The Richmond Family Massacre

Written by William Mace

The anti-hero and his murderous fiancé stand and embrace amongst the crawling branches. The camera shifts to their lips as they trade vows and turn to the dark path, leaving several charismatic carcasses behind in a moral void of celluloid. And the credits roll.

The Richmond Family Massacre is a comic slasher novella brushed with the chiaroscuro effect of hit graphic novel adaptation Sin City, shot with a nod to early exploitation cinema, and following Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Mariachi-style’ low budget production footsteps. And it’s been produced from a suburban garage in Devonport.

DGP Film founders Lance McMinn and Nicola Peeperkoorn are the creative team behind this brave mash up of gore, guns, girls and grindhouse and they’re dishing it out for the local palette. The grindhouse cinema genre has been experiencing a renaissance with the release of Tarantino and Rodriquez’s ‘Grindhouse’ double feature last year stunning audiences with its reprisal of the gusto and gore formula made famous in raucous underground American cinemas of the 1970s. Films originally developed to cater to the sociopathic fantasies of a generation fed up with the sanitised Hollywood pap on offer are now revered by fan-boys and film aficionados alike for their unabashed exploration of death, sexuality, drug use, extreme violence and, well, love.

The film tracks Billy Baxter’s attempts to fit in with his girlfriend’s family. But his proposal doesn’t go to plan and the audience is treated to a love story complete with murderous lesbian fugitives and a predatory janitor with a penchant for Edgar Allen Poe. But despite it’s dark nature, don’t assume that this is an attempt at teenage revenge fantasy by the filmmakers.

Despite the absence of exploitation-style productions in New Zealand’s recent film history, Lance and Nicola sensed a cult calling for this infectious form of pop culture usually relegated to closets, K’ Rd alleys or comic book shops. They were so confident in fact, that they’ve produced, written, directed, shot, edited and funded the film themselves in a year dedicated to depicting on-screen horror and building a world of complex characters.

Lance, having taken leave of desk-bound design jobs, put all his eggs in the film-making basket and his parents Bruce and Alison have signed on as chief supporters of DGP’s sometimes sadistic ideals. Their plumbing business has even provided some of the sponsorship to get DGP’s flagship production off the ground. The other major source of impetus came from the actors who all agreed to work without pay.

“A lot of the cast said to us when they got the script that it was something different than what they usually get to read and that gave me a lot of confidence from the beginning. I thought, ‘Shit, we are making something different here’.”

Happily inhabiting his father’s old tool shed, Lance sits with his Mac - its own white outline on the wall it belongs in this workroom. Lists line the walls with dates, times, goals, people, places and ideas neatly word processed and ticked off. Several huge stacks of mint condition DVD cases cluster next to a television screen and posters adorning the room form a shrine to the film world’s recent innovators and crowd pleasers. It’s DGP’s creative hub and sometimes film studio, and it may signal a small-time operation but Lance doesn’t want to hide behind the constraints of The Richmond Family Massacre’s budget.

“Low budget is not a word I ever want used with it because when I make a film it doesn’t matter what the budget was, I’m still making it the best I can with whatever we have and the minute you mention a word like that people are going to look at it differently – it’s independent – it doesn’t matter what the budget was.

“I want someone to go and watch it and think, ‘That was great,’ but if I’d told them it was a low budget film they would say, ‘It was good for a low budget film’, you’ve instantly put something in the audience’s mind that you don’t want there.”

With his graphic design background combined with Nicola’s business nous, the couple have the courage to let their imaginary world dictate their real goals in life. In their short filmography to date they’ve shown the single-minded determination usually written off as arrogance in New Zealand’s status quo circles (a short film bravely titled “The Rapists” was their biggest production prior to TRFM). What better way to break free of nay-saying constraints than to take the next step and make a feature film about – amongst other things - the massacre of an over-bearing family?

It has always been their intention to blaze an alternative trail. Lance is sceptical about walking the beaten path which has emerged in New Zealand’s film industry since big budget film and TV productions started sucking up graduates. They both want to skip the arse-kissing and dive into their vision of apocalyptic Pulp Fiction. Even if it means doing the camera work, lighting, production design, casting, editing, sound recording, directing and producing all themselves.

“There’s the way that people do things and the way they’re taught to do things, and people struggle I think to look outside that box,” says Lance in one of his ‘El Mariachi’ moments – (El Mariachi being the film Robert Rodriguez made with six friends and $7000 that kicked off his blockbuster career.) “They think, ‘I’ve gotta have a crew, I’ve gotta have this person and this person and this person’; whereas I don’t think that’s necessary at this level of production.

“I just want to make films and that’s why I want to do a lot of it myself because if I’m going to put all that time into it I want to be learning as much as I can to further myself.”

“That’s the reason we wanted to do this ourselves,” says Nicola. “Because bringing in other people or trying to get money means we’re pushing ourselves beyond what we know we’re capable of doing. By doing this ourselves we’ve proven we’re capable of it so we can take the next step.”

But they’re totally confident in the artistic direction they have struck with TRFM. And that’s evident from the launch of a web-zine called SpeakEasy which expands on the stories of characters within the film world – laying their low-life beginnings bare for those who care to lose themselves in a black and white world with a liberal spattering of red.

Having been through a tough but rewarding year, Lance and Nicola hope to make that next step to where they can specialise their roles as director and producer respectively.

“It all starts with getting the film out there for people to see and make their own judgements,” says Lance. “Not everyone’s going to like your movie no matter what movie you make. There’s no formula, you’ve gotta make it with your brain but mostly it has to come from your heart. Make it how you want to make it and if people like it I hope they will tell us so.”