Interview: Escape and River Of Blood with Howard J. Ford and Louis James

Escape, is a new survival thriller with horror elements that is helmed by director Howard J. Ford, and stars Louis James. The film and is a rollercoaster ride about a trafficking ring and ten young women in a fight for survival that is not to be missed.

To celebrate the release of the movie, Love Horror’s Gavin Brown caught up with both Howard and Louis,  who kindly gave us time to talk about Escape and the making of the film, on Louis’ wedding day no less!  They also talked about the pair’s upcoming cannibal film River Of Blood, and even discussed Howard’s horror titles The Dead and The Lockdown Hauntings. And what interview with love horror would be complete withthough a conversation about and Howard’s horror influences?

Love Horror: Your latest film, Escape, is coming to streaming very soon. How did the making of the film go for both of you?

Howard. it’s a great experience. I feel like it was fantastic working with the casting crew in the Canary Islands and working with this man, Louis James, who is also in River of Blood which is coming up next.   

Louis: Wow! Where do I begin? It was a real adventure. First of all, working with Howard is an adventure in itself, so when we met and I got on board, this is the stuff dreams are made of! And then, like Howard said, the Canary Islands location, deserts, canyons, caves, lots of sunshine, lots of running around, lots of improvisation here.

Howard: Louis is playing a bit of a shit in the movie. In real life, he’s absolutely fantastic. Escape is one of my indie movies, so I can work with the people I want to work with. I’d written this character, this charmer, I’d call him, and I needed a guy like that. We were doing some casting in Cannes and Louis was there, and I was like, this guy looks like the guy I need and he was on board! We’ve now done River of Blood too and he’s a very good friend.

Was the theme of female empowerment important to Escape?

Howard: Definitely, these guys treat the women really badly. It’s all about them not taking it lying down, and all about females rising up and not just kicking back, but hitting back, stabbing back, slicing back. It’s absolutely all about that!

Would you say there’s an element of horror running through this thriller?

Howard: I mean, it’s a horrible scenario for anyone to be in and I think it’s horrible from the scenario, the creepiness, even the guys watching the girls on the beach in this lovely resort, you’ve got these guys in cars or whatever, just spying on them with telescopes and things, this creepy stuff going on that they have no idea about. So I think from the very outset, that’s a horrible situation, and we all know these things happen for real, so I think there is an element of horror. I mean, it’s not a horror film, but it absolutely has elements of the exploitation horror, but in a different way, where the women get to kick back.

I hope Escape is very different for that reason, but it is the kind of film I probably won’t be allowed to make again, so I wanted to do something a bit a bit provocative and a bit outrageous.

You mentioned River of Blood there, which is that coming out next year. Can you tell us a bit about the film and what it’s about?

Howard: Yeah, sure, we haven’t got our release yet but it’ll be early next year, I believe. Louis is a leading character in that alongside Sarah Alexander Marks, who I must say, is so fantastic to work with, and  it’s also got David Wayman, who was in The Ledge, another film that I did and it’s got Ella Starbach, who was also in Escape, and of course, Joseph Millson, he is the guy who takes you guys down the river.

Louis: Yeah, Joseph is a fantastic actor to work with, he brought through maturity and experience to the sets. We were on kayaks in the jungle and it was a wonderful experience once again. Howard keeps taking me on adventure after adventure!

Howard: River of Blood is a kayaking movie with cannibals!

Did the setting of the film make it a more fun or a more grueling experience for both of you?

Howard; Yeah, I’m gonna say both. I like making films that take place in landscapes. I’ve always been interested in doing that like on The Dead and The Dead 2. I love that idea of a small person in a big landscape, and the landscape is part of the characters,

Louis: It’s something that brings kind of a more authentic character out than you would usually get to do because, usually it’s a green screen or a studio, but here we are, we’re literally in this freaking water in a Thai jungle, face down in the mud!

Howard: He literally gets a bit of punishment in Escape too! That’s the thing I noticed about Louis. On my films, you get a sense of who’s prepared to roll around in the dirt or do something that one would consider dangerous. Because,to make these movies and run around, actually, it is dangerous. No doubt about it. It is dangerous. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Absolutely. I want safety. but you do need people who want to do that.

Louis: It was a lifelong dream come true. So to be on set, and Howard says, Hey, will you do this? I mean, I’ll do that. I’ll do that as many times as you like. Let’s try this and try that. The great thing about Howard is he’s always up trying new things. He always listens to the actor. He always works with the actor. So, yeah, we created some magic, I think, and horror fans are gonna love it.

Howard: Yeah, there are lots of surprises and twists and turns in there. Won’t say too much, but yeah, it’s definitely one for the horror fans,

With River of Blood, did you watch any other cannibal movies as inspiration for the film?

Howard: Well, I had seen the cannibal movies many, many years ago. Cannibal Ferox and things like that but I didn’t rewatch them. I find if I’m going to make a particular type of film, I tend to not rewatch them. Someone says, Oh, do you know there is a film kind of like that already? You should check it out. I can’t look at it because I don’t want to accidentally copy it. I don’t want my path to be seared off from it. So I was aware, but I didn’t really watch anything like that. With River of Blood, we are taking people on a beautiful journey and we’ve really gone out there, into these places, right into the jungle, right into the middle of nowhere, with elephants walking past around filming. It’s not a gore fest. I wanted a certain amount of subtlety but you’ll go on a beautiful journey, and there’ll be some fairly horrific happenings on the way.

Can you tell us anything about what else youre working on as well in the future?

Howard: Escape came out on the 30th of September, thank you for anyone who checks it out. And I’ve got Dark Game coming out 21st of October. That’s another movie coming out, starring Ed Westwick and some super cast and crew. I’m attached to about three other films at the moment too. I’m attached to a couple of horror movies, one we might do together as well.

Louis: There’s something we’re going to shoot later this year. Howard and I talk all the time, as you can imagine, about ideas and new adventures and where life’s going to take us, where a movie dream is going to take us. I’m still trying to catch up with Howard!

Howard; I’m trying to catch up with myself!

At this point, Louis has to leave the interview as he has wedding photos to get to! We wish him congratulations and talk to Howard about his other horror related work.

Can you tell us about the experience of making The Lockdown Hauntings with Tony Todd, and The Dead?

Howard: The Lockdown Hauntings was when we were obviously in lockdown, the world had changed completely. We had fear, isolation and anxiety. I was like, as a filmmaker, Can I do anything with that? I was trying to come up with an idea for a movie, about ghosts moving more freely because there was no human energy interrupting them. I suddenly had this idea about the ghost of a serial killer who could go around in lockdown.

I went on social media, and I looked for actors who would be up for doing a movie in lockdown with no other crew at all, just me, and I keep two metres apart. I thought I might get a handful of actors. I had hundreds of actors respond to the post and messaged me, and I thought, these are great actors, people I want to work with, so it just felt right.

A couple of weeks after that, I was out driving around the country in my car, shooting, and I wanted to get a big horror name. I met Tony Todd before, and he actually quite liked the film that my brother and I did called The Dead. We talked about that a lot on a flight to Los Angeles, and he was really nice guy. I thought, I’d love to work with him. I messaged his manager, Jeff, a lovely guy I’d met before, and I said, Look, I’m doing this movie in lockdown. I’m shooting it in the UK, because I can’t leave the country. I know Tony’s in America. Do you think he’d do some acting on Zoom? And he agreed after we sent him the script.

We filmed Angela Dixon, who is the star of Never Let Go. She was at her place, and we filmed him on Zoom at her place. So she’s in the room, and he’s on Zoom, and he’s like a supernatural, advising on hauntings and things, so we did the movie that way. It’s literally, no car, no crew, just me and the actors.

Does it seem surreal looking back at how you filmed that, obviously out of necessity?

Howard: Yeah, it does. It was almost like guerrilla filming this film was made by one person during lockdown.

Do you look back on The Dead films with fondness?

Howard: No, absolutely not. Making The Dead was horrific, everyone was getting sick. The lead actor nearly died of malaria. I was mugged at knife point. We were held at gunpoint. Almost every other day, everyone was getting food poisoning and ill. I actually saw my brother very recently and we were saying that we might do something together again, maybe.

You can enjoy Howard and Louis’ work in Escape, which is available to rent, stream and buy now. Howard’s film Dark Game will be available from 21st October.