Worthing is filming location for new horror movie The R.I.P. Man

The R.I.P. Man features locations including Worthing, Brighton & Hove, Horsham and Chichester. Jamie has set himself the deadline of getting the film ready by June 1, after which he will be sending it out to festivals and working towards the release date. When that happens, he will be hoping to do screenings in Worthing and Brighton and perhaps also in London.

Jamie’s first full-length horror The Cellar was recently shown at Brighton Rocks after premiering last September at Worthing’s Connaught Theatre & Studio. Now comes The R.I.P. Man.

“The writer reached out to me after seeing The Cellar and wanted me to direct this film. I jumped on board. I am directing it and producing it with him. His name is Rhys Thompson and he comes from South Ockendon which is on the border between London and Essex.

“It was a fully-written screenplay that he had entered into some screenwriting competitions. He won an award for his script. It was initially based in America so we had to adapt it and change some of the dialogue to make it English. It's about a serial killer with a rare oral condition called anodontia where you can't grow your own teeth. He is targeting a group of university friends, and you get the whole back story as to why he's targeting them, specifically one of them. When he kills his victims, he drills out their teeth and takes them. He uses them to make his own set of teeth.”

Jamie and the team have shot around 75 minutes so far with three days more filming to go. In Worthing he used Northbrook College, the Cellar Arts Club and some office space; in Brighton he used the cellar in the Old Ship Hotel and some big houses in Hove; in Horsham he used some office space to stand in for a police station; and in the Chichester area he used Racton Ruin.

The result will be very much a slasher movie, Jamie says: “It's a little bit like Scream but with a little bit more brutality than Scream. There is some gore but it's gore that needed to be in there and not just gore for gore’s sake. It is not a gorefest.

“It's got a cast of about 70 people. It's a big production. And we've got about 45 to 50 in the crew. I'm not financing it luckily. Some of it is through crowdfunding and some of it is investment from America, and Rhys is putting into the production a lot of his own resources.

“There is a deadline to get everything edited by June 1. We actually started filming back in August last year. And then when it's ready, it will go to festivals around the world. The release is a lot down to the distributors and to the sales agents. It could take a year to get released. You just don't know.”

As for why horror: “When it comes to independent horror, it's a really good market. There are a lot of horror films out there. There are really no limits to what you can do. It is quite a broad spectrum. There are so many possibilities and you can just do what you want to do!”