Damien Power is a Tasmanian-born filmmaker about to startle international audiences with his feature debut KILLING GROUND, a brutal, immersive, haunting survival thriller which breathes new life into the genre, with a non-linear narrative, realistic characters and a less-is-more approach. I spoke to Damien about the factors that shaped the story, his approach to the screenplay, the casting, the challenging shoot, and his hopes for how the film will be received.
What other films were on your mind when you were writing and making KILLING GROUND?
What other films were on your mind when you were writing and making KILLING GROUND?
I looked back at the
classic, character-driven survival films of the 70s. STRAW DOGS (1971) was
one. I remember my cinematographer Simon Chapman and I looked at
DELIVERANCE (1972), not so much for the content but for how the filmmakers
made the daylight look frightening. If you watch DELIVERANCE you'll
see there are a lot of long takes in the film, and John Boorman did
an amazing job with the blocking of the actors. We also looked at THE
VANISHING (1993) and how the tension was created. The French film RED LIGHTS (2004)
was another film.
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I wanted to be very
careful about how I treated the violence. I wanted to leave the worst
of the violence offscreen. When the audience fills in the blanks, it
is far worse than anything I could show. I think this approach has
more impact and suggests life outside the frame, which makes things
even more disturbing.
What inspired the
story for the film?
The germ of the idea
started with an image of an orange tent in the middle of nowhere. I
don't know where this image came from, but I started thinking ''What
happened to the campers?''
Right from the
beginning, actually. When I was conceiving the story I had thought a
lot about who the previous campers were and what had happened to
them. That story, which might have just been backstory in another
film, seemed fundamental to me. I wanted to tell the story of all the
events that took place in that space, and the best way to do that
seeemd to be non-linear. I would write one scene and then think
''Which timeframe do I want to transition to next for the next
scene?'' It probably wasn't the easiest way to write! But it was just
the way it unfolded. These kinds of films are usually relentlessly
linear. For good reason – they want to throw you into the
characters' journey. But we've all seen these films, and I wanted to
try something new.
All of the shorts came
about in different ways, and most of them are different to KILLING
GROUND. But with Peekaboo, my producer Joe Weatherstone and I decided
to make a short film that could be used as a calling card for me to
get a feature financed that had suspense and action. We both had
little kids at that point, and Joe said ''How about a film about a
mother who loses her child?'' I said ''That sounds terrifying. '' So
we made Peekaboo (2011), which is about a mother who loses her child in a
public car park. Like KILLING GROUND it dealt with one of my worst
fears as a parent – not being able to protect my family if they
were under threat. I have lost sight of my kids in playgrounds and
it's terrifying each time. The film did very well at festivals and
got us international sales agents on board for KILLING GROUND.
A couple of months
before we started making KILLING GROUND I shot another short film
called Hitchhiker (2015). I was given money from an Australian Film, TV and
Radio School Creative Fellowship to make an experimental short. I
wanted to make the ultimate hitchhiker film by pulling the genre
apart. I thought that the common thread between all hitchhiking films
or hitchhiking scenes in films is the idea of danger – either you
getting into a stranger's car or a stranger getting into your car.
The antagonists are invariably an escaped prisoner or a serial killer.
In my story, I have a serial killer pick up an escaped prisoner. All
of the dialogue in the film comes from scenes related to hitchhiking
in other films. It plays with this idea of genre and repetition. What
is the essence of the hitchhiking genre? How can you reuse elements
to tell a new tale?
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With KILLING GROUND
were you trying to subvert expectations audiences might have for an
Ozploitation film?
If you're making a
genre film you have got to be aware of people's expectations going
in. For me I wanted to bring a level of realism to the characters and
their choices. While I was writing the script I just kept thinking
''What would I do in this situation?'' I also wanted people asking
themselves that same question after they saw the movie. Movies teach
us that we can all be heroes, but life teaches us something
different. Every time you inject a bit of real life into a genre
story you can take it to an interesting place.
Being that the film
was inspired by your nightmare scenarios as a parent, did you manage
to work through any of your fears making the film?
To be honest, I was too
busy working through my own nightmare and survival story making the
film! Logistically we didn't have a lot of time or money. We shot
almost entirely outdoors, in supposedly the driest month of the year
in Sydney and we were hit hard by rain. We lost three shooting days
and were only able to reschedule an additional two. I was working a
9-5 job at the time and basically took leave to make the film. They
wouldn't let me take five weeks off in a row, so I had to shoot for
four weeks and then go back to work for a week and come back for a
week and finish the film. We had an arsonist stalking the set trying
to burn the bush down where we were filming. I think the only thing
that stopped him was the rain. And of course you have all the regular
things that are difficult to do, like working with kids and animals!
It was a tough shoot, but we made it.
It was a real coup
getting Aaron Pedersen from MYSTERY ROAD (2013) and GOLDSTONE (2016) in your film,
and as an evil character as well.
He's a national
treasure in Australia. I loved him in those films you mentioned. He
was the only actor I made an offer to. At the time I thought he would
never do the film. He was known for playing cops. But I think that's
why he did the film – he never gets offered roles like German. One
of the reasons I really wanted Aaron was that German had to be this
guy who had this charisma that could mentor someone into murder. I
feel really blessed to have gotten the cast we did. We were funded
without a cast attached so that gave me the licence to try and find
the best people for the roles. It was important having experienced
actors because we didn't have a lot of time and we were dealing with
very tough material. They have to go to a pretty dark place.
We've sold it into
almost every territory in the world, so I hope it's seen as widely as
possible and enjoyed and appreciated by audiences. The response so
far from festival screenings has been great, which has been
gratifying. Aaron Glenane told me he was at a festival, and after a Q
and A a woman came up to him and said ''I used to work as a homicide
cop and I worked on some of the worst cases. I sat across from some
of the worst people in the world. You and Aaron Pedersen took me
right back there. You captured something of those guys. '' I think
Aaron was a little freaked out by that. I consider what she said to
be high praise and signs of a job well done. I didn't base KILLING
GROUND on anything, but while I was writing it I did read a lot of
true crime stories that focussed on cases where there was more than
one perpetrator. Often I think crimes might have not happened if not
for the bad combination of two individuals. Separately, they wouldn't
have done anything. There was an evil chemistry between the two
people, and opportunity resulted in shocking crimes.
JAWS (1975) is famous for
scaring people so much that many people never wanted to go into the
sea again. How much was that on your mind regarding KILLING GROUND
affecting the Australian camping industry?!
We actually joked about
having a tagline on the poster saying ''This film does for camping
what JAWS did for swimming''!
I've been developing a
few projects. One of them is a feature version of Peekaboo. I would
say these projects are all in the thriller genre. I love the genre.
For me, thrillers are dramas with high stakes, and you can take the
audience on a wild ride and give them an intense, visceral
experience, but also give them something to think about.
KILLING GROUND is in theaters and on VOD from July 21st, through IFC Midnight.
The trailer to KILLING GROUND.
Damien's website.
Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2017. All rights reserved.
KILLING GROUND is in theaters and on VOD from July 21st, through IFC Midnight.
The trailer to KILLING GROUND.
Damien's website.
Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2017. All rights reserved.
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