It's no secret that Positively Horror is a big Mycho fan and so this interview with M.J. Dixon was an absolute treat. Please enjoy it as much as I did!
Please tell us a bit about yourself and your
relationship with the genre?
My name is MJ Dixon, I’m a horror filmmaker, writer and artist, currently
residing in South England, along with my wife I run a Independent Production
company called Mycho Entertainment, under which we produce shorts and feature
films set in the expanded Mycho Universe. A shared universe of horror villains
that interconnects across our movies.
I think I’d always liked monsters and things that drew elements from that, I
was a big fan of Masters of the Universe as a kid and the monsters and
creatures that existed in that space. I think the first Horror movie I saw was
The Mummy, around 6 and that really bothered me at the time and gave me
nightmares and as I got older, I kind of became fascinated with the experience
of watching a film that could do that to me.
When I was 11, I saw Halloween, taped off the TV and, although it terrified me
more than anything I’d ever seen, I loved every minute of it. I became an
instant horror fan from there really, and absorbed anything horror that I could
get my hands on.
I would set our video machine to record over night and then close the cabinet
doors and sneak down at 5 in the morning to see what horrific delights I’d
managed to capture. Doing this meant that before I was even a teenager I was
getting educated by the likes of Cronenberg, Carpenter and loads of other
filmmakers that would forge my outlook on the genre.
Last year you hosted MYCon, where you announced some very exciting projects, is there a particular project you're really keen to jump into?
I mean, all of them fill me with excitement, but the one I think I’d been
looking forward to the most was CL3AVER : MAXIMUM CLEAVAGE, its a film that
I’ve been developing for years. The first killer clown prison break movie. It’s
a very exciting project that brings a whole host of Mycho characters together
for the first time.
Unfortunately, the lead, Paul Rogers, passed away a few weeks ago and so its
kind of put a big question mark over the project and what we should do with it.
Paul played Cleaver and really left his mark on the character, so in some way
it feels like he took a large part of the character with him. I think time will
tell what we do with the Cleaver franchise and if we can move it forward in a
way that makes sense.
We have plenty of other projects to keep us busy in the meantime with sequels
Wrath of Thorn, Bannister Doll Heist and Pandamonium Incorporated and a brand
new entry in the Mychoverse with Strawmen, our take on the killer scarecrow
sub-genre.
Your films have a very recognisable style with lighting and score. Who are some of your influences in that regard?
I have a lot of great influences, a lot of the visual style comes from Argento
and Carpenter movies that I grew up loving. I try to bring a lot of comic book
influence to my work, as that's a large part of my input as a visual creator. I
just always really liked anything that took a bold visual approach and so I try
to do the same. There are a lot of cinematographers that I take influence from
but Dean Cundey, Roy Wagner and Gerry Fisher are way up there in terms of my
favourites. Real masters of the craft.
In terms of music Carpenter remains a big influence, but I also try and add a
lot of rock influence into that work, I spent a long time in my youth writing a
performing in rock bands and so its a huge part of what I try and bring to that
side of my work as a composer.
Outside of massive franchises like Marvel, there really isn't anyone else creating such a vast shared cinematic universe as the Mychoverse. Is it hard to keep track of all the characters and timelines, and was it always the plan to create this world?
Sometimes, its very hard to remember when people were born off the top of my head, so I have tables and constantly have to make diagrams. It becomes even more complicated when characters slip in and out of ‘time bending hell dimensions’ and the like, so it’s a bit of task trying to keep up with it all. Someone created a Mycho Wiki that attempts to make all our nonsense make sense and thats actually been an invaluable resource for me when coming back to various corners of the universe, as after 9 movies and multiple time jumps its still a bit tricky and having it laid out really helps.
I always knew, way back in like 2000 (before it was even called the Mychoverse)
that I wanted there to be a world of characters, I loved comic books and
especially when they crossed over with other titles, and never understood why
horror/slasher movies didn’t do that kind of thing more. I initially planned to
start with some thing much bigger, but when I realised that it was a little
beyond my scope as a young filmmaker I started developing smaller ideas set in
the same world that would eventually lead to an epic finale and as that
developed the Mychoverse was born.
In 2005 I jumped the gun little bit and started writing our first ‘crossover’
movie Slasher House and that kind of accidentally became the starting point for
the whole thing, but the initial plan was to do Thorn and Hollower first.
Sometimes things just don’t work out that way. But Slasher House turned out to
be a great jumping off point for all the characters and kind of gave a boost to
the whole idea.
Its kind of weird, but a lot of times, making a feature is about the same
effort as making a short in terms of pre-production, cost and planning. So it’s
often that we’ll opt to do a feature instead of a short if we get the
opportunity. But when it comes to shorts, exactly the same effort goes in, but
the upside is, that we’re just there for a much shorter time (mostly).
But I think shorts are great for exploring ideas that sometimes would just be
too over stretched as a feature, and they are a great way for exploring ideas
that we couldn’t fit into a feature due to time. Eric: A Tale of Thorn was a
whole load of stuff that I wanted to add to Legacy of Thorn, but the film was
already running just under 2 hours and so it was abandoned at the time. So
getting to put that together as a short was a really wonderful way to revisit
that character and that story.
We also get an opportunity to test ideas, get a feel for them and see of they
have more to offer. Strawmen started life as our short Rough Patch and it gave
us a clear idea of where we could take the story and how it could be expanded
into a feature length film. Its also a good way for your audience to let you
know what they want to see more of.
Aside from films, you've branched out into a podcast network with great original content. Do you have plans to expand further in the future?
The podcast was kind of an accidental thing. It started out as just interviews
of cast members to give to our Patreon members and then when the pandemic hit,
we just upscaled our production to fill the space where our films should be.
Then Anna and Eve brought their show on and then Lewis and I decided to test
drive Gritty Reboots and before long we had kind of built our own little
network.
We’re looking to expand it more this year, with more interviews and hopefully
some new shows. I think we’d really like to bring some new talent on board if
possible and just keep it growing over the next few years and see where it
goes.
Who are some of your favourite people working
in the genre at the moment?
There are so many great creative voices out there at the moment that it’s hard
to pick even just a handful. There are some great filmmakers doing some great
stuff at the minute. Enjoying the work of TIS films as they gear up for their
next feature and they feel like a really fun team who produced some wonderful
stuff with I Scream on the Beach. And of course Maria Lee Metheringham always
astounds me with her work ethic and quality of production, I always like to see
what she’s up to.
And are there any other projects you're involved with that you'd like to talk about?
I guess the obvious one is Slasher House 3, which should be finished by now,
but the current state of affairs has postponed that for now. Hopefully we’ll be
able to pick that back up this year if all goes to plan, and hopefully there’ll
be some cool announcements to go with it.
Outside of that I recently Directed a film for Milton Keynes Film Network
called Roundabouts, written by my good friend Grant Kempster. It’s a romantic
comedy that jumps through film genres and that should hopefully be festival
ready this year.
We’re also prepping our short film The Thinning Veil for Festivals this year.
So far the response has been great and so we’re excited about getting it out to
a bigger audience.
Thank you again to M.J. for the great interview. Below are some links to further explore the Mychoverse:
The official Mycho site to keep up with the latest news:
The Mycho YouTube channel for shorts and more:
https://youtube.com/c/MJDixonuk
The Patreon, where for as little as £1.50 a month you can access exclusive content!:
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