Patrik Syversen Talks ROVDYR

First, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?  This is your first feature, correct?  What had you worked on before this?

This is my first feature, yes.

I´m a 25 year old self proclaimed film nerd. I´ve basically been into movies since childhood and I´ve always wanted to make films. Started writing (really pretentious) stuff - screenplays and such - when I was around 12 years old and just kept on working, making short films with a home video camera and then progressing. I went to film school in Norway (Film & TV-Akademiet, an alternative to the Official Norwegian Film School) for two years specializing in directing.

After graduating I continued working in films, doing a few music videos and commercials, but mainly focusing on short films. Just getting them made, you know. So I would write lots of stuff (both feature length and short) with the intention to get it made for a reasonable amount of money. The last thing I directed before ”Rovdyr” was a 20 minute short called ”Utkant” which is a cross between character driven drama and a zombie movie. This movie cost around 10 000 USD to make in its entirety, so we knew it was possible to do films with little money but lots of spirit and enthusiasm.

[ed. Note:  Utkant stars Nicolai Cleve Broch from UNO and Uro, both of which are big favourites around here.]

So therefore, in August 2006 my girlfriend and collaborator Nini Bull Robsahm (she co-produced most of the shorts I´ve done, and is as much a driving force behind Rovdyr as I am) started writing a screenplay with the intention of making it, no matter how much money we raised. We wanted to write a clean cut horror movie with few characters and few required locations that could be shot over the course of 20 days during the summer of 2007. Together we just started pre-production without a penny, started casting and hiring people. You know, enthúsiastic people who really wanted to do make a cool horror movie.

Then Fritt Vilt came out in Norway, and was a great theatrical success, and the investors and producers Nini and I presented the project to started showing interest. Producer Torleif Hauge picked up the project and we applied for financial backing from the Norwegian Filmfund. We knew that we got funding for the film exactly three weeks before the shoot started, and we were well into pre-production.

Norway has never been known for horror film, what sorts of things did you grow up watching?  What were your key influences in making Rovdyr?

I grew up watching all sorts of movies. I really love good films, and early on I was really into Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley, french new wave folk like Goddard and Truffaut, stuff like that. But I´ve always loved horror films. The first film I remember watching was King Kong, and later on John Carpenter’s The Thing and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre just blew me away. So I started to go back to those roots, tracking down rare VHS copies of Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento films, just revelling in them. I love Italian horror from the 70s / early 80s, Italian cop films, exploitation, spaghetti-westerns, you name it. What I felt about these films were that they had an energy, a sort of unpretentious yet innovative way of telling stories. It was just fucking great.

Rovdyr is basically a result of all my influences, but I do love the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so that´s been a major influence. Also lots of backwoods horror films, with their creepy locals and weird hitchhikers. You could say we follow in that tradition, but with a Norwegian spin on it. But it all comes down to wanting to make a raw, realistic and uncompromising horrorfilm.

Hopefully we´ll pull it off. We shot it in a really straightforward way. No fancy tricks or anything. This will hopefully add to the realism of the situations.

Can you tell us anything about the story or is that all being kept secret still?

It´s not like the story is a groundbreaking thing that´s being kept under wraps, but I´d rather not talk so much about the story itself as that starts giving people mental pictures. It´s better to walk into a movie with a clean slate, you know. But I can say that the movie focuses on a group of people being put under extreme pressure, and that this bring out the best and worst in them. The focus is mainly on the lead characters and how they handle the situation at hand. And they´re in the woods for most of the screen time.

The trailer seems to promise a lot of blood.  Is that accurate?  How do you feel about the current wave of ‘survival horror’ or ‘torture porn’ films?

Most people say that here is quite a bit of blood in the teaser, but I feel there´s just a moderate amount. Haha. Maybe that says something about me rather than the audience. The movie will obviously be violent, but the amount of blood is never over the top. I want to focus on the result of the violence, as I find that more terrifying. Sudden bursts of violence followed by the sheer terror of the situation, you know.

The current wave of survivals have brought old school horror back on the map, which I think is great. I love seeing films pushing the envelope and going into that 70s/80s horror-realm. The best thing is when you focus on the characters and their situations. When there is just gore for gore’s sake, it stops interesting me. I mean, the first hour of Alex Aja’s Hills Have Eyes remake is really good, so when the mutants attack 47 minutes into the film, you really feel it in your gut when the characters start dying. And lots of new horrors are great. I don´t find neither The Descent nor Wolf Creek to fall under the category ”horror-porn”, still their directors are part of the so called splat-pack. So I think we have to take those labels with a pinch of salt.

There seems to be a bit of a genre film boom in your region right now, do you have any idea what has changed in the local industry for so many genre pictures to now be coming from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, etc?

I think there´s a new generation out there. The ones brought up on 80s VHS and horror. Film makers with a good grasp of genre in general, and a love for horror. There´s also this wave of successes that have proven that genre films can make good money, and this interests investors and producers, hence giving the horror directors a chance. I still think the horror-people have always been there, but now they actually get to make films. Which in a way is great, but it´s sad that you need that wave of success to motivate the production of more horror. Horrors (and genre films in general) have been mainly overlooked (especially in Norway) and not taken seriously, which I think is a sad thing.

Did the financial success of Fritt Vilt have an impact on the production of Rovdyr?  Would this film have been made if Fritt Vilt had failed?

The success of Fritt Vilt probably opened the door for our film from producers and investors point of view. Nini and I wrote the screenplay before Fritt Vilt was even released, but noticed people being interested in our film in a much larger scale once that made good money.

And as I mentioned before we were planning to shoot this film either if the Filmfund gave us financial backing or not. The result might have been different, and we probably wouldn’t have made it for a January release, but the film would have been made either way.

I had the chance to talk to Roar about Fritt Vilt (director Roar UThaug) and he mentioned that he would have liked to include more blood but wasn’t able to for various reasons.  Have you been left free to make those sorts of decisions yourself?

I´ve actually been lucky enough to let the taps flow freely. Both producer and distributor trust us, and that´s a great compliment and a great motivation. And it also brings a whole lot of pressure. I just hope people like the film, or else I´m fucked. Haha. As for the violence and blood I got to shoot the film just as I wanted. There´s some pretty cool stuff in there, and I hope and think I will get to keep most of it. The most disturbing things in the film aren´t the physical acts of violence but the terror and tone I guess. Fritt Vilt had a 15-certificate, so I guess they had to limit the amount of blood because of that. I´m just trying to make the film the best I can, and then we´ll see what certificate we get.

When can we expect to see some more footage?

I´m in the middle of editing the film now, but we´re planning on releasing a trailer some time in October I think. It´ll be cool to get a trailer out there.