kristian hanson | texas-terror-ent

An interview with Kristian Hanson

Necrostein- If you would tell our readers where your dwelling is?

Kristian Hanson - I currently reside in Southern California in the land of abundant sunshine, but I wish it would just rain already.

NS- This is more or less a 2 part question, please feel free to elaborate as much as you wish. How long have you been directing? and when did you decide you wanted to do horror?

KH - The first thing I ever really directed was on stage shorts at my church when I was 17. I used to write and direct the shorts because I got tired of the typical teenage church skits that didn’t make any sense to teenagers. I wanted it to be more realistic to what we were going through with some humor that made some of the high school leaders cringe due to the innuendo meanings of it all.As for horror, I have been a fan of horror since I saw Child’s Play when I was 5 years old. From that point on I was hooked and my mom and I would go to the local video store and rent whatever the new horror film that had come out was.

NS- was there any sort of underlining reason behind the decision?

KS- No, I have always enjoyed the intricacies of horror films and the way death is portrayed on camera. Again being a horror nerd, when a cool new kill happens in a movie, I don’t cringe I yell at the screen with happiness. I want to be able to do that with our sequel SLEDGED and my favorite kill in Sledge has had that reaction with a lot of people. Beetlejuice is all I can say.

NS- Let's talk a little about SLEDGE.Now I'll say this is one of those movies that I feel will go down in position itself alongside other cult classics such as the Evil Dead's, the Sleepaway Camps as well as well as other excellent straight up cheese films for a great night of excellent filming. How do you think the sucess of this film has gone over within the independent community?

KH - Sledge is a movie that people are either loving or hating from what I have seen in regards to the reviews. I would love to say Sledge will be a cult film like those you mentioned, and that would be an honest honor to be thrown into the same conversation as those. The one thing I can say is this, don’t be swayed by reviews, if you find the movie give it a view. If you like it I will be happy, and if you hate it, feel free to throw candy at me, cuz at least I can eat my tears away in some creamy chocolaty goodness.

NS- Where did the idea come from? Was there any specific reasoning for this plot?

KH - Growing up with horror films we all see a trend in where the killer constantly has people show up to his camp ground even though people are killed there every year. I wanted to make fun of that and have the killer who talks, mention it and believe he is in a movie himself and that he is a super hero of sorts. Those that are horror fans have their favorite Slasher, so I wanted to make my favorite slasher. He is a mix of Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Chucky, and his name became Adam Lynch.

NS- What was the budget on this film?

KH - The budget on screen was a whopping $800 and with airfare for myself, my wife and my mom to fly to Syracuse New York it pegged at $2000.

NS- For the most part the actors/actresses you obtained did a very well job. how was it working with them ? and how were they chosen?

KH - They were all great. When it came to the actors they were mostly friends of my co-director John Sovie II. Nash, Shawn, Desiree along with the couch girl and blanket couple were all friends of his. The two leads in Alex and Sarah were auditioned and got the part that way.

NS- where was SLEDGE filmed?

KH - Sledge was filmed in upstate New York in Potsdam/Norwood. The land we filmed on was Russ Matoes fathers land, and he is the character of Nash.

NS- How long did it take to film SLEDGE?

KH - All the woods stuff took 4 days to film. The couch girl scene was another day along with the fake trailer. So we filmed the movie in a total of 6 days.

NS- Do you have any funny stories you'd like to share that happened while filming SLEDGE?

KH - The Beetlejuice scene where the actress is being pushed, towards my character, we informed Travis (Shawn in the movie) to push her away from the stick so she wouldn’t impale herself. When he ended up pushing her, he pushed her towards the stick and luckily she missed the stick. When we found out she was ok we all looked at one another and said “Did she sign the safety waiver?!” That is probably one of the funniest stories, along with Russ (Nash character) being a lot taller than me, so during the prep of me stabbing him, he put his head on my shoulder and kissed my cheek.

NS- Are there any directors outr there youd like to work with? actors/actresses?

KH - This is a great question because I have a ton of people I would love to work with. Director wise, it would be Wes Craven or John Carpenter. For actors there is a countless amount that I would love to work with. I would love to have Macaulay Culkin come and be a part of one of my movies. I grew up loving him in Home Alone 1&2 along with The Good Son etc. When it comes to actresses I have always been a fan of Danielle Panabaker and am thrilled she is on the new FLASH show and would enjoy working with her in the future. I had a run in with her at the Arc Light in Hollywood and she couldn’t have been a kinder person

NS- what's in store from Kristian Hanson in the near future?

KH - Recently we filmed a movie with our friend CJ Wallis titled “BB”. That film is finished and I co-produced and ended up playing the lead bad guy Hal. You can check out the trailer and our other shorts at www.chpfilms.com but beware the BB trailer is NSFW and dives into the world of the Cam Girl. After BB we are in pre-production for the sequel of Sledge titled SledgeD. It will have more Adam Lynch along with more fun in regards to making fun of horror sequels. I can guarantee we have a lot of good stuff coming your way from CH Productions.