MOVIES

A horror film made the Austin way

With help from a local movie figure, a low-budget movie becomes a totally local affair

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM CRITIC
Friday, July 17, 2009

Noah Taylor has been practicing his redneck.

In the film he just wrapped in Austin, the violent small-budget thriller "Red, White and Blue," the Australian actor plays "a bit of a mystery man and backwoods hick," Taylor says. "I mean, look at my teeth!" Taylor flashes a rack of crooked, tobacco-stained choppers and issues a self-deprecating laugh.

Later in the day he's going to shop at Allens Boots on South Congress Avenue for some western-style threads. Meanwhile, to efface his Aussie accent and locate some kind of American South drawl, Taylor says, "I've been on a steady diet of 'King of the Hill,' Alex Jones and Tommy Lee Jones."

Taylor, known for his roles in "Shine" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," was handpicked by British director Simon Rumley, who's been a fan of Taylor's since seeing him in the Australian films "The Year My Voice Broke" and "Flirting."

"Noah's proved himself to be an incredibly versatile and entertaining actor, at times quite dark and quirky and at other times very sweet and tender," Rumley says. "His performance here is incredibly strong."

"It's probably the project I've enjoyed most in the last 15 years, and it's one of the best scripts I've read in years and years," says Taylor, whose voice work as the March Hare is featured in Tim Burton's upcoming "Alice in Wonderland."

"A lot of low-budget stuff is a bit dodgy, but I watched (Rumley's previous feature) 'The Living and the Dead' and was blown away by it and immediately wanted to work with Simon."

Although its writer-director is British and its leading man is Australian (though Taylor lives in England), "Red, White and Blue" is an Austin affair through and through. It's the first movie Tim League — the co-founder of the Alamo Drafthouse theaters and co-founder of Fantastic Fest — has had a hand in making. League is the film's executive producer, and while this sounds like a plunge into feature filmmaking, a natural extension of his free-floating movie love, League is quick to caution that production will not become a habit.

"It will not. And people shouldn't send me blind e-mails, which I've already started to receive, pitching multimillion-dollar film productions. I'm not going to do it," League says. "I don't have any plans of getting into the industry. It was fun, but I've got the day job and all."

He decided to try production this time because he's friends with Rumley, who wrote the script expressly for an Austin shoot. League and Rumley met in 2006 at Fantastic Fest, where Rumley's horror film "The Living and the Dead" swept the festival, winning five major awards, including best film and best director. Since then, the two have run into each other at various film festivals around the world.

About a year ago Rumley told League he was setting his next film in Austin. Six months later he sent League a finished script. League read it and offered some ideas for changes, but creatively, that's where League's input stops, he says.

Because of his wealth of local film connections, from catering to crew, "I'm uniquely positioned to help out a production like this," League says.

"For a relatively low-budget film, it's imperative to have someone who can call in a lot of favors, and Tim most certainly did this," Rumley says. "And an integral part of the story is set in and amongst a thriving bar and music scene, which also suits Austin perfectly."

League invited the cast, including Taylor, Amanda Fuller and Marc Senter, and Rumley, cinematographer Milton Kam and producer Bob Portal to stay at his and wife Karrie League's West Campus home during the tight three-week shoot. Their spacious house became the "command center for the production," League says. (A crucial, violent scene in a basement was filmed there, but Karrie wasn't told beforehand and came home to an alarming sight, Tim relates with a chuckle.)

Finding locations and extras was a cinch for the $1 million movie, which is not applying for Texas film tax incentives. League put out calls on Fantastic Fest's Twitter and Facebook accounts and fans lined up to offer places and bodies. About 10 people volunteered their homes for shooting and about 100 people volunteered as extras.

"A driving force of the film is the fandom that's particular to horror films," Taylor says. "It's really extraordinary."

Some 30 locations were used for what's described as a "slacker revenge movie," including Emo's, the Broken Spoke and Austin Diner. With 50 to 60 setups a day, the movie was shot with extreme speed.

"They're an incredibly efficient team," League says. "Even the local crew was amazed at how many shots they were able to do at so many locations with a three-week shooting schedule."

Facilitating the pace was the use of the relatively new Red One digital cameras, which can capture shots in high-resolution with dim lighting and a naturalistic feel. The filmmakers don't want to reveal too much about "Red, White and Blue," though a press release breathlessly describes it as a "fearlessly frank, gut-wrenching romance and a merciless exploration of the futility of violence. \u2026 With its casual nudity and scenes of extreme violence, (it's) no doubt destined for controversy."

Rumley calls it "social drama meets tragedy cum horror. I always strive to do something slightly different, and I like the idea of taking a central conceit of horror — the murderer and the victim — and throwing this on its head."

Taylor compares it to 1970s horror-thrillers such as Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left."

"It's a tough film with integrity and social realism. Any horror that comes out of it is necessary to the story," Taylor says. "Ours is ultimately a revenge film and a really tragic love story. The three main characters do some pretty bad things, but you wouldn't necessarily call them bad people. They make some wrongheaded decisions."

"Red, White and Blue" likely won't be ready for Fantastic Fest; the celebration of horror, fantasy, action and other genre films runs Sept. 24 through Oct. 1 at the Alamo South. But League won't rule out a sneak peek of footage during the annual bash — a nice full-circle touch for a film that sprung from a friendship born there.

cgarcia@statesman.com; 445-3649