I’ve been meaning to mention that I attended my first premiere the other day. That sounds like I’m being very egotistical look at me, I went to a film premiere.
It was for a film called The Witches Hammer (see trailer here), a film written, directed, produced and edited (and pretty much funded) by James Eaves (although he’s better known as Jimi). Apparently, he was a year ahead of me on my film course. I don’t know James very well (although he’s part of a bunch of us who are headed to Cannes for the festival this year so I should get to know him better), but my friend/collaborator, Ross, worked on The Witches Hammer, he loaned equipment, worked on the camera and even shot and did the special effects for one scene. I’ve been kept in the loop about if for most of the three years it has taken to complete it. So when the chance to go see came up I thought I’d go along to provide some support for Ross if nothing else.
It was held at the Harbour Lights Cinema in our home town of Southampton one Saturday morning in March. Harbour Lights is generally referred to as an art house cinema. It carries some mainstream fare, but generally makes foreign and alternative films its mainstay. It’s had troubles, financially, but I think its great, and you get a totally different crowd in there. Anyway, so I squeezed into the crowded foyer (it’s not very big but is rarely packed) and found Ross and co. Looking around I didn’t recognise too many of the people I’d seen in the 30-minute teaser they shot early on to try and raise money from investors. There were some people with big cameras hopping about the place but otherwise it seemed quite subdued. The actors, and, understandably, Jimi, were a little tense. We all filed into the cinema and Jimi and (girlfriend/co-producer) Laura read a poem to introduce the movie and thank those who worked on it. Then the lights went down and on it rolled.
Here’s the synopsis as posted on IMDB:
Rebecca is brought back from the brink of death by top secret agency ‘Project 571′. She is trained as a lethal assassin and sent on missions to kill that which she has become, a vampire. When Project 571 is destroyed by a gang of vampires, Rebecca is thrown into a quest for an ancient book powerful enough to raise the dead. Rebecca joins two priests on a journey to kill the master vampire Hugo Renoir before he can unleash the grotesque souls of the damned into our dimension. If Hugo is allowed to perform the ancient ceremony the earth shall forever pass into the realm of darkness. Along the way Rebecca must utilise her training to face Vampires, Demons and Witches all vying for the book and its awesome power.
I’m not a fan of horror, and I know what it took to make this film, suffice to say that it had its highs and lows. I have to say that when I read the script I thought it had lots of potential. If you want a review, you can take a look here (there’s also an interview with James on the site too or you can try the interview in Headway (PDF link), pages 20-21). I’ll be honest and say I don’t agree with the review totally. I’m fighting myself here, I know how easy it is to criticise and how hard it is just to complete a feature-length film, much less one like this. (I’m also going to Cannes with Jimi, he’s a friend of a friend and there’s a possibility he could stumble across this piece, but I try and be honest where I can, I try and make suggestions rather than just say nasty things and walk away, that way you know where I stand, if I praise something I mean it, I find it makes life easier in the long run). I will say this: you can’t deny it was ambitious. Most low budget film-makers (I don’t know what the budget on ‘the hammer’ (as it’s better known amongst the crew) was, but it was closer to the no-budget end of the spectrum) make horror movies because they’re cheap (a bit of blood and some fake knives are the only real expense) and fairly easy to make watchable, even with cheap equipment and bad actors. I’m not sure if James likes horror, or thinks that it’s the best thing to make on a shoe string (his previous films were horror too, as is his next one, so I guess the former), but he didn’t go for a contemporary slasher film, which is relatively easy. No, he made an action horror (with comedy elements), packed with vampires, witches, demons, fight scenes, special effects, flashbacks (to medieval Europe and Victorian England) and more locations than some Bond movies. This is a movie that is most definitely punching above its budget. You’ve got to love him for that at the very least.
Anyway, after the film, it was down a local pub where we got to sit in an area that was reserved and even roped off (it makes you feel very important) as everyone milled around (most of them haven’t seen each other for three years). Ross knows almost all the crew, being one of the longest servers, so we said hello to a lot of people. I think Jimi finally stopped shaking an hour later. Stories were told, drinks were consumed, promises were made, more drinks were consumed, more promises made. It was a nice event all told.
I’ve got to say well done to Jimi, and, despite three years of endless toil, he hasn’t slowed in the slightest and, aside from going to Cannes to try and sell The Witches Hammer, he’s already in pre-production on his next film: Bane.
The Witches Hammer stars Stephanie Beacham (as Madeline), Claudia Coulter (as Rebecca), Jason Tompkins (as Oscar), Sally Reeve (as Charlotte), Magda Rodriguez (as Kitanya), Jonathan Sidgwick (as Edward), Adrian Johnson, Andrew Cullum, Tom Dover, Harold Gasnier, and Liza Keast amongst others.
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