After seeing political commentators spout extreme rhetoric about a mass shooting, Lola Blanc wondered: do they actually believe any of it? That question served as the creative impetus behind her brand new short film, Pruning, starring the one and only, Madeline Brewer. Talking heads like Tomi Lahren (or rather “a subculture of people who all have a look,” says Blanc) became the basis from which the rest of the film grew.

In its original inception, Pruning was not a body-horror film at all. It was a character study. Co-written with Jeremy Radin, the film examines the social and moral implications of extremist beliefs. Blanc utilizes horror elements to tell the tale of a right-wing commentator named Sami Geller (Brewer) who struggles with her conscience and being a mouthpiece for the alt-right. “We had outlined a version of it, and we were like, ‘It’s just not getting at the thing enough–the horror that this really should be capturing.’ So we dug a little deeper. We thought, ‘What does that actually feel like in your body? How would that manifest itself? And how do we communicate that?”

The thing of which she speaks is the exorcism of one’s conscience from the body. In Pruning, that manifests through a gnarly creature design, courtesy of special effects artist and sculptor Greg Aronowitz (Dinosaurs, Star Trek: Picard). In a pivotal scene (don’t worry, no spoilers!), Sami Geller contends with her conscience and what it means to be a heartless soul-sucker. 

Brewer’s performance is commanding and nuanced, particularly in the quieter moments. “She did such a great job. You can practically see her thoughts in those moments when she’s doubting her position. She got that nuance so well,” says Blanc. “Only a very strong actress could have communicated that the way that she did. It’s one thing to do the caricature version, where you’re being an annoying right-wing commentator. And it’s another thing to actually add that sort of humaneness and give it the depth that I think it needed.”

What is most striking about Brewer’s portrayal of Sami Geller is the texture. Sami actually feels like a human being. “We’re not two-dimensional. Some of us just make worse choices than others,” Blanc says. “In this case, this character was the one who was making bad choices.”

‘Pruning’

One of the crucial scenes, in which Sami’s veneer begins to crack, occurs when she appears on a talk show. “Do you actually feel free?” the host asks her. Sami hesitates, unsure how to answer the question. That push and pull are integral to the character. It’s not enough that she’s a terrible human being; Pruning offers a glimpse behind the curtain in a way that is emotional and rooted. “We were really struggling with that scene and how to convey the idea that we wanted to get across. It is so easy in these conversations to just sound like you’re stuck in your own echo chamber. It is so interesting to see the people who talk about freedom the most are actually very much trapped in their ideology.”

Blanc also weaves into the script a conversation around the impact words have on violence. Is there a correlation between alt-right rhetoric and gun violence? “I don’t think it’s linear. I think it’s a contribution to an overall culture that can spread hateful ideas. I do think that hate begins in language and is spread through language and communicated through language,” she says. “We don’t live in a world where you can prove with any level of certainty what caused what. But I do think that people’s language spreads bad ideology, and bad ideology can lead to violence.”

Later in the film, Sami Geller’s dear friend Alina (Peyton Kennedy) realizes how unsympathetic and cold her friend is. It’s a heart-rending scene, in which Sami transforms from someone capable of compassion into a venomous shell void of all empathy. “What I’ve seen so many times is that people who have sort of extreme ideology often will have someone in their life who is trying to talk sense into them,” Blanc says of the scene, “and sometimes they reach them, and sometimes they don’t. Alina wasn’t inspired by any particular person in my life. She represents this idea of there being someone who can see that you’re going off the rails and is trying to reach you and is the only person who can reach you. And then, they just don’t get there in time.”

In collaboration with cinematographer Sonja Tsypin, the film’s style brings further clarity and intent to the character of Sami Geller. “We’ve worked together a bunch, and we wanted the camera to be communicating the tension that the character of Sami is feeling at all times. There’s a growing sense of dread as the camera sort of comes in closer, and she’s at the bottom of the frame. It’s a little bit unsettling. It’s a little bit off-putting. We just really wanted all of the angles and all of the movements to reflect this sort of dissonance that’s happening inside of Sami in those moments.”

Pruning is a confrontational film. It pummels the brain and makes you think about your own politics. “The takeaway for me, and what I hope that the takeaway is for other people, is to just always be questioning our positions,” concludes Blanc. “Let empathy be more important than our pride–and more important than clicks and money and followers, wherever possible. Question everything.”

‘Pruning’

Blanc, whose “The Safe Space” was a standout in the Fatale Collective: Bleed, typically fuses her own worldview with the kind of horror storytelling that slithers under the fingernails. “I am someone who is really inspired by an idea, in terms of a societal idea or a psychological idea,” she explains of her scriptwriting approach. “Or there are projects where I sort of envision a world in my head and then fill it out with characters. So much of my writing comes from having something that I want to express and convey in terms of my worldview–and finding characters to represent that and going from there.”

Elsewhere in the horror world, Lola Blanc has also contributed a story called “Yeast” in the upcoming Haunted Reels anthology. Blanc only offers a tasty morsel about what her installment is about: “A woman in a toxic relationship… develops a yeast infection that just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.”

The book, out July 25, was born out of the pandemic when a group of horror filmmakers started meeting on Zoom. “I’m friends with David Lawson and the rest of Rustic–Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. They invited me into this group, and it was just completely life-saving. It was actually right when I was experiencing a breakup and just feeling incredibly lonely. Once a week, every week, we’d get together and just talk about life and movies and horror. It really formed this amazing community that I think we all really needed during that time. So, Dave had the idea to put together a book of short stories from all of us, and I’m so happy it’s actually happening.”

Pruning recently made its world premiere at the Palm Springs Shortfest.