I grew up spellbound by Italian horror films, with Argento and Fulci fueling my nightmares and inspiring my love for the dark and the macabre. Recently it was recommended to me to watch an Italian horror film called Blood Bags, I had previously seen the trailer and it was on my watch list, so keenly my journey into the imagination of Italian film maker Emiliano Ranzani began. I'm not one for horror films that are so clinically mapped out that you aware of the cliche jump scares, these films appear to be like paint by number projects and fail to deliver anything more to me than a giggle. So, I was ecstatic when watching Blood Bags as I had an authentic jump scare (I haven't had one since I was child). The thing was - I knew it was coming, I was waiting, and then bam it got me, it was the unexpected expectation that delivered the moment for me. There is 'something' about Italian horror film makers, that must be naturally seeping through their veins, the look, the feel, the overall atmosphere is so creepy it has it's own horror water mark in the horror genre.
I was elated when Emiliano agreed to be interviewed for The Australian Film Network Journal for our International Film Maker Special. (We will be bringing you a specially selected international film maker's interviews over the next month or so) I will personally be following Emiliano's film making career, he has the gift of depicting horror oozing from his veins.
It is international film maker month at the Australian Film Network Journal. Welcome Italian film maker Emiliano Ranzani.
ER- Hello: thank you for having me.
When did you discover your love for horror?
ER - Very early: I was always attracted to the macabre and what people considered horrifying, even as a child. Most of my toys were monsters of one kind or another, my favorite fairy tales were very grim and couldn’t help but fantasize about the content of the so-called “scary movies” the adults were trying to protect me from. Back in the late- 80's and early- 90's, it was actually very hard to shield children from scary or violent content: even most cartoons featured horror-like elements and, between the ages of 3 and 10, I was raised by a single father who actually happened to partially share my interests, although he was more of a sci-fi guy.
Who or what has been your biggest inspiration, and why?
ER - That’s a tough one: I am quite the sponge, hence I have an army of people I could consider my spiritual fathers. Not just filmmakers, but also authors, artists and video game designers. For brevity’s sake, let’s say I decided to become a horror filmmaker after watching Dario Argento’s “Phenomena” (“Creepers” for the English-speaking markets) and I spent most of my youth idolizing H.P. Lovecraft.
What do you personally find frightening?
ER - Life: there’s no way of getting out of it alive.
What do you believe are the key elements to a good horror film?
ER - Good actors are a must: with horror movies always walking the thin line between scary and ludicrous, a believable cast is essential to seal the deal. Then comes cinematography: as Mario Bava once said, “photography is 70% of a horror movie”, which is the reason why I am puzzled that some of the best Italian cinematographers utterly despise the genre, even though their work would shine like never before on such a project. Last but not least, the film has to feel genuine: if might sound banal but most horror movies, especially these days, come across as if they’ve been put together by simply consulting a check list.
Can you tell us about your film Blood Bags?
ER - “Blood Bags” is my first feature film: it is based on a script titled “La Ragnatela” (“The Spider Web”) that I wrote when I was very young. As such, it still carries into its DNA a certain fanboy attitude, making it a love-letter to a lot of the movies I loved while growing up, from Italian gills to American and British horror movies. At a certain point, I actually decided to dwell on this aspect, turning it into a sort of Trivial Pursuit for horror aficionados while also hinting at some themes, like physical deformity and onirism, which I’d like to better explore in the future. It was originally written to feature a cast of strictly Italian characters, but the distributors we consulted while we were reworking the script were adamant about the fact it had to be in English in order to secure International sales, especially for the US market. What originally came across as an hindrance actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me to make a bilingual picture, which is something I’ve been obsessed with for quite some time: although the primary language it’s English, some scenes are acted in Italian and, in a few instances, the two tongues actually overlap. There’s even some Russian thrown into the mix, which it something we improvised on set: in a particular scene, a Russian-native character is about to get murdered and I thought it would’ve been just natural for a person to revert to his\her mother tongue in a moment of acute distress. As I am a rather different person than the young man who wrote the original version, “Blood Bags” also ended up being darker and more cynical in tone than its prototype, something I don’t regret: the ending itself was conceived as a way to subvert the average audience’s expectations. Some people got the joke, others didn’t. It wasn’t an easy movie to make, but I was blessed to work with some strong performers, starting with Makenna Guyler, our lead, whose career is currently on the rise and she well deserves it: an American friend of mine was astonished when she discovered the leading lady was actually a Brit putting on a Mid-Western accent.
(Makenna Guyler and Emiliano)
What are you working on at present?
ER - I am working on a couple of feature-length projects: one of them is shaping up to be a pretty creepy experience. It’s very different from “Blood Bags” in almost every way. That said, being the irrationally superstitious person that I am, I am not going to talk about it any further.
How did COvid 19 impact your work?
ER - As a director, the lock down actually gave me the chance to sit down and think what to do next without all the anxieties deriving from everyday life. But as a cinematographer (which is my other career), it was a huge blow: a few days after Christmas 2019, I was offered a very interesting project from an Italian director (I am not going to say who, even though some of your readers might’ve seen his work). It was a pretty big movie (for me, it was huge): a Gothic period piece with at least two name actors in the cast and slated to be shot in Austria as a co-production between Italy and Germany. At first, I thought the man was joking, but he was actually dead serious: it was the phone call everyone dreams of receiving. The pre-production was to begin in March with some location scouting, while the actual shoot was to take place in August: with my usual luck, Austria was the first country to close its borders after Italy became Europe’s leper around March the 3rd. As we speak I don’t know what became of that movie, much less if I’ll still be the director’s first choice in case of a revival. That’s a pity: I really wanted to do it.
(Emiliano and Richard Stanley)
What is one of your favourite horror films, and why?
ER - “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, the original one from 1973. It’s one of those movies that, no matter how old I get, still comes across as untarnished. In my opinion, it’s one of the genre’s undisputed heavy-weight champions: raw, intense and deranged. The opening scene alone, the one that ends with the rotting corpse attached to a cross under the scorching sun, is more powerful than most horror movies in their entirety. As the original American trailer says, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! After you stop screaming, you’ll start talking about it!”
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?
ER - I am too self-critical to pat myself on the shoulder and go “Oh, I did good there, didn’t I?”, although I reckon that completing a micro-budget genre movie under rather unfavorable circumstances, in a country with no real tradition of indie film-making and selling it in over 20 nations can already be considered an accomplishment, regardless of the way I actually feel.
If you could work with any film maker or actor who would it be and why?
ER - I like actors a lot, but I never venerated any thespian in particular, not to the point of dreaming of working with him or her at least. I’d love to shake Kurt Russell’s hand though: who wouldn’t want to meet Snake Plissken, R.J. MacReady and Jack Burton all at once? As for filmmakers, for ages I really wanted to work with Richard Stanley (director of “Hardware”, “Dust Devil” and “Color out of Space”) and I managed to do so in 2010 on the anthology film “The Theatre Bizarre”, even though I would’ve liked to continue collaborating with him a little further. Then there’s a bunch of other directors I always wanted to have the chance of just sitting down and talk for five minutes, ranging from Ridley Scott to Mark Pavia (the director of “The Night Flier” and “Fender Bender”). This past November, at the Science+Fiction Film Festival in Trieste, I got the chance of talking with Brian Yuzna: a true giant of a man, humble and generous.
(Emiliano and Brian Yuzna)
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
ER - I try to avoid this sort of speculations: they imply “expectations” and those things have the bad habit of leading to disappointment more often than not. Not to mention the fact that times goes by so quickly, you only become aware of it after everything has gone down the drain. Personally, I try to concentrate on what can be done in the present and I never plan ahead for more than a couple of months.
What was the last movie you watched, or television show you binged?
ER- If you mean chronologically, I re-watched Dan O’Bannon’s “The Resurrected” the other day: I had only seen it once more than a decade ago and, especially since I just got it on Blu-Ray, it almost felt like it was the first time. Unfortunately, I am not a big fan of TV-series: very often, I don’t make it past the first episode. The last one I really liked was “Mindhunter” on Netflix: the first two seasons were masterful (Season 1’s cliffhanger was a lesson in suspense) and I will most definitely watch the third one, when it will eventually be released, that is.
If you could remake any film what would it be and why?
ER - Oh, despite me not being the finest filmmaker out there, I have a long list of ideal remakes, mainly because I am firm believer that only movies that had great potential but somehow misfired should be remade (which, of course, is the polar opposite of the real-world policy and for a good reason: producers want to capitalize on established brands, hoping for them to be safe investments). “Sleepwalkers” by Mick Garris , for example, could become a pretty terrifying and disturbing movie with some very minor tweaks, although there’s plenty of people who love it for its random campiness and they might not like the idea of it being altered. Umberto Lenzi’s “Demoni 3” (released abroad as “Black Zombies” or “Black Demons”) is pretty tempting as well, mostly because of its simple premise, while the underlying idea of black slaves coming back from the grave would allow for some social commentary, if properly used. Then there’s “C.H.U.D.”, which happens to be a cult movie of mine: a lot of people (including Rob Zombie and Kevin Smith) actually fancied of redoing that one. I reckon the chance of titling your movie “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers” alone is enough to ignite most people’s enthusiasm. Unfortunately, Manhattan has been sanitized in the ‘90's, so that peculiar mood the movie has (which is the same as any genre flick shot in New York from the late-70's to the early 80's, from “Cruising” to “Basket Case” and “Wolfen") would be impossible to recreate.
What is it like to work in the Italian film industry? Is there much support?
ER - I don’t think I really work in the Italian film industry: as a director, most of what I did so far was somehow clandestine, well under the radar of the establishment. If you want to make horror movies, there’s not much support from institutions: when it comes to money (and you must understand that European cinema at large depends on grants or other incentives from either local governments or the EU), you get no help whatsoever. In the past few years a couple of “properly made” horror movies got green-lit, but they are the exception, not the rule.
If you could give any advice to up and coming film makers what would it be and why?
ER - In all honesty, I don’t feel like I am in the position of giving advises to anyone, save for the all-time classic “develop a tough skin”, which actually applies to pretty much anything in life. It is something I tell the guy in the mirror on an almost daily basis.
Where can our readers find your work?
ER - “Blood Bags” has been (or is going to be) released in several countries either in physical media (Blu-Ray and DVD) or VOD. As we speak, I am not really sure about Australia in particular: last time I got a report from the sales agency, distribution deals were still in progress. Some of my short movies, like “Langliena - Una Storia Macabra” (a mix of HP Lovecraft and Fulci praised by the likes of Stuart Gordon), are available online: checking them on my Vimeo account might be the easiest route, I think. If you’re Australian and really looking for trouble, try and see “Morgue Street”, a depraved adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” I wrote and lensed for fellow filmmaker Alberto Viavattene. Be weary, though: it was banned by the Australian Classification Board, so it is actually illegal to own it Down Under. Although the final product is not as unpleasant and damaging as I originally envisioned it, I cannot deny I giggled like an idiot when I first read the news. It was conceived to be offensive, after all.
SILLY QUESTIONS
If you had to be a vampire, zombie, werewolf or ghost, which would you pick and why?
ER - I’d say a ghost: it would be a good chance to just sit down and contemplate the world without worrying about the future. Plus, scaring people by randomly appearing in closets, popping behind them in a mirror or simply sitting on a couch sounds like a nice pastime.
If you were being held hostage and the kidnapper was going to remove one part of your body (external or internal) to send with a ransom note but you had to pick what would it be?
ER - …how about my tonsils? I still have them and they burn like hell when I get sick. Plus, you generally get ice cream after a tonsillectomy, don’t you?
Who is your favorite horror villain or monster?
ER - I am a massive monster fan, so I got tons of creatures I love, making pinning one down very hard. As for “simple” horror villains, I reckon Frank and Julia from “Hellraiser” would make a good choice.