By Baz Bamigboye

EXCLUSIVE: Zygi Kamasa, the veteran film executive who launched True Brit Entertainment 15 months ago, is on a scary mission to bring back Britain’s horror film heritage. Today, he reveals that his company will release period shocker The Dreadful starring Game of Thrones duo Sophie Turner and Kit Harington and Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock, Mystic River, The Morning Show) in the UK.

“I feel very much that I want to go further in trying to encourage the UK industry to make more horror movies because horror still works consistently well in cinemas,” Kamasa insists, citing the success of last year’s occult horror Longlegs.

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But Longlegs, and many other recent horror movies, were American made.

“If we’re going to do horror in this country, go back. I mean we were dominating horror in the Sixties and Seventies, the Hammer horror and all that. And then I think we lost that business to the Americans. But if we’re going to do it, you can’t copy, you mustn’t copy the Americans. You’ve got to be original,” he contends.

Kamasa says that it has been years since British filmmakers have produced a bona fide home-grown horror hit.

Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later with Cillian Murphy came out in 2002, although follow-up 28 Years Later starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes and hot newcomer Alfie Williams – discovered by Independent Talent Group’s Maddi Bonura – shot last year and is now in post production. On the irreverent horror comedy side, Edgar Wright’s  brilliant classic Shaun of the Dead also springs to mind, but that was released 21 years ago. The Woman In Black, directed by James Watkins, based on Susan Hill’s hit play, was a success with Daniel Radcliffe playing the lead, yet that was in 2012. The Woman In Black: Angel of Death, Tom Harper’s sequel, didn’t pop the way the original did. 

“I’m going back quite a long way,” says Kamasa, as we try to think of more recent British horror films. “It’s very thin, hence why I want to bring them back.”

I think of Robert Eggers’ 2015 movie The Witch which my distorted mind, what with all this scary chat,  assumes is British. But it’s so not a British horror film. It was shot in Canada and Eggers is American through and through. 

His Nosferatu, a mega box-office success for Focus Features, ain’t British either, even though it’s chock-a-block with Brit stars such as Nicholas Hoult, Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson and Simon McBurney.

Wait, what about the John Landis film, An American Werewolf in London? I was on the set of that. Then I remember that it was shot more than four decades ago, in 1981, which is really weird because for some daft reason it feels more recent, probably because I just watcherd it again. Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Films has, obviously, helped popularize the appeal of scare-mongering movies.

And look at the phenomenal success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance starring Golden Globe winner and Oscar, BAFTA and Critics Choice nominated Demi Moore. Actually, the movie was produced by Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan at Working Title, but it was all shot in Paris, though it’s set in Hollywood. So, yeah, that’s not strictly British horror fare either.

I consider how audiences have a taste for shock and MUBI has marketed The Substance to perfection. I watched The Substance again at a screening for BAFTA voters over the weekend, and the audience jumped and screamed when appropriate. Ms. Moore came on stage afterwards to help settle our stomachs.

It’s kinda interesting that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members have embraced The Substance to the extent that it’s been nominated for five Academy Awards which includes Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Picture, the aforementioned Best Actress nom for Moore, and Best Original Screenplay and Best Director nods for Fargeat.

Kamasa is clearly onto something. He wants horror to come home to Blighty. Kamasa’s remarkable slate of pictures – remarkable in that he’s assembled them in such a short time – includes two that are British horror and he tells me that he’s working with his partners on a third.

Kamasa co-finances and co-produces, he doesn’t make them. However, he’s instrumental in helping to usher them from script to production while controlling UK distribution rights.

Tell me something horrifying then, I say, when we meet for lunch.

“Okay, what about killer squirrels?,” he says getting my full attention as I guffaw at the very idea.

The critters dig up the bulbs that my wife spends hours planting. Our dogs go crazy when they hear them.

But are they murderers?!

They are in Craig Roberts new movie, The Scurry, which he shot from a script by Tim Telling.

Roberts, who directed The Phantom of the Open and Eternal Beauty, put his own spin on Telling’s screenplay. “It’s a horror movie, but in that very British sense, he is trying to emulate Shaun of the Dead, but without copying Edgar Wright,” Kamasa explains.

“I just thought, ‘That’s hilarious!’ You can’t get anything more benign than a squirrel,” says Kamasa who helpfully educates me on the fact that a scurry is the plural of squirrels.

“Learn something new every day”, as the great Dame Judi Dench always tells me.

The horror comedy stars Ella Purnell ( Fallout, Sweetpea) and Rhys Ifans (Nyad, Notting Hill). Purnell plays an activist environmentalist and Ifans is a rodent catcher.

An eco cafe in an eco forest is being torn down to build luxury apartments but the builders and developers are creating loads of toxic waste and as a result “it’s sent the squirrels slightly mad,” says Kamasa.

It sounds as if it has Green credentials? “Yes, but very much with a slight sort of wink and a nod. These things have to be scary,” Kamasa asserts.

Daniel Mays, Olivia Williams, Paapa Essiedu and Antonia Thomas are also in The Scurry.

There’s a lot of interest in the Cliff Edge Pictures, Water & Power Productions, Circus Studios film that True Brit Entertainment will release in the UK later in the year.

The other shocker that Kamasa’s involved in, with his many partners, is The Dreadful, as noted at the top of this column, directed by Natasha Kermani (Lucky). It was shot last year on location in Cornwall and it reunites Turner and Harington.

The Dreadful’s a 15th century Gothic tale that’s “super creepy and very scary,” Kamasa says matter of factly. Gay Harden plays Turner’s mother-in-law and she’s got all sorts of tricks at her finger tips. They live in an out of the way cottage near the coast that’s visited by a stranger, played by Harington.

Kamasa won’t reveal too much. He does allow, however, that The Dreadful “has ghosts” and that it’s “straight horror throughout.”

During his time at Lionsgate and Red Bus, Kamasa marketed several horror pictures from Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers to Sam Raimi’s The Gift with Cate Blanchett, and many more in between. And he  distributed the Saw film series too.

“I know how to market horror movies in the UK, but until now all of them were American,” he laments.

The new set of horror films he’s connected to have a British vibe, he attests. 

“We have to embrace our culture of Britain in the movie “ he argues. “The absurdity of Britain culturally is what I’m speaking about and Shaun of the Dead tapped into it very well. In American horror movies, they embrace the High School, while we have to embrace pubs or the comedy of Britain. You know they’re British when you watch them.”

I dragged Kamasa into a horror vortex, not leaving him much time to discuss his non-horror output that includes two boxing movies and films by Gurinder Chadha, Nick Love and Morgan Matthews.

Giant is inspired by the real life story of Prince Naseem “Naz”  Hamed, the world champion bantamweight and featherweight boxing champion, and his relationship with his trainer Brendan Ingle.

The Prince is portrayed by Amir El-Masry (Limbo, The Crown, The Night Manager), I’m a big fan of his, and James Bond and Mamma Mia! star Pierce Brosnan plays Ingle. The AGC Studios production, home of producer Stuart Ford, was directed by Rowan Athale (Wasteland, Gangs of London). 

And In the Shadows stars BAFTA-winning Jasmine Jobson (Top Boy, Bird), who portrays British-Somalian professional boxer and campaign activist, Ramla Ali. When she was twelve, Ali secretly started boxing classes, telling her parents she was going running. Then she started winning and making headlines. Directed by Anthony Wonke (The Accidental Spy, Syria: Children on the Frontline), In The Shadows is another film set in a ring. Both have tremendous screenplays underpinning them.

Kamasa will announce another two titles in coming days and weeks. The following, with The Dreadful to be added, is his slate so far:

500 Miles
Dir.  Morgan Matthews
Producers: David Thompson, Alex Gordon, Keren Misgav Ristvedt, Martina Niland
Key cast: Bill Nighy, Maisie Williams, Roman Griffin Davis
Key partners:  Origin Pictures, Minnow Films, Port Pictures, Beta Cinema, Screen Ireland

Christmas Karma
Dir.  Gurinder Chadha
Producers Gurinder Chadha, Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, Amory Leader
Key cast Kunal Nayyar, Eva Longoria, Hugh Bonneville, Boy George, Billie Porter
Key partners Bend It Films, Maven Screen Media, Civic Studios, Big Book Media

Giant
Dir. Rowan Athale
Producers: Stuart Ford, Mark Lane, Kevin Sampson
Key cast: Pierce Brosnan, Amir El-Masry
Key partners:  AGC Studios, BondIt Media Capital, Balboa Productions, Tea Shop Productions, White Star Productions

In The Shadows
Dir. Anthony Wonke
Producers: Lee Magiday, Madeleine Sanderson
Key cast: Jasmine Jobson, Finn Cole, Gershwyn Eustache Jr
Key partners: Sleeper Films, Altitude, Civic Studios, Affine Films

Marching Powder
Dir. Nick Love
Producers: Chris Clark, Will Clarke
Key cast: Danny Dyer, Stephanie Leonidas, Calum Macnab
Key partners:  Altitude Film Entertainment, Rock Star Games, Redrum Films, Rogue State

The Scurry
Dir. Craig Roberts
Producers: James Swarbrick, Adrian Bate
Key cast: Ella Purnell, Rhys Ifans, Paapa Essiedu
Key partners:  Water & Power Productions, Cliff Edge Pictures, Circus Studios, Ashland Hill Media Finance.