Exclusive: Kanigar, a Giant Monster Film in the Making?

According to up-and-coming UK filmmaker, Bevin Wright, Undead Backbrain (along with Monster Island News) were a source of information and inspiration when he began working on his stand-alone giant monster trailer. Whatever the inspiration — and classic 1950s creature features are obviously high on the list  — Kanigar the Undefeatable looks like a nostalgic hoot of a non-film.

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Undead Backbrain asked Wright how it came about.

The trailer was made during my final year in university as part of my dissertation on using practical special effects, I’ve grown up on a healthy diet of old B-movies and the Godzilla movies and so wanted to try my hand at doing a kaiju movie. I was determined to make a really old-school man-in-a-suit monster movie that captured the feeling of those classic movies.

I spent around a year on making the trailer amongst other projects, from getting concept art done [see above], building the props and making the costume from scratch to finally shooting it in small sections over two weeks either in the studio working with a green screen or out on the university sports field with a small crew of no more then four other people.

The Kanigar costume was made from cardboard, papiermâché and fabric, just building it on the dining-room table and having help from my mum putting the suit together, just a very low tech way of making the costume, for example the eyes are made from Easter egg packaging with lights inside.

We asked if there would ever be a proper feature version of Kanigar to go with the trailer?

I still have all the costumes, props and miniatures but am still trying to get my foot in the door of the UK film industry. If given the opportunity and resources, however, I would definitely jump at the chance to make a feature version.

Maybe one day soon Wright’s “little tribute to those old monster movies” will become a bigger tribute!

For more production images, see the Gallery below.

• Source: Bevin Wright via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

Gallery: