STACK July 2016 Issue 141

32 / 104

visit DVD&BD FEATURE
32 JULY 2016
DVD
&
BD
Having established themselves with homegrown horror-
comedy 100 Bloody Acres, Melbourne siblings Colin and
Cameron Cairnes send realityTV to hell in their new feature,
Scare Campaign. STACK spoke with Cameron about their
hidden camera horror show. Words Scott Hocking
W inner of Best Film
and Screenplay at
last year’s Monster
Fest, Scare Campaign is the
latest addition to the
mini-renaissance of locally
produced horror films,
which continue to gain
traction both here and in
international markets.
It’s also the title of the
horror-prank TV series within the
film – a show forced to up its
game to the next level in order
to compete with the sicko online
mavericks that are pushing the
envelope in terms of bloody
realism.
It was looking at various prank
videos on YouTube that got the
Cairnes brothers thinking: What
would happen if you pranked the
wrong guy?
“There was one in particular from
Mexico where the victims/stooges
enter a gag lift and it breaks down,
and then this little ghost girl pops
out from behind a false door and
scares the crap out of the victims,”
recalls Cameron.
“We thought what would make
an interesting scenario is if one of
these victims actually fought back,
or hurt the young girl. That’s kind of
where the germ of the idea came
from and it developed from there.
“Reality TV and this dark online
presence – all these awful images
coming out of the Middle East –
was feeding into it as well, so the
script did develop quite organically.“
Armed with an ingenious
premise and a low budget, the
brothers had to be canny when it
came to choosing a location that
would best serve Scare Campaign –
both the film and the next episode
of its fictional series.
“We were looking around Victoria
and realised there were all these
old abandoned lunatic asylums, and
we thought that would make the
perfect location for a scary movie,”
says Cameron.
They settled on the
We're
gorehounds at
heart, so we
knowwhat the
fans want to see
• Definitely The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre (1974) – the
original, which is arguably the
greatest horror film ever made.
• I would also include The Fly
(1986). It borders on sci-fi but I
think of it as a horror film.
• Psycho (1960), without a doubt.
• A guilty pleasure would be
Kingdom of the Spiders (1977),
with William Shatner.
• And you can’t go past a little bit
of Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
action. You’d play this last when
everyone’s left the theatre and only
the diehard fans remain.
decommissioned Mayday
Hills Asylum in historic
Beechworth, which also
offered regular ghost tours
of the premises.
“I didn’t personally
see any ghosts,” notes
Cameron. “I was really
open to the idea of meeting
some, but unfortunately
none crossed my path.”
However, he does add that some
members of the crew insisted they
had felt a presence or witnessed
disturbances. “They were generally
people in the art department,”
he laughs. “They seemed a very
suggestible lot.”
The lack of paranormal activity
notwithstanding, Scare Campaign
benefits richly from the asylum’s
inherently sinister ethos.
“It was very creepy,” Cameron
admits. “If you left something
behind in one of the wings and had
to go back in there with a torch,
it wasn’t fun, even for me who
doesn’t believe in ghosts. Walking
through those corridors is still pretty
chilling – there’s a lot of history
there and you kind of feel it.”
Viewers will have a similar
experience watching Scare
Campaign, which also pranks its
audience with more twists and
turns than its labyrinthine location.
“Being a big devourer of thrillers
and horror films, you’re never quite
sure whether you’ve pulled it off,”
says Cameron. “I can generally pick
the twists early on, but that’s the
fun to be had – you might get one
or two, but not all of them.”
And the movie doesn’t skimp on
the splatter. “We’re gorehounds
at heart, so we know what the
fans want to see,” he adds. “I
think you need to have two
or three big crowd-pleasing
moments in a horror film.”
• Scare
Campaign
is out on July 6
Having turned humans into
fertiliser in 100 Bloody Acres
and candid camera TV into a
slaughterhouse in Scare Campaign,
Cameron reveals that he and Colin
are currently writing their next
horror offering, which has an equally
killer pitch.
“It’s set on a late night talk
show during the seventies. A guest
appears on the show, who may
or may not be possessed, and all
hell breaks loose live on air,” he
laughs.
top five flicks
for the
ultimate horror
film festival
Colin and Cameron Cairnes
Cameron Cairnes’