Exclusive Interview: Jonathan Sothcott- Shogun & it’s Future

Welcome back to Action Reloaded, Shogun Films seems to be heading down the path of horror with some really anticipated movies up and coming. What inspired the move away from the gangster genre?

I fell into the gangster genre almost by accident, it was very popular in the mid-2000s during the DVD boom, but the first half dozen movies I did were horrors, just not particularly successful – I did this film called White Collar Hooligan which was very successful and then Fall of the Essex Boys and suddenly I was very associated, perhaps too associated with this genre. People would be disappointed when they met me and I wasn’t actually this sort of wideboy cockney geezer. I did this show for Channel 5 in which a football hooligan came into my London office pitching a movie of his life story to me and perhaps that’s the kind of thing I shouldn’t have done. But it’s all an experience, my wild and crazy days tearing around London with Danny Dyer and Craig Fairbrass. If I could go back and do a lot of things differently of course I would but I’m grateful for the experience. That genre was synonymous with the DVD market and when that collapsed it sort of went with it. I wasn’t really happy with the first two Shogun movies, Nemesis and Renegades (though both had things to like, mostly cast) because they were still kind of stuck in that era, almost throwbacks. So since mid-2023 onwards I see a sort of Shogun 2.0 with the focus on original, quality genre movies that really stand out. The gangster stuff I happily leave to other people.

The horror genre has always been my favourite, as a kid I was obsessed with monsters and dinosaurs and that hasn’t really changed!! Remember at 20 I wrote a book about Christopher Lee, at 24 I was running The Horror Channel. It’s in my blood if you like!

Shogun is a reasonably broad church though, in the fun genres, so not just horrors but thrillers, action, crime, maybe even Westerns. It is my intention to become the most prolific purveyor of quality genre movies in Europe. It’s about building a mini genre studio, a brand that people see as a mark of distinction. People used to call those crime thrillers ‘Sothcott films’ – I’m not interested in that now, I don’t want what we’re doing now to be judged on what I was doing a decade ago. I want them to see Shogun and know that represents a certain type of movie, something new and different. We’re currently in production on our 8th Shogun film in 5 years, which is less than I’d have liked but with the first 2 years dominated by lockdown that’s pretty good going, particularly in such uncertain times for the wider industry.

You have a fun purge style movie titled Helloween which stars the incredible Michael Pare and Jeanine Sothcott, are you excited for audiences to see this?

Yes – the trailer has just dropped, finally and I’m thrilled because I think it may be the best film I’ve made. I’m certainly on a great run at the minute. Phil Claydon, the writer/director is supremely talented genre filmmaker and he’s made something really special which I think audiences are going to love. I’m now three films in with Michael Paré and each time is a pleasure – he’s such an old fashioned gentleman, very easy going but professional – and what an actor! If every actor could be like him the business would be easy. I have been a fan for so long, I love Streets of Fire but also Bad Moon, The Philadelphia Experiment, he’s like a one man who’s who of cult movies. He gives a terrific performance in the movie. What can I say about Jeanine, if I wasn’t married to her I’d still be her biggest fan and Phil wrote such a great role for her in this, a real 80s bad ass horror role, a tough doctor in charge of a crazed inmate at a creepy psychiatric hospital, but also a fierce, protective mother. Alpha female. She’s superb in it. Her character and Michael’s have history in the film and they played off each other really well, they have a great chemistry on screen. It’s Jeanine’s best role and performance to date, she’s just had an incredible run of terrific roles in top tier genre movies with this, Knightfall and Harbinger and she deserves the success I think they’ll bring her.

The film also boasts a remarkable performance from Ronan Summers as Kane, the evil clown villain, I’m sure it will platform him massively, he’s a very talented actor but this is next level stuff. Helloween is a small independent film but Ronan brings a cinema-sized performance commensurate with the film’s ambition.

I am a great believer that the quality of acting is what separates good B movies from bad ones and Helloween boasts three superb lead performances (and terrific supporting ones) orchestrated by a powerful filmmaker. I cannot wait to share this with the world.

It looks very much like a Rob Zombie inspired movie, like his movie 31. Was there any inspiration there?

Not as far as I am aware – I just watched the trailer for the first time (Malcolm McDowell and Meg Foster – I mean, what’s not to love?) I think Phil took a more 80s inspiration, it feels a little bit John Carpenter, a little bit Wes Craven. We also had a wonderful location on this one, the art department worked very hard and built the hospital in a huge underground vault, it was really quite surreal as you have no concept of day and night. And poor Jeanine spent what seemed like days chained up in a cell, gulping in haze from a smoke machine, I think she had PTSD after that. It was a gruelling shoot but Claydon lead from the front and the cast and crew were all such troupers.

You’re not done with the horror genre with Helloween as you have Doctor Plague coming up as well which stars Martin Kemp as well as Harbinger which sounds like a horror version of BIG. What makes these and Helloween stand apart?

Doctor Plague is very different, more of a serial killer thriller really, a kind of horror/thriller, someone described it to me as 7even meets The Wicker Man and I think that’s quite accurate. Martin is a jaded cop on the trail of a serial killer dressed as a 16th Century Plague Doctor who is cutting a bloody swathe through the London underbelly. So it’s completely different to Helloween, which is more out and out horror, as you say like The Purge with killer clowns. I’ve never made a serial killer film before but we’ve had a ball making it. Shogun’s house composer Rob Hughes came up with the idea and I developed it with a writer and I took it to Martin who has been a good friend for a long time. I think he’d sort of mentally checked out of acting a bit, we were both pretty burned out by the gangster stuff and he LOVED it. I had a feeling he would, we both love the darker stuff – about 15 years ago Martin and I had a private tour of The Black Museum underneath the old Scotland Yard which was absolutely amazing – cookers with human fat on, poison umbrellas, I mean it really was mind blowing. I remember walking out blinking into the sun light and we were both a bit shell shocked. So it was a case of right concept, right actor. And he’s magnificent in the movie, I think this might be his best performance since The Krays. There’s a terrific supporting cast too – Peter Woodward, Wendy Glenn, David Yip, Michael McKell, all brilliant. And Jeanine is really, really excellent in this one, she and Martin were a great match on screen. That one’s out in November.

Harbinger is a really old school, traditional horror movie, with a great, original ‘monster’ which is a possessed ‘Zoltar’ style fortune telling machine. Jeanine plays the only survivor of occultist and serial killer Henry Decker (Peter Woodward) who is lured back to his house by opportunist TV presenter Mike (Gary Webster) for a ‘Most haunted’ type show… they uncover the Harbinger machine and try it out with murderous, supernatural consequences. Harbinger was directed by James Crow, who made our first Shogun Film, Nemesis, which was a nice full circle moment. It has a real 80s horror vibe, sort of like if From Beyond was an episode of the Hammer House of Horror series… and the Harbinger is really spooky. We have one day left to film on that and it’ll be out early next year.

It seems like something that could be franchised? Am I on the right track?

Yes, both Helloween and Doctor Plague leave themselves open to sequels, but Harbinger lends itself very much to a franchise I think that’s what I’m looking for with these horrors – original, franchisable characters. We’re going to do action figures at some point, really get into the merchandise side and hope that the audience recognises our passion for them and engages. In this increasingly digital age, we’re trying to make Shogun into a bona fide counterpoint with not just physical media but books, toys, graphic novels, CD soundtracks etc. I was so pleased that Helloween is getting a Blu Ray release in the UK – it endorses it as a quality production.

You’re also teaming up with Roger Moore’s son, Geoﬀrey, for action thriller, Knightfall. Is this set to be a standalone movie or part of something bigger?

Knightfall is a stand alone action spy thriller. It came to me on spec through the writer Robert Dunn (and his cohort James Smy) and we spent a long time developing it, a really long time, but the end result really is terrific. I was always conceived as a vehicle for Ian Ogilvy and he said it’s be far the best script I’ve sent him since We Still Kill The Old Way. I can live with back handed compliments. Michael is in it too, he did a great cameo for us, he and Jeanine have a really brutal knife fight in it, they are both very physical people, both martial artists and it was expertly choreographed by my stunt co-ordinator Darren Le Fevere. This one really hits hard and I think anyone who enjoyed the We Still… films or Renegades will love this.

What was it like working with Geoﬀrey? I know you’re a huge Bond and Spy movie fan, I’m sure this was a must project for you.

Geoffrey and I have been really good friends for many years. The Moores and the Sothcotts are very tight, I think of them like family. We have always talked about doing something with him as an actor – remember he’s been doing it since he was a child when he played Sherlock Holmes’ son in a film with his Dad – but it was a case of finding the right role. I would never waste an opportunity like this. And this was it. It was a joy filming with him, I love that man, as soon as we see each other we just start smiling and laughing. We will usually begin by going through various silly jokes. His wife Loulou was with us for some of the shoot and we had some wonderful down time, the 4 of us. Geoffrey has so much charisma, he walks into a room like a tall light bulb, he illuminates it. They say there are no friends in business but here I am making film with people I really love and we all work together so well – if I could make films with Geoffrey, Jeanine and Martin for the rest of my life I’d jump at the chance – and Michael Paré!

Can you tell us a little about the story?

Jeanine plays Ros Knight a bio weapons expert seconded to a black ops weapons bust with MI5, lead by her boyfriend (Hugh). The bust is thwarted by a mysterious assassin and Ros ends up with a target on her back. After a foreign agent (Michael P) tries to killer her in a safe house, she flees to her childhood home and the protection of her father Charles Knight, a disgraced but legendary spy catcher (Ogilvy). Ros, Charles and Hugh have to defend the house from Ivan (Robert Cavanah, superb) and his ruthless mercenaries who are out to kill them, acting on instructions from Whitehall mandarin Carmichael (Nick Moran). It’s bloody awesome.

Shogun is definitely making a name for itself in the UK, can we expect 2026 and beyond to bring us more incredible movies!? Also, on a personal note for yourself, have dived back into the writing world following the success of your previous book?

Unfortunately I have had to put my book writing on the backburner, it’s a hobby really, but I’m just so busy with the movies and you have to make the most of these opportunities. That said, I’m much more involved in the writing of these films now than I used to be. We’re in production on a Dan Brown style thriller at the moment which was based on my idea and which I had a really good time working on with the writer, Dominic Philpott, but next on the slate is Werewolf Hunt, an epic action horror in the spirit of Dog Soldiers, with a splash of The Most Dangerous Game. It has several credited writers but I’ve done all the rewrites with my old pal Simon Cluett and it’s – I think – the first film I’ve actually taken a screenplay credit on. We’ve had amazing practical animatronic creature suits made bespoke in the USA which are absolutely stunning. They stand seven feet tall. We tested them on the set of Doctor Plague they are terrifying. So I’m excited for that. Ideally I’d like to do less writing and rewriting, I don’t have any delusions about being some great screenwriter, but sometimes it’s just the fastest route to goal.

After Werewolf Hunt we are doing an action/thriller called Killer Instinct, another Simon Cluett script, which is a launchpad for a new action star I have a lot of faith in. I’m hoping to have both of those in the can before Christmas, getting Shogun to ten movies in five years. 2026 there’s an absolutely packed slate – highlights include vampire thriller Midnight Kiss, dark vigilante drama Killing Season, action movie The Star Chamber and possession horror Demonicus. We’re also looking at TV too, though very much within the confines of what we are doing elsewhere. I think one of the reasons for my longevity in this business is a willingness to adapt and this low budget AVOD era really suits me and we are delivering.

This is a golden age for making quality independent British movies. I know that we can be a positive part of that – we’ve built a great cadre of filmmakers, it’s a terrific team and the working environment is great fun. I really want to reach a point where people see our logo at the top of a film and smile because they know it means they are going to have fun.