By Travis Johnosn
Writer, director, and actor, Logan Webster, tells us about the upcoming high school reunion serial killer feature, Remember Redfield, the latest offering from indie genre specialists, Bendy Spoon Productions.
Old loves, rivalries and vendettas resurface at a high-school reunion party held out on a reclusive estate, but the evening takes a deadly turn when one of the guests begins systematically killing all the estranged attendants, leaving the group to try and decipher who, of all their friends, has the potential to be a murderer. That’s the premise of Remember Redfield, a bloodthirsty take on the “old-gang-gets-back-together” subgenre. It’s been a long in gestation project for writer and director, Logan Webster.
“I have always loved films set in one location or room,” he muses. “It adds the challenge of keeping the audience’s attention despite there being no new set pieces, and so you have to rely on your story and characters to carry the film to its conclusion. In 2010 a friend and I wrote up a draft for a small film – we are talking $250 dollar budget at most, never-to-see-the-light-of-day kind of deal – about a high school farewell party. It was pretty terrible, and we could never schedule our actors,who were just friends from school, to be together at the same time so the idea was scrapped.”
Five years down the track, and with the horror feature Lead Me Astray under their belts, the Bendy Spoon crew decided to tackle the subject once again, under the working title, Reunion. The decision was made to focus on the mystery elements of the story, rather than lean into gore for gore’s sake.
“Filmwise, Clue and Scream were massive inspirations to this film,” he tells us. “Both had really solid ‘whodunit’ mystery plots but mixed it with amazing comedy performances which I absolutely fell in love with. It would also be fair to shout out [murder mystery TV series] Harper’s Island; while not being a film, the series was the reason we started writing that script in 2010 and it’s fair to say Remember Redfield would not be what it is without it. We even went as far as to have a cast photo in the style of Harper’s Island’s promotional photos which was used to keep track of who was dead, where someone was at a given time, etc.”
Still, mounting the film was a challenge, even in the wake of Lead Me Astray‘s success. “Actors pulled out, I had trouble finding a job to raise the money necessary, houses (which were important since it was a one location film) would agree only to pull out as I got ever closer to shooting, it was terrible. However, we pushed through all the difficulties and recast, had an epiphany that I could use the house I was living in at the time and “cheat” certain locations of the house, and overall I think the film turned out better because of these complications.”
Even so, the actual production period was no cake walk. “One night in particular stands out as one of the worst filming experiences ever in my life. We dragged [actress] poor Brittany Young out into the bush at 9:00pm at night and from memory I don’t think we finished until midnight. It was by far the coldest night during principal photography, and anything you can think of to wear to keep warm, she was not wearing. On top of that, we forgot filming equipment, locked my keys in my car on location, had very low battery life on our light source, dogs would bark in the distance ruining sound, Brittany’s car alarm went off once we were finally ready to shoot. Just generally a classic example of if it can go wrong, it will. But despite all that we all remained in high spirits, to which I am forever thankful for.”
While a premiere date has yet to be set, Webster admits he’s keen for the film to have its first public airing at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, following in Lead Me Astray‘s footsteps, before hitting the festival circuit. And after that?
“With two feature films under the Bendy Spoon belt, we are changing it up and are already in early pre-production of a ten episode comedy fantasy series set to start shooting the pilot later this year.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SLF95wLZw