High spirits on horror film set

By ELEANOR BLACK

Riverhead Forest, 8pm, the week before Halloween. Guy runs down the gravel road, stops abruptly and plants a bottle of Smirnoff on the ground.

He squats, rips a green shirt to pieces and soaks a sleeve with vodka. Looking around as if expecting to be attacked at any moment, he threads the wet cloth through the bottle's neck.

"Cut, please."

Tension dissolves as a bouncy man in gumboots and a reflective safety vest steps into the road. He is Greg Page, writer/director of The Locals, a horror film about a surf trip gone wrong, which has brought 25 people to this dark, spooky place. Well, it would be dark and spooky if it wasn't lit up like a stadium.

"There's no way that works for a Molotov [cocktail]," Page tells the running Guy, actor John Barker. "Your hand would have caught fire."

Another green shirt is found and another bottle of pretend vodka handed to the actor, who now knows how to wreak havoc. He heads up the road again and a man with a big brush sweeps the ground free of footprints.

Barker does his bit again; it's "perfect". Now it's time for his close-up, a tight shot of the same sequence concentrating on his hands as they fumble with the shirt and bottle.

Riverhead Forest, 8.45pm. On cue, Barker runs, stops abruptly and plants a bottle of vodka in the gravel. He squats down next to the bottle, rips a green shirt to bits and soaks it with alcohol. He threads the cloth through the bottle neck then runs to the side of the road to collect branches for a bonfire.

"Cut, please."

The continuity woman, who makes sure the film is not riddled with inconsistencies, has noticed something. The shirt has lost two buttons. And when Barker ran for branches, he left the soaked shirt sleeve flopping to the left of the bottle. It should have been flopping to the right.

"The shirt's more trouble than the actors," says Page. The other stars - Dwayne Cameron, Kate Elliott and Aidee Walker - are waiting in a warm place until needed.

Page decides no one will notice the buttons and he can reverse the film so the cloth flops correctly. But there is lingering concern about a mass of moths which can be seen in the shot.

While this is the 30-year-old's first feature film, he has been making award-winning short films, music videos and television ads for the past eight years. He reckons he directed 20 per cent of the New Zealand music videos released last year. Page is more energetic than other people.

"I'm only allowed two cups of coffee a night," he says. "The nights are so much fun it would be great if they were doubly long."

The Locals, a ghost flick in the tradition of The Sixth Sense, was conceived on late-night drives between gigs in Auckland and Hamilton with his band, Rumpus Room. "A lot of strange shit goes on down there in the mist," says Page, eyebrows wiggling.

The director chews on a slice of apple as he plans the next sequence. Barker is summoned for makeup so wet mud can be daubed on his trouser legs. It keeps drying between takes.

Filming wraps in three weeks and the movie will be released at the end of next year. "We're hoping for good things," says producer Steve Sachs, who watches the action on a monitor marked with red lines to indicate the dimensions of a cinema screen.

"The film has a lot going for it commercially. It's a genre we know sells well. It's a gothic horror for a young audience - The Others for the Scarfies crowd."

Riverhead Forest, 9.45pm. Guy runs down the road, stops abruptly and plants a bottle of Smirnoff in the gravel. He squats next to the bottle, rips a green shirt to pieces and soaks a sleeve with vodka. Looking around as if expecting to be attacked at any moment, he upends the bottle of vodka and drinks the lot.

The crew laugh at what will be one for the movie's out-takes reel. It seems tonight, the spirits have got the better of this ghost movie.