Mike Shaw speaks to the Kent director of rural horror, The Tapes

Filmed in Kent by director Scott Bates, The Tapes is a horror in the tradition of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. However, 39-year-old Scott’s film career couldn’t have started in a more unlikely place.

“Do you remember the TV series Pie in the Sky?” he asks.

“My first job was being a runner on that. Then I got really lucky and landed Alan Parker’s film Evita (starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas). I was only supposed to working on that for two weeks and ended up working on it for 10 months in Argentina and Hungary and all over the place.”

Now a freelance assistant director, Scott has worked on the Harry Potter movies and continues to be asked to work on big-budget Hollywood productions.

“I was recently asked to do some work on Clash of the Titans 2 but I was busy on Waterloo Road so had to turn it down.

“Working freelance is a rollercoaster of a career. One minute you’re having to seriously budget and the next you’re in a five-star hotel in Thailand! That’s why I’m now going it alone so I don’t have to rely on other people and the dream is to make two or three films a year in Kent.”

The Tapes is the first of these Kent-based films and was shot in and around Whitstable and Tankerton by Scott, who lives in Rochester.

“Kent is such an untapped area for filming,” he said. “London is overused and has shot itself in the foot by making filming so difficult and expensive. Filmmakers are tired of the landmarks of London too so it’s a great time for Kent to step up and bring some more work in.”

The Tapes was co-directed with Lee Alliston, another Kent filmmaker who owns the farm on which the majority of the film was shot.

Lee has an equally varied background in TV and movies. He has worked on a number of Bollywood films and also on Band of Brothers and Brad Pitt thriller Spy Game.

Scott says: “Lee and I met on Miss Marple, which is funny when you consider that we’re now working together on a horror movie.”

But it’s not just the directors who have a filmmaking pedigree, many of the cast are old hands too. The story revolves around three teenagers – Gemma, Danny and Nathan – who sneak on to a farm because they hear that it’s where local swingers gather. What they actually stumble across is something far more sinister...

Jason Maza, who plays Danny, has appeared in Rise of the Footsoldier, Anuvahood, Fish Tank and a host of TV shows like Lucas and Walliams’ Come Fly With Me, Whitechapel and Silk. Arnold Oceng, playing Nathan, is known from roles in Grange Hill and Brit-flicks like Adulthood and 4.3.2.1

The stand-out, however, is newcomer Natasha Sparkes who plays Darren’s brash girlfriend Gemma.

“Natasha had just come out of drama school and had no film experience but she’s amazing and definitely one to keep an eye on,” said Scott.

From Kent and trained in Dartford, Natasha has a totally naturalistic style of acting. That her character is involved in the story because she wants to shoot an audition tape for Big Brother is a stroke of genius.

Scott agrees: “Her naturalism is exactly what the film needed. There’s no messing around with her – she was always right on the mark.”

Last week, The Tapes received a limited cinema release, with a full release on DVD next week. “We’ve got a tiny little goldfish and we’ve chucked it in the sea with a load of sharks,” said Scott. “We know it’s a small film but we’re all pushing it as hard as we can.”