Q&A with FAMILY DEMONS writer/director URSULA DABROWSKY
December 14th 2009 04:07
Cassandra Kane as Billie
Kerry Reid as Billie's mother
Family Demons is Ursula Dabrowsky’s second feature, but the first to receive proper distribution. After having its world premiere at this year’s A Night of Horror international film festival here in Sydney where it won the Best Director award, it has gone on to win several awards, including Best Foreign Film and Best Actress at U.S. Fright Night Film Fest. The world rights has been picked up for international distribution by IFM World Releasing.
Hailing from the sleepy town of Adelaide Dabrowsky is quick to point out the dark, murderous history of the township at the beginning of Family Demons. It’s a fictional supernatural story, but it’s steeped in violent truths. I got to ask the writer and director of the movie some questions, and probed into Dabrowsky’s background, the nature of her story and also about the process of making a super low-budget feature.
Ursula Dabrowsky
Ursula Dabroswky: In the early 90’s, I studied experimental filmmaking at Concordia University in Montreal. In 1992, I moved to Adelaide, South Australia and set up Saylavee Productions Pty Ltd. In 1995, I made my first narrative short film, Snoop, which was self financed and picked up by the AFI Distribution Branch and screened theatrically with other short films around Australia and New Zealand. The short also toured the national and international film fest circuit, garnering a couple of awards. In 1998, I received a production investment from the state film funding body, SAFC, for my next short film, Grunt, that also did well on the film festival circuit. Around 1996, I started shooting my first self-financed feature, Getting the Dirt on Trish on weekends and finally finished it in 2001. It screened at several film festivals including the Flickapalooza Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Melbourne Underground Film Festival where I won a Best Female Director award. In 2003, I watched my first Japanese horror film Ju-on: The Grudge. I was totally inspired by the film and, although I had always been attracted to thriller films, after watching The Grudge I started thinking about writing horror. I decided to use a pseudonym Ursula Dabrowsky because it felt like I was re-inventing myself. Because I kept getting rejections for my horror scripts from the state film funding body, I decided to self-finance my first horror feature, Family Demons.
H: Which directors and/or movies inspired you to become a director? What are some of the current horror directors that you admire?
H: The theme of domestic abuse is always confronting; how much of the screenplay to Family Demons (if any) was based on real life experiences of your own or someone you know?
Ursula Dabrowsky directing and Hugh Freytag shooting Cassandra Kane
H: Why did you decide to have so few main characters in Family Demons, and was this a budgetary decision made early on in the screenwriting process?
UD: I wrote the script with ultra-low budget constraints in mind: few characters, few locations, etc. This way I have a greater chance of getting the film made. I am doing the same with all my film projects. I actually quite like the challenge of writing with budget constraints. You can get incredibly inventive and experiment and make a horror film that is just that little bit different.
UD: You need to set up a question at the beginning of any film, otherwise the viewer will be bored within the first five minutes. I don’t think people know that this was Billie’s mother, they just knew that Billie has killed someone, so the question that is set up right at the beginning is why is this young girl covered in blood and who has she killed and hopefully the audience is going to want to know what the hell happened and keep watching the film until they get the answer.
H: The movie opens with a description of Adelaide as a murderous township; is it the only reason why you set the movie in Adelaide? Are you from there, or spent much time there, if so do you have any visceral anecdotes?
UD: I moved to Adelaide in 1992 and found out pretty soon after I moved here that it was considered the Murder Capital of Australia. People who live here understandably don’t want Adelaide to have that kind of reputation, particularly SA Tourism (!), but it does, so they just have to live with it! It’s really the controversial author Salman Rushdie’s fault for giving Adelaide its eerie rep. He visited Adelaide in the 1980’s and declared it “a perfect setting for a Stephen King novel or horror films,” adding that “sleepy conservative towns are where those things happen” and this quote was used a lot. Even I used it for the movie opening of Family Demons. Lots of horrible murders happened before I moved to Adelaide but lots more happened since, for instance The Snowtown Murders. On top of that, Adelaide is a downright creepy place at night because it’s Deadsville. There is hardly anyone on the road or walking the streets. It’s so quiet and eerie. I am dumbfounded that there aren’t more horror filmmakers in this town [ed: perhaps they’ve all been killed off?] Perhaps it’s too close to home for them. But for me, rightly or wrongly, Adelaide inspires me in a perverse kind of way.
H: What kind of camera did you shoot Family Demons on? What was the budget? How long was the shoot? How did you get funding?
H: What are some of the essential elements in low-budget filmmaking that a director should take heed of?
UD: Direct from a well written screenplay. Three-quarters of the hard work on the film has already been done.
H: Do you believe directors should restrain from making direct cinematic references to other movies? Why do you think paying homage in horror is something that other directors often embrace?
UD: It’s not a problem for me at all, in fact, it enhances my viewing experience. I watched Not Quite Hollywood and was reminded that Quentin Tarantino made homage to the Australian horror film Patrick in his film Kill Bill. Patrick, if you remember, was in a coma but could spit at people. Tarantino had seen the film and he got Uma Thurman to spit when she was in a coma in Kill Bill. It’s a compliment to Richard Franklin or Everett De Roche that another filmmaker stole their idea and used it in their film. What I don’t like is all the horror remakes that have been happening in the past decade. That is homage gone wild. When Hollywood studios are too afraid to take risks on original ideas and would rather prioritise making money by stealing horror stories from places like Asia and remaking them by turning them into vacuous, glossy products that have no substance in them anymore, that kind of thing that pisses me off. I see horror producers here in Australia doing the same thing. And there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, unfortunately.
H: Do you think there should be any restrictions in content and depiction when it comes to making a horror movie? Should taboos still exist in the horror genre?
UD: No, I don’t think there should be any restrictions, but having said that, I hate gratuitous nudity and violence; to me it’s boring and lazy scriptwriting.
H:There aren’t many horror features directed by women that get decent international distribution, why do you think this is? What do you think of the international horror film festivals aimed at female directors?
UD: I subscribe to the blog Women & Hollywood. Melissa Silverstein reminds me at least once a week of the enormous gap between men and women in the film industry. Some say it’s because there aren’t enough role models out there for young girls to even think about film directing as a career, much less making horror films. Another reason I would say is that there are women out there who are much smarter than I am and figure the odds are so high against anyone earning a regular income from being a filmmaker, that they don’t even bother and instead do something that makes more sense. Sometimes that’s what I really think! But there is a gap and I’m aware that it doesn’t seem to be closing but I’m not going to let that worry me. I’m just going to keep doing my little bit to address the imbalance and by doing that, hopefully inspire other women out there to think about making their own horror films one day.
H: Can you tell us a little about your plans for the future and/or next feature?
UD: I have several screenplays in development and I love them all. One is based on my experience of working in a haunted heritage gaol back in August 2007 called Devil’s Haven and the other is a revenge type horror called Demon Voices. I’m hoping to make two more features that will then form part of Ursula Dabrowsky’s Demon Trilogy.
H: So, do you believe in ghosts?
UD: You bet.
Family Demons will be released on DVD in Australia and New Zealand sometime in 2010. You can visit the official website here.
Here's the trailer:
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