It's a question I'm often asked: was moving from horror to comedy such a big step? My first feature, Dead End, is a thriller about a family getting lost on a never-ending road on the way to visit their in-laws for Christmas. As strange things begin to happen to them, harmless bickering turns to dark secrets coming out, and the family ends up destroying itself.
My new film, Big Nothing, spins the more down-to-earth story of Charlie (David Schwimmer), an unemployed teacher and aspiring writer who joins a con-artist (Simon Pegg) in a foolproof scam to blackmail a porn-addicted priest. It's just that the scam turns out to be anything but foolproof.
OK, so Big Nothing is a departure from Dead End. But I still see the two as natural bedfellows. Tagging Dead End with a horror label has always been frustrating for me in that it is as much a comedy as a horror movie. If anything, it's probably more of a very dark comedy based on the conventions of the horror genre.
I like my humour like my morning espresso: black, without sugar. That's the common point between both movies. The difference is that Big Nothing doesn't have any horror element in it, other than a few very atmospheric moments.
I think people who liked Dead End will like Big Nothing, and even people who didn't like Dead End might (hopefully!) like Big Nothing because it's much less underground and referential. Big Nothing trades some darkness for quite a lot of fun. That said, I guess it's still much darker than your average comedy.
Now, you might ask, why leave behind the horror element and sell out to the mainstream? Put simply, I did it because horror is just a tiny part of what I love and want to do. It is, for a first-time director, a good opportunity to get a movie financed, because the genre is an established favourite with audiences. But it can as easily become a prison. In the case of Dead End I tried to make an unconventional horror by injecting quite a lot of humour into it. This blend of dark humour and horror is what made it a cult film - adored by some, hated with a passion by others!
I didn't want, for my second-film, to be pigeonholed. I think a lot of unnecessary horror films or horror remakes are being made right now just for the sake of making money, and I've had offers to stay in that genre which I've all turned down. I really want each of my movies to be different from the previous one.
I love movies that make me dream, which make me forget about the real world - and this ranges from Star Wars to Little Miss Sunshine. Sticking to the horror genre would be like locking myself in a room and playing the same record all the time.
I don't want that comfort, I don't want that boredom.
