Lurking close to home

Sophie McBride as Rachel Matheson in Under the Mountain. Photo / Supplied

Director Jonathan King is used to being referred to as Michael King's son. The late great New Zealand historian, who was killed with second wife (Jonathan's stepmother) Maria Jungowska in a 2004 car crash, was also father to feted novelist Rachael King.

But King junior is not riding the coat tails of a literary legacy. In 2007 he directed, wrote and produced black comedy Black Sheep, the internationally snapped-up splatter flick about genetically-engineered sheep gone bad (which paid tribute to his father in a scene where a farmhand reads the Penguin History of New Zealand).

King is also co-writer/producer/director of Under the Mountain, the about-to-be-released film adaptation of the Maurice Gee novel, a sci-fi classic that has been in print since 1979 and was made into a popular 1982 TV series. As generations of readers will know, it is the tale of twins from the sticks, Theo and Rachel (played by newcomers Tom Cameron and Sophie McBride), who come to stay with their aunt, uncle and cousin on Auckland's North Shore.

Repelled by, yet drawn to, the creepy old house across the lake, they stumble on the Wilberforces, shape-shifting, slug-like monsters awaking from millennia of sleep beneath Auckland's volcanoes. It's up to the red-heads, aided by the shadowy Mr Jones (played by Sam Neill), to annihilate the quacking creatures and save the world.

Already a "movie nut", King was 12 when he first read Under the Mountain and 14 when he read the part of Theo in a Radio NZ adaptation. "It wasn't that long after Star Wars," King recalls, "and what I found really cool was it was a scary sci-fi adventure set not in space but in the physical world we live in."

Zooming in on Auckland's volcanic ring, especially the brooding presence of Auckland's youngest volcano Rangitoto Island, the film led many people to look at our topography anew.

But do New Zealanders take the threat of our geology seriously, or do we mostly forget about it? "Well, we go 'Oo, Mt Ruapehu, the Southern Alps'," says King, "but it's easy to be quite blind to the city environment right in front of you. Unless it's an eyesore, that is."

Making neighbours grumpy, the film's decrepit-looking Wilberforce house was purpose-built on the well-groomed shores of Lake Pupuke last year. It has since been demolished.

Yes, it's hard to imagine evil lurking in well-heeled Takapuna, but the notion that bad things only happen in bad places was something the director wanted to play with. "And on-screen, there's a sort of fake version of 'real Kiwis'," King says, adopting a faux man-of-the-land tone. "We wanted the kids particularly to be real, everyday New Zealanders who this freaky thing is happening to."

This is unashamedly a film for teenagers. "It might be too scary for under-10s, but teens as old as 18 will, hopefully, find it's not a lame-arse kiddie adventure. And I absolutely think adults who remember the book or TV series fondly won't find it too young," says King. "We think adults who aren't familiar with it will also find there's enough there to enjoy."

When he says we, which he does a lot, he's talking about the film's co-scriptwriter, co-producer and his longtime collaborator Matthew Grainger, with whom he runs Wellington production company Index Films.

Grainger had been drafting Under the Mountain scripts for a decade, but the timing wasn't right until 2006. "Then I thought, 'Wow, let's have a crack," says King.

Aside from the pressure to equal the NZ Film Commission's loan, King also mentions a "terrifying" responsibility to the story. "We did feel a not insignificant responsibility. People have expectations about the story, and we'd hate to be responsible for making a lame or not-scary version."

It was a tightrope walk between delivering the iconic story, but still taking it somewhere new. But King says the flipside of people's expectations was a flood of goodwill: people offering their time, their houses. "When we said we're making a film of the Maurice Gee novel, people were excited to be a part of it."

King is dearly hoping Gee liked what he saw at last night's premiere in Auckland. But it's doubtful he'll cry for days like The Vintner's Luck author Elizabeth Knox, given the script and early cuts met his approval. And Gee's daughter Abigail, to whom the book was dedicated, worked on the film's special effects and delivered good reports to her dad. "I can't speak for him," says King, "but he wrote the book 30 years ago and it's taken on its own life since then. Iterations of it have become their own thing - they aren't the book."

Even those who know the book by heart are in for a few surprises. Some things are omitted, such as the Wilberforces' back-story and the twins' uncertainty about exterminating them. And additions such as the twins' rift and the police's involvement build big-screen suspense, emotional realism, and update the story to contemporary Auckland.

One new shade of grey is the shadowy, slightly sinister side of Mr Jones. King admits Sam Neill was a "hell of a 'get'. "In a business sense we wanted an actor with a certain stature, but we also felt strongly that Mr Jones should have a dramatic weight, an edge, perhaps a darkness. You're not sure if you can trust him. And Sam rang me back and said 'Look, I'm interested, tell me you want to run with that darkness not ignore it."'

As for the real baddie, Mr Wilberforce is played by busy actor-director-TV host Oliver Driver, who is suitably tall, scary and barely recognisable behind thick layers of Weta Workshop makeup.

"Oliver had a combination of fun and a terrible time," recalls King. "His makeup took six hours to go on, so sometimes he'd have to start at 3am. And he found it oppressive and isolating, because when you look like a scary creature people don't talk to you any more. We knew he felt hideous, but he never gave us a sense of `get on with it so I can take this off'."

King has been eager to get on with making features for decades, cutting his teeth on short films, music videos, TV commercials, the usual route. "When I was young I wanted to be a film director, then for a while I didn't think it was a realistic option," he admits. "But in my 20s, I started meeting people who did it, and thought 'Well, they're not magical superhumans, so maybe I could'."

And that superhuman, fantastical element is something you'll find in his films so far - and likely in the ones to come. "I don't think I'll turn around and make a serious domestic drama. I wouldn't want to get ghettoised as a horror or sci-fi film-maker, but I like films that are rooted in New Zealand but also transport you somewhere special - out of the ordinary world."

* Under the Mountain is in cinemas from Thursday.