Madison-made independent comedy horror, ‘Dead of the Night’ brings back badass female lead
By Ann Rivall
It may not be the next “Citizen Kane,” but it possesses a measure of that norm-defying moxie necessary to promote cinematic industry change.
“Dead of the Night” — an independently made Madison film and the brainchild of local producer and writer Robert Love — is not your typical comedy horror.
For one, this low-budget indie — all funded by Love himself — is set in Wisconsin and described as a fusion of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Friday the 13th.” Two, it boasts of a badass female lead actress, University of Wisconsin senior Morgan Boland, who is bestowed with a palpable dose of chutzpah, well-suited to combating zombies and pesky demons aiming to disrupt an FBI mission.
She is woman, hear her roar.
Influenced by director Joss Whedon’s strong female lead personified by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, Love and his fellow film producer Jeff Skubal, wanted to create a comedy horror that strayed from the male lead mold by developing the character of Paige — a tenacious self-confident woman who unapologetically asserts her dominance and leaps into the realm of macho.
“As a storyteller, I’ve always been attracted to strong women,” Love said in a recent interview with The Badger Herald. “So often women are portrayed as the sidekick to the guy, and what I liked so much about Buffy was that she was the hero, she’s in charge and she’s got that strength of personality to be the superpower, and so that’s what I wrote Paige to be. She’s a woman; she’ll get in fights.”
Originally cast as an extra when “Dead of the Night” production began over two years ago, Boland impressed Love, who had initially written the part with a different actress in mind. After eventually revolving through three different leading ladies and continually coming back to the extra that impressed him, Love settled on Boland — a UW theatre major who most recently appeared in the University Theatre production of “Eurydice.”
And if Love was searching for the right woman to take on the role of a commanding female presence incarnated in his Paige, he surely found it in Boland. She exudes an equal match of confidence and humility as she traverses the uncharted acting platforms of comedy and film.
“I think I’ve discovered through the process that I’m more like Paige than I realized,” Boland said. “I really love how this character really bluntly speaks her mind. She’s not going to sugarcoat anything, and I find myself in the same situations sometimes.”
Both relative newcomers to the experience of shooting a full-length feature film, Love and Boland each reflected on the adventure of seeing a project stem from an idea and morph into what has become the visionary baby of Love’s that Boland occasionally baby sits with her creative input.
Love is a writer and voice over director for Raven Software — a Middleton-based computer game developer of real world and science fiction game software — and has produced two film shorts, “The Plan” and “The More Things Change,” prior to dipping his toe in the feature-flick pool.
Drawing on an initial acquaintance with film gained while working for Raven and reinforced while shooting his first two shorts, Love was able to call on that specific knowledge base when developing “Dead of the Night.”
“The biggest difference between the short and the full-length film is the time commitment. It’s a huge, huge time commitment, but it’s also so much more rewarding,” Love said. “You get all these different pieces together and all these different people working so hard. I’ve shown the actors scenes, and it’s cool to see when they laugh at the right parts and you really get the emotions where you want to.”
Making the transition from the stage to on-camera proved to be an interesting artistic learning opportunity for Boland who had previously only been a cast member of a local student-produced film. With this being her first full-length film, Boland immediately noticed the task of emotional readiness screen actors are expected to tackle when shooting various, disjointed scenes typical of the sporadic production style of full-length films.
“Before doing film I used to think film actresses had it so much easier because they only had to memorize one scene at a time and theatre people have to memorize the whole show, but film is a lot harder in the sense that you have to jump into that moment no matter what it is,” Boland said. “With theater you can ride that momentum through the show and it can be a lot easier to get yourself to those moments.”
As an actress who has had minimal experience with comedy, Boland is also learning to hone her comedic chops — a theatrical skill of Boland’s that both Love and “Eurydice” reviewers praised the young leading lady for.
“Bob kept telling me I had great comedic timing, and I kept saying, ‘I do?’ It wasn’t until I read a ‘Eurydice’ review and they mentioned my comedic timing that I began to believe it,” Boland said.
For Love, comedy is his niche.
“Comedy really speaks to me; I think that’s my strength as a writer,” Love said.
His first comedy short, “The More Things Change,” allowed Love to explore the genre, and after receiving strong audience encouragement for his writing, decided to pursue the humor of horror with “Dead of the Night.”
“What makes comedy work so well is having some tension in there, and that’s why horror comedies work out really nice,” Love said. “We’re not really a horror per se because we’re not about the blood, we’re not about the violence — it’s mostly about the comedy.”
Citing the “horror renaissance” that has captivated mega-plexes across the world with blockbusters like “Twilight,” and TV series such as “The Vampire Diaries,” Love and Skubal knew that combining the wry intrigue of demonic, otherworldly creatures disrupting the placid nature of a Wisconsin backdrop would make for a clever Joss Whedon-like romp that celebrated a strong female commanding the film’s comedy and action.
“The women in the film always stand up and fight. I want to portray these women as strong,” Love said.
Though the marriage of comedy and horror has been spoofed in numerous “Scary Movie” installments, Love predicted his own genre union in “Dead of the Night” would at one moment present a captivating, edge-of-your-seat scene for viewers, and in the next let the crowd breathe a sigh of comedic relief with a deadpan line delivery.
“For comedy to work well you need a wind up of the tension and then the release,” Love said. “If you’re careful with your comedy you don’t throw off the men or the women, which you can tend to do.”
“Horror is also in itself funny,” Boland added.
Readying themselves for a Madison screening in July at Sundance Theater, Love and Boland reflect back on the experience of surviving their first feature-length film together and credit Skubal’s creative level head for guiding the pair’s imagination.
“I really love the creative process, and I really do think that strong art is very collaborative and that collaboration itself can only make it stronger,” Boland said. “I think we work together to tell a great story.”
“I’m extremely proud of this project,” Love said. “This has been like climbing Mount Everest in your bare feet, and I could not have done it without the enthusiasm of Morgan and Jeff.”
“Dead of the Night” will be shown at Sundance Theater in July. For the most up-to-date information regarding the film’s progress and future viewing opportunities, visit the film’s Facebook page.
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