didn't want to kill...but they didn't want to die (sorry, Wes). In a nutshell, a suburban family on vacation in the deep south (where else?) happens upon an old, roadside sideshow attraction run by a family of freaks. They aren't friendly. Terror & mayhem naturally ensue...
MR. H:A film like "Side Sho" tone wise, sort of falls into that category of films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "House of 1000 Corpses", "Wrong Turn", gritty horror films where kids on a road trip wind up in a very bad place and end up paying for it. Did you find yourself being inspired by films like that while putting this picture together, and did you try and sort of pattern your movie to capture that particular essence?
Mike:What we tried to do, knowing that it was firmly within that subgenre, was to try and give the film it's own voice; to try and turn the audience's expectations on their heads because they are going to go in expecting CHAINSAW or WRONG TURN. The sin isn't doing something that's been done before, it's in not doing it in a fresh & unique way. That's what we tried to accomplish.
MR. H:Alot of horror films like this, some would say give southerners a bad rep, and the south in general a bad rep. Did you take that into consideration while making this picture?
Mike:As a southerner myself, born & raised in Tennessee, I most certainly did. And my thoughts on it basically boiled down to, "who gives a damn?". In fact, I made a conscious attempt to create a very southern gothic-by-way-of-white trash aesthetic in SIDE SHO, because, narratively, it works in our favor and also because, frankly, a low-budget horror flick is not the proper platform from which to try and undo and social misconceptions.
Parts of the culture of the south, for whatever reasons...whether you want to cite DELIVERANCE or Tennessee Williams, have a really palpable, creepy effect on northerners (and many southerners!) to this day, and anything that's gonna make my movie creepier, I'm gonna take advantage of. No, it probably won't help promote tourism below the Mason-Dixon line, but that's not my job...my job is to scare folks. Besides, being from the south, I have many cousins, and I had to base the bad guys on somebody...
MR. H:Who are the major players in this film, hero and villain wise?
Mike:We follow the members of the vacationing Goodall family: the father John Goodall, played by John David Hart, is a bespectacled insurance agent & aspiring photographer. In his spare time, he's putting together a Americana-themed coffee table book about old roadside attractions, and he uses the family trip to Sea World as an excuse to take a few detours & look for more photo opportunities. So, naturally, when he finds the titular Side Show, he's like a kid in a candy store....until. The rest of the family consists of his lovely & indulging wife Gwen, played by Dana Poulson, who tries desperately to keep the family from breaking down during the crisis, and daughter Christy & her best friend Steffi...both of whom catch the eye of the Side Show family.
The Side Show itself is run by the extended family of a former carnival barker named Levon Gibbons. To meet the whole family, you'll have to see the film...
MR. H:Alot of the actors cast in "Side Sho" are mostly non-faces and non-names, did you want to cast the movie that way to give it a more realistic feel?
Mike:Well, yes and no. In other words, I could say yes & give some pretentious answer about 'reality' or 'verisimilitude', but at the end of the day, we were an extremely low-budget production, and had we hired any big names, we likely wouldn't have had anything left to make the movie with. However, there was a very recognizable genre name (which I won't repeat) attached to the project originally, who agreed to do the film based on a previous working relationship, but who ended up having to bow out at the last minute (literally) due to previous obligations. Though that would have been an interesting bit of casting, I am extremely happy with the cast that we ended up with, and I think the film ended up the better for it, too.
MR. H:Where was "Side Sho" shot mostly, in one specific location or in a few different ones? And Was it a smooth shoot?
Mike:We shot the movie entirely at one location, in a small town in Georgia called Walthourville, about an hour south of Savannah. The location we used was a farm that contained a replica of a late-19th century village that had once been used for local fairs & re-enactments, but had lain dormant for years. The place looked exactly like you see it in the film, there was very little set construction or decoration that needed to be done...it was like the script was written with the location in mind, even though we never laid eyes on it until, again, almost the last minute. The owner was very gracious with us invading his property for 3 weeks, and overall, the shoot went much smoother than it had any right to.
MR. H:When can we expect "Side Sho" to be released, and will it be a dvd release or will it get some minor theater play before going to disc?
Mike:We are in talks with distributors as we speak, and we hope to have a detailed answer to that question very soon. As soon as I know, you guys will know next, I promise.
MR. H:Most directors have ideas in mind for a sequel even before they begin work on an initial film. In the case of "Side Sho", do you have any plans or ideas in store for a followup? If so...what would it be titled tentatively?
Mike:I am, and always have been, very hot & cold on sequels. SIDE SHO contains a pretty well-resolved story, and, although I suppose with a little creativity the story could be expended further, I'm not sure that there exists a second chapter that's just screaming to be told. If the reaction to the film was big enough, it would certainly be considered, but there are many more exciting projects in the pipeline for my partners & I right now that I'd be much more interested in seeing come to fruition.
MR. H:What other genre projects do you have in store for horror fans out there?
Mike:My next film, which is being written as we speak, will be titled DOGHEADS. I don't want to give too much about it away just yet, as I think it's something fairly unique, but I will tell you that...
A. it is a period piece, and
B. there will be monsters.
MR. H:What will we hear from "Side Sho" musically, an original soundtrack? If so, who's handling the music, soundtrack and or score wise?
Mike:The soundtrack was composed by Leonard Wolf; an emmy-winning composer who has done a bit of everything in the past. We worked together very, very closely on the soundtrack for SIDE SHO, and although I'm not a professional musician, I might have injected a bit more of myself in there than had it been left to Leonard's own devices, but I think we're both very happy with the way it turned out. When we began scoring the film, I told him I wanted the music to sound like Ry Cooder playing King Crimson, and, in a nutshell, I think that's more or less what we accomplished. We hope to release a soundtrack album, but I have no idea whether that will come to pass just yet.
MR. H:Do you plan to franchise "Side Sho" like branch out into comic book properties, action figures, etc? Or will you wait to decide all of that after you see how well the film plays with genre fans?
Mike:I think it's a wait & see situation; after all, there has to be a demand before a supply, right? On a personal note, as an avid collector, I long for the day when I have an action figure patterned after one of my characters.
End. Visit Evil View for the "SIDE SHO" Trailer!
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