Exclusive: The Perfect House 2 Poster & Kris Hulbert Talks
As you may have seen, I recently wrote a story about an awesome project involving Kris Hulbert and Randy Kent’s horror anthology film The Perfect House and proceed’s going towards Breast Cancer Research. Basically, you can view their film directly through Facebook for about $1.30 and a percentage of that goes to the charity. I thought it was awesome and not only do we get to see a new indie horror film for a dirt cheap price, we are also able to help a worthy cause.
So if you haven’t already, hit up their official Facebook page and go watch The Perfect House while helping a very worthy cause and then wait in anticipation for the sequel.
So, I had the chance to shoot the writer and co-director of The Perfect House some questions about his film, the charity, the sequel and other projects on the horizon. We also have the debut poster for Hulbert’s sequel The Perfect House 2 below. First up, here is our conversation:
Horror-Movies: For someone who hasn’t heard of The Perfect House, how would you describe it?
Kris Hulbert: “The Perfect House is my homage to the horror genre with a personal twist. I have a great fear of the unknown as well as a strong distain for the deterioration of common decency and consideration in our modern society. This is a story about what happens when a lack of consideration is met with brute force. Each of the stories has a common theme of anonymity in the characters and the overall location of the house. We intentionally left out character names and back stories because we wanted the audience to truly feel these events could be happening to anyone in any house, even that normal looking house next door. That to me is true horror and what scares me, judging by the reactions of those who have seen it so far, it seems most agree with me even if they can’t quite put their finger on it.”
H-M: Correct me if I am wrong, but The Perfect House was the first ever film to premiere on Facebook, how did that come about?
K H: “There are so many chapters of this story, at this point the simplest answer is it became a core belief of our business model. Our business model is founded on the belief that a reason the quality of Hollywood films has dropped is because nobody spends their own money anymore. Why not? If it’s just a great investment you’re pitching why is the number one rule in Hollywood to never use your own money? I think if more people had to use their own money there would instantly be a lot less scripts being pushed to be made immediately. Our goal is to grow in a way that will eventually allow us to finance our own films, films we have 100% confidence in their audience appeal, through smart budget management without superfluous costs. Our future success would not hinge on the “all or nothing” success of any single film.”
“Gratwick Films has a stable of talent and original creative content in all genres, The Perfect House is merely the beginning. Our overall goal is to be on the forefront of the next generation of filmmaking. Through outlets like facebook, we can offer a more convenient, interactive and affordable way to watch our films. We can compete with piracy because it’s fast and more interactive, and we can compete with the studios because we cut out the clutter that lowers the personal connection to the product and raises the cost due to additional overhead.
Over the long term regardless of the budget of your first project if you make high quality content and use “responsible filmmaking” you can grow your production budgets as your audience grows, in theory the sky is the limit. You have immediate access to 800 million people, what if your film is an online “blockbuster” and 2 or 3 million people watch your $10,000 film for 2 dollars a pop? Your next film is obviously going to have a much bigger budget and your audience will already know where to find the next film with out high advertising costs.”
H-M: As it is Women in Horror Month, you guys are doing something very awesome regarding raising money for Breast Cancer Research, how did you get involved in this and how can we, as fans and supporters help you reach your goal?
K H: “We first became aware of some of the amazing events that the Women in Horror Recognition Month puts together last year when our main producer Andrea Vahl attended the Viscera Film festival with our lead actor Jonathan Tiersten. She met some of the amazing ladies running the festival and stayed in touch the past year. This time around I wanted to do something special for the month since we owe a great deal of the success of our film to some very strong women: Andrea Vahl has been indispensable on and off the camera, Holly Greene was a break out star and fan favorite, Monique Parent embodies the soul of our house perfectly, and now we have added Dena Hysell to help produce the entire franchise. These women and many others, like Devonny Pinn and the Soska Sisters, deserve a great deal of respect and appreciation for what they have accomplished. Horror has always benefited greatly from the gratuitous breast shot or two, so what better way to give back than to help out The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.”
H-M: Will you be planning on continuing your support towards Breast Cancer Research with your following films?
K H: “I think in some way we will try to find opportunities to help out a charity, cause or individual whenever the chance presents itself. I am a big fan of win win opportunities. This month is the perfect example of that. Our biggest goal is to let the world see our film, to find the passionate people who will be our fans for the future, and what better way to connect to them than to offer them our first film at an extremely low cost that also benefits a great cause. The most difficult obstacle we have had to overcome so far is getting people to take a chance on watching a film that they haven’t heard about from a TV trailer. They feel they are risking their time and money on little known product. You have to respect and alleviate some of that risk by offering our film at not only a minimal financial commitment but also by adding an emotion reward as our way of showing that we are in this for the long haul. We want to make good films that entertain smart people, and we want to do our part to help out society where we can.”
H-M: Can you tell us about the partners involved in helping to raise money for this charity?
K H: “The Breast Cancer Research Foundation is the charity organization we are raising money for, year in and year out the BCRF has the highest percentage of donations go directly to the cause. Our host platform Milyoni, also hosts The Big Lebowski and The Dark Knight on facebook, has graciously agreed to match our 30 cent donations for the first $1,000. That means 60 cents from every $1.30 is going directly to charity. Hannah Neurotica is the founder of the Women in Horror Recognition Month website and the organization itself. Hannah, along with ladies of the Viscera film festivals, have been absolutely essential to putting all of this together.
We are also looking for more members of the horror community to get involved. If you would like to put a donation widget on your website or use your film to match donations, we would love to hear from any interested parties. We would like to shine a really large and positive spotlight on the entire horror community this month.”
H-M: I believe The Perfect House 2 is on the way, what else can you tell us about this installment and the final installment?
K H: “I’m really excited for the sequel. I wanted to stay true to the anthology style of the original, but also wanted to work towards a singular story in the third installment, so I modeled TPH2 on The Godfather 2 format of a present day story intertwined with a story from the past. In each of the stories you will discover what happened before several characters arrived at The Perfect House and what happened to several characters after that left The Perfect House. Both stories at their core are very dark, passionate, and exposed love stories. Where the first movie delved into the fear of the anonymity of others, this one deals heavily with unconditional love and the fears of acceptance and the shock of discovery. “
H-M: Where did the idea for The Perfect House come from and the idea to do a trilogy of sorts?
K H: “The entire franchise has become the end result of the evolution of smaller ideas and goals. The original story, the final segment in TPH, was written as an outlet for unfiltered rage at the end of a very bad day. It sat for a while until Randy Kent liked it enough to want to work together turning it into a feature length. From there we plotted the rest of the script and the entire production process around what we did and didn’t have to work with. Above all else the onscreen product was numbers 1-10 on the priority scale. To best accomplish that, we developed a storyline that took place in one location, to save on production move cost, and with as few actors as possible. No more than 5 actors were on set any given day, and this allowed us to work fast with a small crew, spending all of our money on professional equipment.
The true story of The Perfect House is about a bunch of hungry filmmakers who created a story around what they knew they could do best and at the end of the day we were willing to wear any hat it took to make it happen. The rest of the franchise was extremely fun for me to write because I got to find out about all of these characters and it became a game of how many creative ways, over three films, we could tie everything together in as many subtle ways as possible.
When it came time to look a little farther into the John Doesy character (Jonathan Tiersten), it was like looking into a mirror at times. I knew right away that character needed an origin story, a very very dark origin story that I am most excited to tell. I think the John Doesy character has a chance to be one of the next big horror icons, and I want this character to be one of the first horror icons to have a dark emotional past that makes him far more relatable and personable to all of us than a maniac behind a mask. I want the Doesy character to represent an individual’s extreme outlook at a society who has wronged him in every way. He was groomed to be a monster by the very society he preys on, and I want his sick actions to represent our dark fantasies of unrepentant rage on the mindless masses.”
H-M: How was it working with Fellisa Rose, Chris Raab, Jonathan Tiersten, Andrea Vahl and John Philbin?
K H: “Jonathan Tiersten perfectly embodies how this film became a success. Through this entire journey we have found the right person at the right time. Jonathan was the last actor to come on board, and quite honestly there would be an enormous hole in this film that would be unrecoverable if he never took the part. More so, it has been a unique experience getting to know him these past few years. I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone so passionately positive all the time. he’s a great guy and I look forward to getting to know him much better on future films.
John Philbin is everything you want him to be. If you didn’t know a thing about him you would absolutely guess he had spent a lot of time on a surf board. He has a relaxed calmness to him that just rolls with the waves, nothing phases him. He was great to have on set and also has a special place in production stories lore!
Chris Raab is my favorite person I have met through this entire journey. The moment I met him and saw that smile my mind ran wild with ideas for him. When I got to meet him I was amazed at how nice and sincere he is. His one day on set was our first day of production, and we were all running around like crazy, it was outside on the front yard of a bust street, in 40 mph winds and rain. We had to stop off and on to wait for the weather, and everytime he was immediately one of the gang. The intimacy of our small crew was one of our biggest benefits. We also got to spend some time with Chris when we were in Philadelphia for a show in the springm and that guy killed it on stage. He just has that “It” factor. I’m probably letting the inevitable cat out of the bag here but Chris is going to be a star big time. I would love a chance to say I helped make that happen and I think I have the role to do it, but sooner or later he’s going to go from Cutting Class to Fight Club.
And then there is Andrea Vahl. There are not enough words to describe how strong you have to be to tolerate me on a daily basis, and I am sure there are plenty of people that will attest on her behalf for early sainthood for the past 3 years she’s gone through. I’ve come to call her Sheriff because she keeps this whole train on the ground and moving. Without Andrea, I would be a madman in the corner yelling out wild declarations. She brings a strength that helps us believe we can really make these things happen. It’s only a matter of time before the camera calls her away and it will be bitter sweet.”
H-M: What does the future hold for you, Kris and Randy Kent? Any upcoming projects planned outside of The Perfect House or is there still so much to tell?
K H: “The Perfect House is one segment of the 4 horror franchise I currently have written. However, there is a comedy called Wiley Place I am most looking forward to doing in the near future. In the summer, a 2 hour documentary about the 360 circle around the country in a 72 RV promoting the facebook release this past year will be released. In the meantime, we keep busy with some weekly web series and a podcast called gratcast about all the dirty details of what it takes to make this stuff. You can find all the shows on our Gratwick Films website www.gratwickfilms . com.
Randy has been hard at work for the past few month on ‘The Wizard Project’ I believe the recently shot a trailer they will be using to raise funding for the production similar to what we did for The Perfect House a few years ago.”
H-M: Thanks very much for your time and I wish you all the best in your future developments.
K H: “Thank you for the chance to be a part of the article!!!”
