Exclusive FrightFest 2016 Preview: Patricio Valladares and Barry Keating Talk Downhill
Howard Gorman
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Just a few weeks back we reported that writer-director Patricio Valladares’ satanic cycling shocker Downhill will be screening at this year’s Horror Channel FrightFest in London in August. With a premise and trailer promising to induce more palpitations than the most intense of spinning classes, I had to find out more.
Already being described as “Cliffhanger meets Paranormal Activity” and “Deliverance meets Breakdown,” this experimental horror/thriller, co-written by Valladares and regular collaborator Barry Keating, follows biking star Joe (Bryce Draper), who agrees to get back on his bike for the first time after his best friend dies in a freak racing accident. Whilst on a leisurely test run with his girlfriend, Stephanie (Natalie Burn), they cross paths with an injured man with visible symptoms of a mysterious virus. Things spiral downhill from there on as the “happy” couple find themselves the target of ruthless killers who will do anything to keep their secret from getting out of the mountains.
In anticipation of the FrightFest screening, Dread Central saddled up with Valladares and Keating to find out just how rough a ride they’ve prepared for festival goers.
Dread Central: Where did you draw inspiration from for the film? I ask you because FrightFest’s Alan Jones describes it as “BMX Bandits meets HP Lovecraft in a fast, fun and furious gorebuster…”
Patricio Valladares: The idea initially came to me when we were out trekking in the mountains. When you are out and about in the mountains, there are these kind of symbols or stone mounds that help trekkers keep track of their way. I saw those as something that could have been left by a sect or that could be related to witchcraft in some way. From there, we looked at a lot of references ranging from Wicker Man, Kill List to various Pagan-related films. We saw it as a film of three parts: First we get this cheesy romantic story mixed with those extreme sport films with all these sporty types, but then it changes radically into a tense thriller before the last 40 minutes throws the audience into pure terror.
DC: Talk us through the writing process with your co-scribe, Barry Keating.
PV: I came up with that original idea, and then we played around with the narrative, always taking into account that this was going to be a low-budget movie. Then, once we had the idea, a co-producer pointed us in a slightly different direction. They suggested we should maybe open it up to a wider audience, and things pretty much fell into place from there.
Barry Keating: Believe it or not, I’ve not actually met Patricio in person yet. FrightFest will be the first time we get to hang out together! All the work we’ve done has been through email and Facebook, bouncing ideas back and forth on what to do next.
Patricio lets me do my thing, which is great. Basically he had some story beats mapped out, and he sent those along to me. I took those and ran with them, and we bounced the beats of the story back and forth until we had something we thought was good enough to go to script. Once I started writing, we’d keep in touch the whole time just in case either of us had ideas or questions about anything in there. Once I’d finished, I fired it across, and then we started looking at the next draft and what changes we needed to make.
It was very much a collaborative process in terms of generating the story and where we wanted it to go, but once I was writing the script, he’d just let me do my thing and feed back into that once each draft was finished. It’s really great to have someone like that to call on if something isn’t working, if a scene doesn’t feel right or if you just can’t see the wood for the trees. Thankfully I’ve worked with a great bunch of people like Patricio, Loris Curci and Milan Todorovic, who I can rely on during situations like that.
DC: With a tight budget, what did you focus most of your resources on, and what were the main challenges when it came to shooting out in the woodland?
PV: Obviously, what cost the most were the actor fees and bringing the foreign actors over to Chile. But then once we started shooting in the woods, there was no need for any kind of permits or anything. In terms of challenges, we shot the film in the freezing cold in the fall, which was an endeavor in itself, but we only shot the film using two cameras, and then we made full use of all that space in the woods that came completely free of charge for us so that didn’t imply any real expense.
DC: What were your reasons for casting Natalie Burn as the lead player? Was it a role that required the athletic, physical and of course, sexual prowess of someone like Natalie? She did all her own stunt work, too, right?
PV: Well, Natalie is a very good friend of a producer and we were initially looking for an American actress that lived in Chile or somewhere close by but it proved complicated. Eventually the producer recommended Natalie, and apart from an amazing physique, she’s the absolute all-rounder. She was a great surprise and was up for absolutely everything. She does all her own stunts and some were pretty risky but she didn’t complain even once. There’s a scene where she’s being chased by a guy on a motorbike through the woods and she’s there running with this bike really close to her and the bike could have hit her at any moment but she was totally ready to do it. And we were so pleased with her work that I’ve done another two films with her since. She’s also got a great sense of humor, and she really doesn’t have [that much] of an ego.
DC: Barry, what do you find the hardest aspect of screenwriting when it comes to horror movies? The dialogue, the tension or the scares? Also, did Patricio suggest any actors he had in mind for the roles before you set about writing?
BK: No, he didn’t have anyone in mind at the start. We began with a blank slate and just built from there.
The nice thing about Downhill is that I was able to come on board as a producer, too, so we talked a lot about the cast before locking everyone down, but really Patricio was the one out there reaching out to people for the roles and doing the grafting on that front.
I think really there are so many things for me that you have to get right when writing a horror film, like creating tension on the page, wondering how that will translate to film and making sure there is enough happening to keep the audience’s attention, as well as trying new things or trying to put fresh twists on things we’ve seen before in horror films. It’s also really important for me to make them a fun read. I’d hate for my scripts to be a slog for anyone, so I try as best I can to ensure they’re as punchy as possible.
DC: Do you feel you achieved your goal in terms of the special effects considering you were on such a tight budget?
PV: There’s not actually a massive amount of gore in there until we head towards the end of the film. The protagonists come across a guy with some kind of virus so it does turn into a body horror film of sorts. That makeup was complicated because we were in the middle of nowhere. It was so cold that the chemicals we used for the effects froze up so things didn’t work quite as planned. But the team of three we had working on the effects pulled out all the stops, and I’m really happy with what they achieved, especially as practical effects are something we don’t get as much of a chance to enjoy of late.
DC: You’ve worked on a couple more English-language projects together. Are you able to reveal much about those right now?
BK: Sure… we’ve got a couple of things coming up, both of which were produced by Loris. The first is Ghosts of Garip (again with Downhill star Natalie Burn), and it’s out in cinemas in Turkey right now; it was shot last year in Istanbul. Hopefully we’ll have news on more territories very soon.
After that it’s Nightworld with Robert Englund and Jason London, which was really great fun to work on. It’s a really creepy story that I hope people will like when they see it. Plus, having Robert Englund star in something I wrote was a real bucket list moment for me. When Loris told me he really liked the script and wanted to star in it, I geeked out. Massively.
Last year was crazy but also a lot of fun for us, especially for Patricio, who went from Downhill straight onto Ghosts of Garip before taking a brief break and heading to Bulgaria to shoot Nightworld. We’ve also just started work on the story for our next film called Snow Devil. I won’t go into detail on it because it’s still very early, but it’s turning into something really interesting.
As for myself, I’ve a few other things on the boil like Havana Darkness, which was shot in Cuba and New York earlier in the year, as well as a werewolf script I’m developing with producer Herman Slagter (Cherry Tree), a survival thriller set here in Ireland with Conor McMahon (Stitches), and an action film with Milan Todorovic (Mamula). Plus I’m currently writing Steep, an open-world action sports game for Ubisoft – so keeping busy!
Downhill will screen at this year’s Horror Channel FrightFest on Sunday, August 28, with Valladares, Keating and Burn in attendance. The film also releases on DVD in the UK via Matchbox Films this October 10.
In the meanwhile, we’ll leave you with the latest trailer…
https://vimeo.com/171804023
Categorized:News
