'Wilderness' - Michael Bassett Q&A

Chris Tilly catches up with the writer director to discuss his blood-splattered new horror pic.

Aug  9 2006

Michael Bassett burst onto the British horror scene with 'Deathwatch' a well received supernatural chiller set in and around the trenches of World War I. His follow-up is the excellent 'Wilderness', a survival horror that concerns a group of young offenders travelling to a remote island and being picked off one-by-one by an unknown assailant. We caught up with the director to discuss the making of the movie.

We'll start off with quite a random question if that's OK – how hard is it to do horror?

Horror is such a wide genre – what kind of horror – do you want to make 'Hostel' or do you want to make 'The Omen'? Do you want to make 'The Thing' or do you want to make 'Dawn of the Dead'. Horror is less a genre and more a place where you can tell any kind of story you want. There are givens that you have to do – things that the genre audience expects. And what was interesting with 'Wilderness' was that the producers Ecosse Films had never made a horror film before – great company, done lots of television, Oscar-nominated and made films like 'Mrs Brown' and 'Charlotte Gray' – quality stuff. But when it came to horror they weren't sure. Like in 'Wilderness' with the bear trap sequence …(details removed for fear of spoilers)… they didn't want that because it was too nasty. But you can't go too nasty, it simply has to be justified in the context of the story. And I've now seen the film with thousands of people in cinemas across the world at various festivals, and the response to certain beats and moments is extraordinary.

So are horror films easy to direct then?

They're relatively easy to deliver. They are a technical exercise – who are we going to look at, what are we going to see now, how much blood are we going to put there – and then in the edit its how you pace it. But if it's happening to people you've no interest in, it becomes an irrelevance.

What was it like directing a script that you didn’t write?

I came onto the project after the first draft and I rewrote and shaped it. Well I shaped the characters; the story stayed pretty much the same – about a bunch of young offenders, sent to an island for nebulous rehabilitation, whereupon they are attacked by an unknown assailant. So good, so slasher movie that you could see anywhere. But there was that undercurrent of 'Lord of the Flies', which was in that first draft too, but maybe needed to be explored a bit more. They seemed like middle class kids at first so I said 'How can I make these guys a lot worse. A lot nastier?' I wasn't creating anything totally new, but I think it's an interesting diversion in a genre you're already familiar with. Somebody said it's 'Lord of the Flies' meet 'Friday the 13th', which is quite appropriate I think. It's a slasher picture, but hopefully it's a smart-ish take on the genre.

The film features youngsters, dogs, gore and prosthetics – how was that combination?

I love really physical film shoots – I mean I've only done one, 'Death Watch', but I loved being cold, tired and miserable for six weeks, and I knew 'Wilderness' was going to be a similar challenge. They're not kids, they're young guys and some of them are relatively inexperienced. Toby Kebbell I picked for his performance in  'Dead Man’s Shoes', and he looks brilliant on camera – he's got a stillness in him that's a real movie star stillness. He's got a dangerous edge to him and he anchors the whole thing. And I think there are a couple of kids in there who are real discoveries. Stephen Wright, who plays my skin-head Nazi, is just amazing. And the relationship he develops with his big friend – that kind 'Of Mice and Men' dynamic, was in the script but was something we developed on set. And to me that's the emotional heart of the piece. Hopefully it's an interesting riff on a slasher movie – a slightly gritty, earthier, darker slasher movie with gore, violence, death and dog attacks.

How were the dogs as they looked pretty frightening on film?

I wanted this idea of four German shepherds pulling down a man and tearing him to pieces, but it's difficult to do that. The handler explained to me on set that you can't have four dogs wound up and being aggressive at the same time. So I'd designed these elaborate sequences only to find that I couldn't do them. We were all told not to look at the dogs and to move slowly around them and not raise our voices. But the truth was, when they were brought to the set, they were like puppies, they were great. But when you turn them on, like a little switch, you get aggressive mode, so it was using that and shooting around the limitations. The actors and cameraman were quite nervous around them and rightly so, so for some of the attack sequences, I put on a camera and the padded kit and was on the receiving end of the attacks so I could film them. And it hurts like hell! Particularly when they miss the pad and bite your flesh. In the final sequence it's only in there for two or three frames, but I think it gives you a visceral impression of what it's like to be at the other end of the dog.

And what about those prosthetics?

They're a regulation part of horror movies now, and we had a great prosthetics guy who came in and spilled blood. And surely that's what it's all about in these films? Actually, I got a bit of a hard time about 'Deathwatch' not being gory enough, and I think retrospectively they were absolutely right. The gore moments were not strong enough. Whereas 'Wilderness' has a hand-full of set pieces that will get people out of their seats and cheering. And that seems to have happened at the festivals I've played it at. The bear trap sequence goes down fantastic – everyone likes limbs coming off it seems!

'Wilderness' is out on Friday.

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