Die deutsche Fassung dieses Interviews befindet sich hier.

Since we really liked Postal, Uwe Boll's new movie, we conducted an interview with the german movie-director. That´s what he told us:

Thomas Nickel: It has been quite a while since you wrote the screenplay to one of your films yourself, as in the case of your latest picture, Postal. Why did you decide to return to screenwriting?

Uwe Boll: I was fed up with all the bad reviews, so I thought: “If I get bad reviews, I might as well get them for stuff I write myself”. Then there was the situation with Bloodrayne, which was denied its theatrical release in the US at the very last second. That got me so frustrated that I was in the right frame of mind to say: “From now on, I won’t give a shit anymore”. That’s why Postal turned out the way it did. I simply wanted to do a film that I would find funny myself – basically, a film I can get behind unconditionally, no matter the rating it gets or who distributes it.

Thomas Nickel: Your strategy seems to have paid off – the first reviews of the film have been rather positive.

Uwe Boll: Especially in America, there were some people who gave my films really bad reviews in the past, but after they had seen Postal at one of the festivals, what happened can be called an almost complete turnaround. These people said, “We’ll give him another chance and watch the film”, and of course I was happy about this. I hope that the same will happen in Germany once people get to see the film there.

Thomas Nickel: Reactions at the test screening I attended were really ambiguous – some people were laughing throughout the whole of the film, but there were also some walkouts at specific points...

Uwe Boll: I’ve received reports from two different test screenings, one in Böblingen and the other in Villingen. Both places aren’t exactly big cities, which means that these were not really representative of the German audience. But the bottom line was that about 30 to 35% of all people loved the film and would certainly recommend it to others. About 40% of the audience thought the film was a complete disgrace and an insult to the audience and that it should not be released. Basically, I’m really happy about this kind of test result. Reactions in the US were similar. Sure, most people at the festivals loved the film, but those are film fans, of course. At a regular test screening in the US, a lot of people walked out – more than at any other test screening – but there also were a lot of people who thought the film was fantastic and who said that they would recommend it to others.

Thomas Nickel: It seems that the film did not leave anybody in the audience cold, to say the least.

Uwe Boll: That’s just what I mean – I mean, it’s obvious that I want the film to have this kind of polarising effect. I’m certainly not surprised by these reactions. It’s all good, this is what I wanted.

Thomas Nickel: American culture and a critical or satirical look at it seem to be a theme that’s dear to your heart.

Uwe Boll: Well, to a large part, the film’s revenue comes from the States. Also, the issues you tackle in your film will have to be generally known all over the world. Making a film about Angela Merkel or John Kerry wouldn’t make any sense. That’s why George Bush and Bin Laden are in Postal. Those two have dominated world politics for the last seven or so years. I have to make movies which are about the bigger picture, which will necessarily involve the US. We all depend on America’s policies. If they go mad, we are going down with them. That’s the problem.

Thomas Nickel: What would the ideal film look like to you, if you didn’t have to worry about marketing or money?

Uwe Boll: I just made that film. It’s called Postal. That’s the best movie I’ve done by far and the one I can stand behind completely. Which is not to say that I won’t do another one in two years’ time, but of all the films I have done I think this one is the best and the most important one. I think it’s important because it hurts, it is painful for a lot of people. I didn’t make any exceptions, which is why I also put in the Nazi stuff. Bush is an easy target. I also wanted to show in how far we Germans tend to be such worrywarts. If some movie gets a prize, then you can be certain it’s about Sophie Scholl or about the Stasi… I mean, the movie [The Lives of Others] was good, I’m not out to bash Donnersmarck, but it doesn’t really take a lot of courage to do a film about the Stasi or about Nazis. You can be certain that you’ll get everything you need if you do that.

Thomas Nickel: The way you make fun of yourself in Postal is quite extraordinary...

Uwe Boll: That’s aimed at all the Boll bashers, of course, the one scene in which the creator of Postal wants to kill me while the film is still being shot. Half of the audience will not get the joke. It was specifically aimed at the gamers.

Thomas Nickel: Postal often reminded me of the old Zucker-Abrams-Zucker films.

Uwe Boll: Of course – I grew up with those movies. Kentucky Fried Movie, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, Airplane!, the Monty Python films – I really loved those and they hugely influenced me. The Benny Hill Show, the old Steve Allan shows on television. But also newer stuff like South Park.

Thomas Nickel: What’s your take on the audience’s reaction to your films? There are a lot of sites who have made it a sport to bash your work. Are they merely good for a laugh to you, do you just shrug off the harsh criticism or does it hurt after all?

Uwe Boll: Getting one Oscar after the next and enjoying a never-ending stream of good reviews would certainly be a lot nicer. Basically, I think people are exaggerating a little. There are thousands of movies which are much worse than mine. You just have to take a look at what’s released direct to DVD. If you still insist on calling Bloodrayne one of the 50 worst films of all time, then you just haven’t seen about 7000 other movies which I have seen in the last ten years. I get a really good laugh out of a well-written bad review, it’s not like I don’t have a sense of humour. But certain people are just taking things too far. Take a look at IMDB: you will find that about a thousand people have already given Dungeon Siege a score of one star [out of ten], even though there is no way that they’ve already seen the film. On the one hand, that’s funny. But on the other hand, if foreign investors take a look at IMDB and discover such a bad rating, some of them will go: “1.5 stars – what kind of a turd is this?” They will certainly think twice before buying the rights. That’s damaging, of course, and the point where I actually stop laughing. The fact that something like this is even possible is hard to believe – why are you allowed to rate a movie that hasn’t even been released yet? I called IMDB, asking them how this is possible; they won’t allow it for the big studio productions, after all. I believe there is somebody working there who always opens up my films for rating even if they haven’t been released yet. And that really is the height of insolence.

Thomas Nickel: But despite the criticism, you’ve been incredibly busy these last few years, shooting films back to back…

Uwe Boll: Well, the last few years really have been busy. But I’m taking a break now. We just finished Farcry and I’m now concentrating on the release of Postal and In the Name of the King. I’m not looking for other things to occupy me. I want to attend test screenings and festivals now, things like that.

Thomas Nickel: Tell us a little about your new horror movie, Seed.

Uwe Boll: Seed will be released in German cinemas at the end of November, and in the US at the end of January [of 2008]. At the moment, we’re in a spot of trouble about the rating. That is par for the course in Germany, but even in the US – we did not get an R rating, but an NC-17, which makes it difficult for us to find cinemas which will show the picture. I really don’t think it’s possible to cut the movie. I think the film is tougher than Hostel or Saw, because it is very bitter. It’s not a fun horror movie, it’s very depressing. I mean, it’s about the death penalty, which surely is one of the reasons why the American ratings board thought it so problematic. We’ll have to wait and see – I’m sure we’ll also find a few cinemas in Germany who will show the film even though it did not get a rating.

Thomas Nickel: So you would never compromise and cut the film to get a lower rating?

Uwe Boll: Well, there’s a scene in there which is very violent, but at the same time essential for the plot. It basically sets the tone for the whole of the picture. I showed the film at the Weekend of Fear festival in Erlangen. At first, the audience reacted to the film as though it were something akin to Hostel. And when that scene hit after about 50 minutes, the audience fell completely silent. And there were only horror fans in the audience. This atmosphere persisted well until the ending. Afterwards, I got invitations to other horror festivals, for example, I will be at Saarbrücken with the film on September 1. The Gore festival there is organised by Yazid Benfeghoul, who also publishes Deadline magazine. And he, too, said that the film was too disturbing for him, he did not want to show it. He only wanted Postal. But then I said, I’ll only attend the festival if you’re putting on both films. Basically, Seed is a nihilistic treatise on the human condition. That’s why we start the film with all of these animal torture videos we got from PETA. We want to show what man is capable of, that man is not intrinsically and necessarily primed to do good, but can be turned around by the culture, by religion, by parents or by what’s going on at school. It’s a very depressing treatise disguising as a horror movie. Seed basically is Postal’s depressing brother.

Thomas Nickel: Both films are transgressive and do not stoop to the castrated lows that most comedies aim for these days.

Uwe Boll: Exactly. I wrote both movies in parallel. At times, I was in a good mood, at other times, in a bad mood. I wrote both screenplays in the same mood, channelling it into jokes in Postal and into violence in the case of Seed.

Thomas Nickel: Recently, the New York Post filed a lawsuit against you.

Uwe Boll: Yeah, so they did, and this is what we’re doing about it. First of all – they also filed the lawsuit against the American distributor Freestyle – and I’m sure that their main motivation behind it is that they do not want to see the film distributed. That is their main goal – they would not be making such a fuss if they liked the film, because after all, it is entirely against their political attitude, which is pro Bush. In other words, this lawsuit is not really about the web site in question. They want to discredit the film in public. Today, I also got a call from the advertising agency working for the Red Cross. They heard about Dr. Mengele’s First Aid station as shown in Postal, and they also want to file a lawsuit against us now. And so, things keep piling up. But I do not own these websites, they are owned by the people who created them. What I’ll tell them is, I’m not interested in any of this, you will have to file a lawsuit against me in Germany, I do not even have a permanent residence in the US. So do as you please, but leave me alone. I’m not responsible. And Freestyle is not concerned with any of the marketing, nor are they responsible for the website. They will have to be excluded from the suit, and my lawyer says that we have a good chance that the judge will do so. Then they can stop worrying, because the reason behind the lawsuit was for Freestyle to get cold feet and refrain from showing the film. That’s the world we’re living in. We’ve all got a pair of scissors built into our heads telling us “You can do this, but you cannot do that”, we’re all shitting our pants – I’m not excluding myself here. But if you proceed to say “I want to be on television, I want my films to be shown in the cinema, I want to be successful”, then one compromise will chase the next and you will end up with Nights at the Museum or any other typical Hollywood comedy. Question is, will audiences want to see the next best instalment of a franchise each and every week or will they say, “I will have a look at something different this time, because I’m open for it, because I want to get involved, because I want to think about it“. I’m curious if Postal will find its audience, or if there will be further roadblocks until October which will eventually prevent its US release.

Thomas Nickel: Best of luck, then – I hope Postal will make it into cinemas in the US. Thank you for taking the time!

Text Copyright Thomas Nickel 2007
Translation by Jochen Ecke

Pictures Copyright Boll KG