The Scottish horror movie lastly launched 17 years after filming

A Scottish horror movie has lastly been launched – 17 years after filming first received underneath manner.

The Bench is a grisly slasher the place a gaggle of buddies make a journey to a distant cabin in Renfrewshire, solely to vanish one after the other.

However, the manufacturing was struck by a number of difficulties, from badly misjudging the Scottish climate’s suitability for filming to cash working out half manner via.

Writer and director Sean Wilkie advised Daily News Scotland News that he was a combination of being “pleased, nervous and relieved” now that The Bench will be seen by the general public.

The Coatbridge native had labored on quick movies earlier than deciding to sort out a full-length horror.

He was impressed by a few of his favourites from the style comparable to Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes and Tobe Hooper’s dread-inducing story of unwitting youngsters encountering a cannibal household, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Filming started in Lochwinnoch in 2007, utilizing a cabin owned by buddies of the movie’s director of images.

For indoor filming, the Caves venue in Edinburgh was used, with Drumpellier Country Park used for infrequent outside photographs.

The movie has a forged that features Two Doors Down star Joy McAvoy and Matt McClure from American horror present Penny Dreadful.

“The first two weeks on location were fine but we couldn’t keep that up,” displays Sean.

“I wish we’d have someone following us all the way though, as it would have made some documentary. Due to the weather and other things we couldn’t finish filming as planned, so we were coming back on odd weekends here and there to complete it.”

That was solely the beginning of the movie’s points. Initial financing had fallen via at an early stage, however Sean determined to “charge ahead” anyway, one thing he admits now was “probably a mistake.”

The movie’s unique editor departed, so Sean took on that position as properly, and by the point reshoots have been wanted most of the forged and crew have been engaged on different tasks.

“I had to gather the footage together and do the editing, and then I realised what we were missing”, he says.

“So I was having to get some of the cast to fly back when they could [for reshoots] and drag them back to the cabin in Lochwinnoch. Then we’d go and there would be a blizzard, so we had to abandon filming anyway and try again later.

“I used to be in all probability fairly naïve. I’d watched a number of American horror movies once I was writing the script, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre the place it’s set in these roasting areas – fully forgetting that we might be filming in Scotland and that heat temperatures weren’t going to occur.”

That process also created continuity issues, as Sean tried to juggle cast members having changed their hairstyles between their original scenes and the added filming.

With money having run out by the time filming was finally completed in about 2011, Sean then had to rely on favours for post-production and scoring the film. That meant those factors took even more years to complete.

It was only around 2016 that The Bench was mostly complete.

“By the time that was all completed, I had no power left in any respect, so it simply sat in a drawer,” says Sean, who now teaches animation and filmmaking, as well as working on scripts as a freelance writer.

“It took loads out of a number of friendships and I used to be paying off cash to do with it for some time, so I wished nothing to do with it.”

However, like any self-respecting slasher villain, the film rose up from the dead.

An approach by Ryan Hendrick – the director of Scottish set festive romance Lost At Christmas – led to the film being dusted down.

“He stated he thought it might do fairly properly for a small distribution firm he’d arrange,” Sean says. “There have been a number of issues with continuity on account of actors having totally different hair between the primary capturing and the reshoots, however he’s minimize round that cleverly, and I used to be actually impressed by the work he’s achieved.”

Now The Bench is streaming on Amazon Prime, and Sean feels it has sparked a desire to get back behind the camera.

“I’ve began to get concepts once more,” he laughs.

“I’ve largely been writing, however we confirmed it at Cineworld not too long ago and the viewers appeared to actually prefer it. Shooting in 2007 has labored out for us because it gave us a manufacturing worth we might by no means have afforded now.

“It’s almost like a period piece!”