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Interview: Producer Oliver
Simon How did you
become involved with Blood Trails?
My partner on this project, Florian Puchert (who is also the
co-writer with Robert) and I wanted to produce a horror
film. At the same time I was looking for a project for
Robert and me for years. We never found the right one until
BLOOD TRAILS. It seemed to be the perfect fit.
Do you have a favorite scene in
the film that you’re really proud of?
I am proud about the whole film
and what the team accomplished. It really was a tough shoot
for everyone. Personally I think the third act is a real
nightmare, brilliantly directed, played and executed.
Any surprise situations that
came up during the shoot?
The floods (we had such a bad weather), next to the very
challenging mountain locations killing our communication
from time to time so that the production had to go and look
for the team.
Blood Trails is packed with
dangerous stunts. Can you talk a bit about how you
approached those?
We hired bike professionals and stunt coordinators. But many
of the stunts where done by Rebecca Palmer herself. We
sometimes even had to get her off the bike when it got to
dangerous.
Are there any major differences
between making a film for German audiences Vs. U.S.
audiences?
No, every big audience wants to be entertained.
Interview: Director
Robert Krause
So how did the idea for a bike
slasher come about?
I'm a passionate mountain biker and always wanted to mix the
two genres of horror flicks and the traditional German
mountain movies of the twenties and thirties. I love the
films of Dr. Fank with Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl.
Any influences come to mind when
writing Blood Trails?
The simple structure of Steven Spielberg's DUEL inspired us.
A man, a truck and the horror works. And as I mentioned, the
old German films, especially Piz Palü.
Can you talk a bit about how you
and Florian Puchert collaborate together?
We met once a week for two months and brainstormed together.
It was like playing ping pong, every meeting drove the story
forward. Florian is an incredibly creative and constructive
guy to play with and I really enjoyed working with him.
Based on our ideas during that period I wrote the first
draft in only ten days. Sometimes I joke that all the bloody
ideas are his- but that's not true, of course. But the
female audience prefers to believe me…
I found one of the most
interesting elements of Blood Trails to be the charismatic
cast. Can you talk a bit about your three leads?
We were casting in London and I was deeply impressed by the
amazing acting skills of the British actors. It was very
difficult to cast Anne because I saw so many good actresses,
but in the end there was no way that anyone else than
Rebecca Palmer could be Anne. Her performance together with
Tom Frederic (Michael) on the second recall was simply
fantastic. And as for Ben Price, I knew immediately that he
was my bad guy.
Interview: Actress Rebecca
R. Palmer
Anything specific that attracted
you to the role of Anne?
She’s very instinctive, stubborn, raw, brave and foolhardy.
She takes unnecessary risks for thrills and doesn’t
appreciate being shown the easy way home. I also really
wanted to work on a project that would challenge me
physically, and the action elements, combined with the idea
of shooting on beautiful but difficult terrain really
excited me.
What kind of preparation did you
do for the role?
The time frame between accepting the role and leaving for
Munich was very brief. Luckily I am was in reasonably good
physical shape before I left otherwise it would have been
impossible. I didn’t tell Robert at the time but it had been
years since I had ridden a bike, so I spent an hour learning
how to use the gears on my boyfriend’s
bike before we left. I also ran several miles each morning.
I usually do masses of preparation
on the text, but with such a physical part it wasn’t really
necessary. I listened to a lot of music which put me in the
right place, With Teeth by Nine Inch Nails, The Angels of
Light and the last two PJ Harvey albums helped. I worked
hard on my accent as well, terrified that it would be awful!
For background I scoured online blogs written by bicycle
couriers.
Did you do your own stunts for
Blood Trails? I imagine you must do some off road biking in
your personal life, right?
Well I do now! I bought a bike as soon as I moved back to
London, which I love and use all the time. At the time, all
the cycling I had done in years was in the pre-production
week when we rode ourselves into the ground and lost a lot
of weight! We had a brilliant stunt double for me on the
very difficult stunts, but I did nag until they let me do
the majority for myself. I did the waterfall, the hands free
downhill and lots of the fast hill shots. I think they ended
up being scarier for the crew then myself. I nearly killed
Ralf the camera guy at one point.
Which would you say your most
difficult scene to shoot was?
The torture sequence in the cabin was pretty horrendous. I
pushed myself into a very dark vulnerable place and the
amount of discomfort I negotiated with my body was
borderline. I was very well supported by the whole crew, but
I did shake myself up pretty badly.
Do you have a favorite scene or
sequence in the film?
I love the fast pieces in the forest. The weird dances that
Chris and Anne make in the trees. I love the landscape, that
fierce brutal sun, the boiling water over the lake, all the
places where I can see the physical exertion against the
land, that battle of people against themselves is
interesting to me.
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Blood
Trails
