Stuart Gordon's latest offering, King of the Ants, is about to be unleashed on R1 DVD imminently. It's a harrowing tale of murder and revenge, in which the character of Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) is paid by some gangsters to kill a man, but upon completion of the task is abducted by the gangsters and is brutalised and tortured to the point of madness. What follows is how Sean repays his captors….

Taking time out of his busy schedule, the star of this film, Chris McKenna, has kindly given Digital Retribution an interview revealing his thoughts on King of the Ants and of his experiences working with genre veteran, Stuart Gordon.

Digital Retribution: You are no doubt familiar to American audiences for your appearances in several TV shows. How do you think audiences have reacted/will react to seeing you in KING OF THE ANTS playing a character who engages in brutal acts of violence?

Chris McKenna: The brutal acts of violence may be difficult for some to swallow. I think the hardest part is going to be seeing me naked. Certainly it was the hardest part for me, no pun intended (laughing). It's unfamiliar territory for me and anyone who has ever seen me on TV. Nonetheless, the reactions so far have been very positive. People seem to really love the movie and really respond to the character. I'm really proud to be a part of it.

DR: What was it about the character of Sean Crawley that intrigued you and made you want to play the role?

CM: Right away I understood where he was coming from. I know he's a guy, who for $13,000, goes and kills a man that did nothing wrong to him. The worst thing he did was have a wife that was pretty hot. But, in reading the script and the brilliant story that Charles Higson concocted, I bought it and I understood Sean. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I really felt like I understood where Sean was coming from. I could see in that mindset why you would say yes to something like that, just morbid curiosity, desire for excitement, wanting to know if you're capable of doing it. That was the most amazing thing to me was that somehow they created a script with a character you wouldn't call a bad guy, but who would do something so horrible and terrible, the worst thing you can do, brutally bludgeon an innocent man for money. Yet he does it, and you don't hate him for it. You kind of understand where he's coming from. I thought that was so original and special. Intrigued is not quite the word—it possessed me.

DR: KING OF THE ANTS was shot in a mere 24 days. Did you find this to be a punishing shoot schedule? Do you think this helps to give the film its intensity?

CM: That may be a terrific insight. The schedule was grueling—long, long days, hot, sticky latex, fake blood, dirt, sand, [Daniel] Baldwin (laughing). It was a very trying shoot. There's no question that I was affected by it as was everyone else. The shooting schedule, I think, accidentally worked out that the torture scenes and the really difficult stuff was filmed at the end. In fact, our last day we were cramming in shots of the torturing scenes and by that point I was absolutely exhausted. I was sleep deprived, hungry, sore, and bruised everywhere and I do think it helped my performance. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it's good of you to point it out.

DR: Stuart Gordon is well known to genre fans for his involvement in several cult classics, most notably RE-ANIMATOR. Can you tell us a little about your experiences of working with this genre veteran?

CM: From the second I met him, Stuart was a great guy. He's a terrific director to work with. He knows just what to say. He knows when not to get in your way. He's very minimal in his films and directing style. He knew, instinctively, when I was having a problem and he knew just what to say, even if it was just a couple of words like, "Breathe deeper." I'd concentrate on something simple like that, and my performance would get better. I would find the place I needed to be. He was masterful and clearly experienced in so many different levels of media and different types of projects that he knows just how to work with actors and he knows just how to keep the attitude on the set positive. He somehow managed to do that through the entire shoot.

DR: Could you also tell us a little about your experiences of working alongside your co-stars Kari Wuhrer, Daniel Baldwin and George Wendt?

CM: I met George right away at the read through--great guy, very nice to me. Stuart told me that right after the read through George walked over to him and said, "I think this guy's going to be really good." That meant a lot to me, and we've been friends since. We got stuck in traffic together one time for 3 hours coming back from the set, and we really bonded. His wife invited me over for dinner. Daniel, he's a terrifying guy and he's got a story for everything. He was funny and he loves to work. We worked together on some scenes. I loved the scene with him and me in the car—I think that scene came out beautifully. We sat in his trailer and really talked about it and worked it out. Besides that, he scared the heck out of me. He's just a presence to deal with and it really informed my choices and Sean's reactions in the film. He's just as scared of Matthew's as I was of Daniel (laughing). I think it was rather fortuitous casting. As far as Kari, I was about ten or eleven years old and she was on TV and my dad was sitting in his chair and watching something that she was in and he pulled me over and said, "Son, that's a woman" (laughing). I always remembered that. It was his prototype for what a woman should look like (laughing). As a result, I've always been a fan of hers. When I heard she was cast and I already had the leading role, I called him and said, "Hey dad, you know who's playing Susan?" and he said, "No, who?" and I said, "Kari Wuhrer." There was a distinct silence for a few minutes, then the only thing he uttered was, "Oh, son." (laughing). Needless to say, I was very excited to work with Kari. She's a wonderful person and we had a great time together and became friends. You know, there were some pretty hot and heavy scenes, but she made them really comfortable and we had a great time. We had a little bit of wine before the scenes, put on some music, and went and had some fun. We had a lot of laughs and we had a great time. She's a wonderful person. The entire cast was terrific to work with.

DR: KING OF THE ANTS is a breath of fresh air in a world populated by stale crime thrillers and generic slasher movies. However, one gets the impression that both Hollywood and the MPAA get somewhat nervous around projects containing extreme and graphic violence. What is your view on this, and was the brutal and realistic violence in KING OF THE ANTS ever an issue for you?

CM: It was really an appealing factor for me. I certainly don't have any arguments with the MPAA and what they do. As bad a wrap as they get, they do provide a valuable and necessary service. I would not have been surprised to have seen this movie get an NC-17 rating, and I wouldn't have blamed them. But I was glad to see they didn't, just so it could have a wider audience. The violence in this movie was such a draw for me. It was so real and so gripping - That scene where Sean kills Gatley and the moment of tenderness that they have when Gatley is muttering incoherently and Sean is trying to deal with the guilt and trying to put him out of his misery, but can't because the guy just won't die - It's the kind of thing that I can see happening where any of these horrible circumstances actually arise. The violence is what's so interesting and different and special about this film and necessary to the tone of it and to the story that's being told. So it was certainly never an issue for me. I hope that people who have difficulty watching violence will look past it and see that there's more to this movie than just the violence and the blood. There's a lot of deep, meaningful character work and the journey that the character, Sean, takes in this film is really amazing.

DR: You have gone on record saying that you performed many of your own stunts in KING OF THE ANTS. Were you ever injured during the course of doing these stunts?

CM: There were very few stunts where I was NOT injured. We were banged up left and right (laughing). There was only a couple times where they insisted I use a stunt double. I begged Stuart over and over again if we could change the shots, doing everything we could do to see if I could be in the stunt and not have anyone else playing my part. I'm wresting with George and Vernon [Wells]. Vernon is an ex Australian football player, George is a monster, and Loni [Lionel Mark Smith] is athletic. I was wrestling with all three of them at once. We did each other in pretty good. We were all banged up. I accidentally really clubbed Vernon in the knee during the scene were I hit him in the back with a sledge hammer. When I cut my throat, he tries to grab the bottle and he actually fell down on one knee and hyper-extended it a touch. There were all kinds of things happening - Falling down the stairs, hit in the head with golf clubs… George accidentally did hit me in the face with a golf club once (laughing). We were all getting back at each other left and right. No one got seriously hurt and we all had a good time with it--lots of ribbing each other, and people walking around with band-aids and ice packs. We were handing out the ice packs to each other every scene (laughing).

DR: Having now worked with Stuart Gordon, one of the all-time genre greats, are there any other directors you would love to work with?

CM: I would absolutely adore working on a project with Richard Kelly. DONNIE DARKO is a movie that I have watched a thousand times, and it affected me very deeply. He is an absolute genius as far as I am concerned. I would be honored to be a part of anything that he was involved with. I'll be working with Terry Zwigoff shortly. I'm looking forward to that. I think GHOST WORLD is an incredible film. I got a chance to talk to him about that film, and now that I'll be working with him on the next one, I'm very excited about it. I think the script that we're working on is going to be just as good if not better than GHOST WORLD, which I thought, was a terrifically constructed film.

DR: Seeing as Digital Retribution is primarily a horror-based website, I have to ask if you're a fan of genre movies, and if so, do you have any favorites?

CM: "The Stepfather" is my favorite horror movie. My dad made me watch it with him when I was younger to see Terry O'Quinn's performance. He wouldn't normally make me watch a horror movie, but Terry was so great in this that he had me watch it just as an acting study. And, he was right. Terry was amazing, the movie was terrific and very similar to KING OF THE ANTS in retrospect, being that the violence is so raw, real and grimace inducing. My first paying job ever, it turned out, was to sing the theme song to STEPFATHER II. I sung this creepy little song as a child (laughing) for the ad campaign for STEPFATHER II. That was an honor. Later on, I actually got to work with Terry in a pilot called THE CONTENDER. I played a boxer from the rich side of town and he was my domineering father. I told him about the story that I had sung the theme song for STEPFATHER II, and we got to work together. He's such a great guy. It's a shame that the project didn't take off. I would have loved to have worked with him more.

DR: What are your plans for the future?

CM: I have a lot of things on the drawing board. I'm trying my hand at screen writing an adaptation of horror writer Thomas Tessier's book, "Fog Heart. I'm doing a film ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL with Terry Zwigoff and a few other things that I can't responsibly speak of yet. But I promise to let you know when anything becomes official.

Big thanks to Chris McKenna for agreeing to this interview, and we wish him every success with King of the Ants and also for all his future endeavours. The DVD will be available on R1 shortly, and should be easily accessible from most online retailers. Big thanks also to both Joe Venegas (Creative Talent Communications) and Calum Waddell (Shivers, The Dark Side) - without the help of these good folk, this interview would never have happened.