Jeff Renfroe is an up and coming young writer and director whose latest film is the sci-fi horror flick, The Colony which hit theaters on September 20th, 2013.
Read our review of The Colony here!
Renfroe has been writing and directing for almost a decade now in film and television with such projects as Sand Serpents, Seven Deadly Sins, episodes of Being Human and now The Colony. Renfroe seems to be a filmmaker with a clear vision of what he wants when filming and being able to get the best out of his actors and crew.
I recently had the privilege of talking with Jeff about The Colony and what it took to make this thrilling film. Read on for the full interview!
Horror Society: I watched The Colony last night and I enjoyed your film, I thought it was a very thrilling film.
Jeff Renfroe: Great, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
HS: You directed The Colony, can you tell us a bit about the story?
JR: It’s essentially a story of the last known survivors of the next ice age who must defend themselves from a colony of people who have run out of food and they’ve run out of resources and they’ve gone feral essentially and they’ve turned to cannibalism. I think on the surface, it operates like a good popcorn movie should. It’s great style and great action but underneath there’s some really cool themes we’re playing with and I think that’s what attracted me to the project. Global sustainability and how greed and consumption can essentially distort our human spirit. In a sense, it’s a two part cautionary tale, be careful of who you become and you have to be respectful of Mother Nature, she might just kick your ass.
HS: In the film, you had an outstanding cast including Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton, Kevin Zegers and Charlotte Sullivan. With Laurence Fishburne and Bill Paxton, those two seem to play off of each other very well in the film. What was it like to work with a cast of that caliber?
JR: It was fantastic. We always knew doing a film of this scope; we would have the privilege of working with some veterans. I remember Laurence was one of the first actors that we signed on. He was really excited to be a part of a post-apocalyptic movie; he’s a big fan of that genre. He hadn’t had the opportunity to go there yet so he was really keen and excited about it. Bill came on a little later and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it. Growing up with Aliens and True Lies, I was a big fan of Bill Paxton, it was awesome. We started shooting before Laurence got in. We actually shot a couple of days with Bill first and you don’t really know what to expect. I talked to him on the phone a couple of times and he was pretty serious on the phone but when we got together in person, he was great. He was whipping out Weird Science references and doing little Aliens line, it was hilarious.
HS: That must’ve been pretty cool. Can you talk a little bit about what it took to create some of the outdoor, arctic sets for the film? Were those filmed on a soundstage or how was that all achieved?
JR: We were way up North in a little town called North Bay Ontario. We shoveled snow into an airplane hangar and then hung three walls of green screen and lit through the open door of the hanger. Our actors could walk on snow and we had the great breaths that you could see. Everything else is all a computer generated environment. It was really freeing to be able to shoot like that with our tight schedule, we had to get into a situation where we could go to set and literally turn on the lights and start shooting. It really simplified our production and allowed us to get really creative with the world, that’s part of why I love science fiction.
HS: A lot of films have tried in the past to create that type of environment. Some have failed and some have done a good job. I felt after watching the film that your team did a pretty good job of creating a believable environment in that aspect.
JR: Great! Thank you.
HS: Talking a little bit about the ferals, my favorite part of the film. They’re a pretty gruesome group of people. Can you talk a little bit more about them?
JR: Sure, another part of what drew me to the project was really trying to reinvent the monster movie genre. What I like about it is that it is very simple, it’s very clean. We were taking a very honest and organic approach to what is a monster movie. These aren’t farfetched supernatural creatures; they’re simply what we could become if we lose our humanity. Personally, I think that can be a little more frightening when there’s justification for that rather than a virus that seems intangible or farfetched. The idea that any of us could go feral is frightening and cool and authentic.
HS: I totally agree. What influenced you when directing The Colony? There have been several other films somewhat similar, John Carpenter’s The Thing is one. Did any of those films influence you at all?
JR: My God, I mean I practically grew up on The Thing. I watched that so many times. So there’s no doubt there’s a healthy dose of The Thing in The Colony. As soon as you say snowy landscape with a slightly horror thriller, you’re basically taking a page out of The Thing’s book. We were also influenced by what Danny Boyle did with 28 Days Later in the genre. I think we took a slightly more stylistic approach because I’m also influenced by graphic novels and comic books and that slightly stylized kind of world.
HS: Very true. What’s coming up next for you? What’s ahead?
JR: A lot of really cool stuff I’m developing right now. Probably at the top of the stack is a project called The Stray Toasters, it’s a graphic novel from the early 80’s by Bill Sienkiewicz. He came up under Frank Miller, he wrote and illustrated in the early 80’s. It’s a near future detective story, a little bit of Minority Report and a little bit of Seven. So that’s kind of my Holy Grail right now but there are a few other interesting things that will likely get to camera before Stray Toasters. It’s a pretty ambitious movie and we want to do it right.
HS: All right, very cool. We’re out of time Jeff; I wanted to thank you for taking a few minutes out to talk with me and the readers of Horror Society. I wish you nothing but luck in the future and good luck with The Colony, I hope it does well for you.
JR: Thank you very much.
Watch the trailer for The Colony here:
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