When the Buried Alive Film Festival opens tonight, horror fans will see absinthe-inspired apparitions (The Transmission), a Kafka-esque transformation from outer space (Decapoda Shock), the gothic horror of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven and other sinister celluloid creations. But one film in particular caught Wrestling with Pop Culture‘s attention for its intentionally schlocky special effects and a dystopian storyline that incorporates elements from ’80s sci-fi greats like Flash Gordon, The Running Man and RoboCop with kung fu films and the Dracula mythos to create a dystopian man vs. machine vs. demons battle known as Manborg. It’s not the first time writer/director Steven Kostanski, who does special effects for film and television by day, has created something that is an obvious nod to the low-budget kitsch he grew up on. With a Buried Alive opening-night screening of Manborg tonight, Kostanski discusses his B movie influences, his previous films and possible upcoming projects.

The first thing that jumps out at me about Manborg is the weirdly wonderful special effects. The film has a very low-budget ’80s feel to it. Was that done intentionally or because of budgetary restraints, or both?

All the movies I make are inspired by my love of ’80s sci-fi, action and horror movies, specifically the really low-budget knock-off ones that were inspired by stuff like The Terminator, Aliens and other bigger-budget spectacle movies. I like stuff from Empire Pictures, Full Moon Features, stuff like Arena, Robot Jox, The Guyver, I Come in Peace, the Pumpkin Master movies, Trancers, Abraxas, the Captain Power TV show – all that stuff inspired this movie, and it also fit in nicely with my budgetary restraints. The movie was made for about $1,000.

I can’t help but think that Flash Gordon was also an influence on Manborg, especially those arena fight scenes.

Flash Gordon, to me, is definitely a lost gem because it came right at that time where it was between the ’60s and early ’70s way of doing sci-fi and the post Star Wars system. So it doesn’t really know what it wants to be, and I think it has a lot of really fun, crazy stuff to it. But I’d say that was a pretty big influence on Manborg.

Manborg is part of the Buried Alive Film Fest’s opening night festivities tonight. Where else has the film screened previously?

It’s screened all over the world, pretty much. We had a nine-city tour of Canada and it premiered at Fantastic Fest in Texas in September 2011. Then it did Toronto After Dark, played the Brisbane International Film Festival in Australia and it’s been playing consistently for the past year. And it’s going to keep playing, apparently. It just finished its theatrical run here in Toronto last night, but we’re going to be booking follow-up screenings over the next few months. So it’s going to play once a month. I’m pretty sure tonight will be its premiere in Georgia.

Buried Alive is a horror film festival. Manborg definitely has that aesthetic, but it also incorporates weird sci-fi, kung fu and other elements. What do you expect horror film fans to take away from this movie?

I certainly wouldn’t call it a horror movie, though it has a lot of influences with the creatures and the overall setup of the movie. I’d call it more of an action comedy than anything. With these kind of genre movies, there’s so much crossover with stuff I feel like any audience that has a taste for anything from the ’80s will be all over it. There’s so much cross-pollination of genre tropes that I think it can reach a pretty wide audience.

After the Manborg credits, there’s what appears to be an extended trailer for another horror comedy called Bio-Cop. Is that something that’s actually in the works?

We’ve got some stuff that we’re writing, but a lot of people have told me I should do a Bio-Cop feature film. The short film is attached to Manborg after the credits, much line how trailers would be after the credits on VHS movies. We’re trying to do it properly and get some funding, which takes a long time. But we are writing stuff and pretty soon we should have a big announcement for people. It’s similar to an earlier film I made called Lazer Ghosts 2, which is also a faux trailer/short film that basically condenses the whole narrative into a short running time. That seems to entice people and get them wanting a feature, so we’ll see.