EXCLUSIVE: Simon Cathcart Talks Stagknight

The Director breaks down the shoot, creating monsters, and giving the people what they want!

There are horror movies, there are teen horror movies, and then there's Simon Cathcart's Stagknight. Filled with losers, babes and blood, Cathcart realizes he's making a film for a certain moviewatcher, but he has faith that when his audience sees Stagknight, they are going to embrace it with open arms.

Recently, Simon Cathcart sat down and did an interview with us via email. As we expected, his answers were as straight forward and comedy strewn as his film.

For those who don't know, could you please tell them what Stagknight is about?

Simon Cathcart: Its about guys, its a story that celebrates the bachelor party with ten losers, I mean real bad losers, each with a sad story who come together after five years apart to celebrate their old paintball captains stag night weekender bender, and die spectacularly at the hands of a giant hulking killer guardian knight.

What horror films inspired Stagknight?

Simon Cathcart: Aliens, Predator, Porky's, National Lampoon's Animal House, Samurai Assassin, I Spit on Your Grave, The Evil Dead, Road Trip, Spinal Tap, Monty Python. I wanted to give guys what they want, what I want, great skin, great gags, and great kills! But I wanted to bring more interest to the characters so I introduced a gay guy called Steve The Queen, who secretly loves Makoto a Japanese UK national who runs a Chinese take away restaurant called The Cum on Inn." I brought dirty girls and I brought sexy tough girls to it and I put them out at night with paintball guns and very bad organisational skills.

How did you come up with the idea for this film?

Simon Cathcart: The real idea was coming up with a unique monster, so many films cop out these days on the monster, people create monsters that are like no way, where did he come from and what's with the make up, mf I ain't buying that. I went back to great curses and myth in British history and centred on the story of Mordred the bastard son of King Arthur, buried alive with a guardian knight guarding the cauldron of Anwynn from outside man in the tomb of Guineverre. Then I just added max stupidity and hot babes, I just want to make a movie for guys and about guys, but with a kinda convincing monster, so it was all there for me to pull together.

Did you raise money? Or, fund the film completely out of your own pocket?

Simon Cathcart: No we raised a team of investors and did it all independent of any studio system, tax breaks or slush money. All of my investors are film buffs and most of them men who all married all had stag nights and all like what you and I like, so it there was integrity there from the start. You will find most significant teen films were all done outside the studio system, this I think gives the film makers honesty and freedom to by pass the system. Take for example one of the guys taking a dump out in the woods, the bad boy arrives and catches him, what's got to happen, that's right head gets cut off, where does the head land? That's right. Only one place it can. I had a big brand interested in product placing in the film and their spineless brokers saw the script and said no way, you can't do, no way, remove it, like scared school girls. Bye kids.

What was the shoot like? What kind of camera did you shoot on? Was it an easy shoot or very rough?

Simon Cathcart: We shot on the new big HD cameras on steadycams attached to really fast quadbikes. We lit huge sections of the forest at night which you can see in the pictures to fantastically spooky effect, chasing the cast around the woods at night, it looks fucking amazing. Its all in the integrity, for example we shot in huge woods in the "Land of the Kings" down in Surrey England in a virgin ancient woodland with giant trees so scary and so realistic the atmosphere is electric and awesome. I tell you the cast is what makes the film you are gonna love to see these guys die, one talent who sticks out is Paul Coskun a great great young comedian in the film called Mike who is the little brother of the Bride to be, Brenda...ew

How long did post production take?

Simon Cathcart: Shoot was 6 weeks post has taken 9 months to score and cut. I am very proud of it, it looks huge and rocks very sick satire.

Could you tell our readers about the StagKnight Video Game on your site?

Simon Cathcart: Yeah, that is great Staggy 1 & 2, the first one was big, over 5 million users, then we made a second one with a prize where the highest scorer gets to go out on a date with the very beautiful leading lady Jocelyn Osorio and they get to watch the film with me alone. We have just cracked ten million hits on our site in three months. We are now the biggest independent film online! Hot news. We are just about to release a fantastic mobile game version called "Staggy 3" which will be the king of mobile phone games this year. You get to kill boy scouts using a ridiculous selection of weapons including a lawnmower, and it has all the blood and babes you will never see on a phone game.

What is the biggest thing you learned from this experience?

Simon Cathcart: How to be nice in the most crushingly painful situations, how to hold on and ride the beast into the carpark when it wants to go home. I have learnt to plan carefully, but to profit by listening to other's ideas as I go along without prejudice.

What do you have coming up next?

Simon Cathcart: Oh man, man you gotta to know, I got two teen comedies shooting back to back, that are so very special, so very unique, so very sexy, and so very very stupid, I am bursting to tell you. Listen, I will give you all another hint when we hook up next with Jocelyn and me next month, I promise.

to find out more about the film and play the Stagknight video game!