Australian co-writer Shayne Armstrong and co-writer/director S.P. Krause are so busy, they divide their work between  two companies: Armstrong Krause (for writing gigs) and Rarer Monsters (producing assignments). Yesterday Krause told us about their violent ghost opus 18 (see here), and today we get the skinny from partner Armstrong on a clutch of other ambitious scare pictures, including BAIT 3D and the latest from the director of WOLF CREEK! 

FANGORIA: What can you say about your Greg Mclean project, 6 MIRANDA DRIVE?

SHAYNE ARMSTRONG: It’s in preproduction now, so we can’t say much more than that it’s a creepy little supernatural horror story based on a series of actual events (everyone says that these days, but in this case there’s definite truth in it—well, as far as being able to verify anything supernatural is a “truth”). Beyond that, we can say that it’s a project that Greg McLean is keen to make as terrifying as possible. He almost single-handedly made world travelers (and a few Aussies) shit-scared of the Australian outback with WOLF CREEK, so now he’s going to do that to ordinary suburbia for people the world over. He’s very much an equal-opportunity scaremeister in that regard.

FANG: What’s it like collaborating with him?

ARMSTRONG: It was a joy frankly. We’d admired WOLF CREEK and Greg’s ascendance to the upper echelons of Oz horror for a couple of years, and we were determined to work with him as we are with all top Australian genre filmmakers (we literally have a list and we’re crossing names off slowly but surely). As most horror filmmakers and fans know, the vast majority of horror guys are some of the nicest, well-balanced and honorable guys you’ll meet. Greg McLean is no exception and in fact he’s a poster boy for fandom and an ambassador for the genre. We get along very well. To be honest, it was a bit of a tap-dance for us to land the job, and we met with him three times before he offered us the chance to write something for him [6 MIRANDA DRIVE], but once the ball got rolling, Greg gave us a lot of creative space and freedom and was only remotely dogmatic when it came to getting down details he knew he really wanted in the script (most of which came from his brief that the story had to replicate true events that inspired the story and individual scenes). When Greg works with us, it’s truly collaborative; he gives very specific notes on the stuff we write, and when he rewrites our stuff or introduces any new material, he seeks our input and opinion. He’s very upfront with everything that he’s doing and wants to do—very inclusive and consultative—and that’s not always been our experience with directors. We hope to do more with him in the future. We’re proud men and are loathe to beg, but he hasn’t yet picked up on our not-so-subtle hints to throw us a WOLF CREEK sequel or prequel. We’re working on him.

FANG: What did you do on BAIT 3D and what can you tell us about the plot?

ARMSTRONG: We wrote two drafts. One was a page one rewrite of the early script and the other was a redraft of a redraft of our rewrite (welcome to the movie business!). As happens, several other drafts and writers have come onboard since, but there’s still a lot of the key elements we introduced to the screenplay in the script—including the two main human villains and the carpark rescue subplot, which is a major structural element. Again, because it’s not yet released, all we can and would want to disclose about the plot is that it’s about a small coastal community that’s struck by a tsunami and in the ensuing devastation, a group of characters are trapped in a flooded supermarket with several huge and hungry sharks. For years, we dreamed about one day optioning and making THE MIST, but we were beaten to that of course. But BAIT 3D is kind of JAWS meets THE MIST, so that’s some consolation.

FANG: Was it tough to come up with an original shark movie?

ARMSTRONG: Because it was a commissioned rewrite, the basic high-concept core of “sharks in a supermarket” wasn’t our premise, so the idea of coming up with something original concept-wise wasn’t within our control or even our concern. Our challenge was to come up with characters, subplots and lots of movie moments that fleshed out the basic concept to a cool, scary and cinematic ride. One of our favorite things in watching or writing horror is to examine how people behave in high stakes situations—what turns people from their “normal” state into their new status as heroes, scumbags, cowards or screaming wrecks—so we brought that perspective to characters, scenes and situations.

FANG: What is A MURDER OF CROWS about? Horror?

ARMSTRONG: There’s an element of horror in all the writing we do, whether it’s explicit onscreen or something tonal. But primarily, A MURDER OF CROWS is a Western—albeit a Gothic Western with supernatural elements and some truly demented characters and gruesome violence. Set in the Australian goldfields at the turn of last century, it follows the arrival of a stranger—a Chinese drifter known only as The Celestial—to a chaotic mining town ruled by a cruel mining magnate, his Lady Macbeth-esque wife and his three monstrous sons (they’re each aberrant in their own way—physically, mentally or sexually). The Celestial is framed for several related murders, and in the process must not only escape the forces of the law, but protect the blind daughter of the woman he came to town to find from the killers (the girl is the only “witness” to the murders and knows who the real killers are). And we haven’t even mentioned the creepy, preternaturally smart murder of crows that attend the Celestial like pets. Or servants.

FANG: How did you get involved with the horror manga THE DREAMING? What’s the logline on that?

ARMSTRONG: Like we said, we try to plug into all aspects of the genre filmmaking community in Australia, and we’ve long known Michael Favelle of Odin’s Eye Entertainment, who has long championed genre film in Australia. This might seem like an odd statement, but here in Oz, there’s a whole long-running debate of what constitutes national cinema and worthy stories blah, blah, blah—and genre films had long been the unwelcome sibling of “worthy” cinema in Australia. Maybe that’s for another interview. Anyway, Michael knew our work and our dedication to horror and contacted us to pitch for the adaptation of TokyoPop’s horror manga THE DREAMING. He had us at “It’s kind of like PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK meets THE SHINING.” Needless to say, we won the pitch. The basic story is about an all-girls boarding school in the isolated Australian wilderness where an otherworldly presence has over time claimed the lives and souls of several students whenever twins show up at the school. Well, lo and behold, our protags—twin sisters—arrive and reignite a curse that’s tied to an incursion into our world that occurred long before white people ever set foot upon the continent that would become known as Australia.

FANG: You also have a remake of the Norwegian film NEXT DOOR in the works. What appealed to you about the original and how faithful will your version be?

ARMSTRONG: We’re not often truly shocked and disturbed by horror films, but we were by NEXT DOOR. The type of film that is and some of its tropes aren’t even that original per se (what is in a lot of films these days, though?), but the overall execution was brilliant. It’s a film that blends horror, erotica and psychological thriller well and literally left us thinking and talking about the film for days. That’s not to say we wouldn’t change things, and we’ve been given the scope to do just that. We’ll be faithful to the premise and the set-up and mostly to the tone, but our brief is to make it work structurally and pacing-wise for a slightly more mainstream and commercial audience. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean toning or watering anything down, and in fact, director Justin Molotnikov isn’t at all shy about ramping up the erotica and violence as long as its organic to the story and the themes he wants to explore in the film.

FANG: What is your original screenplay BLACK ECHOES about?

ARMSTRONG: We’re huge fans of siege horror and the more claustrophobic the better. BLACK ECHOES is a horror-action film that’s kind of like THE DESCENT meets ALIENS. It’s a creature feature that follows a small group of international tourists who are literally taken off the beaten path to an isolated village deep in the Vietnamese jungles. Nearby are some ancient, crumbling ruins of temples and vine-covered statues of scaled, taloned things neither monster nor god. They’re there because they’ve been promised a Viet Cong tunnel crawl experience that makes Cu Chi seem like a kids’ playground. Tighter. More claustrophobic. Scarier. Well, they get their money’s worth—and then some… To say anymore will ruin a lot of the surprises, so I won’t.

FANG: What’s the scoop on your low-budget vampire film?

ARMSTRONG: No title just yet; coming up with titles for a vampire film that’s not obvious or done to death is probably the hardest thing about writing the subgenre. Again, it’s a collaboration. We’re writing and producing with a talented director called Tony D’Aquino (he wrote and directed one of the best episodes of the Australian horror anthology TWO TWISTED). Tony pitched us three concepts he wanted us to write with him, and they were all cool, but one was so damned good it made us feel envious that we hadn’t thought of it ourselves. Right up our alley. It’s siege-horror and goes into the dynamics and psychology of a group of ordinary citizens hurled into a dark and terrifying situation. Again, it’s an embryonic project and one that will kick all kinds of arse because of its many twists and turns even within its small mise en scene, so we don’t want to give too much away. But it deals with a small group of concerned citizens who take a suspected child molester hostage after several children have disappeared from the neighborhood and aim to beat and torture a confession out of him. Of course, the hostage, the fates of the children and even the good neighbors they thought they all were are not as they seem.

FANG: Do you have directorial aspirations too, like Krause?

ARMSTRONG: I’ll never say never, but it’s not something I feel compelled to do like I do writing. Shane Krause has always been a hyphenate at heart and directing is a passion and compulsion of his. I’m a sicko who feels completely happy and content when I’ve been locked away in my writing room and come out with a piece of work that affects people on some level. So, I think if I was to sidestep from screenwriting it would more likely to be into another field of writing, like comics or graphic novels (my other real passion) or prose novels. Having said that, I get very shitty when I see someone execute or direct our work in a way I think sucks. At the moment, I’m very content to see our work handled by directors we respect and trust or, obviously, by Shane K. himself. If there was a small, personal project or something that really grabbed me by the cortex and screamed at me to direct it, I might just do it so you never know, I might find something I could dip my feet in the pool with. See? I already sound like a bloody dilettante.

FANG: What are your goals right now, besides getting some needed sleep?

ARMSTRONG: A few weeks ago we were at an industry party where one of the Spierig Brothers, Peter, introduced us to a colleague of his as “Australia’s busiest and most prolific genre writers.” That’s great that we have that rep. Our goals, apart from maintaining that rep, are several but simple: to reach the top of the horror pyramid in Australia (all considerations of profile and box office aside, we’re lagging sadly behind Everett De Roche’s amazing output and contribution to the genre as are the rest of our comparatively slacker brethren); to break into the United States film industry where we know our pitching and writing talents can best be put to use; and to maintain a balance of writing cool commissioned projects for others and writing and, wherever possible, making our own spec projects. As Shane K. said, we’re horror guys for life and, even though we write in other genres—sci-fi, crime, kids animation, thriller—that’s where our black hearts lie.

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