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A New Wave of Ozploitation
We speak to Aussie filmmaker Stuart Simpson about his uproarious sex-and-violence fuelled flick, El Monstro Del Mar.
"Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! is a film I like to watch once a year", says Australian filmmaker Stuart Simpson, whose drive-in, exploitation inspired feature El Monstro Del Mar, is set to screen at this year's Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF).
The film, which follows the story of three murderous rockabilly vixens who hole up at a beachside community, has already played in Atlanta, and received Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Foreign Film nominations at the Oklahoma Horror Film Festival 2010. It's hard to believe it all began as a simple premise for a short film, "I was doing a bunch of short films and thought I needed one more so I could put a compilation of shorts together. Monstro was born and then it just blossomed!"
Simpson's enthusiasm for the genre, style and premise of his film is certainly infectious so it comes as no surprise that El Monstro Del Mar boasts a host of committed performances, despite the film's cast of relatively inexperienced actors. "The girls had done a little acting here and there, but they were drawn to this project because they liked the idea and thought it would be a bit of fun... I think Australia's definitely got our own tough characters and it was fun for us to play with the femme fatale dynamic on this side of the world."
Equipped with three sassy characters, Simpson did not simply sit at a computer and churn out a screenplay; for this filmmaker it was about tailoring the creative to the specific. Something of an organic process, which began with casting. "I basically wrote just the opening sequence and then found the cast so I could write the rest to their strengths."
Script completed, it was time for Simpson to juggle a variety of production based roles. While he directed, shot, lit and edited the entire film, Stuart is quick to point out that he could not have done it alone, "My producer and long time friend, Fabian Pisani, is pretty much MacGyver. He can do just about anything!"
Pisani, whose role also involved underwater diving and puppeteering, as well as set construction, also co-funded the cinematic venture. "Fabian and I pretty much financed the whole thing. We shot it over 3 months from April to June last year and it was a 14 day shoot, which is pretty tight for a feature. Basically I just closed my eyes, pulled money out of the machine and kept going! It's a relatively low budget film though, so it wasn't too bad."
While it's easy for Simpson to laugh about it now, there's no question he put in the hard yards to produce El Monstro Del Mar. It seems like all his efforts - and money - are now paying off. The film is yet to screen at SUFF, however plans are already afoot for Simpson to travel with it to New York for the Royal Flush Film Festival before its Swedish premiere at the Lund International Film Festival. "I've been talking to a studio about making a low budget follow-up film too," adds the cinematic one-man-band enthusiastically. "With a budget that will be quite large to me!"
Having already presented El Monstro Del Mar in Melbourne (as the opening night film of MUFF), Simpson is excited about taking a break from writing to bring his film to a Sydney audience. "I'm definitely looking forward to the Sydney premiere. The reaction in Melbourne was unbelievable. We filled out a big old theatre - a 650 seater - and everyone was cheering and screaming. I hope the reaction at the Sydney Underground Film Festival will be just as good... we'll see!"
El Monstro Del Mar will screen as part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival at the Factory Theatre, Marrickville on September 11. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Simpson. For more info and to book tickets, click here.