Indie filmmaker Christopher G. Moore talks about his brand of strange short cinema and plans for feature filmmaking.
Filmmaker Christopher G. Moore might be unfamiliar to most (if not all) of you, but he’s a talent to look out for. After having won multiple awards at festivals worldwide for his last two short films, FOODIE (2012) an DISENGAGED (2014), he recently unleashed his latest short, KNOB GOBLINS (which has its world premiere on October 11th at the Spooky Movie International Film Festival), filming a segment of the anthology 60 SECONDS TO DIE and is now embarking on his biggest project to date: his first full length feature film. Here he speaks with SHOCK about his humble beginnings and his dreams for his future as a genre filmmaker to be reckoned with.
SHOCK: Let’s start by talking about what inspired you to become a filmmaker?
CHRISTOPHER G. MOORE: Well, my original inspiration came from STAR WARS! After seeing it, I realized the impact a film can have on a individual. It wasn’t until I hit my late teens that I got into the horror genre with a passion. It was during the 80’s when there were video rental shops on every other block, and I could see a great variety of films. I actually worked in a video store for a few years, so I had plenty of films to watch & learn from. I became a huge fan of EVIL DEAD 2 because it was so visually inventive. I enjoyed EVIL DEAD a great deal, but EVIL DEAD 2 really hooked me with its creativity. I’m also a big Cronenberg fan, with VIDEODROME being a personal fave of mine. The practical effects in John Carpenter’s THE THING also knocked me for a loop the first time I sat to watch it. It was when I got a bit older that I decided that making films was what I really wanted to do. As a teenager who loved horror, my biggest obsession was with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. I had a corner of my bedroom dedicated to Freddy Krueger memorabilia from Freddy squirt heads to Freddy candy containers to the only two issues of the Marvel comic. I even played him in a local haunted house. My first car had the license plate NITMARE and I had a Freddy figure that hung from the rear view mirror which explains why I didn’t date in high school! I have a pair of Freddy Krueger-inspired Nikes that I usually wear to film fests and one of my dreams as a filmmaker is to one day direct A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movie.
I never went to a formal film school. I took every course on film that I could while attending college, a nd after there weren’t any more film related courses for me to take, I took a bunch of theater related classes. I took classes on stage direction and play writing because I figured they’d help me out as a film director. B ut the bulk of my knowledge on film making came from working at jobs that were film related. In addition to working at that video store (for 7 years), I managed a movie theater for two years. When I finally directed my first short film, HARD STAPLED (2008), it won an award from the first festival I entered it in. And I’ve simply tried to make each successive film better than the last one.
SHOCK: Exactly how many awards have your films won so far?
MOORE: That’s a good question [Laughing]. I think it’s about 18 up to this point.
SHOCK: After having won so many awards, do you think that you missed anything from not attending a film school?
MOORE: Honestly, at this point I think the only thing I missed out on are the connections. In my opinion, that’s the one resource that most formal film students receive. Then again, I think that there are a lot of film schools that are more about the theory of making film, rather than the actual hands on stuff. For me, you have to know how a movie is crafted, and that can be done by watching movies. You can learn about editing by watching movies, you can turn the sound off and learn how stories are told through the way the shots are put together. My film school was essentially watching/listening to the extras that were featured on DVD/Bluray. I learned a lot of my techniques from watching those extras, and I still do it to this day because I want to be better. I learned a lot about practical effects this way, and I even have an old VHS tape that Tom Savini released some years ago in which he discussed his techniques. I read FANGORIA voraciously because there were always interviews with young film makers discussing their films and how they were made. I still read the magazine to this day, it’s an endless source of inspiration for me.
My learning experience came from watching movies, figuring out how they were crafted, and then trying to replicate that. A lot of my films have been influenced by certain directors and films that I enjoy. For instance, I did a film called BURSTERS (2010), it was the first film that I directed that had the semblance of a film crew on it! My influence for creating that came from my love for SCANNERS (1981). At that particular time, I got to wondering why I wasn’t seeing any “exploding head ” movies anymore, so I came up with that concept. But I believe that a film called RUBBER was released at the same time, and that was pretty much that. Another film I did called FLUSH WITH FEAR(2011) came from my love for Raimis DRAG ME TO HELL (2009); I’m a big Sam Raimi fan, and that film was sort of his return to horror. After watching it, I got to thinking “What if we took that concept, and put it in a bathroom ?”. It wasn’t until later, when I was doing FOODIE that I got to working with someone else’s ideas. But there are still some influences from films that I love in both of those movies. I try to pay tribute to films that I love in my work, and I hope people enjoy them as much as I do.
SHOCK: And all of this has lead to your recent film, KNOB GOBLINS. Exactly what is KNOB GOBLINS all about?
MOORE: The blunt answer would be is that it’s all about a demon who bites off penises! But the actual story involves a guy whose brother was killed by a monster in their home basement. He ended up getting admitted into a mental facility, and as the film begins, he’s being released back into society. Part of the therapy he’s undergoing is returning back to the scene of the crime to realize that what he witnessed all those years ago was just in his mind. But unfortunately, it doesn’t end up going too well for him [laughs]. The original title I came up with was CHOMPERS, but after I whittled down my title list, KNOB GOBLINS really stood out the most.
SHOCK: Did you design the creature for the film yourself?
MOORE: I drew up the initial concept for the creature, but my good friend actor/director Bill Mulligan actually put it together. I tried to make the design as simple as possible, but it wasn’t until Bill started fabricating it that I realized that it has an extremely phallic shape to it! It’s funny how your mind isn’t in the gutter while you’re designing it, and then you see the final product come out in looking like something you never consciously thought of while designing it [laughs]!
SHOCK: In terms of what the knob goblin actually does in the film, how are you moving it around? Is it through stop motion? Puppetry? Or maybe a combination of the two?
MOORE: We actually had two versions of it. One was a hand puppet and the other was a full sized version. We used the hand puppet for a lot of the close up scenes. We also had one scene where the goblin is moving across the ceiling, and we used a man wearing a black suit head to toe to move it across the ceiling without him being seen. The effect worked out marvelously!
SHOCK: And after KNOB GOBLINS, your plan is to begin work on your first full length feature film, correct?
MOORE: Yes! I want to do a haunted house film. A very hard R rated haunted house film that’s influenced by movies like THE ENTITY. But it’ll have a bit of humor in it as well.
SHOCK: And how far along are you in writing that script? Or is it ready to shoot now?
MOORE: We’re about halfway through with it. We’ve pretty much mapped it all out though, we just have to finish writing it. Once it’s ready, I want to direct it with an eye towards doing stuff that I’ve never done before. I want to try to create an LLC for the film, and look for ways other than crowd sourcing to fund it because I want to start it off with a decent budget. At least enough of a budget to pay my crew with more than kind words and a meal! I really want to make a bigger film than I’ve ever done before, and I’d really like to pay back the people who’ve helped me along the way.
To connect with Moore, visit his official Facebook page. And to see the award-winning FOODIE in its entirety….just look down!
