Franck Khalfoun
Franck Khalfoun is back in the director’s chair this week as he teams up with Elijah Wood to bring a remake of eighties slasher film Maniac to the big screen.
We caught up with the director to chat about the new movie, the challenges the film posed and what lies ahead.
- Maniac is about to be released here in the UK so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
It is a remake of an eighties film of the same name and it is a slasher predominately - it was one of the first great slashers ever made.
It is loosely based on the original because I think that the movie is quite different and has its own kind of thing. It is as painful to watch, if not more than the first, perhaps because of the realism that exists.
- You are in the director's chair for the film so where did this project start for you?
Thomas Langmann, actor, director and producer was a big fan of the original film and had acquired the rights a while ago. He is friends with a friend of mine Alexandre Aja, who I collaborate with, and together they thought it was something that would fit my sensibilities.
I am a director who likes to build characters and they thought that this would be a good fit for me. We started talking and that is really how the project was born.
- Alexandre Aja has had a hand in penning the script so what was it about this screenplay that made you want to tackle the remake?
I don’t know if it was the script necessarily rather than the challenge of taking a movie which was so well known by the core audience and doing a remake - which is really hated by the core audiences (laughs) - and to try and break that and make something that they would like.
So it was really more the challenge than the script itself. In the beginning the script was very similar to the first in that it was an urban stalking film.
I didn’t feel that we needed another one of those movies and so we had to come up with some creative way of doing this different.
So it was the challenge rather than the script and then turning the script into what it become - there was some script writing involved on my part as well.
- I was reading that the first draft of this new script was not from the point of view of the killer so when were those changes made? And why were those changes made?
Those changes were made because we wanted to find a creative way of making this movie. We looked at a few genres and Alex and I talked about trying to come up with a clever of shooting the movie and we came up with this point of view idea as it really is one of the scariest shots in horror films - that behind the bushes stalking shot.
And we felt that if we were able to find a way to maintain that for the length of a feature it was an interesting challenge. Then the writing had to be adapted and the script had to be adapted to this idea because it is so drastic.
- It is a remake of the 1980 film of the same name so how familiar were you with the original? And how useful was the original as you were developing this new film?
I was familiar with the film and I remember the film - I didn’t see it in the eighties and I had to wait until VHS a little later on.
I remember the film and I remember how we all loved the film and I also knew that so many films referenced it. It was kind of frightening for me to have to do a remake of the film that everybody copies was a little scary.
So I had to find the thing that appealed the most to me and to try and translate that to a modern audience and the biggest part of that, for me, was the amount of empathy that you felt for Joe Spinell in the original.
That is what that impacted me the most, even more than the raw visceral gore and violence in the movie.
What interested me the most was I kind of felt sorry for this sleazy and disgusting character and no matter how many bad things he did and how awful he was as a human being I felt bad for him and I felt that it wasn’t necessarily his fault.
That is really what marked me and that was one of the things that I wanted to try and recreate with this movie.
- Elijah Wood and Liane Balaban are just two of the names on the cast list so can you tell me a little bit about the casting process?
The casting process is always different but it is always about talking to people and getting feelings for different people. There are always a wide range of variables as some people are available and some are not while some are expensive and some are - it is a slow puzzle of trying to find out who fits.
Right from my first discussions with Elijah Wood myself and the producer realised that he really was a big genre fan - as well as being an incredible actor.
Also he fit into the mould of creating empathy and feeling for the character. Usually you are afraid of movie stars coming in with baggage but his baggage was that of a nice guy who was kind and a gentle type of person.
I thought that was interesting to have an actor with a lot of depth and talent but also who people would perceive as a kind person and to have him turn the way that he does in our film was really interesting. So that and those incredible eyes that are so deep and say so much with just a gaze.
He is an incredibly talented and caring actor who is a well rounded filmmaker and it was wonderful to work with him.
- It is quite interesting that you say he has this persona of being a nice guy as this is not really the type of role that we see Elijah Wood take on. So were you surprised when he threw his name into the hat and said he was interested?
I suppose I was. If you look at the original and Joe Spinell immediately you are thing ‘it’s Beauty and the Beast, he is going to be a monster’.
The one thing in the original film that bothered me the most was the relationship between this horrific, seedy, big and fat guy - Joe Spinell is a an incredible actor but he was rough around the edges - and to believe that that was a relationship that could exist was a little hard for me to swallow.
But with a guy like Elijah you could believe that women could be lured into his lair and into his world and so it does make the story that much more believable and allows the audience to follow a lot better.
So I was surprised that he was interested but immediately I realised the benefits of having a character like that in the film and an actor like that in the film. It really did help us a lot.
- As I mentioned earlier the film is very much shot from the point of view of the killer and so Frank almost becomes the camera in a way. So how tricky was that for you to film and for Elijah?
It was interesting because… at first you think ‘oh my goodness we are going to take save so much time because we are not doing the coverage that you usually do in film and the limited angles that you are going to save us time’ but it turned into a problem - especially in a horror/suspense where you spend so much time with an unknowing victim and waiting for the bad guy to appear.
As a filmmaker I was stripped with all the tools as I only had one angle to work with and that was a real challenge.
Elijah was really wonderful because he understood immediately that a lot of his character would live through the other characters - meaning that a lot of whom he was needed to be seen from the people that were standing opposite.
And so he realised quickly that he needed to be there as much as possible; even when he wasn’t on camera he was there making sure that the actors brought out what he felt was the character. Even though he wasn’t scheduled to be there all the time with us but he soon realised that he needed to be there.
There is a real creativity to the way a camera moves in a movie like that and he had input and was there to talk about where he would be looking and what he would be holding and what he would be doing at that moment.
So it became a really organic process of creating his character through his character. It was quite fun and a new experience to see an actor and a camera be so closely tied together.
- How have you found the response to the film so far?
I think that the response has been great. The film was selected to play at Cannes and for a little slasher that we thought would fly under the radar it was great.
I think ultimately the decision to make it in a fresh way and the daring choice to shoot it from the point of view is really paying off.
- The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival so how was that experience?
Festivals are great as you get to meet other filmmakers and you get to celebrate films. You get to meet up with a lot of other filmmakers and just get to talk about film and the essence of a film.
Cannes is the ultimate for a filmmaker because they have a very traditional way in which they present films is really wonderful. They really highlight the director’s work and it is a dream of any filmmaker to show a movie there.
To show a slasher to a bunch of people in tuxedoes I got a bit of a kick out of (laughs) I thought it really was a lot of fun. They responded to the movie because it is certainly not something that they are use to seeing there. It was a wonderful experience.
- Finally what is next for you?
I have multiple projects and I am writing still and developing and prepping some things as well. Some are in the genre and some are not; I actually have eight projects in the pipeline and you are fighting for all of them at once and you are never sure which one of them is going to go first.
So that is my status right now; I am continuing, I am persevering and I am moving on - steady as she goes (laughs).
Maniac is released 15th March.
Tagged in Elijah Wood