Do you think events like FRIGHTFEST are a good avenue to promote these type of independent films?

I think its bulls eye. I’m surround by 1500 soul mates in one room is really a lot it’s great.

I got inspired from a festival in Amsterdam night of terror and watching horror movies there i had my dream that i had the be up there at least once

So your movie is here to scare people, what scares you?

I have a fear of death and I’m scared of all things associated with it, these true elements im just frightened. Death you can have a theme and a context that is universal.

Was the final product how you originally envisioned?

We changed about 5% during the editing and creating  process, I’m very open-minded in that way , if you are trapped in your own head it can get boring so I was very curious to have everyone else add something extra to it. And so it grew richer and richer. It’s like You have a map you know where you need to go but it’s fun to take detours

Was it your choice to use old fashioned prosthetic make up over CGI?

I don’t like cgi especially when its being misused. If i notice something is CGI my interest isn’t held. It needs to be physical. A horror or a war movie needs o be physical, otherwise it creates a fictional world. To keep the audience grounded in this world you need to be as real as possible and CGI can’t compare to that.

The Film is shot in the found footage style, did that effect how you shot this movie? Were you hindered in the shots you were able to do?

Not really cause I wanted the audience to anticipate in the story not just to be anobserver.and because this is a story where there are no heroes in it, because I feel in war there are no heroes. I wanted the have the audience witnessing the worst part of it and also to make their own moral decision instead of me doing it for them. I don’t like to preach.

The creatures in the film the Zombots, are they all your own designs?

Yes, I’m originally from a school of art, I used my skill to design them, it was a lot easier to myself then try to describe  and have others do it for me.

Tell us about your characters Alexander you play Dimitri,Andrei and you play Vassili

Alexander: He is a modern-day cameraman journalist a graduate of Glik an institute of photography. He’s kind of on a mission to make a propaganda film of heroic deeds done by the Russians liberating Nazi occupied Germany at the end of the Second World War. He has a hidden agenda to do with the political oppression of the time and how it affected his family and it gradually unveils on film and without giving too much away. We worked on it on set and changed a few things to make it a personal journey for him instead of just being a pawn in the government’s game to just complete the mission

Andrei: He is a Russian guy kind of young, willing to go around collecting anything of value, rape women and eat good foods. Up until the end where he pays for it quiet heavily, severely.

Was that a fun scene to shoot?

It was fun to do, my death wasn’t as glorious as some others , I won’t say how I die but it’s not some Zombot that gets me ..So I got a simpler death

Richard Raaphorst

Frightfest August 2013