There is something very refreshing about having your opinion of a film changed almost instantly. A rare and significant feat which filmmaker Richard Rowntree achieved with aplomb in his latest horror ‘Mask of the Devil’. Rather than falling into the “not another cringey horror movie” category, Richard and the team at Ash Mountain Films take their audience on a whiplash voyage from the depths of West Africa, via a typical awkward suburban family dynamic, into the seedy belly of a low-budget pornography set, then out the other end into a blood-fueled killing spree.
Richard built upon the experience and feedback garnered from his previous films and decided it was time to play with his audience and subvert the very tropes for which he was criticised. His satirical take on the indie film world lies beneath a shallow surface and provides for a very entertaining, if ever-so-slightly garish, watch.
We’d seen other indies have big success using provocative titles, ridiculous plots, lots of blood and spatter and elements of surrealism etc., but this is the antithesis of everything we ever wanted to do.
As your 3rd feature film, what influenced the making of ‘Mask of the Devil’?
Whenever we’ve been making films here at Ash Mountains FIlms we always have a lot of on-set banter and jokes about the ridiculousness of the behind-the-scenes goings on with indie films, horror in particular. I attended a film festival in Texas a few years ago and met an indie director who subsidised his career by directing low-budget pornography, and we had lots of laughs about some of his experiences. Then I had a new kitchen installed with worktops made out of a West African teak wood, and the guy installing it joked with me about how this particular type of wood was said to be cursed and to contain the spirit of the forest who was angry about the trees being cut down. These things kind of all played around in my mind for a year or so, but without gathering into anything cohesive.
By setting the movie in the world of pornography and using that as an allegory for the indie horror world and deliberately referencing the audience, we managed to produce something which we’re really happy with.
We had some criticism in reviews over the length of our first two features ‘Dogged’ & ‘Nefarious’ and so I had a chat with someone I know in distribution who said that an 88-90 minute runtime for horror was the gold standard, so we looked to achieve that. Then my co-writer Matt and I decided that if we were going to aim for that, seemingly baseless, runtime then why not go the whole hog and make something that was going to pander to a “basic” audience.
We’d seen other indies have big success using provocative titles, ridiculous plots, lots of blood and spatter and elements of surrealism, etc but this the antithesis of everything we ever wanted to do when we started out, so we decided that if we were going to do this, we’d do it to poke fun at these audiences who essentially demand the same formula over and over again and lap it up. By setting the movie in the world of pornography and using that as an allegory for the indie horror world and deliberately referencing the audience, we managed to produce something which we’re really happy with, and which hopefully has a broad appeal to audiences who are not au fait with what we’re really telling a story about.
You are clearly a passionate aficionado of the horror genre. Why is this your chosen means to tell the stories you do?
I always loved the feelings that horror aroused. In my opinion, no other genre elicits such a response in an audience en masse.
I love horror and I have done so since I was very young. I grew up in the 80s and loved the VHS rental era, I much prefer it to streaming as it gives you something to really concentrate on and engage with. You wouldn’t just switch something off because you weren’t enjoying it which is what people tend to do now. I always loved the feelings that horror aroused. In my opinion, no other genre elicits such a response in an audience en masse. I really enjoy the idea that you can give jump scares, deep, lingering scares and visceral scares which all affect people differently. I have vivid memories of certain moments in horror movies and to be able to even create one of those that lasts in someone’s memory would be incredible. A lot of the stories we try to tell with our films are personal and character driven, and combining that with the more basic elements of horror is a great way to get people to remember the film and the story.
Can you walk us through some of the more technical aspects of production?
Our pre-production was lengthier and more in depth than we had done in the past, partly due to insurers’ regulations about shooting during the pandemic, and so the production designer Mel played around with different ideas for the actual mask design and creation. We had better preparation with costumes and we were able to build all of the sets in one indoor location which is a real luxury for ultra-low budget indies. It was refreshing not shooting on location and having to be permanently worried about destroying someone’s house! Production was 21 shooting days over a period of 4-5 months, mainly over the weekends to work around people’s paid jobs and it went pretty smoothly. There’s always a few hiccups but the team we assembled both in front of and behind the camera were a very dedicated, enthusiastic bunch, with an awful lot of talent. Post production was around 6 months – although we had a locked picture cut within a couple of months – but there’s quite a lot of visual flare and vfx shots in this film which we’d only attempted on a small scale in the past, and refining that took a little time. Lee, our editor/vfx wizard did a super job and he and I have a good shorthand – he’s able to anticipate my requests before I even realise what they are!
We wanted to have the VHS grime look to the film.
We shot the film on a Black Magic camera, and my DOP Frank really put a lot of time into preparing in advance, spending full days sorting lighting set ups in advance of every shoot day alongside gaffer Chris. This was only possible because we were working in a studio type environment, it’s almost impossible to do this on location and it enabled the movie to have a very specific and intended 80s style aesthetic. We wanted to have the VHS grime look to the film, and they did a great job of pulling that off.
I thoroughly enjoy the meta exploration of the indie film industry through an indie film. How did you build the satire and references into the script so that they are noticeable but also just hidden under the surface?
Hopefully ‘Mask of the Devil’ gives some nods to both those ‘in the know’ and those who don’t see the allegory.
Thank you! We’ve all seen satires of the more mainstream side of filmmaking, but it’s not often explored in indies apart from a few notable exceptions such as ‘Living in Oblivion’. It’s such an insane world with so many creative people and ideas (and plenty of crazy too!) that we wanted to give people a bit of an insight into how that all works. We skirted around the obvious by using the porn industry as a substitute, but I think anyone who’s ever been involved in an indie film will be able to draw the parallels! Hopefully ‘Mask of the Devil’ gives some nods to both those ‘in the know’ and those who don’t see the allegory.
There’s a lot going on in the film, African curses, virginity, coming-of-age, pornography, why did you decide to discuss all of these?
Those things are all interlinked in my mind oddly enough! There’s this primal fear of ‘the other’ that permeates horror in general, and so we wanted to get that in by setting the start of the film in an unfamiliar location. Coming-of-Age movies often centre around characters losing their virginity, and what’s the least romantic place we could think of for that particular action? A porn set where the sex (and the actors) are treated like cattle and have to perform what are essentially loving acts in an environment that harbours very little other than sleaze and degradation. Combining those things and coming up with a relatively formulaic slasher script was something that excited us, and, we felt, gave something fresh to the narrative.
There’s some great guts and gore. Who inspires you from the horror genre and what did you draw from in the making of ‘Mask of the Devil’?
I have to say (believe it or not) that I’m actually pretty squeamish when it comes to visceral horror
Our makeup and prosthetics team are really great and we wanted to give them more of an opportunity to showcase their amazing talent and ingenuity. We wanted all of the kills to be related to the people’s roles on the film set which gave us a fun way to dispatch the characters. I have to say (believe it or not) that I’m actually pretty squeamish when it comes to visceral horror, particularly anything with self harm. So when we shot the scene with the character peeling the skin off their own face, I actually handed the reins over to someone else because I didn’t feel as though I would be able to direct it effectively! I often have to hide behind my own hands when stuff like that is in movies that I’m watching, not very rock and roll. I’ve also had to leave screenings of movies several times at festivals because I just can’t bear it. It’s an essential part of some horror, but not something that I can draw on because I’m a scaredy cat!
The roles and characters are clearly exaggerated. How did you go about explaining your intentions to your actors and directing them to achieve the right levels of humour and drama you were looking for?
The characters are absolutely exaggerated and, in most cases, fairly superficial, which is very intentional. We wanted to show how these people only really know each other on a very basic, professional level and when you’re working in film, that’s often the only side of people you do get to see. I think this is an element of the film which has somewhat gone over people’s heads unfortunately! Auditioning was difficult because of the pandemic. I usually try to get actors in, meet with them, talk to them about their ideas and mine and about how we can collaborate to bring the character to life. But we had to do all of that in the virtual space which is obviously much less personal. One of the things I enjoy most about directing is that when we’re writing, we form an idea in our minds about the character. The look, the personality, the reactions – but seeing actors bringing their own selves to the written page is a massive thrill. The nuances that they bring show just how much work they put into the roles. We talk a lot in advance of shooting about how we want things to play out, and so with a few notable exceptions, there’s not masses of on set directing, I like to see what happens when we let them run with it. For the horror and comedy moments, a lot of the work is in timing but bringing the pastiche is their job, and I think they all handle it with aplomb in MOTD.
The SFX are great. What were you wanting the audience to feel and take from the effects?
For the scenes where the mask is fusing to the hosts, the main reference was the streams from ‘Ghostbusters’.
Lee is crazily talented and it’s a pleasure to work with him on these things. I give him general guidance for the kind of things I want and perhaps send some references, then I let him run with it. For the scenes where the mask is fusing to the hosts, the main reference was the streams from ‘Ghostbusters’. To keep the movie with the 80s/VHS vibe we wanted to stick to the look of those kinds of movies, but with a slightly slicker look. to them in terms of how they were achieved. Similarly the miniatures we used for some of the opening sequence, it was something we felt paid homage to that era and the kind of movie we were making, and hopefully entrenches the audience right from the off that the movie is going to be something fun and practical in terms of the effects.
What do you hope for your film?
Our intention, whether short or features, is for people to see them, that’s actually all the reward our team wants as filmmakers. Festivals are such an important route for ‘true’ indies to go down, you can gather so much momentum on the circuit and people actually want to see your work. Anything else is a bonus. When we made our first feature, we were blown away by getting a distribution deal, and seeing DVD’s of that movie in HMV still gives me a real buzz. When we set out to make the second one, we set a target of wanting to get into more festivals (which it did) and then people started asking us what was next, it’s such an honour when people are anticipating your next film. With ‘Mask of the Devil’, we’ve had some really positive feedback, played a lot of festivals, and have distribution in place for North America. Our sales agents also have lots of enquiries from territories all over the world, so maybe the gamble we made with the pandering was all worth it! At the end of the day, we all just love making films and people seeing them, whether they’re paying audiences or not. We have stories we want to tell, and hopefully some unique ways of telling them and I think as long as filmmakers try to stick to their art and not deviate too far down the commercial route, then it’s a thoroughly enjoyable (if expensive) hobby!
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