A lone man wanders a post-apocalyptic landscape of deserted homes and empty schools populated only by dummies made of straw and cast-off clothes that mimic the human lives that once filled these places with laughter and joy. The unnamed man struggles valiantly to hang on to his sanity by pretending nothing is wrong: he “teaches” a class of straw students in a long-abandoned schoolroom and drops by for a drink and “conversation” every night at an empty pub. Winter is coming soon, though, and with it the threat of madness. Is there something lurking among the straw men? Is the man truly alone? What really happened? Are we witnessing the mental breakdown of a lone survivor or the spiraling paranoia of a hermit dwelling in an abandoned estate? Equal parts existentialism and post-apocalyptic terror, A Reckoning evokes the austere brutality of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the claustrophobia of Brad Anderson’s Session 9, delivering a chilling experience made all the horrific by the absence of revelation. This is a thinking man or woman’s horror film, a Dark Ride of the mind and soul that cuts closer than some may like.
Star Leslie Simpson (Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Doomsday) and director A.D. Barker recently shared their experiences making this challenging film. Read on, Suvudu:
Leslie Simpson:
First of all, you’re in incredible shape in this movie. Did you or do you have any kind of exercise regimen?
You may have noticed that all the shots where flesh was shown were either in soft focus, from behind, or through dream-like plumes of fog. Essentially that’s because it was a body double and the director didn’t want to show his face. We had to manufacture the limp and use a narration for my clothed scenes because I was trussed up so tightly that my voice was three octaves higher and I walked liked C3PO.
I hope to be cast as a butterball couch potato in a Fried Chicken ad for my next role. Now that would be typecasting.
More or less, you’re playing the single role in A Reckoning. Is this more or less difficult than acting in a cast?
Working alone is the only way I’d get noticed to be honest. And even then I was upstaged by the straw characters. I understand that Magwitch the reprobate straw kid has been cast as the second lead in the next Michael Bay movie. He deserves it, he was a trooper.
Your performance seemed so authentic. Sometimes I felt genuinely uncomfortable watching The Man suffer. How did you approach the development of your performance?
The last thing I’d want is for audiences to be manipulated into thinking about the performance outside the context of the film. If it works then I’ve done my job. So, well, thanks for the compliment.
Audiences are convinced by what’s captured on screen or they’re not, and that’s it – so to explain the wiring under the boards seems pointless. Everything that happens around the edges or beforehand ultimately means nothing. When the director says “okay, we’re done here” my part in the process is finished.
I can’t not ask you about your work in two of my favorite films: Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Was the Dog Soldiers shoot as cold and wet as it appeared? Do you have any good stories from these productions? What was it like working in a Crawler costume?
Cor blimey, they were both forever ago. It almost feels like they happened to someone else.
Dog Soldiers was a blast. We drank the hotel in Luxembourg dry almost every night, and despite the fact that there were bigger productions shooting at the same time, we became the party to be at.
Cold and wet? Only the beer and whiskey.
As for the Crawler costume, there wasn’t one. We were sheared from head to foot until we were as smooth and fugly as one of those hairless cats; spray painted white, covered in KY jelly, then dipped in shellac to prevent us from getting warm. The only actual costume was a prosthetic half face-mask, ears, teeth and nobbly bits to exaggerate our vertebrae. Oh, and the hypothermia blanket we needed between takes. During one fight Sarah (Shauna McDonald) had to straddle me and crush my eyeballs. I was shaking so violently from the cold that it must have been like sitting on a washing machine on spin cycle. For the record I was beaten to death at least five times during that film.
What are you doing next?
I’ve just wrapped a nice cameo on a cracking action sci-fi thriller called Crawlspace. It’s from first time director Justin Dix, produced by Maker Films of Australia and exec produced by Greg ‘Wolf Creek‘ Mclean. Fans of your site will no doubt be interested to note that Justin once worked for George Lucas, re-creating and working the C3PO and R2D2 robots for Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3. He’s a pretty remarkable bloke, and has an extraordinary visual flare that reminds me of early Ridley Scott. It’s one to watch out for later this year. Other than that, I’m keeping busy but keeping schtum.
A.D. Barker:
This is a darkly existential film, and one that I would imagine was influenced as much by philosophy as conventional film. Can you talk about some of the philosophical or literary ideas underlying A Reckoning? Further, what does the title mean, exactly?
The only philosophy came from a film-making point of view – in terms of just trying to get it done. Adam (Adam Krajczynski, Director of Photography and Editor) and I are on the very same page when it comes how we feel a film should be made; the mantra while filming was ‘just shoot the shit out of it’! We didn’t have much time to stop and think while we were filming, it was just roll and move on. We really were in the eye of the hurricane, but strangely, to paraphrase George Harrison, that’s where it’s sometimes the calmest.
The story was written around the location, using only things I knew, or believed, I could get my hands on – it really was that simple, I just wrote to my limitations. There were a great many literary influences however, Robinson Crusoe being quite an obvious one… Cormac McCarthy and Richard Matheson being other inspirations.
Secondary to this, what are some of your film inspirations?
I guess, for me, Terrence Malick was a huge influence. Yet saying that, filmmakers as diverse as George Romero and John Huston are also in there somewhere… at least I can see them.
The setting is ambiguous. We’re left to wonder whether The Man is alone in a post-apocalyptic landscape, a hermit or perhaps a prisoner in his own mind. Was this ambiguity intentional? Is there any “correct” answer?
I guess it’s intentional. I don’t really like spelling things out. Film is mystery; moving pictures that are pieced together and manipulated to tell a story, and therefore some stories should just be mysterious.
Leslie Simpson is a familiar face to a lot of movie-goers. He’s a low-profile but highly talented actor. A Recoking, if anything, displays his incredible range and power. How did you guys get in touch with him and what landed the part for him?
Leslie anchored this project from the moment he read it and has always gone above and beyond for us and this film…. and he remains so. He’s an incredible actor and I have no doubt that when people get to see him in this film, his career will go through the roof.
The straw “people” that play such a role in this film are emblematic to me of perhaps The Man’s inability to connect with other people, and again I’m forced to wonder if whether they’re actually real people and maybe he can’t see them as such. Any comments?
I don’t really know…. some parts of this stories are as mysterious to me as to everyone else. I can change my mind every time I see it.
This is a powerful and harrowing film, but not a especially commercial one. What are the risks in this kind of film-making, beside the obvious financial ones? What drove you to do this?
I’ve always thought that with your first film, particularly on this scale, it’s pretty much the only chance in your career you’ll get to make exactly what you want. There were no risks for us as filmmakers because no one has any expectations. Adam and I made the film we wanted to – during post-production it was only him and me in a tiny room for about a year. We did everything ourselves from the ground up during post and shaped the film we wanted to. If we ever make another film we’ll never have that freedom again I guess, so we embraced it and tried to make something very different… hopefully something that will pull at the soul.
Where and when will A Reckoning be released to a wider market?
I wish I could answer that, but at the minute we’re just in the stage of trying to get it out into the world anyway we can and just hope we can move the right people.
