Interviews
[Interview] Nicolas Winding Refn Talks ‘Maniac Cop’, Dark Rituals and the Plus Side of Polarizing Your Audience
“Polarizing is the greatest achievement in any art form, even in cinema” exclaims Nicolas Winding Refn, the always controversial Danish filmmaker who brought us such niche gems as Drive and Only God Forgives. His latest foray into the cinematic world is a film called The Neon Demon, a highly divisive project about a girl named Jesse who comes to Los Angeles in search of a modeling career, only to be devoured by her jealous peers as she struggles to claw her way to the top. Some call it brilliant, some call it hollow, but one thing’s for sure – everyone who has seen this visually stunning little movie has felt some sort of strong reaction, whether it be love or hate.
“Artistically you can’t ask for anything higher in a way because it’s very difficult to polarize, you know?” Some directors may be offended by the backlash of one of their features, but Refn doesn’t shy away from the fans and critics who have so harshly judged his journey into the mindset of a narcissistic sixteen-year-old girl. He believes it only proves that he’s doing what he set out to do as a filmmaker – touch people. “You have to penetrate a lot of brains to either be excited or hateful, so of course, I always believe that creativity is about a reaction” Refn says happily. “You know, it’s the reactionary medium”.
Speaking of eliciting a reaction, Refn’s next film seems like it’s going to cause just as much outrage as his highly stylized model movie. The only difference is; this time he’ll be offending viewers from the producers’ position as opposed to the director’s chair.
It’s been fairly well known for some time now that Refn will be producing the upcoming remake of Maniac Cop, the sleazy exploitative thriller originally helmed by William Lustig and starring Bruce Campbell from 1988, but whereas the original sought mainly to excite and shock audiences, the remake will serve as more of a commentary on modern day society and the ever debatable actions of law enforcement in today’s corrupt world. Reimagined by director John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Universal Solider: Day of Reckoning), it will be fascinating to see what his politically-charged version of the cult classic will look like once it hits the big screen.
“My goodness, the election in the U.S.” sighs Refn with an air of exhausted distaste. “I think that one of the point of views that was very important to both John and I, and also Ed Brubaker who wrote the script, was to really find a zeitgeist, you know mirroring the times that we’re living in in the U.S. and what’s happening all around us in the world in a way. So I think that my Maniac Cop should be much more reflective of what’s around us. Again, you know, it’s John Hyams movie, he’s the one who’s directing it, but I also know that he’s very much involved in politics, and so to incorporate that into an action film, or a horror film, thriller, whatever, the mix of that genre is just going to make it more exciting, I feel. You know it’s what’s happening in law enforcement, you know, it’s very terrifying for both sides, and I think there’s a great movie in that”.
Maniac Cop may have gained a reputation as Refn’s most notorious upcoming producing project, but it’s not the only title on his already overworked slate. He’s also producing the remake of the beloved Witchfinder General, also known as The Conqueror Worm, a 1968 splatterfest originally starring Vincent Price and directed by Michael Reeves. Much in the same way that Maniac Cop will be updated with the same sense of shock but a wholly new modern day twist, Witchfinder General will seek to capitalize on the already present paranoia embedded within the original film.
“Well I think with the three films that I own, I kind of, they came to me in strange ways, I never seek them out but they kind of came to me as opportunities” explains Refn carefully. “I felt that each film had a very interesting premises that could be reinterpreted, like Maniac Cop. You know Witchfinder General, which is a very in a way, what we’re experiencing today in our society, the paranoia just to have a conversation, and I think that was the original movie that I think Massimo was very good at catching, the counter culture vehicle, so it’s finding that new version of that, and a gory horror film about religion, and it’s certainly a good time to do that (laughs) with the way the power plays in the United States, it seemed like something very important to touch upon”.
It seems only right that Refn would be behind the scenes on an upcoming film about witches when his most recent endeavor, The Neon Demon, focuses on the dark arts as well – at least according to him. In the film, both the moon and the eye act as recurring motifs throughout the feature. When asked about the symbolism behind their linked presence, Refn explained how his rutilant spectres are derived from Pagan roots.
“The moon is a very important symbol when it comes to anything ritualistic, whether it’s the blood or the cycle or menstrual blood, the moon is very much defined by that, that deity, there is an alien force around us, and kind of supernatural ability. And of course, the eye is also round, and when Jesse tells her boyfriend about how she would always talk to the moon, asking if it saw her, of course the eye is round and it sees, and it’s very much embedded in witchcraft, so the whole film in many ways can be seen as a ritual”.
It’s a fascinating way of looking at things, this unholy perception of the cutthroat world of modeling in Los Angeles. Refn then goes even further to connect the dots of his analysis.
“For example, in the coven there are three women, which makes up the triangle in each corner. Also, the one that sees [Jesse] first is the Ruby character, Jena Malone, and her first words in the film are ‘Am I staring?’ And you see that they see her as something that is an ingredient to their witchcraft, and that the two other models are kind of the lower rank of witches, where you know, Jena Malone is the queen witch, and they all have to go through a process of devouring Jesse, and each one has a different reaction to it”.
From there, considering the notion that the three main girls, Ruby, Gigi, and Sarah, make up the three members of the coven, who then is Jesse in this scenario? According to Refn, she is actually the ‘Neon Demon’, in all her gold-coated glory.
“Jesse is in a way both the innocence and the beauty and the purity that they so desire but at the same time she’s also the force that they need to complete the ritual, so it’s almost like parallel worlds that collide. Because you see, Jesse is herself an entity that has through her own evolution of a ritual of beauty, becomes the ultimate narcissist claiming that she’s dangerous and that her mother always said that she was dangerous. She’s virginity, she’s youth, she’s beauty, she’s all the things that slowly or rapidly disappear as we grow older, and at the same time, she’s also very manipulative, almost like she’s playing everyone against each other. She insults Gigi by asking if she had plastic but when Gigi reveals it, she asks if that’s a good thing. She denounces Jena Malone’s love, she pushes it away even though in a way she’s also very flirtatious with her, so there’s a part of Jesse that’s a deer in headlights, and there’s a part of her that is a demon”.
The Neon Demon hits Blu-ray and DVD everywhere on September 27th, 2016.
Of all the places to find a coven of witches, the attic above a Christian youth camp is probably the last place you’d think to look. But that’s just what we find in Camp, a surrealist nightmare of feminist empowerment from Canadian filmmaker Avalon Fast.
Emily (Zola Grimmer) is still reckoning with her involvement in a horrific tragedy when she accidentally contributes to the death of her best friend, Charlie (Giselle Morison). Unable to move on, the traumatized teen takes a job at a rural summer camp, hoping to forget her own sorrows by looking after at-risk kids. She quickly connects with a counselor named Clara (Alice Wordsworth) and finds comfort in her close-knit group of female friends. But a mysterious whisper from deep in the woods warns that they may be leading her down a darker path.
Fast burst onto the scene in 2022 with Honeycomb, a psychological horror film that follows a burgeoning matriarchy. Known for their focus on “Girl Horror” stories, the talented young filmmaker tackles similar themes in Camp as Emily leaves the modern world behind to embrace a dark vision of self-discovery through magic.
Ahead of the film’s U.S. release on June 26, Bloody Disgusting sat down with Fast to chat about the nebulous nature of good vs. evil and the intoxicating power of female-driven horror.
Bloody Disgusting: What inspired this unique story? Did you go to religious summer camps when you were young?
Avalon Fast: I did. I went to lots of different summer camps, but all of them were primarily Bible camps. The memory I have of camp is kind of strange. I was very homesick as a kid, and I didn’t necessarily enjoy all my time there. I definitely remember meeting some interesting girls at camp and having that presence of religion hovering around the whole experience.
BD: I really love the film’s gorgeous natural setting. Camp is the kind of surrealist nightmare that you don’t just watch. You feel it too. How did you approach creating this world?
AF: Well, a huge part of it was working with my cinematographer Eily Sprungman, who’s a very close friend. We spent years prepping, shot listing, storyboarding, and mood boarding. She’d had a similar experience to mine. We grew up around the same place, and so we understood each other’s visions from the get-go. But there are so many other pieces that came together. The costuming, the art, and the animated sequences were done by Sofiya Iurkevych. One of our producers, Taylor Nodrick, was obsessed with shooting on Super 8 film. I’ve always wanted to as well, so all the memory sequences were shot on Super 8. It was just a lot of people with an understanding and a vision for what this project was. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
To the extent that you’re comfortable sharing, what’s your relationship to witchcraft, and what does Camp have to say about modern witches?
Well, that’s the question of Camp. It’s not that I don’t resonate with any of these things, but I specifically wanted Camp to be a little bit ambiguous around what witchcraft looks like. Is this witchcraft? Are these girls witches? Emily explicitly asks if that’s what’s happening here, and the answer isn’t yes. The film isn’t going to answer that question for you. My relationship to magic and witchcraft? It’s tough. I feel like there’s so much magic, connection, and spirituality that comes from these friendships, the closeness of these women, and what’s happening around them. A lot of what Camp is trying to say or show is just that magic can come out of friendship.
I loved watching these female friendships develop. And you’re right. No one ever says the word “coven,” but you can feel that connection, and you can see a change in Emily as those relationships grow. I’m also really fascinated with the way Camp plays with the idea of good and evil. At one point, Clara says, “Maybe God drew us to the devil,” which stopped me in my tracks. How do you view witchcraft or the magic these girls are experiencing in regard to good and evil?
That was such a huge part of the script’s construction. The story is really trying to keep a balance between those two things. I like asking people if they think these girls are good or bad, because I feel like a lot of people come out of the film thinking one or the other. They’ll say things like “thank God Emily found her people” or “God, I really wish she’d gone home.” I just don’t think there’s ever an answer. I wanted to explore the idea of going down the wrong path, especially coming out of grief. What makes you a bad person, and does healing mean you’re looking to become a better person? I don’t have an answer, but I do feel like that’s a huge part of what Camp is asking. What is good? What is bad? Why did God bring me to the devil?
Yes, because this is all happening at “God camp” in Emily’s words. So how can both of those things exist at the same time? Along those lines, I’m also fascinated by the voice Emily hears in the woods. Without spoiling too much, what is this voice asking, and what is required in return?
Emily comes to camp with a shout into the void, asking can anyone hear me? Does anyone want to? And it’s answered so clearly by these girls, specifically responding only with love, care, support, and trust. It’s like her prayers were answered. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be alright, but Emily is looking for peace. She’s looking for a moment where she feels pure good. And I think, even at its surface level, she does get that experience.
Personally, I don’t really think people are good or bad. I think we all exist somewhere in the middle. Camp centers traditionally villainized characters, but that’s where Emily seems to find her peace, however you choose to define it.
I also wanted to show the experience of having decided that you are a bad person, you’ve made mistakes, and you feel cursed. Then when you meet other people who have done things that you would consider worse, you can actually feel good in their presence. You feel like less of a bad person. I think that’s a huge part of the story as well. Emily’s finding her version of other fucked up people, and she feels less fucked up around them. I’ve found that in my own life. It’s a cool thing. I don’t think it’s bad.
I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s finding your home, your people. We meet Emily in the aftermath of unthinkable trauma. Is this a story about mental health and healing?
Witnessing it myself. witnessing other people experience tragedy and then move through grief, you hear a lot of talk about healing or coming out the other side. There’s so much conversation around what that looks like, with self-care and showing up for yourself. I always felt really averse to it. It annoyed me. I think the beginning of the film speaks to that. The therapeutic version of what getting help looks like is obviously very different from what Camp is showing. And again, I don’t have an answer for what you’re supposed to do. But I think that’s another question I was asking: how do you heal? Do you heal at all? Is that the end goal, or are we just trying to get better? It’s something I experienced in my own grief. And the answer, for me, at least now, is just that I’m not looking to get better. So I felt like I hadn’t. I found it hard to find people to have those conversations with. And I think that’s what I ultimately wanted to make a film about.
I love that unanswered question. In my own experience, I’ve had to reframe what healing actually looks like. There’s not really an endpoint. It’s just finding a way to keep going. There’s also an element of sacrifice in this story, particularly regarding another counselor named Jo (Sophie Bawks-Smith). What role does she play in Emily’s journey?
For me, Jo is this human embodiment of Charlie, Emily’s friend. As Jo, she had a life at this camp before meeting Emily, and then was kind of taken over by Charlie’s spirit. I think a lot of people view Emily’s final choice as horrendous and tragic. In a way it is, but for me, if Jo becomes her angel, it’s almost like a self-sacrifice. Jo knows that by sacrificing herself, she’ll be giving Emily power to move forward. In the original script, the girls were supposed to bring out another counselor, JB (Aidan Laudersmith), and burn his body. But I just thought, there’s no way sacrificing this guy could give the girls enough power. There’s just no way, right? Logically, that just didn’t line up for me.
I’m glad you mentioned JB, because he has his own tragic arc. How do men factor into the world of Camp?
The way men factor into my world is so bizarre. I have such little respect for them in my films, which is something I’ve been called on. I think I have to challenge myself in the future to make a movie about a boy because, these boys … It’s not that the men in my films aren’t redeemable, but there’s no depth to these characters. They’re just treated with such disrespect. I don’t know why I do that, actually. That’s something for me to look into. It was the same with Honeycomb. They’re just such peripheral characters. I’ve had people ask about Kayne (Henri Gillespi), the scary guy at the fire, what happens to him? I just think, I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point of the story.
Well, I can say after a lifetime of watching women on the periphery of the story, the course correction feels nice. In a similar vein, I’m in love with your homepage, avalonfast.com. There’s an image of girls on a film set and then a still from Honeycomb in which a blood-covered girl is screaming at the sky. And in the middle, it just says Girl Horror. It’s a really powerful statement that gives me chills. How do you define Girl Horror, and what draws you to these types of stories?
I was obsessed with the term when I started making my movies. It was something I’d come up with to kind of brand myself and describe what I was doing. Then I went through a period where I felt like it was a bit gender exclusive and didn’t interest me as much. But now I’ve come full circle on the term. I think it’s a bit of a commentary on youth and the horror of growing up female. But I think everybody can relate to that experience. I don’t want it to feel like this exclusive thing, that I make movies exclusively for girls, because I don’t think I do. I’m interested in exploring what Girl Horror means. Originally, it was just a title, something I came up with, and now it’s become something that resonates with people. You said it gave you chills. That’s cool for me to hear because there’s obviously some depth there.
Are you working on anything new?
Yes. I am actually making a movie about a boy. That’s the next thing.
That’s exciting! The more I think about feminism, the more I end up coming back to men and boys, because they have a place in the world of Girl Horror too.
Absolutely. It’s all just part of being human.
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