With his new musical rom-zom-com out on XXXXX on XXXXXX, we talk to writer and director Pat Higgins about Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead.
Set The Tape: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Pat Higgins: I’m a screenwriter and director, mainly horror. I also lecture at universities about film, and stand on stages talking about film. Basically, if it’s to do with words and/or movies I’m into it. Particularly if fake blood is involved!
STT: Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is quite a title! What was your inspiration for the film, and how long was the idea brewing before you were able to make it a reality?
PH: I started kicking the title around in 2016, and it wasn’t much more than a fledgling idea that I happened to post onto Twitter. Our producer and lead Charlie Bond loved the title and really wanted to help make the movie happen, so she came on board and I started a more serious attempt at actually writing it. I wanted to make something big and daft and gory and musical, and this concept scratched that itch quite nicely.
READ MORE: Doctor Jekyll – Film Review
STT: How do you go about making a musical horror comedy? What comes first – songs or script?
PH: It was the script, really, although I was working out very rough ideas for the songs from an early stage too. I’m very lucky that I’ve spent the last couple of decades collaborating with the incredible Phil Sheldon, who is able to take my feeble musical mewlings and turn them into full-blooded rock and roll roars. Going back to my early movies like KillerKiller, he’s never failed to amaze me with his skill and artistry. Plus he’s a genuinely wonderful human being, which makes everything easier. If you’ve got a movie that needs music, Phil Sheldon is the man you need.
The script was good fun, but came at a really busy point in my working life. I often lecture about how to write a screenplay in 30 days, which is a method that heavily uses dictation and improvisation. I was using every trick in my own book to get this one written; huge chunks of it were written by dictation whilst walking around Oaklands Park in Chelmsford at ungodly hours in the morning.
STT: What are the biggest challenges of making a relatively low budget movie and how do you overcome them?
PH: It’s the organisational challenges that’ll kill ya, every time. Particularly on a movie like this that had a big cast and a lot of locations. Plus, we were shooting in the Covid era and had different restrictions to deal with at different times. The problem with large ensemble casts is scheduling, of course; if six people out of seven can make the date, do you go ahead and shoot? How about if it’s five?
There are a couple of body doubles here and there, not to mention conversation coverage where the over-the-shoulder reaction shots were shot months after the dialogue delivery. There was an awful lot to juggle but luckily the cast and crew were fabulous and made everything as easy as possible, and James Hamer-Morton worked a few miracles in post-production.
STT: Can you tell us an anecdote from on set?
PH: There’s a scene to establish the character of Brianna, Carrie Thompson’s rich girl cheerleader, which was shot in a private swimming pool in Essex. It was in the back garden of an absolutely wonderful family who were incredibly kind and accommodating to the production. I’d got it in my head that I wanted a cable camera running over the top of the pool and shooting directly downwards, so we could track Brianna swimming across the pool from one side to the other.
It took a bit longer to set up than I’d hoped and, just as we were finally ready to start shooting, it started raining. Pretty hard. These were shots that were meant to look gloriously sunny and inviting, and it was pissing down. We knew there wasn’t much chance of getting all the moving pieces into place to come back and shoot at the same location another day.
Our incredible Director of Photography, Al Ronald, was crouching under an umbrella trying every focal trick he could think of to make the rain invisible. Somehow we got away with it. Nobody’s ever seen that sequence, which is all sparkling blue water and sunglasses, and said “Hang on, it’s raining”. Bloody British weather.
READ MORE: Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead – Film Review
STT: Who will Powertool Cheerleaders appeal to and what will they love most about it?
PH: I like to think that, somewhere out there, there’s a slightly eccentric 15 year-old girl who will see it and it’ll instantly become her favourite movie of all time. Forever and ever. There’ll be something about the silliness and the gore and the music and the fourth-wall-breaking and the make-up effects that will just speak to her in a particular way.
She’ll show it to all her mates and they won’t get it, except for a few who’ll pretend to love it just to keep her happy. A few years later she’ll go to Uni and keep showing the movie to people until she finally pulls a tribe around her of other people who get it too. She’ll get a tattoo that’s an obscure reference to it. She’s the one we made it for. Hopefully she won’t be the only one who enjoys it, but she’s the one we made it for.
Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead is out now to rent or buy on Google TV and YouTube Movies in the UK and US, with more platforms and territories to follow.