Interviews
‘No One Will Save You’ – Brian Duffield Talks Elaborate Alien Mythology and Avoiding Familiar Tropes [Interview]
Up next from filmmaker Brian Duffield (Spontaneous) is No One Will Save You, an intense sci-fi psychological thriller that begins streaming September 22, exclusively on Hulu.
The film introduces Brynn Adams (Kaitlyn Dever), a creative and talented young woman who’s been alienated from her community. And that’s before she’s awoken one night to actual aliens that have invaded her home.
For the film’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with Duffield about creating the intense sci-fi home invasion thriller, one that’s so packed with propulsive action that you don’t realize it’s largely devoid of dialogue.
That wasn’t something that Duffield initially planned when writing the genre-bender.
The filmmaker explains, “It was about halfway into writing it. I didn’t realize it for a long time, then I did, and then I was embarrassed that I didn’t realize it for that long. And then I was like, ‘Well, maybe that’s also how people will experience it.’ It became this very funny afterthought that stemmed out of Brynn a lot. And also knowing I didn’t want to do the TV’s explaining what was going on kind of thing. It was a nice surprise. No pun intended, I don’t remember talking about it that much.”
(L-R): Director/Writer Brian Duffield and Kaitlyn Dever on the set of 20th Century Studios’ NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU, exclusively on Hulu. Photo by Sam Lothridge. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
No One Will Save You features Duffield’s take on the quintessential Grey aliens and then some. It brings the realization of how scarce the niche subgenre of sci-fi is, with only a handful of familiar Grey alien features that come to mind, like Signs. When asked if he purposefully tried to avoid retreading familiar ground when writing this feature, he cited a specific film.
“The biggest thing to steer clear of was Fire in the Sky’s abduction scene because it’s so scary. It’s not like rated-R graphic, but it has a real viscerality to it. That was one thing I said, ‘I’m not going near that kind of world.’ Beyond that, you have Close Encounters, which is not scary. The abduction is crazy, but you’re not seeing anything. Then you have stuff like X-Files. But even that, there’s not so much that you need to keep in mind. Again, it wasn’t like I was avoiding Fire in the Sky; it was just in the writing process where I was like, ‘I don’t want to go near that. I like Brynn way too much to watch that.’
“It’s so fun in Fire in the Sky because it’s that dude. But I think if it was Kaitlyn Dever in Fire in the Sky, it’d just be miserable. So, that was more of a tone thing. She gets her ass kicked throughout this movie, but trying to make sure it was on the tone of it not being the movie you wanted to stop watching because it was just a little too hard against her. So, finding that tone. In terms of the iconography, I wanted it to feel like the Greys were smart. I felt like a lot of the movies get very hissy with Greys or get very monster, and you have a hard time connecting the dots between that creature and something that could fly an intergalactic ship. I think a big part of it was trying to give the Greys in the movie, at least, a real elegance, that you’re realizing, ‘Oh, they’re really smart.’”
Kaitlyn Dever as Brynn Adams in 20th Century Studios’ NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Naturally, the aliens don’t speak human language, meaning No One Will Save You relies on sound and visual clues to tease their background. Duffield created a very expansive mythology behind his aliens.
He explains, “I went deep, yeah. No, they all have names. There’s a whole religion. I mean, I know how they breed. I went all deep into it; it was really fun. And then part of that was just great in terms of even our sound design. It was just fun to say, ‘This is what they’re saying now.’ I didn’t write dialogue, but in talking with Chris [Terhune] and Will [Files], our sound guys, it was like, ‘This is what they’re saying, and then it needs to get repeated enough times that Kaitlyn can kind of understand that they’re repeating something.’ Part of the terror is she doesn’t know what they’re saying, but she knows they’re saying it multiple times. And that being something you’re picking up, it’s a language, and there’s a music to it. And it’s not just growls and clicks; there’s a real process behind it.
“Like we talked about, there’s usually more than one tone that they vocalize at once, and we said each tone is like a sentence. With people, we talk in sentences, and the aliens are speaking in paragraphs at every moment, and so just that download of information. Even if Kaitlyn could understand it, the subtitle block would be big. That was part of the fun; at every turn, how do you make it feel like it’s an insurmountable problem for Kaitlyn to deal with these guys because they are smarter than her? She can get lucky, but there’s never a moment where you’re saying, ‘Oh, she’s going to nuke the ship.'”
See just how insurmountable Brynn’s survival against the Greys becomes when No One Will Save You releases on Hulu on September 22, 2023.
Interviews
George A. Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’ Gets New Life After Search for Long-Lost Film Elements
“I was told that this couldn’t be found by some people that I worked with, and that just set a fire in me,” Scream Factory producer Jeff Roland says of the newly restored Day of the Dead in 4K from the seemingly long-lost original interpositive.
The four-disc release, loaded with special features and new interviews in addition to the restoration, arrives almost exactly three years after Roland began his long pursuit of the missing elements that he was warned were lost to time.
It’s a fitting journey for Day of the Dead, the third film in horror master George A. Romero‘s zombie series, considering the film’s long road to reappraisal after its initial failure at the box office in 1985. A huge departure from the popular Dawn of the Dead, the third film set its battle for humanity’s survival in an underground bunker, waged between a small group of scientists and ruthless soldiers.
It was underground where Roland began his pursuit of the missing interpositive elements, starting with the old-fashioned paper trail in Scream Factory’s basement, sorting through records from their 2013 Blu-ray release.
Scream Factory’s Years-Long Quest to Restore a Horror Classic
“So, there I was, going through boxes and boxes and boxes, trying to find this one specific invoice for a delivery company amongst thousands of pieces of paper,” Roland tells Bloody Disgusting. “That was the start. I was able to figure out the delivery service, and from there, it just went into a whirlwind of… drama? Yeah, there was some drama in there at one point; I thought it had been stolen by someone.”
The lengthy restoration process that also details Roland’s Indiana Jones-like journey, but he notes that “the short and sweet of it is, it took forever, I was trying to find leads. anything. I was seeing ridiculous things online, you know, like it was in a diamond mine in South Africa. I even followed up on that. I thought it would be hilarious if it were actually being kept in the Wampum mine. So I called them, and this poor woman who answered the phone sounded like she got this call every other day.”
Roland notes, “The records, for film vaults and such, aren’t the greatest. I’ll just say that. So, I think that’s, over time, that’s something that we definitely need to improve upon in this business.”
John Harrison Reflects on Day of the Dead‘s Surprising Legacy and Original Vision
While now considered another Romero zombie classic, critics and audiences rejected Day of the Dead at first, especially the Caribbean-style theme music from composer and first assistant director John Harrison.
Few are as surprised by the massive shift in the film’s reception as Harrison. The filmmaker and longtime Romero collaborator reflects, “Now, if you had asked any of us, and George included, that, ‘hey man, you know, in 45 years, this movie’s gonna be considered like a cinema classic.’ We all probably would have said, ‘Oh, we’re making a movie, man. We’re just having fun making a movie, and God, can you believe it, that people are paying us to do this?’ I don’t want to minimize it. I don’t want to say that we were just goofing around.”
Harrison continues, “All of us were really serious about our craft and about what we were trying to do. But I don’t think that any of us, maybe George, hopefully, had some feeling that his films would last for a while. I was a kid, you know? I just wanted to have fun, make movies, and be part of that whole scene. So, it was really disappointing when Day came out, because it was a bomb. I mean, let’s be truthful about it. It was a bomb. And people hated the score. So, 40-some years later, it’s become, for some people, the apogee of that first dead trilogy. The best of the three in its own way.”
Harrison also points out that Romero’s Land of the Dead would later face a similar reception and reappraisal, which was all the more fascinating considering early budget cuts caused Romero to drastically scale back Day of the Dead‘s story. A lot of what was excised was later revisited in Land of the Dead. “That was actually part of the original Day of the Dead concept,” Harrison explains of the 2005 film.
“Because of budget and schedule and so forth and so on, and ratings,” he tells BD. “George couldn’t do it, and that’s why we ended up with the more condensed version of Day of the Dead, which everybody now knows and loves. In a way, I’m kind of glad, because it has a real identity being trapped in those caves, and the end of the world, the two sides of society. Going at it, headbutting, to try and survive. But the whole Fiddler’s Green idea and all of that stuff that ended up in Land of the Dead was part of the original Day.”
George Romero Predicted Social Media and Modern Culture
Suzanne Romero, founder & president of the George A. Romero Foundation and the late filmmaker’s wife, breaks down the film’s trajectory even further. “The original Day of the Dead script, I think, at one point, it was written for a $12 million budget, and it was basically cut in half. And it’s a great script. But that’s what happens with filmmakers, and you gotta make do.
She continues, “But I really think that this film is really for the fans and people who love physical media. And in terms of the foundation, well, anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is.”
The mention of Land of the Dead brings up one recurring theme of Romero’s work: the filmmaker’s ability to keep his pulse so thoroughly on the current social climate in a way that feels prescient.
Roland agrees, “I think one of the most amazing things that doesn’t get talked about enough is in 2007, he came out with Diary of the Dead. That pretty much predicted YouTube culture. I mean, we’re going through it right now, the exact things that were happening in Diary of the Dead. It’s incredible.”
“Well, that was intentional,” Harrison says, “because I was part of that and worked with Peter [Grunwald] and George on developing that whole script and production. And that was definitely intentional. There was nothing accidental or, ‘Great timing, guys!’ It was not like that at all. It was intentional.”
Romero agrees, “[George] was very wary of social media, but very wary of the internet. He was always very suspicious and thought that we ought to beware; we ought to be walking very carefully into this space.“
“Which we haven’t done, of course,” Harrison adds.
“No, of course not,” Romero responds. “And AI. I mean, he would be writing about AI right now and thinking, danger! What the fuck are you doing, people? But not only that, but he also did it in a layman’s way. You know, he really brought it to very familiar language, and people that spoke to each other, it was in a very natural way, and it was the way he developed characters. The way he evolved with how his women were more powerful, because he kind of regretted that in Night of the Living Dead, [Barbra] was weak. He always thought the women ought to be much stronger, and I think it started with Season of the Witch.”
Everyone Wanted to Be a Zombie in a Romero Movie
George A. Romero’s legacy certainly looms large over Scream Factory’s impressive new release, offering a comprehensive look at Day of the Dead through a dizzying number of new audio commentaries, featurettes, and interviews detailing everything from the “mine fever” that spread among the cast and crew to Ernest Dickerson‘s high-pressure day on set running the second unit camera.
That’s also reflected in Romero’s zombies themselves, dating back to 1968’s Night of the Living Dead.
“In Pittsburgh, it was a badge of honor to be a zombie in a George Romero movie,” Harrison recounts. “Everybody from the Dean of Students at Carnegie Mellon to the presidents of corporations. I had a story that came out of Dawn. I was pitching a commercial for my own little company, and I’d done a bit for George as ‘Screwdriver Zombie’ on Dawn. I didn’t get cleaned up enough, and I went to this meeting at the first thing in the morning. The vice president of this bank is looking at me, going, ‘Is there something wrong with you?’ I said, ‘No, no, that’s what I know? I’m fine.’ He said, ‘Well, you’re bleeding out of your ear.’ Okay, so then I had to tell them the whole story. And he listened to it, and I thought, well, this is gonna be ridiculous. I’m coming in talking about being a zombie in a movie, and I want to sell him this, like, multi-thousand-dollar commercial that the bank is gonna pay for. He listened very carefully to me, and he said, ‘Well, listen, we’ll talk about the commercial, but do you think I could be a zombie in one?”
That hasn’t changed in the present, either.
Romero confirms, “We’re producing George’s film, Twilight of the Dead, and we get requests, ‘Can I be a zombie in this film?’ So, even today, people are very interested, and yet it’s terrible. I mean, it’s hours and hours of makeup.”
Scream Factory’s Day of the Dead four-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition releases on June 16.
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