I recently had the pleasure of doing an exclusive 1 on 1 interview with Cameron Romero son of legendary filmmaker George Romero. We talked in depth about his upcoming film Staunton Hill and we also of course included some questions supplied by you readers. Throughout this interview you will also see some new exclusive interviews supplied to us by Cameron just for you readers to checkout!

Cameron is not well known to alot of you since he is a first time director but he is not knew to the business. He paid his dues in the filmmaking biz trying to earn his shot at the directors seat and he finally has it in the form of horror film Staunton Hill.

Cameron Romero scripted Staunton Hill along with David Rountree. The film stars Kathy Lamkin, Kiko Ellsworth, David Rountree and Cooper Huckabee. The movie takes place in the hills of Virginia during the 60s when an unlucky group of hikers runs into the evil Staunton family. The filmis going through its final edits and will be taken to LA next month and shown to distributors and then it will be making its way into either onto dvd or possibly a theatrical run. When I asked Cameron how he got involved in the project he revealed that as with alot of independent filmmaking its typically a friend of a friend.

< friend of mine BJ hendricks who plays buddy in the film brought me the script written by David Roundtree. They had connections with Kathy Lamkin who the originally idea for the film was based around. The original draft of the movie was written for her and the project bloomed from there and went through alot of revisions. Kathy is a great lady, a tremendous actress, she takes her craft so seriously, but not pretentious. Shes a wonderful person. The script evolved from conversations with her, and we finally settled on the story of her family. It was interesting for me because i got to explore the darkest side of a family dynamic that probably started at dysfuntional and went downhill from there. ( laughs )

Obviously when your the son of George Romero the expectations are insane. Cameron Romero though like his father is laid back, very entertaining to talk to and is just a really cool casual guy. He may have a famous father but in talking to him there is no ego, there is no entitlement. Cameron Romero is making movies because he wants to and has a passion for making films that scare him.

 

Similar to what his father has donel. When your a filmmaker with no past history its one thing but when your the son of a legendary horror filmmaker its a totally different animal…. or at least a much less forgiving animal. We of course had to discuss this.

I am finally at a point in my life where im ready to step up and put myself out there as a filmmaker and see if fans of the genre and even fans of my fathers will accept my work and to see what they say about it. No matter how nerve racking it may be. I definitely appreciate the support of your site ( which he pointed out earlier in small chit chat he reads ). I am trying to do my own thing not my fathers thing and I appreciate your sites suport. Its a tough genre and a tough fan base and I am trying to build my own identity within the horror genre.

This is the first film where people are going to really see what I can do and I am hoping that fans will like what I have done with Staunton Hill. I tried to go back to traditional horror and get away from what is irritating horror fans. A sense of story, not jump at the dark horror or cliche scares. I want to tell a story as well as scare the f*ck out of you and I tried to do that movie. I tried to make a movie like the ones that inspired me stylistically.

Obviously my father ( George Romero ) has had a major influence on me. His work has been influencing me throughout me life. I think my style however is not going to be seen as a copy of his, or a copy of anything. Its a little bit of this, and a little bit of that and I hope thats the way its seen. More then anything my father and I are horror fans. I shoot what I like to shoot and I go down rodes in my horror films that disturb me. I work very hard, its all I can do, to keep the film true to what I want it to be. Its a crazy genre and a crazy world and I am not looking to copy anyone. Everyone is used to the same old horror movies and I am not interested in doing that. I am sick of it. Its been a tough rode becoming a filmmaker and I want to now make movies that scare me. I want to make films that bother me to watch and I want to be able to say ‘that kinda fucked me up a little’ ( laughs ). Of course I think my gauge of what is fucked up is slightly different because I was desensitized at a young age.

Although Cameron Romero is inspired by his fathers work, and obviously influenced by it, it is very obvious he is trying to make his own mark, not replicate his fathers work. If that was the case he would be making a zombie movie. But he is not.. he is looking to put his own mark on the horror genre while honoring the greats that came before him like his father, Argento and Carpenter. He is trying hard to go back to the classic way of making horror movies;

What is most important to me is the style of the film. I am really hoping that horror fans will watch it and think its a relatiely intelligent horror movie. I want back to traditional thinking of horror on this one. I assume that audiences are not stupid and I dont spell everything out scene by scene. I let them draw there own conclusions. I think that the best part of what makes good film great and stick around is the ability to interpret things from it and not have it spelled out for you. There is nothing more fun then sitting around with friends and discussing a particular scene and interpretting what it means. There is alot of that going on in this film and hopefully it will be well received.

 

The movie has in the last little while had quite a few alterations to it. Not because it had flaws or issues but because Cameron Romero has teamed up with one of the biggest names in composing to take a very cool trailer and add a brand new and very bad ass angle to the sound track.

I can not speak to the release of the film it is still not quite done. I can tell you that we have several distributors we are talking to about doing a possible theatrical run. We will be screening the film in LA at the end of july for distributors.

I have made a few drastic changes and recut the film recently. Jesper Kyd who composed The Hitman games, Kane & Lynch and Assassins Creed came on last month to help and score the movie. He and I get along on such a wierd and twisted level that his new score combined with the way the film has been recut I think we now have taken it to a level even I did not expect we could take it to when we set out to make this for under a million dollars.

One of the things we did with the local studio is we have developed the resources and the team to make under a million dollars go alot further then it used to. I have a studio here called BatPack Studios and we have everything from pre-production to equipment rental and enough gear to outfit our project. We have digital post-production so we can do something that alot of movies for under a milloion dollars never really get…. polished. We have the resources to complete the movie right and we have.

We discussed alot orginally how we wanted the overall look of the film to be. We originally were going to shoot it on HD but looked at the budget and realized it wasnt that much different to shoot it on 16. We researched processing technologies and the new digital transfer we use makes the final film look almost as good as 35mm. Horror fans will not be dissapointed with how the film looks. It has the same richness as shooting on 35mm only we used 16mm and its beautiful.

 

True to his fathers style of filmmaking with intelligence and a nice break from alot of mainstream horror Cameron Romero will not be spelling the entire film out for you. Just like all the good classics there will be plenty of room for intepretation.

There are alot of elements where you can interpret the intention of the scenes. The story is pretty straight forward, people will identify with the characters, and they will be able to say I know somebody like that. I focused on setting up the characters so you can identify with them before the horrible things start. I am very proud of the film and where it stands, soon as the final sound mix is done i am gonna be at a kid at the beach.

As soon as you start going formulaic and doing what people expect in films you are no longer making good films. I try to twist things around upside down so fans will enjoy it. I think the typical characters wont come off as expected in Staunton Hill.

Now for the part that no doubt interests readers most. I threw a bunch of questions at Cameron Romero that came from you readers. So getting right to it here are the questions you readers posted on the boards and Camerons answers. Although I could not include them all I did try to include as many of them as possible. Here they are;

What horror films are your favorites

If I say the classic ones like Suspiria, people will say everyone says those one. I dont even know how to answer that question, my favorite is probably the Crazies.

What are your favorite directors and why

It is probably an answer that people will not expect, but I have to be honest. In my top list are people like Sylvester Stallone with his early stuff and the new John Rambo. Simple filmmaking, not about big giant sweeping shots, its about lets make a film, bring you in and tell a story. Look at the new Rambo and Balboa he is a testiment for the fact that independent filmmaking is the most creatively free filmmaking out there. I also like Scorcese because he doesnt give a shit about continuity. i love Argento beause he fucked me up when he was so young. I love Carpenter because he messed me up pretty bad to.

Considering your father is “The King Of the Dead” was it just as hard to get started filmmaking as it was for him or another aspiring filmmaker?

I am not really sure. I dont know the stories of other filmmakers struggles. Its not a forgiving industry. Its the greatest industry in the world and there is nothing I would rather be doing but Ive been working a long time to try to get the chance to direct a film. I definitely would like to think I have had the same trials getting a project made. On the other side I can not ignore that George Romero is my dad. We share a name there so I dont know the answer. I just know that its not an easy thing to get a movie made. Your only as good as your last gig.

Do you feel you have any added pressure to make a film that lives up to the Romero horror legacy?

There is but I think its all in your perspective. The pressure I am feeling is more literally from the standpoint of a filmmaker. You have this sort of neurotic worry of how the film is going to be accepted. Compond on that the fact its a horror film and how loyal my fathers fans are, and yeah you gotta wonder what the expectations are. I am sure there are folks who are expecting to like it just as there are people who probably think I have no right to be making a movie. I try not to let it rule my decisions or impact how I make my movies. All the pressure may hit me once I am done but right now I am trying to get it all done.

Any future projects that you might be currently looking to do?

Its something I can not officially speak to but I have 3 or 4 projects that we are talking about doing next. Whichever one we do next it will be a complete departure from Staunton Hill. I am interested in changing things up everytime so people can come to not expect the same everytime. All of the 4 films are in the horror genre but they are all quite different.

If you could remake any movie, which would it be and why?

It’s funny there has been talk around remakes and its one of the hot topics of debate for filmmaking. I am generally against remakes but there is only one movie that I wanna really remake and that is Red Dawn. But I hear somebody else is remaking it so I guess I wont be doing it.

Any chance of seeing a collaborative film with yourself and your dad?

I cant officially speak to anything like that. (chuckles)

 

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July 15th, 2008
Categories: News . Author: admin

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