One of my favorite films coming out of the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival was Gabriel Carrer’s surreal vigilante study The Demolisher (our review and behind the scenes look). As a big fan of vigilante cinema, I’m always itching for a new take on what is typically a formulaic genre. The Demolisher is that fresh palette cleanser. Carrer, whose previous film In the House of Flies is also worth checking out, takes a fascinating approach to the vigilante film and after speaking with him it’s clear why: he’s a filmmaker interested in bringing something new to the screen. His efforts paid off too – The Demolisher won the Silver Award for Best Canadian Feature at Fantasia. 

Carrer took a break from Fantasia to talk to me about his influences, his directing approach, how much of a pain in the ass acquiring riot gear is, and more. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for The Demolisher when its released by Raven Banner Entertainment.

The origins for the film started out simple enough. “I wanted to create a stalker film. But that had been done so many times before. So I took a step back and just looked at my previous films. I realized I should do something that’s an exercise and work really closely with the actors. That was the major influence: taking what I did with In the House of Flies and bringing it to The Demolisher. I wanted the actors to take control, basically. Instead of blocking the film, the actors told us essentially where to go. We’d set up the frame, but then we’d watch what the actors did and adapt. There’s so many vigilante films out there that get right to the chase, so to speak, and I always wondered, “What’s their home life like?” I think about all these other things that could be going on in vigilante films, you know?”

This flexibility to allow the actors to feel out the scenes themselves was an important aspect of the film. For his approach in directing lead actor Ryan Barrett, Carrer told him, “To breathe and not to blink. I told Ryan, the movie’s a dream. Even in the dream, there is a dream. That’s what a wanted this movie to be: one massive surreal dream. And when we dream, we don’t really talk. You can’t read. And there’s no real time. You see a lot of visuals and you’re only observing. That was a major point in directing, letting him be in that dream. He absorbed everything around him and focused on very precise things.”

This isn’t the first time Carrer has collaborated with Ryan and it certainly won’t be the last. “Every time I make a movie I want him in it. I know a lot of actors say this, but Ryan really gets into the character mentally. He goes down some dark paths. There’s a lot of moments in this film where it was all Ryan. That was really important for the character of Bruce.” Ryan was also able to tap into what made the film personal for Carrer. “The Demolisher is a very personal film for me too. And Ryan knows me very well. We’ve been friends since age 12. There’s a lot of hidden things in the film that are about the film industry itself. Characters and even objects in the film can be paralleled to my experience in the film industry in real life. And Ryan knows that and how to play that.”

What helped Ryan really get into character even further was the riot gear. Watching a lone man walk down vacant streets at night decked out in full riot gear is trippy and scary as hell, but getting their hands on the costume wasn’t so easy. “There’s a crazy story there. I had a riot gear suit on order for 10 months from the States. It was high end. I had to go through a security firm and my whole team had to go through background checks. It was nuts. Showing our passports, everything. Who knows, they probably even checked our mutual friends. So we finally got approved and we just waited. Finally the helmet came in. Then the security firm said, “Bad news, we can’t get the suit.” I said, “Why? I can pay cash.” He said it’s not that. The suit is from the U.S. and they have 10,000 on backorder. I didn’t ask any questions about that.”

This difficulty turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “But then the security firm suggested we look into motocross gear. Me and Ryan took some road trips looking at motocross gear and it was very much the same as riot gear. We decided to change his character’s backstory so he was an ex motocross rider. So in a way, the security firm contributed Bruce’s story.”

As cool as bruce looks stalking the streets in riot gear, by the film’s halfway point, it becomes tough to root for the guy. This toying with the audience’s moral compass was a challenge for Carrer. “It was tough. I still wanted people to root for Bruce, but I can see why they didn’t. Even though he’s releasing his anger on somebody that’s totally innocent, I still wanted people to sympathize for him because of what he’s gone through. It goes back to every one of us as human beings. Under pressure, we snap on people who don’t deserve it. Parents do it to their children even, you know? This is like that but a thousand fold. With Marie, we wanted to make her strong and make her a previous survivor. We wanted to make sure she just wasn’t some screaming girl. That was important for us, to show those moments with Marie at the beginning of the film so that Bruce isn’t chasing anyone he can lash out on. We wanted to make some kind of connection between them. In the end I hope people think Bruce has some redeeming qualities, when he goes through that trial to his redemption in a way. He’s still a fucking nut job, but he has a little redeeming qualities.”

This climactic chase scene between Bruce and Marie is an impressive cat and mouse game. Even more impressive, it was accomplished with permits. “We shot so much. Jessica Vano has military background, that’s one of the reasons we cast her. We told her she would have to be running for hours. And she was down. In the beginning I wanted the chase scene to be a lot longer. So we shot so much gorgeous footage. But we just had to cut it down. We had no permits, but we lucked out with the time of the year. It was spring and we had an early thaw. We would just go into the streets and just started filming, pulling all-nighters. At some points, since we didn’t have permits, we still needed lights outside. So we would pay businesses that were still open, like a pita shop. We would ask them if we could plug into their power and in exchange we’d order 50 pitas for everyone. They were down with that.”

As a fellow lover of vigilante films, I couldn’t let Carrer go without asking him about his favorites. “Obviously Death Wish. I also really love Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon. I feel like that film should’ve really gotten more attention. It really hit home. Badlands with Martin Sheen could even be considered a vigilante film. That would be one of my favorites. I also love the original Punisher with Dolph Lundgren. I think that’s the best Punisher film to date.”

The Demolisher had its world premiere at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival.