Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has stood the test of time thanks to both its own merits and the strength of the Universal horror films that adapted it and its monstrous creation to the screen. The novel’s legacy also endures through the hundreds, if not thousands, of other works of art riffing on the core concept of mad, egotistical scientists and dead human flesh reanimated and recombined into something new.
Tyler MacIntyre is probably best known for the excellent slasher comedy, Tragedy Girls, but his feature debut came two years prior with his take on the Frankenstein tale. Patchwork is very much a low-budget affair, but its indie, genre-loving filmmaker heart beats loudly with a story about three lonely women brought together – quite literally – in death.
Last year marked its ten-year anniversary, and the fine folks at Terror Vision have celebrated it with a special edition 4K UHD/Blu-ray release packed with new special features.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Patchwork (2015)
Commentators: Tyler MacIntyre (director, co-writer, editor), Matt Donato (moderator, film journalist, lovable goober)
1. MacIntyre talks about the kinds of films that influenced his own love of horror as both a fan and a filmmaker, and Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator is obviously and rightfully towards the top of the list. He also refers to other “splatstick” movies like Evil Dead II and Dead Alive.
2. His manager, Allard Cantor, played devil’s advocate with MacIntyre, suggesting that maybe this wasn’t the movie he should make as his feature debut, but the filmmaker was adamant. Cantor immediately got behind him on the project, and his first call was to Gordon to set up a meeting with MacIntyre.
3. The film was shot over twelve days, which was “shorter than it probably should be.”
4. While it’s never actually said on screen, the collective “monster” is called Stitch in the script.
5. Jennifer, arguably the lead as the main body of Stitch, is played by Tory Stolper. She also co-stars in MacIntyre’s short film that Patchwork is based upon.
6. MacIntyre attended the American Film Institute with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, with the latter including Patchwork among his very first features. He went on to shoot movies like Hereditary, Midsommar, and The Woman in the Yard.
7. James Phelps plays Garrett, but the role almost went to Jack Quaid. Similarly, Sharni Vinson almost played Madeleine (Maria Blasucci).
8. McIntyre’s given at least some thought to a sequel, and he suggests it would include a setup about how this film’s owl-cat “had gone on and proliferated.” The result would be a series of animal-focused creations that create all manner of fun mayhem.
9. Stolper watched films with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin to help with the physicality of her performance. MacIntyre also showed her films as varied as Oliver Stone’s The Hand and Carl Reiner’s All of Me.
10. They talk about having to prioritize and plan days that would involve stunt work, and that includes times when they took some risks and decided that certain scenes shouldn’t fall under that heading. They were budget considerations, and MacIntyre says those choices backfired on occasion, leading to minor issues, including one “stunt” that accidentally brought real glass into a scene. Thankfully, they never found themselves landing in truly dangerous territory with their non-stunt performers.
11. Donato shares a compliment from his friend, a self-described loud, angry feminist, who watched the film and said, “There are few men who can write women, and Tyler is one of them.” Having had the honor of meeting Amelia Emberwing in person, I can confirm that this is a pretty big deal endorsement of MacIntyre’s writing and characters.
12. There are various character traits and themes at play here among the three leads (Stolper, Blasucci, and Tracey Fairaway) that come, in large part, from the filmmakers being in their twenties at the time. From loneliness and the fear of being alone, two different things, to the kinds of predatory concerns that would eventually blossom into the “Me Too” movement, the film is very much the product of young people trying to find their way in Los Angeles.
13. MacIntyre’s second-favorite John Carpenter movie is Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Reader, trust me when I say that I was tempted to stop listening to the commentary right there. “I get a lot of shit,” he adds, and it’s entirely possible I may have muttered “clearly not enough” to an otherwise empty room.
14. The frat house rampage plays to a song by Generationals called “Ten-Twenty-Ten.” The band wouldn’t sign off on its use here until they saw the scene itself, and obviously, they were pleased with the results.
15. “It’s probably the weirdest thing we’ve done in our apartment,” says MacIntyre after the film’s rambunctious sex scene. Garrett’s apartment is actually MacIntyre’s own apartment in Koreatown, and this was the one scene that his neighbors complained about hearing.
16. Garrett is wearing a brown t-shirt at 1:00:24 with an 8-bit sprite image on it that’s actually the lead character from Dead Alive. It was made for the film, but MacIntyre really could have earned back some of the goodwill he lost after that Memoirs of an Invisible Man debacle by producing this shirt for sale. Missed opportunity there.
17. It takes until 1:10:32 for someone to mention Frank Henenlotter’s brilliantly weird Frankenhooker, and it comes when MacIntyre admits that he hadn’t seen that film yet when Patchwork went into production. He and co-writer Chris Lee Hill actually took a day in the middle of filming and made a point of closing that gap, and they were pleasantly surprised to see some similar elements to what they had found on their own.
18. The film ends with the reveal that the recently deceased Garrett has been Frankensteined back to life, and MacIntyre suggests that a follow-up would also have explored that the two bumbling lab techs (Eric Edelstein, Craig Anstett) are now part of him. Between that and the promised return of owl-cat, the commentary really leaves you wanting that sequel to happen.
Quotes Without Context
“I’m always amused by how dead Tracey managed to look in this scene.”
“We do not have the time to shoot any of these scenes right.”
“I’ve been, over the years, saddled with people I did not want to cast.”
“There’s a certain type of post-art school douchebag that this is channeling.”
“There’s a lot of amateur wig experts out there.”
“I cut myself out of the movie. That’s the first lesson of doing a director’s cameo.”
“Dating in L.A. is hard.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.