‘Thorns’ pays homage to vintage way of filmmaking

ROYAL OAK— Director and writer Douglas Schulze paid homage to the early stages of cinema by creating his newest movie, “Thorns.”

“Thorns” was entirely shot in Michigan at the Motion Picture Institute in Troy and in the Upper Peninsula.

Schulze is a Detroit native who lives in Royal Oak. He is most well-known for his work on 2015’s “The Dark Below,” 1992’s “Hellmaster” and 2002’s “Dark Heaven.”

“For 25 years I have had a film institute in Troy, and I am a Royal Oak resident,” Schulze said. “My day job is to run the institute with 20 other industry technicians and professionals, and we teach a curriculum and a program.”

“There is so much soundstage space,” he said. “On the weekends, I indulge in my lifelong hobby and passion for filmmaking, and that’s where ‘Thorns’ was largely filmed — on the stage of MPI.”

Using editing, the crew would put the shots together from the Upper Peninsula and soundstages of MPI to make it seem as if this was all shot in one place.

The idea stemmed from his love and fascination with the era of cinema that did not use CGI, taking inspiration from films like “Hellraiser,” “The Thing,” and “Alien.”

“Sometimes I wish I could time travel back there,” Schulze said. “So I thought, ‘Why not make that my next movie?’”

The film also features Doug Bradley, a horror icon who played Pinhead in the 1987 movie “Hellraiser,” but his experience in the “handmade props” department neither pushed him to accept the job nor made him question taking it.

Bradley said he did not even know prior to speaking with Schulze that the movie “was a retro homage to movies of the ‘Hellraiser’ period.”

“I was only judging the script on its own merits, same as I would any other script that has come to me,” he said.

Eighties horror movies often use “trickery” in their films to create a sense of realness when they utilize special effects, according to Schulze and Bradley.

“CGI is a magnificent tool, and it enables filmmakers to do things that otherwise would simply not be possible,” Bradley said. “It repeats itself; you almost feel like you see explosions in movies and you think, ‘I think I saw you in another movie.’”

He also mentioned that CGI is perfect, and it does not make mistakes.

“With handmade effects, accidents happen. Jean Cocteau said that the mistakes and accidents are where poetry is born,” Bradley said.

Schulze did not want to spoil the movie magic used in “Thorns,” but he did say there were some instances of trickery used to create this movie.

“Dan Phillips served as the main makeup artist on set. He would just show up and have these wild ideas, and then the task was how we would shoot it,” he said.

“We had to ask ourselves how we would use editing, camera angles, and sound effects to make the audience think they are seeing something real.”

According to a press release, “Thorns” has gotten “rave reviews,” from film festivals including Sitges, Brigadoon Festival, FrightFest in London, Monsters of Film, and was the closing night film at the New York City Horror Film Festival. “Thorns” will be showing at select Emagine Theaters beginning on Feb. 23. The film will be shown at Emagine Royal Oak, Emagine Canton, Emagine Novi and Emagine Rochester Hills.