Urban Legend helmer Jamie Blanks is back in the director's chair. After following up his debut hit with another teen horror pic, Valentine, the Aussie filmmaker fell off the Hollywood radar for a little while, writing film scores and working on other people's movies, before reemerging in his homeland to make the new horror/revenge thriller Storm Warning. The film, about a pair of yuppies stuck in hillbilly territory, recalls the recent Aussie smash Wolf Creeek, but with a decidedly brighter ending. We chatted with Blanks about shooting down under and his just-announced project, Long Weekend, for which he'll return to Hollywood.

Although you?re from Australia, Storm Warning is actually the first feature you?ve made in your home country.

I?ve kind of had the inverted career. I started off with a studio movie, and I sort of missed out on my chance to do my little independent nasty movie, like a lot of filmmakers do. I?ve been looking for a chance to work back at home, and I jumped at the chance to work with Everett De Roche.

When did this project begin?

Everett wrote the screenplay about twenty-five years ago, believe it or not. It?s been sitting around for a long time. He actually sold it a couple of times. My friend Brian Trenchard-Smith was attached at one point as a director, but for whatever reason the project just never got off the ground. And it got brought to me through Arclight Pictures, and I looked at it. I?d always wanted to work with Everett. I?m a big fan of his. I?d kind of given up hope of working in Australia on genre movies, because we just didn?t make a lot of them for a long time. That?s why I had to kind of leave Australia to go and make my first film. The climate?s changed a little bit back home now, so the opportunity to make Storm Warning presented itself.

What are the principal differences between working on Hollywood and Australian films?

Well, I had half the time to shoot the movie that I had on my Hollywood films. I had about fifty-three days to make Urban Legend and I had twenty-three days to make Storm Warning. The budget?s are a lot tighter, but then again I have a lot more creative control over the picture, because I?m able to edit the film myself and write the music score myself. I have a strong editing and music background. That?s kind of where I started, so it was something I always wanted to do, and it was hard to pull it off in America. I had to prove myself as a director before I could prove myself as an editor and a composer as well. So that was one of the nice transitions that I had. Also, in terms of gore and violence, I wasn?t quite so hamstrung about what I could put on the screen.

Storm Warning shares a sensibility with Wolf Creek, but how would you distinguish it?

Well, Wolf Creek is a little different in that the bad guy triumphs and good is crushed. In my movie, we sort of flip that on its head a little bit. Mine?s kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears meets Deliverance. We turn the tables. I don?t take much pleasure in inflicting violence on the innocent. It doesn?t really turn me on, the Rob Zombie-Eli Roth sort of? I like those movies, but I don?t take much pleasure in killing innocent characters. My characters are so irredeemably awful that I can kind of do whatever I want to those characters, you know? [Laughs.]

Right. In that, Storm Warning moves beyond pure horror into the action-adventure realm.

I would say that it?s more of like a vigilante flick. [Laughs.] It sort of blends the horror movie with a revenge flick.

It also utilizes the lighting techniques that you?re known for.

Yeah, I try to give a visual style to my movies. Storm Warning was wonderful because I had the opportunity to work with the cinematographer who shot all of my short films and commercials prior to Urban Legend. We went to film school together and have a very close bond; and he understands the way I like to light a movie, shoot a movie. So that was terrific, in twenty-three days, to have somebody who understood my style so much that I was able to get those results. Usually you?d need more time to pull it off. That was the only way I was able to do it.

With a film like this one, with such a contained setting, does the lighting and music become that much more important?

I think it?s important in every horror film. I really do. I was trying to build a style and an atmosphere and a mood throughout the movie. Actually, the entire film was shot on a soundstage in Melbourne. The farmhouse, the barn and everything was built indoors. So we were literally indoors for about eighty percent of that movie, and it feels like we?re outside in a big storm. So it has a sense of claustrophobia I guess, and I wanted to give the film a stylized edge. I didn?t want to have a completely naturalistic approach. I really love how Greg [Mclean] did that in Wolf Creek. But I really wasn?t going for that in Storm Warning. I wanted a much more heightened reality and a stylized feel.

Could you talk about your cast in this film? You?re working with a largely Australian cast, but you have a French actress as well.

That?s right. Nadia Fares had never done an English-language movie before. She?d done a lot of films in France, and she?s a big star over there. But this was her first time doing a film in English. She actually looped all her movies, previously, in English; and she?s very comfortable with the language. But she?s never really done a film. This was her first time. So it was very interesting working with Nadia. She?s a very accomplished actress and really put herself into the part. She passionately wanted to do the picture, so I went over to Paris and met with her. I was convinced she was gonna be great in the role. So we jumped on Nadia.

Robert Taylor, who played her husband, I?ve worked with him in the past. He?s been in one of my short films, and he?d done The Matrix, as well as that Martin Campbell movie Vertical Limit. So I was a big fan of Robert?s, I wanted to work with him. John Brumpton, who played Poppy, he?d been in my student film, my graduating film from film school; and then Jonathan Oldham he was a wonderful actor. I very much wanted to work with John. The two boys came up to us through the audition process. David Lyons, who plays Jimmy, he just jumped out at me as one of the most exciting actors I?d ever met in Australia. He gave an amazing audition, and he just owned that role, you know? And Mathew Wilkinson, who plays the brother, he once again came to us through the audition process, and he?s an exciting you actor too.

Yeah, there?s a lot of talented people in Australia. We just don?t make enough movies. Some of these guys just don?t get a break. But it was nice to give them an opportunity, and I think we?ll see much more of those guys in the future.

It seems like Wolf Creek really opened up the horror genre in Australian filmmaking.

The way we fund movies in Australia is very different to America. They?re not funded necessarily through private investment. A lot of the money has to come through the national film-funding foundation. The government determines what they?re going to fund every year. There?s been a lot of resistance over the years to funding horror screenplays. So it was only because Wolf Creek was so successful that that climate kind of changed, and allowed a film like Storm Warning. There?s a lot of other horror films being made in Australia right now. I think you?re going to see a lot more of those out of Australia. So it?s just changed the climate a little bit. We all owe Greg Mclean a big thank-you for that one.

The character dynamics in your film are reminiscent of Wolf Creek in that urban dwellers find themselves terrorized by country folk. Is this a significant social issue in Australia?

[Laughs.] It may appear that way in our movies, but not necessarily, no. It?s different. Like I said, the script was written twenty-five years ago. It?s only because Wolf Creek was so successful that these kinds of movies were able to get made again. So it?s nothing really topical that I was stepping into there. It?s just good old-fashioned hillbilly mayhem. [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] Coming from the U.S., it?s hard for me to tell if there?s some kind of tradition there.

No. It might seem that way. We?ve certainly made these kinds of movies before. It?s not the first time we?ve made a film like this.

What are you working on now?

I actually just finished a documentary on the history of Australian exploitation films, that I was editing. A buddy of mine, Mark Hartley, is directing that, and he?s been working on that for ten years. He asked me to cut it for him, so right after Storm Warning I jumped in and did that for him. I?m about to do a remake of Long Weekend. It?s an Australian thriller of thirty years ago, also written by Everett De Roche. We?ve cast Jim Caviezel. I?m gonna be scoring Long Weekend as well. That?s something I?ve been trying to do for a while?I?m trying to establish a precedent by working in Australia a little bit more and having a hands-on approach to that. So when I do my next studio movie I don?t have to go through as many hoops and jump as many hurdles to prove to these guys as well. We start shooting my new movie on November 15th, so we?re well into the middle of pre-production on that one.

What?s your biggest fear?

My biggest fear? Well, I have a little boy now, so my biggest fear is anything happening to my little boy. I?m much more terrified about that than anything happening to me. That?s an honest answer. [Laughs.]

That makes sense. I spoke with a couple of Aussie filmmakers the other day who told me their greatest fears were sharks and rabid Koala bears. I think they were just having a little fun with me.

In Australia, more people get killed on the road everyday than get killed by sharks every decade. I?m not worried about the sharks. And the Koala bears? Are you kidding? [Laughs.] I saw my first Koala bear about a week ago. I was at an animal sanctuary and I saw my first Koala bear. It was not really threatening, let me tell you. [Laughs.]