Exclusive: Cameron and Colin Cairnes Talk 100 Bloody Acres and More
Steve Barton
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The hilarious and oddly heartfelt Australian horror comedy 100 Bloody Acres (review) is finally making its Stateside debut on VOD everywhere June 28th courtesy of Doppleganger Releasing.
Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, 100 Bloody Acres stars Damon Herriman, Angus Sampson, Anna McGahan, Oliver Ackland, Jamie Kristian and John Jarratt (Wolf Creek). The story follows the Morgan Brothers, Reg (Herriman) and Lindsay (Sampson) who are struggling to keep their organic blood and bone fertilizer business in motion. Their secret “recipe” for success (using dead car crash victims in their product) was a huge boon to business, but lately their supply has all but dried up until one day Reg comes across three kids stranded for a ride; thinking his problems are miraculously solved, he delivers the trio to Lindsay for ‘processing’ but of course, nothing goes according to plan for the Morgan’s or their victims.
Dread Central recently chatted with filmmaking pair Colin and Cameron about their feature film debut, what inspired their story and much more. Check out our exclusive interview below and make sure to check out 100 Bloody Acres on VOD everywhere June 27th!
Dread Central: Thanks for chatting today guys; this movie was a lot of fun. Since you’re brothers and made a story about brothers, how much did that translate into your story- minus that whole ‘chopping people up for fertilizer’ thing?
Cameron Cairnes: (Laughs) Yeah, we definitely weren’t in the fertilizer business. I think first and foremost we had wanted to write a horror movie that was sort of a ‘lost in the bush’ kind of a story. It also started off originally more of a blood and bone movie than anything but over the years while writing the script, everything just evolved more into our own voice and that’s where the comedy parts came out. Ultimately, if you spend that many years writing a story, you just want something that keeps you entertained.
Colin Cairnes: Yeah, definitely the starting off point for us was the idea of kids in peril, but once we started writing it, it grew organically. Just to give you an idea of how long we’ve been working on this- do you know the film Wolf Creek?
Dread Central: Oh yeah- it’s great.
Colin Cairnes: It is- it’s fantastic. But at the time we were writing 100 Bloody Acres, Wolf Creek was just starting to make it around to all the festivals so once we saw it, we knew that we were kind of screwed so we decided to stay true to our premise but add more of the comedic elements to the story which I think turned out for the best, really. We just had a find a nice balance between building tension and playing up the humorous elements.
Dread Central: I thought Damon and Angus were fantastic together in this; can you guys talk about bringing them aboard to play the Morgan Brothers? I’m familiar with Angus from Insidious but this was an entirely different role for him, I think.
Colin Cairnes: They are both truly gifted performers but what’s really cool is that they’re also sort of opposites, much like their characters. I think Damon had a little more of a ‘classical’ approach to his performance and Angus is a renowned improviser. He has such a gift for improv and that really added something to the film, I think.
Dread Central: So how much ended up being improvised then and how much of what we see is from the script?
Cameron Cairnes: I think there is a fair amount of both onscreen, actually. There was definitely enough in the script for them to work with and get a great handle on their characters and these relationships; everyone then just took it to an entirely new level, especially Angus.
Colin Cairnes: Yeah, because his character was sort of the grumpier brother, Angus was very method in that he would only sleep like four to five hours each night just so he could use that in his performance. We always joked that if you had to talk to Angus, it was always better to catch him early in the day because if you waited too long, you just didn’t want to be the person who had to deal with him after he’d been up for a long time (laughs).
Dread Central: So what’s coming up next for you guys then? Any more horror movies up your sleeve?
Cameron Cairnes: Oh definitely, but the next thing we’re working on right now is a crime caper with of course, lots of laughs and violence. It’s called They Shoot Hostages, Don’t They? and I think audiences will enjoy it. It’ll have lots of gore but lots of laughs and heart too.
Colin Cairnes: There’s definitely a part of us that still wants to make that serious horror film that Cam was talking about but I think making another comedy now makes the most sense. We’d definitely like to try everything eventually- who knows, maybe even a musical.
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