Don Skaro, thanks for taking your time to answer some questions about the film “Abducted by the Daleks”, which will be screening at this year’s Incubate festival in the Pirate Cinema event. It would be nice to have some extra info on this film as it has caused a lot of commotion over the years, not in the least by the BBC’s attempt to get it banned in the U.K. due to copyright infringement on the ‘Dälek concept’, of which the mother ship is of course the ‘Dr. Who’ series, owned by them…

1.What can you tell us about how the film started? Where did the idea come from?
It was 1963. I was in hospital the week JFK was shot (I was only 5), I also remember the nurse wheeling out a TV and me and the rest of the kids in the childrens ward  seeing Dr. Who for the first time and the very scary Daleks appearing. However doing some checks I find that JFK was shot 22nd Nov 1963  and the First Daleks Programme was screened 21st Dec 1963. As I was only in hospital for a week, I guess I must have been hallucinating (due to untested NHS drugs) and actually dreamed up the Daleks before they were actually screened, which quite probably  means that I actually own the rights. My lawyers will be contacting the Terry Nation family.

2.Are you an avid Dr. Who fan yourself? Or did you just like the Dälek concept?
Not that avid. The best Dr. Whos were the 60s and 70s luvvies (Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker) – the rest have no charisma (And Peter Cushings big screen Dr. Who -  grandpa effort was terrible). The new relaunched CGI based  Dr. Who is pretty shite in my opinion. I always was more interested in the Daleks anyway (such an original design), I also  liked The Cybermen, the Yetis in the London undergeround (one of my fave stories) and I think there were some Wasp people once too.  BTW I hear Terry Nation paid the inventor/designer Raymond Cusick a small one off payment without royalties for the Daleks. Hmmmm

3.How long did it take from start to finish to get this film made?
The main thing was building the third dalek (the red one). The dalek is very difficult to recreate with all the angled panels and then we had  to find the half balls to stick on the dress. I actually bought about 1000 (minimum order) from a company that supplied them for vending machines that sold small toys. One half would be transparent and one half red. I got the telephone number off the machine – called them and made the order – I think I paid  £80. It was really difficult making them understand that I only wanted the red half and not the whole ball. We bought stuff from DIY shops to make the rest of the Dalek  but made the head out of Gypsum (plaster of Paris) as we couldnt find anything that was the right shape. I think that People who slag off the red Dalek for being not correct ar basically wankers. The dalek shape always changed and the Red Dalek had the sexiest lines and was by far the fastest of the three. The other 2 we hired. One guy had some Dr. Who stuff in his basement and the other  was from a shop in East London. I hear that the shop was  very angry when they found out what there Dalek was used for, they would probably be even more angry if they found out that one Dalek operator  was apparently having  a wank inside while the girls were doing their nude scene… but luckily I saw no substantial proof at the time

4.These actresses, where did you find them and were auditions involved in casting? And were the robots remotely controlled?
All the girls were exotic dancers at the same strip club. One was Siberian, one Estonian, One Irish and one from Liverpool.  The girl in the 2nd half of the film is Czech. There were no auditions, no rehearsals even, no such luxury. The girls were meant to read the lines from Cue cards as we filmed – it was then that we found out that Sonja could only speak English but not read it. So after Larrissa gave up trying to write everything in Phonetic cyrillic she decided that she would do both parts.  Sharon (the Irish Girl) really tried to act but the others were only there for the money. At that time they were pole danced virtually 7 nights a week and slept the rest of the time so they weren’t looking for extra work. They had no ambition to be actresses.
In the film Sharon strips in the woods  for no reason, this is because the opening  car scene took so long that we were running out of time and had to cut some of the story. Towards the end Larrissa and Sonja were totally drunk and uncontrollable but they were good fun. I would have liked to have played to their wacky characters more if I had had the chance. But I only found out they were like that together on the day. Sharon’s boyfriend kept ringing for her to come home. In the end she said she had to go, so I quickly wrote her out with an unplanned  death scene as she escapes for the sliding doors. And the Liverpudlian girl (can’t remember her name)  got £400 and she didnt even take her clothes off cos we ran out of time. They were all meant to escape back to the woods at the end of the film, where they would be chased by the daleks. The 3 girlfriends would escape but the bad girl would end up running into the (now forgotten) Serial Skinner – ala “Pandoras Box” ending where Louise Brooks runs into Jack The Ripper. But all that had to be cut out.

5.Do you have any kind of formal training in the film or arts field?
When I was 12 I got a paper round so that I could buy a super 8 cine camera and make films with my friends. Thats all. Then, although the interest was there – it was not until DVcam came out before ideas could be realised.  Before that VHS was just not good enough.

6.Do you feel any similarity between the use of readymade imagery by, for instance Andy Warhol (when he reprinted the face of Marilyn Monroe in different colors) and your use of the iconic Dälek concept?
NO. I just thought nudity and Daleks… that would be nice to see.  The film was just meant to be cheesecake erotica. For some reason people seem to expecting hardcore lesbian scenes… I dont know why??? The title just says “Abducted by the Daleks” not “Fucked by the Daleks”.  How can you have Porn and Daleks? How can Daleks do sex? and what has  a 10min lesbian scene got to do with Daleks??? I think a lot of these people who criticise don’t know what they want, they just like to moan. Whats wrong with just having naked babes and authentic  daleks??? I say if a girl takes off her clothes and you have to ask for a reason, then you should maybe question your sexuallity.

By the way all the opening titles were created by me… People are saying that the titles were “Borrowed”.  Thats not true. I borrowed music that I happen to like and thought would fit (Hey its ok if Tarrantino does it). I wasn’t going to write my own music for a film that  I can’t stand up and claim the credit for. Whats the point in that? I think the Pink Floyd  Lucifer Sam riff is pretty cool for the titles and works well.  Theres bits from Godzilla and 50s Sc fi tracks, etc.  A bit like in Turkish Sinemasi, which, by the way, I am a big fan of. I have  Yilmaz Gurneys Ugly King (Cerkin Kral)  (a kind of Turkish Jamesbond) and a load more. I even wanted to make a Modern adaptation of Kilink Istanbulda  (Something like Kilink 2000 -  very comic book style). There are many Turkish clubs in London that would make great venues  but Turkish pulp cinema was bigger in the early 2000s.

7. What other productions are you working on right now? What can we expect to see coming from you in the near future?
I was going to do “Raped by the Daleks” but I think I would be pushing my luck…. so thats it for now. Anyway someone stole the red Dalek….  BTW  – we never got sued – never even heard from anyone, even though many people tried to grass us up  (I won’t tell you what I think of them).

8. Any last words for those who are about to see this film?
Don’t expect a Porn movie.

This was all shot in a one day 12 hour shoot on a freezing cold 28th Dec 1999.  It actually lay around for ages after being half editied on Media Studio Pro  (Jeez in those days a FAST DV card cost £500 and kept dropping the signal every 5 minutes) Then in 2005 I decided to finish it off but after editing I found I only had 35 minutes so added on the 2nd half with Maria Vaslova in a blond wig which brought it up to 55 mins. If you want to check out Maria Vaslova in some stronger bondage situations get a copy of  Nina’s Nightmares. The girls got between £400 each  for the days work – plus  the cost of hiring the Daleks, building one ourselves and building  the sets (which is not in a garage as some idiots on the net like to say … WHO HAS GARAGES that size  in the UK???? And there is no tinsel backgrounds as critics say. The Spaceship was built from wooden 8′ x 4′s and painted grey. The television ball in the middle was actually a prop from “12 monkeys” (and weighed a ton). Another reviewer said the smoke effects was someone blowing a cigarette in front of the camera. We had to professional smoke machines.  And these same reviewers go and praise Dr. Loo and the Phaleks. I must be on the wrong planet….