The Weekly Interview

Pat Higgins is one of the biggest independent horror directors currently working here in the UK. After self funding his first feature film in 2005, TrashHouse, Higgins has gone from strength to strength directing three more features and this year picked up Best Independent Film at the Festival of Fantastic Film for The Devil’s Music. This week IndieFlicks got in touch with him to discuss film and his latest projects.

IndieFlicks: How did you get into Filmmaking?

Pat: I became obsessed with cinema at a young age, mainly after being taken to see Star Wars and a late seventies re-issue of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I initially thought that I wanted to be an actor, until discovering that film-making wasn’t a realtime process (the seven-year old me was convinced I could turn up on set, jump through some fire, kiss the girl and have finished work for the year in about 90 minutes) after which point I realised that I’d rather write and direct. My parents had an old super-8 camera, and once in a blue moon I’d manage to talk them into letting me have a reel of film to myself. I used to attempt stop-motion with Star Wars figures. Years later I’d badger them to rent me a camcorder from a high street store, which they usually let me do about once a year, and I’d make 5 minute shorts (edited in camera) with my friends. Ended up studying media at university, naturally enough. Worked as a runner on a few films, and then finally set up Jinx Media after getting sick of my day-job and realising that if I didn’t ‘go for it’ at that point I never would, and would likely regret it my whole life.

IndieFlicks: Would you cite any films as an influence on your journey into filmmaking?

Pat: Kevin Smith, Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez and Peter Jackson all came from the ‘fuck it, I’ll do it anyway’ school of filmmaking. Without those guys showing it was a viable way of getting started, I’d never have taken the jump.

IndieFlicks: Do you have a favourite film?

Pat: I always end up citing Gremlins, partly because it annoys people who take cinema far too seriously but mainly because it’s a superb film. It’s pitch-black yet sweet, horribly violent yet family friendly, smart as hell even when it’s pretending to be dumb. I’m actually typing these words sitting under a framed UK poster for it in my office. During the space of one year, when I was thirteen years old, I saw Gremlins over 50 times. I can pay lip-service to my favourite film being, say, Casablanca, but if you check my DVDs for frequent use wear-and-tear, you’ll find Gizmo and co. to be the scratchiest.

IndieFlicks: What do you enjoy most about low budget/independent filmmaking?

Pat: We answer to nobody. We might have to compromise due to budget, but we never have to smooth away spiky edges to satisfy a focus group.

IndieFlicks: What are you currently working on?

Pat: I’m in post-production for my chapter of Bordello Death Tales, which is a new anthology movie that we’ve been making. The other two chapters are being made by Jim Eaves, (who previously made The Witches Hammer and Bane, both of which I thought were cracking movies and I thoroughly recommend), and Al Ronald (who I’ve worked with before on several projects, and who also made a flick called Jesus vs The Messiah which is totally unique and deserves to be seen more widely than it has been). My chapter is called Vice Day, and is really intense, sexy, dark and funny. It’s basically a two-hander between Cy Henty and Danielle Laws, who are two of my favourite actors to work with. They’re both totally fearless and I love ‘em to bits. I think the movie as a whole is going to be pretty damn special.

IndieFlicks: How did the idea for Bordello Death Tales come about?

Pat: Jim and I got talking earlier in the year after a screening of Bane, which adjourned to a pub around the corner. I’m a firm believer that all the best ideas seem to get hatched over a pint or two. Jim suggested the idea of an anthology. I suggested Al as the third director, having worked with him on other occasions, and having seen and admired the aforementioned JvM. The whole thing actually dropped together extremely easily; we exchanged drafts of our respective chapters via email, made sure that they would fit together as a coherent whole and just went for it. We had one location that we all used, in order to give the three shoots a real-world anchor, and the whole thing came together very smoothly indeed. I think there’s a healthy spirit of friendly competition between the three of us, which can only make for a better movie overall.

IndieFlicks: When can we expect to see it?

Pat: The feature will lock early next year, and we’ll likely hit the festivals shortly after that. I imagine that DVD will follow later in 2009.

IndieFlicks: Although all your feature films to date have been horrors, do you see yourself eventually making a film that is set in another genre?

Pat: One of the reasons that I love horror so much is that its incredibly versatile; I’ve made some very different films in my career, from a rock documentary through to a romantic comedy, yet all of them fit within the genre of ‘horror’. One day I’ll probably make something totally non-horror, but I can’t see it happening for a while.

IndieFlicks: What is on the horizon for you and Jinx Media?

Pat: We’re likely to go dark on the production front for a little while, as we’ve been incredibly prolific recently and have built up something of a release backlog. We continue to work on screenplays and development (we announced House on the Witchpit, Strippers vs Werewolves and Brainbath earlier in the year, and all three of those are still very much in development) and I’m also likely to do more in the way of lectures and so on over the coming year.

IndieFlicks: What advice would you give to any budding filmmakers out there?

Pat: Don’t listen to anybody, including me. Make sure to cover yourself legally. Make as many friends and as few enemies as possible. Don’t be an asshole; word will spread quicker than you’d ever believe. And finally, as always, don’t record an important scene onto a head cleaner tape.

For more information on Bordello Death Tales and Jinx Media please visit their website - click