Going FUBAR with director Michael Dowse

While Take Me Home Tonight sat on the shelf over at Universal, a frustrated Michael Dowse went back to Canada and freed himself with a sequel to the cult film, Fubar – his debut. With Fubar II: Balls to the Wall coming to Blu-ray and DVD April 19th, the director caught up with Killer Film for a chat and why he give’r again to us.

Jon: Fubar over the years, became a quiet cult film, so when did the sequel come to?

Michael Dowse: Actually, we’ve been mulling over it for about four years, around when we finished the first film. We didn’t want to rush back to the sequel, but then opportunity came forth, so we thought let’s write it and if we like what we wrote, we would make it. So that’s what happened. It was actually fun to get back into thinking what Terry and Dean are up to.

Jon: Cult films sometimes have rapid fans, what was some of the things you knew you couldn’t change versus giving the fans a better film?

Michael Dowse: We wanted to do more with the money and do bigger things with the characters. When we did the first one we had no money, so we just used what we had. One of our friends owned the furniture factory, so we would use that. On this one we could actually do bigger ideas that we came up with and do bigger stunts. We wanted the production value to be shot in a better format, but keep the same energy. It was fun to think oh, let’s put them on a pipline, where as before, obviously, we could not. The party sequence is bigger, as it’s also our bridge from the first to the second one. It tells the fans, look, there’s a big action sequence, feeding their hungry, then we could get into the story.

Jon: Did the budget, in which you were quoted as “a lot more” than the first one…

Michael Dowse: (laughs)

Jon: … help in any way to the mockumentary style?

Michael Dowse: A little bit, yeah. Obviously, it’s always nice to have more money to collaborate with DPs and all of these people here to help you on set, that’s the nice thing. We wanted to work, though, in the same style as the first one, so with these people we had to limit them sometimes to keep the creative context between the two films the same. Strange things happen in film, especially when it’s improv. It was a battle to look nice versus keeping it close to the actors, with all of these people involved, yet still making the film funny. I shot on this, shot on the B cam, so it minimized the crew to what we were shooting.

Jon: With this allowance in budget and technology, a fun tidbit from the first film was that the word “f*ck” was uttered 274 times, how did this play out and/or effect the improvised writing?

Michael Dowse: There’s a lot of pressure to make a sequel to something that has a following. We never wanted to rush into the idea by any means. That’s why we wrote it first, to make sure it was good, before we moved forward. It took awhile, but so be it. We all got stuff in it we felt was important to include into the sequel’s narrative. Yeah, there’s the pressure to make it and to make it funnier. Pressure’s a good thing, I think. As long as we minimized the crew and felt we could recapture some of the dialogue and humor, and also putting a woman in between the two, and thought it would be interesting to do to the characters.

Jon: I believe you shot this after Take Me Home Tonight?

Michael Dowse: Yeah, I shot this after that.

Jon: Was it freeing to go back to something you had way more control on?

Michael Dowse: Freeing? Yes! Fubar II: Balls to the Wall was my reaction to Take Me Home Tonight. I did this studio film and did it well, but it didn’t screen for years. Going back to this smaller film, where I had control on it, making it funny, controlling the editing, it was great. It was a really great experience, for sure. (laughs) Uh, so my stance is “no comment” on Take Me Home Tonight. We will just leave it at that (laughs).

When you shoot an improv film like Fubar II, there’s so much extra scenes, but I don’t know what made it to the disc. It’s always fun doing the commentary, too. It should be a great DVD.

Again, Fubar II: Balls to the Wall comes out on Blu-ray and DVD April 19th from Screen Media.