Burning Questions for the cast and creatives behind Burning Men – Jeremy Wooding

From Munro Films, in association with Lightbulb Film Distribution, and the director of Blood Moon, and Peep Show’s premiere series Jeremy Wooding, something wicked this way comes with Burning Men. From the 1st March, a British rock-and-roll road-movie will be arriving in select cinemas and we got to shoot some burning questions at some of the fierce forces behind this red hot horror.

When young musicians Ray (Ed Hayter) and Don (Aki Omoshaybi) are evicted from their South London squat, they decide to sell their precious vinyl collection and fly to Memphis in search of their destiny. Frustrated by the shortfall in funds, they steal an ‘uber-rare’ Black Metal record at a Camden record fair and head out of town to sell it. As they drive north in their beaten-up Volvo Amazon, picking up hitchhiker Susie (Elinor Crawley) en route, they find themselves stalked by dark forces apparently unleashed by the ‘devil disc’ they have stolen.

Burning Men is released in select cinemas on 1st March, with a regional tour across the country.

Below director and co-writer Jeremy Wooding answers our questions on his fantastic film.

1. How did you get into making movies?
I come out of the indie DIY short film scene of the late 1990s. I wrote, produced and directed a trilogy of 35mm short films entitled The London Love Trilogy – three genre films; French New Wave, musical, comedy horror. The second film of these, Sari & Trainers, a British Asian musical, got me agent representation and through that a producer saw it and asked me if I’d be interested in turning it into a feature film. Eighteen months later we were filming Bollywood Queen (in late 2001) starring a young, unknown actor called James McAvoy.

2. Tell us about your involvement with Burning Men?
I co-wrote, produced and directed Burning Men. The idea for the script goes back ten years or so. I was out walking with my co-writer Neil Spencer on Hampstead Heath and we were talking about maybe writing another feature film (we had written all the short films together and the first feature film). I love all types of movie genres, but making a road movie always appealed to me, given that so few are made in the UK. We talked about all the road movies we love – Badlands, Easy Rider, Kings of the Road, Near Dark, and we got excited about the possibilities and it just went from there.

3. What would be your dream road trip?
My dream road trip has got to be a trans American car journey – New York to LA. But I’m also really keen to do the E40 route across Europe. From Calais to Kazakhstan – 8,000 kilometres.

4. What is one album you couldn’t live without and why?
Marvin Gaye ‘What’s Going On’. A beautiful, thoughtful, layered album where every track is a winner. And t’s a great accompaniment to any road trip. You can immerse yourself in its narrative vibe and each time I hear it it’s like I discover it anew.

5. What scares you the most?
What really scares me is silence, a void, a vacuum. Not knowing where you are and being disorientated, which is also the scary realm of ‘the other side’.

6. What is next for you?
Next up – back to pitching projects to get finance; a horror, a thriller and a…musical.

Burning Men is released in select cinemas on 1st March, with a regional tour across the country. For more information, please head to http://bit.ly/BurningMenTour

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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