I guess there is a balance in the universe. When a field seems so saturated and overstuffed, it always shoots out a gem that makes the whole ordeal seem just worth it all. When you got sick and tired of zombie movies, Shaun of the Dead made you feel bad about your previous sentiments. Last year, when the last two words you wanted to hear was "vampire romance," Let the Right One In warmed you up and cooled your rage. This year... Well okay, I guess vampires are still the biggest shit this year, so say hello to your great new treasure! Faye Jackson's Strigoi is not your typical vampire film, in fact it's far from your typical horror film at all. Weak at the sight of blood, a med school drop out returns to his home country of Romania, being met with not only humility but a suspicious death to boot. Troubled by the tragedy, he digs deeper into uncovering a local conspiracy, all the while completely oblivious to being surrounded by the undead. Being one of the most critically acclaimed screenings at this year's After Dark Film Festival, Strigoi left the audience re-evaluating the approaches to genre story telling, not only in the mixing of genres but the balancing. Oh, on top of the immediate praise, the night of the premier was also Faye's anniversary, so I bet she was just having a swell evening overall.
How did a film like Strigoi get started?
Over a period of time I really wanted to make a film in Romania because I had been over there a lot over the past ten years or so. The idea came together slowly while we figured we could make something that looked great on a smaller budget. All the right elements came together over a long time.
This is sort of an oddball film with your subject mixing...
Completely oddball.
So which of the stories, be it the vampire story or the murder mystery story came first?
Probably the monster story. The original idea was that the villagers would kill this guy and then he would come back. They thought they could, y’know, get rid of their problems by killing him.
The ultimate skeleton in their closet.
By killing him, by killing this corrupt person they were actually kind of corrupting themselves and they couldn’t get away from that. That was all the original concept.
I thought it was interesting that the fact there were undead all over did not make the already developing issue any more intimidating.
Yeah, it’s not just what the villagers did in the first place, but the way they react to these monsters sort of make them monsters themselves.
Did you get any unusual reactions from filming a story about Romanian superstition in Romania?
I don’t know... I suppose so. If you look up the folklore on strigoi you’ll find about fifteen different versions and they’re all contradictory. What was really good fun was that everyone, and I really loved the cast, everyone had their own idea of what it was all about. Even by the end I hadn’t totally sorted out who was a strigoi and who wasn’t a strigoi and everyone in the cast and crew had their own ideas on who was a strigoi. We’d be talking about the film and someone would say, “Well no you’re wrong! You think three people are strigoi? No, four people are strigoi!” I liked that everyone really invested themselves, being surrounded by all these people with their own interpretations and being really opinionated about the subject.
For us it’s cute and foreign but I guess over there you’ll have people pointing across the way going, “Yo that strigoi?” “Ehh yeah I know that strigoi!”
It’s also funny that so many people associate the Dracula legend with Romania and yet the Romanians think it’s a joke. The Romanians think it’s cheesy and that it’s a joke. So the strigoi thing was more fun, it was more real to them, it wasn’t so much of a joke.
Do you really... WANT this film to be associated with vampires, given their current popular connotation?
Y’know its funny. When we started there was no Twilight, there was no True Blood or whatever. When we started we were actually thinking, “Boy, y’know no one’s really done a vampire movie in ages!” So now we turn around and wonder, y’know, is this a good thing or a bad thing that there’s all these other vampire movies going about.
Judging by the novelty vampire t-shirts I’ve been seeing on the street, I guess you just mention your picture has vampires and they’ll be inclined.
Yeah... Which is weird... And we do wonder if that will somehow get people involved. Then again we could also call it a folklore, mystery, comedy, horror type of thing.
That’s a much broader summary.
Yeah, it’s a bit more complicated. It’s good though, to go back a bit and do more research and learn things you don’t know about. The vampires that came before Dracula.
Old school vampires, none of this new age shit.
These are the real ones, or at least they’re more real to me. I think it makes for a more realistic film, with an older backdrop it makes it more believable to me. You know, with the Dracula myth you have these romantic outsiders, almost the dashing anti-hero where as these older ones are part of the fabric of their community, like this poison that infects everyone. It becomes a totally different subject matter.
I was really floored by just the production qualities alone, you keep saying you had a low budget but the film sure fooled me. And just because I know our readership like I do, this is as good a time as any to name drop Beirut being involved on the soundtrack.
Heh, yeah okay. That was one of the ones we really wanted from the start. Again it’s really interesting, sometimes we have this culture myth about authenticity but so many of us have these inputs, come from many different cultures, relationships with so many different countries and what was interesting about Beirut’s stuff is the influence European culture and sound has on their music, and while it’s also very American you take it back to Romania and people love it! It’s great. It speaks to so many different people in so many different ways.
Having such a good looking film, if I say so myself, any gems of wisdom for anyone else hoping to debut? Romanian or otherwise.
Just get on with it. Just go with whatever is at your disposal. And of course get good actors, I’ve worked with a lot of other first time film makers and the worst is when they just pass the roles on to their friends. So just go with what you got, and cast appropriately.
For more information visit: http://www.strigoimovie.com/
