Talking Gore with the Butcher Brothers

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After writing/directing/producing multiple films together, including "Lurking in Suburbia" and "Long Cut," high school friends Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores decided it was time for something different. They created the nom de plume "The Butcher Brothers" for themselves and set forth to turn the stagnating world of horror on its ear. The brothers teamed up with writer Adam Weis and created "The Hamiltons" one of the most original horror films to appear on screens in years. By focusing on character definition and plot progression over excessive gore and cheap thrills, Altieri and Flores created something new and unique for independent horror fans. After winning several awards at festivals all over the country "The Hamiltons" was hand-picked to be included in last year's After Dark Horrorfest that showed eight independent horror films in almost 500 different theaters over one weekend. After counting up all their awards and accolades, it can be agreed that the Butcher Brothers have succeeded in creating something that has been sorely lacking in modern horror films: character-driven plot.

Where did you guys come up with pseudonym the Butcher Brothers?
MITCHELL: The Butcher Brothers were created by Phil and I. We wanted to have different names to channel our darker content. The Butcher Brothers was born to have a good brand so when Phil and I are directing together, you know what you're going to get.

There is a raw darkness to "The Hamiltons" akin to the gritty films from the Seventies. Was that intentional?
PHIL: Totally. We wanted to draw from the films that influenced us as kids rather than take from what's happening in contemporary horror. So before we came up with "The Hamiltons," we fleshed out what we liked about horror films and the things that really drew us in. Hooper, Cronenberg, Lynch--we picked from influences that really pushed the envelope and incorporated our own style within those formats and came up with "The Hamiltons."
MITCHELL: We wanted to make a film that if you removed the horror aspect, you still have a really good picture and that was one of the biggest things we wanted to do, where it wasn't just a shockfest. In the late Seventies it seemed that people were really using story to try and get to you and we wanted to get back to that.

How did you guys come to work with "The Hamiltons" co writer Adam Weis?
MITCHELL: When we met him two or three years back, he was really wanting to do something different. So the three of us sat down and started brainstorming to come up with an idea and he was right there with us and he completely understood. Phil and I've known each other since high school, we grew up together and pull from the same experiences. We discovered film in the same way at the same time, so Phil and I can really understand each other's style, but it was kind of nice to have a third person in there that wasn't so rooted like Phil and I were. He was our ballast, basically. This being our first horror film and Adam being a complete horror junky and having written a horror screenplay before, it just seemed like a smart move and a great balance. Once we started brainstorming, everybody was "on" and the three of us just attacked the script and it kind of worked out. He is still a writing partner with us, and we're moving on to future endeavors.

At one point during the audio commentary on the DVD release of "The Hamiltons" one of you refers to a fist fight that broke out between the two of you, was that a frequent occurrence on set?
MITCHELL: Only when we first started working together, with everybody just learning the ropes and what not. Now we show up really prepared and we've figured out the way we work.
PHIL: But we still carry hammers, just to keep everyone in line.
MITCHELL: But it's a little more docile now.
PHIL: It's more established. Mitch and I have been working together for such a long time. We've done three films. "The Hamiltons" is the first film as The Butcher Brothers, and we've learned to appreciate each other's style and to come into this film as a team. It's really hard to have co-directors on a film, but we've got a good thing going. We understand how to read each other now and bring the best of what we can do to one single source.

The majority of the cast in "The Hamiltons" are relative unknowns, although the opening scene features the death of Brittany Daniel ("Joe Dirt," "Sweet Valley High"). How did she come to appear in the film?
MITCHELL: Joseph McKelherr (Wendell Hamilton) was in "Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders" with her. We wanted "somebody" to be in the beginning, a Drew Barrymore if you will. Joe said to send a script out to her, and she called the next day and said, "I love this story and I want to be a part of it." She was really great, really really supportive in the film. It was a very simple process, she believed in the script so much that she wanted to be a part of "The Hamiltons" right away.

Speaking of Joseph McKelherr how did you luck out getting him and Mackenzie Firgens to play the twins Wendell and Darlene?
PHIL: We met Joe at the film festival CineVegas because "Hillside" was playing there. We had a quick meal over some liver and onions and realized that we had a good friendship here, and we liked his acting. After a while we came up with "The Hamiltons" and we were thinking about roles for the twins and Joe came to mind. Mackenzie is a local actress in San Francisco. She was in the films "Groove" and "Rent"--she's done a lot, she's pretty much the premiere SF indie actress, so we thought she'd be great for the role too. We had them both audition--not even really an audition, it was more like we talked it over. From the minute they opened their mouths we knew that these two were the twins.

Both of them had pretty dynamic chemistry together. Were they friends before getting cast in "The Hamiltons" as brother and sister?
MITCHELL: No, they didn't know each other. Samuel Child, who played David, was in our film "Lurking in Suburbia" and was there at CineVegas when we met Joe. So the "Lurking" camp and the "Hillside" camp kind of just bonded and all of us became really great friends. We knew we wanted to work with Sam again, and then we brought in Corey Knauf (Francis Hamilton) who we found on the film that Adam Weiss penned. It was one of those things that when they all got together it became something really special. The twins immediately hit it off. They were great, and people were actually scared of them on set.
PHIL: They kind of reacted as a family, they all hung out together. Joseph Mac really "punked" Corey, just as Wendell would "punk" Francis in the film. It kind of made him feel like he wasn't welcome. So they brought a lot to the story. Without what they did, it wouldn't have been the same film, for sure.

"The Hamiltons" has a great twist at the end. How would you describe the film without giving away the final moments?
PHIL: It's about a dysfunctional family. Everybody can relate to dysfunction. It's the family that everyone has, but doesn't want to have. It's horror with a heart.
MITCHELL: It is a tough one to describe. What we say is that it's different in the sense that you're actually living with the killers rather than the victims. In most horror films you identify and become attached to the victims, where here the whole idea was to kind of mess with people's emotions and let them live with the killers. You also have to separate yourself in a sense, because you know they're doing bad but yet you start feeling for them, you start to see them as people. The scary part of it is that it's kind of paralleling the scariness of life and that becomes the scariest aspect of the film. Its that real life in suburbia is almost as scary as what these people are doing. We used that to pitch the film and then obviously tried to keep the twist at the end very well guarded.

One of the deleted scenes found on the DVD features a little more back story for the main victims and how they came to meet up with Wendell. Why didn't it make the cut?
PHIL: We wanted to focus more on the family and in a strange we didn't want people to identify at all with the victims. You still feel for them obviously. We wanted you to feel for them the way Francis feels for them and how things happen through his eyes.

What was the budget for "The Hamiltons?"
PHIL: It was basically non-existent, if you could calculate and add up all the favors that we pulled, it would still be a very small budget. People really believed in the script, so people donated time, equipment, locations, all the way down the list. We really pieced this together with a lot of favors.

What did you use to shoot the film?
MITCHELL: We shot it on HD with a Sony Varicam. As a credit to our DP Mike Maley people, think it looks like it was shot on 35mm.
PHIL: When it showed at After Dark, those were 35mm prints.

How did you guys get involved with the After Dark Horrorfest?
PHIL: LionsGate set it up for us; once they picked us up they set it all up.
MITCHELL: We got a phone call from Courtney Solomon (the creator of the festival), who said "I loved the film guys, I'm putting this thing together and I'd love for you to be a part of it." We thought since its being but together by LionsGate and we're already signed with LionsGate, it seemed like a no-brainer and a great opportunity for us to get the film out and be in the midst of other good indie horror films that haven't been seen.
PHIL: We finished the film and two weeks later we got an invitation to the Santa Barbara film festival, which had closed its submissions and already had their line-up. They were in love with the film so much that they actually gave us these incredible spots. They just wanted the film there, and we won their Gold Vision Award. After that we didn't even really submit it anywhere. It was just one invitation after the other. At the Malibu film festival we walked away with the Jury award, and from there "The Hamiltons" just really had a great run. I think at one point we were doing two festivals a month.

How did you guys feel about the way "The Hamiltons" and the After Dark Horrorfest as a whole were marketed?
MITCHELL: The marketing was amazing, it was everywhere, it was a good opportunity for all these films that were signed or weren't signed to put them into a festival format and allowed them to be seen all over the country. It was a great scenario I thought. The set-up was that these were films not having been seen because of content, and I think that rang true for some of the films--not necessarily ours, but being a part of that really allowed some of these films to be seen.

Did either of you get a chance to see any of the other films shown at the Horrorfest?
PHIL: To be honest, promoting our films was a full-time job, but we do have the box set, so now were going to be able to watch all of them.

What can we expect next from The Butcher Brothers?
PHIL: We have a few things. Unfortunately, we can't speak about them. "The Hamiltons" really did well for us. We're speaking to some pretty big companies that are really pumped, and it's been a pretty good run, so expect to see something from the Butcher Brothers next year
MITCHELL: We'll defiantly be delivering you more material of what you've seen before.
PHIL: We have a slew of different story ideas and couple of scripts as well, which are already set up as Butcher Brother films. Our idea is to continue making horror as the Butcher Brothers, push the envelope a little, create different content, great characters and things you don't necessarily see in horror, and attach a story to a horror film--which, for some reason, doesn't happen a lot.

That attention to detail is what set "The Hamiltons" apart from some of the more formulaic films featured in the Horrorfest, like "Wicked Little Things" or "Unrest."
MITCHELL: Our film was kind of different, but we were also very confident. It's kind of the rebel little film that showed up out of nowhere and hung with these films. We were by far the smallest budgeted film in the festival. The great thing about fans of the "The Hamiltons" is that they're from all different walks of life, not just hardcore horror fans. All across the board people loved the film. When we won at Santa Barbara we were up against some big films with big names--politically driven films, and some pretty intense stuff. For us to walk away with an award was really great.

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