Synopsis - Director Dr Uwe Boll, generously gave his time to a phone call interview. We were able to talk to him about the upcoming movie Alone In The Dark! On the topic we learnt what effects we shall expect to see and what kind of tone the characters will be portrayed in terms of the movie. There is also mention of a new Alone In The Dark game based on the movie and a sequel to House Of The Dead! Please read the interview for more and also visit the official website for further information!

Rob – What influenced your decision to become a director? You were producing a number of films on Super 8 and video well before studying the arts.

Uwe – Yeah…yeah actually I started when I was a young boy, experimenting with super 8 movies and video movies. I was ten when I saw the Mutiny of the Bounty. (laughs). The old movie with Clark Gable, I thought...I want to tell these kind of stories too, ones that like bring people into another world whilst sitting in the theatre; looking at adventures or whatever...what happens at different time periods and if its sci-fi, if its pure & peace...whatever. So I was fascinated…by film.

Rob – You studied as a film director in Munich and Vienna, and took on a course in literature and economics in Cologne and Siegen. What experiences from each course have you incorporated recently into your line of work?

Uwe – It was totally pissing me off the films study…so I was only there for a few months and I started to look into the other technician places. I went away because I was tired to keep talking about film theory and all that stuff they were doing in the film school. I didn’t like it and I preferred to do filming and learning by doing it, basically. I didn’t like the establishment also in Germany with the other Art house directors. I didn’t want to disappear and become a disappointment for my parents and others; this was the reason why I went on to do the other course in the University of Cologne to study literature and economics, and so actually during that I filmed at the same time. So in 1991, "German Fried movie” was my first movie to be made and credited. I kind of liked it in the University, reading books and all that stuff. So this is the reason why I finished the University earning a doctorate certificate in literature and economics.

Rob – So what techniques inspired you, which ones didn’t you like? What they were teaching at the Universities?

Uwe - It was not about the technical side, this was interesting for me, learning how to operate a camera, editing and other stuff. This was…what I liked and what I did. However I didn’t like the surrounding and the mentality of the people, because in Germany it’s the way people work...they want to be film directors but they are all totally like selfish people and they are not influenced by genre movies. They are influenced by like Jean Luc Godard and…and Art house film makers. They want to bring the big emotions on screen and they don’t…they don’t want to take the time, they don’t want to make short stories and good stories basically, and…this was pissing me off. So there were worlds in between us and also like the professors of the film school, they were all very, very influenced from Art house movies from Europe.

Rob – So you thought the quality of work was less and the effort wasn’t put into the work?

Uwe – Exactly, I thought it will end up in nothing and so they were not able to convince me that I liked all the Art house movies there. So I was a total outsider with my ideas about what is a good movie and maybe what is a bad movie.

Rob – You have been a producer and director with TanusFilm-produktions GmbH, which was founded in 1992. In early 2000 you founded your own company, Boll KG and continue to direct, write and produce your own feature films. Did you ever anticipate you would get this far so early in your career?

Uwe - It was a mixed up situation because I did not finish the film school…it was not easy for me to come into the business. Then I started up as a producer, but as an employee from TanusFilm. TanusFilm is owned by the television program so this was the reason why I produced a lot of different stuff but I learned a lot with it and never stopped directing in the meantime. I had a break after my movie run, Amoklauf, in Germany because then I did not make any movies for four years and I produced all this stuff and this was very, very disappointing for me because I always liked directing most, so the creating process to me, really make a movie. It is that what makes me most excited and the producing stuff…basically it makes me innocent like I have a little independence…that I have more opportunities but on the other hand it is hard to raise the money and to talk about financing the whole time. It is a lot of lost time because of you are producing also.

Rob – How do you manage to find some of the money…in your early years…how were you able to finance some of your productions and did you sometimes feel disappointed that you put a lot of effort in but didn’t have the enough money to get to what you wanted?

Uwe – Yeah… Its in the time I worked with TanusFilm that I produced only stuff that was from television and subsidies and all that stuff then I learnt to raise money…because in Germany you can you get like tax losses if you invest in movies so actually it…its not so hard to raise money in Germany because the people there are getting basically 50% from their investment back from the state. So that means it’s almost easier to get investors if you say “Look you pay only 50% and you have 100% investment”…yeah.but it's still not easy to raise tons of money and so its always more hassle to get it done and because my movies didn't turn out so bad I was able to raise more money then for House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. However it's now paying off.

Rob – How do you decide you know…how much money to put into advertising and into production? How do you find a ratio suitable for that?

Uwe - Erm, like advertising. What do you mean with that?

Question – Well like I mean…Austin Powers I don’t think is a…a very core movie… the storyline is very, very bad but they put some much advertising into it, that they get people probably being zombiefied into going towards seeing these movies, cause they see it so often.

Uwe – Yeah…I agree

Rob – The advertising…

Uwe – Yeah it is…right now it appears it’s more, more important to put more money into advertising then in the movie. (laugh) So that in some movies they would not make any box office without any 20-30 million dollar in P&A. With House of the dead it was a hard birth lets say it this way. Everybody liked the movie…yeah, but because the major companies didn’t produce it, it was much harder to find a distribution company for the movie and they are producing a lot of shitty movies, but because they’re producing it they are putting all those advertising into it. So there is a point and then I had offers like from Lion’s gate and MGM and only Artisan was in the case of House of the dead…really like committed to do a wide theatrical release with it. Yeah, cause like the other companies I wasn’t sure what they were doing, maybe they do only like a 50 print release or 100 print releases? And they hope it…they hope for the best? Or whatever but only Artisan came really with the good offer and now it looks like the movie gets a good release at October 10th. And this is the hard thing and I think with Alone in the Dark we also have an offer from Artisan but we don’t have a distribution contract right now. It could be that we will be getting a major company to do it…distribute Alone in the dark. I think the reason will be…because of the cast…the major companies are always looking for who is in a movie and I think this is a mistake; because you see now the last box offices like Freddy V Jason and Jeepers Creepers they have no cast. Like House of the dead there is also not big cast in the movie. The major companies are still a little like, behind and they still think that movies are name driven, as soon as you have a big name act like they are really interested and with Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and Tara Reid, we have 3 names where people are attracted from and they actually making the movie also that much better as with no cast. However I think for a movie like House of the dead, cast doesn’t, matter as long as you have the gore effect and a lot of action in a movie.

Rob – The advantage of having a cast, which is unknown, is the fact that you don’t know who is really going to get killed. Cause you’ve got some very popular...very famous well known actors in Alone in the dark like Tara Reid and Christian Slater and so most of the people are going to presume that these people don’t die or get killed off.

Uwe – Correct, this is a point in a movie like House of the dead. I think it is very important that you don’t know who gets killed. Compared to other horror movies it is really surprisingly who survives and who is dying. With Alone in the Dark there is another appeal behind it. There is a small mystery and creepy atmosphere, and has-beens going on. There is a lot of action but…its not the question is Christian Slater surviving it. It is more like…What the fuck is going on?! It is a really, really interesting story with a lot of twists like what the game also is. This was the appeal from it. I think that Alone in the dark will be that what Matrix 2 wasn’t. Matrix 2 I think was a big disappointment, because the story was so empty. I think with Alone in the dark, there will be a very interesting story like what I saw the last time, a movie with similar story like Matrix 1 basically.

Rob – Have you considered directing a movie based on another genre? All of your work appears to be horror related?

Uwe – Ya

Rob – Science fiction?

Uwe – It could be…science fiction, I think the reason that I didn’t make any science fiction so far is also due to the budget. Cause it is…is expensive to make a science fiction movie. If I make one I want to make a good one, so that means I cannot do it under 30 million or 40 million dollar and so this offer of this opportunity was not on the table so far. So this is the reason I stick on like thrillers and horror movies, so far, because this movie you make with also less money like between 5 and 20 million dollars and you can make it in a clever way that the movie looks very expensive and it the story turns out well, but it is not so expensive and I think comedy I can not do it…because of the language problem. I could make a movie like Naked Gun or something but I couldn’t make a movie where there was a lot of dialogue…funny dialogue lines in it because of my language, the English language is not good enough to go into all the details, basically.

Rob – So you don’t think that maybe influencing some German comedy into an English movie would work?

Uwe – This could be…and look my first movie was the "German Fried Movie", it’s like the German Kentucky Fry Movie. It was a comedy and, it had like a really black humour, a trash comedy style, a little like the Monty Python or David Sugar...Sugar movies so I like this kind of humour and I like these kinds of comedies and I will never…I don’t want to say that I never will do it, but right now I’m really fascinated by the video game based movies. I’ve required the rights now to a “Bloodrayne” the majesco video game about the female vampire and so I ‘m quite happy with that and in the next few years I want to do this kind of movie.

Rob - Your type of filmmaking is similar to that of Sam Raimi, do you believe that your projects could one day surpass the success of Evil Dead movies?

Uwe - I don’t know. Evil dead is a really classic horror movie. And one of the…few basically they turned into classics in the last twenty-five years and the George A Romero Dawn of the dead movies are also one of them. I don’t want to say that it is, that I can create something what is a classic because you don’t know that before. I think the only thing what I try in every movie is that I try to make something different with what other people don’t do and I think with house of the dead what I did was that battle scene. In the movie there's like the twelve minute big zombie battle. This is unusual for a horror movie and this is in that way how I did it. I think no body ever did it before. This is for me or for film freaks, horror freaks, video game freaks, I think it is that scene of the movie what is worth that the people go and see, because it is totally different from that what you know from other Freddy Versus Jason, Jeepers Creepers and Cabin Fever coming up now. Other typical teenage flesher movies where you have like one guy killed and then the next guy in a few minutes and then this is really like a big war! What we did there with I don’t know how many dead people in 12 minutes and the like heads…loosing hands and head explosions and arm cut off and leg cut off and other…so this is what I always like to see the reactions during the showing of the movie…always the same…like they think “Oh typical teenage movie some nice lines and a little humour in the beginning and then they getting like a little into it, the action starts and it gets more brutal and then the battle scene is coming and then the people are like really, really split in half. Like the guys, they’re like the 50%, they think its unbelievable like what the fuck! And the other 50% are so shocked…that they don’t like it anymore....yeah....because of the gore for a lot of people it could be a little too much in the scene…yeah. And especially woman…(laughs) oh god like we were at the German horror fantasy film fest what is all over Germany like in Hamburg, Berlin etc and there is always this scene where some, especially woman, when they walk out...because it was then too much. But this was the set?!

Rob – Too gory?

Uwe – Yeah!, because of the gore effect I didn’t want it to make it like Resident evil where you don’t see any…heads cut off or something.

Rob – Its very static for a long period of time that storyline.

Uwe – Yeah.

Rob – Nothing happened

Uwe – Except all in that basement and it stays on one level from the beginning to the end.

Rob – You explored the concept of zombies from other movies such as The Evil Dead, the Romero movies and Braindead. What elements did you take on board during the making of House of Dead and which ones are you bringing back for Alone in the Dark?

Uwe – The depending on zombies...I think what I tried is, that mood that George A Romero did in the zombie movies that you are really like freaking out because also your friends are turning into zombies'. This is what I wanted to bring to it, make it that the people feel it on House of the dead but because we did the video game movie approach, its not only a zombie movie its based on The House of the dead, one of the biggest zombie shooter games of all time. So I had to make the zombies like faster and using weapons and all that stuff. That’s what makes it more dangerous also for our heroes, this is the big difference to the other zombie movies where the zombies are not really moving basically they can not really run and there’s a difference. In Alone in the Dark we have also a type of attacker, they are like zombies because their infiltrated with worms, they getting like worms in their spinal cord and now they are turning into an attacking mode and what I really like on 28 Days Later is how he did the attacking of the zombies. Cause they were totally out of their minds and he did it with a shutter, he shut the stuff with the shutter so you actually see from 24 frames you see maybe only 12 frames. Yeah…this made it very, very creepy. I think.

Rob – Makes it very animal…realistic kind of predator?

Uwe – Yeah exactly and a little similar to how we are doing it in Alone in the Dark. In House of the Dead we didn’t make it this way because compared to 28 Days Later we have different scenes, we have like non- stop zombie attacks. It’s not like now a zombie attack and then something other happens so we would be if we made or show all the zombie attacks. In our case with shutters and all that stuff it would be too confusing, because there is too many of these attacks coming up.

Rob – So how are you going to…continue the storyline but also have the action at the same time? Sometimes movies like Gladiator, although very famous, very good and well known for action scenes sometimes you found that the action takes on the storyline. The storyline just stops and then the action goes and then the storyline again. How are you going to get past that or you going to blend the two together?

Uwe - Yeah I think with Alone in the Dark this will work out very well so everything is like story and character driven and it goes from like one point to the other and you really have to find out what is going on. They’re going like deeper and deeper into it until they like reach the gates of hell in Alone in the dark. In House of the dead, it is because of the set up that they are arriving on that island, in the evening already and now it…its only about how I survive that night and this is all about like in House of the dead will not have…big character development or something (laughs). Cause they have to stay alive or they die. And so...people they want to have lot of like…if you want to have gore and fun in the theatre, then its maybe the right movie, if you want to expect like huge character development and this…is not the case in House of the Dead…I would be lying if I said like there’s a big story going on.

Rob – So what will the main character be more like, is it the old-fashioned detective seen in parts 1-3, or the bad guy seen in ‘The New Nightmare’? Or are you going to do like a mixture?

Uwe – No…its more the old fashioned detective and what I actually like is because there is a not a lot of movies in the last years that you have really basically….a normal guy, as the hero. Everybody is now a super hero and Charlie’s Angels they are running up the walls and they can fly. Dare devil…everybody can fly and all that stuff. So what I always thought was very good in Alone in the Dark is that he is a normal person and he must use weapons to defend himself or to kill Demon’s creatures or whatever’s attacking, but he can get killed also in a normal way. Right now I’m very happy with what we have…what we shot cause we have really two strong characters with Stephen Dourif playing the addition of Commander Burke.

Rob – You also got John Fallon?

Uwe – Yeah! John Fallon is in it. He is one of the Bureau 713 guys. He stays in the main office and he has like radio contact with the people and we have a group defending a big mine and another group in a tunnel system so Bureau 713 is like checking everything outside the Mira satellite so yeah we have an interesting cast.

Rob - How will you propose the development of characters in the upcoming movie? It is often considered best to kill off characters to focus on the personality of the reluctant hero. How will the characters of Christian and Tara evolve through the death of others?

Uwe – What do you mean with the last part of your line?

Rob – Well Christian, he is a detective so he is probably used to killing, but Tara seems to be on a scientific…her character is scientific based right.

Uwe – Yes. Yeah exactly

Rob - So she is probably not used to the horror or the gore?

Uwe – Yeah

Rob – Does she become an efficient killer as Christian?

Uwe – No

Rob - What does she learn from Christian?

Uwe – No she…she is using her weapon and she kills a few people and a few creatures also but she…we didn’t…she is not turning out at one point like a super girl or something.

Rob – She stays in character then?

Uwe – Exactly, she is like an assistant scientist but she is very helpful, they are all over the place, and there’s symbols from Indian language, Abcani stuff what she has to translate. This is one of the few things I did not like in 28 Days Later, that the guy in the end turned into a huge fighter and he was a bicycle mail courier?!? That he killed everybody including the soldiers and they are well trained? And this was not really realistic. So I thought that Tara Reid should be more like a normal woman. A young woman in love with…she loves the detective Carnby but she tries to defend herself but she gets saved and rescued a few times by Slater.

Rob – That’s cool, cause they stay in character and they use original weapons, its not like they make their own specialist weapons like in Blade?

Uwe – They have special bullets, for the creatures, like glowing bullets with a golden thing in it. But the rest are totally normal what they used.

Rob – Is it your intention to beat Resident Evil in terms of game to film transition? For a 100-minute movie, the storyline as I said seemed to take on too many elements from too many games 1 – 3. What did you think of Resident Evil?

Uwe – I was a little pissed off that there was no gore, but only with that laser thing and the rest really had no gore in it and I liked the scenes with the Doberman…with the dog. I personally... was not really disappointed from Resident Evil, so I was entertained. I liked Resident Evil much more than I like Lara Croft for example. This is a movie that I didn’t like at all. This is a movie that makes me angry, but also I’m not a big fan of Resident Evil, but I’m interested to see the second part and what they make out of it. It would be interesting.

Rob – What kind of tone will the film have? Serious, humour or a mixture of both? Can we expect lots of mindless gory scenes?

Uwe – Like in Alone in the dark?

Rob – Alone in the dark…yeah

Uwe - It’s not got a lot of humour in it basically. I think that only Slater is the kind of guy who has humour.

Rob – Sarcastic?

Uwe – Yes, sarcastic humour. There is for example a scene in the movie in an airplane where a young boy says to Slater like “I think there’s a monster in my closest, but my mother said I shouldn’t be afraid” etc and Slater tells him like “Your mother is wrong, yeah you should be afraid of the dark.” So anyway he is really scaring him to death…yeah so this is the kind of the sarcastic humour in the movie, but in total the movie is, I would say from the tone…it’s very dark and it’s very disturbing also.

Rob – Cynical?

Uwe – Yeah, cynical and you don’t really have an idea of what’s going on, the audience must find out together with our heroes what is going on and who is behind it…why is the creatures coming out now and why is that infiltrated worm guys running amok and all that stuff, its…its got a lot of question marks and you have to find the answer.

Rob – Did you play the computer games Alone in the Dark and House of the dead before shooting the projects? What other forms of research have you done for them?

Uwe – Yeah…I’ve played all the games and I read like the character bible what I got from Atari and House from Sega, to see what was behind, what was the basic idea for the whole game. It’s always like I think the most important thing is to take the character out of the game and take the basic mood of a game on screen and not like fulfilling or doing exactly what story is in the game. Yeah because the game it’s an interactive thing…what you can play for days. It’s a different mood and in a different world for you…what you have to do basically.

Rob – So what rating will this movie have?

Uwe – It will be…I personally am fan of R rated movies. To say it this way…and we shot a lot of stuff what is clearly R rated but I don’t know now what is possible…what is not possible with PG-13, I finish the movie the way I want it and then we go from there. Yeah and er yeah that is the only way we can do it.

Rob – What other horror movies have influenced your directing methods? Were you ever a fan of Hitchcock movies? What is your most inspiring movie ever?

Uwe – Hitchcock…Hitchcock’s’ Psycho is in every case one of my favourite movies of all time and but also like “The Shining” from Stanley Kubrick and special like thrillers like Silence of the Lambs and Se7evn, but also the Romero movie Dawn of the Dead then I personally like Halloween 1, but I like other John Carpenter movies more like The Thing I like lot. Yeah I never got it…what I personally know is that a lot of people like totally Braindead but I still think Braindead is funny. Yeah so I’m…

Rob – Its not meant to be taken, as a serious movie is it, so…?

Uwe – No, correct so it's…but it didn’t scare me, I…I am always more a fan if I am really scared.

Rob – Yeah.

Uwe – Yeah What I had definitely with the Romero movies.

Rob – What kind of music will be used in Alone in the Dark? Is it contemporary rock or a classical score or a mixture of both?

Uwe - It will be…It will be both, we will do a score with a symphony orchestra what is very good I think is for like the drama…dramatic stuff and what we got right now, we have different offers and opportunities for a song. I personally like Marilyn Manson and so I have a few songs from him I want to use and we will ask him and the record company what they want…for it and then we want to use it and yeah, if they want too much money then its impossible.

Rob – So will the music be unobtrusive or very loud and brassy? Which composer will be responsible for the score and what?

Uwe – It will be the House of the Dead composer, Reinhard Besser. He has made some very good scores for House of the Dead and before. We had in House of the dead, we have a song from you know The Snap, from the group they did, like You Got the Power, and this stuff they did in House of the Dead song, basically. It’s a hard rap what is in it, and we used a lot of techno stuff in House of the dead. That will be non fitting in Alone in the dark. So Alone in the dark I see more like…like dark metal hard rock but also classical score, mixed up like…like what Metallica did for example I like a lot. Yeah

Rob - Will you possibly be using the scenes from the game itself? Or will you invent new material specifically for the movie?

Uwe – No…no in Alone in the dark not. In House of the dead we used at the beginning…ya…for some opening credits and I used in a few different shots, its like an optical effect like you have a zombie…like an animation zombie runs into the camera and in his eye is the movie running and then boom we are in the next scene. So I did it like as to come from scene to scene and I think it’s cute and its fitting in, specially in that battle scene I used it a few times because we have like 4000 cuts in 12 minutes so normal movies have 15,000 cuts and we have in that scene 4000 so then…then everything gets totally out of control and I…then I like to do it this way and I think it takes off, nobody who saw it thinks its cheesy. Yeah before like in Creature corner they discussed it on their website that I’m an asshole that I did it, but then later they got some…some feedback that I didn’t…I think they got the wrong info…yeah, they saw maybe I do like final sentence and they go in a ten minute animation scene or whatever? And so finally I think they’re fine with it, also.

Rob – What kind of effects will we see in Alone in the Dark? Will there be a scene with the equipment that creates that Matrix like set up? What new effects will we see?

Uwe - Yeah we have… we have a big deal going on with Toy box for the CGI and they did like Fight Club and Panic room and the Cell. The guys they do the CGI so we getting very realistic CGI….with like creature…like we doing it a little like Predator…they can be invisible but they are also visible. So they going from invisible to visible and if you shoot the monsters with glowing bullet…with the golden bullet they get…they’re getting visible and then you have a target and you can shoot, basically with everything you have on, choose that monster! So we will have some really ugly like worms attacking and (laughs) all that stuff this will be CGI from equipment wise we didn’t use the matrix setup again because also I think it is a little overused in a lot of movies right now. That you have that freeze frame and then the camera…yeah and so I don’t. I didn’t want to use it again and that turntable we didn’t use but we had like what we did this time, we had like very interesting cable cam shots, where the camera is like on a cable, ya and then like around corners and over streets and you really don’t know…(laughs)…what…what is going on…how they did that and this we have very, very good scenes and this in combination with CGI will be very, very effective and the blood effect and prosthetics everything done by Bill Terezakis again…and he did like Freddy versus Jason and House of the dead and Final destination 2 and all that stuff.

Rob – Ok…Cause Romeros zombie films, tend to use lots of make up effects, some argue these are a more effective affect then CGI, what would you prefer to see in this movie then?

Uwe – We have this, the reason I hired Bill again. Yeah so we have a lot of effects basically with real prosthetics and real blood, like we have for example a scene where a guy gets…gets ripped apart from a creature into 3 pieces and this, basically everything, was done by Bill Terezakis.

Rob – So will there be any identifiable cameos or in jokes in this movie?

Uwe – Ya, I don’t think we do that like what we did in House of the dead as we…we had a lot of insider jokes like “Lord of the rings” everything and “Dust board” and “Star trek” and all that stuff…what is also fitting in it… in that movie. In Alone in the Dark because it is more serious approach…there is not like that we doing a march to another movie or something…so we basically don’t do it?

Rob – Will there be a spin off game…game versions based on the movie?

Uwe- Yeah they do..this interesting thing. Atari is confirmed to do Alone in the dark 5, they bring it out at the same time when the movies’ finished, so they’re already working on it, and it looks like that Christian Slater will be his face, he will be Edward Carnby.

Rob – Yeah?

Uwe – In the game. Yeah, that would be really good.

Rob – What has it been like so far working with Christian Slater and Tara Reid? What actors and actresses would you like to work with in the future?

Uwe - Tara Reid is totally like sweet easy going, She is doing everything what you want. I recognise that she came from comedy, because she was not able like to hold a gun to shoot, to jump, to run, whatever, so she had to do a lot of training.

Rob – How is she with that? Is she finding it easy or hard?

Uwe – No I think it was hard for her. I would lie if I say it would be…no no everything was so easy. I think she was sometimes like with…in the beginning we gave her a meshing gun and she didn’t handle it. So we took the meshing gun away, we gave her a hand gun and then she…with little training and training, it worked out, but in the beginning, also beginning of the shoot I always used her more like…I shot first, like her dialogue part and all that stuff that she got a little easier in the movie because it was hard. Like she had…there was an explosion…she has to jump away on a mat…on a pad, ya but she hurt her leg and she was like crying on the set. So I said, “look this is an Uwe Boll movie now, not…not Myboss starder” and so she had like tears in her eye but…but she is really nice and it worked, everything worked out and I think she’s’ actually very good for the part because she plays against her type also, what is interesting for an actress. What…what I like and Christian Slater was totally into it.

Rob – He’s done like action before, really hasn’t he?

Uwe – Yeah…yeah he has Karate a guy so he’s really physically fit. I think he is doing like 400 pushups everyday. So he was onset always before a shot, if he has to be out of breath…he is doing push-ups like 25 push-ups and then he’s out of breath and he plays the scene. Yeah, and so I said the same to Tara…look do 25 push ups and then you do the scene and she was laughing (laughs).

Rob – Psyches her up doesn’t it

Uwe – Yeah,.I forced her to the ground I said look now you do it, now do ten things and you have to feel it more, what you’re doing…yeah this is with a lot of young actors, with that American Pie generation its…they acting little like everything is show and they should be more focused on people like what Robert DeNiro is, and Al Pacino etc you should be more...that you really try to be the person.

Rob – Angelina Jolie…couldn’t handle a gun

Uwe – Exactly, and then she turns out very good I think in Lara Croft.

Rob – Yeah she knows how to spin the gun, load and unlock them…

Uwe – Yeah she trains hard for it, but still the most kick ass woman in an action movie like this was for me Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, I don’t know I liked her most in all movies ever made.

Rob – Have you seen the third one, Terminator 3?

Uwe – No I saw it, I was positively surprised, because its way not so good like the second one but compared with other cheesy movies…like we had with The Hulk and Lara Croft 2…compared to that I liked it. My impression was that the car chasing at the beginning was sensational.

Rob – Yeah

Uwe – Yeah

Rob – Do you feel that many films have too many or too little twists in them, will Alone in the Dark have a twist and are you planning to make sequels, or perhaps even a trilogy?

Uwe – Exactly, Alone in the Dark has a lot of twists…but we’re not using it like the twist is there because we only have to do a twist, yeah, the appeal for Alone In the Dark from the beginning was that like we need 3 films to tell the whole story so its not like Matrix where the first movie was it, and then they made the second one and the third one because of the success of the first one, and in our case I think it is so you need the second and the third movie to understand completely what is going on and what I liked in Alone in the Dark or what I liked basically is to be Alone in the Dark is basic fear, everybody has it, it’s a much bigger scene as a normal horror movie, what is behind it. HP loved Chris Nolan’s work behind the game and, also in the beginning there is something going on that goes a little deeper, yeah. You have that the nature strikes back; this is a little what that the scene is about, like you have to have the dark spaces.

Rob – Like control?

Uwe – Yeah, exactly if the lights of the civilisation are going too bright or too big, the dark side of the world is like needed to keep everything in balance, and if this gets away something will strike back, like in the real world with Sars, Aids, or Ebola and with war, people going crazy, terrorists attacking, this is like the real world and we do it in the horror movie and besides the real world. There are really actually creatures and they’re trying to eat the people to get rid of the people, but again human civilisation is the reason everything gets out of balance, and so what is with the idea, that they’re actually creatures that bring the people to kill the people, then everything would be going back in balance.

Rob – So are you going to have a cliffhanger scene near the end of the movie?

Uwe – It will not be a real cliff-hanger, but there will be some unanswered questions, a lot of people are dead and…so we don’t know…lets say for the moment the situation will be cleared but it is also very clear there are problems coming up right now.

Rob – What is the next project? Will there be a sequel to House of the Dead, perhaps even a trilogy?

Uwe – Yeah, for House of the Dead the second part is already written and I know got an offer to do House of the Dead and with the same guy, like Jonathon Sheri and other people from the movie, but I didn’t make it, so I redeveloped it on my own and I do a second part from House of the Dead that has nothing to do with the first part. It will be a different approach and we will have an AMF response team in the middle of the movie so we will not have actors from the first part in the second part.

Rob – Oh right.

Uwe – Yeah it will be surprising, but I think because the script I got that we developed is so strong and so interesting, so I didn’t want us to do “Oh now we have the survivor, now we have another teenage icon!”.

Rob – You don’t wanna take out too many elements from the games too soon or too late either.

Uwe – Exactly, yeah yeah.

Rob – Create a balance

Uwe – Yeah

Rob – Just out of interest the internet has been responsible for promoting many movies over the past few years, out of interests which sites do you visit the most, and o you believe that Insomniac mania is one of the better sites? What do you think of Ain't it Cool News, and Dark Horizons?

Uwe – Yeah Dark Horizons I check out a lot of times, IGM, then the arrow, Joblo.com, Creature Corner, this is it. I surf a lot, seeing Japanese photos, only my photo and one other word (laughs), we look in to it. We do like, my web guy, who’s doing my home page for House of the dead, he always looking around and he sends me links that I should check out from Sweden and UK and all that stuff.

Rob – Ok is there any possibility we could probably have a similar interview with Christian and Tara at a later date?

Uwe – Yeah I can try to arrange it at a later date, maybe on Saturday in LA, ask them both, if they are able to do it and then I would e mail the cell phone number to you or maybe I give your number to both and I say call, and you should make an interview.

Rob – Yeah that would be better, that would be better. Is there any chance you could do a little audio message for all our visitors promoting our site?

Uwe – Yeah absolutely! What is the idea? I say it, and you tape it? No problem, do it now?

Rob – Yes please.

Uwe – Its Insomniac Mania. Com? Right, so hello guys, I’m a big fan of Insomniac Mania. Com, I’m Uwe Boll, the director from House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark and yeah I’m checking out this page every two weeks from now on!

Rob – Excellent.

Uwe – Was that good or bad?

Rob – No that’s really good! I’m over the moon about that. Is there anything you’d like to add?

Uwe – Nope unless you have any further questions?

Rob – I’m running out of further questions at the moment, but I’ll probably get back to you one day OK?

Uwe – Ok perfect.

Rob -Thank you very much for your time; what are you going to do now? What you got planned for the rest of the evening?

Uwe – I go now back to editing, in the office, so we’re thinking about some scenes, doing it a little out of context, I always like to change the script a little in the editing room.

Rob – So how far is Alone in the Dark in production now, is it halfway through?

Uwe – We need 6 more months for the CGI and sound in line, and for the editing we need maybe 6 more weeks.

Rob – Right so you’re halfway or beyond?

Uwe – No we’re like 40 – 45%, but shooting is done now, so its like the hardest thing is done, now it’s more about going in to the details.

Rob – Oh right but that could take a long time.

Uwe – Yeah absolutely.

Rob – OK, thank you very much for your time Uwe.

Uwe – Thank you very much.

Rob – Its been good, bye bye.