Spotlight on Frightfest 2019: Director Samuel Gridley Shares All on ‘Criminal Audition’

Arrow Video Frightfest returns for its twentieth year of frightful delights later this month. Running from Thursday 22nd August to Monday 26th August, the film festival showcases the best and brightest in films that embrace the darker side of cinema. In the run-up to the festival, we at THN are bringing you a series of interviews with some of the filmmakers presenting the fruits of their labour to the Frightfest audiences. 

If you were desperate for money, how far would you go to get it? Would you commit a crime? Or maybe you’d agree to be the fall guy for someone else’s crime in exchange for that monetary life-line. The latter is exactly what a trio of people have agreed to in new film Criminal Audition. The catch, as the title suggests, is that they first have to audition for the part by learning the crime scene and proving that they could hold up to the pressure of police interrogation. The business is owned by ex-lawyer William, and run by former fall-guy Ryan (Luke Kaile – who also co-writes the film), but their smooth operation hits a speed bump when the client shows up with her own way of picking a candidate.

Criminal Audition screens at Arrow Video Frightfest as part of the First Blood strand of programming. The strand is curated by the Frightfest team to highlight some of the best and brightest new filmmakers on the genre circuit and it’s easy to see why Criminal Audition made the cut. Ahead of the screening we spoke with director, and co-writer of the film, Samuel Gridley to get a little more information about the project. Our chat covers the film-making process, what Frightfest fans can expect from the film, and unrealised aspirations to be a palaeontologist.

What got you into film-making?

My dad was a commercials director. He loved films and unfortunately I lost him when I was quite young. I knew that he loved films; perhaps he had a yearning to make films rather than commercials. In my home my mum read lot, so there were lots of novels everywhere, and my dad loved film. It was a barrage of reading and watching films. I’ve just obsessively watched films since a very young age.

I think at about five I wanted to be a palaeontologist because of Jurassic Park, then I think I realised at about six that maybe I didn’t want to be a palaeontologist, I just liked films. It’s kind of a cliche, but Star Wars where I was like, ‘I really like Star Wars and there’s this George Lucas guy’, I understood the concept of a director and a creator, and I was just ‘that’s what I want to do’. That was my direction my whole life essentially. When I was in sixth form I did film studies and I did a film degree at university, and then when I left university I started doing script reading and coverage for people. I worked in a production company working in development and that’s basically up-to-date.

It’s funny that you mention wanting to be a palaeontologist. I was speaking to someone else the other day and they said a very similar thing. They saw Jurassic Park and they wanted to do what the characters did in Jurassic Park, and then actually they realised, no, I want to create that same magic.

That film is amazing really, probably for that generation of people. Talking of wanting to be a palaeontologist after it, I’ve seen so many things on the Internet of people going, ‘the actual palaeontology that’s in the film is awful’. When they’re brushing the velociraptor at the beginning, ‘that’s not how it happens’, and it’s this beautiful, preserved skeleton and they’re just brushing dust off of it. I think that was the impression that that was what palaeontology was, which it wasn’t, and also that film…I still have dreams where I’m either being chased by velociraptors or I’ve having to stay still for a T-Rex. It’s still in my dream. It’s pervasiveness in my life is insane. I’m not obsessed by Jurassic Park, but it has just stayed in my mind for so long.

Criminal Audition started life as a play, how did the idea evolve into a feature?

Well I’m not the best person to talk about the play, because that was Luke’s part of the story really. All I know is that, because I didn’t know Luke at the time, he wrote the play because he was at university, doing creative writing, and he just felt like, ‘I want to be out there’. He wanted to be making films and panicked and what he did was he entered competitions to write plays. So he wrote Criminal Audition as a play for a competition and it won. Then he was able to put it on as a play and it did okay. I think throughout that period people were saying ‘this would make a good film’. He just thought this was the best idea he had so he kind went with it.

Originally the play was a bit of a farcical comedy and when he decided to make it into a film he decided to do as more of a straight crime thriller. As we went along it changed and went back to those farcical elements he had before. I feel that ultimately they were the strong and distinctive aspects of the idea. This is a crazy idea that people put themselves up to be criminals and audition to be criminals. As much as you might want to make it into a straight and honest thriller, there’s an aspect to it that’s…because there is so much chance of it actually being real, it’s actually funny. We just felt that these characters were in this situation that was so extreme that you just had to laugh. I think that’s why it circled back to the comedy.

Also the fact that we eventually set it in a abandoned theatre. It was kind of an ironic thing that they were using it as a ‘stage’ to audition these people and it circled back in a meta way to the play origins on the idea.

The film walks the line between horror and humour. How difficult was it to the strike the right balance and make sure you didn’t veer too far into one?

Apart from just because we were a low budget film, apart from the overriding fear of just ‘are we going to get the film done in this time?’, I think that the humour just kind of sorted itself out. It was in the script very much, and in the actors whom were great. The horror element I was quite conflicted about. There’s gore and violence in the film, and there was definitely more in there that we shot actually, so it was bringing that down and honing that down to match up with the comedy. I think that what happened was we had the comedy and that came in the editing for sure. We were honing that and then the horror came out in the editing as well. In terms of we realised that we set the film in this one location, the people were picked off one by one and we were like ‘oh hang on’, this is like The Thing or Assault on Precinct 13 – I just realised I said two John Carpenter films (laughs). But I love films like that, I love Rio Bravo, which Assault on Precinct 13 is massively influenced by. It kind of was like we realised it was a siege film, but it’s a siege within a siege, which John Carpenter’s great at as well. Those horror elements really came out after we shot it. The worry for me was the violence actually. Trying to balance the violence with the humour. The balancing of the violence and the humour created the horror. I think that’s probably the best way of putting it.

The film does pose some interesting ideas about organised crime, do you think that there’s a possibility that something similar really does exist. When you’re watching the film, it’s completely plausible.

Yeah it’s completely plausible, it’s just that William, the guy that runs it is an implausible guy. If it was run by somebody more competent, it could be a great business, but he’s just not very competent. We know that it’s actually happening though. The whole thing was inspired by a case in China – this is what Luke was inspired by. There was this case in China, I’m going to get it wrong, but there was some kind of crime, I’m not sure what but I don’t think it was as extreme as murder. Somebody was convicted and they basically got someone who looked kind of like the person whom they were convicting, did a bit of cosmetic work, cutting their hair, giving them glasses etc. and then put them in prison rather than the actual person. So yeah we know it’s actually happening.

It’s a terrifying thought, especially in today’s climate with people being so on the poverty line, it is horrible to think that there could be a criminal element out there preying upon the desperate.

Absolutely. It’s kind of terrifying and I think that also, just in terms of fake news and such. Fake news was not a phrase when we started to write the film, but actually it is something that could have potentially influenced the film if we were making it a bit later. You have all these deep fake CGI things, they can make famous people say things that they’ve never said. It’s that kind of a ‘doppelganger can I believe what I’m seeing’ atmosphere.

When I was watching the film it felt very British, but it’s unlike any other genre film in the market. Without giving too much away, what can Frightfest audiences expect?

I think its a film that will creep up on people. I think that it’s a film that starts in a way that you possibly might expect, but then it pivots in the middle to become something else. I suppose the way that you could characterise it for Frightfest audiences is that it may start out as a film that you’re wondering why it’s at Frightfest, and then it pivots and you understand why.

What made you decide that Frightfest was the place to share this film with the world?

Because I think that we are film fans ourselves. Everybody that made the film are fans of film. I personally I am a huge horror fan. I try to watch a new film everyday and a lot of those are horror films. I mean I must have seen thousands of horror films in my time. When we were putting the film together, and actually in the post production, I just thought this film is for audiences. It’s for people to enjoy and laugh at and wince at. I think that one of the first things I thought of was Frightfest, because it is audience-led, and the audience there are fans of genre. They are just very sophisticated at getting what these things are. Even though our film is not at first obviously a horror film, I know that Frightfest fans are very sophisticated enough to understand that there are these slow burns that will turn around and become these interesting things to discover. I think that open community that Frightfest has was perfect for us.

Well the festival does embrace the dark heart of cinema and Criminal Audition definitely fits into that.

We didn’t know that we were going to be embraced by that when we applied. We didn’t know anybody at the festival, we knew of it by reputation. I’ve been there before and I very much admired the festival. But we didn’t know that we’d necessarily be embraced. When you become part of it you realise, because there’s so many films playing, I’m discovering ‘oh that films playing’ and it’s all so diverse. Considering it’s a ‘horror’ genre film festival you think, ‘okay I know what’s there’ but you really don’t. The amount of diversity that’s there and they try really hard with female directors and with their shorts. It’s just so diverse.

And you’re screening as part of the First Blood strand, how are you feeling about that, have you checked out any of the other films in the line-up?

I know all the films, but I haven’t seen any of them. I’m just interested to talk to them. It seems that a lot of them in the First Blood strand that there is again a lot of diversity. The films seem very different and it will be great to talk to them about their journey. I haven’t spoken to anybody yet. I know that we’re quite supportive of each other on Twitter etc. but I haven’t had the chance to actually meet anybody and talk about their film, but I can’t wait to.

You mentioned you’d been to the festival before, was it for the full weekend or just a film?

I actually went to a screening of somebody else’s film that I knew. So it was only a little taste really. I do go to that Cineworld a lot as it’s my local one, so last year I was around the atmosphere quite a bit. I was handed the booklet for the festival and I was looking through it and it’s quite cool that now this year my film is in the festival. I would have never have thought it would have been looking through the booklet.

Are you going to be there for the duration?

Me and Luke and our producers, as much as they can, are going to try and be about for the whole thing. We want to meet as many people as we can. See who else has had the same kind of journey as us, and also just the audiences as well. I’m just very interested in what they’re going to think of our film. It’s been somewhat tested outside the circle of us as it were, but this is the real test. So I really want to speak to real genuine people that have just decided to see the film.

It’s a great festival for audience / filmmaker interaction.

And we’re open to it as well. Me and Luke, our endeavour is to be very inclusive. We were making a feature film and we’d never done it before. If there was a question or worry I’d just say ‘let’s ask somebody. What are they going to say? They can tell us to f**k off or they’re going to tell us what we should do next.’ We made this community to make a film, so I think it’s great to approach a community again. We’re very inclusive and we like to talk to people. I enjoy talking about the film because I’m quite proud of it, but also I think that I just like letting people in. There’s so many people out there that want to make a film and what’s crucial about our film is that we just decided to make a film and then ‘what do we do next?’ A lot of people ask us advice and we’re very open to that.

Once Frightfest is over and the film has screened and is out in the world, what are you working on next?

Obviously we’re interested in what everyone else thinks and they’ll be a taking stock of things with reviews and the feedback we get, but we’re already underway on the next project. That’s also a horror film. We are very much sticking around, we’re not going to go away. We’re going to make other films. That’s our plan, to keep making stuff that people enjoy and engage with, and also challenge people. Like Criminal Audition, there’s an argument to make for what type of film it is and the questions that it throws up, and we still want to make things that are like that.

Criminal Audition screens at Arrow Video Frightfest on Saturday 26th August 2019.