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
STUNTGIRLS,
POPSTARS, AND B-MOVIE HEROINES
She’s
been blown up, thrown off buildings, trodden on by horses and
involved in near-fatal car accidents in her former day job as a
stuntwoman for cult TV show “Xena: Warrior Princess”, but
Nicolette Kenny says her first lead role - in madcap midnight movie
“Quiet Night In” - was still a challenge.
Kenny
met the writer/director of “Quiet Night In”, Christopher Banks,
during a dazzling stint as a pop star, which saw her chalk up hit
singles in Australia and New Zealand during the late 1990s.
“Males
fear pop queen” screamed a headline in Kiwi tabloid “Sunday
News” after the release of her self-penned dance-pop record
“Harden Up” in 2000, chiefly because the video which was dubbed
'man-hating' by some. Nightclub
gigs and mobbing by drunken fans ensued.
In
January 2004, Banks and the Sydney-based Kenny decided to take a
break from penning songs for children’s television to make a crazy
movie instead. Banks
wrote the black comedy “Quiet Night In” specifically with her in
mind, but Kenny says she still found it challenging to get her head
round the prickly protagonist, Jess Bartlett.
“One
of the final scenes...I can’t say because it gives away too
much...was the most challenging.
She really goes mental, and I got quite emotional
afterwards,” she recalls.
WHO
THE HELL ARE YOU?
It’s probably the question “Quiet Night In” director Christopher Banks finds himself asked most often, even by people who have met him many, many times.
“I just have one of those faces people tend not to remember,” he says. “I could get away with murder if I wanted to.” He furrows his brow slightly, before laughing maniacally. “And maybe I have...”
The
question of who’s gotten away with murder can be left for “Quiet
Night In” itself - the story of would-be novelist Jess Bartlett, a
troubled young woman who finds herself trapped inside her house with
a menagerie of crazy friends for an evening.
Fuelled
by red wine, she embarks on a surreal creative binge for the
evening, encountering spectres of sex, self-loathing, murder and an
intimate dinner for two that seems doomed from the start.
It’s a quirky black comedy that builds on the microbudget midnight movie legacy, and at times it is truly upsetting. “And that’s just the production design,” says Banks.
