Writer/Director Brad Mills Interview by Greg Roberts Posted 07/15/11 Share GregMO Roberts had a chance to ask Brad Mills, the writer/director/producer/actor of the new 80's cheese horror film, The Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger, a few questions about the upcoming release. Brad was more than happy to appease the request even if our questions were a bit outside the norm.  Below are his responses which will just further whet your appetite for the release which hopefully will hit the festival circuit this year. Plot Synopsis: After taking a wrong turn down an abandoned road, the Jock, the Joker, the Blond Bimbo & the Paranoid Brunette run out of gas and find themselves stranded in the middle of the woods. What a total drag. What was that noise? Why is everyone vanishing? Is it all one of Bradley's dumb practical jokes, or could The Legend be true? Related Links: Official Site, Facebook KR: DreadCentral has already credited you with the coolest one-sheet of the year, but how the hell did you pick such an eye catching title as The Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger? BM: That was awesome to read that! So glad the film is getting such a good response from the people who I made it for! The whole process of making this film was about being authentic and putting myself in the shoes of a delusional 80s writer/director. The title was about picking something long, awkward and sensational. You hear it and it just makes you start thinking "what the hell..." I had a suggestion from a well known producer recently to change the title to just "Ranger" as it's more mysterious and memorable - I gave it some serious thought, but I gotta stick to the cheese fest - the title is just as authentic as the rest of it. KR: A synopsis of the film details that it plays like a B-horror movie straight out of the 80's?  Why was it important to you to try and recapture the glory days of the decade of decadence? BM: I saw a film called "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" which I really connected with. If you haven't seen it, it's writer/director Larry Blamire's throwback to 60s alien/monster movies. It wasn't an in your face comedy, but it had me in fits of laughter where I could barely breathe with the authenticity of the bad dialogue and awkward acting. After I saw that, I read a book called "From Reel to Deal", which I highly recommend any aspiring filmmakers pick up. In there Dov talks about the formula for making your first low budget film. He says take a bunch of teenagers to a cabin in the woods and chop them up. Being such a fan of old b horror films from the 80s - I knew that I should do a "Lost Skeleton" for my favorite genre =) KR: Who did the art work for your fantastic poster? BM: That poster is epic for us, Tom Hodge from The Dude Designs captured he spirit of the entire film perfectly with that poster. I would highly recommend him, working with him was seriously educational, he knows his stuff, and he's a great guy to work with. Just don't look him in the eyes...you'll regret it, it sends him into a fit of rage...other than the stitches, it was a great experience. KR: You are credited as Director, Writer, Producer and Actor - why were you unable to stretch yourself to be Key Grip as well?  Ok.  Seriously, is it more of a challenge to wear that many hats or are you less stressed knowing that it is your vision and it's you you have to answer to if a day or shooting doesn't go well? BM: Hah! Maybe it runs in the family. My sister Jacquelyn actually held multiple hats as well, she was co-Producer, Camera Operator and Editor. She shot and co-edited the film. I love acting, so I knew I had to have a cameo in the film. My wife and I play the classic characters that get killed at the beginning, 10 years in the past, that have no bearing on the rest of the film. Getting back to multiple hats though, I think it's almost necessary on your first project to write it and direct it, its like some sort of cruel indie filmmaker hazing ritual. I would love to direct a film that I didn't write or produce, it's a lot of work doing all that! KR: I haven't been scared of a Ranger since the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie in 1993.  What made you focus on a Ranger as your primary villain?  And what makes him Psychotic? BM: I was a huge fan of b horror growing up, and the ultimate cheese nugget for us was Psycho Cop. A friend of mine Chris Townsend introduced my brother Dave and I to that film and we were hooked instantly. We started holding screenings for all of our friends, and I made my high school watch it for a movie night in grade 12 - yeah I was THAT guy. I knew the film had to be set in the forest, so I figured the Ranger would be a perfect character to do some gags with - you'd probably stain your pants if you saw Jason or Victor Crowley in the woods carrying an axe, but you'd trust a Forest Ranger. I locked myself in the basement and wrote the screenplay over 10 days in 2005 during Christmas Vacation with that in mind. KR: What makes him psychotic? BM: Um, he has no eyebrows, he eats people and his axe has 666 on it, isn't that enough? One of he best things about writing an 80s horror film is that the rules of logic take a backseat to the rules of wtf. The legend says that he was burned alive in a forest fire set by teenagers partying in the woods, so obviously you can infer from that a satanic resurrection... One of my favorite lines is "Anyone who's that crazy about nature, deserves to die in a forest fire if you ask me." KR: Ridley Scott's Alien had the fantastic tagline "In Space No One Can Hear You Scream".  What would be your tagline for Psychotic Ranger?  How about, "If you're in danger, you've met the Ranger" or "In these woods, your compass points to Death"?  BM: Those are awesome suggestions, but they have a couple critical flaws - they make sense and they are clever! Again, trying to put myself in the shoes of a D list writer/director on a tight deadline - I wanted the tagline to be "Your Compass Won't Save You in His Woods." - which really doesn't really scream creativity and raises more eyebrows than answers. We ran a voting contest on the Facebook fanpage, and the majority voted for a tagline that my wife came up with, "He Just Wants To Axe You A Few Questions." I still wasn't sold on it until I saw the poster with that massive Axe. Then I had to scrap my tagline and go with my wife's suggestion. Sorry dude, that and she owns my balls. KR: When you are casting an independent film such as yours, what is your source for casting?  Do you pick friends and family or is there a more formal casting process? BM: Most of the story takes place at night in the woods, so there's only 13 characters total. That was still no walk in the park though. Going for authenticity - we were looking for very specific types, you know the stereotypical teenagers - the dumb jock, the blond bimbo, the paranoid brunette and the fit practical joker. It also wouldn't be an 80s slasher if we didn't have a 35 year old playing a 16 year old. The east coast of Canada has a vibrant theater scene, so when I wrote the film, I had a couple of really talented people in mind that I had worked with in theatrical productions. We shot in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but my sister was living in Montreal and I was living in London, Ontario. So we needed to have someone back home take care of spreading the word for when we flew in for the Open Casting Call. The gentleman who plays the Police Officer in the film was our casting director, and my personal fluffer (but don't tell him that, he was sleeping). KR: Where did you find Michael G. MacDonald who plays the title character? BM: Michael G MacDonald is a university professor at Cape Breton University. We had booked a classroom at the university the day before shooting to do a couple of rehearsals. I guess the class we booked was next to his classroom, and we were being really loud and disrupting his classroom. He came in the room and had this look of rage in his eyes like he wanted to kill someone. He started talking about how we should never disrespect the rules of the University, he started throwing desks around and swearing - it was really scary. It all got out of hand pretty quick, the next thing you know the guy that we originally had playing the Ranger was dead. We didn't have any insurance, and Mr. MacDonald was on probation...so we had to stuff the dead actor in a pop machine in the basement. It was kind of a bonding experience, Michael said that as long as we didn't rat him out to the cops, he would free up his schedule for the next 3 weeks and play the role of the Ranger. We haven't told anyone that story though, for obvious reasons. Maybe you should just say that he came into the casting call to audition for a role as the Police Officer, and when we saw him we knew instantly that he was perfect for the Ranger, and nobody died. I wish I had a backspace key, oh well. KR: Steven Spielberg had his cast go through boot camp to get the experience of war before shooting Saving Private Ryan.  For The Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger did you have your cast camp in the woods, eat Smores and do the Truffle Shuffle to pass time between takes? BM: The shooting location was pretty remote. We rented some cabins with questionable plumbing for the crew and an old house next to it for shooting. It was in the boonies. No internet, no cell phone reception, but it was on a beautiful piece of property next to a lake with access to kayaks and a bon fire pit. Geez sounds like "The Burning" minus the crazy caretaker. A lot of the actors had jobs, so they would have to sleep in the old creepy house or in tents. I'm not sure if they did the truffle shuffle, but I think they did the mushroom shuffle a few times. We did have lots of fires though, I wanted to have a fire on every shooting location for good luck and to keep spirits high (most of our shooting was at night, in the creepy woods), my sister Jacquelyn got mad at me a few times because I assigned one of the PAs to be the "fire in a can guy."  Apparently that's a misallocation of resources. KR: How hard is it for an independent filmmaker from Canada to come up with funding for an ambitious horror film? BM: If you have an in, there's lots of money available through government grants and other public & private funds. It's a catch 22 though. You need to meet some hefty qualifications, which I didn't, before you can get funding. I raised the money to shoot The Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger on Facebook! It was just pure application of the Law of Attraction. If you haven't seen The Secret, check it out! KR: Is The Psychotic Forest Ranger a movie that you can take the family to? Ok, that's not fair.  How about just your family?  Will mom Mills be happy with the final cut? BM: You know that's something that actually was important to me. I wanted to make something that you could let your kids watch and not feel like a bad parent. It will be interesting to see what kind of a rating we get. There's gore and sexuality, brief nudity, but no frontal nudity and no swearing. I know I might take some slack for not putting nudity in the film, but the 2 biggest inspirations were The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and Psycho Cop - and I figured if they can do it without nudity, so could I. KR: What's your ultimate goal if the movie is a success - a sequel or to use clout on another pet project? BM: I've got multiple projects in various stages of development right now, some film, some games. If Ranger does well, that would only help the rest of the projects! Everyone worked so hard on this film, mostly for deferral. At this point I'm not really looking at this as a way to make myself a bunch of money, I'm really looking at it like a way to make some money for all the talented folks that worked on the film, and to build up a bit of a following. One project in the pipeline is an online horror game/community - something I can travel around to festivals with, meet fans, and help other indie filmmakers promote their films with. I've already met so many cool fans - one guys, Shawn C Phillips, has a dvd collection that would put any video store to shame. I'm not done with horror movies though, a Ranger sequel would be so much fun - we always talk about how the shoot was more like a camping trip with friends than work, and look forward to doing it again some day. I'd also love to make a zombie film =) KR: Have you secured a distribution deal yet and when can we expect to get a glimpse at the full feature? BM: We're just starting up the marketing engine right now - we haven't contacted any distributors yet because the film isn't 100% finished - we have the final mix scheduled for later this month, at that point we'll be applying to a lot of film festivals and trying to get some distribution. If anyone has any questions, or wants to connect, hit me up on Facebook http://www.thelegendistrue.com, or send an email to paranoidbrunette@gmail.com!  If you have any suggestions for where to hold screenings, or any good contacts for us, we'd love to hear from you! I hope to see you on the festival circuit, and I can't wait to show his film to 80s horror fans, you're going to love it.