Hey Ben how was Texas?
Yeah it was good, it was really good man.

I hear you had a drinking contest with the organiser….
Haha, yes..well you have to do these things.

For those who haven’t heard much about Kill List yet, could you give us a brief outline of the plot?
The best way of explaining it is that what Down Terrace is to crime, Kill List is to horror basically. These two guys are professional killers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq doing Blackwater-style security work come home and resort to doing contract killing. They get a list of people that they’ve been contracted to kill, and from there…it goes horribly wrong for them.

How was the legendary Alamo Theatre at SXSW?
It was great being back. We first went over in 2009 to showcase Down Terrace so it was really like going home.

What was the difference between the audience and industry response to Kill List?
There wasn’t really much, usually at a Kill List screening everyone’s quite shocked by the end.

I’ve heard about a ‘Kill List’ stare…
Haha, it isn’t a made up bullshit marketing thing – it’s just fact.

What is it?
It’s a general wide-eyed look of disbelief and horror.

As the lights go up?
Yeah, the first time it happened was at the original financers screenings, everyone just looked really shell-shocked, so we were like “ok, it’s working.” Then it happened in Austin as well, after the first screening we looked back as the credits went up and saw 200 people looking like the world had ended.

So were their faces saying “what have you done to us?”
Yeah pretty much…

… “and why have you done it!?”
(At this point Ben and I crack up laughing)

When I saw Down Terrace I really was blown away by it. It’s got so much swagger in it; the dialogue, the cast, the characterisation and of course the direction. The boldness of the shots almost provide their own dialogue when there isn’t any. When writing about the mental downward spiral of serial killers, how do you know their mental torment so well? I mean, I’d imagine and hope that you’ve never secretly done someone it in order to become a method director?
Well y’know, I mean it’s just an exaggerated version of everyday stuff really. There was a lot of talk about Down Terrace and about Kill List and how dysfunctional they (the characters) all are but I don’t really see it that way, I think it’s all pretty normal behaviour really. It’s not that over the top, it’s just they’ve taken it right to the edge of things, because it’s drama.
The way that I look at all the behavioural stuff in films is that they tend to start off a lot calmer for some reason and then you’ve got these character arches, people get angrier over time and then take umbrage to something and then tend to forgive them y’know, whereas with Down Terrace and Kill list the main characters are happy to argue and go toe to toe with each other permanently but also forgive almost instantaneously – and I think that’s much more realistic.

Absolutely, I mean the characterisation is paramount and I’m sure it will be in Kill List.
Yeah, we spent a lot of time with Kill List planning the characters and I think that’s the main thing for me. What’s happened with horror is that you have these characters that are very thin on the ground which makes you root for the murderer, which has happened in the current crop of horrors and I wanted to kind of reverse that, where you’re totally on the side of the characters and then you actually worry about them or what they get involved in. I was just kind of worn out by those movies that just go with the tried and tested.

They just seem to dilute the genre don’t they…
Yeah, well it’s going back to the 70’s you know where there was a slower time; I mean Halloween was the first one to start the whole slasher cycle. Halloween is pretty packed full of characterisation but as time’s gone they’ve jettisoned a lot of that kind of approach and just got really irritating.

Your debut certainly seemed to carry some of the DNA of directors such as Danny Boyle and even Tarantino with regards to the dialogue and cinematography. Now if you could save three directors from a nutcase mercenary – all the others would die – who would they be?
Sorry, three to kill or three to keep?

You could save three directors, but all the others would be absolutely murdered.
Right, well….it would be…currently…this week…

Haha…this week, I like it…
(more laughter)
It would be…urm…actually, they’re all dead -  the directors I’d choose!

OK, so you could bring three directors back from the dead, yet still, all other directors would be butchered by a brutally rampaging murderer….
Well, Elem Klimov who did Come and See, I watched that recently, that was amazing…Larisa Shepitko who directed The Ascent which isn’t very genre I know, but these are the movies we’ve been watching at home recently. I’m a massive fan of Carpenter obviously. There are a lot of films I watch again and again like The Thing and Blade Runner and Aliens but that’s more like comfort food really.

Are the Hill’s involved with Kill List? (Robin Hill co-wrote and starred in Down Terrace along with Robert Hill playing the lead character. They played father and son in Ben’s debut and are in real life).
Yeah Rob was an editor on the film and Bob Hill’s in it; actually they’re both in it but with very small parts.

Did you write with Rob again?
No no, I wrote it with Amy Jump who’s my wife.

Excellent! With Down Terrace you managed to get the darkness flirting with the black comedy beautifully and I hear Kill List is balls out horror. Have you foregone the comedy slant on it?
Not really, there’s stuff in it that makes me laugh, but I don’t know it’ll make everyone laugh!

Is it a bit too much….?
No, it’s more……when I did interviews with the first film I was asked “is Down Terrace a comedy?” and I was like, not really….and neither is Kill List it’s just that the characters have a sense of humour and they say funny things but y’know, I’ve directed a lot of comedy, and comedy’s a very specific thing y’know? Everything is geared towards making the audience laugh and that’s fine, but that’s not what these films are. The characters can say funny things but I think that’s all part of the general roundedness of the characters. Because your life is funny, generally, but life is also tragic and horrible at the same time – and sometimes in the same day; so that’s where it’s coming from. It’s one of the coping mechanisms of life; if it gets tough, you can make jokes to get through it.

How did the US distribution deal with IFC Midnight come about and for those in the dark, what does it mean for Kill List in the US?
Well the screenings went really well at SXSW, we were approached straightaway by people wanting to distribute it in the US and IFC was one of those groups. I’ve loved the stuff they’ve put out in recent years and their approach was really good so we decided we’d work with them.

Did you have quite a few offers on the table?
Yeah yeah, it was like the kind of stuff you read about in the ‘90’s at Sundance, staying up all night having phone calls come through and offers and all that. It really was that kind of experience, it was brilliant.

Did you have the same experience with Down Terrace?
No, with Down Terrace it wasn’t because nobody knew what it was and also at Fantastic Fest that year there were a few buyers, but South by South West this year, obviously because of the success of Monsters last year, all the acquisition people were there and it’s all kind of gone quite industry so they were all there at that first screening and also there was quite a good buzz after Down Terrace. Also Protagonist our sales agent had been involved in the Monsters sale as well so they used the same tactics which was to hold back. There’s no screeners, there’s nothing for the film, no-one knew what it was and hardly any plot points were put out so everyone kind of went in blind.

So a great marketing plan as it created such a huge buzz around the film…
Well it’s a double-edged sword because you’re terrified because if the buzz gets too big then you don’t know if it’s the right buzz for the film and you get criticised on expectation between the buzz and the film. Y’know, it’s a delicate thing, we were as nervous as everyone else. Bt the time of the first screening we were like fuck….we just don’t know which way it’s gonna go, but it went really well so yeah, it’s gonna be a reasonable size release in America.

What size release will you have in the UK?
Oh it will be at least a 60 screen release so pretty big. It’ll be as big as Submarine I think.

Jonathan Sehring , president of Sundance Selects and IFC Films said “Our team was blown away by Kill List. It’s a relentless, stylish, brilliantly directed journey into darkness that confirms Ben Wheatley as a major director.” Given that you said you’d throw away Down Terrace if it didn’t work out, how does it feel having your second movie receive such recognition? Did you ever think things would get this big?
Nope, not at all. We went to South by South West with no expectations, y’know, we didn’t know how it was gonna go down, and it’s quite extreme, it’s quite odd as well. We were prepared for it to go down alright and then get a sale by the next festival so this stuff’s come quite out of the blue.

It’s incredible Ben, looking back at the internet shorts and virals you started off with to where you are now; it must feel an incredible achievement.
Yeah but it’s all milestones this. The life of the film is about 2-3 years yet. The first hurdle is to get the distribution but then it’s mainstream critics and mainstream audience – if it passes that, then all this is justified, if it doesn’t, then it isn’t y’know, so we’re really early on in the journey of this film at the moment…..but, it’s not over yet!

So you reckon about three years?
Well with Down Terrace we showcased it at Fantastic Fest in 2009 and we’re still picking up awards for it in 2011 so it goes on and on and on. Y’know it might happen sooner for this because we might get a cinema release quicker.

How quick did you shoot Kill List?
Three weeks.

Three weeks?!
Yeah yeah, so pretty quick, but not as quick as Down Terrace.

How long a break did you have between wrapping up Down Terrace, doing all the promotion  then sitting down to write Kill List?
It was pretty quick, I think we’d shown Down Terrace at Fantastic Fest in October ’09 and then we started writing Kill List as soon as it finished ….I think it was getting green lit by the end of January. We’re still writing a lot of stuff at the moment, we’ve got a lot of finished scripts and I think the next thing we’re doing is with Nick Frost so that’s hopefully shooting before the end of the year.

Brilliant, I was going to ask what’s next, so you’re going to be working with Nick Frost?
Yeah, it’s a comedy with Frost and then we’ve got another thing Alex Lowe and Steve Oram who are two really funny comics. Then we’re working on a much bigger, Hollywood 20 million pound film. We’re just putting that together at the moment; we’ve just finished the script so we’re at kind of deal stage at the moment. I mean we’ve got a lot on the go, we don’t ever stop.

It’s funny actually because I was watching your ‘wizardry’ section on mrandmrswheatley.co.uk, the ‘axe trick’ and I just thought it was so Sean of the Dead so it’s great you’re working with Frost…
Yeah he’s nice guy…it’s just part of my mission to kind of just use the entire cast of Spaced – I’m certainly making my way through them! (Julia Deakin who played Marsha in Spaced had a lead role in Down Terrace along with Michael Smiley, another Spaced regular who features both in Down Terrace and Kill List)

Are there any plans for you to change genres going forward or will you always walk on the darker side?
Well I think they’ll always be some slightly darker things, the Nick Frost thing is a comedy but a dark crazy comedy. The Alex Lowe film is more a kind of improv horror comedy thing and then the big films more action y’know – it’s like Hill Street Blues style.

So you’re gonna be directing a 20 million pound film?
Yeah…..I haven’t got the money yet!

You’ve got the camera though! ( more peals of laughter)
So yeah…that’s the plan.

Excellent well Ben, it’s been a pleasure as always and I’m looking forward to the UK premiere.
No worries man nice one, speak to you soon!

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About the author

Vernon Ward
Vernon writes for a variety of national and international titles. Having been on assignments ranging from covering underground bare-knuckle fighting to interviewing Cannes winning film directors along with off-the-wall areas of interest, it's safe to say his eye is drawn to the quirky and interesting. For him, the most intriguing subjects of all are the people surrounding the subject he's covering. "Creativity is the very essence of alchemy - taking nothing and turning it into something - which brings us to the hub of where these ideas take flight; London. The City is one of the worlds most fertile grounds for seeing these roots of imagination become reality - and if the story is right, I'll be there to cover it." North, South, East or West? It's nice to be here....it's nice to be anywhere... High Class, Common or Garden? All of the above... Clothes or Culture? They both reflect each other and as such, so does my writing. My best night out ever made me feel... ...well, there are just some things that should remain a mystery....