Part 1: Stuntgirls, Popstars, and B-Movie Heroines
Part 2: A Paint Factory Holocaust
Part 3: The House of Jess
Part 4: A Crazy Ride
Part 5: Cast/Crew/Acknowledgements
"QUIET NIGHT IN" PRODUCTION NOTES
By
Susan L. Padlock
A PAINT FACTORY HOLOCAUST
After
considering the possibility of shooting a multi-million dollar
action spectacular with oodles of sex and violence, director Banks
instead opted for a story with a more intimate focus.
“We
didn’t have any money,” he explains, “so we decided to shoot
something all in one location with a small group of actors and
pretend it was a conscious decision.
And somehow we still managed to get an R16.”
With
this major creative decision signed off, Banks turned to his next
problem - finding enough kitschy retro furniture to fill an entire
house.
“Worse
still, we had to find enough things that didn’t match,” he
reveals. “People look
upon sixties/seventies décor as being vulgar or in bad taste, but
when push comes to shove, there’s quite a lot of things that brown
and orange will go with. You
have to work quite hard to find combinations that will disturb
people enough to book an appointment at the optician’s.”
Banks
relied on his keen lack of aesthetic taste and fashion discipline to
determine how such a unique offensiveness could be achieved.
BOARD GAME BROUGHT TO LIFE
The
director’s childhood obsession with the classic boardgame
“Cluedo” (that’s “Clue” to our North American cousins) was
an inspiration for both the ludicrous costumes and some of the
events in the movie’s story.
“You
never know how it will end,” says Banks, as he stuffs Mrs Peacock
into the murder cards envelope.
“Unless you’ve cheated and looked at the cards.”
Shockingly,
half of the cast had never played the game before, leaving the
excitable Lucy Gay (who plays the even more excitable Rebecca) to
teach them the rules.
“Just
like her character, she always wanted to be Miss Scarlett,”
laments Banks. “Probably
because she would have looked silly as Colonel Mustard.”
