An Exclusive Interview With the Creators of the New Film Starring Gunnar Hansen
Interview Conducted By Jason Stewart
(Jeff Solano) Well, first of all, the Next Victim crew consisted of four originators. We all pretty much met on a Jeff Daniel's film titled CHASING SLEEP here in Michigan. As it turned out, one cold day we were all outside and began talking to each other. I mentioned that working on other's films is fun and everything but why don't we all make our own horror film? They agreed and I told them there's a meeting at my place in 2 weeks and everyone showed up. Hence- NEXT VICTIM was born!!!
(Timothy Gates) We all met each other working on other films, most notably was the Jeff Daniels thriller Chasing Sleep. We all decided that we should pool our resources to do our own film which is what gave birth to the anthology concept. I had already developed a relationship with my cinematographer Andrzej Milosz having worked with him on a music video that I directed earlier. After we all had our individual scripts written, I wrote the tie in piece and through fate Jeff and Mike Bryant would meet a good friend of Gunnar's while they were working on Super Sucker, another Jeff Daniels film. From there it was just a matter of putting it all together.
(M. Sky Chamberlain) For me, Next Victim began as a small "un-titled" project that I was asked to make an "attempt" at acting in for Jeff. I gathered that he must have seen my emaciated appearance after a rough night of binge drinking :-) and some how concluded that I would make a good zombie. As a child growing up I would star in these little fight skits that I had choreographed for my parents using any available neighborhood kids to fill the roles. I have always had a desire to try acting, even going so far as to take a few classes.... yet eventually, perhaps fearing the ego that is often associated with it, I just decided to stick with writing. While we were all working on "Numb" it was suggested that a feature length project would be much more marketable than a short film....and so I offered to write my own short to contribute to the overall length and bring us closer to eighty minutes. The first draft of "Under The Table" was written while we were still shooting "Numb". Since my background in writing didn't include many escapades into the Horror genre I decided to write a story that would provide the essential blood and gore elements and yet allow me to explore my psychological interests. At this time, Tim was also refining his script for "Monstercam.com". To my recollection, Next Victims' title was something that Tim Gates came up with more or less as a result of a legal necessity. We were in a bit of a hurry to establish a limited liability contract for protection and we needed a name for it. Since all of our projects did indeed have victims.....the name just kinda stuck. I do remember that shortly after Next Victim LLC was created there was a brief period of brainstorming to come up with the "actual" movie title. I recall that some very good suggestions were made. However, as things progressed and we got buried in our work we kinda put it off. Before we knew it "Next Victim" had been named in a few public interviews ...thus effectively attaching itself as the pictures title.
2. Did any films inspire you when coming up with the story for "Next Victim"?
(Jeff Solano) For myself, NO. I pretty much wanted to do a horror film any way we could and we figured out that the best way to do that was to have each one of us write direct and produce our own segment. All of us would help the others out and then all of us came together to produce the tie- in segment with Gunnar Hansen. It all worked out incredibly well! > >
(Timothy Gates) Not specifically. I feel that Jaws is the scariest movie ever made because Great White sharks are real. The next movie is Alien. I feel that Ridley Scott did an awesome job at creating tension and I borrowed some of his strobe ideas for the scenes that involve the monster in Monstercam.com. In the horror genre there is a certain need to show off effects and let the people enjoy the "in your face" gore. But these two films I like to reference back to fact that the true horror is off camera and it's your imagination that really scares you to the point of, well...entertainment.
(M. Sky Chamberlain) Tim wrote the rehabilitation tie-in material for Gunnar and I am sure he had inspiration for that. As far as the multi-short film concept for Next Victim, "Creep show" and "Body Bags" come to mind as working templates. It's a format that has been done a lot in the genre and I believe it works well......a collection of short stories has much more potential to attract a wide audience than a single film idea especially if you are talking low-budget.....As far as "Under The Table" goes, I like to think that it was inspired only by my imagination.....perhaps viewers can draw comparisons to another work, but I don't "consciously" recall an influence for me, which is exactly how I like it.
3. How did you get Gunnar Hansen to star in your film?
(Jeff Solano) That was interesting. Mike Bryant, Mike Chamberlain (2 of the other three writer, director, producers) and I were all working on another Jeff Daniel's film Titled, �Supersucker� and a special make-up effects artist named James Korloch came to the set to see if he could hop aboard the crew. Well, it was far too late to be on the movie because it was almost done being shot but he asked Mike Bryant and I if we wanted to see his portfolio. We agreed and as we flipped through his awesome work, I noticed that he did the effects for a cool horror film titled HATRED OF A MINUTE. Well, Gunnar is in that film and that's when I mentioned that it would be cool to get Gunnar Hansen in NEXT VICTIM but we're not sure how to contact him. It just so happened to fall into place that James Korloch was one of Gunnar's great friends and he contacted Gunnar and Gunnar contacted us. We then sent Gunnar the script and he agreed to do it!! The rest is history!!!
(Timothy Gates) After getting his number from the guys on Super Sucker, (which Mike Bryant had already called to make initial contact) I called and discussed the project with him. He thought it sounded like fun so he had me send him a script. After reading the script he said he would love to do it. I think the comedy aspect appealed to him because it was such a departure from what he had been doing in the past. So after that I had my lawyer draw up a contract and we finalized the deal.
(M. Sky Chamberlain) Jeff knows the particulars here.....All I remember is that we were almost finished shooting Jeff's short film "Numb" in which I played a character named "Hansen Gunnar". When I heard that Gunnar Hansen was actually interested in the project I remember thinking......"Man, I hope he is ok with my character" and I wondered how he was going to feel about the reversal of his name....an obvious homage, but none the less a little strange....