28 August 2011 (released)
15 November 2011
Dutch director Dick Maas is probably best known to British audiences for his 1988 cult slasher-thriller Amsterdamned.
When not busy making films, he’s busy working as a producer, screenwriter and composer for movie scores. His latest work is Sint – a twisted, dark and gory take on the Santa Claus fable in which Santa (or Sint, as he’s called in Dutch) is pure evil…
Sint saw its UK-premiere at FrightFest 2011 and I caught up with Dick Maas over coffee in the St. Martin’s Lane Hotel to discuss childhood fears and how Dick’s portrayal of Sinterklaas will no doubt upset some folks out there…
Film-News:
Dick, what inspired you to such a grim take on Santa Claus? There are nods to Carpenter’s The Fog and also to the Blind Dead movies by Amando de Ossorio.
Dick Maas:
It’s a concept that’s used in lots of horror movies, like Freddy Krueger for example, he gets killed by people and then comes back to takes his revenge. I started out with Sint because I wanted to make a film about this iconic figure… this Santa Claus figure. Because in Holland, that’s the most important celebration of the year. So that was the biggest challenge for me, how to find a good structure for a film with a different Santa Claus theme. Of course, when I started on the film, Carpenter’s The Fog didn’t even spring to mind but now, when I see the finished Sint, there are certain similarities because for my movie I also needed to have fog in some scenes. So if viewers see the evil Sint and his helpers coming out of the fog, then of course they draw comparisons. But that’s not how my initial concept started.
FN:
Sint is more a slasher comedy. I mean, it is pretty dark and gory but there are elements to it that are rather funny. When you began on the script, did you want it to be partly funny from the outset or is it just the way it turned out as the script progressed?
DM:
At first, I wanted to make a serious horror movie about Santa Claus that was very scary. I didn’t want to make a spoof or anything like that. Certainly not like some of the American Santa Claus slasher-spoofs. I had a serious approach to it and wanted to give the movie a big scope and ‘epic’ feel but even the comic elements in it are very dark, they are not spoof.
FN:
It’s pretty obvious that your film about Santa will provoke some people… because it’s about a traditionally holy figure and you turn him into this evil villain…
DM:
Well yes, in Holland in was controversial, but I haven’t had any bad advance reactions from the USA for example. The movie is set for release there on December 2nd but has had preview screenings. But in Holland, we have something called ‘The Sankt Niklas Society’ and they are devoted to protect the celebrations and all that. There were worried parents who want to protect children from this evil Santa and they also tried to stop the screening of the film in cinemas and remove the posters advertising it. But we didn’t get a lot of protest from religious groups.
FN:
Actor Huub Stapel, who is a regular in your movies, plays Santa… What was his initial reaction when he first read the script?
DM:
Oh, he really wanted to do it. I’ve known him for a long time. The only problem was that he had limited time because of the time of filming, he was busy with a very successful one-man show he’s doing in Holland. He had to squeeze my project in. I mean, you see Sankt Niklas a lot in my movie but actually it was a four-day shoot with Huub’s scenes. A lot of it we did in a studio with Huub against green screen, and the rest is stuntmen of course.
FN:
A lot of people will probably think he looks like a zombie but he isn’t, because he’s thinking. He’s more like a mummy rather then a zombie. Who came up with the make-up?
DM:
We did concept drawing before we started the movie. Through the internet, I found a Polish fantasy artist who impressed me. So I approached him and said “Can you come up with some sketches and create some artwork for me?” and he did. When we started filming the movie I said to my special make-up man “This is the look I’m after”. It was for the Sankt Niklas figure but also for the Black Peters.
FN:
In one particularly impressive scene, Niklas escapes on a horse and rides across the rooftops of Amsterdam while police in a car chases after him on the streets below. How difficult was it to prepare for and execute this scene?
DM:
It was a difficult scene to do! The chase is about four minutes long and I always thought that this is one of the highlights production-wise, so technically it should be perfect. It took some time to figure out the technicalities and it also took a lot of shooting time and money. We had to figure out how to put a horse on the rooftops. You know, if we had a lot of money or were in the United States, we would have everything done in 3-D animation or something like that. But we didn’t have the money for that, so we had to figure out a way to shoot the horse against green screen. Then shoot the other elements in the city at night. Some of it is created using 3-D but most of the sequence is shot on real rooftops. Except for the horse of course, and Sankt Niklas. We had to build a scaffold three meters high and fifty meters long and have the horse run along against the green screen, and then we shot the scenes from below. I was looking for examples in American movies on how such effects are done but couldn’t find any, so we had to figure it out ourselves.
FN:
In the last scene of the movie, we see Sankt Niklas on top of a tower looking over the city, camera zooms in and we see his face in close-up, staring into the camera. Does this mean a sequel?
DM:
Well, it was done simply to show that he’s not dead and that he’s still around but yes, it leaves also room for a sequel. We were thinking about it and even have a story line for a second Sint but it all depends how well the first movie does in Holland and abroad, and whether people want to see a second one. I wouldn’t make a sequel just for Dutch cinema, but if the film did well internationally then probably yes.
FN:
So if the movie does well, can we expect a Sankt Niklas action figure in shops?
DM:
If someone want to do it, of course! I wouldn’t say ‘no’!. But I think it only happens if your movies are a huge success commercially.
FN:
What your next project?
DM:
It’s a thriller called Quiz. It’s quite straightforward and only has a little bit of comedy in it. It’s also more romantic than Sint. It’s about a game show host who is meeting his wife and daughter in a restaurant but they don’t show up. Instead there are men sitting at the reserved table and they show him a Polaroid of his wife and daughter bound and gagged. The men tell the game show host that he will see wife and daughter again - and alive - if he answers ten specific questions within one hour. So that’s the premise of the movie.
FN:
Many thanks for the interview, Dick, and best wishes for the new projects.
