Scare tactics

Ottawa horror flick Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer takes an old-school approach with help from horror icon Robert Englund

FRIENDLIER THAN FREDDY: Englund

by MALCOLM FRASER

A major crowd-pleaser at the recently wrapped Fantasia, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is a straightforward monster movie with an appealing old-school approach to atmosphere, cinematic style and special effects. It also happens to be a Canadian indie picture made with old-fashioned entrepreneurial spirit, and features a casting coup in the form of horror-flick fixture Robert Englund, known to many as Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

The titular hero, played by co-producer and co-writer Trevor Matthews, is a 20-something plumber with an anger-management problem, which he blames on a traumatic childhood experience when a monster attacked and ate his family.

In between unproductive visits to his long-suffering therapist (Aliens’ Daniel Kash) and squabbles with his difficult girlfriend (Rachel Skarsten), he enrols in an adult high school chemistry class, taught by the eccentric Professor Crowley (Englund). When the prof asks for some plumbing help, Matthews visits Englund’s spooky country estate and inadvertently unleashes an evil force from deep in the ground, quickly complicating both their lives.

Matthews, director Jon Knautz and screenwriter John Ainslie have kept their production company, Brookstreet Pictures, based in their hometown of Ottawa. The sleepy capital city is not known for its film industry or cultural atmosphere, but it appears to breed low-budget exploitation filmmakers, judging from the underground success of director Lee Demarbre (Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter) and now the Brookstreet gang.

GLEEFUL GROSS-OUT: Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

The Mirror spoke to Matthews and Knautz on the verge of the film’s limited U.S. and Canadian theatrical release. When Matthews mentions that the film was financed entirely with private funding, I ask him how they pulled that off. “I come from a wealthy family,” he answers candidly. “My dad is Terry Matthews—he’s a venture capitalist and telecom entrepreneur.” Circulating amongst the local venture-capital community, Matthews was able to raise the funding entirely in Ottawa.

Influenced by classic ’80s horror, the filmmakers decided early on to dispense with the current trappings of the genre. The monsters themselves are impressively done up with a notable lack of fancy digital effects, fitting right in with a classical shooting and editing style and a great full-orchestra score by Ryan Shore. “We were able to do it live with an orchestra, which was what we all secretly wanted to do,” says Knautz excitedly. “We were able to do it affordably by going overseas to Bratislava, where you can find a great orchestra for really cheap.”

Gross returns

The icing on the cake of this classic-horror feel is the presence of Englund, who imbues the rather stock character with unexpected physical comedy and a brave commitment to the full-on gross-out. Reaching the horror icon on the phone, I’m pleasantly surprised by his good humour, positivity and unreserved energy.

I approach with some trepidation the fact that the once-famous actor now routinely appears in low-budget Canadian films. “Since the success of Freddy vs. Jason,” he explains, “I spent a year running around with a skeleton crew, doing a reality show that never got off the ground.” His Nightmare fortune spent, “I just said yes to all the scripts that were sitting beside my bed, and ended up working with all these young filmmakers.”

Of this particular film, he recalls, “My agent read the script and really liked it. He also sent me a short [Brookstreet] film called Still Life. I popped it in my DVD, and it was amazing. It was like a lost episode of Twilight Zone or something. It was clear that it was a young director in total control of his talent. I also noticed there was a lot of opportunity for physical comedy, which goes to my roots as a stage actor.”

It quickly becomes clear that Englund has no bitterness about being typecast in the horror genre. “I’ve become a Vincent Prince or Klaus Kinski—I’m that guy. But I don’t poo-poo it because for some reason, [horror films] travel better than other kinds of movies. I know that when I die, on my tombstone it’ll say ‘Robert Englund, aka Freddy Krueger.’ With hindsight, I can make peace with that and be proud of it. I’ve known big stars who’ve fought against being typecast. I just go with the flow and go where I’m wanted.”

In Jack Brooks, Englund goes beyond the call of duty in the service of both comedy and horror, whether it’s facing his class with a vomit-soaked beard or submitting to a still-beating monster heart forcing its way down his throat. “It’s part and parcel of the demographic,” he chuckles. “I exploit the gross-out factor. Younger audiences, they like a good vomit.”

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
opens this Friday, July 25