Actors Peter and Julia Benson have some great wedding-planning advice: pick a stunning location, make sure there'll be good music and good food, and you're good to go. Just don't have a joint guysand-girls bachelor party; things could get bloody.
The husband and wife team produced and cowrote (with Ryan Copple) Death Do Us Part, a horror film about six friends who head to a remote cabin for a pre-wedding party. As the group starts to thin one by one, everyone seems to have a good motive for murder. It's distinctly West Coast, the creepy cabin with the killer water view.
Julia plays Kennedy, a jittery bride who keeps the wedding planner on speed dial and a purse full of pills to get her through the week. She's even brought her wedding gown along for the trip. Kennedy is engaged to Ryan (Peter), who seems to be the whole package, but who is hiding a murky past.
The real-life couple was married in August 2009 on Julia's dad's Sunshine Coast property, where the film was shot and where the murder and mayhem occurs. "It's an amazing location, looking out at the water, it's majestic - The place had horror movie written all over it," laughs Peter. On a practical level, Julia points out that when making an independent film it's a lot easier to have one amazing location to work with and free rein to do what you want.
The film grew out of a desire to collaborate with friends and create their own work. "We have been lucky enough to be working as actors for 10 years," says Julia, "but we just realized we wanted more out of our careers." They founded Married To The Boss Productions, wrote and produced a pilot for CityTV, and wanted to flex their creative muscles further by doing a feature film. "As actors you're often waiting for the phone to ring, and we thought, let's just empower ourselves."
They had an "amazing" ensemble of actor friends from which to choose and very quickly the little film had a big crew (the scenic Sunshine Coast locale didn't hurt). "It's kind of the dream to make a film with all your friends," says Peter of the time spent with fellow actors Christine Chatelain (Sanctuary, Fringe), Kyle Cassie (True Justice), Benjamin Ayres (Saving Hope), Dave Colette, Viv Leacock and Aaron Douglas (The Killing). Nicholas Humphries directed.
The lifelong Vancouverites - she's from West Van, he's from the West side - had to get pretty rough with each other and with other characters in the film's fight scenes. A new form of marriage therapy, perhaps? "We never really fight in real life, so I was curious to see what would happen if we went all out," says Peter. Julia counters: "When Peter first wrote our fight scene it was 15 pages, and I thought wow, do we
need to talk?" For the record, the film is not autobiographical and they did not have a jack-andjill stag. "I don't think they're a good idea," says Peter. "In fact, the film could be a metaphor for how bad an idea it is."
There was a special screening of the film last week at the Rio Theatre
to a "packed house, great audience." One of the great things about being actors in Vancouver, says Julia, is the community support from people in front of and behind the camera. The film is available now on iTunes, and in retail stores and on Amazon as of April 15 - just in time for wedding season. They may not have set out to create this season's best wedding gift, but Death
Do Us Part fits the bill.
After wrapping the couple went straight into their next film, What An Idiot, a romantic comedy directed by Peter and starring Julia, Peter, Kerr Smith (Dawson's Creek), Lochlyn Munro and many of the actors from their first film. That was followed up by another little project: a baby boy, who arrived six months ago. "It's been a busy few years!" says Peter.
