Writer/director Chris Sun is about to take COME AND GET ME, his bloody thrill-killer debut feature, on a two-month tour of Australian cinemas when Fango gets him on the phone. He has just taken delivery of 500 one-sheets for the movie, has sent along an exclusive pic of himself, bloody actress Alexis Fernandez and her FX double that you can see below (along with the trailer), and is more than slightly upbeat when discussing how it all came about.

It was just a casual comment that got COME AND GET ME rolling: “I’m based in Buderim, on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,” Sun recalls. “We started Australia’s first horror museum, where we would get movie props and set them up as a walk-through. We used to charge people $10. You know Dracula’s [haunted house] on the Gold Coast? We made that look like ROMPER ROOM. It was really gory. We had props from Bob Kurtzman, Brian Damsky and Erik Lusk. We gave up the shop to make movies.

“One day Steve Boyle came into the shop and said he’d just worked on DAYBREAKERS,” he continues. “The staff said, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ because you get so many folks through these shops acting like rock stars. Anyway, he came back, and we’re good friends now. It was really funny, because I just casually said to Steve, ‘I’m gonna make a movie,’ and he said, ‘Go on, do it.’ And, of course, I did [laughs]. It’s really funny—I’m one of those people that once my mind is set, I just go for it. I’d never made a movie in my life; all I’ve done is watch horror movies every night. I’d never set out to make COME AND GET ME as big a noise as it’s making. Originally it was just going to be a couple of mates and a Handycam and we were going to run amok. But then one thing led to another, and off it went.”

COME AND GET ME is a thrill-killer slay ride that pits three males against a girl gang of four somewhere in the deep dark bush just out of Brisbane. Sun’s film seethes with violence, coming on like THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT meets ONCE WERE WARRIORS. Sun also acknowledges the influence of RAZORBACK, but ultimately it’s a relentless case of attitude that gets it across the line, along with Sun’s preference for certain types of effects. “I got Steve Boyle involved a bit and he made a few props—nothing over the top, he just gave us a bit of a hand. I did the rest of the props for the film and the gore. There’s no CGI; it’s all old-school, man. I don’t like TWILIGHT; I like LOST BOYS. I don’t like new werewolf movies; I like AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. So it’s got a real old-style feel to it. That’s what we went for; totally brutal was what we were after.”

To enact his low-budget shocker, Sun rounded up a cast of new faces including Fernandez, Sarah Jane Blair, Shaun Trainer, Kelsie McDonald, Christopher Price and Allira Jaques, and he mentions more than once how blown away he was by Christian Radford’s performance as the most psychotic thrill killer, Johnny. Their efforts have already received a positive reaction: “I had a test audience in Caloundra,” Sun says, “and even though the screen was dark and they couldn’t even see all the gore, they overall rated it eight and a half out of 10.”

Sun already has his next project, CHARLIE’S FARM, ready to shoot, and notes of COME AND GET ME, “It is a very violent film, but I don’t even call it horror. Originally, we wanted it to be horror, but it hasn’t turned out that way. We’re not a ghost story. We don’t get a compressor and blow leaves around and go, ‘Oooh, it’s scary,’ you know? It’s brutal. That’s what we went for. Three Aussie killers, young fellas, who are just so violent in what they do.” All interested parties seeking further info on COME AND GET ME can go to the official website and Facebook page. 

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