I’ll be shooting my first feature film this year and amidst all the ups and downs of pre-pre production, namely securing funding the problem I have yet to find a solid solution for is not one of casting, crew or creative insolvency but defining the film for others. I know, I know, if you can’t summarize your story in a well turned line or two there is in all likelihood a serious problem in the story department. And I agree with this piece of wisdom, to an extent.

  Consider this, the horror film as art. Does it exist? Can it exist? Of course the answer is subjective. To many cinema lovers out there the idea is an oxymoron, the equivalent of say, civil war. One exists at its most basic level as an exercise in that rawest, most unfiltered, visceral of human emotions: fear. While the other in its most classical sense is concerned with beauty, proportion, intellectual refinement and the supposed betterment of the human soul. Those are pretty black and white definitions allowing no room for the grey area in which  most things in life become more interesting and gain their significance. But if I’ve learned anything in life thus far it is that while life may be led in the gray areas it is often perceived and judged in black and white terms. Hence my problem; I am hurtling towards a start date on my first feature film, Moderngrumble (yes, it’s one word) and I’m faced with the very real possibility that in my efforts to create something unique and dare I say original, I have managed to ostracize myself from not only the horror community but the art house crowd as well, the most obvious audience for my film.

     Why do I care what audience my film is ultimately for? Why do I care what other films may be considered influences and or peers? Why in short do I give a damn about these labels at all? Well, I wouldn’t if it were not for the necessity of pigeonholing oneself for the benefit of financiers and marketing. Imagine Lynch pitching Eraserhead to a bunch of doctors and lawyers for financing without the benefit of AFI and you have an idea of the struggle I am facing. I’m not comparing my film with Lynch’s but the content versus financing scenario is apt. Starting from zero, without an established track record as a director on a production not benefiting from the built in networks of such film centers as Los Angeles, NYC, Austin or Toronto but Arkansas, it behooves me to be able to pitch my film to investors in the simplest terms possible. Unfortunate then that I wrote a script that’s biggest strength is its mystery, ambiguity and for lack of a better term, otherness. How easy my job would be if I were just pitching a romantic comedy or drama, another slasher film with a few witty bits of dialogue and twists or a criminal character study and not a coming of age tale about a monster.  Not a near silent epic about the poetry in a dead boys soul. Not a horror film that draws more inspiration from music and novels than it does from other horror films and whose cinematic language is more in line with Bresson and Tarkovsky than Romero. Can I dig myself any deeper?

Of course, there is that small but growing subgenre of art house horror of which many Lynch films could be designated. Films like Haenke’s Funny Games, Von Trier’s Antichrist, Taxidermia, Let the Right One In, or Amer could qualify as well though only the last two could be considered true, dyed in the wool genre films. Perhaps, I’m talking about that already maligned term ’elevated genre’ which seems to be Hollywood’s new buzz word. Either way, I have to admit that Moderngrumble fits none of these descriptions and ultimately, I have to let the work speak for itself, as in the end, any writer does, and hope that with a little guidance the financiers can see the light. A scary proposition but one of many I will have to face if I’m going to not only finance but produce and distribute my film. Of course, I could always shoehorn in a crude but affable best friend or maybe a car chase in the second act? Hmmm . . .