As a genre filmmaker I look to my films as a way to smuggle in social commentary and my own personal/ political agendas with every picture. Under the guise of popular (and sometimes excessive genre entertainment), I smuggle in subtext that adds to the deeper meaning of the film.
The ROBOCOP:Prime Directives miniseries that I made for Syfy is more than just the Alex Murphy/ Robocop story. My writers and I wanted to create a Rags-to-Riches tale – but it was also imperative (for me) to make this about my relationship with my estranged older son. Like most teenagers, he was struggling with his relationship with the world and his ongoing understanding of who I was. This eight hour miniseries ended up being my wish fulfillment film of father and son united in a common cause.
As I started to work outside of Hollywood, the themes and subtext of my work continued to be smuggled into seemingly ‘innocent’ genre films. One had only to look beneath the surface to see what these films were really about.
The Defiled – a horror zombie plague film about single parenthood and child rearing. What is the new ‘normal’ when it comes to family?
Fall Away – a musical hate crime manifesto that champions an unlikely predator as the hero. How well do we know the people who claim to be truly virtuous?
F@ckload Of Scotch Tape – a film noir musical. Glee meets Fightclub revolving around father and son relationships. How do the sins of the father stain their children?
Sweet Leaf – Rock and roll robbery reliving my wild teenage years and the undying love of friendship. What is the true nature of friendship and family?
Arkham Sanitarium: Soul Eater and The Cropsey Tapes are both about the ‘Kardashian Kulture’ that inundates today’s media marketplace. What is the price of fame? How far will you go for an upvote or click?
Unlike the moralizing early exploitation cinema that I teach about, a message, lesson or political agenda was often inserted or blatantly promoted in these early genre pictures as an excuse to titillate and shock early audiences. Audiences came for the education but really stayed for the bloody child birth footage, geek show material and deranged behavior on display. Today the paradigm is clearly reversed with the more sensational aspects openly advertised with a message or lesson soft-shoed within if included at all. Greater depth and personal resonance within genre storytelling allows for much stronger cinema and makes for greater audience engagement. The more I draw from my own personal experience the stronger the message – even if it is coated in gallons of blood and the trappings of genre.
What aspects of your life or your political viewpoint can be smuggled into your genre cinema to make a greater impact? How can your anger, heartache or personal horror translate into engaging and unique filmmaking? What can you say about the world at large and your response to it while navigating the murky backwaters of exploitation art cinema?
Julian Grant 