All About The Graves
Multi-Faceted Horror
The Graves a rollercoaster ride. If you look past the plot, you see elements of many of horror sub-genres: the slasher, ghost story, serial killer, evil cults, zombie behavior, even a Lovecraftian creature. Still, it blends together nicely to create a fun, scary rollercoaster ride. “This is a date night horror film,” Pulido says. “Couples will have fun with it. We have some splatter and lots of scares. Our agenda is to entertain audiences, not annihilate them.”
Sisters
Clare Grant and Jillian Murray play Megan and Abby Graves respectively. Pulido had not seen a horror film deal with the sisters in jeopardy in some time. “It’s usually six or seven hot college age kids who barely know each other getting knocked off one by one,” Pulido says. “I can’t get invested in that. I want the audiences to care about these sisters, to root for their survival. I also wanted to deal with the younger / older sister dynamic.”
That dynamic is on full display. Clare Grant and Jillian Murray are totally believable as sisters.
Horror Icons
Brian Ronalds and Dean Ronalds, along with casting director Nina Axelrod cast The Graves. They got the script to Tony Todd (24, Transformers II, Candyman) through mutual friends. Todd agreed to do the movie fairly fast. “He loved the part of Reverend Abraham Stockton,” says Brian Ronalds.
What was it like to work with horror icons for first-time director Brian Pulido? “It was totally cool,” Pulido says. “I got to confer with both of them before the shoot. Tony bounced ideas about Reverend Stockton off me and he was spot on. It was Bill’s idea to become “pig man” when he was on the hunt. Though I was on the fence at first, the second he put on that pig nose, I was sold. These guys are pros and they brought a lot of passion to the movie. I offered them a ton of freedom because I knew to trust them.”
And what about working with D. Randall Blythe from Lamb of God? Was it intimidating to work with one of heavy metal’s rowdiest front men? “When Randy is on stage, he’s monster,” Pulido says. “But in real life, he’s a cool dude. I put Randy through the ringer. He had to audition three times. Actually, I put him through an actor’s boot camp and he was open and willing to do the work. He’s the spirit of rage in the movie.”
Filming at a Living Museum
The majority of The Graves was shot at Historic Vulture Mine, thirty minutes outside of Wickenberg, Arizona. Vulture Mine is an abandoned mine town with thirty buildings. The biggest challenge for the production was the location itself because it is a “living museum” with most of the buildings built in the late 1800’s.
In essence, the production had to build a town to shoot there. The Facility had no electricity, no running water. The production brought in trailers, generators, the works! Heavy vehicles could not go on the actual mine grounds, due to tunnels underneath, so all equipment was ferried with ATVs & trailers.
The weather was challenging. On day eight, the weather was 108 degrees. Three days later, its was 49 degrees and hailing,” says Francisca Pulido. “Besides all that, there were rattlesnakes, broken glass, rusty nails, unstable buildings, and ghosts. But it was worth it. Vulture Mine a one-of-a-kind place. Just haunting… It was like having our own movie studio.”
Preparation
In the face of all these challenges, The Graves shooting crew usually finished the day’s shooting ahead of schedule. Credit for that goes to extensive pre-planning and the preparation of director Brian Pulido, DP Adam Goldfine and Production Designer Francisca Pulido. The trio spent two weeks prior to production developing and revising the shot lists and storyboards on the sets themselves.
So by the time they got to shooting they knew what needed to happen. “I think it’s important to be that prepared, especially on this sort of schedule,” says Director of Photography, Adam Goldfine. “The trick is to know exactly what you want but stay flexible. The actors are going to do something different than what you imagined so you can’t get locked in to an idea either. Sometimes you just come up with a better idea on the dayYou have to balance being prepared and flexibility.”
The Look of the Film
Luckily the location had lots of character to begin with; from there I created individual looks for each character’s domain, says Francisca. “For Jonah Lee Atwood, although the blacksmith shop was real, I needed to bring in a real blacksmith with working equipment. Caleb’s “special place” was a real schoolhouse back in the 40’s, but it was empty. Art director George O’Barts did a terrific job dressing the location with children’s art.
Francisca Pulido picked the old powerhouse as the church because it’s such a unique building. The church alter is where a giant turbine used to be. All that was left is a concrete troth, which looks like a perfect place to sacrifice someone. The production almost did not shoot in the powerhouse because it was the hardest location to get to. It needed the most equipment, and it was shot at night.
Even the actors had suggestions that influenced the look. “In the diner scene, Tony wanted a bottle of water, label taken off, with a straw,” Fransica Pulido says. “He wanted people to see that the Reverend only consumed things that were pure and clean. I loved that. In the school house scenes, we had two walls with blank chalkboards and could not figure out what to write on them. Bill Moseley suggested, “How did it feel to kill Jonah?” which I thought was brilliant.”
Graphic Novelist Background
Did having a background as a comic book writer help Pulido write / direct The Graves? “Yes and no,” Pulido says. “I’m very visual and love the symphony of words and pictures. Outside of describing visuals, I find the screenplay form almost the opposite of a comic script. Screenplay and movie dialogue is about economy. Comic scripts can be loaded with description.”
It made working with Clare Grant who played Megan Graves a breeze. “She’s an actual comic geek and I was always able to put things in “comic book-eze” and she’s get it instantly,” Pulido says. “For example, “I could say, “I need you to move like The Flash here” and she’d get it instantly.”
Best Friends
So how did Adam Goldfine become involved in The Graves? “Brian [Pulido] and I have been best friends since the age of 12,” Goldfine says. “I mostly got out of the film business when I left Los Angeles in the 90’s but I figured someone has to keep him out of trouble. So when he told me he was making this film I told him to sign me up. All kidding aside, he has some pretty serious blackmail on me so I didn’t have much of a choice.”
The Graves (2010)
Directed by: Brian Puldo
Starring: Clare Grant, Jillian Murray, Bill Moseley, Tony Todd, Amanda Wyss, Patti Tindall, Dean Matthew Ronalds, Barbara Glover, Cathy Rankin, Rosalie Michaels, Bill Lippincott, Shane Stevens
Screenplay by: Brian Puldo
Production Design by: Francisca Pulido
Cinematography by: Adam Goldfine
Film Editing by: Dean Matthew Ronalds
Costume Design by: Brooke Wheeler
Art Direction by: George O’Barts
Music by: Jim Casella
MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence.
Distributed by: After Dark Films
Release Date: January 29, 2010
