AN INTERVIEW WITH MAT KISTER, DIRECTOR OF THE GRAND HORROR

AN INTERVIEW WITH MAT KISTER, DIRECTOR OF THE GRAND HORROR
By Aine

Recently I conducted an interview with MaT Kister, director and creator of "The Grand Horror" an imagintive independent zombie feature set in a historic theatre. Thanks to MaT for answering my questions.

Most people don’t know about The Grand Horror yet, what can you tell us about it?

THE GRAND HORROR is a film that will make you piss your pants with FEAR! In all seriousness, it’s about a group of six strangers who enter an old theatre for safety and find out that there are worse things inside the theatre, than outside of it. You see, the world has descended into chaos, and mysteriously, there are zombie-like creatures running the streets, eating anybody they can catch. Oddly, the creatures won’t come anywhere near the theatre, making the group of people believe that they are safe. Unfortunately, the ghosts of murdered theatre employees have something different to say…

What is it being shot on?

The film was shot on mini-dv and will be edited and polished up with Adobe photoshop and after effects.

Is it nearing completion and what is your estimated date of release?

Prinicipal photography is finished. Now we are just in the process of editing and adding music/sound effects. As I write this, we are just finishing up our teaser trailer and it should be online within the next few days or so. Our goal is to get the film done by this spring when we have plans to premiere it at the theatre it was shot at and have a big shindig for the cast and crew.

Will it be entering the film festival and/or competition circuit?

I certainly hope so! I have great faith in the film. I think it looks awesome. If it’s as good as I think it is, then yeah, we’ll be taking it around the circuit.

Please tell us a bit about the background of The Grand Theatre and why you chose to build your story around it?

For a full history of the theatre, you can check out www.grandmovietheater.com As for why we chose it, it’s spooky as hell! Our assistant director’s uncle is one of the board members and he was taking us on a tour of the basements and whatnot. I was amazed how cool and creepy it looked with its exposed pipes, strange writing on the walls, and many different rooms. Our AD said that we should make a film here, and so in the span of a month, I wrote a script, got together a bunch of friends and we spent 9 long weekends shooting in the basements of this scary ass theatre.

Seriously, when you see it, you’re going to be amazed. The theatre itself is the greatest set we could have hoped for.

Is this your first film? And if so, how is it going so far?

It is my first feature length film. In high school, I made a 15 minute short film for my art class called A RIPPER RUNS THROUGH IT. So far THE GRAND HORROR has gone off with hardly a hitch, although lots of crazy stuff happened on set. Two of my friends who had never met each other before the shoot got engaged by the end of filming, one of my friends fell asleep while driving home after a long night of shooting and totaled his car (he’s ok), everybody got injured at some point in time….Other than the first weekend of shooting (a hallway scene that took us a day, and that we had to re-shoot because there wasn’t enough light) everything went smoothly. I’m quite happy with how the experience turned out.

Do you think you will continue to do films after this, particularly in the horror genre?

YES! We’re already in pre-production of a re-make, feature length version of A RIPPER RUNS THROUGH IT. We’re also talking with a small production company that is interested in having us shoot a short film or two starting in January. Horror is my fave genre. I have no desire to really do anything outside of it with the possible exception of sci-fi.

Is anything in the horror world lately exciting to you?

Well, if you say “lately” and mean within the past year or so, then the answer is no. There has been some decent stuff within the past few years, MAY comes to mind, but I think most of the horror genre, at least “mainstream” horror is highly overrated. Just because something scares some sorority girl or frat guy doesn’t mean it is good. Most of the good horror stuff lately is coming from overseas, and no, I’m not talking about the over exposed Asian horror market….

What would you like to see more of as far as the genre is concerned?

More balls and more boundary pushing.

You are the whole show with The Grand Horror, for future projects do you think you’ll want to write, direct, or produce?

Well, I wasn’t the “whole show”. I wouldn’t have been able to do this film without all the cast and crew that helped out. Deejay Scharton provided the camera and is collaborating with me on editing. Without him, we wouldn’t have a film. Braden Johnson remembered all the things I forgot while I was filming and was invaluable in being the all around “helper guy” I needed. All of the actors were extremely dedicated, especially Steve Eaton, who went through a lot of pain for his scene (we covered his body in corn syrup, then shot for a couple hours while he remained motionless…corn syrup drys…his chest hair will never be the same). I never had a single complaint from any of the cast, even when the shoot stretched into 9 weekends instead of the intended 3. We all kept driving to Grand Island and hammering away until the film was completed. Also, probably the most important person in this whole process was Jim Pohl who allowed us to film at the theatre. Without his convincing of the board members that we wouldn’t destroy the theatre, we also wouldn’t be able to have made the film.

As for myself, I want to direct. I’ve always wanted to do it and see no reason why I wouldn’t want to do it in the future. I’d also like to get into doing the fx work since I worked on the ones in A RIPPER RUNS THROUGH IT. I might also dabble in the acting thing in the future…we’ll have to see. I have no desire to produce. I’ll leave that to Deejay.

When did you first get into horror films?

Ironically enough, my mom took me to John Carpenter’s THE THING when I was six months old (I don’t remember it obviously) and I also just found out that it was at the Grand Theatre. Weird huh? I’ve always been into horror films. I remember watching HALLOWEEN when I was eight years old and it scared the piss out of me. I’ve grown up on horror films. Incidentally, I’m a walking example of why watching violence as a kid DOESN’T make you grow up to be a homicidal maniac.

What are some of your favorite films of all time (horror or otherwise) and why?

My favorite film of all time is BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. Don’t laugh, I love that film! Since John Carpenter is my favorite director (I know his later stuff is terrible) I also include THE THING, HALLOWEEN, and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS as films in my top tier. Other films in my top 10: LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and PARANOIAC.

My list changes, of course, and there are a ton of films that I haven’t included that could easily be put into my top 10 on a different day. But in general, I just love movies. If it’s good, I’ll watch it. If it sucks, I’ll have no qualm about saying so.

Since this is the last question, I gotta throw one last shoutout for THE GRAND HORROR! It’s going to be awesome. If you like independent horror, you’ll like this. Check out http://www.cannedpeople.com/thegrandhorror or http://www.myspace.com/thegrandhorror for updates on the film, and look for the trailer to appear in the next couple of days.

Thanks for the interview, you kick ass!

Thanks to you, and for providing the photos, I look forward to doing a review of THE GRAND HORROR in the future.