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| Source: IMDB |
Having plied his trade within the horror genre for some years now, James Cullen Bressack has taken to bringing us his latest film offering by way of Thailand, as Pernicious haunts and terrorises us with a story that carries a true love for classic properties of years past.
Following our interview with leading star Emily O'Brien, we had the chance to pose some questions to the man behind the making of the film, and here's what he had to say.
Where did the origins of Pernicious come from?
The producers reached out to me and wanted me to make a horror based in Thailand. I started doing some research and found that there was an actual dark arts Thai practice that was done on the black market where they would turn a child - usually a baby - into a solid gold statue, trapping the body inside. They thought it would bring good luck to keep this in the house. I was like, this is the perfect thing to turn evil and become a horror movie. It was that coupled with the fact I wanted to see two of the most popular sub-genres [supernatural and torture porn] together. Torture porn was huge a while ago e.g. Hostel and Saw series and kind of fell off and I think people wanted to start seeing that again.
The film itself is very reminiscent of the famed Japanese horror classics of years gone past; were these an influence on your work or were there others?
I was heavily influenced by Asian Cinema. My personal favourite movies are Japanes and Korean films, and I also watched a Thai movie called Sick Nurses, which is also a horror. I'm a huge fan of J-Horror and I feel like you can feel that love for that genre on the screen within Pernicious.
Horror is a very expansive realm in the film industry, is there one specific sector of the genre that you hold dearest e.g. zombies, hauntings etc?
My favourite genre of horror movie, believe it or not, is a good old-fashioned slasher film. I love slasher films and I think there hasn't been a really great one in a long time.
You have a brilliant rapport in your leading trio within the film. How did you come across Emily, Ciara and Jackie?
They all auditioned for me actually and I couldn't have lucked out with better girls. We've all remained very close since and I've worked together with Ciara three times now, and with both Jackie and Emily twice now, so it was great to know we can work well together and get along so well. We really bonded in Thailand as we there quite a while and have remained close since.
Emily previously spoke about the restrictions of working in Thailand, what was it about the location that you felt would suit the film?
The movie was always supposed to be based in Thailand, so there is no other location the movie could have taken place in. It was so intertwined with Thai folklore because it was always supposed to be a Thai film, and part of the movie is actually in Thai also.
You already have a wealth of horror outings on your filmography, what is next up your sleeve in terms of scaring audiences?
I'm working on a horror movie right now, I just started writing it and I think it's definitely going to be really terrifying and something I've never seen before. I also just finished shooting a horror movie called Bethany, which starred Stefanie Estes, Zack Ward, Shannen Doherty and Tom Green, and I'm really excited for people to see that one. It's a really scary film and Anna Harr who plays Bethany is a terrifying little girl, so I can't wait for people to see this. If you want to keep up with my films please follow me on Twitter (@JamesCullenB) and say Hi; I respond to people all the time.
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