Local horror will be a gore-fest

John Rhys-Davies gets stuck in in The Ferryman, made for $7 million and due out in the summer.

It takes a while to find the blood. Someone has started mopping it up. But there are still traces smeared all over the deck of classic yacht the Dionysus. There are a few deeper, more viscous puddles too - a clear sign evil has been here.

"It's very different from Sione's," smiles director Chris Graham. We're on the set of horror film The Ferryman, his next feature after hit comedy, Sione's Wedding.

He's looking relaxed for a man who's on day 33 of a gory 35-day shoot. "You should have seen the bloody carnage on the boat yesterday ... there were just tonnes of actors just vomiting blood on themselves and on each other," he says, wide-eyed.

The movie, from Stickmen author Nick Ward, is a return to the classic horrors of the 70s and early 80s, like The Shining, The Exorcist, and The Thing - though it will inevitably win comparisons to Dead Calm. It's the story of six twentysomethings who charter a boat to Fiji for the trip of a lifetime. It starts off as you'd expect, but, as the movie's tagline says, "Everyone must pay".

For Graham, dealing with a bunch of funny Samoans is far from the blood, prosthetic wounds, suspense and horror involved with making The Ferryman.

But, he says: "One thing that did surprise me was that I prepared myself for it to be a very dark, gruelling, and more unpleasant and harrowing experience than it actually turned out to be.

"The crew and I squint at the monitor as the violence and drama play out. But as soon as we say cut, we are all just joking about it; the actor wipes the blood off ... and you just return back to the real world."

The film, which will open this summer, stars New Zealand actress Kerry Fox and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in Lord of the Rings).

The film wrapped last weekend after a shooting at Birkenhead Wharf, Waiheke, and off the coast of Great Barrier Island.

But today we're at the set in a hangar-like building (that used to be an equestrian centre) near Wainui, 40 minutes north of Auckland.

They're shooting a hospital scene. Also in the building is a motel room set, and a murky man-made lake.

At one end, tied to a wharf, floats the Dionysus, a replica of the Auckland-based boat of the same name.

Inside the cabin the detail is almost kitsch - there's a reel-to-reel tape deck, aged postcards pinned to a notice board, and dinky sailing paraphernalia through the cabin. The confined space doesn't leave much room for dodging machetes.

While there is a lot of bloodshed, Graham's focus was to tell the story, develop the characters and stay true to those horror classics, rather than relying on gore and shock value.

"The strength of The Ferryman screenplay is something I really wanted to work hard on. For our film there's six people on a yacht and there's absolutely no escape. There's nowhere to run to."

In another corner of the building, Rhys-Davies stands on a platform in front of a green screen about to shoot a scene.

The lockdown call goes up, meaning: don't make a peep. Don't even move.

"You're not me," cries Rhys-Davies, gazing at his reflection in a mirror. An ominous light swings above his head as he howls again: "You're not me." He waits a few seconds then gives himself the fingers making the crew laugh.

"Thanks, John. Thank you very much," says Graham.

The Ferryman was an idea developed by New Zealand producer Matt Metcalfe and Ward.

"We worked really well together because he would take ideas and run with them and I tried as much as I could to encourage him to be really creative. In fact, [during] this whole shoot, from writer, to director, to production designer, I've tried to say, 'Don't go the safe route; be daring, be creative, be artistic'."

Metcalfe says because the film's budget of $7 million is low by international standards, there was a heavy reliance on creativity and Kiwi ingenuity to make it happen.

Compare that with Hollywood vampire movie 30 Days of Night, which is also being shot here with a budget reportedly around $70 million.

Metcalfe: "If audiences are going to want to see The Ferryman it's because it stands out, because it's exciting, and it's the film where the kids are saying to each other, 'Have you heard about Ferryman? It's got that scene in it'."

"I wanted a film that was familiar to horror fans, that acknowledges the reason they love this genre, but also turn it on its head and provide twists that people don't expect, so it makes it its own film. I wanted to make a film that was enjoyable, yet scary, humorous at times, yet gory and terrifying."

Can't bloody wait to see it.