LUCID FORGE

Phillip Carrer and Chad Archibald are excited. In about a week they’ll unveil their second film, Kill, to live audiences in the city of Guelph at the Galaxy Cinema. The duo gained local recognition and praise for producing and directing the independent horror film Desperate Souls in 2004. They then saw their work spread far and wide when it was bought and distributed direct-to-DVD by Alliance Films and Lionsgate.

“That was forever ago,” says Carrer, as he, Archibald and I do a lunch time interview at the Albion in downtown Guelph. Like anyone worth their salt in show business, Archibald and Carrer talk about the Kill premiere’s after party while waiting for the food to arrive. But like any starving artist they start to ponder as to whether or not the refills on their Pepsi are free.

But back to Kill, a film nearly four years in the making because after shooting was done, everyone branched off into other projects, which slowed down work on Kill. In the intervening time it’s taken to get Kill finished, both Carrer and Archibald have worked on numerous other projects in one capacity or another; Archibald made an episode of Creepy Canada, while Carrer recently wrapped the video for the Smash Hi Fi video “Everything You Need.”



At the time though, making Kill came out of a bit of desperation. As Archibald and Carrer were winding down post production on Desperate Souls, they started panicking. Unwilling to wait a year to get their second film up and going, they sat down and worked out the idea for Kill. Within a month they had the script written and the actors cast.

“Rolling hell in one house,” says Carrer, describing the film. More specifically, it’s about six strangers who think they’ve won a trip to a tropical island. In reality, they’ve been selected to play a survival of the fittest game to the death, which they learn after waking up in camera-filled house with no memory of getting there.

“Another thing we should note about Saw,” adds Carrer, “and write this down: Saw II was not even composed of yet.

“We were in the middle of shooting Kill and we were taking a break, and I was online in someone’s room and I read the synopsis for Saw II. ‘Six people trapped in a house.’ That was the basis for Saw II and our idea came before theirs.”

“But the two movies are nothing alike,” assures Archibald, “but still it’s one of those things where you read the logline…”

What really has these two filmmakers excited though is the chance to use Kill as their ‘new business card.’ “Kill was like a much more concrete progression and update for us as filmmakers,” says Carrer. “Hopefully that comes out with this film.”

“On Desperate Souls we were just these two kids that had no debt, no nothing, and we’re just like, ‘Let’s make a movie!’ says Archibald. “We did that and nothing else.” Also, reviews were not the greatest for Desperate Souls and Carrer says that looking back, had the two of them not made that film, they would have joined the chorus and made fun of it too. With Kill, they wanted to do horror some justice. “We’re proud of Desperate Souls, but it was definitely a learning experience. It was our film school,” explains Carrer Carrer and Archibald are also pleased that they managed to do so much with Kill on a much smaller budget than Desperate Souls, while improving their technical prowess. Their only real extravagant purchase was that of a new steadycam. “I’d say 90 per cent of the production was done at the Dollar Store; party supplies, even the Tiki masks, we used dollar store glue on the paper mache,” says Carrer. “We had so little money, but that’s the great thing about the Dollar Store, you go in and you feel like you have a million dollars.” “I think people always loose sight of what can be done with a little money,” adds Archibald.

Helping the abbreviated shoot was that Kill is more confined, taking place mostly in a single house as opposed to the numerous exterior shots that made shooting interesting on Desperate Souls. With a strict deadline of September 1st before they had to get out of the house used for the set, shooting had to be tight and inventive. Inevitable reshoots though happened at an entirely different house.

“We had six rooms that were all supposed to look alike and we had one room to shoot in. So we had to keep switching up the bed to different spots so it’d look like a different room,” explains Carrer.

As for the long break between shooting in the Summer of 2005, Carrer and Archibald say it was inevitable. “It takes so long for us to finish movies because we’re on such a low budget we have to do everything ourselves,” says Archibald. “But it’s nice that Desperate Souls will be out of the way and Kill can become our business card.”

Kill hasn't been sold yet, but the filmmakers hope that it will be another direct-to-DVD release for them. But if Kill gets sold to a distributor, it won't be the word on the careers of these two for very long they say. "It'll be replaced pretty quickly," says Carrer. "We have a pile of movies that are almost done or are in the works."

Archibald and Carrer don’t direct together anymore, although they continue to work closely through Guelph-based production house Black Fawn Films. But after working the horror genre for their entire filmmaking career, both moviemakers appear ready to move on to something new.

“I’m doing this thing next year that’s Fight Club meets romance,” says Archibald. “It’s this kind of high concept thing that’s so far from horror… But I have script after that that’s horror. I just want to make sure that it’s ready.”

Carrer, meanwhile, has got another horror in the works, a Deliverance-like tale called If a Tree Falls, written by Kill star Ryan Barrett and produced by Archibald. After that he’ll take a break from horror too, but he also expects to come back to it. “You know what movies I actually like? Movie like Sweet November with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. You know something that’s really nice.”

And what if money were no object? What kind of movie would we see from Carrer and Archibald?

“[I’d] make Gremlins 3,” says Carrer instantly. “You know, I think I’m going to set up a petition for Gremlins 3.”

“Wait, remember Mutant Wars?” asks Archibald



“Yes,” Carrer responds in recognition. “We were talking about this movie where there was this last city of humans and there’s these giant mutants coming to attack them.”

There’s also an idea they have called Land of Pandora, a kind of Alice in Wonderland tale as done by Satan, they explain. Very Pan’s Labyrinth.

“You know what though, we were always fooling around with video cameras though, like every other kid,” explains Carrer. “We were in a band together called Dead Weed, he was the drummer and I was the DJ, and we get bored after practice and do these skits. Real Saturday Night Live type stuff.”

Archibald laughs in remembrance. “We have endless tapes of those. We don’t even have a camera that plays those tapes anymore.”

“Remember the wolf documentary we made at your house one day,” says Carrer before going on about another idea they had about a pack of wolves, though not werewolves adds Carrer, who attack a family home in the woods. “But they’ll be, like, more aggressive than what wolves should be,” he adds enthusiastically.

Guelph born and raised, these two indie filmmakers have the confidence of seasoned Hollywood pros. With one widely distributed film under their belts and another on the way, they’re nervous, but elated. After all, the reviews for Desperate Souls on IMDb weren’t all bad.

In fact, Carrer says that by his estimation about 20 per cent of the posts understood that this was an indie film by first time filmmakers and judged it accordingly. In Guelph Desperate Souls was a legend, a monument to the can-do attitude of independent filmmaking. It’s a different story when Alliance and Lionsgate buy your film and distribute it far and wide on DVD. “There was one review that was amazing, it said Desperate Souls is a perfect lesson in duality,” remembers Archibald.

“We encourage everyone to join the Facebook group Desperate Souls,” adds Carrer. “This was the most satisfying experience that came out of Desperate Souls. Facebook comes out and one day, a month ago, I type in “Desperate Souls” in Facebook, I was bored and was just typing in keywords, a group came up and it was a Desperate Souls fan club.” The group was actually started, not by people from Guelph, but people from Ottawa and featuring members throughout Canada and the US trading fond memories and favourite lines.

“Oh, and we just wanted to say that Kill is very violent too,” interjects Carrer. “We just want to warn everybody this. It’s not a lot of like disturbing violence…”

“Yeah, it’s just psychological, it’s brutal and primal,” adds Archibald

But in the meantime, there’re more pressing concerns: ticket sales. And like typical independent artists, they wander back to their car wondering: “Can we use Kill tickets as currency?” It may only be a matter of time.