Jannicke, Morten Tobias, Eirik, Mikael and Ingunn are on a snowboarding vacation in Jotunheimen. They are forced to take shelter in an abandoned hotel when Morten Tobias breaks his leg and their car is too far away for them to reach within nightfall. They quickly discover that the hotel was closed in the seventies due to the disappearance of the managers' son. Unknown to them, someone is still living in the hotel, and getting home, or even surviving the stay, isn't as easy as they believe.

Bloody Disgusting: Firstly, thank you Roar for taking the time out to answer some questions for Bloody-Disgusting.

Roar Uthaug: The pleasure is all mine.

BD: What Directors have influenced you the most?

RU: Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez and Peter Jackson, among a lot of others.

BD: With “Fritt Vilt” you clearly homage Kubricks version of “The Shining” with an isolated hotel in a snowy environment and the use of room number 237.

I think even going back as far as Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, the secluded Motel location worked really well. However until “Fritt Vilt” came along I always felt subsequent movies within the genre didn’t make use of this eerie setting in very effective ways. Did the seed of “Fritt Vilt” start with an abandoned hotel or did that come later?

RU: I think the first thing that came were a bunch of snowboarders going into the Norwegian mountains, and then something bad happening. And pretty soon after that the idea of the abandonded ski lodge followed.

BD: The killer is not really named in the movie. What I mean is he doesn’t suddenly become a “Freddy Krueger”, “Michael Myers” or “Jason Voorhees”. In the final credits he is named “Geir Olav Brath” but not once do I recall the cast using his name. He is almost like a dark force of nature. Did you do this purposely to make him more mysterious and frightening to the audience?

RU: Yes. We also found out in the editing room, that the less we saw of him, the more scary he became.

BD: What Direction if any did you give the killer?

RU: That really depended on the scene, but I guess it was pretty far from “method” directions. It was more in the vein of: “Nod your head a little bit”, “Angle the pickaxe a little more towards the camera” and stuff like that.

BD: The killer is brutal and violent, I would even go as far to say he’s evil. I just wondered if this was also hinting that he was evil as a child and this is why his parents tried to kill him?

RU: We didn’t try to hint about that in this film, but in the sequel you find out a little bit more.

BD: The “rule” that “sex equals death” in horror movies has almost become a parody of itself. Movies like “Scream” and “Cherry Falls” utilised this idea for comedy effect. What are your feelings on this theory? I ask this because the first victim rejects sex then violently dies moments later.

RU: Well, that was our little joke on the rule of the virgin dies last.

BD: To me what made “Fritt Vilt” really work was the chills preceding the murders rather than just focusing on the murders themselves. This is what sets it apart from other routine slashers and makes it more comparable to the original “Halloween”. Would you agree with this?

RU: Thanks for that comparison. We really strived to make the characters likeable to make their deaths as emotionally hard on the audience as we could. For me that works better than trying to out-gore previous films.

BD: What was the exact budget for “Fritt Vilt”? It looks and feels like a multi million dollar movie. How did you achieve this?

RU: The budget was a little over 2 million US dollars. I had a great cinematographer, production designer and digital colorist that all contributed a lot in making our Super 16 footage look as good as it does.

BD: The friendships within the movie feel truly authentic. I certainly believed when watching that these could be my friends too. So much so that I really felt for them when things go horribly wrong and to me that’s the key of any good horror. Did you put a lot of emphasis into perfecting this?

RU: Yes, this was very important to me and the actors and I spent a lot of time in pre-production working on their relationships.

BD: Is there anything in the screenplay that didn’t make the film that you regret leaving out?

RU: No, everything is pretty much there. I had a little bit of dialogue that homaged Evil Dead 2 – one of my all time favourites. But the scene worked better without it so it had to go.

BD: Do you recall one funny anecdote that happened during the shooting?

RU: I can’t really point out one incident, but it was a pretty intense experience. The cast and crew all lived in the hotel where we shot the film. Everyday we walked through those dark and dirty corridors when we went for breakfast or to bed. The hotel was a 30 minute snowmobile ride from the nearest road, and there was no cellphone coverage.

BD: Do you enjoy working in extreme conditions like snow, ice and subzero temperatures?

RU: No! We used to joke a lot during production about setting the sequel in the Bahamas or something. Snow and cold is a pain to work in, but it was definitely worth it on this one.

BD: Why didn’t you return to direct “Fritt Vilt 2”?

RU: I wanted to prioritize developing other projects.

BD: European horror was really influential on American horror cinema of the late ‘70’s, early 80’s. Directors like John Carpenter, George A. Romero and Wes Craven have openly stated that they stole ideas from Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento. It seems that America is once again turning to Europe and Asia for superior scares. But now, instead of stealing the ideas they are just remaking them. How would you feel if they decided to remake “Fritt Vilt”?

RU: We have had some enquiries regardig a remake, and I have also been asked if I would like to do it. I think it would be fun to see how someone else would have made the film, but I would not want to make the same film again myself.

BD: Over the last eight years the scariest movies I’ve seen have come from Europe, England and Asia. For example “A tale of two sisters”, “28 days later”, “Ringu”, “High Tension”, “Inside”, “Frontieres”, “Them”, “Rec” and of course “Fritt Vilt”. Yet at the core of all their stories are very “Americana” horror ideas. Home invasion, isolation, revenge, urban legends, zombies and the always popular, teenagers being stalked by unknown killers. However, with some exceptions a lot of recent American horrors have failed to scare their audience using the above themes. What do you think it is that European and Asian horror Directors do to get it so right?

RU: I think in some cases we are blessed with not having so many investors and executives trying to make our films as mainstream as possible. This can open up for more orginal ideas and different approaches, something that could be very rewarding in a horror where you’re supposed to be caught off guard. I also think that foreign cultures, unknown places and these kinds of things help with making our movies scary for American audiences.

BD: What horror film has influenced you the most?

RU: The Omen was one of the first horror films I saw as a kid, and that really woke my interest for the genre. The Shining was another film I watched a lot growing up. And after I saw pretty much everything I could get my hands on: The early films of Raimi and Jackson. Romero. Argento. Troma. All kinds of slashers. After a while my parents’ basement housed quite an extensive library. Before we made Cold Prey we watched everything from The Thing and Alien to Wolf Creek and the Texas Chain Saw remake.

BD: There are a lot of aspiring young horror directors reading this interview. What advice can you give them when starting off?

RU: Go out and film as much as you can. I started out shooting small bloody shorts where my friends got hacked to death, before moving on the larger projects.

BD: Finally, could you see a “Fritt Vilt 3” in the near future?

RU: As the sequel did just as good at the Norwegian boxoffice as the original, I wouldn’t completely rule out a third film.