Horror Film premieres at the 2014 New Jersey International Film Festival at Rutgers University on Sunday, June 1!

Horror Film premieres at the 2014 New Jersey International Film Festival at Rutgers University on Sunday, June 1! 

German Director Sebastian Wotschke’s stylish Horror Film pays homage to the great German Expressionist films of the 1920s. Here is an interview I did with Wotschke:

Nigrin:  Your movie Horror Film pays homage to the great German Expressionist films of the 1920s. Tell us what motivated you to make this film.

Wotschke: I am really fascinating by the aesthetic of masterpieces like Nosferatu, Metropolis and especially The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I really love the atmosphere and the storytelling of those old movies. But not only silent movies, also classical black and white horror films like Dracula or Frankenstein. Horror Film tells a typically creepy story, but in a modern and a little ironical way. It is spooky and also funny.

Nigrin: The cinematography is really amazing. Tell us a bit the look of the film and why you decided to shoot the film this way?

Wotschke: It has a vintage cinematography and these self-made expressionist backgrounds in the indoor scenes. I played with silent movie characteristics like scratches, tinting and so in not an authentic way, but very experimentally. I wanted to make a movie which has the spirit of these classics, but which is not just a copy of them. It was very important for me to make a original work. A movie which reminds you of the old horror flicks, but you can’t still compare to any other movie. And in combination with the great score by Marco Chimienti I hope it has succeeded.

Nigrin: The actors in your film are pretty amazing too. Tell us more about them and how they were selected.

Wotschke: That’s easy to answer. They’re all friends of mine. That was great cause I could pay them with just a few sandwiches. And thanks for the compliment. Except for Ilka Köster and Nina Köster, who have some stage experience, we are all not really actors. Peter Frukacz and myself only acted in some of my previous shorts.

Nigrin: Why did you decide to make this film without any dialogue?

Wotschke: The great thing about it is you can easily translate it to any other language. You don’t have to do any dubbing. You know I didn’t want to do a German movie. It should be more international. But it’s not the main reason. Like you said HORROR FILM pays homage to the great expressionist movies. But it is not a classical silent film. The dialogues are not on inter-titles between the scenes but rather more like subtitles or comic-speech balloons.

Nigrin: Your film is set in England. Why did you shoot your film in there and not in Germany?

Wotschke: The set is a little tribute to the Hammer films. With the old house, the fog and all that stuff. It fits more with the story. And let’s be honest: A name like Lee or Craven is much more catchy than Mueller or Schmidt. And as I mentioned before I didn’t want to do a German movie. But there is a sequence which is set in Germany, specifically in Berlin, a great city for making movies. And it is the only part where some of the characters speak German without any translations.

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Three eerie short films will be screened prior to Horror Film on Sunday, June 1 at the New Jersey Informational Film Festival.  Here is more info about this screening:

When He Comes Home - Ben Phillippo (Carlisle, Massachusetts)
In this music video set to the retro beat of the Boston-based trio Banditas, the tasteful decor and clean-cut faces of the 1950s only serve to conceal the unspeakable... 2014; 3 min. With an introduction and Q+A session by Director Ben Phillippo!

My Most Handsome Monster – Madsen Minax (Houston, Texas)
In this experimental short about consensual bondage play, performance video, text and narration, archival family footage, and landscape meditation reveal the dynamics of erotic power. 2014; 13 min.

Arena – Martin Rath (Lodz, Poland)
A hitchhiker is taken in by remote mountain villagers. Tested by the hardened locals and the unforgiving harshness of his new environment, he rethinks his identity. But to whom do we have to prove of what we're made?  In Polish, subtitled. 2013; 23 min.

Horror Film – Sebastian Wotschke (Essen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany)
This stylish horror film features stunning cinematography and special effects while paying homage to the great German Expressionist films of the 1920s.  The setting:  Barker Forest in Northern England. Not an ordinary forest. For many years, untold ghosts have haunted this place. And right in the middle of it all, inhabiting a centuries-old house, the Lee family are left all alone. . . 2013; 74 min.

Sunday, June 1, 2014 at 7:00 p.m.

Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University,
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
$10=General; $9=Students+Seniors; $8=Rutgers Film Co-op Friends
Information: (848) 932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com

Free Food courtesy of Jimmy Johns will be given out prior to this screening of the New Jersey International Film Festival!