Interviews:


INTERVIEW WITH DENNIS JÜRGENSEN, MARTIN SCHMIDT & REGNAR GRASTEN

Whisper in the classroom

By Jakob Schultz

Seven high school students trapped inside their school, with a psychopathic murderer. That's the story in the new Danish horror movie "Sidste Time", translated into "Final Hour" on an international scheme. The movie is directed by newcomer Martin Schmidt, who previously has done amateur movies, the story is written by Danish writer Dennis Jürgensen, who has written a lot of horror novels, and the producer is Regnar Grasten. Trauma met these Danish horror fans. "Sidste Time" was shot in only 18 days, and for Martin it was a stressfull and exciting experience.

"I think the movie is better because of the intense atmosphere during the shooting and the short time. We try to get as much out of it as possible and you kinda invent new ways of working and you get more creative, because you have to work fast. It also means that the actors are using all their energy and put all their power into the movie. Infact we've mentally been doing the movie all 18 days, because it was so intense", director Martin Schmidt explains and goes on: "It was only when we had the movie completely finished we could relax. Afterwards one could think about how we might have done it without having a breakdown. Some of the problems could be the camera movements and all sorts of stuff, due to the short time you find new ideas to shoot the scenes. We had to shoot as much as possible to do a one and a half hour movie, where others have alot more time and money".

Being the first time Martin Schmidt directed a movie, it must have been an exciting. fascinating experience?

"It was really interesting to do the movie", he tells, and goes on: "You feel that if you can do a movie in such a short time, you can do anything. It has been great learning and a test if you really can do a movie the audience wants to see. I've been doing amateur movies mostly on video, 16 mm, and for me it's alot of money to go from 3000 dollars to about 900.000 dollars".

"It has been a weird year for me as a producer. I have just finished doing a movie for about five million dollars, with "Sidste Time", we did it for only 900.000 dollars and the shooting only took 18 days. It was fantastic and fascinating trying to work with a small budget and only about three weeks. What we used per day would have been the same as using about 1,2 million dollars done on normal schedule",

producer Regnar Grasten tells and continues:"We used the best camera, the best crew, the best effects - just doing a face like the one we used, costs a fortune to do. The body and the head was about 4000 dollars in materials and time. The ghost in the movie was also expensive and the specialeffects with the electric stove also cost a lot and we used about six hours on it. When we worked at night we also had to use a lot of light and it was really a stressfull job, but it was a good experience. The reason why we could do it cheap was because of the fact that it was one location and the short time we used", Regnar explains with a smile and explains that he has never experienced something like doing "Sidste Time before". "It was great for me as a producer to see the work from the sideline, and experience how the actors were really hooked on doing the movie, because they had to work fast and simply lived with the role day and night. It's like being on speed and therefore it was good to keep it to 18 days, otherwise we all would have had breakdowns".

INSPIRATION FROM HALLOWEEN

Martin Schmidt always loved the movies of John Carpenter and Carpenter's major breakthrough movie "Halloween", inspired him, when he did "Sidste Time".

""Halloween" was done in 20 days for 300.000 dollars and it was a major hit. It's influence is in "Sidste Time" and we really checked out "Halloween" alot of times to get ideas on how they worked under nearly the same conditions as we did. I was so lucky to visit John Carpenter last year and he really gave me alot of good tips about how you can work without moving the camera too much and still keep intensity in the movie. That was most important, because the audience don't care about our conditions during the shooting, but that the movie works. Most important is that they get what they expect",

Martin tells and continuees: "I'm satisfied with "Sidste Time". I think we can be proud of the result, and I'm happy I got the chance to direct it." Regnar Grasten agrees: "If you don't have all the possibilites the big productions have, it kinda forces you to focus on the story and make that successful, so it will be the strongest part of the movie. During a screentest in Imperial (Denmarks biggest cinema) we really felt that the movie worked out well. It was like a rollercoaster, and the movie has some other dimensions. Tarantino, Spielberg and Carpenter, they all started with low budgets to prove what they could do, and now they're big directors. When the actors and script is up front, you can't hide it with tons of bombs and special effects. It was a principle for me to try this, because it's frustrating to see all the young directors coming out and not getting a chance to show what they can do, because no producers will use several million dollars on a new director, without knowing the job will be done in a competeritly".

THE STORY

The man behind the story is one of Denmarks most famous writers Dennis Jürgensen. He has written several horror, fantasy and splatter novels. Also he has done alot of humourous childrens stories based upon the classic horror figures like Frankenstein's monster and Dracula. "Sidste Time" is a claustrophobic script about some young scholars trapped inside a school. Outside a reporter is trying to find sensational stories for the program "Sidste Time", a TV show like "911".

"The idea was to do a horror movie. The influence were "Halloween", and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", cultmovies which have low budgets in common. We tried to do that same adrenalene kick to be the outstanding element of this story too", Dennis explains and goes on telling about the fact that one of the main characters is the fanatic reporter Mikkey Holm.

"We needed the reporter to get out of the school area, and not make the atmosphere too claustrophobic. We needed to get out of those surroundings, then came this idea about the journalist who takes the "911" programs a step further". Regnar agrees "TV journalism is showing more and more. We see all the details from war in the news, and it's just too much, maybe this movie is a warning on what journalism has become in the ninties. They need a baseball bat in the back of the head, and this movies show's it", he laughs. Dennis being a writer found it was a new experience to get away from his normal surroundings and be a part of a team.

"It was great to see all those people, who had never done a horror movie before, they were all affected by the intensity of the work and being a part of the production. It was great to feel that people really liked doing it. The story was written as a film manuscript from the beginning, and later I re-wrote it. It has now been published as novel. I got the idea showed Regnar and Martin the synopsis, and I then wrote the manuscript." From the beginning there were several suggestions to a storyline. One of the suggestions was just too much for Regnar. "They came to me with a story which involved a train! I said train - are you out your minds? Trains move - it has to be at the same place, like a school. It was impos-sible to do it with a train, because it would increase the costs enormously".

"Horror movies take place in a closed area, where the maincharacters can't escape, is also great because it's increasing the paranoia and the claustrophobic feeling because they can't get away. It's the same with "Alien", where they are imprisoned in a spaceship with the monster, can't escape and are forced to battle the evil", Dennis Jürgensen tells and admits that "Sidste Time" is a classic and traditional horror story. "It's true that we take alot of the clichés and play with them. We try to find new angles in a traditional horror story",

he says while Martin goes on: "The new thing is that it's a Danish movie. We go further than many other producers in Danish film. Danes are good at doing realistic movies and. It's something for videofreaks. Horror always done well on video and therefore it's good to do something for the big screen". Is it a coincidence that you do the movie right now, only a short time after "Nightwatch" and "Riget" has had major success? "It's not a coincidence, we planned it", Regnar laughs, while Martin tries to explain: "We're not influenced by these movies, but it's obvious, that the audience has shown that they want to see more of this genre, that's why we did "Sidste Time"". "It would be stupid to deny that we did it because of the success of those films", Regnar admits and goes on "Those movies have shown that Danes also can do these kinda movies. It's obvioius that "Nightwatch" and "Riget" have shown that Denmark also can make really good original and thrilling horror movies, and we'll of course take advan-tage of that."

"Sidste Time" was screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first time a foreign audienc had seen the movie. Also "Sidste Time" was shown at this years Fantasy Festivals in Germany, and surprisingly also sold to the Edinburgh Film Festival, a 50 year old traditional film festival which rarely show horror movies. "People at the Cannes film festival really liked it. It got good reaction, and it was exciting to see people understood the humour Dennis had put into the story. It was no problem at all, the audience was thrilled and they laughed and jumped in their chairs at the same parts where Danes would, so they understood the story very well", says Martin, when Dennis begins to explain about the important fact that humour and horror is hand in hand during the whole movie. "Both things really compliment eachother very well, you also see black humour in American flicks, and it really make s both the horror and humour stronger".

Regnar also has an oppinon about doing horror films without humour. "The problem is that if you just do a movie like "Friday The 13th" where it's just murder after murder during the whole film, you tire of it, and dislike the movie. When blending the humour and the fright parts it's a much better effect, just like a rollercoaster ride. You relax and then suddenly you get shocked and so on."

THE END

The end of the movie is really special and as a viewer you have a weird feeling that you don't know what really happened in the movie. "We tried to do the end of the movie a bit different from other pictures. By doing it this way, the viewer has the freedom to decide and think about how the movie really ends. Is it just a fantasy in the head of the sick reporter, did the students die, did it really happen ....or what? The viewer decides", Dennis explains and goes to tell us not to take the movie too seriously. "It is a funny movie, and horror movies are entertainment, it's okay to laugh, and the characters in "Sidste Time" are also funny in their own ways."

"This is like the magic cards you use in the role playing game "Dungeons & Dragons". You can make your own ending to the film, and think about it. This way people cannot say: What a bad ending. In this movie you can decide it. We're Danes and it's not like an American movie, where the bad die and the good survive. That's not reality and we can do this kinda ending, maybe because we're Danes, and it makes the movie a lot more interesting and much better if we just had done a more typical and regular end", Regnar tells, and Dennis goes on. "We also have our main character Nicoline, who is the hero of the movie and suddenly we kill her in the story, that's also why we did this kind of ending to the film. We kill all the students, and then they are alive again, and people can think about that when they leave the cinema. It's like people can make it end the way they like".

<< Back to main