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Exclusive Interview With Douglas Schulze On Mimesis

People always point to violent video games and violent movies as a reason to why someone might commit a horrible crime in real life, but Mimesis plays on that claim and brings it to a scary new level of fandom. What if horror fans actually re-enacted their favorite horror movies, joining some cult-like club in which victims are unknowingly lured into a real-life role-playing event of deadly proportions? What if you woke up in a random location with zombies actually chasing you and eating the people around you just as in George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead? Well if you believe violent films are corrupting the most impressionable of minds, Mimesis is likely to become your worst nightmare.

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We Got This Covered: This is going to be a weirder question, but let’s pretend Mimesis is real. Now your film is about Night Of  The Living Dead, but if you were actually in this weird horror cult, what film would you most like to re-enact?

Douglas Schulze: They say in writing classes to write what you know about, and Night Of The Living Dead was that film I grew up as a kid watching and emulating. There are others certainly that would be extremely fascinating to explore, like how would you do a supernatural horror film this way with tricks and gimmicks and strings, but for me Night Of The Living Dead came first. To be quite honest, the film Nosferatu, the German classic vampire film, with not so much the story but the vampire itself, the most frightening screen vampire of all time, there’s an affinity there I’ve always enjoyed and I’d like to explore. I think the vampire genre has become so twisted and malformed with some of the movies that have come out, it would be great to go back to the original Bram Stoker story, and I always felt the German take on it was the most effective and powerful.

We Got This Covered: Regarding Mimesis and the original creation of the story, so many societal influences point to violent films as a cause for why people commit horrific crimes in real life, which you depict to the farthest possible degree in Mimesis. What your film boils down to is a die-hard group of horror fans re-creating their favorite films and killing people along the way. Did you ever worry your film might be singled out by people saying “This is exactly what we’re afraid of” in the craziest possible scenario?

Douglas Schulze: Well I think there’s two sides to every story. Films mirror society and I think there’s no better reflection today than a film like Mimesis. I don’t think you should run from that subject matter, and I think it’s time someone did a film which explored people who are influenced by film. If anything, the dialogue Sid Haig has at the beginning of the film is meant for the sensible people in the audience, and even those who aren’t sensible have to listen to what he’s preaching with “Today’s sicko wants the real thing, they aren’t content playing violent video games, they want something more.” I disagree with those who say we’re glamorizing something. There’s a social statement here and I think this is about the extreme culture, and what better or more poignant type of horror film to put out today than something like this?

We Got This Covered: Going to Mimesis 2, which mimics Nosferatu, where are you with the production on that? Is the story done, is production underway?

Douglas Schulze: We actually have two Mimesis-es, if you will. We’ve got a part two and a part three which explore the subculture of the extreme horror fan. Right now one of those is the Nosferatu story, and it’s definitely got its own unique spin concerning setting and locale – everything is really fun. If you like the concept of the first one, you’re really going to dig how we handle it.

If you run through the original Dracula there’s a ship, Dracula travels from one country to England, all this stuff, and we just had a riot creating how this could be done and where this could be done. We had to be very clever with settings and budgeting, and I think we came up with something wonderful which could really become the pinnacle Mimesis film. There’s a lot I didn’t get to do with Mimesis‘ limited budget I would really like to do, and I’m hoping we can do it this next time.

We Got This Covered: What about Mimesis 3? Do you have an idea of where a third film will go?

Douglas Schulze: Yeah we do, and I can tease it by saying it’s yet another very popular theme and I don’t want to give away the title, but it’s the film that probably influenced George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead the most. It’s another oldie but goodie. We think it would be a brilliant way to end the story of horror fans gone awry.

We Got This Covered: So we’re looking for a classic with Mimesis 3?

Douglas Schulze: For sure!

We Got This Covered: Jumping back to Mimesis, you mentioned Sid Haig is in the film. Did he approach you for Mimesis, or did you approach him for the role?

Douglas Schulze: We approached Sid definitely, and we specifically wanted Sid because he’s notoriously always played the bad guy, or the twisted psycho, so we wanted to put people off, and *spoiler alert* we wanted people to think this guy was a ring leader in on it the whole time, and in the end when you find out it’s not that big, we feel that it makes the villains all the more terrifying because they’re just fans of Sid’s in their own way. *spoiler over* We approached Sid for his history and working with him was wonderful. An intimidating guy when you see him at first, but very polite and intelligent. He’s got such a vast film history you could spend all night talking to him and hearing his wonderful stories.

We Got This Covered: Going to Mimesis 2, I believe Kristy Swanson has been cast? Can you comment on her role?

Douglas Schulze:  Yup! We actually did something with her, it’s a little hush-hush right now, but the backstory is Kristy has a bit of a history with the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer if that tells you anything. I can’t give it away, but it’s pretty cool.

We Got This Covered: Are there any actors in mind for Mimesis 3 you would love to see involved? That one stand-out person you would love to bring into the Mimesis world?

Douglas Schulze: We definitely have a few of the horror giants in mind that we would love to work with, but no real names. I’ve been fortunate to work with some classic actors before like Dee Wallace and Richard Lynch, even David Carradine and John Saxon, but there are a few others still on my hit list, or my bucket list of actors to work with still. Hopefully that will come to fruition.

I’d like to thank Douglas for taking the time to talk, and be sure to pick up a copy of Mimesis which is available in stores now!