'A gay take on the Wicker Man'

WHEN his sister’s B&B became available for a week, writer-director Mark Harriott knew the time was right to make his first mainstream feature film.

“I was going to go up and look after the dogs – and I said, ‘actually do you mind I use the whole house for 19 cast and crew?’ And she said, ‘don’t make a mess’,” says the Whitley Bay born film-maker.

“She has a friend who owns a lodge just further along and so we went to look at that for a location for a spooky movie and thought, ‘let’s just go for it’.”

Cast and crew spent a week in Northumberland, filming on Lindisfarne Nature Reserve and the village of Belford, making Unhappy Birthday, which has been variously described as a gay take on the Wicker Man and a homage to Hammer gothic horrors.

Harriot talks of it as a “deviant psychological thriller”, admitting that it’s been picked up by the horror market more than any other genre.

“It’s a psychological thriller with horror elements.

It’s got sex and suspense. I’m not really interested in making a purist genre film. It’s got a lot of jokes in it that horror movie enthusiasts – especially Hammer House of Horror – love.”

The story finds a group of friends on a trip to a secluded island as a birthday surprise, unaware of the terror that lies in wait for them.

The stylish look of the film belies the lack of budget. Cast and crew took deferred wages, post-production work was done through contacts and the whole film cost about £6,000. The film has been picked up for UK and US distribution and has been appearing at festivals around the world, including the BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. There was a screening at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema in August, and the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray at Halloween.

Harriott has been working in TV and adult movies. “We’ve had to work at speed, whether it’s factual or drama, so we knew we could do it. And we worked with people we knew who were reliable,” he says. “People working in television are dying to do something a little bit more artistic. It worked out really well, I’m really happy with the film.”

His co-writer and co-director, Mark Matthews, also works in TV, most recently directing series with Gok Wan, Nigella Lawson and Ruby Wax. Among the actors is Jill Riddiford with whom Harriott, who studied at Tynemouth College, went to sixth-form college in the North-East.

COMING from the region helped him with locations. “I wanted to show the beauty of Northumberland,” says Harriott.

“Filming in London takes ages to drive from one location to another. In the North-East we were just going down the road and everywhere was easy to park. I was able to pull together all the things I know in the area.”

He began in theatre design in London, moving into the world of short films although got dissatisfied by “the terrible scripts and the nice art direction”. He began making his own films before getting into film distribution. Then it was back to film-making, directing queer erotic features and TV series as Amory Peart.

“We noticed the titles that were doing well weren’t necessarily porn, just more explicit gay films. So I made a film called Butt Buddies which was a massive success, Channel 4 made a documentary about it called A Star Is Porn and I won Gayfest best erotic film of the year,” he says.

“Then I made a series for gay television based on that and it was a massive success. I’ve worked a lot with sex and gender. I did Digital Sex and Future Sex series for Channel 4, all about looking at the future of sex and gender.

In Unhappy Birthday, there’s a three-way and bisexual relationship so I’m still questioning a lot about gender, which is my particular input in the film.”

He still directs for Television X, Europe’s largest satellite erotic channel, recently winning a best erotic spoof series award for Life In Bras.

Going into feature films wasn’t a massive step, he says, because he worked in distribution before and knew quite a lot about festivals, which probably accounts for Unhappy Birthday playing in 27 festivals in the US and Europe.

He was adamant that production values would look high despite the no-budget approach.

“You can have a good story, but if looks no good on the big screen you switch off. That’s made a lot of difference to the film. People’s reaction is how good it is for so little money,” he says.

“No one got a wage. It would have cost about half a million pounds to make. In some ways it was one of the least difficult things we’ve ever done, it came together quite well, and was a lot more fun.”

He and Mike are now working on a romantic comedy, hopeful that the good reception for Unhappy Birthday will help raise finance for the film.

• Unhappy Birthday (18) is available to buy from Peccadillo Pictures.
• unhappybirthdaythemovie.com
• Facebook/unhappybirthday