Great Guns director Ilya Naishuller goes insane again on Biting Elbows’ single ‘The Stampede’
18 months ago a video named Insane Office Escape that accompanied critically-acclaimed Russian rock band Biting Elbows’ single ‘The Stampede’ hit the Internet.
Directed by Great Guns’ Ilya Naishuller, also the band’s front man, it caused quite a sensation online, quickly going viral and amassing nearly 2 million hits in a matter of days.
This week saw the release of the film’s sequel, the subtly entitled ‘Bad Motherfucker’, an insanely bold piece of branded content for the Russian vodka company Neft which also doubles as the promo for the band’s next single, whose name it shares. The oil drum shaped product makes a hilarious appearance at the very beginning of the film and its logo also pops up in the unlikeliest of locations later on in the film too.
Just like the band – who since the original film have released a critically acclaimed album, opened for Placebo & Guns and Roses and headlined major festivals all over Russia – the sequel, unofficially dubbed ‘Insane Office Escape 2’, turns everything up to eleven, taking the action to bigger, bolder and bloodier places this time around.
So much so in fact, that within hours of its explosive viral debut on YouTube, the video was pulled owing to its extreme content. It is now back on YouTube.
Shot on Go Pro cameras over 9 days with a crew of 5 professional stuntmen and 40 friends of the band, the film picks up moments after the ending of the first film.
“The idea was very simple,” adds Naishuller. “To shoot a very fun, exciting and relentless five minutes of action that can be enjoyed, with tongue firmly in cheek, for all its guilty excess and irreverence. Nothing more. Nothing less. I hope we have succeeded in our mission.”
The film, the majority of which was shot in a huge factory city in Moscow (with additional shooting in the French Alps) features one sequence at its beginning that will undoubtedly get some attention. Naishuller is keen to point out that this particular stunt was “performed by a stu#ed toy loaded with 12 kilos of bricks. I assure you no animals were harmed during the making of this film.”
Which is more than can be said of the crew. “Yeah”, he chuckles, “we got hurt quite a bit, even though we had several professional stuntmen on board. Even my ear got a bit messed up when I forgot to wear earplugs whilst getting shot at by an AK47 loaded with blank rounds from only two meters away.”