By Maria Lewis
John Carpenter. Eli Roth. Tobe Hooper. They’re names that any self-respecting horror fan worships at the altar of. Thanks to a crafty new initiative, they could also be the very same people giving the next generation of Aussie horror filmmakers their big break. It’s all down to an unlikely collab between state film funding and development body, Screen Queensland, and the largest and longest-running horror film festival in the US, Screamfest. Yup, the very same festival where Paranormal Activity premiered back in the late noughts. And the aim? To put it in the words of Screen Queensland Executive Vice President of Development and Production, Jo Dillon: “If we could create three more Greg McLeans and three more Jennifer Kents out of this program I would be delighted.”
Known for its support and championing of genre, especially in recent years, Queensland also has a legacy when it comes to horror. Daybreakers, Bait, Nest, The Shallows all filmed there, along with House Of Wax (which nearly burnt down the entire Village Roadshow studios back in 2004 so let’s quickly skip past that one). Heck, even Kong: Skull Island – which wears its horror influences proudly on its sleeve – called the sunshine state home last year. Yet it could become the unofficial base for a new breed of Aussie horror films and a new breed of Aussie horror filmmakers if the Scream Queensland program hits its target. “We have a number of people in the office who are massive horror fans, a couple of women in particular who have driven this,” says Dillon. “That coupled with the fact [that] we have a fantastic history of people making horror genre films … it kinda feels like there’s a lot of talent in Queensland focused on making these kind of movies. There’s space there to do something with a production outcome, where people get credited for completed work and also get to share their work with an international audience at Screamfest.”
The deal is three Queensland filmmaking teams will be selected to develop and produce a horror short that will be funded by Screen Queensland (up to $40,000 per film). The end result gets screened in front of said legends – John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Eli Roth – and an international, genre-loving audience at Screamfest.
With a deadline of March 31, 2017 for the first round of hopefuls, Dillon says the end goal is to turn those shorts into fully-fledged features that can shoot back at home. “I kind of think short film at its best is both a proof of concept and a calling card,” she says. “Influencers and decision makers in the international space can only be a good thing, but also to get people excited about what is an 8 to 10-minute short today – but could be a feature in a year or so – that’s exciting too.” Countless horror films have started out as shorts – Mama, The Evil Dead, Saw, District 9, Oculus, the upcoming local effort, Cargo – yet there’s also another aspect to consider. Put simply, horror films are good business.
On a relatively small budget, the margin for profit on horror movies can be huge. Historically films like Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity are considered those big successes, but just this year we’ve seen Get Out cross the $100M threshold in the US (on a $4.5M budget) and Screen Queensland’s baby The Shallows make $119M worldwide (on a $17M budget) in 2016. “To get the market to feel confident about people you know are talented and you know can go all the way but are untested, you do need to do things in that low budget space,” says Dillon. “Horror is a great area to play in because you can make things on a lower budget and can have an impact both domestically and internationally with very passionate audiences who make a lot of noise about the things that they like.”
Whether or not Queensland will continue its growth as a horror hub remains to be seen, with the outcome of the first legion of successful Scream Queensland applicants still many months away. Yet what is certain is that more money, more energy, more resources and more belief than ever before is being given to a genre that some critics still scrunch their noses at. Cultural cringe aside, Dillon and her cohorts firmly believe – and belief is key, here – that this is the start to building a new, niche industry within an industry. “I think where one person or two people have been successful in a territory at one thing, others gravitate towards and get mentored and come up through the ranks behind them.” Here’s to hoping she’s right.
Maria Lewis is a journalist and author who can be seen on The Feed, weeknights on SBS Viceland. She’s the presenter and producer of the Eff Yeah Film & Feminism podcast. Her debut novel Who’s Afraid? was released in 2016 with the sequel – Who’s Afraid Too? – out now. You can find her on Twitter @MovieMazz.
