Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with a special AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. This time I catch up with brothers Adrián and Ramiro García Bogliano, the directors and writers of the Argentinean thriller/horror film PENUMBRA. I reviewed the film here when it played at Fantastic Fest last year and found the film to be an expertly crafted nail biter with a whopper of an ending. Here’s what Adrian and Ramiro had to say about PENUMBRA…
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Congrats on the successes your film has had at festivals. I actually saw the film last year and really liked it. How do you describe PENUMBRA to those who don't know anything about it?ADRIAN GARCIA BOGLIANO (AGB): Well… we’re big fans of horror films and after we finished it and saw it for the first time we realized that it’s got nothing to do with any other horror film we’ve seen. It’s horror, but it doesn’t pay tribute to the classic structures of horror and the demands of quick scares. You need to pay attention to the film and it’s something we really liked to do after a rollercoaster type of film as COLD SWEAT was.
BUG: The film centers on a daylight eclipse and some very peculiar people interested in what the eclipse means. Without giving too much away, how much research have you done about our fascination with this astronomical phenomena?
RAMIRO GARCIA BOGLIANO (RGB): We researched, discovered pretty creepy stuff related to the main themes of the film, but it was after writing and rewriting the script. Arnaldo Andre, the actor that is most involved in that aspect of the film you are referring to, added the final touches in that aspect: the way he talks in that particular moment has to do with ancient indigenous chants from his native land. It’s barely enhanced in the film, but what he’s saying is ancient… and meaningful.
BUG: The film plays very much like a stage play with different characters entering the apartment. Was the single location due to budget limitations? RGB: This is our biggest budgeted movie so far. We didn’t have to adapt anything, that was how the project was since day one. The budget, low by international standards, was good enough for us to shoot the movie the way we needed it and casted it the way we dreamed. We brought Cristina Brondo from Spain to play the lead, an actress we hugely admire and has starred with our film god Dario Argento and is a European scream queen and stunning European actress by her own right.
AGB: We love to make films that take place in very small spaces and in the shortest periods of time possible. We were thinking in making an homage to David Mamet and of course there is some sort of flavor of a stage play on the film. We worked a few transitions clearly as “closing curtains”. And we thought that the whole structure of the scam would work better in a very short period of time and a reduced space. The idea was not giving a lot of time and space to the main character to realize that something is not right with that deal. In a way it tries to work as something similar to films that we love like SLEUTH or DEATHTRAP.
BUG: What was the biggest challenge for you in making this film?
RGB: One of the biggest challenges was to work out a character driven horror film, in which characters are first and horror slowly walks in, and when you realize it—it’s too late. We managed to assemble a great cast and worked intensively with them, something not too usual in Argentinean films or most horror films, more fx and camera work centered. AGB: Also it was really challenging that this was the smallest location we ever had for a film. I mean, COLD SWEAT or ROOMS FOR TOURISTS were films that take place in houses, but that gives you a lot of freedom to make some sort of patchwork with the rooms, and stairs and everything else. In this case is an apartment and it’s pretty clear from the first moment you see it that there are not too many places to hide. So we had to think about that pretty carefully to find a way that the mise en scéne could help us to reveal the space slowly. One way was with the lightning, the other was dividing what we were going to show in each sequence.
BUG: The lead actress Christina Brondo did a very great job of being an oblivious cell phone addict. I said in my review that this might play as a cautionary tale to those who are so plugged in to their phones and personal lives and so disconnected with the world around them. Is this a close assessment of what you were trying to say with this film?
RGB: It’s obvious that we are all in different degrees cell phone addicts, or twitter, Facebook addicts, you name it. And yes, part of the troubles Cristina’s character gets herself into, have to do with that disconnection that makes us oblivious of real problems that are developing in reality and could harm us. She is juggling with external problems via cell phone and real problems and extreme danger is surrounding her in real life, but she fails to see the big picture until it’s too late.
AGB: That is an important thing, for sure because it’s basically what happens to anyone who suffers a con. It’s distracted, not paying attention to what should be really looking. I think it also works really well for the level of the “Twilight Zone kind of structure” that we wanted to give to the film. BUG: You always hear of bizarre things happening on set during occult films such as this. Do you have any horror stories from filming PENUMBRA?
AGB: It happened in a couple of sets, but I can’t remember anything in particular…
RGB: I think Adrian doesn’t remember this one, but during prep, when art direction department was starting to work on the main location, Marga’s apartment, they removed a big old mirror in order to add some paintings behind the wall paper that play a key role in the film and there was a hand written phrase that was hidden there for who knows how many decades that said: “We are ready for the film to start”… Knowing what was about to take place in PENUMBRA in that zone, it was pretty disturbing. “They” were waiting for us… We have the picture of the writing somewhere.
AGB: Oh… that’s right… And Ramiro doesn’t want to spoil anything but there was something else that we found on the location that was closely related to the ending of the film…BUG: There have been quite a few Spanish films recently. What is it about that country that warrants such impressive horror films?
RGB: Actually, PENUMBRA is an Argentinean film but Cristina Brondo and her character are both Spanish. There’s a big tradition for genre in Spain, as you know. Things got a little worst for the genre there in the eighties and part of the nineties, but it came back with a vengeance. We lived a lot of time in Spain and are highly influenced by old school Spanish horror like Naschy, Zulueta, Franco, Ossorio or Bigas Luna’s ANGUISH and even more by new school genre, specially guys like Alex de la Iglesia and Juanma Bajo Ulloa.
AGB: Spanish films became a very big influence for a lot of Latin American filmmakers. Particularly for guys of our age seeing films like ACCION MUTANTE, DEAD MOTHER, THE RED SQUIRREL or IN A GLASS CAGE was an enormous influence back in the late eighties and early nineties. I think I’m not exaggerating if I say there was a before and after in our lives after we went to visit the set of THE DAY OF THE BEAST… And I think there was a moment when they stopped making great horror films but I think now Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguero are two of the most impressive horror filmmakers of the world… Not to mention impressive fantastic filmmakers as Nacho Vigalondo, Carles Torrens or Paco Limon.
BUG: What's it like to have PENUMBRA finally in limited release and on VOD so that the world can finally see it? RGB: It’s great. You make movies for people to see, IFC is a big deal and it is available everywhere. Also, we like to think that this movie will add to the perception for American audiences that Latin American cinema or Argentinean cinema has a lot to offer in terms of genre, not the usual “poverty porn” that we are used to.
AGB: It took us ten years to get this project made, so it’s kind of a relieve to finally show it to the audience. The response so far has been really good all over the world…
BUG: What's next for you? Can you talk a little about your future projects?
AGB: I just finished my segment for THE ABC’S OF DEATH, which I’m really happy of and putting a lot of energies on my new film, that takes place in Mexico, Here comes the devil produced by MPI Media Group, a film that it’s going to be pretty different of everything I’ve made so far…RGB: We are planning a couple of films in Argentina too. A satanic movie and an extreme violent thriller influenced by James Elroy and Chester Himes.
BUG: So last chance, why should folks seek out PENUMBRA in theaters and VOD?
RGB: I recommend the theatre experience if you have the chance. It’s not like you’re going to get huge CGI monsters in 3D, but we crafted every frame and every detail of sound with great care, to make it an absolutely worthwhile theatrical experience. Hope people will enjoy it either way, because it’s a different approach on thriller and horror, and the cast work is fantastic.
AGB: I think horror fans should seek out for it if they feel like us that there are so many different type of horror films that can be made. We tried to make a very unusual type of film that doesn’t start right off as a horror film but becomes a horror film on the way. BUG: Thanks so much for your time and congrats on a great film.
RGB: Thank you, Ambush. I’m a big fan of your column. Hope you get the chance to check Adrian’s previous work, and our work together, I think you will dig it. Thanks a lot for the attention to PENUMBRA.
AGB: Thanks! And hope to talk to you soon!
BUG: PENUMBRA is in theaters and available On Demand now! Check out the trailer below!
See you for our regular AICN HORROR column on Friday, folks!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/reviewer/co-editor of AICN Comics for over ten years. He has written comics such as MUSCLES & FIGHTS, MUSCLES & FRIGHTS, VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS TINGLERS & WITCHFINDER GENERAL, THE DEATHSPORT GAMES, WONDERLAND ANNUAL 2010 & NANNY & HANK (soon to be made into a feature film from Uptown 6 Films). He is also a regular writer for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND & has co-written their first ever comic book LUNA: ORDER OF THE WEREWOLF (to be released in October 2012 as an 100-pg original graphic novel). Mark has just announced his new comic book miniseries GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK from Zenescope Entertainment to be released in March 2012.
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