Push the Button. You’ll Know When.

Welcome to Thames, New Zealand. Population: 7,518 – and falling. Unless of course you’re
Johnny (Anton Tennet), the new member of a local gang led by Shelton (Jonathan Brugh,
What We Do in the Shadows). He’s multiplying.

Production Year: 2018

Region Code: B
Running Time: 96
Number of Discs: 1
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: 5.1 / 2.0
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Colour: Colour

Johnny (Anton Tennet) is an idiot. He’s part of a gang working for a small time crook Shelton (What
we do in the Shadows Jonathan Brugh) in Thames, New Zealand. Shelton wants his gang to steal
money from the local Chinese gang, to show them who is boss, but Johhny and his friend decide to
rip off Shelton and set up their own gang. In doing so, Johnny also steals a Chinese bracelet, meant
for the girl he is starting to fall in love with, Shelton’s sister Kelly (Hetty Gaskell-Hahn). However
when he is caught, then chased by Shelton’s gang, Johnny realises that the bracelet has ‘powers’,
that when you ‘push the button’ it sends you back in time. Now Johnny finds himself with multiple
versions of himself, and decides to set up his own gang. Only trouble is, not only are Shelton and the
Chinese after him, a demon is after him too.

‘Mega Time Squad’ comes in a nice package from Arrow Video, Director Tim Van Dammen has put
together a goofy scifi comedy, which at a brisk 80 minutes doesn’t outstay its welcome.

I love Kiwi genre films. They are possibly my favourite go-to films for some lighthearted fun. Some
of my favourites include Housebound, Deathgasm, Black Sheep, Peter Jackson’s Braindead. Having
such a similar sense of humour to us Brits it comes across a quite charming and quirky. The whole
time travel aspect isn’t particularly original or clever, but it is funny to see multiple versions of the
same idiot character making the same idiotic mistakes. There is the aforementioned demon
knocking at the proverbial door to keep the whole thing moving forward but at the heart of it, this
film is all about trying to make the best version of yourself, and with the time travel aspect, this is
taken quite literally.

Mega Time Squad does come with a few niggly points. First, the introduction of Kelly making a
bomb vest I felt was possibly a bit tasteless, but it only seemed to be there to allow a payoff later,
where maybe something else, potentially a bit more clever could have been inserted. It’s also tricky
to keep the slightness of the plot moving at times, but it was fab to see all of these Kiwi actors that I
recognised from other films being given fun things to do (like Milo Hawthorne from Deathgasm, for
example). The performances are fun, Mike Newport’s synth score is fun and retro. It doesn’t take
itself AT ALL seriously. This is the perfect film to watch with your mates, pizza & beer, it is very very
silly and leaves you with a smile on your face. If you have no mates, you can always head down to
your local mystical Chinese store, grab a bracelet and ‘push the button’?

Sound and vision are fine, if nothing amazing to write home about. Because of the low budget, Van
Dammen had to shoot the film as static as possible for all the visual effects to work. This gives the
film reason to move in the end, which it does admirably well. The sound in a 5.1 mix is again fine,
but nothing earth shattering. This is not a film you would pick up for as a reference disc.

Extras on this Arrow release include a commentary by writer/director Van Dammen. It is a bit
start/stop with Van Dammen admitting that he is new to the whole audio commentary thing. He
often ends up just watching the film, rather than telling us anything about it. Better is the Frightfest
presents interview, where Van Dammen again talks about the genesis of his project with Paul
McEvoy, who is clearly besotted by the film. There is quite a lot of crossover between this and the
commentary, but there just seems to be a bit more energy infused into this interview.

Finally there is a stills gallery and a booklet with new writing on the film by Anton Bitel.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

 High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation

 Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and uncompressed stereo PCM soundtracks
 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio music and effects track
 Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
 Audio commentary by director Tim van Dammen
 Mega Time Squad: The FrightFest TV interview, director Tim van Dammen talks to
FrightFest's Paul McEvoy
 Extensive image galleries
 Original trailers
 Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork options

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the
film by Anton Bitel

IN CONVERSATION WITH TIM VAN DAMMEN

Last seen as a Street Demon in Jason Lei Howden’s FrightFest favourite

DEATHGASM, Tim Van Dammen steps behind the camera for one of the Arrow
Video FrightFest open night attractions MEGA TIME SQUAD.

FrightFest - You played a Street Demon in director Jason Lei Howden’s FrightFest favourite
DEATHGASM. Is the New Zealand film community that small?

Van Dammen - I didn’t play a street demon; I am a street demon. The film community in NZ is
small enough for most active people to know most other active people – but the genre scene is
small enough for us all to know each other by at least one degree of separation. Many of my
friends worked on or acted in Deathgasm and they needed a night shoot of ‘street demons’ so I
donned my tie-dye and offered to help out. It was a lot of fun and I think Jason and the team
did an incredible job.

FrightFest - Have you met Peter Jackson and do you see him as the ultimate Kiwi role model?

Van Dammen - I have met some of his major long-time collaborators like Richard Taylor
(production designer) who put me in touch with Jamie Selkirk (editor/post supervisor) who
mentored me through the postproduction of Romeo and Juliet, so I spent a lot of time at Park
Road Post but I have never met Peter Jackson. He is certainly one of the great Kiwi legends
and for filmmakers he would be the ultimate role model. His work has inspired me since I was
five years old and living in a caravan when I saw a news piece about Bad Taste being selected
for Cannes. I remember my dad laughing his arse off about the sheep being hit by the rocket
launcher and ever since then I wanted to be a filmmaker. Then when Braindead came out I
realised that filmmaking was something I might be able to do – I just needed to find a fresh
approach. I still remember gagging as Tim Balme pulls the dog tail from his mother’s throat…
Braindead is so good.

FrightFest - Not many people get to write with William Shakespeare as you did with your 2013
feature debut ROMEO AND JULIET: A LOVE SONG. That must have been a great
experience?

Van Dammen - Haha, yeah, I think that credit was a legal thing. Shakespeare really didn’t
deserve it, after all he only wrote the verse. I’ll give you a moment to recover after that hilarious
joke… It was fun trying to Kiwify Romeo and Juliet but the difficult part was filming it as an
opera. Coming from music videos I was used to shooting to music but to shoot the full play in
its entire original text, all set to a series of songs, and to try to make it emotionally moving was
a major challenge. It taught me that I had a lot to learn in terms of storytelling.

FrightFest - You directed over 180 music video for some top Kiwi and International acts. Can
you name some we would have seen?

Van Dammen - It’s hard to tell which videos you may know because the music scene varies so
vastly from country to country. My band, Collapsing Cities, was signed in the UK around
2008/9 and we toured and did the big festivals so maybe you saw something then. I used to
make at least a video a week so it’s hard to remember them all. My most popular videos were
‘Just a little bit’ - Kids of 88, ‘Standing in the rain’– Sola Rosa, ‘Autumn’ – Artisan Guns, some
The Naked and Famous stuff… but these were more popular in Aus, NZ, Germany and the
US… the UK is pretty unique in its music scene; when my band supported the Artic Monkeys I
was surprised to see that they had platinum records hanging on the wall at XFM…so
antipodean.
FrightFest - Where did you get the idea for the MEGA TIME SQUAD script?

Van Dammen - I wanted to do a time travel movie and I thought it would be cool if it were
about a guy who went back in time to hang out with himself. But then I wondered if it would
funny if he jacked himself off... Then he would feel weird about it and go back in time again to
stop himself from jacking himself off and there would be this weird love triangle between a
series of copies of the same guy. Then I came to my senses and realised that there was a
better way to approach this idea. What if he helped himself commit a crime or escape the
punishment for committing a crime? What if he time travelled to help himself steal a bunch of
cash but once he got it he didn’t want to share the cash with himself? What if he time travelled
so much that the various versions couldn’t remember which version was which? Then what if
they started killing each other? This seemed like a better angle than a wankfest.

FrightFest - Time travel stories can often be so convoluted, how did you avoid that?

Van Dammen - I drew a kind of map of the time travel and decided that the only “rule” was that
when John time travels he moves in time but not in space. I was more focused on how to make
time travel new again or at least address it from a less familiar perspective. I felt like we’d seen
enough time travel movies where we follow the same character going back over and over
again so I wanted to show the story from more of a third person point of view. We travel with
John the first couple of times but after that we follow whichever version of John is driving the
story. It’s not really about time travel, it’s about a lovable idiot with a time travel device who
thinks time travel is cool because he gets to hang out with earlier iterations of himself.
FrightFest - Any favourite time travel movies you looked at for inspiration?

Van Dammen - I watched as many as I could find and I loved most of them but the one that
influenced the way this film worked was Time Crimes. Mega Time Squad is a very different film
in both tone and premise but it’s similar in that there are multiples of the same guy in the same
timeline and that’s what Time Crimes achieved very well. You’ll notice a dozen or so nods to
various movies in the Mega Time Squad but they are not so much influences on the film;
instead they are films that I imagine that John (the main character) thinks he’s in.

FrightFest - Did your script have to be so vulgar, or is that the NZ way?

Van Dammen - I didn’t notice it was so vulgar until the sound designer played it to his kids.
While I was writing it I was spending a lot of time with my dad and that’s how we talk. A big
chunk of the dialogue is made up of direct quotes from my dad and his mates. I wouldn’t say
‘it’s the Kiwi way’ but I do think New Zealanders and Australians have a more relaxed and
cheerful attitude towards vulgarity than many other parts of the world. Etymology section of
answer: I was recently in Rome where I saw an original ‘vulgar’ fresco on the wall of a church
from 150AD depicting the Emperor instructing slaves who were dragging St Clemente out of
the ocean and the text in the fresco read “Hurry up you sons of bitches!” That’s where the term
‘vulgar’ comes from.

FrightFest - MEGA TIME SQUAD features some amazing special effects considering, one
assumes, the low budget. How did you manage it?

Van Dammen - I’ve been deep into VFX software since I started my career as a video artist
showing in art galleries until my band was signed and I moved into making music videos and
then into making films. After spending years making VFX-heavy content and then doing the
VFX on Romeo and Juliet and some more on Deathgasm I have a pretty good command of the
discipline. I understood that there were going to be a lot of constraints around the formal
aspects of the film because, as you mention, we had no money. So I needed to work around
that with regard to camera movement, for example, while still being able to pace the film and
give it a cinematic feel. It was a challenge, and if my past endeavours hadn’t taught me the
limits of what I could pull off competently at this budget level, I probably would’ve felt that I’d
bitten off more than I could chew. As far as conceptualisation, my only rule on Mega Time
Squad was that I wanted the VFX to be inherently silly while remaining cool and being
something that I hadn’t seen before. Hopefully that’s what James and I achieved.

How would you best describe MEGA TIME SQUAD?

Its an absurd time travel crime comedy with a big heart about a loveable rural idiot with modest
aspirations who uses a time travel bracelet to steal the money needed to fulfil his dream of
moving to the neighbouring town… but he fucks up the time travelling bit.

MEGA TIME SQUAD plays at Arrow Video FrightFest on Thurs 23 August, Cineworld Leicester
SQ.