Starring Ashley ‘Bashy’ Thomas as the lead, David Harewood (who currently stars in Homeland), Peter Mullan, and Michelle Ryan (Zoe Slater from Eastenders) as the love interest and Jason Maza.
Clayton Murdoch (Ashley Thomas) carries a terrible darkness inside him. As a boy he was exposed by his father (David Harewood) to murder and gang culture. With his father now in prison, Clayton struggles to overcome what he was groomed to become, in a city where every day there is a constant threat of violence and death. Clayton channels his aggression into boxing. Controlled, powerful, contained. However, when the violence starts to destroy his own family, Clayton loses control and the darkness within him is unleashed. Now he wants to get the revenge against those who have taken his loved ones and is forced to ask the one man he fears the most for help, his father. With everything around him falling apart and the full shocking fury in him let loose, Clayton must look death in the face and find out who is the man inside.
It is 1985. Thatcher is in power, Sade is on the radio, and the print workers have gone on strike. But nothing, not even a scale eight earthquake can put a dampener on a group of close friends that meet every Sunday in their regular South London pub for a pint and free flowing banter of the highest order.
Set against the backdrop of a changing way of life-as Rupert Murdoch moves the printing of his newspapers from Fleet Street to Wapping-this is a tale of seven firm friends, who embark on a unique journey that eventually leads them to gamble all of their savings and redundancy money on a single race.
Cast including Adam Deacon, Jason Maza, Terry Stone, Bob Hoskins and Perry Benson, it looks like this one could be a nice concoction of British talent. We may also get to see the acting charm in Adam Deacon that doesn't get to shine out in the gritty urban films we've become used to seeing him in. Here's to hoping!
RELEASED ACROSS THE UK & IRELAND ON 27TH APRIL 2012
After having the pleasure of being invited to an advanced screening of the forthcoming teen cult urban movie Demons Never Die, I was given the opportunity to speak to the writer and first director behind the film, Arjun Rose. Holding a strong cast and long-term ‘3 Reasons To Live’ promotional campaign, I was interested to find out what inspired the film idea, how it’s influences were fed into the storyline, what challenges were faced within the production journey and where Arjun Rose’s story goes from here…
How did the first seed for Demons Never Die get planted?
I had been spending some time in America and had written a completely different film. I had come back to London to pick up my stuff and move out and get away for a while. I basically saw this picture…. I can’t remember now where I saw it, it was a kind of emo based art picture and it had a guy who had ripped out his heart and was offering it to this girl who looked quite shy and bashful. The picture was titled ‘I Give You My Heart’. It was a strong image that I really wanted to develop into an arc love story. The original draft was a psychological thriller based on these 2 characters. One of the characters of the 2 was the crazy one. It was a very different story to what is Demons now, but it evolved into the slasher that it is now.
Was it your initial intention for it to blossom into a feature length film?
I had always intended to write a 90-page script…. But you know, I’ve written a few scripts now and this one is my second one. When you start writing, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. The success rate for new writers to get their script made into feature length films is very rare, so it was more me wanting to get my thoughts and emotions on paper really.
Web Cam Scene
The film has various demons faced by the youth of today, are there any hidden messages within the storyline?
I wouldn’t say hidden messages. They’re all kind of based on people and experiences that I’ve had myself. I know those characters quite well. I know the girl who hears voices, I know the girl who’s bulimic and Archie and Kenny were sort of based on myself, but the different sides of me. So one was good and one was bad, but really they’re two sides of the same person. One is out and out hero and the other is a bit of a psycho (laughs). I don’t usually share that by the way (laughs)… But if you look at the webcam scene you’ll realise that their backgrounds are both the same colour, so there’s things like that going on to tie them together, but most people might not notice.
Regarding the cast for the characters, was there anyone you wanted and wasn’t able to get for the film?
No not really. The hardest part to cast was Archie and I had never met Robert Sheehan before so I had already casted the other parts and got a call from a casting director saying that he would like for me to meet up with Robert Sheehan. But at the time Robert was committed to another job so I suggested that we just have lunch. Jason Maza came along as well, we got on so well that he called his agent and wanted to be a part of Demons, which was like the icing on the cake. The other characters; I had wanted Tulisa for that part and got her, but I wasn’t too up to date with all the new young actors although I know some of them, so me and Jason were auditioning for 3 weeks solid everyday one after the other and that’s really how the cast came together.
Jason Maza plays Kenny in the film
Jason Maza has been working on this with you for a while (since the first (Suicide Kids) Demons Never Die trailer was released), what did you see within Jason’s talent to give him such a major role within the film?
It’s funny because when I cast Jason originally years ago in that green screen promo version that I did, he was only about 19 or 20 or something, he had a much smaller part at that time, but we became very close. I was still adapting to the world of film I guess, as I come from a very different world and people were getting to me. Jason has an ability to turn situations around. I had originally asked Jason to come on board as a producer for this film, but I told him “It didn’t mean you’ve got the part for Kenny even though that I know you’d love it.” Jason had to read just the same as anyone else. But he was so good and he nailed it. He knows me so well and he knew exactly what I was going for so yeah he just smashed the part and he was perfect for it. He didn’t get any favours.
I believe Donnie Darko inspired various elements of Demons, such as the character of Archie. What did you hope to carry through to Demons from Donnie Darko?
I think the great thing about Donnie Darko is that it has a very independent feel. Obviously it had a much bigger budget and it’s very well made but I think the character of Donnie Darko comes across a superhero really that ended up giving his life to save everyone else, but to try and make a UK version would be very difficult to do. I think Robert Sheehan brings that very different flavour in the mix of the other characters but the thing that I like about Donnie Darko is that not everything is explained. You can come away from that film after watching it ten times and still have varying ideas about what’s happened. I think in this country we don’t do that. We make films that nicely wrap up at the end with everything has been explained. But I think that’s because we’re used to watching things like soaps, which don’t leave things unanswered and nobody wants things left unanswered either, especially in horror films. But if we look at things like Nightmare on Elm Street, at the end Freddie would be alive and nobody would know how. Or how Michael Myers would be able to just stand up, even though a lorry had just run over his head. That’s a scary prospect but everything hasn’t been explained. In Demons there’s a masked killer out there, nobody knows who it is or why he’s killing, but there are clues to it. With Donnie Darko it’s probably one of the most complicated films around. In my opinion there is no definite answer so I suppose I liked having an element of that in Demons. We’re telling a love story and we don’t have to write everything down exactly how it happened. It’s open to some interpretation and there are some clues if people are watching hard enough.
Demons Never Die is released in cinemas nationwide on 28th October 2011
As a first time director did you find it hard to get your vision captured on the screen?
It was a massive learning experience. I’m sure directors get to a stage in film-making when it’s possible to capture the actual vision because there is the time and money to do that. In reality when you’re working with a micro budget in film making, you turn up at a location on the day (bearing in mind a lot of scenes were shot in Jason Maza’s house), and what you really want isn’t exactly what you had in mind. Such as where windows are placed and not being able to move the camera or lighting so you have to adapt quickly. But the two scenes where I really got to get what I wanted were the auditorium and the web cam scene, because those were the ones where I demanded and also had a full day to be able to work on. If you bear in mind that one of those scenes are a page from the film script, then two of those is two pages out of ninety, which means the other sixteen days of shooting would equate to 88 pages so it is a big sacrifice. But if you want to get an idea of my vision the auditorium and web cams scenes would be just that.
The auditorium scene has been said to have been a difficult scene to shoot. What happened to make it so challenging?
The original difficulty was that we never had many locations to shoot or have much of a budget. We turned up at Riverside Studios (in Hammersmith) where we had got for free and it was exactly what I was looking for as it had that old school feel. We got there and the first thing the Director of Photography said was “We can’t shoot here, there’s no light.” which was a great start (laughs). We needed light because it was a slow motion shot, which requires more light basically. Then there was a very thin stairwell in the middle and the challenge there was we would have to get a steady cam operator up and down these stairs backwards with the whole unit as we weren’t able to get the heavy shooting machinery. In the end we found a solution with the lighting by putting a lighting balloon at the top of the auditorium so it would shine some light down on top of everyone. The steady cam operator we had was a guy called Roger Avers who was brilliant, but we had a couple of people behind him ready to catch him in case he fell over. But the next challenge we faced was that once we were at the top of the auditorium, we would have to get back down to the bottom quickly. Which is where my friend Nicholas came in, so he jumped over all the seats and got us back down to the bottom so that we could continue shooting.
It sounds like you had a lot of things to overcome to get what you wanted and one of the things I know was really important to you also was the mask. How did you go about choosing the mask?
In slashers it’s all about the mask. In my head I felt that if we got a cheap looking mask or got something from a fancy dress shop, the film would’ve had a danger of falling into the wrong category. Like in Scream they have a mask specially made and it’s now their signature mask and I felt that we needed something that would be intimidating, something teenagers would be frightened of. I spent a lot of time searching the internet and when I saw it I instantly thought “That’s the one!”
Demons Never Die teens make a pact
Moving away from the storyline and props, what was it like working with Idris Elba?
Cool! We get on really well and I’m really honoured that he’s a fan of my writing and I’m also fond of his acting. The intention is that we’re going to work together in future as director and actor and it’s been great that he supported me to get me to a place where I’ve have been able to get into directing. Without him doing Demons, the chance of me directing my first film with A-List actors in it, would’ve been very unlikely. So him putting his name to this, even though he wasn’t around everyday, he showed a lot of faith in my writing and showed lots of support, so it was great!
Many want to know the basis behind the name being changed from Suicide Kids, are you able to reveal this?
Yeah course! The main basis was that it’s very hard to say the original name on mainstream media within TV and radio. Once you’ve seen the film you know it’s not really about suicide. I had grown up reading a lot of comic books and for me the film is a comic book story, so when I would say ‘Suicide Kids’ I would think it’s a cool comic book name. But people were taking it more literally, it was a bit controversial and when you make a British micro-budget film, you really need all the support you can get from the British media industry. If you’re automatically fighting that battle with people not being able to say things, it just causes problems. If the film had been about suicidal children, I would’ve stuck to my guns, but the fact that the film wasn’t even about that and was causing uproar before it even came out, I didn’t want to try and use the controversy for our advantage. Because when people went to see the film and then saw it wasn’t about suicide, it could’ve just left people confused. So we changed it to Demons Never Die and I’m quite glad we did. I think it works well.
When you announced the name change, there was also announcement of an amazing soundtrack. Before that, had there been a previous soundtrack?
No there hadn’t been one. Idris wanted to do the soundtrack and what happened is I met with Island, Universal and Sony, who asked how much I had to make the film. When I told them, they were all a bit shocked and they said “We love the film, tell us what you want.” So I ended up working with them and they were sending through hundreds and hundreds of tracks. I spent weeks going through them all, trying to figure which ones would work. Then we had to go to the individual artists after I had chosen the tracks to find out whether we could clear them. It was a lengthy process. Now the soundtrack is pretty much 80-85% of the songs I had originally chosen for the film, which I was incredibly lucky to get.
Will there be a sequel to the film?
You never know…..
What is in the midst for Arjun Rose?
I’m talking to a number of people about a few different projects at the moment so I guess I’m kind of waiting for Demons to come out so I can get an idea of how that does. My next film with Idris is called Swift, which is about a boy who can run very fast. So I’m just taking my time a little bit with regards to signing on the dotted line.
Demons Never Die is released in cinemas nationwide on 28th October 2011
The brainchild of writer/first time director Arjun Rose and produced by Idris Elba, Demons Never Die is a teen-cult slasher, which depicts a tale of a group of students each facing their own troubles in life. Boasting a cast including some of the UK’s hottest talent such as X-Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos, Misfit’s Robert Sheehan and Hollyoak’s Emma Rigby as well as respected figures such as BBC Radio One’s Reggie Yates. All is rounded up by many faces from urban movie regulars such as Arnold Oceng, Femi Oyeniran, Shanika Warren-Markland and introduces newcomer Jason Maza within his first major role as character Kenny, a slightly psychotic teen determined to ensure his friends stick to their promises, while enlisting a friend to capture it all on video.
Tackling subjects such as teen pregnancy, self harm, sexuality and eating disorders amongst others, Arjun Rose states the characters are realistic.
“They’re all kind of based on people and experiences that I’ve had myself. I know those characters quite well. I know the girl who hears voices, I know the girl who’s bulimic and Archie and Kenny were sort of based on myself, but the different sides of me.”
When a classmate is found dead in her room, her friends agree that she had a great idea and so make a pact to end their lives together and join her. Sharing a major secret strengthens the bond between them, helping them to see similarities within each other. The pact is at risk, as are the teens, they soon realise they’re being picked off by a masked murderer. Although officers investigating the crimes believe the culprit is within the group. As they continue to look out for each other, a love story emerges creating another story within the storyline, providing unexpected twists for the remainder of the film.
Will the officers find the real culprit? Will the young lady who goes screaming into the dark woods finally find salvation? Will Kenny succeed in making his friends stick to their pact? All is soon to be revealed…..
Demons Never Die is released in cinemas nationwide on 28th October 2011
When British urban film steps up to send out a strong thought-provoking message, Victim is a great example of what can be produced. Co-Written by aspiring actors Michael Maris and Ashley Chin, the events that unfold provide an insight into many of the struggles faced by youth growing up in such a high-pressured modern society. How do those who end up on the wrong side of the law get there?
Perpetrators are depicted in the media as thugs who lack morals, guidance, decorum and common decency. The details of their offences are more readily available, than exploration into the events that encouraged such individuals to make undesirable choices. Sympathy only offered to the victim - "a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency."
Victim boasts a strong cast including David Harewood, Frank Harper, Anna Nightingale, Ashley Madekewe, Jason Maza, Shanika Warren-Markland, Letitia Wright and writers Michael Maris & Ashley Chin to name a few. Upcoming songstress Selah also makes an appearance, including within a scene reminiscent of Lauryn Hill in Sister Act 2. Keeping all the talent tied together on screen is a soundtrack enticing you to bop your head. Consisting of an array of tracks from the previous decade to the present, as each filters through your ear drums they add to the entertainment value of the feature.
Completed on a micro budget, much of the soundtrack sourced from in house catalogue, writer Michael Maris says "Victim could never have been completed without everybody getting involved and believing in the project. I thank everybody that supported us with their own passion to make Victim happen."
Produced by Pure Film and due for cinema release February 2012, the first public screening of Victim took place at the Raindance Film Festival receiving remarkable feedback. A great start for Pure Film with a string of features due for release. The Tapes starring Natasha Sparkes, Jason Maza and Arnold Oceng has just been released on DVD and Payback Season starring Adam Deacon alongside another great cast is set for release later in 2012. Pure Film are also set to join up with Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) as they get ready to start production for Magnificent Eleven and have another feature length set to start production in Summer 2012.
Ever wanted to go on Big Brother and find your inner celebrity? If you lived in a town like Whitstable, Kent, where would you deem an excitable place to film your audition tape? That is the question which led Gemma, her boyfriend Danny and his film student friend Nathan down to a derelict farm in hope to film a party of swingers.
The Tapes is a feature length horror which evolved from idea to creation in just 6 weeks. Completed on an extremely low budget of £17,000 and filmed in just 6 days, what has been achieved is remarkable! Originally planning to film over just 4 days, 2 additional days had to be added to the shoot. Post production also took a lengthy and testing 20 months for the team to complete. But these weren't the only challenges encountered by the team; a favourable cameo role was spooked out of participating and Scott Bates (Producer/Co-Writer/Director) found himself skidding down a steep hill during snowfall en route to rehearsal with members of the cast, the day before filming was due to commence.
Undeterred by the events of the previous day and being snowed in overnight, the shoot went ahead, battling through the snow. Turning negative to positive, the team saw it as a free special effect, adding an extra edge to the feature. Actors Jason Maza (Danny), Arnold Oceng (Nathan) and Natasha Sparkes (Gemma) improvised lines throughout, with clear direction of where the storyline needed to end. Together they spent lots of time developing their characters to give the film it's natural feel. A devil worshipper was also consulted and taken on board as an adviser, adding to the film's unnerving realistic edge.
Having already found familiar feet in various acting roles, Jason Maza and Arnold Oceng play their characters of a wide boy wheeler dealer and intelligent, peace-maker friend very well. But an extraordinary talent has been found in Natasha Sparkes, who made her acting debut within The Tapes, but went on to be casted in another feature length soon to be released 'Victim', premiering at the Raindance Film Festival on 2nd October. Natasha's talent shines as one deserving of the big screen, her character within The Tapes can have you laughing in one instance and anxiously staring the next, carrying the emotions of the film throughout.
If you think you can withstand the events that took place when a Big Brother hopeful wanted to stand out amongst the masses..... I challenge you to watch The Tapes......
Cinema release: 23rd September 2011
DVD Release: 3rd October 2011
Running Time: 77 mins
Certificate: 15
Facebook: The Tapes
Twitter: @TheTapes2011
So I've been eagerly anticipating this film for more than a thousand heartbeats and while I'm being extremely patient to see the finished product, I can see I'm going to get thoroughly as each of these teaser videos are released. Not that this is a bad thing..... Anything that can get me repeatedly excited deserves recognition for that alone lol
First teaser introduces us to Kenny played by Jason Maza....
Also starring Robert Sheehan, Tulisa Constavlos, Reggie Yates and Ashley Walters, I'm looking forward to meeting some of the other characters.
