Manborg is, simply speaking, one of the most bonkers cult flicks to come along in years. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a soldier is killed in battle with the evil Count Draculon and his hordes of Hell. He is then reborn as Manborg \u2014 half man, half machine, all confused badass.<\/p>\n
Manborg teams up with a band of \u201980s and \u201990s Road Warrior-esque science fiction and kung fu archetypes to put an end to Count Draculon\u2019s reign of terror once and for all. Manborg functions as both a love letter to those cheesy, pre-CGI, post-apocalyptic movies like the aforementioned Mel Gibson classic and Italian exploitation gems like 1990: The Bronx Warriors\u2026and as something totally unique and refreshing. It suceeds as more than just a tribute or spoof, it\u2019s a genuinely funny and sweet-natured tale wrapped in a bizarre, stop-motion-animated, green screened, gloriously over-the-top package. I had the opportunity to chat with Manborg writer, director, editor, make up artist, and special effects creator Steven Kostanski about the production of this low budget wonder. We spoke about the movies that inspired it, casting his parents as hobos, and much more.<\/p>\n
Eddie Wright: I watched Manborg yesterday and I really liked it. It was great.<\/p>\n
Steven Kostanski: Well, I\u2019m glad.<\/p>\n
EW: It was really funny. One of the things that surprised me most about it was on the surface level it could appear to be just a silly mash-up movie that\u2019s just a concept, but it actually works as a movie. It\u2019s funny and it\u2019s well-constructed. Was that a conscious decision on your part?<\/p>\n
SK: Yeah, I think, \u2019cause I\u2019m part of the film collective Astron-6, like when we make our movies together like they all have elements of homage and parody to them, but we\u2019re all really just into wanting to make decent movies. Stuff that\u2019s actually watchable and can stand on its own. We\u2019re in this age of nostalgia where everybody\u2019s obsessed with stuff from the \u201980s and whatever. We\u2019re totally guilty of that, but it seems like most things, like I said, they\u2019re just like kind of a surface interpretation, like, \u201cOh, goofy sci-fi b movies! Let\u2019s make something like that!\u201d But a lot of people don\u2019t actually want to craft a story or have likable characters, and those are the things that actually make you revisit stuff. I didn\u2019t want to make things that people would laugh at once and then forget about. I wanted to make something people actually wanted to go back to. That\u2019s actually what works with these \u201cculty\u201d movies. Even though a lot of them from the \u201980s and whatever were kind of s&!**y\u2026a lot of the charm was in the character and the performances and the unique narrative. I wanted to try and craft something like that on my own and see how it would work out.
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Justice, Mina, and # 1 Man ready to take on Hell in a still from Manborg. (credit: Astron-6)<\/p>\n
EW: What kind of cult movies were you looking at when you decided to create Manborg? What were you paying tribute to?<\/p>\n
SK: I was actually watching The Eliminators, the \u201980s Empire Pictures Production, with my friend Jeremy, who\u2019s also a member of Astron-6, and while we\u2019re watching it, he just out of the blue said, \u2018Oh, you should make a movie called Manborg.\u2019 I got really attached to that name and became obsessed, so I decided I was going to devote three years of my life to making this thing. So, it was stuff like that that really influenced me. Like obviously bigger movies as well were an influence, like stuff like Robocop and Terminator. But I felt for Manborg, I wanted to be inspired by lower-budgeted things that were trying to ape those movies. So, yeah, like any Charles Band production. Something like Trancers, the Puppet Master movies, Dr. Mordrid. I\u2019m a huge fan of Robot Jocks. That movie\u2019s a big influence. And also Italian movies as well, like The New Barbarians was a good one. Fulci\u2019s New Gladiators was also an influence. Those kind of post-apocalyptic movies.<\/p>\n
EW: There seems to be a lot of video game influence too. Some Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter\u2026<\/p>\n
SK: Definitely. Mortal Kombat and Doom were pretty much the two games that I would play constantly as a kid, so those all manage to weave a way into any kind of movie I\u2019m making. It definitely has that side-scrolling Mortal Kombat element, but I also wanted to visually have the aesthetic of a Doom-level against the blocks of combinations of circuit boards and that kind of stuff, but also some weird architecture. So, yeah, video games were a big influence. Also Castlevania games were an influence as well cause it definitely has that \u201cbuilding up to fight Dracula as the last boss\u201d kind of feel to it.<\/p>\n
EW: Take me through the production a little. I was really surprised when I was looking at the behind the scenes on the DVD how small this was.<\/p>\n
SK: Oh yeah, well, I\u2019d say we shot half of it in my parents garage, and the other half was in the basement of a store. We shot the whole thing back in Winnipeg, Manitoba. That\u2019s where I\u2019m from. I\u2019m in Toronto now. But yeah, all the cast and crew just lived out there and everybody helped out for free. We didn\u2019t pay anybody. It was basically just doing it for fun. I had no idea the movie would make it this far. I just wanted to make it just for the heck of it. I needed an outlet for my sci-fi, and action, B-movie fantasies, so I made this movie and somehow it\u2019s out on DVD. We shot for about a year, mostly on green-screen. There were a few practical locations, but I\u2019d say it amounts to maybe like five minutes of the movie, tops. And then it was two years of post-production where I was basically working in After Effects: compositing, adding in backgrounds. I built all the miniatures myself and filmed them and then would animate them at a computer screen and stuff. And add the stop motion characters to it. So, most of the movie was slapped together in post-production.
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One of Kostanski\u2019s stop-motion baddies in a still from Manborg (credit: Astron-6)<\/p>\n
EW: You did the makeup and everything too, right?<\/p>\n
SK: Yeah, all the prosthetics I did as well, like all the creature masks and stuff. It was a taxing experience because I had to wear all the hats to get it done. It was fun sculpting all those characters cause when you\u2019re making the movie yourself \u2013 like, I work in effects and it\u2019s a different experience when you work for somebody else. You have to realize someone else\u2019s vision. But for Manborg I could basically just make it up as I went along and do what I wanted and just have a stream-of-consciousness approach to it. Characters, they would just come to me randomly and I\u2019d sculpt it and then they\u2019d end up in the movie.<\/p>\n
EW: When you were in production on it, how much are you making up on the spot? Was there a lot of improv going into this, or did you have it all planned?<\/p>\n
SK: There was a script with storyboard sequences because it was all in green-screen. When you\u2019re just shooting at a generic green backdrop it\u2019s hard to frame your shots and do blocking without prepping the idea of how everything\u2019s supposed to go. A lot of it was just in my head and the actors had to trust me, which they complained about a lot because I\u2019d be moving them around and basically puppeteering them, showing them what they were supposed to do. They\u2019d do a full-day of filming and have no idea what they just filmed. There was a script, but the actors did a lot of improv on set. That was kind of the intention of the movie. I wrote it pretty much as like a straight B-movie, like sci-fi actioner, and the actors were what brought the humor to it by making fun of the character that they were playing and adding these weird quirks to them.<\/p>\n
EW: There are some really funny bits like when Justice sees all the people living in houses made of garbage.<\/p>\n
SK: Yeah, that was made up on the spot! [Actor] Conor [Sweeney] made that up \u2013 this weird phobia that Justice has of homeless people.
\nHe has garbage on his head. Those two hobos actually were played by my parents; that was my way of getting them. Putting garbage on my dad\u2019s head.<\/p>\n
EW: What led to the decision to have them \u2013 all their lines are dubbed. Did they dub over themselves?<\/p>\n
SK: I wouldn\u2019t say all the dialogue\u2019s dubbed. A good chunk of it is cause when we shot it we didn\u2019t have the best audio equipment. The earlier cuts of the movie had the original audio, which wasn\u2019t very good, but actually the DVD, I think, is the first time people will hear it with the redone audio that\u2019s a little cleaner. All the actors dubbed themselves except for the Sarge, Manborg\u2019s brother who dies at the beginning. He was actually dubbed by Adam, who plays Draculon and Doctor Scorpius, and # 1 man was dubbed by Kyle Eber, who, he\u2019s actually an anime voice actor. He did stuff for Dragonball Z and I think he does a character on Street Fighter. So I contacted him and got him to do that voice cause I really wanted him to sound like a character pulled out of an old Kung Fu movie that was just dropped into this sci-fi movie.<\/p>\n
EW: You\u2019re part of Astron-6. For people who don\u2019t know exactly what that is\u2026<\/p>\n
SK: It\u2019s just a collective of filmmakers, so basically just five guys who like to make movies. We all share the same passion for 80s and early 90s VHS era stuff and have similar genre sensibilities. It consists of: Adam Brooks, Matt Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Jeremy Gillispie, and myself. We all take turns making movies and everybody helps each other out filming different roles. Matt, Conor, and Adam are mainly actors, and then Jeremy does a lot of music and graphic design. He does all our title cards and stuff. I mostly do special effects. Everybody kind of pitches in a different thing.<\/p>\n
EW: And what\u2019s next? I know Father\u2019s Day just came out on DVD as well.<\/p>\n
SK: Yes. That was a production we did through Troma. It had a slightly larger budget than Manborg, but not by much and actually we shot it the same time that I was doing the post on Manborg. So I finished filming Manborg and then the following year we shot Father\u2019s Day. But they both technically came out at the same time because Manborg took way longer to do the post for.<\/p>\n
EW: And what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
SK: Well, I\u2019ve got a few projects on the go, but can\u2019t actually make any official announcements yet. It\u2019s just a lot of writing and building and helping other people out with their movies. And right now I\u2019m working at Mind War Production in Toronto. We\u2019re doing a hospital drama, Saving Hope, so I\u2019m doing effects on that. And, yeah, doing some short films and stuff, so, yeah, there\u2019s a bunch of stuff coming soon.<\/p>\n
EW: Manborg 2?<\/p>\n
SK: [Laughs] I\u2019d like to do it, but I\u2019d like to have a little bit more money than $1000 to make it.
\nI would certainly like to see one. It seems to be the interest, so hopefully someday somebody will be like, \u2018Here\u2019s a little bit of money. Go make it!\u2019 Cause, yeah, I\u2019d do it in a heartbeat, if I could afford it.<\/p>\n
EW: Thanks, Steven!