Interview with "Offensive" director Jon Ford

We talk to Jon Ford, who, alongside his brother Howard, took the zombie genre to new global heights with The Dead & The Dead 2. Here Jon talks about his first solo feature film, OFFENSIVE, a dark, violent tale of rage and revenge set in rural France, which receives its World Premiere at Horror Channel FrightFest 2016.


Q: Firstly, congratulations Jon, on completing your first solo feature film. Has this been a long time in the making ?

JON:  Thank you, it has indeed been a long time in the making, in fact a lifetime nearly! This is a very personal film as it's based on true events that I've experienced. It's almost a compilation of scenarios that have made a lasting impression on me. The gang of kids are a mixture of who I once was or people I knew, though I coupled that with modern electronic devices. There have been studies that have shown these devices are retarding the development of empathy in young minds. I took that concept to the next level.


Q: How would you describe the film?

JON: Essentially as I did with The Dead, I just made a film that I wanted to see. I love revenge movies (or the concept of them) but pretty much all of them try to be clever and have it that revenge is not really completed  or it's the wrong person, or it all ends so badly because revenge is wrong blah blah blah. Essentially by trying to be different...they end up the same.

The film is a violent clash of two generations. It's about morality and perspective. There are no good or bad people in this world, we all have different perspectives on right and wrong. Most films follow a morality dictated by religion, I wanted to explore other perspectives. For instance killing is not always wrong is it? A soldier is sent to war to kill people, that's considered right and lawful by most people. However if you kill someone who attacks you or just generally annoys you, that's considered wrong in the eyes of the law and most people. I wanted to explore what happens when ordinary people are driven to murder and are ok with it. They don't suffer any post trauma, they carry on with their lives. In real life people commit murder and get away with it some of the time. Go to any police station in any town in any part of the world, the walls are covered in missing persons pictures...most of who will never be found. I'll stop there as I could go on all day about this subject Lol.

Q: Lisa Eichhorn plays a lead role. How did you get her on board?

JON: Lisa is an incredible talent! She did a cameo on my brother's film Never Let Go, so he introduced us and I thought she would be perfect for the role of Helen Martin. She loved the script and (like a lot of people who read it) she felt it touched on an important subject about how young people are increasingly involved in violent or even sexual attacks and the erosion of empathy. She had been reading up on that very subject at the time so she was very much into it, much to my delight! I couldn't believe I was going to have a genuine Hollywood legend in my movie. She really elevates the intensity of the scenes as does Russell Floyd who plays Bernard Martin. They were both fantastic and I'm so greatful for bestowing the film with their talents.


Q: The locations are stunning. How did you choose them?

JON: Thanks, I now live in the south of France, not far from the Black mountains so I was able to find some incredible locations which were perfect for the film. Like The Dead films I wanted to set the horror in a beautiful place. It's the French idyll gone rotten. For once in my life I enjoyed the process of making a film. A lot of the cast are local theatre actors and they did an amazing job ! I wanted the film to have an authentic feel so we shot entirely on location. The thunder storms, the chirping of the cicadas at night, the lonely winding roads, all crank up the tension.

Q: The story will hit a lot of nerves, given current European topics and the underlying xenophobia at the heart of your film. What can you say about that?

JON: The signs of a crumbling global union are evident in the film. It's a very touchy subject and I can get myself into all sorts of trouble. I'm not making a political statement, I'm just a filmmaker who is making a piece of entertainment. At the end of the day I love France, I've lived there for 5 years now, but I did want to explore a dark undercurrent that exists... What do you expect from a film called Offensive? ha! It looks like there is a love hate relationship between the French and the Americans. There is this strange paradox, on one hand they are very greatful for the liberation in WW2 but to quote a line from Offensive, "we're getting a little sick and tired of the American liberator story...why don't you find somewhere else to go play hero". After all, xenophobia probably exists in every country in the world. Like all great horror movies it's all based on fear of the unknown.


Q: The theme of cultural alienation between generations is very strong. The young French gang in the film have been described as ‘a new breed of technological sociopaths’. An accurate observation?

JON: I guess there will always be a generation gap issue for young and old and "what one doesn't understand one fears"...I just take that to the extreme. There's nothing worse than moving to a place where you're not welcome.

Accurate?.There are "no go" zones in the outskirts of some of the main cities in France, which the media are "encouraged" not to report on. Even the police won't enter. They're basically gang controlled.

Also I particularly wanted my gang to be very young, as the level of cruelty at that age can be staggering sometimes! The Bulger case comes to mind... I wanted the threat to come from society's protection of the young rather than the more obvious physical threat of the gang themselves. Also having witnessed and been the victim of young kids who essentially, in the eyes of the law are almost untouchable, as minors. It can be an impossible situation if kids decide to target you. It's a frightening prospect as there's almost nothing you can do. I used to live in a rough area where a neighbour of mine was targeted by kids, they smashed his windows regularly, spray painted pedo on his walls just because he was old and alone. He finally had to sell what was left of his house and move away. You watch, afraid that if you help, they could target you too. Like the gang in the film..."they're just having fun..."

Q: What films were an influence? Straw Dogs comes to mind.

JON: I love Straw Dogs and you're not the first to make a link with Offensive but apart from it being a sort of revenge film in a rural setting  and the main protagonists are foreigners, there are not too many similarities.

To be honest, for this film, as I mentioned, I drew on real life personal experience more than other films, (apart from the killing which is based on a real case that I can't mention for legal reasons) which I hope will give it something very different to all other movies.

I'm also breaking a few rules by having a retired couple as the main protagonists instead of some good looking overly muscular teenagers who happen to be martial arts and weapons trained and look more at home on a catwalk. I'll be interested to see how that goes down.


Q: What do you hope the FrightFest crowd, who are, of course, familiar with your work, get most from the film?

JON: Firstly it's not about muscly super heroes, standing in a manga pose, spouting gravely voiced one liners, before blowing someone's head off, one handed with a shot gun then winking into camera. I wanted to give it an old school film style with a modern intensity to the violence and reality. I wanted it to cut deeper. Most of us will have experienced some of the situations that happen in Offensive, from bullying to harassment. That's why I hope it will touch us all on a personal level. There seems to be an epidemic in modern filmmaking in that they desperately want to be "cool", maybe it's the desire of a nerdy film director who is anything but?

I hope that they are prepared for a very different film that seems simplistic on the surface but is layered with a serious subtext. I hope they feel the torment and anger that the characters do. I hope it makes them consider morality, technology and humanity. I hope it gives them a different perspective on how society is "progressing".

Q: You haven’t completely stopped working with your brother, he plays a cameo role in the film, doesn’t he? And Angela Dixon, star of Howard’s Never Let Go, also has a role. Seems you’re never too far away from each other!

JON: Howard plays Charles Martin who liberates the village during WW2. It's a cameo but it is still quite a pivotal character, he gets to brutally murder some Nazis which I think he enjoyed. As I played one of the kidnappers in Never Let Go who gets his arm snapped, nose broken then run over by a truck...again! Now you mention it... something's not right here! I'll have to have a word! Ha!

Yes we're always there for each other, essentially we share a lot of the same ideas and philosophy on life. I hope we'll always help each other out as brothers should.

For Angela Dixon...I had written this incredibly difficult emotionally charged role of Sarah, a tormented language tutor who has to deal with some of the psychological aftermath of the gang.  I thought...who the hell could pull off a role of that intensity...Angela Dixon was the first person that sprang to mind. She was great and it's such a different character to the one in Never Let go, it really shows what a top class talent she is!


Q: As a fan of horror films, what are your personal Top 3?

JON: That's a tough one! I know it's a slightly cop out answer but it really does depend on what mood you're in. 1) I still have to stick with the original Dawn of the Dead, it just blew my socks off. 2) The Exorcist is a master class in filmmaking. 3) The original Evil Dead is hard to beat. But on another day I may feel differently. As you can see, I'm generally into older movies.


Q: Finally, are there any plans for you and Howard to join forces for The Dead 3?

JON: This one keeps coming up... After part 2, we always talked of it as a trilogy and I have to say we can't stop ourselves from firing off ideas for it. It would be one hell of a 3rd and final chapter! If anyone out there has the means then we're open to it.


Offensive screens at Horror Channel FrightFest on Saturday 27th August, 6.05pm in Discovery Screen 3, Vue Cinema, Shepherd’s Bush, W12

Tickets: http://www.frightfest.co.uk/tickets.html

Interview with Howard J. Ford and Jon Ford

Ahead of the Horror Channel’s UK TV premiere of the acclaimed THE DEAD, on Sat 27 Sept@ 22:50, the Ford Brothers relive the drama of the malaria-stricken shoot in Africa, revealing the budget for the first time, and talk of revenge in their next movies!

How do you two write? For example, does one pace the floor whilst the other types?

 

Jon: Ha that's funny! You hit the nail on the head! Normally you will find Howard frantically writing away while I pace the room acting out the scenarios and shouting the lines like some demented theatre actor on steroids. The writing stage is one phase of the project where we work together very well. We are almost never in conflict with each other, each jumping in where the other got to in a particular scene but also bringing together our differing perspectives and weaving them together. We can't always say the same for the actual shoot, but on The Dead there was normally some life threatening situation taking place, which does tend to add a bit of additional pressure.

 

Where did the idea for The Dead come from and why set it in a foreign location?

 

Howard: Jon had started writing script for The Dead, in the mid to late 1980s but we didn't really push forward and finish the script until about 20 years later shortly before shooting the film. So in essence it is genuinely and old school zombie movie that just took a lot longer to reach the screen.

 

It was originally going to be shot in Morocco or somewhere like that but for those who don't know The Ford brothers shoot TV commercials in between films. Anyway, while we were out on location in West Africa we came across places of unbelievable beauty and danger in equal measure. We realised the opportunities of setting this film in a place where no one has ever been or seen before, where there are no safe places to hide in or lock down, where survival is as dangerous as the zombies themselves. Also parallels can be drawn with starvation poverty and events like the Rwandan massacres, while investigating how other religions and cultures would react to such a pandemic.. That was when we realised we could make something really special and different.

 

The shoot for The Dead has been well documented and is famous for what went wrong as well as what went right. What is the most enduring memory you have form the making of it?

 

Jon: Yes the shoot itself has become quite famous for all the problems, but for me the more pleasant enduring memory is the driving. Even though I had contracted malaria and had what seemed like endless bouts of food poisoning and other tropical illnesses, so had lost about a third of my body weight. In fact I didn't know if I would leave this place alive or not. Still as I drove across Ghana and Burkina Faso I will never forget the vast beauty of almost everywhere you look, words or even pictures cannot describe how stunning those places actually are. I though to myself if I die now, It was still nice to have seen such beauty.

Howard: For me it was the journey back from Ghana to Burkina Faso after the whole crew had flown out from Ouagadougou airport and I felt like ‘at least no one had actually died’ and suddenly the pressure was off my shoulders. It had felt like I had been carrying a crippling weight, no disrespect to the fantastic cast and crew but even though we were out of cash, food, without even enough fuel to get back to Ghana where I had to fly out from with the remaining cans of film, that journey was like entering heaven..

 

The actors are just superb and add much to the story, how did you go about casting the movie?

 

Jon: Thanks, yes the actors are great but all the more so for doing it in high stress and dangerous situations, or while actually suffering from malaria or typhoid while doing their art. I fondly remember Halimata, the woman with the baby, being so kind and supportive while actually dressing the fake baby and doing her costume herself, then with seconds left of light, delivering one of the greatest performances of terror I have ever seen!

 

Howard: We cast Rob Freeman in the UK where he was living at the time. In fact he lived virtually down the road from us which was nice as we were able to get to know him a bit and rehearse scenes together before flying out to Africa. We like to ‘know’ our key players personally rather than just meeting them in a casting session as it’s a big commitment to work together like this. We asked an ad agency we had worked with in Ghana to look for actors matching our description and Prince David Osei was one of the first we saw, It took all of one milli second to chose him. Strangely, we had worked with Prince before on an ad but just didn't know it until he told us. We had both had our heads and shoulders covered during the commercial shoot in the heat of Africa and he thought we were Arabs so was very confused when we turned out to be Brits!

 

What sort of budget did you have as the effects are quite something?

 

Howard: We haven’t revealed this before but The Dead was actually shot for $150,000 which is ridiculously small for a movie shot on film in exotic locations around the world and we were advised not to mention this and others claimed the movie was shot for several million hence we missed out on any kudos for getting it in the can (literally the can, not a digital drive) for so little. To put that in context, another film that has been publicised on the basis it cost very little; ‘Monsters’ which is praised for being a low budget miracle shoot. It was apparently shot for $400,000 on digital with just 2 pro actors with a well-established production company lining things up and local support in each location as they went, which, don't get me wrong, is still very impressive, but we had absolutely no back up at all and were trying to use as many physical special effects and real stunts as much as possible. Plus we were using our own money (life savings). It was a battle all the way financially and physically without any safety net at all.

 

Jon: The special effects are a big thanks to Dan Rickard and Max Van de Banks. What makes it really impressive is the total lack of budget resources and time. Most of the time the effects were created on the spur of the moment. It makes us laugh sometimes when you see awards being given to people who had all the money time and resources in the world. What Dan and Max achieved on virtually nothing is truly amazing! And this was after most of the fx materials had perished due to the 5 weeks we waited to get our equipment and props out of customs in Accra whilst they melted in the daily heat.

 

The Dead is being shown on the Horror Channel, you must be pleased?

 

Howard: We're thrilled to have the Dead shown on the Horror channel. After watching so many other great movies there, to have our own movie played is a real honour! We can't wait! We are also very appreciative of the support the Horror Channel has shown us so we will always be fans of the channel and we hope many will join us on the perilous journey across Africa when it airs on September 27.

 

The Dead 2 is a stunning sequel which continues the story but in a different country, how did you stop yourselves from treading the same ground?

 

Howard: Thanks. With The Dead 2 we did talk about continuing with Murphy's journey and even developed how it would continue, but eventually felt it best left for The Dead to stand on its own, if you excuse the pun. So new audiences could watch ‘The Dead 2’ without the need to have seen part 1. The film does continue time line wise and has other connections. but we also wanted to take people somewhere new , but equally beautiful and intriguing so following the pandemic as it spreads over from Africa to India intrigued us. The eagle-eyed viewer will notice there are some direct links to both films.

 

Jon: Also, by continuing in another continent we have the opportunity to enter into a different Culture, religion, characters and landscape. Neither of us is interested in repeating ourselves. It's still a Ford brothers Dead movie which was made with heart, soul, sweat, blood and tears. We hope the audience appreciate that we risked our lives for both Dead movies and went to the limit and beyond. Whenever there is talk of a third Dead instalment we're reluctant because we worry that if we keep throwing the dice our luck might run out. If there is enough support we’ll consider it but right now, unless people REALLY want us to go and possibly kill ourselves doing another, the poster in our heads has the tag line: ‘The Dead 3; Perish the thought…

 

It looked stunning on the big screen at FrightFest last year, how nervous do you get before one of your movies are shown at a festival?

 

Howard: We do get a bit nervous when our films are shown especially for the first time. You just have no idea how audiences will react. I think it's quite bad for us as we have so much personally invested in the film. Not just financially but the physical hardships that go into making a Dead movie are just off the scale! so it is a bit nerve wracking. However, we were delighted to see it at FrightFest and honoured to be the opening film. It’s such an incredible and important festival and we will be forever grateful for the support of all at FrightFest, it was a great Launchpad for ‘The Dead’

 

Which writers and directors inspired you when you were growing up?

 

Jon: There are films that inspire us more than directors I think, as sometimes you love a movie from a certain director but their other films are not so good, or don’t connect with you as powerfully. However someone like Sergio Leone was consistently good and was a master of composition.

Howard: It's funny as sometimes a film can be great, only because of the script and not because of the director, yet that film still inspired you. I think as filmmakers you are more able to see if it's the material or the director that's good. On the flip side of that, a bad director can kill a great script just as easily. Knowing how hard it is to make a film, even one set in a room, we have great respect for anyone who actually gets one made. Even bad films are hard to make!

 

Which do you prefer running zombies or walking ones?

 

Jon: Running or walking zombies? Yes we get asked that quite a lot. We prefer slow but actually like both. They are so different that you almost can't compare the two. Running zombies are action orientated and the scene will almost only ever be an action scene. With slow zombies you can build up a lot of suspense and tension which is ultimately more satisfying. I think the younger audience like the fast zombies as it gives instant gratification but later in life will grow to appreciate the slower ones. I suppose the sexual equivalent would be fast zombies cut straight to the orgasm while slow zombies ultimately build up to greater heights with plenty of foreplay.!

 

So what are you both working on at the moment?

 

Jon: I’ve written a revenge script that will shock and possibly offend in equal measure. It should be going into production within the year. The Dead was written and made because we wanted to see the film and the revenge movie has been written with the same philosophy. After watching film after film and being constantly unsatisfied you realise that sometimes if you want it done the way you like you have to do it yourself.

 

Howard: I’ve written a brutal thriller called ‘Never Let Go’ about a woman stopping at nothing to find her abducted child whilst on holiday in an unfamiliar location. I start shooting mid-September in Morocco, Spain and the States.

 

Jon: Hopefully whatever we do we can hit people in the heart and we will be supporting each other in these ventures and come together for other Ford Brothers Films too.

 

 

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