Creep got under the audience’s skin in the best way possible, and Creep 2 managed to generate even greater acclaim and enthusiasm with a more subversive story. It’s been extremely satisfying to watch Creep confidently transform into an anthology horror series that distills “Josef’s” murders down to concise, economical horror stories. 

The Creep Tapes is the ideal outlet for Duplass and Brice’s duplicitous killer that doubles as an entertaining opportunity to deconstruct the found footage genre. Now entering its third season, the series tackles some of its biggest and most personal stories yet.

To celebrate the latest installment in the growing Creep franchise, Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice discuss the selection process for the season’s stories, finding new ways to raise the stakes and expand the universe’s scope, and figuring out their killer’s psychology and whether they know where his story ends. 

BLOODY DISGUSTING: What I love so much about this series is that all these episodes find different ways to deconstruct the found footage genre. This season features such an assortment of stories. What’s your process for planning out seasons and deciding on the final lot of six episodes? 

PATRICK BRICE: Well, we have a running document of ideas for this show that is just pages-and-pages-long at this point. So part of the process involves going to that and seeing what could work and makes sense for the season. But a lot of the time it’s just instinctual. It’s us either saying, “This is an idea that could work for this season. Let’s go for it!” or it comes from a guest star that we thought would be amazing and figuring out how to tailor the idea to them. 

MARK DUPLASS: Yeah, I think our best episodes happen with like a text at like 11:47 PM from Patrick or myself that says something like, “CUDDLE PARTY,” and that’ll be it. Then there will be an “!” And then there will be a “Yes.” We’ll get on the phone the next day and hash it out and talk it through. The document that Patrick is talking about is also very fun because some of those things are fully fleshed-out episodes and some of them are just small germs of ideas. You know, sometimes we’ll go on set with full scripts, and sometimes we’ll have as little as a page to work with. Every episode has its own DNA.

I love that and how ideas can actively evolve while you’re shooting. The show has such a raw feeling to it that conveys that energy. 

MD: Yeah, the idea is that rather than doing a full shoot where we shoot all six episodes in a row, we sort of shoot an episode anytime that we get three or four days free in our schedules. Sometimes we’ll build it around a weekend if we’re working on other projects. It helps you bring this fresh energy to it. So the season takes place over the course of a year, which also allows me to have different looks and things like that. We find that there’s something about — I guess what they call “The Beginner’s Mind” — by just hopping into all this. We’re always a little cold on the first day, and we’re still trying to find it. I’ll start acting, and Patrick will be like, “That’s not him.” It takes a minute to get back into it. But achieving that state of childlike creativity with it and a beginner’s mind is very much a part of the process. 

This season’s “Anisha” episode is set on a plane and builds to such a huge climax that almost feels impossible for such a small, intimate franchise like this. Can you talk a little about approaching that sequence, bringing it to life, and if you’re looking to push some of these stories to even bigger places?

PB: That came as a result of us saying, “How can we make this feel bigger than it’s ever been?” The concept for that one was sort of born out of doing something that we’ve never done before. It seems kind of scary, and we might not entirely know what we’re doing, but we’re going to figure it out on the day of the shoot. Then something like that is especially nuts when considering the shooting method that Mark’s talking about. It’s much harder to approach things with a Beginner’s Mind when you’re dealing with major stunt work and higher concept ideas. That was one of the most fun experiences I had filming this season just because we were so out of our depth and so out of our element, but still able to apply this shorthand that we’ve learned over the years from shooting this show and getting this franchise.

MD: A lot of the creativity from the show comes out of the function of shooting it on a lower budget. Years ago, when we were making this small independent film — The Do-Deca-Pentathlon — we wanted to get a shot of somebody on a plane. I called one of those stages in Burbank that has all these old, grounded planes. They pull out different sides of them so you can shoot in it. I was like, “It’s going to be ridiculous how expensive this is,” but then they told me the cost, and it was really cheap. As we were talking about expanding the show’s scope, I mentioned that I think it should be doable to get a private plane as long as we can shoot the episode in like two days. 

The Creep Tapes episodes that dig into the killer’s family and backstory are always some of the most fascinating. This season looks at his teen years and one of his first kills. Can you talk a little bit about pulling the veil back with this character, how much you want to keep a secret, and how much of this backstory was already known?

MD: That’s a good question. I mean, we really love how much audiences are enjoying the teasing of his backstory. That wasn’t initially part of our master plan. When we did the first episode with his “Mother,” people really responded to that. So we thought that it would be fun to do one episode each season that has a little bit of lore. I think that the fun of playing with a character like this is that we decided very early on that almost nothing he says is factual, but everything is true. So even if the skin and the details of what he’s talking about don’t necessarily make sense or add up — emotionally — everything you hear from him and feel from him is very, very true and honest. 

So, this season we thought it’d be really fun to do something on a VHS camera, similar to the one that my brother and I had growing up. I loved that camera because it was the first camera that shot on VHSC, the compact one, and you could do two separate audio tracks and put music on it. It was like its own little filmmaking machine. That got into my hands when I was about 16, so I thought it would be really funny to consider what our lead character would do with this camera if he had it. Immediately, we were like, “What if he made something like Blair Witch before Blair Witch?” The false mythology that he had gotten there first felt very funny to us.

Were you actually able to shoot it on older tech? 

MD: So we tried using the older tech and the problem with that is—

PB: It was unreliable. 

MD: It’s very cold where we’re shooting too, which can be a problem for the camera. We have used the same camera for almost everything we’ve done on the show, other than some of the more omniscient perspective things and the iPhone one in New York. It’s kind of been our talisman. It’s like our lucky camera. We’ve spent more money fixing that than if we had bought a new one, but he’s our little buddy. So we used that camera and then treated the footage afterwards. 

This season’s “Nobody” episode is one of my favorites from the series, and it feels like it’s a bit of a sequel to the first season’s “Brandt” episode, which is also largely this solo performance piece. 

MD: You get us, yes! You see us!

Was that episode particularly challenging to figure out? You do such a great job whenever these two sides of the killer and Peachfuzz are in conversation with each other.

MD: Yeah, that one felt harder to get right. I felt like we were talking a lot between takes.

PB: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we were setting ourselves up for this, but it entirely relied on Mark’s shoulders. It’s all his performance and the sort of the dance of it. That was one where, in the opening sequence, we had to really get the timing right. There were a lot of longer takes and sort of fewer cuts because it was just Mark and nobody else. 

MD: But we got to use your voice again! One of my favorite things is when Patrick comes in to play Peachfuzz. Also, our third brother in this, Chris Donlon, is executive producer and editor with us every step of the way. He was also able to play the body in the grave. There’s some excellent musical timing that you’ll see in the episode. It’s really fun when we get up there, and that one was just the four of us putting it all together. I think sometimes it brings out the best in us when we’re all a little afraid and a little nervous. “Is this going to work?” We have those down moments, too. “Why did we try to do this?” But sometimes the best stuff comes out of that. 

Creep works so well as an anthology TV series, but does that make it any more of a challenge to find your way back to it as a film franchise? Is Creep 3 still of any interest or seem like an appropriate way to conclude the series?

PB: I mean, we never want it to end. I think it will end in our actual deaths. Creep 3 is definitely something we still talk about. I feel like making the show just invigorates me to come up with ideas for what would make sense for a Creep 3. The show is almost like our sketchbook, in a lot of ways. We’re trying to play with different ideas that maybe could be smaller, that then maybe push us to what the bigger story would be if we were to make another movie after that.

MD: Yeah, it took us quite a few years between Creep and Creep 2 to figure out that idea and get it right. I think it’s taking us that much more time between Creep 2 and Creep 3 because it’s so important to us. We’re just so appreciative of the fans, who reflect to us that there’s integrity in the way that these stories are told. They feel that from us, so we don’t want to feed them anything less than an A+ breakfast burrito. When it comes to Creep 3, frankly, we just haven’t come up with it yet. When we do, we’ll bring it forward, and hopefully there will be a Creep 4 and a Creep 5 — there’s got to be a movie that’s just called Peachfuzz. We’re working on it, with the only limit being our own creative ability. 

The Creep Tapes Season 3 premieres September 15th on Shudder, with back-to-back episodes airing weekly.

The post Mark Duplass & Patrick Brice On Expanding ‘The Creep Tapes’ And Why ‘Creep 3’ Still Isn’t Ready appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Roth’s Cabin Fever was a great statement piece, but he’s managed to continually top himself with gory gems like Hostel, The Green Inferno, and Thanksgiving. Roth has always been a filmmaker who strives to push boundaries and embrace a passion for genre cinema.

His latest movie, Ice Cream Man, is a project that’s been 20 years in the making. It’s a twisted take on the Pied Piper parable that’s arguably the most gruesome film from Roth’s career and an exciting turning point.

To celebrate the gory film’s summer release, Eli Roth opens up about the luxury of shooting a horror film with hundreds of enthusiastic kids, bypassing the MPAA to deliver the most outrageous kills of his career, and why he intentionally avoided Weapons before filming.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: You’ve described Ice Cream Man as “The Birds but with children” and cited Who Can Kill a Child? as a reference point. Were there other “killer kid” movies that you’re pulling from for inspiration like Children of the Corn, the French film Them, or even Weapons?

ELI ROTH: Well, Weapons I purposely didn’t watch until after I was done with my cut because I had people on the crew that went to see it because I wanted to make sure that there was no crossover. I didn’t watch it until after I was done with the film, but The Children from 1980 was a big influence. That trailer scared me as a kid, watching the kids on the bus go through the gas and then turn into killer kids. When the girl killed her mom in the original Night of the Living Dead was a big reference point. But definitely The Birds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but also other movies like Bad News Bears and those early Amblin movies. Those coming-of-age films. There’s also a lot of references to Bird with the Crystal Plumage in there, too. It’s kind of a Pied Piper story, so that was really the starting point for it.

There must have been serious hurdles to not just filming a movie that involves so many children, but also in terms of its rating and censorship. Was there anything you shot that had to be cut or toned down? 

ER: The whole reason I started The Horror Section was to completely bypass that system and go directly to the theaters. Now that Terrifier 3 kicked the door open for the rest of us and you can have an unrated movie go out in 2000 theaters, you know that fans want to go see those movies in theaters. Before, you could never release an unrated movie like this, but now after what Damien Leone did, you can. So I set up an independent studio, I went right to the theaters, I’m self-releasing it, and I didn’t even deal with the MPAA. I just made the movie the way I wanted to make it. We shot it, cut it, and we’re putting it out in the theaters raw and unfiltered.

Every movie I’ve ever made, at some point someone has said, “You have to take this out, or we’re not releasing the movie.” I just didn’t want to deal with that anymore. I’m just tired of it. I think they’re wrong. I think Terrifier 3 proved that they are all strong. In the past, I’ve been like, “I shouldn’t have taken that out. I shouldn’t have cut that down,” but you’re dealing with a corporation in a studio. That’s what they do. They’re so afraid, and it’s an abstract argument. There’s no proof that they’re right or that you’re right, but that’s where I know great horror lives. It’s got that bit of danger to it. You go, “You’re not supposed to do that,” “Should I be watching this?”

Even Evil Dead II, Faces of Death, or whatever it was when you get a tape. Whenever you’re going, “I shouldn’t watch this,” it becomes the most exciting kind of horror. Even The Ring. It’s got to be great. It’s got to be original. There has to be an incredible story that people have never seen before, but I faced no issues whatsoever other than my own budget. The whole purpose of starting my own studio is that I could take an idea like Ice Cream Man, that I’ve always wanted to do and that everyone told me I couldn’t, and just go for it.

On that note, there are so many amazing kills in this movie. What’s your favorite and which was the most challenging to pull off?

ER: There are a few, yeah. My original idea was the mother waking up and seeing her daughter just standing over her; she picks up a hacksaw and just cuts her head off. The dad wakes up, looks over, and the daughter is just smiling and cutting the head off and like, “Hi, Daddy.” Then the kid bashes his face in. So actually doing all that was extremely satisfying. There were a couple other ones that I don’t want to give away that really turned out great. I was just really lucky. I sat down with Steve Newburn at Applied Arts FX Studio. They’re incredible. I told them, “I want to do more kills. I want to basically beat every kill I’ve ever done and do more kills in this movie than all my other movies combined.” Adrian Moreau was incredibly genius. We did Thanksgiving together, and she did some very specific effects for me on this one. She won the Oscar for The Whale, so we had an incredibly talented team and just went for it. The kids in the movie, their parents are all horror movie fans, so we talked to them about everything.

Once you put the kids in the gore and in the makeup, they go right into it. They get it. They understand that this is like Halloween and pretend. There’s the bit where they’re pulling apart a body — they call it a “taffy pull” — we did this fake trailer, “The Piano Killer,” with Hailey Kittle. I also worked with her in Trick VR Treat, and she was in Thanksgiving. I said, “I’m going to drop a piano on you,” so we had her fake body and thought, “Let’s kill Hailey, and then we can use the body from “The Piano Killer” and pull it apart in Ice Cream Man. I recycled the same body parts.

It was unreal doing it all with the kids, though. You can’t believe what you’re watching, and the kids were having a great time. It was Christmas morning for them. Justin Harding, who was my Second Unit Director, his son Bowen is a baseball player. So it made sense to give Bowen the axe so that he could really give a good swing to cut Hailey in half. He is so good and so athletic, so he could really go for it. He’s just gleefully swinging the bat, and we’re just on the ground pumping blood at him. The kids were just laughing and having the time of their lives.

The main actors are so good, too. I really didn’t want “kid acting.” I wanted the same acting as when you’re watching Stranger Things or the ’70s Bad News Bears. These kids are real kids, and I didn’t want it to feel like movie dialogue. I wanted the kids to swear and talk the way that real 12-year-olds talk to each other and the way that bullies talked to me in the ’80s. I verified it with all the kids to know that this is exactly what the bullying in schools sounds like. This is how they’d talk and what they say when the adults, parents, and teachers aren’t around. I wanted it to feel naturalistic, and like you’ve just been dropped into this small town that has all this drama. Then you’re just with these kids, trying to survive this “kidpocalypse,” and trying to figure out why this is happening and how to get out of it.

I’m a huge fan of the Clint Howard Ice Cream Man from 1995. There’s also a great Tales from the Crypt episode with Bill Pullman and Brad Dourif that plays in this space. Why do you think there’s this ongoing connection between ice cream men and horror?

ER: It’s interesting; I’ve never seen the Clint Howard film. I’m certainly aware of it. But this all came about from just watching this ice cream man handing out ice cream. It was during the Cabin Fever press tour in 2003. I was just watching this ice cream man and thinking, “We just trust them.” It could be a serial killer, you know? What if they just rolled into town and poisoned the kids? I thought that might be too fucked up, but then I thought of it as if it’s the Pied Piper. There’s something with the music. Kids just want to run out into the street and buy ice cream when they hear that ice cream man music. It’s such deep programming. So what if that was used to turn the kids against their parents?

Having a new daughter myself — having a baby — all you want to do is protect them. And you know that no matter what you do, you can’t. The outside world is going to get to them somehow. You can prepare them, but you can’t fully protect them. Some evil force will get into their head, and so what if that was turned against you? This thing that you loved and put everything into now wants to kill you. It’s the most horrible thought as a parent. After 20 years, it was kind of great to go in and re-approach it from that direction.

But I think ice cream men just have this inherent trust behind them. You see them, and you trust them. They come into the neighborhood, feed the kids, and then they leave, and you have no idea who they really were. Sure, they were an ice cream man, but what were they like? They were wearing a white hat, and they drove an ice cream truck, but anyone can do that. It was such a perverse, sick thought. Like, “What if you turn Thanksgiving into something awful?”, “What if backpacking in Europe became a nightmare?”

That’s where great horror lives. It’s when you take something that’s seemingly innocent and then make it dark. “What if the kids are playing jump rope, but then they get turned, and they’re playing jump rope with guts?” At the beginning of the film, they’re playing “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” but then it’s “Pin the Knife in the Teacher.” Or you’re playing little league baseball, but now you’re bashing your dad’s head in with the bat. It’s taking all the fun, innocent things from childhood and then twisting them with a horror spin.

Ice Cream Man is in theaters on August 7.

The post Eli Roth Wanted ‘Ice Cream Man’ to Have More Kills Than All His Previous Movies Combined appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

That’s why we decided to reach out to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach composer and frequent Hideo Kojima collaborator Ludvig Forsell so we could find out what to expect from the sequel’s music. Presented below is our exclusive chat with Ludvig Forsell.

Bloody Disgusting: First of all, I’m a huge fan of your work. A Phantom Pain was my feel-good song of the summer back in 2015, and the Boy Kills World soundtrack kicked all kinds of ass, so thank you for making time for us.

Ludvig Forsell: No problem, happy to be here!

BD: So, your partnership with Kojima began over a decade ago, working on Metal Gear Solid V and the ill-fated Silent Hills, but Death Stranding began development when the team migrated to Kojima Productions. Apparently, the company was still in the early stages of setting up shop when you began working on the game, and I imagine that must have been a very chaotic work environment. Can you tell us more about this journey towards where you guys are now?

LF: The first Death Stranding was definitely a new experience for all of us, in that we were setting up a new company as we were trying to figure out the game that we wanted to make once we actually got going. We were in rental space offices for a good 5 to 6 months in the beginning and I came in maybe 2 months after the company had been officially announced. We were spending a lot of time just figuring out how the company was going to hire people and then figuring out floor plans. I was working with the company to build a studio, so it was a long process of trying to get a foothold so we could actually start working.

It was a weird time. We even had Actor strikes, with Union regulations meaning that we had to record a lot of motion capture in Japan before we could even start working with Norman [Reedus] and the others in person. But it all came together in the end. The game came out and was received pretty well, and I think it’s gathered more and more of a following. It feels really good to be able to come out with something that we could really take our time to create. The sequel is building on top of all that previous work, starting as far back as late 2015.

BD: For the first Death Stranding, Kojima approached you with examples of the kind of cinematic synth music that he wanted in the game, with the most notable being Disasterpeace’s soundtrack to It Follows. That retro horror vibe then served as a starting point before the project evolved into something else. With that in mind, are there any specific movies that served as a musical inspiration for the sequel?

LF: Musically, I think I draw my inspiration from everything I watch in daily life. I don’t go out of my way to seek inspiration. We had some clear pointers for the first game’s soundtrack. Mr. Kojima loves movies, so he did point out It Follows among other movies back in the day, but now I think it’s more of this conceptual idea of how I want to create music after having experienced so many films and video games in the years since the first [Death Stranding] came out.

This time, I wanted to make something that felt more satisfying to listen to on its own rather than just being the eerie, avant-garde ambience that we focused on in the first game. It was a process of feeling like “oh, I want to take this approach” or “I want to do more of that” in order to have the people who are playing the game really pop off with the music rather than having it be mostly informative.

Conceptually, I think this really comes through in the soundtrack if you listen to it on its own after playing and think about how it relates to the game. I feel like the soundtrack itself is much more of its own experience this time around.

BD: It’s rumored that the initial bumpy development process of the first Death Stranding resulted in a lot of music not making it into the final game. Was that really the case?

LF: Some of the stuff on the soundtrack was written before it had a place in the game, and some of that was then re-edited and actually got used in the end. So yes and no.

BD: So you guys really use every part of the Buffalo.

LF: Yeah, like I said, we spent a lot of time figuring things out with building the studio, and at the same time I was trying out a lot of writing and thinking about what the soundtrack was going to be. Of course, there are things that never got released at all, but also ideas that I kept and might appear in future projects. But there’s also stuff that I wrote that didn’t fit the beginning of the project but later found a place as an edited-down version of the original idea. We tried a lot of things out, and that’s how the timbre and the sound of it all came together in the end.

BD: Speaking of experimentation – you incorporated a lot of foley/sound design into the music of the first game by extracting sounds from household objects. Was that still the case in the sequel?

LF: I tend to do that in everything I write. I try to use everyday objects to add different flavors to things. We sampled a bunch of stuff that we bought from Home Depot in the first one and made a sound library out of that. That was one of the key conceptual things that we used for the first game that we’re still using in the sequel to sort of keep it in the same world.

But I also wanted to move beyond that and do something experimental in the second one. One really cool thing that we did was organize small vocal ensemble sessions where we recorded a few cues using weird and avant-garde voicework, which I then resampled and used for a bunch of other tracks. That really gives the second [game] and its soundtrack a more human feeling and grounds it in an analog sense. That and all of the found sounds from Home Depot combine into something that tells a more emotional story the second time.

BD: I guess you’re no stranger to emotional music. I remember all the way back in MGSV with Quiet’s Theme, and then the BB lullaby in the first Death Stranding – those are some serious tearjerkers! Can we expect more songs like those in the sequel?

LF: Oh, yes! A lot of what I did is going to be interesting for people to hear, but I think people are also going to react strongly to the stuff that Woodkid came up with involving some of the characters and their moments in the game.

BD: The first Death Stranding had a lot of third-party music from bands like Low Roar and Silent Poets, with the score and soundtrack kind of melding together into a cohesive musical experience. The sequel is set to include even more bands, so how did you guys connect all of that to the score?

LF: For the first one, we definitely had Low Roar as a big part of everything from the get-go, and that very much inspired me in how I approached the acoustic side of the soundtrack to make sure that it all fit together in the same world – so that really drove me as a composer. However, all of those songs were existing tracks from the Low Roar discography, and this time around Hideo got the chance to do more direct collaborations that weren’t really possible in the first game because of time constraints and budget. Obviously, Hideo is constantly playing the game and figuring out these spots where he’d like an emotional hint of something and adding songs to those moments, so there’s a lot more of these bespoke songs in the sequel.

BD: And what was your favorite part of the musical process in Death Stranding 2? Do you have a favorite track in the game?

LF: I think my favorite part was the challenge of standing on my own shoulders and creating something that goes beyond what the first one was. That was definitely the most satisfactory part of creating the soundtrack, and I personally really enjoy all of the music in all of its facets.

A stand-out point for me personally was the music I wrote for Luca Marinelli’s character, Neil. That’s definitely something to check out on the soundtrack. There are multiple tracks using his theme, and he’s sort of the new version of what Mads Mikkelsen’s character represented in the first one, so there are multiple sides to the character which I tried to convey through his theme music.

BD: Before we go, is there anything that you’d like to tell fans about upcoming projects?

LF: Yeah! I’d like to invite everyone to the Strands of Harmony World Tour that begins later this year, starting at the Sydney Opera House on November 8 and then playing at 19 different locations around the globe. Hopefully I can meet as many of you as possible while on the road, so please look for more information around the launch of Death Stranding 2.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach releases June 26, 2025.

The post Composer Ludvig Forsell Previews the Experimental Music of ‘Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’ [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

“Everybody experiences close calls, and everyone knows that, at some point, they’re going to die. Hopefully you die in a quiet, gentle way, but it happens. You have to understand that it’s going to happen to you,” director/co-writer James Wong tells Bloody Disgusting.

“When Final Destination came out, the critical reaction wasn’t over the moon or anything, but it just kept on. Generally a movie goes out of the top 10 within the first three weeks, and ours just stayed up there for a long time.”

Before spawning a franchise that changed the way we look at seemingly innocuous things like logging trucks and tanning beds, Final Destination began its life an “X-Files” spec script by Jeffrey Reddick that was later rewritten by Wong and his then-partner, Glen Morgan.

“Death was sort of personified — maybe not as much as, like, The Seventh Seal, but there was a guy with a scythe, as I remember — and we wanted to not do that. We thought, ‘Well, maybe the best way for us to do this is change who the killer is,'” Wong says.

“In life, really, death is all around us. What if his death is also sadistic, and uses these Rube Goldbergian ways to make his point? We wrote the script with that in mind, and [New Line Cinema] gave us the green light to make the movie.”

The film marked Wong’s first feature in the director’s chair. “The reason why I got to make it is because I had my directorial debut on ‘X-Files’ in Season 4, and I was lucky enough to earn an Emmy nomination for best directing. That’s how my agent got to say, ‘Hey, Jim gets to direct this movie.’ And I’ll be honest with you: I was scared to death.”

He relied on his crew and friends like Morgan to help him through the process. “Some filmmakers would like to let you know that they’re the brains behind everything, but filmmaking is really a collaborative process. The people you surround yourself with are invaluable.”

The biggest challenge proved to be the unknown. “There were multiple kills, obviously, and they had different setups and different lengths. Lewton’s was the longest, most sadistic, where Terry’s, the bus hit, was the fastest.

“Going into it, we didn’t really know how the rhythms of the deaths would translate to the audience. Is this right? Is this wrong? Are we allowing the audience to catch on to what we’re doing and at the same time subvert their expectations? That was the hardest part for me, because I didn’t know how or if it would work.”

He discovered that it did, in fact, work after seeing the film with a crowd. “I went into the theater during the first run, because I love watching a movie with an audience. We suddenly saw a bunch of ushers from the theater walk in in the middle of the movie and just stand by the side. And I realized it was right before the bus hit. They just wanted to see the audience react.

“I think they did a whole advertising campaign where they had cameras on an actual audience, and popcorn’s flying and all that stuff. That’s the reaction that I’m sort of most proud of in all my filmmaking. It’s so visceral and surprising. I really feel like that’s the kind of fun that Final Destination delivers on a film-to-film basis. I think that’s why it survived.”

Wong speaks highly of working with the late, great Tony Todd as mortician William Bludworth. “It’s not so often that you come upon an actor that elevates and at the same time solidifies your idea of what the character is, and Tony did both of those things.

“The way he moves, the way he speaks, the tenor of his voice, his physical presence; it just embodied that character. At the same time, when he did it on set, I go, ‘Wow, this guy’s creepy!’ And that’s exactly what you need. It was a short role, at least in the first movie, but it was so memorable. He was great.”

The director recently rewatched Final Destination, but not just for nostalgia. “We did a whole new coloring timing on it. Warner Bros. was generous enough to give us some money and time to digitally redo the color time of the movie.”

He’s unsure how or when the restored version will see the light of day. “I don’t know why we would do it if we don’t have a theatrical release. I’m hoping there’ll be some kind of Fathom Events or something like that that you can experience the movie again in theater.”

In revisiting the film, he noted one thing he would do differently if he had the chance. “There is a pre-premonition world and there’s a post-premonition world, where life has changed for Alex. In the production design, we actually built two versions of the sets that we see again, like his room and some of the other places we visit.

“The dimensions of the sets were actually different. It was a really exciting idea to me, but I don’t think I did a great job. I was too subtle. If I were to do it today, I might make that change more apparent.”

By the time Wong returned to the series to helm 2006’s Final Destination 3, both he and the audience knew what to expect. “That was probably the most fun I had in shooting a movie, and I felt fully confident that we knew what we were doing,” he says of the sequel.

“We felt like the kills were right and the characters were right. The most effective death for me — well, besides the bus hit, which was just a shocking, fun surprise — is the tanning bed sequence.

“I actually really felt for the girls. It’s one thing to die with your clothes on; it’s another to be completely vulnerable like that. On set obviously the tanning beds were not hot, but their reactions made me squirm. I knew then that it was gonna work.”

The franchise will return from a 14-year absence on May 16 with the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines. “I thought the fifth was the end, the capper, because it kind of reverted back to the first one, but I’m super happy that they’re doing it,” Wong says.

“I have no idea what the sixth one’s about. I’m excited to learn as well as, hopefully, the audience. Craig [Perry, franchise producer] says people love the trailer and people love the movie in test screenings, so I’m excited for it.

“To be honest with you, I never expected that movie would go beyond the first one, so I’m just tickled,” he chuckles.

Wong is pleasantly surprised that people still talk about Final Destination a quarter of a century later. “I’m happy to say that it’s survived all this time. 25 years is pretty incredible, and I’m proud of it.”

The inevitability of death, he surmises, is the key to Final Destination‘s longevity. “Other franchises are based on the charisma of the killer, or the lack of charisma sometimes. The teenagers are really just fodder for the kill, and the fun is watching how Jason or Freddy kills them.

“For Final Destination, death itself is interchangeable within our lives. It could come from any direction. You don’t have to be at Camp Crystal Lake in order to to encounter the killer. The killer’s all around us. I think that idea is what makes it long lasting. It could be anything in the room that you’re in or the place that you’re traveling,” he explains.

“Death is right there, the next breath.”

In celebration of the 25th anniversary, Final Destination is now on sale to purchase for $9.99 at all digital retailers through March 31.

The post ‘Final Destination’ at 25 – Director James Wong Reflects on Cheating Death [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Castlevania: Nocturne is the first of these new Castlevania series and it follows Richter Belmont, Maria Renard, and a team of intrepid monster hunters in an apocalyptic struggle that’s set against the French Revolution. Castlevania: Nocturne builds upon its predecessor’s strong foundation and finds a careful balance that will appease both fans of the original and newcomers alike. You can read my full review of the debut season here.

To celebrate Castlevania: Nocturne‘s release, co-showrunner Kevin Kolde and directors Sam and Adam Deats get candid on the horror series’ production and setting it apart from its predecessor, the inspirations behind the season’s unique monsters, and where the Castlevania animated universe is heading next. 

This interview contains SPOILERS for ‘Castlevania: Nocturne.’

Bloody Disgusting: The Castlevania games have such rich lore that covers so many different characters and places. How did you decide on Richter, Maria, this world, and its inspiration for Nocturne? Did you always know that this would be the next chapter in the franchise?

Kevin Kolde: We had loosely discussed Richter as the next character that we would focus on, going back to the original series. When we talked about the possibility of other series, expanding the universe, and continuing with another Castlevania, it was Richter who seemed to be a favorite among everybody. 

Sam Deats: We were of course big fans of the games and bounced around ideas, but it seemed like Richter made the most sense and had the most potential for what we could do in this time period. Focusing on this character in Castlevania’s history ultimately opened up a lot of doors for us.

BD: I love that this show is really a revolution story at the end of the day, albeit on such a grandiose scale. Why did that feel like the right angle for Nocturne?

Kolde: When we started to look at the story that we wanted to tell with Richter, the first thing that we gravitated towards was the time period. It made sense to look at what was going on in Richter’s story and then drawing parallels to the real world at the time of the French Revolution. From a storytelling standpoint it just seemed like there were a lot of opportunities there to tell a story that’s authentic to the French Revolution and then combine all of that with vampires and other lore. We spent a lot of time really trying to get the balance right between the history and the fantasy. 

BD: One of my favorite elements of the show is Edouard, the opera singer, and how his music is used throughout the season. How did this unique character come together?

Kolde: I’ll speak for Clive Bradley, my showrunning partner. Edouard is a character who Clive and the writing team created. So much of that element of who Edouard is as a character and the musical element came from Clive. Speaking for myself, I don’t think I was familiar with any of those opera pieces that Edouard sings in the show. That was something that came from Clive and his team. We were so lucky to get Sydney James Harcourt, which allowed the role to evolve and expand even further. Sydney is such a wonderful actor, but also such an amazing singer, that when we started to get into recording those songs and see how they worked together he gave us so much more to work with. 

Sam Deats: One of the things that I love about this element about Edouard is that it allows us to further incorporate music into the series. Music is such an important part of the Castlevania series even going all the way back to the NES game tracks. In some of the later games, like Symphony of the Night, there are more tracks that resemble classical music, like what we’re doing here. So this type of music is more at home in Castlevania than one would think. It still feels like Castlevania. 

BD: The original Castlevania looked gorgeous, but Nocturne truly goes above and beyond with its visuals. These visuals also carry over into really complex and compelling battle choreography. Can you elaborate on building and perfecting that?

Sam Deats: Whenever I get the chance to go nuts with the action in these episodes we call it “The Sam Deats Special” and there’s a lot of that here. These scripts gave me a lot of room to have fun and some of my favorite moments are in these episodes. It all comes down to exploring the abilities of the characters, their powers, and how that clashes against whatever it is they’re fighting. I really enjoy trying to find new things for the audience to see. I don’t always want to fall back on the same handful of abilities again and again. I try to have the characters look for unique solutions to their problems so it stays fresh for the viewer and for us, as creators. That was something in particular that was important to us when we were crafting Nocturne and building the ability-set for Richter and Maria. That was really exciting to me. Richter has the classic Belmont weapons and abilities, but he also has access to magic in this uniquely raw form. It’s more about enhancing himself and his weapons. 

Adam Deats: The fight scenes are also when we get to be the most purely Castlevania in the show when it comes to designs. It’s a time where we can do a lot of referential stuff to the games and it feels really at home. There’s that skull attack from Symphony of the Night that’s in the first episode. 

BD: There are such creative designs for the show’s many night creatures that almost feel like they have a Guillermo del Toro influence. How did you figure out the look for Nocturne’s monsters and what were the inspirations there?

Kolde: When we first started talking about Castlevania’s night creatures and how they’d be different than what was previously seen in the series, we were looking through a lot of Ayami Kojima’s art, whether it was her artbooks, creature designs, or vampire designs. Her work features all of these elements of humanity that we wanted to make sure were prominent in Nocturne. 

Sam Deats: Some of the night creature designs from this season are also inspired by the story direction. These night creatures are being created in a different manner than what we’ve seen in the past. They’re coming from a special source and, as a result, we wanted to reflect that in these creatures’ appearances. The human element was very important there and we wanted to make sure that it was still present. 

Adam Deats: We still tried to incorporate some of the classic Castlevania monsters here and there, when possible. It just doesn’t feel like Castlevania without them, you know? So those original monster elements are still there, too. 

BD: Richter and Maria have an energy that’s very comparable to what was present with Trevor and Sypha. Was that intentional and did you consider doing something completely different with this show’s main characters?

Sam Deats: Honestly, so much of that dynamic is the natural result of what’s present with Richter and Maria in the Castlevania games. There’s this brotherly and sisterly dynamic between them that really shines through. That just felt like the natural direction for their relationship.

BD: What kind of arc have you mapped out for the series and did you know that you’d always be building to Alucard’s return?

Kolde: Yeah, Alucard’s return was always planned for this part in the story arc at the end of the season. We wrote everything else around that. 

Sam Deats: As a Castlevania fan, I’m really excited to explore Richter and Maria’s relationship with Alucard on a more expanded level than what’s been previously seen. I’m excited to see them get to know each other and work together. We really wanted these new characters to shine, but there’s still plenty of new things to come for Alucard.

Kolde: We’re always looking at the broader Castlevania universe when it comes to where we should expand and evolve. Nocturne has felt like an evolution and expansion of what we did in the original series. We never want to be in a position of just doing the same thing over again. The lore goes on for so long and there are so many great characters, stories, and branches that we can explore. We’re always having those discussions. 

Castlevania: Nocturne and Castlevania are available to stream on Netflix.

The post “Castlevania: Nocturne” – Showrunner and Directors Break Down Netflix’s Animated Resurrection [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In case you missed it, director Dutch Marich‘s 2021 found footage chiller Horror in the High Desert is a little-known gem that has recently been generating some well-deserved word of mouth among fans of the subgenre. Though found footage remains a subgenre maligned by many, now and then, a filmmaker manages to bring out the best in the format–exploring effective scares, unsettling imagery, and intriguing stories in new and inventive ways. Horror in the High Desert is a prime example of this ingenuity. While the story initially unfolds how a run-of-the-mill spooky docuseries might, the final 10 minutes of the film deliver an equally curious and bone-chilling turn that solidifies Marich’s world firmly in the realm of high strangeness.

If Marich’s microbudget film resonated with you as much as it did me, you have likely already rushed to check out Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva, which saw its release in March of this year. For those who haven’t, it may be enticing to know that the very scary sequel takes what made the first film so chilling and amps it up to 11. Marich is firing on all cylinders as we follow stories of two new unfortunate souls in the High Desert–Minerva (Solveig Helene) and Ameliana (Brooke Bradshaw)–whose individually horrific stories point to a more significant phenomenon at play in Marich’s world.

I recently had the opportunity to briefly chat with the director (who also serves as the film’s screenwriter, producer, and editor) about what inspired the film’s tone, building out his story, and what’s next for the Horror in the High Desert universe. Speaking of the film’s often anxiety-inducing scares, Marich had much to say about atmosphere. “To me the most frightening thing has always been the fear of the unknown. Getting hints of what lurks beyond the shadows, but never the full picture. What I strive to create in these films is an atmosphere that sets the stage for sequences that elicit both fear and a sense of wonder. What am I seeing? Is that what I think it is? Leaving bread crumbs along the way for the audience to form their own theories is fun.”

Though the narrative unfolding across these films seems straightforward enough, Minerva continues to build out an increasingly bizarre tale involving inexplicable phenomena plaguing residents along a stretch of the High Desert region in Nevada. Marich delivers scares and images reminiscent of the best moments from several found footage favorites that came before (see specifically: The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Hell House LLC, Hangman, and Willow Creek). Even with that said, Marich’s films boast a unique approach to the subgenre that aficionados of highly strange phenomena will undoubtedly appreciate.

“The story for Minerva came about after driving by that trailer a million times and thinking about how frightening it would be to live there on the side of the highway all alone,” Marich states, speaking specifically of a trailer that features prominently in the film. “What would be scarier than living there? Living there as an outsider and having no idea about these mysterious disappearances and frightening events taking place in the area. You’d be a sitting duck. A Marion Crane.”

As the horror genre has recently seen a handful of buzzed-about films exploring high strangeness and liminal horrors (e.g., The Outwaters, Skinamarink, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair), Marich is certainly aware of the wake in which Minerva has surfaced. “It’s wild to see those films creating this new wave of horror and suddenly be among them,” Marich states. “I love those movies… strangeness to me is brain candy. I’ve always crafted my stories and visuals around things that scare me and to have so many people connect with it and be frightened by it is incredibly thrilling and rewarding as a filmmaker.”

While Marich’s sequel boasts plenty of scares, it also conveys a sense of authenticity that is often difficult to master in films of this nature. Speaking of this, Marich states, “For the Horror in the High Desert movies, to capture authenticity, I’ve mainly worked with people that I know personally and have history with. Aside from Suziey Block, who plays Gal Roberts, the journalist covering the stories, most are non-actors.” As one of the most significant challenges in creating a found footage horror flick is getting actors to act like they’re not acting, Marich’s casting decisions further amp up the feeling of genuine dread as viewers witness horrifying experiences befall people who all feel like someone you might know from your hometown. That said, established actress Block (who also stars in the wonderfully unsettling 2012 film Entrance) is a strong anchor for both films in her reporter role.

Given the found footage films previously referenced, it may be unsurprising to find that Marich’s interest in the subgenre was born when he encountered The Blair Witch Project. “Like most others, my love affair with found footage started when I saw The Blair Witch Project for the first time in 1999. Me and my friend made our own version of it on my grandpa’s video camera and to this day it terrifies me that I can’t find that tape to destroy it! We went waaaaay over the top.” While viewers may be waiting a while for that fan film to surface, Marich promises that more films in the series will be coming. “As of right now, there are five movies in the Horror in the High Desert movie series. I say as of right now because I have several other stories that would fit right into the universe. And I love making them!”

As a die-hard found footage horror fiend, I say bring them on!

Horror in the High Desert is currently available for free on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva is available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime.

Marich’s next entry, tentatively titled Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch, is currently targeted for a late 2023 release.

The post ‘Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva’ Director Dutch Marich Discusses His Terrifying Found Footage Sequel [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Yet again helmed by Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Scream VI also welcomes back franchise staple Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), Scream 4 fan-favorite Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), the iconic voice of Ghostface (Roger L. Jackson), and a host of new potential Ghostface victims, including veteran actor Dermot Mulroney (Copycat), Liana Liberato (The Beach House), Jack Champion (Avatar: The Way of Water), Devyn Nekoda (Ginny & Georgia), and Josh Segarra (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law).

Like 2022’s Scream, the sequel is again produced by Project X Entertainment, Spyglass Media Group, and Radio Silence Productions, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Following its premiere in Manhattan last week, I was fortunate to sit for a chat with two-thirds of the Project X Entertainment team, including Scream VI writer/producer James Vanderbilt (who co-wrote the two latest installments with Guy Busick) and producer William Sherak. Longtime franchise fans, Vanderbilt and Sherak were excited to give their perspectives on maintaining the franchise’s integrity, navigating the Scream fanbase, and favorite moments from the latest installment of the smash slasher series.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Note that while no major explicit spoilers are revealed, some general plot points and themes are discussed.

Readers who have not yet caught Scream VI should beware!

Though likely a little-known bit of trivia at this point, the founders of Project X proactively sought to take the franchise mantle from late director and horror icon Wes Craven once the franchise rights were ultimately acquired by Spyglass Media Group in 2019. Despite many fans’ beliefs that the franchise would not be able to continue without Craven after 2011’s Scream 4, all was in fact not lost. “We felt the same way after Scream 4, so we were right there with you,” Vanderbilt shares. Sherak adds, “When the opportunity presented itself in the right moment for us, it was one of those… kismet, planets aligned, we could go get it [moments]. It was equally as exciting.”

Despite Project X’s faith in the franchise, Vanderbilt admits that it took a bit of time before the studios fully understood what they still had on their hands. “One of the things that we, right from the jump, were saying to [the studio] was that… you don’t understand how much love there is out there for these movies,” he states. “We wanted to bring them back and we really wanted to do right by them, for the fans and for ourselves. And other people, sort of in looking at it were like, ‘Well… will people care if there’s another Scream movie?’ There was a lot of that going on. And we were very much like, ‘Oh no, you don’t understand!’ Then as we […] made five, and as we started to sort of release stuff–stills and trailers–different people and the studios saw the responses, and they were very excited. It’s not that they didn’t believe it, but it truly is ‘seeing is believing’ with this fandom, I think, in a really amazing way.”

Sherak spoke especially highly of the major role franchise creator, screenwriter, and producer Kevin Williamson (whom they refer to multiple times as their “north star”) has played in guiding the team in developing the fifth and sixth franchise entries over the last few years. “When Spyglass first allowed us to take the reins with them and develop [the new films], the first thing [we decided] was this only works if we bring Kevin back into the fold,” he states. “His brain is amazing, right? He’s really, really good at this. [laughs] We’ve been fortunate that, not only did we bring him back, but we built a relationship that’s past business… [he] is a friend. And I think that that is, to us, one of the biggest pieces of this, because he’s just so good at this and he really does know what he’s doing more than most. [… Vanderbilt] worked really hard at making sure on that first pitch that Kevin understood it, heard it, and blessed [it].”

Vanderbilt further admits that, even as a long-time writer, he still managed to get starstruck by Williamson’s reactions to the latest installment. “When we were in New York for the premiere on Monday, Kevin was sitting right behind my father and I. Kevin’s seen the movie a bunch of times and loves the movie, but I could hear him laughing at the movie. It was such an amazing, surreal moment for me as a writer to hear Kevin Williamson laughing at lines I had written in a Scream movie in real time! He’s the best.” Both Vanderbilt and Sherak were also vocal in their praise of Craven’s long-time producing partner Marianne Maddalena, who, like Williamson, served as a producer on 2022’s Scream and an executive producer on Scream VI. “[She] has been nothing but incredible. I mean, Marianne was the one who found the original Ghostface mask on the first one! So it’s just been a pleasure to work with both of them all throughout this process.”

At this point, it likely goes without saying that the Scream fanbase is quite the vocal community, especially online via platforms like Reddit and Twitter–for better and worse. This was clearly acknowledged via the meta plot turns in 2022’s requel, as Vanderbilt, Busick, and the Radio Silence team have also paid close attention to fan conversations around the franchise over the years. This didn’t change as the team began work on Scream VI. “From my perspective, and I think with Guy Busick, we’re aware of [fan conversations] and we absolutely find… I don’t want to always say inspiration in it, but we’re absolutely aware of it. But also, you know… storytelling, I think, so much is trying to give the audience what they need, not what they want. ‘Cause sometimes you want Dewey Riley to make it all the way through the movie, but… the story needs him not to. So I think it’s a balance in a lot of different ways, and what’s most important to us is telling the best version of the story that we think is a great one. That’s what we really tried to do on [Scream VI] as well. You know, if five is Woodsboro and feels very much like a classic Scream movie, how can six sort of subvert that and still be a Scream movie, but make some moves and do some things that you haven’t seen before, that you won’t expect.”

After a beat, Vanderbilt adds, “I think we’re coming at it from a place of love and, you know, all you can do as a filmmaker is tell the best version of the story that you can. […] My experience has always been that if you’re coming from a place of fear, if you’re coming from a place of not wanting to offend anyone or not wanting to piss anyone off, that’s not a good way to tell a story. You know? I think the best stories come out of, ‘Oh, this is a really cool idea and I want you to come and sit by the campfire with me and let me spin you this tale. And it’s gonna surprise you, and it’s gonna scare you, and there are gonna be moments in it that make you uncomfortable. And you may not like every single one. But I promise you, by the end of the tale, you’re gonna have had an amazing time.’ That’s how we sort of look at these movies and look at storytelling in general. And so, you know, being afraid of that is never a beneficial thing.” Speaking to navigating fan theories, gripes, and wishes for the continuing franchise, Vanderbilt found comfort in Williamson’s advice early on. “I’ll just go back to something that Kevin said to us at the beginning of five when we were first starting out. We were talking about what the story was, and Kevin sort of said, ‘Never forget that these are slasher movies. […] At the end of the day, that’s what they are, and people die in slasher movies–even if these [characters] have amazing fans. That’s what these are.’ And I’ve never forgotten that. Again… he’s the north star!”

Sherak adds: “I think on top of that, once you go to shoot it, you kind of embrace the fact that we decided the movie we’re gonna make. And then you keep your head down and you go make that movie. You don’t then lift your head up and go, ‘What are the fans saying while we’re doing it?’ You embrace the movie you all decided on and then you go make it because otherwise you end up with mish-mosh, right? And I think we’ve all done a really good job of that. […] The second you start taking opinions while you’re shooting… that’s a recipe for a bad outcome.” In addition to decidedly maintaining a sense of focus on the story at hand among the filmmaking team, Vanderbilt and Sherak both expressed a sense of comfort in the process knowing that many of the actors involved in both recent installments are also major franchise fans, including Gooding, Champion, and Dylan Minnette (2022’s Scream). “The fans exist in so many places, and are also multi-generational. Some of these kids weren’t alive when the first one came out! [laughs]”

Speaking on the direction of Scream VI, Vanderbilt states that he and Busick knew early on that they wanted the relationship between the Carpenter sisters and their struggles navigating the world after the events of the fifth film to be the grounding focus of the story–a core idea very much in line what many fans have long appreciated about the previous Scream films. “I think one of the tricks of a great […] Scream movie or a great any movie is that even if the events are heightened, there has to be some emotional relatability. And so the idea of two siblings–with one thinking the other one is hovering too much [and] the younger one [wanting] to go out on their own–that’s a very relatable story. […] It felt really organic to us and exciting. And then, you know, as with anything, you put that pot on a stove and you turn up the heat under it and see what happens. […] Without giving too much away, we talked a lot about the idea of family in the movie and what family means and how family comes from many different directions.”

In addition to an emotional anchor, Scream films are also widely known for their meta-commentary on subjects ranging from the horror genre to the film industry to toxic fandom. Up front, Scream VI sees a focus on the court of public opinion, particularly with Sam’s arc as a survivor following the 2022 Woodsboro murders. “[These] movies should feel rooted in the year they’re made in a real way,” Vanderbilt states. “So, you know, 2011 and Scream 4 was really the rise of ‘I don’t need friends, I need fans’… [it] was perfectly encapsulated. So there’s some stuff in this movie that, with the idea that people believed Sam was responsible for what happened in Woodsboro… that felt very 2023. Something like that could happen and people online could go, ‘Well, I mean maybe it’s a false flag operation or maybe she did the whole thing!” […] That felt like something that would not happen 10 years ago… that would never happen to Sidney Prescott, but it would be something that happened to Sam Carpenter. So, I think reflecting where we are culturally is always sort of […] the secret sauce of these movies, past and hopefully present.”

Given the high level of awareness of fan discourse behind the scenes, Project X and company were set on giving fan-favorite characters their moments to shine (and scream) in the latest installment. In addition to the return of the Meeks-Martin twins from the previous installment–nephew and niece of franchise favorite Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) and children of Martha Meeks (Heather Matarazzo)–the latest film also welcomes back Panettiere’s Kirby, who was seen in Scream 4 presumably near death but was canonically confirmed as having survived via an easter egg in last year’s entry. “Listen, Wes said she was alive so that was good enough for me,” Vanderbilt says with a smile. Sherak adds, “We had Zoomed with Hayden on five just to see what her thoughts were of acting again. You know, she had taken some time [off]… and she had told us that she was really into it so we knew going in that she would be receptive to being part of it. And when Jamie and Guy delivered a script with that character–Kirby being Kirby, which was just awesome–we went to her and she was great. She’s a pro. She’s been doing this forever, since she was a little kid. That camera turns on her and she’s magical! She’s really good at it and loves the character.”

Cox, whose Gale Weathers returns following the death of her franchise love interest and best friend Dewey Riley (David Arquette), was also game to step back into the killer’s path in the New York City setting. Vanderbilt and Sherak have nothing but love for the veteran actress, particularly for warmly welcoming the new cast members and crew with open arms on the set of the fifth film. “Courtney is such a gamer,” Sherak gushes. “She gets there, she is the sweetest, most professional… like couldn’t be nicer. And then the ability to bring her back was so much fun.” As audiences are now aware, one particular sequence in Scream VI puts Gale face to face with the killer in a manner that is much more threatening–and physically taxing–than she has experienced in many of the past films. By Sherak’s report, Cox was all in. “We said, look, here’s the sequence… you good with it? And she was good with it! […] She did it, and I mean she really did it. That is a practical location. We blocked it out, she ran through it… like, that is not a set. She did the work and she’s… she’s a joy to have on set!”

While the prospects for a seventh Scream installment are still up in the air at the time of this publication, there are unsurprisingly already fervent demands for another film among fans and speculation about where the story could go next. Still, Vanderbilt and Sherak appear content with enjoying the process one day at a time and reflecting on their own favorite moments from Scream VI for the time being. “I’m gonna give you two answers,” Sherak says. “Reading [the script], it was always the subway. It really was. It was always the subway. And I think that scene delivers in spades. But I think that, for me, watching it, I actually think it ended up being the ladder scene. […] That scene to me encapsulates everything that Jamie and Guy did in six, in one scene from start to finish.”

Vanderbilt appears to favor the film’s quieter moments upon reflection. “It’s crazy ’cause you focus on the set pieces and you focus on all of that stuff. But then, for me… it’s just some of the character moments. It’s actually them sitting around that table. You know what I mean? And one of the wonderful things about being able to make a sequel is you know who you’re writing for and you know what they’re capable of. And so being able to give [Barrera, Ortega, Savoy Brown, and Gooding] more to do and know they could park it and then watching them park it is incredibly fulfilling. That by the time you get to the ladder, you actually care if someone’s going to fall or not–not because it’s scary to fall, but because you care about the characters. That’s the thing I think I’m really proud of.”

Scream VI is now playing in theaters everywhere.

The post [Interview] ‘Scream VI’ Producers James Vanderbilt and William Sherak Discuss Legacy, Fandom, and Returning Characters appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you’re drawn to creepy and unsettling imagery like I am, odds are you have likely come across and fallen down the rabbit hole of images online known as “liminal spaces.” These images often portray typically bustling places—streets, malls, schools, sprawling corridors—in their most desolate states, uncharacteristically empty and isolated to the point of being unsettling. The public’s fascination with liminal spaces has been growing in recent years, but the term liminality itself first surfaced in the field of anthropology through the early-to-mid 20th-century work of scholars like Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner in their study of rituals. Put as simply as can be, liminality describes a state of transition, where someone or something is neither here nor there, connected to what was before and what is to come, but not fully planted in either.

It’s probably no surprise then that liminality has played a prominent role in the horror genre (and beyond) for some time now. Whether we’re talking Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, or David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, the genre has explored the disquieting nature of physical spaces of transition, as well as those that are emotionally, psychologically, and otherwise symbolically liminal. Recent years have further introduced a host of modern genre films that have explored liminality in inventive ways, including Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Jordan Peele’s Us, and Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium.

While genre films of this nature aren’t new in their approaches by any means, the recent buzz around films like Robbie Banfitch’s The Outwaters and Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink suggest that a revitalized and experiential brand of liminal horror is on the rise.

As projects of this nature are right up my alley, I sought to pick the brains of several filmmakers whose recent projects explore liminal horrors in unique and creative ways, including Ball, Banfitch, Paul Owens (writer/director of LandLocked), and Zach Donohue (writer/director of the experimental web series The Unknowable).

Historically, found footage horror has often been one of the most effective mediums for exploring themes of liminality. Banfitch’s The Outwaters—set to be released in select theaters on February 9^th and sometime later in the year on Screambox—is a prime example of this format used to the fullest effect. Citing The Blair Witch Project, Willow Creek, Session 9, Event Horizon, and the films of Terrence Malick as inspiration, Banfitch’s film begins unassumingly enough as it follows four friends preparing to embark on a trip to the Mojave Desert to shoot a music video.

Like many found footage films that came before, The Outwaters is grounded in a real-life scenario from the outset. The film features mostly improvised dialogue, was shot on location in the Mojave Desert, and stars Banfitch and his actual family and friends (“I think my friends are cool!” he gushes)—all elements that serve to establish the comforting “reality” that the audience is meant to settle into before the familiar spirals into the outright horrifying.

“I just wanted complete, slice-of-life normalcy and then… chaos,” says Banfitch with a laugh when asked about his approach to the film’s narrative. “I hate it in found footage movies when there’s all this dramatic tension going on and [characters are] having conversations that you would never have on camera. So, I basically didn’t want ‘drama’ in [the film], which I think is why some people find the first half really boring. I wanted all the drama to be hanging in the air.”

Indeed, the film’s early moments suggest familial tension and potentially troubled relationships, but nothing is quite explicitly laid out, and we mostly get to know the film’s characters through naturalistic interactions. However, as The Outwaters tailspins into a surreal back half characterized by unsettling sound design (courtesy of Banfitch himself) and a host of disturbing images, the film becomes a largely sensory experience that feels like a fever dream. Viewers are given glimpses of what’s “real” amidst the chaos, but nothing is ever quite explicitly laid out in the film’s hellish landscape, eliciting a sense that the viewer is indeed trapped in a waking nightmare on a camping trip gone wrong. In this sense, the film’s use of psychological, geographical, and temporal disorientation to communicate the horrors the friends face in the Mojave makes for a liminal horror experience at its most chaotic.

While the film’s imagery feels organized in its ultimate chaos, Banfitch himself admits that his visual choices just flowed from him naturally: “When I got the idea for what the threat [in The Outwaters] could be, I didn’t really write much. I just started exploring it with whatever visuals came to my head.” When asked if any of his personal fears influenced the film, he responds after some thinking: “Darkness is scary. Swimming in the ocean at night is scary. I just explored visual ideas as I went along, and I don’t even know where they came from other than just thinking of what the threat was and what that would look like if it were captured on someone’s home movies.” Banfitch is quick to note that the choices around what he represents on screen are not arbitrary, however. “For me, everything in it feels important in some way.”

One might be inclined to look at Banfitch with morbid curiosity and wonder what exactly is going on in his head if the imagery in The Outwaters is any indication. As someone with a long history of recurring, seemingly inescapable nightmares that have more than once made me question reality upon waking, the film made me feel as if I had seen one of my darkest dreams put to film in the most chillingly accurate way. Moreover, I’ve been genuinely surprised to hear this sentiment shared by a few others who have also seen and connected with the film on the festival circuit. It’s as if Banfitch has unconsciously channeled a true-to-life human experience firmly planted in psychological liminality; at its most effective, The Outwaters functions as a visceral simulation of what it might be like to be trapped between two warring states of consciousness or mental clarity. “I just hope that people feel like they’re seeing something that’s actually horrific,” Banfitch states of his final product. “Even though [the film] is experimental in some ways, I hope that audiences feel that they’ve seen something unique that stirs a feeling of genuine horror.”

That such disturbing content could seamlessly flow from the mind of a filmmaker without any advanced visual plan in place is not a scenario that Banfitch alone describes, suggesting a creative process by which unconscious horrors manifest for some only as filming is underway. Kyle Edward Ball reported a similar process as he discussed his much-buzzed-about Skinamarink, which was recently released in select theaters and will hit Shudder later this year. The film, which has garnered a wide range of strong reactions thus far, follows 4-year-old Kevin (Lucas Paul) and 6-year-old Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault), who awake to find that their father is missing, and all the home’s windows and doors have vanished.

“I just felt compelled to make this movie… this exact movie,” Ball states. “And the more I leaned into it, it felt like it just sort of happened. As I got going, I made it more and more personal. I filmed it at the house I grew up in. I made the characters basically me and my sister, and it just sort of evolved.”

Ball initially saw the seeds for Skinamarink planted in his work on a YouTube series in which he recreates people’s nightmares. Of this project, he states, “I discovered that the most common nightmare that people would describe would be: ‘I’m between the ages of 6 and 10, I’m in my house, there’s a monster, and my parents are either dead or asleep or missing, and I have to deal with the monster.’ And I kind of built a movie around that… it just sort of evolved into something.” Ball cites Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky’s Solaris, master of liminal horror David Lynch, and more as his primary inspirations for Skinamarink. Filming took place in his childhood home over seven days (he winkingly referenced The Ring when this was revealed), and Ball replicated various facets of his childhood experiences for the film. “When I was little, the basement was scary, so I wrote that into it,” he explains. “The parts with the kids’ pictures on the walls… that’s me and my sister. And when I was about 4 or 5, my mom picked up a tape of public-domain cartoons from a bargain bin. I actually found all of the ones from that tape, and they’re shown in the movie.” With this knowledge, Skinamarink carries an even more unsettling air, as if one is viewing an authentic home video somehow composed of fragmented (and no doubt skewed) childhood memories projected in real time. The film’s cursed tone is heightened by persistent, grainy shots of the home’s interior—dark hallways, looming stairwells, and walls that seem to extend to towering heights—that slowly transform a once-familiar childhood safe haven into a horror house of endless liminal spaces.

While Ball insists that the more autobiographical aspects of the film are the ones not necessarily played for scares, one key prop written into the script fell serendipitously into place in a way that shook even Ball himself. “A toy phone plays prominently in the film. I wrote it into the script thinking, ‘How am I gonna track down this phone from the ‘90s?’” he explains. “Before we made the movie, I went to my parents’ house to look through these bins of toys so that we could use them as props. We got to the bottom of one bin, and that fucking toy phone was staring up at me! I was like, “Mom, I wrote this into the movie, but I didn’t know we had this!’” Ball laughs about this synchronicity but acknowledges that his unconscious and personal mental health journey are likely to credit for the film’s scares. “I’m sure all of it comes from [my own fears], but it’s hard to pinpoint where I consciously constructed something and where I subconsciously constructed stuff. […] There are obviously fears of abandonment and being alone [represented]. I have schizophrenia, so having a monster with this voice that tries to control you and tells you to do things and maybe hurt yourself… I don’t know if that was a conscious decision I made at any point, but it was something that seeped into the script.”

Whether consciously or unintentionally, the use of personal content in low-budget horror projects often serves to elevate a sense of temporal and psychological liminality to disquieting effect. Like Ball, LandLocked writer/director Paul Owens also filmed his feature debut in his childhood home. The film, which was released earlier this month on streaming platforms, follows Mason (played by the director’s real-life younger brother Mason Owens) as he returns to his soon-to-be demolished childhood home and discovers a video camera with the ability to show past events in the places where they originally took place. As Mason begins to record and immerse himself in the memories he rediscovers, his sense of reality is threatened as the past begins to take on a life of its own in the present. Speaking of his personal attachment to the narrative, Owens states, “Kind of similar to the character in the movie, I had moved back home at one point and was living there with my dad, brothers… It wasn’t really the same place anymore. It was kind of that feeling like you can never go home again, and trying to capture that, wanting to tell that in a way that was different from other movies.”

While Owens utilizes traditional filming techniques to document much of Mason’s journey, he notably also integrates actual home video footage from his family’s archive throughout the film. “Discovering the home videos at my dad’s house and watching them… that kind of blew my mind,” he states. “I was like, ‘I gotta use these somehow.’” The footage highlighted in LandLocked consists of a wide range of family memories, including lively clips of his parents entertaining guests and Owens and his brothers enjoying summer days on the property. Yet, while Owens asserts he never intended to make a “scary” film and the footage itself is not inherently dark for much of the film, LandLocked is tinged with a haunting, often wistful tone. “[The idea for the movie] sort of just occurred to me while watching a videotape of a happy family on TV and then looking around and seeing everything in disrepair and having everyone scattered in their own locations now. It seemed to just make a ton of sense to me. [The scariness] seemed to be naturally embedded. There was a creepiness to the idea; there was a spookiness.”

In discussing the exercise of filming on the family property for no less than four years, Owens describes a surreal quality to the process. “It’s a really old house, so, growing up, it was always very strange-feeling compared to other homes,” he states. “It was built in the 1830s, I believe. It had multiple additions, like taking a window out and making it a door or adding on this section and subtracting that section. […] It was kind of like [Mark Z. Danielewski’s] House of Leaves, where there was just so much weirdness to the house that you could imagine a place underneath where all of the vents converge and someone could be living down there.”

The long-running history and temporally linked structural shifts of the home described by Owens are of note in the discussion of liminality. In fact, in some parapsychology circles, it is believed that liminal spaces—such as those heavily trafficked at one time of day but essentially desolate at another—tend to attract inexplicable phenomena. To this end, Owens also states at one point that “people were kind of in and out” of the home regularly, and footage of his family’s gatherings showcased in the film indicates that the house saw heavy social foot traffic over the years. Whether recognizing the connection or not, Owens’ accounts of his experiences in and relationship to the home certainly elevate the sense of liminality both explicitly and implicitly represented in LandLocked as a personal project. “There were 100 years of people living in [the house] and working on it, changing and adapting it. As a kid, your imagination is like, ‘Oh shit, what’s actually going on here?’ I feel like so much of the movie came from childhood fears, wonderings, and imaginings of what’s behind the walls. There definitely was a weirdness I always felt in the house.”

While Owens’ art-imitates-life approach appears to be born of practicality in many ways (he cast his immediate family and filmed in his childhood home because “it just seemed like the most obvious way to do it”), there’s something about LandLocked that ultimately feels like a therapeutic exercise for the filmmaker. The film certainly explores grief in unique ways, juxtaposing the comfort of nostalgia against the reality of having to make peace with the past and move forward in life, all amidst an increasingly dilapidated childhood backdrop. Owens himself explicitly discussed these themes and how they spoke to him as a creator and human alike. “That’s probably why I made the movie… to maybe remind myself that [living in the past] is a bad thing. I do tend to focus on the past and the better times that we’ve seen and people that aren’t around anymore,” he states. “It’s a problem I have for sure, so I can’t be too critical of other people for doing that same thing. But it has been interesting to make the movie sort of in the shadow of these really nostalgia-driven properties. It’s been interesting to see it as a response to all those things and go in the other direction.” With LandLocked officially released to the public, it appears the chance to finally move on to the next thing is finally here for Owens, who stated that “doing anything different will be great” when asked what’s next for him. Given the decade of labor LandLocked required of Owens, you certainly can’t blame him. “I feel like I’m living in the past, continuing to talk about this movie and working on this movie, and I do feel like the themes of this movie are telling me to stop,” he says with a laugh. “So, it’s probably good that it’s out.”

Where LandLocked and Skinamarink represent similar genre fare that has utilized autobiographical influences, friends and family of their creators, and pre-existing media to deliver liminal cinematic experiences, Zach Donohue’s (The Den) new web series The Unknowable uses similar resources to very different ends. Currently available in its entirety on YouTube via Jackalope Studio (first episode embedded below), The Unknowable uses a bricolage of over 250 different black-and-white public domain films, select silent footage filmed with hired actors, and narration (courtesy of Sean Burgos) to spin its twisted tale. Donohue and producer Kyle Cooper (creative director of Jackalope Studio) ultimately deliver a truly singular audiovisual experience that explores liminality on a cosmic level. Like The Outwaters, The Unknowable takes us to the Mojave desert as it follows World War II veteran Thaddeus Wilcox (Chris Voss) as he leaves San Francisco with his wife Fanny (Ally Voss) and her sister Mabel (Sarah Eisenberg, Donohue’s wife, and recent Emmy winner) to a remote property known as Silent Creek. Compelled by visions of a strange alien species, the Wilcox family spends the year attempting to make contact, but, in the process, draws the unwanted attention of other more malevolent and unspeakable forces.

“The process of making The Unknowable was one of discovery, planning, and intense revision,” Donohue states. “It was built out from a core set of unique and creepy characters I wanted to weave the most bizarre series of true crime events around.” Speaking of the prominent use of public domain footage in the project, Donohue adds, “The careful selection of clips became an integral part of the writing process. Sometimes the found footage would complement the story I had in mind, and sometimes it would naturally lead the narrative to new and incredible places. The challenge of tying all these bizarre threads together by the end became the biggest and most satisfying thrill as a creator.” Given the wide array of media and creative approaches utilized in creating the series, it feels as though The Unknowable itself lies somewhere in the liminal space of the creative process. The final result is a project that’s equal parts historical fiction, true crime case, high strangeness tale, and cosmic micro-horror exercise.

Though the story of the Wilcox family ultimately goes into full cosmic horror territory, much of The Unknowable taps into the same liminal realm between perceived fact and fiction that makes the best creepypastas effective. “Liminal horror transports the audience to a place that is seemingly real or familiar but which also has a dark, dreamlike quality. I think that’s why we’re discovering that some Unknowable viewers are believing that it’s a real documentary,” Donohue says of the blurred sense of reality inspired by the series. “We’re showing them things that have a sense of place in their mind, whether they realize it or not. They might not have lived in the 1940s, but they’ve seen and experienced enough cultural and historical touchstones to feel a sense of verisimilitude via the old grainy footage. It’s when things start to shift into the strange that they become unsettled—again without even realizing why. And that, to us, is what makes the show special and uncannily creepy.”

It may be unsurprising then that Donohue, like Ball, also cites David Lynch as one of the creative inspirations for The Unknowable. “Films by David Lynch, especially Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, were north stars for me—not just for crafting a liminal horror experience in general, but for helping to create a tone that balances reality with a surreal eeriness that occasionally borders on absurdism and even outlandish comedy.” Donohue further describes a famously unnerving Lynch sequence that spoke to him personally: “The diner scene in Mulholland Drive is one of the best examples of a high strange moment that plays with reality and dream world logic, and then takes you to an other-worldly space when they go behind the dumpster. We constantly tried to explore similar creepy moments [in The Unknowable] that start from familiar, conventional beginnings that then take on a warped dream logic of their own.” As Donohue also cites inspiration in Chris Marker’s seminal film La Jetée, Monty Python, and the work of Guy Maddin and Craig Baldwin, to name a few others, one can expect The Unknowable to be an unpredictable ride both narratively and as a genre experience.

In the overarching discussion of liminality as a landscape for thematic and artistic exploration in horror and related genres, there’s something to be said for projects that dare to defy categorization and filmmaking or genre tropes. Whether you are ultimately a fan or not, The Outwaters, Skinamarink, LandLocked, and The Unknowable all dare to buck expectations and current horror trends in favor of subversive approaches to otherwise well-worn territory. They certainly don’t feel constrained by what Banfitch referred to as “film school screenplay beats and dramatic tension,” which no doubt may put some less adventurous viewers off. Yet, there’s no denying that liminal horror films—those terrifying stories that place the viewer into a forced, often uncomfortable dialectic between the familiar and the unknown—make for a novel viewing experience like no other for those willing to lean into the curiosity required of them.

“Really, I just want people to feel like they’ve seen something special and be scared in a way they haven’t been scared before,” says Ball when asked what he hopes audiences get out of viewing his film. This is a similar sentiment echoed across all my discussions with the creators who contributed to this piece. Given the influx of recent projects taking fresh approaches to genre filmmaking—to the point of expanding our current subgenre taxonomy at times—it’s worth celebrating this time in which promising filmmakers can both be inspired to push the boundaries of horror and actually find support across genre fans and industry figures alike. And for some, even just being able to get these peculiar stories out at all is cause enough for celebration.

“The Unknowable was put together for under $1,000 with a limited cast and crew,” Donohue reveals. “Yet we’re able to tell a sprawling story that incorporates true crime, aliens, serial killers, witchcraft, LSD cults, and at one point we take audiences to the edge of a new dimension. Which I think, all in all, is pretty fucking cool.” As someone who’s always open to finding new and challenging ways to be scared, I’d have to agree.

The Outwaters will be released in select theaters on February 9^th and will hit Screambox later this year; Skinamarink is currently screening in select theaters and will premiere on Shudder later this year; LandLocked is currently available across streaming platforms; and The Unknowable is currently available on YouTube via Jackalope Studio.

The post The Horrors In-Between: Four Boundary-Pushing Directors Discuss Their Latest Liminal Horror Projects [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to genuinely surprise audiences during a digital age where entire scripts can leak before a movie even exits pre-production. Horror is a genre that thrives through the unknown and its ability to make its audience uncomfortable and unsure of what they’re about to experience. A true surprise is easier said than done, even when there’s a strong plan behind it, but Casper Kelly’s The Fireplace (also known as Adult Swim Yule Log) manages to accomplish this rare feat (read my review here).

Casper Kelly is a challenging avant-garde filmmaker whose cut his teeth on Adult Swim series like Stroker and Hoop and Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, but he’s perhaps better-known for his stylistically ambitious “infomercials,” Too Many Cooks and Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough. 

Kelly has returned with his most ambitious project yet, Adult Swim’s first live-action feature film that doubles as a stealth yule log video. The Fireplace is a radical piece of experimental filmmaking that’s likely to resonate with both horror fans and the Adult Swim crowd, as well as stand out as a new holiday classic. Kelly’s The Fireplace continues the director’s trend of disruptive, unpredictable filmmaking, but the genesis of this horror movie is far from conventional.

Hot off of the release of his first feature, Casper Kelly gets candid on how The Fireplace grew from a seasonal experiment into Adult Swim’s full-on live-action feature, his passion for subverting stylistic restrictions, and how Room 237’s Rodney Ascher helped inspire one of the movie’s most effective scares. 

Bloody Disgusting: What was the initial impetus for this bold project? 

Casper Kelly: It was an idea that came to me last year during the holidays. I was watching a yule log video and watching the tight shot of the fireplace. Then, for whatever reason, I saw this image of what if you just saw legs walk past it in the foreground and then you started to hear dialogue. And I thought, what if you’re in a yule log video, but suddenly there’s a story that’s also going on off-screen and you just get to see parts of it. That was the origin of it all. Then, I went to Adult Swim and really pitched that to them. That’s the premise and do you buy off on this premise? I have no idea what happens after that, but do you buy off on that? And they did.

Now, normally I make shorter things, but I decided to ask if we could try making it a movie. Adult Swim hadn’t made a live-action horror movie before but they said okay if I could do it for basically the same budget. I said, let’s see what we can do!

BD: Had you pitched longer stuff before to Adult Swim and had you been looking to take on a bigger project of this nature?

Kelly: I had been looking to do a feature for a long time. It’s really been a bucket list dream and I’m a late bloomer in that department. Now that I’ve done it, I can’t wait to do more. I’ve pitched to other places, but I’ve never pitched a feature to Adult Swim before because it’s really not in the realm of what they do. For whatever reason, on this idea I just tried it and I thought that if I make it cheaply enough then they might go for it, which they did.

BD: Was the initial aim with this movie to stylistically push boundaries in the same ways as Too Many Cooks and Final Deployment 4? Is that the space that you like to play in most?

Kelly: That’s a great question and I’m honestly not 100% sure. I’m pretty sure that I have other gears and other styles that I want to explore, but I just felt that for my first movie–I just love layering in and combining things–so why not try to do it on this? However, I’ll find myself writing other scripts and consider adding those same types of ideas, so maybe it is my style. I don’t know yet! We’ll see. 

BD: In that sense, when constructing this, did you intentionally try to play into the mystery angle where the audience doesn’t know what’s ahead and that this is going to be anything at all, let alone a horror movie?

Kelly: Yes, in fact early on we were leaning more in the direction that we don’t tilt at all that it’s a movie and we actually have an hour of innocent fireplace footage at the start and you wouldn’t even know what you’re dealing with unless you happened to look over and notice it happening in the background. Then you would tell people and they’d inevitably fast-forward past that first hour to get to the content. We thought that might be too much, so we decided on a few minutes, which feels like an eternity. Immediately, when I got the idea I thought that’d be a fun sneak attack approach. In this world where everybody knows so much in advance, it’s a nice thing to be able to do.

BD: There’s a real serious stylistic turn that happens after the 30-minute mark where the film drops the stationary angle and becomes a more conventionally-filmed movie. Did you ever consider trying to keep the entire movie in this simple setup?

Kelly: I did originally consider–almost like a radio play–if I could do it all in that initial stationary setup. Even with Too Many Cooks there was a time when I was going to do it all with sitcoms, but it was fun to eventually veer into different genres. So I decided to do the same thing here. 

BD: There’s some really exceptional cinematography here, especially during the film’s first half-hour. That rack focus reveal in the ice bucket is fantastic. Was it difficult to properly block and plan out certain shots during that portion of the movie? 

Kelly: Yes, there were many difficulties. Also, the director of Room 237, Rodney Ascher, is a friend of mine. I gave him the script to read and in my original version it was a wine glass that reflected the killer. It was his idea to make it an ice bucket or champagne bucket, which is just so much more reflective. A wine glass probably wouldn’t have even worked, so I’m very grateful to him for that. 

BD: Another creative flourish throughout the movie are these flashback transitions. How did those come together and were they always an element of the story? 

Kelly: Yes, it started out like a puzzle and figuring out what can and can’t be done. If you’re telling a story where you’re not allowed to move the camera, then what can you do? You can do reflections, and you can also travel through time. That doesn’t count as moving the camera. Cinema is such a voyeuristic medium, but I’m also just genuinely interested in things like what else has gone down in my house, which has been around since the 1960s. What happened in this room that I’m in? What happened in my yard before houses were here? It was interesting to consider how those things influence us, even when we don’t realize it. It just makes you think of what else has transpired exactly where you are, right now.

BD: This film touches on a lot of different subjects, but I appreciated that there’s some commentary on colonialism and the horror that this country is built upon. Why did you want to work that into the narrative to some extent?

Kelly: I’m just very interested in all of that. When I wrote it, it was tough and a gambit if all of that would fit tonally with the rest of the movie. I decided just to go for it. I’m interested in that million dollar question that if I lived during any horrific time period in history would I have been a good person or not? Then there’s the question of how I think that I’m a good person by today’s modern standards, but in the future will they view me as a terrible person because I drove a car that polluted the environment and other modern habits that would then be seen as awful. I thought that was an interesting question to explore in this.

BD: All of the casting here is from Atlanta. Was there a certain aesthetic that you were looking for with these actors?

Kelly: I think I like the indie movie feeling of it. We were also shooting in order, so I didn’t want to be stuck in a situation where we had an actor who only had a day of availability and we had to shoot all of their stuff at once. That would kind of mess things up. I just love the pool of talent in Atlanta. Other people have told me that with a found-footage movie that it works in the film’s favor if there’s a cast that the audience doesn’t immediately recognize. A well-known cast of actors can even pull the audience out of the experience, sometimes.

BD: You mentioned showing your script to Rodney Ascher, but who are some of your influences in the horror genre, both in general and for this specific project?

Kelly: I don’t really watch movies for reference, but I’ve just seen so much stuff that when the plant grows there are so many minerals of other movies in the soil that give that plant life. I haven’t thought about these things consciously, but there’s definitely influences baked in there. Certainly David Lynch. There are all the usual suspects like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is such a gorgeous movie. Then more recent stuff like neon horror and Mandy. Those were the biggest ones. People have mentioned to me that it has a Sam Raimi vibe, which I didn’t think of, but of course. 

BD: David Lynch’s style definitely felt in play during all of the tiny fire man time travel material. Rubber, Quentin Dupieux’s killer tire movie, definitely came to mind! Off of that, talk about the whole killer log angle and why it ultimately felt like the right place to take the movie in its final act. 

Kelly: I don’t know, it just felt like the intuitive, right direction for everything. You’ve been watching this log the entire time, so to suddenly make it a character seemed interesting to me. And it has a story! There’s a reason that it’s doing this, how, and there’s meaning to it all.

BD: It’s definitely the right final stage for a horror film that begins as a yule log video. In addition to this killer log, the movie includes backwoods serial killers and aliens. How did you decide on all of these tropes to mix together and is there anything that didn’t make the cut?

Kelly: First of all, I had to write this very fast on an extremely tight schedule. I think that everything I wanted is pretty much in there. With the aliens there was some level of me considering if I should add them or not. I decided to just throw everything that I wanted into the first draft and see what works and what doesn’t. Then people seemed to like it all, so we didn’t get rid of any of it.

BD: It’s all foreshadowed very well.

Kelly: Good!

BD: You mentioned needing to shoot this on a very tight schedule, but when did you actually shoot it and put it together? Were you sitting on this for long or out of the pandemic?

Kelly: I had the idea during the holidays of last year and they were able to fund it and have a deal in place by the middle of this year. We made it within six months, all total. So it was very, very fast. Way faster than Too Many Cooks, for example. I spent a year, on and off, editing around and playing with that. Here I didn’t have that luxury. For color correction you normally have a few days, but here we had one day. I didn’t have any time to second-guess myself. We also had six editors editing different sections. There wasn’t enough time for just one editor to take on the project. 

BD: You mentioned that you already have more feature film plans on the way. Are you hoping to do more horror movies? What types of stories do you want to tell?

Kelly: I have a few in the works and one is definitely a horror movie. One, which I can’t talk about, is sort of an animated family thing. And then, for myself, I’m writing a science fiction thing. I’m excited. I was a late bloomer to directing, so now I’m trying to make up for lost time!

‘Adult Swim Yule Log’ (The Fireplace) is now available to stream on HBO Max.

The post How Casper Kelly’s Experimental Yule Log Project Turned into Adult Swim’s First Horror Feature [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Freddie Carlini of creative agency Bright Light is a fellow gamer who shares similar passions with myself. For him, games have become so much more than just great fun and memories – they’ve also become a career. Some of you may be familiar with Carlini’s previous game, Mixtape Massacre. Pulling inspiration from ‘80s horror, Mixtape Massacre functions as a board game/card game hybrid that pays homage to that era of horror filmmaking.

Through his creative insight, Carlini knows what makes a game engaging – which is also why his agency is on the verge of releasing a new title. For fans of tabletop games, and those who enjoy aquatic horror, Carlini is excited to release FLOAT: A survival game where players must work together (or not) to survive the terrors of the deep. Utilizing cards, a board display, some minis for further immersion, and more, Carlini and his team weave together their personal interests and experience into the design of FLOAT, making for a game that looks to submerge players into aquatic tension. The game’s Kickstarter campaign has already concluded, but you can still sign-up to be notified when pre-orders for the game go live!

With FLOAT really catching my attention, I wrote to Carlini to see if I could learn more about the game. Not only did he share the design philosophy and background in creating FLOAT, he also shared what he learned in making Mixtape Massacre, his own experience growing up with games, his drive to create games, and what tabletop games have to offer for entertainment within the horror genre.

Michael Pementel: Have you always had a love for games? If so, what kind of games are you into?

Freddie Carlini: Absolutely. As far back as I remember, I’ve always played games, be it board games or video games. When it came to tabletop games, I of course played the classics like Monopoly, Clue, etc. with my family, but also got into things like Magic The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. I used to love this game called RAGE. It was a werewolf card game. I even dug some IP releases when I was really young, like Dick Tracy or Batman and stuff like that.

MP: Where did the itch to create games come from? Was it something you always wanted to do?

FC: It was definitely when I was young. Be it creating characters for games never to actually be or drawing on graph paper with my Dad’s 8-Bit game ideas, I just loved creating worlds and coming up with ideas. Getting lost in your imagination and creating things is my happy place for sure. I think my real itch/kick in the ass was when I quit drinking and got sober about eight years ago. I was going to game nights with friends, and during one of the nights, I was kind of looking around the table at the game options noticing a real lack of the horror stuff I enjoyed, as well as the fact that everyone was getting frustrated with spending two hours reading a rulebook and not really playing the games. I think that for me was the final inspiration to try to create something, and led to our team, Bright Light, doing our first game, Mixtape Massacre.

MP: What were the challenges in creating Mixtape Massacre? How were those challenges met in creating FLOAT (if they were present at all)?

FC: I think most of the challenges are similar challenges anyone has when creating something. It’s a lot of asking yourself a cycle of questions like: Is this fun? Does this make sense? Will people like this? Is there an actual market for this? How do we market this?

At the time, when doing Mixtape Massacre, the Kickstarter tabletop community was still fresh and the resurgence of the tabletop game market was literally being talked about. I remember only a week before we went live with Mixtape Massacre on Kickstarter, the Today Show was airing a segment called, “BOARD GAMES ARE BACK.”

Today it’s way more saturated, so going out with a new product, no established IP, is a lot harder. It’s why you’ll probably notice a lot of the games that blow up are sequels, or riffs or reskinnings [sic] of preexisting games, because there’s an established audience for the game, making it easier to market for. Or they’re products from a large company with a big foot in the market.

For FLOAT, a lot of the challenges were the same. But I will say for Matt (Matt Corrado, co-owner/my business partner at Bright Light/illustrator and designer), I think the challenge for him was we kind of had left the comfort of Mixtape, so we were starting over in terms of discovering a look and style for the game. So, he spent a lot of time sketching and pitching ideas to Merrijoy Vicente [designer on FLOAT and Project Manager at Bright Light] and I based on discussions the group would have about look and style, characters, and that kind of thing. The gameplay was also a challenge, but only because, we purposely wanted this to be a different game entirely from what we did with Mixtape. But at the same time, still wanted to keep it approachable both for new players, and for more hardcore gamers, so that it was a game you could jump into without a lot of lead up or prep.

MP: What sort of feel or atmospheric presence did you want FLOAT to have as players play the game?

FC: Well, if I am being honest, my biggest irrational fear is the ocean. This is stuff that dates back to incidents when I was a kid. I am terrified of the ocean. It’s where the idea for the game came from. And I think part of that fear is the whole “what lies beneath” aspect. So, I think in terms of atmosphere, since a lot of this game is drawing cards, we wanted to create that same anxiety of “what lies beneath” and the fear of reaching for a new card. What am I going to draw? When the next day starts, what creature will be trailing our ships? And most importantly, you’re afloat in the middle of the ocean. There is no escape from the situations that arise.

MP: How did the main concept behind FLOAT’s gameplay come to be?

FC: In truth, the game FLOAT is now, is not the game it was three years ago. When we first started working on it, it was a completely different game, especially in terms of gameplay. We put it on the backburner when we launched our second game for Mixtape Massacre, Escape from Tall Oaks, and when we came back to it, more had changed. Some of FLOAT’s original mechanics actually got moved into Escape during its development.

Over three-plus years, it was a game we always came back to, and then always shelved as we were continually expanding the Mixtape Massacre universe. It almost became this tug of war of making current customers happy and creating new content for Mixtape Massacre, while at the same time wanting/needing to do something new to stay happy creatively. And that’s not to say we’re not happy making stuff for Mixtape. But being able to step away and do something new and different was very exciting for the team.

When we got back to FLOAT, I’d say the biggest change was [that] there was originally movement required of each player each turn, whereas now, the game is on a seven-day (three parts to a day) track that all players move together on each round, rather than separately. The board also went through a big evolution from the original board. The player station boards also evolved with each player having their own danger meters, water meters, etc. I’d say in some ways the game was a little simpler than it is now.

As sharks are part of my irrational fear, the main enemy when we first started FLOAT was just a shark. But now, the game has multiple creatures with different effects and stats.

MP: What are some works of aquatic horror you enjoy?

FC: Aquatic horror is probably my favorite sub-genre of horror. When I was young, my two big gateway films into horror were Ghostbusters and Jaws. Jaws has stayed with me to today. Shark movies are the only films that actually make me lose my cool and cower in my seat. My friends will tell you it’s more enjoyable most of the time watching me watch a shark movie than watching the movie.

I love aquatic horror, so picking favorites is hard, but I’d say some of them would be: Jaws, Deep Rising, Deep Star Six, The Shallows, Underwater, The Lure, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Dead Calm. Some would probably call Dead Calm a thriller, but meh, whatever. And I’d say, from the films I listed, you’ll probably see a lot of inspiration from all of these movies in FLOAT.

MP: What do you think makes for good survival game experiences? How do you present those qualities through FLOAT?

FC: As I said, I think anxiety is important. That feeling of like, what is below us? What’s to come? I also think, be it in FLOAT or with Mixtape, we like to play on tropes from horror films. I think we all love as a team the idea in horror movies and survival films, that as the situation and film progresses, the people also become the monsters, so we give players certain cards and choices to betray and hurt those around them, or afflictions, that makes them dangerous to their crew.

MP: In general, what is the process in creating a tabletop game? Is your team wearing multiple hats when it comes to roles regarding who builds what and who writes what?

FC: For our current games, it usually starts with some brainstorming and ideas on my end, as well as some wireframing. When I feel like I have something “good,” I bring it to the team (Matt Corrado and Merrijoy Vicente) and we will kick it around and see if it has legs. We also are very keen on making sure it’s not redundant with other games out there. If it’s original, then it is even more exciting. From there, as a team, we develop and test, bringing in friends for testing when we feel the concept has reached a good point. MJ and I tend to do a lot of the writing and dev. Matt handles illustrations and design concepts. I help with some of the designs. But we all contribute to the different aspects.

We’re a small team, so yes, it’s definitely a process of everyone wearing different hats, and sometimes all wearing the same hats depending upon the task.

There’s also the marketing side. You need to have an audience. Luckily as Bright Light is a creative agency, we have years of experience in putting together creative and marketing. But even marketing for us, can be very hard in a saturated market like tabletop games.

MP: In designing a tabletop game, what is important for a designer to keep in mind in creating an immersive experience?

FC: This is going to sound like a simple or cheap answer but, I think of that GIF of that kid, “Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” That, for me, when it comes to a game, is most important, because if everyone is having

fun, then the experience is a good experience and something you’ll want to repeat. If the experience is good, then it’s something people are going to come back to and revisit. After that, the theme and look of the game. If anything, the theme should be adding to that fun.

MP: Do you think physical tabletop games have any qualities that lend themselves to the horror genre? Specifically in terms of creating fun or tense atmosphere within horror-driven narratives.

FC: As I said with FLOAT, the anticipation/anxiety when drawing cards is there. Even the rolling of the die. More so, when you’re playing in groups, it’s the continuous question of what is everyone else doing around you? How is this going to affect me? And most importantly, as I sit here watching others actions, what will be my actions when it’s back to being my turn? Those are definitely some of the tropes and elements you see that make great horror films.

But the biggest quality or element I see in tabletop games that lends itself well to the genre, or at least the most obvious, is a group of people trapped in a room, all working together or against each other on a task. If that doesn’t scream “horror,” I don’t know what does.

MP: With Mixtape Massacre and FLOAT now under your belt, what new lessons have you taken away in designing games? Especially after FLOAT.

FC: There’s a lot of lessons and things I’ve taken away from making this a part of our business these last six years. But I think there’s three main important lessons I’ve taken away from this experience:

· There is no overthinking when designing and developing a game. The more you think about it, the more you question it. [and] the more likely you are to find the cracks in it.

· Playtest. Playtest. Playtest. And then…playtest some more.

· Find your audience. Build your audience. Because without an audience, a good or bad game doesn’t matter if you don’t have the people to play it; or in the case of a Kickstarter, having the people to back it.

–

A big thank you to Freddie Carlini for his time in answering my questions – I am super excited to get my hands on FLOAT! While the Kickstarter for FLOAT has concluded, you can still sign-up via email to be alerted when pre-orders go live!

The post [Interview] Gaming In The Deep: An Interview With ‘FLOAT’ Designer And Creator Freddie Carlini appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

When it came to gameplay, the parkour was invigorating. I loved the freedom in movement and the intensity the animations gave off. When I fought against infected and other humans, it felt challenging and immersive; having to think on my toes, the positive stress of such engagements brought about a lot of diversity in my fighting. And the infected at night provide such an exhilarating air of badass and creepy.  

After playing the game, I sat down with its Lead Designer Tymon Smektala to learn more. I asked him about Dying Light 2’s approach to difficulty, the new focus placed on designing the infected, what horror influences he brought into the game, the parkour animations, and his philosophy in creating horror. 

Please note that this interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Michael Pementel: Dying Light 2 is very much an action game, but with a foundation in horror. What’s the challenge in making sure suspense is always present throughout gameplay, while also making sure the player feels empowered? 

Tymon Smektala: That was actually a challenge; that was one of the founding problems we wanted to overcome with the second game. With the first game, we started looking at the data [regarding how] people were playing. We realized that a lot of them – I would say maybe 80% of our players – started skipping the night. They just basically weren’t playing the night part of the game at all; which is a problem when you make a game where the day/night cycle is one of the most important things in the game – then suddenly no one is playing the night part. So we felt that we overdid it, we made it too scary, too overwhelming for players, and basically they didn’t feel they have anything to say when it comes to night; they felt they were basically being punished by all the infected. 

We wanted to keep that intensity, and what we are doing in the second game is slowly introducing it. When the game starts it’s not that scary, but it gets scarier, more gruesome, and more infected appear [as the game progresses]. Another thing is that the crowds get more intense, they see you quicker. It really starts getting more on your nerves. Another thing we did is give players new tools to overcome that challenge. I think this is what was lacking in the first game; it was just scary night and the only thing you could do is try not to get seen by the Volatile. When they saw you, you could just run to a safe zone, but right now, we are giving players more tools to play with the horrors of the night. Things like a UV flashlight, which kind of works like [what you see] in the Alan Wake games. 

MP: What was the team’s approach to difficulty in Dying Light 2? Before you can even start creating a game, you sort of need to think about difficulty – particularly thinking about the kind of experience the player is to have, so you can build according to that. Was the difficulty the first thing the team needed to tackle? 

TS: No I don’t think so, but you have to start [considering it] at one point or another. Of course, the thing you do as a game designer is a lot of playtesting; me personally, I have about 5000 hours played in Dying Light 2, everything is kind of easier for me. It’s not the same experience – I don’t get scared that much, I don’t feel the same emotions that a player would feel if he were to run the game for the first time and see everything that happens. We do a lot of playtesting, see what other people are doing and get data from that, then polish [as need be].  

When it comes to difficulty, I would say that Dying Light 2 is a little bit easier than the first game. Dying Light one was quite famous for it being quite overwhelming at the start; you were feeling helpless maybe a little too much at the start. On the regular difficulty, we tried to keep the same experience, but maybe make it a little bit more accessible. Maybe a little more space to make mistakes. Then there is another difficulty mode which is stylized specifically for the veterans of the first game. If you played the first game – and I advise any player who has spent a lot of time in the first game to choose that difficulty – you will get the real Dying Light experience. Where it is very hard in the beginning, but then you get to earn that empowerment – you get to earn better weapons, you start feeling more powerful. It’s really the most satisfying way to play the game for me, personally.  

MP: Coming into Dying Light 2, what changes/improvements did the team want to make when it came to the infected? Specifically, what changes did you all want to make to their behavior and how they interact with and attack the player? Also, how many types of infected can we expect throughout the game? 

TS: There are around 10-12 types of infected in the game. We wanted to make the infected different from humans. The humans are basically those smart guys; they are intelligent, they can even learn from what you are doing. If you try to overuse one attack on humans, they will learn from that and eventually they will start avoiding that move and you will be forced to start doing something else. The infected can’t do that, they don’t have that kind of intelligence. What they do is work in groups. They may use brute force, but when it comes to groups – when looking at different group constitutions – you start seeing different synergies happening between them. So, it’s different when say, you have a Spitter – who has those toxic range attacks – and you surround him with Biters. It now becomes like a puzzle for you to figure out how to get to this guy, because it is hard to get to him straight since he is surrounded by Biters. So you start using parkour to maybe climb on a lamppost and jump on the Spitter from the lamppost.  

We have created different tactical challenges using different group constitutions. […] Another thing that happens is that, as you play the game, the infected learn new behaviors. All of them have three very different tiers of behaviors. As you get better throughout the game, they evolve with you and start sporting different behaviors and visuals. So even if you have a guy like the Demolisher – when the game starts, and the Demolisher kind of looks like the one you remember from the first game – but as the game develops, you start seeing bigger and more powerful Demolishers, maybe some with some spikes. It really gets scarier as you play the game. 

MP: What horror influences were used in shaping the infected (or the game in general)? 

TS: For myself… I’m not sure if you count District 9, the sci-fi movie, as a horror movie, it kind of isn’t. But one of the most memorable scenes from that movie that really keeps popping in my head from time to time is the moment when they were opening the alien spaceship. The [characters] were entering it and seeing all those different life forms in the dark; they were doing something crazy like standing in a very creepy way. Kind of reminded me of the final scene from The Blair Witch Project. We wanted to capture that feeling with our Dark Places. When you enter the Dark Places, especially if you enter during the day when they are full of infected, you really get that feeling that some of them are bending, some of them are standing and shaking. One of the inspirations I can call out for sure, inspiring me for the game, is that scene from District 9 and how it connected in my head with that Blair Witch Project moment; where they were running through the building and suddenly there was this guy standing in the corner. Nothing special [about that scene], but it was so scary. It really made you creep out. 

MP: What was the conversation around creating Dark Hollows? What sort of variety can players expect from those? Are there varying degrees of difficulty? 

TS: Yes of course. The locations vary in terms of what you can get out of those places. You go into Dark Hollows to get valuables – in short, money, so that you can go to shops and maybe buy some weapons. You go to Forsaken Stores to get craft resources […]. In terms of the feeling you get from these places, some of them are a little emptier, but may be full of that chemical stuff that kind of works like radiation. Some of them are full of Volatiles; if you make a mistake in the Dark Place, which is patrolled by the Volatiles, the ultimate predator, it’s sure you’re going to die. We have tried to make, maybe not everyone different, but include some variations and diversity within them.  

MP: Between both Dying Light games, the philosophy of the infected is super intriguing. These monsters have an inner turmoil with their humanity – you don’t get a lot of that in media. Where did that idea come from? 

TS: That is something we’ve wanted to have since the beginning of the first game. It was very important for us to create something unique. It started with the Virals from the first game – the Virals had this behavior we called “Humanity,” which you could trigger out of them randomly at some point while fighting them. Maybe you hit one of them hard and suddenly he starts showing a human side of him – [displaying a reaction that’s along the lines of], “Don’t hit me!” It really felt emotional, and we tried to keep the emotion [and hope that presence] might be powerful, and find different ways of expressing that with the infected in the second game. 

MP: Dying Light 2 involves a lot more player choice. What range can we expect in terms of complexity? As a designer, how do you craft an experience where choices convey a sense of tension and importance? 

TS: That’s a heavy one. I think for every choice, you have to build it up first. Players need to understand the stakes that come with decisions; that’s obvious, but it isn’t that easy to make. All of the choices that we have in the game have some type of exposition, some type of element where the characters that are involved in the choice show their humanity to you. Of course, those are NPCs – you can be emotionless about them and say, “Those are just pixels on the screen.” But because we show them first as those characters, that maybe they have some human flaws, hopes, some fears, we instill a little bit of humanity in them. When you make a choice – again, you can be a cold bastard and say, “I don’t care, I will get what I want in my game as a player,” – because of those elements of humanity that we are showing, we are not only referring to the Stay Human title [of the game], but we are also making the choice a little bit more difficult for you.  

When it comes to how impactful the choices can be – the choices work on three different levels. The first level involves the main story missions, where you make the biggest choices. There are quite a few of them and they allow you to do crazy things. […] Then there are little bit smaller ones in side missions. […] And then there is the third level – the City alignment system – which allows you to shape the city around you by introducing various gameplay elements like: ziplines, trampolines, car traps, huge UV light lamps, etc.  

You get complexity because you have three different layers of choices; when you combine them, you basically end up with hundreds of combinations this world can have.  

When you play co-op, it’s always the host who makes the decision. When you play the game and open it for outsiders or friends, you make the choices. You shape the world around you, you decide what the story is. […] Then when you finish that game, you start wondering, “Okay, what would have happened if I made different choices?” You can then go online and start visiting other people’s games and see different versions of the story – what other choices people are making and experience those. […] Maybe you could say nonlinear narrative and co-op don’t work together that well, but actually they do. I do believe that – that’s my personal bet – that the nonlinear structure of Dying Light 2 will support playing in co-op for hundreds for hours. 

MP: What is the challenge in animating all the parkour animations? Is it all done through mocap? 

TS: It is partially mocap. All of those animations are captured using mocap, but there are two caveats to that. The first one is that it isn’t just random mocap, we are working with David Belle – the inventor of parkour, the guy who made parkour popular through a couple of his movie appearances. It’s not just mocap, it’s mocap of one of the best guys who is doing parkour in the world. The other thing is that, we get that mocap data, and we tweak it, improve it, and make it work in the game. Basically, we have to tune every aspect of it – every hand movement we have to correct and make it a little bit better using the mocap data. Not [changing things] however you want, but in using the POV camera from David Belle and other parkour guys we asked to help us with this. So it’s like a combination of modern technology, the talent of our animators, and the help from the best parkour guys on the planet. Through all of that, you get to experience what we have here. 

MP: What was your philosophy in creating horror in Dying Light 2 and what sort of presence do you want your world to give off emotionally? 

TS: Emotionally, I would go back to the subtitle of the game – Stay Human. When you finish the game, [that sentiment] makes a lot of sense. I hope that reflection, that thought… just think about it when you finish the game.  

When it comes to creating horror, for me personally, I think one of the things that adds to it a lot is music. Regarding the game’s music, we are working with Olivier Deriviere; he has done quite a lot of horror, or at least very emotional soundtracks like A Plague Tale: Innocence and Vampyr. He is working with us, and it isn’t like he is just sending us his music saying, “Use it however you want,” he’s very deeply involved in the process of making the game. The best thing about him is that he’s not just a music composer, he’s a guy who understands games and that games are interactive. He creates music that uses that interactivity; there are a lot of hidden mechanics in the game that change the music depending on how well you run, how surrounded you are [by enemies], how well you fight, and where exactly in the world you are. All of those elements change and add little elements to the music. I think, based on his previous experience with other games, he understands emotion building and horror very well.  

He’s also a crazy guy; he created a unique instrument just for our game. He wanted to express the feeling of modern dark ages, so he created a medieval instrument that plays in a very traditional way but uses modern materials. Something completely crazy. I think we have some videos about it you can find on YouTube.  

I think he really captured the seriousness of some of the things we touch on in our game and feelings of being overwhelmed, maybe a little helpless, and overcoming all that through your actions.

Dying Light 2: Stay Human is out February 4, 2022 on all major consoles and PC.  

The post [Interview] ‘Dying Light 2’ Lead Designer Tymon Smektala on Overcoming the Monsters and Horrors of Night appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

For those of us who don’t live in California or are unable to travel, original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson will host an online experience called “Secrets of Scream” to regale guests with the behind-the-scenes secrets of the film and details of the upcoming 2022 release that only he knows. “Anything anybody wants to know about Scream, the filming of it, the secrets or anything that hasn’t been revealed yet will be discussed,” Williamson said. “It will be exciting to go back down memory lane.” In reference to the new film, Williamson said: “When I watched it I thought it was very nostalgic. There was something about it that was new and fresh and had all of these new characters racing through it, but…it has a little bit of a warm fuzzy center to it.”

While Airbnb will make a one-time donation to Ween Dream, which provides free Halloween costumes to children in need nationwide, 100% of all proceeds from the “Secrets of Scream” virtual experience will be donated to The Trevor Project, thanks to Williamson’s suggestion. “The Trevor Project is a charity that’s near and dear to me. I’ve been a part of it for a long time,” Williamson said, “and I believe the range for attempted suicide is almost five times higher for gay teens [compared to heterosexual teens]. I just feel like that’s too big a number. Obviously any number is too big, but that statistic is kind of shocking.”

Full details of the events can be found below:

For the “Secrets of Scream” Online Experience: On Thursday, October 28th, Kevin will host an Online Experience that will give guests an inside look at the secrets of the Scream franchise, including the cast, characters, plot twists and more. Those interested can book a spot on Tuesday, October 12, at 1 pm EDT at airbnb.com/SecretsofSCREAM. 100% of all proceeds from the “Secrets of Scream” will be donated to The Trevor Project.

For the Ultimate Scream Airbnb Experience: “Dewey” will host three, one-night stays for up to four people at the Northern California estate on October 27, October 29 and October 31 for only $5* a night. Interested guests can request to book the three individual, one-night stays through the Airbnb platform at airbnb.com/halloween when booking opens at 1pm EDT on October 12. During their stays, guests will get to experience all the scariest elements of the original SCREAM, including:

• A virtual greeting at check-in from Dewey (as long as Ghostface doesn’t catch him first).
• The chance to explore the SCREAM house in all its original glory, from knife marks on the doors to the garage where Dewey’s sister Tatum met her unfortunate demise.
• A movie marathon featuring all four SCREAM films (on VHS, of course) to get caught up ahead of the next SCREAM release.
• A dedicated phone line for reaching Ghostface, in case victims (ahem, guests) dare to ask any questions or make requests — but watch out, he might just call the house, too.
• Classic 90s snack favorites, like Jiffy Pop, ice cream with all the Reddi-whip you could ever want and pizza, if you’re able to stomach it.
• The chance to take home unique SCREAM memorabilia, including a DVD bundle of the first four SCREAM films, Woodsboro High gear, SCREAM (2022) posters and more.

Those looking to book should note that this stay’s rules are in strict adherence with local COVID-19 guidelines. And guests can rest easy knowing that onsite staff will follow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines as well as Airbnb’s COVID-19 Safety Practices, which include wearing a mask, practicing social distancing, and abiding by our five-step enhanced cleaning process. Guests are responsible for their own travel to and from Northern California.**

*Plus taxes and fees

**Those who request to book must currently live in the United States.

The post Live the Ultimate ‘Scream’ Airbnb Experience At the Original Movie’s Iconic House With Host Dewey Riley! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: Horror gaming has undergone a bit of a rebirth in the seven years since Maiden of Black Water came out, did you feel this was the ideal time to bring the game back to a wider audience?

Keisuke Kikuchi: I think there are periods where horror becomes more popular, and lately it seems like that is the case once again. However, I feel there are very few horror titles like the FATAL FRAME series that features Japanese horror that have a very gradual sense of encroaching fear. As this year is the 20th anniversary of the FATAL FRAME series, I want to give series fans and horror aficionados something from our team during this important point in the series’ history.

BD: A lot of games have been influenced by Fatal Frame’s approach to horror over the years, which dilutes its impact somewhat. Was it hard to innovate whilst trying to stick to the traditional scares fans loved?

KK: For us, as we make new entries in the series we are not trying to keep escalating the shocking aspects of the horror elements. For every title, we decide on the concept first and then focus on bringing horror contents to players that revolve around that concept. For example, in the first title, the main concepts are “condensing the Japanese sense of fear” and “fear that defies your imagination,” for the second title it was “horror from legends,” and for the third title it was “going between reality and dreams, and mechanisms in reality that causes fear to spread.” In this entry in the series, our main theme is “experiencing fear through a location that condenses Japan’s “haunted places.” We have made it so that you can experience different kinds of fear through each title. As each entry in the series has a different approach to fear, each player will have their own favorite title or their own opinion on which is the most frightening.

BD: What do you think Fatal Frame can offer modern audiences that other prominent horror game series lack?

KK: The main feature would have to be the Camera Obscura. I feel that in other horror films and games, when something frightening is seen, the protagonist has to run away, or they have to defeat them from afar in order to protect themselves. In this game, I think it’s entertaining for the player to have to view frightening things through the camera and attempt to have the ghosts come as close to them as possible as they are faced with the scary dilemma of needing to take pictures of them.

The hardest thing that comes up when designing a horror game is determining how the player will fight the enemies. This is most likely a point that all horror game designers put a lot of effort into. Potentially the most frightening game design would be that you die if you are found by the enemy. However, that can make the horror elements in the game feel very oppressive. If one play-through is very short, as can be the case in indie titles or free games, this would be sufficient as a basis for the game, but this is not suitable for a game with a larger story. You can say that if you change the point of view, it is good to have death be something that is meaningful to the game itself or the story. There is value in taking this direction into consideration, but it doesn’t produce a conclusion. 

What I have been thinking lately is that the player is looking for a game that focuses its design around and balances the elements of the game on being “frightening, but the player can still barely survive and proceed.” The fear you experience in a horror game and the freedom you afford the player with along with the exhilarating aspects of the action do not easily coexist with one another. I feel like the FATAL FRAME series maintains this balance well.

BD: In turn, if you were to make a new Fatal Frame game, is there anything from modern horror games you’d be interested in incorporating into them?

KK: Not in particular. We decide on a new type of fear to utilize as the concept for each title, and we design the game so that it can bring this to the player in the best way possible. If needed, we incorporate contemporary aspects of horror as well. The FATAL FRAME series is set in a world without mobile phones, and we focus on gothic horror for the atmosphere in each title. I think the classic approach to horror games is to create a world in which the emphasis is placed on the player themselves being able to really see, hear and feel the world the game is set in. In the present day, smartphones and social media are essential parts of life now. While this is completely opposite to the theme of gothic horror, if you carefully incorporate these elements, I think a brand new type of horror would emerge.

BD: Maiden of Black Water, as with previous entries, features fictional tales and folklore, but are clearly grounded in reality to some degree. What real Japanese folklore served as inspiration for Maiden of Black Water?

KK: In Maiden of Black Water we made a game out of the “haunted locations” we have in Japan, utilizing this as the main motif, and as the story itself is original, we didn’t have any specific influencers from urban legends. Nevertheless, the series director, Mr. Shibata writes all of the scenarios, and he has perused countless folklore and urban legends. As a result, there would be influences from these topics in the game from his imagination, as well as his own personal experiences with ghosts, which make their way into the original stories he creates.

BD: The original version utilized the Wii U gamepad screen as the Camera Obscura itself, making it a distinct gameplay change from previous entries. How have you tried to replicate this now that’s not an option? Are you employing any other console features?

KK: By utilizing the handheld mode on the Switch version, you can play the game by using the Switch as the Camera Obscura. The gyro functionality in Switch and PS4 controllers are also supported, so you can feel like you are really holding a camera and taking pictures while you tilt it.”

BD: If Maiden of Black Water is well received, it has been mentioned that we may see new Fatal Frame titles, but is there a possibility for older entries to get a re-release?

KK: While I know everyone is looking forward to that, at this point we don’t have any plans. However, if this title is widely well-received, and if we have the opportunity, I think there are several things we could do for the series.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water will release on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC on October 28.

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Faliszek worked at the Seattle-based hit factory through much of its golden age, writing on Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2, Portal, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. But, the series that gives the clearest picture of Faliszek’s ambitions for the new project in the works at Stray Bombay, the studio he co-founded with Kimberly Voll, is Left 4 Dead. Faliszek worked on both entries in the legendary co-op shooter series. In Stray Bombay’s first game, The Anacrusis, Faliszek takes his flair for systemic gameplay, environmental storytelling, and exposition-light conversations to the stars as a crew of unlikely heroes fight alien hordes aboard the titular starship.

We caught up with Faliszek after the game’s debut at the Microsoft + Bethesda E3 conference to chat about the optimism of ‘70s sci-fi, the bright future of co-op games, and beatnik zombies.

BD: The Anacrusis is a fascinating name. As you’ve pointed out in interviews, the anacrusis is the preliminary notes before a piece of music begins. The battles in this game serve a similar function: they’re the first fights between humanity and an alien race before the primary invasion of Earth. What do you find interesting about that moment? The moment before all-out war?

CF: It so rarely gets covered in movies or books, even. But, there’s always somebody who, at that moment, thought that they were giving their all. It’s not that they weren’t doing it for the glory. But, they were getting overrun, they were standing up, they were saying no more, they were just taking that moment, and having their heroic moment that was just not gonna get caught by time because it was happening before anybody was paying attention to that part of the world or what was going on, right? And they just kind of get washed up in it, and you never hear about them or talk about them.

And, when I write for games, I like to talk about not the commander in charge of the space station hurtling off; I’m way more interested in the regular people getting caught up in the things and where they end up and how they got there and what they’re thinking about. 

I didn’t want to be like; we’re going to solve this. I think Will Smith did that in I Am Legend, right? Like, “It’s my virus.” It’s like, Nah, come on, man. Whatever. It’s way more relatable, and I think it’s funnier to explore that with characters who are just kind of thrown into the mix. And how are they dealing with it, and what’s going on in the world. And for anybody who’s [reading] this, you should actually read the book, I Am Legend. The book is really good. They’ve never made a good movie about it. They’ve never come near making a good movie about it. They’ve made a bunch of horrible ones. They can’t be zombies; they have to be societal creatures because that’s what it’s about.

BD: They’ve made like three or four movies about it, right? They made The Omega Man, and then there was a previous I Am Legend [I was thinking of 1964’s The Last Man on Earth] as well before the Will Smith movie?

CF: And I will argue that Omega Man is the best one just because it’s so crazy ‘70s weird. Clearly, I like weird, crazy ‘70s stuff. And that movie just goes full-on in on hipster cool where there are just people hanging out outside his living quarters, who are just like [Faliszek snaps rhythmically like he’s at a poetry slam] beatniks but zombie beatniks. It gets weird.

BD: Speaking of the ‘70s, I love the game’s aesthetic, which you’ve said is inspired by late ‘60s and early ‘70s sci-fi. I think of that era of sci-fi as being more optimistic than our current science fiction in a lot of ways, and you’ve said that after the pandemic, you felt like that optimism was needed. How do you express optimism in a shooter? Does the timeline help? That we’re in that crucial moment where at least the character can believe that they could prevent this from happening? Is there hope that they find there?

CF: I always think that no matter what the horrible thing happening to you is, you have some hope. Be it just that you’re gonna go have a nice meal at the end of it or whatever. And, I just like that kind of outlook. 

I mean, I think it may come from [the fact] that I’m from Cleveland originally, and I’m a big Cleveland Indians baseball fan and Browns fan. You just expect the worst, and you still go in every season hopeful and happy, and you still go to games. And it’s kind of that in this as well. And we’re going to do some things where there are arcs in the story, and the little characters will have changes that happen to them, and one of those will be that realization that I think everyone also gets when they get older: that eventually I’m gonna be gone and something’s going to happen after this, and I can either do something to make that better or I can just not give a shit and have fun here. And so there’s a little bit of that.

BD: On the subject of the pandemic, I wrote an article early on into the pandemic about how people saw graffiti out in the world that reminded them of the environmental storytelling that you would see in video games. Did you see any of that? Did you see any graffiti that made you think, “This could be in a Left 4 Dead bunker”?

CF: Yeah, I think definitely around when the pandemic met the marches for Black Lives Matter last summer in Seattle, in particular, that had a big impact. And it’s this weird thing where from the outside, the media is like, “Oh, Seattle’s burning.” But in reality, there’s a two-block radius, and then the rest of the city is just going on. We’re all going on with this understanding of this whole weird thing of history happening next to us. And that just generated a lot of that… people trying to express the frustration or the weirdness that was happening there, and I thought that was really interesting. Because eventually, they took away that whole block because they graffitied everything, and there were a lot of people who were just in that transient moment trying to capture what that meant to them and what that felt like. 

It was such a hard, complicated thing because you’re like, “We want to be together!” But, when we march, there are actually people handing out masks… As a people, we’re really good at, when there’s trouble, pulling together, then all of a sudden you’re being told, “Don’t pull together,” because maybe that will be the bad thing. For my family, we did not have any contact with anyone else except for those marches that we went to. And that became this place then where I think people were trying to capture that. And there’s a lot of interesting things there.

BD: Did you feel at all vindicated by that graffiti? Because I know that over the years, we’ve seen criticisms of video game graffiti that’s like, “This is so on the nose. Nobody would ever write anything like this.” And then, a month into the pandemic, you’re seeing things that are like, “Cops are the real virus,” or something like that. So, as on the nose, as games writers have ever been, people that are writing this graffiti are matching that energy. 

CF: I don’t know if I would say vindicating, but it did make me laugh. I got sent some; somebody had done the “Are we the real monsters?” one. But, I think it may have been, actually, Jay Pinkerton who came up with that one. A lot of why I think those things worked for us when we were writing them was we had three writers that were just essentially trying to [make each other laugh]. So if you said something, someone was going to react to it the way you would react to it if you saw it on a wall. And I think that playfulness and that back-and-forth and not being precious about it is what makes that work because then it’s real. It’s not just staged. I would put something, and it would be overly optimistic or hopeful, and know I’m gonna get crap for that. And that’s how it would really be, and that helps for us, at least in that process.

BD: Did the games you worked on at Valve have a writer’s room quality to them? What was your process for writing then, and what is it like writing on The Anacrusis?

CF: Yes and no. Portal was definitely you sat in a room together. And when I first started working on Portal 2 for the co-op, my cat had been diagnosed with cancer, and I was just, like, in a really bad place… I was just really bummed out about that, and really the writer’s room became “Let’s cheer Chet up and make him laugh.” It was this awesome thing of just sitting in there with your friends and every day starting the day by getting cracked up. Like having two of the funniest people I know making me laugh for an hour is an amazing way to start your day, and that does put you in a good mood. 

And it’s helpful to have that, but I have come to grips, as I’ve gotten older in life, that I’m less the writer room person and more the mulling person. It’s funny because there’s a really good book [The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by John Ortved] about the writer’s room of The Simpsons. I always felt guilty and bad about that because Conan led the writer’s room, and the book covers that era. There were some guys who did just go off and then listened to the crowd, and you get feedback, and that kind of process is good. [But for the] actual, of-the-moment writing, I really need to just mull on things.

I was writing yesterday and this morning a little bit because I was trying to fill some things in for the next episode. I’ll just listen to one song over and over, and I have no choice on that song, and sometimes the songs will be songs I wouldn’t normally listen to. It’s a fine song, and I’m not going to knock it, but I’ve been listening all morning to Olivia Rodrigo “good 4 u,” and it’s, like, hooky songs will do it, and it’s got a big hooky part to it that’s just kind of fun, and it’s high energy. And my neighbors have to be like, “Dude really likes odd pop music.’ And so that’s really kind of been my process, I’ll always just go off and kind of grind on that, and so for Left 4 Dead, often it was writing in hotel rooms because we were doing marketing as well as the writing of the game. Often we would have to travel for recording so a lot of the time it was just in a hotel room the night before or probably drinking a little too much beer while I was doing that. Whereas this time, I can be a little more deliberate and just write some stuff out.

My process is: I’m collecting notes forever. I’ll hear a phrase that’s something that I like, and it’ll match the character. Then I’ll play the game as each character. So we’ll have Nessa go through the game, and I’ll just play it as her, and what would her reaction be to this? And you tend to have to play it a couple of times because you have to get into [her head]. She’s not who I am —she’s way more practical — so how would she experience that? And then you go thorough and think, “If I was a player and I’m playing Nessa, what would I expect Nessa to say?” Which is a little bit different.

And then you go through it as a player and [think], “What would I want to hear here? What do I need to hear here?” And it’s that process of just going over and over. And I’ve actually had more time on this game than I’ve had on almost any other game to do the writing, which hopefully is for the better. We’ll see. Maybe it’s for the worse. I hold out hope.

BD: When did you start working on this?

CF: That would be 2018, but then the team came together in 2019. So we’ve been at it for two years, but when I originally pitched this game to Kim [Voll, Stray Bombay’s co-founder] to join me in starting the studio, I had started kind of doing character sketches… Often when I’m thinking about characters or writing casting sheets, I do it by just writing monologues. And so some of those monologues already existed, and that’s where the game name came from, one of those monologues.

BD: What percentage of the writing would you say has been done with you at home since the pandemic started?

CF: Almost all of it now. Just because we were gonna go into the recording studio, and then the pandemic hit, and they shut down all recording. And then we had to wait for a while. And, even now, there’s this whole weird process where it used to be, for something like this, we would do it in two days, and we’d just do back-to-back recording sessions. But we can’t do that anymore. SAG-AFTRA [the union which represents many voice actors and motion capture performers] says we have to clear out the studio between sessions, so that means it’s one day at a time, and then it’s scheduling.

BD: You brought up The Simpsons, and recently there was a great interview with legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder in the New Yorker a few months back where he said that he has two diner booths in his house because he likes writing at diner booths. Do you have anything like that you do at home or rituals you do to get into the process?

CF: So, first of all, he’s in the book. He’s one of the people that doesn’t participate in the writer’s room in the same way and instead delivers full scripts. So that made me feel better. Also, it made me feel better that I wasn’t so psychotic that I needed a full diner to write in. I guess if you can, do it! And the output was really good.

I guess for me, I’ll start playing the game and listening to music, and I’ll try to listen to music that’s just throwing songs up to me, so it’ll be the Discovery thing or the radio station. And one of those songs I’ll just click repeat forever on, and that starts it. And what will often happen for a character is I’ll get one song, and then I’ll come back to it because it helps me get back to that character’s sense. In our case, out of the characters, three of them aren’t who I am. There are little parts of me in all of them, but they’re not who I am. And one of them is me, so that’s an easier character to write for; like Lance, he’s a narcissistic jerk, so that just comes more natural to me and is easier to write. The other ones, I just sometimes need to be listening to music for a little bit to kind of get into that.

BD: You recently told GameSpot that the game delivers the “story episodically instead of just dumping it all at once [which] lets us create cliffhangers and raise questions that pay off in later episodes. Think: HBO series meets Left 4 Dead storytelling spanning multiple seasons.” Are there games that have come out since Left 4 Dead that have influenced the way you’re approaching storytelling on The Anacrusis? And can you talk a bit more about what you mean when you say the story is “episodic”?

CF: Really, it’s a lot of things we had talked about doing at some point or another and then never had the opportunity. Like, one of my pet peeves is games that get written as if they were movies versus games. 

So, there are a couple of things we know about games. One, in our case, [players are] going to play it a bunch of times; they’re going to play it more than once. So, you can’t just have one story because you’re going to get bored with it. But, equally, like we saw with Left 4 Dead, if you just give players everything they’ll figure it out. Players are smart, and they’ll be able to piece together information. 

So, let’s combine those two things. So, the first time that you play it, you get the, “Hey, we need to go find the communication device because we need it to search for other survivors.” But, the second time you play, you’ll often get mid-conversation of a conversation about something else. And it might be about naming the Brute. That conversation that we used in the trailer is actually a longer conversation. And it’s a way to talk about the world, talk about the characters, and see a little bit. 

And one of the things I had been noticing — you see this on TikTok a lot, but also there are some people who make video reviews and streamers — you don’t need to say the whole joke. People know the joke. So, you can just say a reference to the joke or a bit of the joke, and people will still laugh, ‘cause they get it. And so some of the writing is like that. I don’t need to tell you that they’ve been talking for 20 minutes. If I say these two things, you know, “Oh, this argument’s been going on for a while, this is the end of the argument, and we’re just gonna get to it.” And so I wanted to play with that idea of kind of taking those parts of the conversation and bringing them into the game and just kind of always having a flow. 

So we have a little bit of intro story as the scene gets set and you’re getting loaded into the game. But, then, in-game, you’re mainly playing, you have some safe room conversations and some conversations about the world, but mainly letting the players not think that “If I start talking, I’m going to talk over the story, I’m gonna miss it.” It’s always built so that it plays a bunch of different times in a bunch of different ways in a bunch of different approachable things. So, we wanted to be able to do that, but the idea being, ‘Okay, we’re going to be living with this game for a while, and we want to keep doing episodes, and we want to launch with episodes ready to go. 

We’re not spelling everything out. It’s kind of funny. I have people coming from linear media play or talk about it on the team, and it’s like, well hang on, they’re talking about this person Boris, but what’s going on here? And I’m like, yeah, I don’t tell you, ‘cause that’s not how we talk about it. If I talk to you about how hot it is in Seattle this weekend, I’m not going to be like, well, did you know historically — there’s not a bunch of exposition of the moment. So a lot of the writing is that of the moment that you actually have to piece together. And we saw that again and again with players being able to piece together and being really smart and being able to do that. So we wanted to lean into that.

BD: Building on that, you’ve been pitching The Anacrusis as “infinitely replayable.” Your background is primarily as a writer. You worked on stories for games like Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and the Left 4 Dead games at Valve. What are the challenges and opportunities in writing a story and dialogue that players will experience repeatedly? How do you keep it fresh?

CF: One of the big things, if you’re writing a multiplayer game, is, you have to understand that players are probably not going to be paying attention to every single word you say. You better not have the one thing that you only say once; that’s a super important thing that if they don’t get, they’re not gonna get. So if you look at like Portal 2 co-op, it’s purposely, what she talks about for the actual story there; she talks about it again and again so that by the time you get there, you have an understanding of what’s going on even if you were talking or joking about the level you just completed. 

And so you need to be able to make sure you have that space, and so that you’re repeating it multiple times, you’re repeating it from different angles so that it’ll kind of hit in different ways so that they have an understanding of it. And I actually kind of prefer that. Sometimes I do dream of writing single-player games again where I know that they’re paying attention and listening, and I can write this really clever line that they’re only going to hear once that I can be super clever because they’re not going to get sick of it. 

But in a multiplayer game, if I write a really clever line, they’re going to hear it 500 times, and no matter how clever it is, they’re going to be like, “Oh god, this is like nails on a chalkboard.” So, with that, one of the things [we knew] going into this more than we did before is making sure that some lines play really infrequently, really rare, so that if you are playing a bunch, you do have those payoffs of sometimes just laughing because you heard something you’ve never heard before. We had somebody the other day in our playtest who has played hundreds of hours, and they asked, “Did you add new lines,” and I’m like, “Yeah, not yet… that’s just a line you just happened to get the combination of things happening and events and people by you to have play.”

BD: Lately, we’ve seen a spike in the number of cooperative survival shooters in the vein of Left 4 Dead after years of not much happening in the genre. Aliens: Fireteam, Rainbow Six Extraction, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Back 4 Blood, and The Anacrusis are just a few of the recent or upcoming games. Why do you think we didn’t see many games like this for so long, and why do you think they’re back in such a big way now?

CF: People finally listening to me?! [laughs] I’ve been saying this for years. I like co-op games. I mean, we have a Discord channel, discord.gg/straybombay, where we play co-op games with the community every week. I just like co-op games.  So I’m excited. I love that we’re in the golden age, maybe, of co-op games. It just makes sense. When we originally pitched this 100 years ago, talking to people about games as a social space, they would give us this kind of sly-eyed, like “Really?” And if you’re of a certain age, that is such a non-controversial statement to say that games are a social space that you hang out with your friends in, so it’s been fun to go back now and see people embrace those kinds of games and make these kinds of games. And again, I play them, I love them, so I’m ecstatic.

BD: The enemies in The Anacrusis look pretty different from enemies in other survival shooters, but we still see some of the same classes, like the brute. How much room is there for innovation in the genre’s roster of enemy types? And to what extent does the enemy art drive the enemy functionality?

CF: So, first with that, one of the reasons why as we show the game, we’ve kind of showed it late in its cycle is we didn’t have our concept artists start with the team. Instead, we started with gameplay. We said, what is the gameplay we want. Let’s not create a bunch of models that trap us into something. Let’s just really embrace how we want the gameplay to behave. And so all of our enemies are how do players behave that we want to shape or change their behavior? Some of that is historical because I’ve got a bunch of data from working on these games before, and some of that is new. And so, while the Brute is probably your most atypical big, hey concentrate fire on it, he was a fun one to show in the trailer, but we also picked up some others in there that are very different and very different kinds of behavior in the game. And some of that is like you want to separate the team you want the team to have to change priority, you want the team to have different concerns, you want the team to have to stick together really closely, you want them to pay if they wander off. So you have some enemies that need to be able to down a player or control a player and not have them be able to rescue. I remember there was a point in working on Left 4 Dead; someone came up to me at the office and said, “We’re gonna cut the Hunter, right? Or we’re gonna change up behavior because you have to be able to get out from under it. You can’t be trapped. No one’s gonna like that.” And it’s like, “Okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Hunter will always trap you that way because you need to have that, and you need to have that kind of experience. So then we have some of those, but then we have some things that we started talking about because we haven’t talked about all the enemies yet. But like the Spawner is a good example… Really good teams would stick together because they knew the deal. We stick together; even if you get jumped, or you get constrained, we can [help you out] because we’re all close together. So, the Spawner you hear out in the distance, and it’s like, “Okay, there’s some noise, the Spawner’s here, we’ve got to deal with it.”

And what it sends down are these little turrets that will do damage to you. They don’t do a ton of damage, but there are like six of them. So, there’s enough of them that if you’re not paying attention to them, they will take you down. And the Spawner, unlike most enemies in the game, won’t come out and expose itself. It just hides. And it’s hiding in someplace that you can get to. We have a real good understanding of the map, so we understand he’s not spawning in someplace that you can’t get to. But, you’re going to have to go run and go get him. And so it becomes this thing of like… “I’m gonna go after the Spawner.” And we’ll see it again and again, even with good teams, someone splits off and is like, “I’m gonna go get that Spawner.” And they’ll run down the corridor and into the bathroom where the Spawner is hiding, and they’ll kill it, and they’ll feel really good and then realize that they’re 500 feet away from their team, they’re in trouble. There’s another special in between them and their teammates, and they may not get back. And so, it’s creating those kinds of events and those kinds of moments that you feel like a hero one moment and “Oh god, what happened?” next.

BD: Right, and you’ve got the AI Driver that can react to the players and introduce those moments at opportune or inopportune times, depending on how you look at it.

CF: So one of the goals always is to give the players enough information that they can make a plan and then enough randomness that the plan can go horribly wrong. Because those are the funny moments, when you’re like, “Oh my god, Will’s down over there, I’m gonna go help him. I’ll just cut through the shortcut and “Oh, now I got knocked down, and I’m like five flights down, and how am I gonna get out of this?” It’s those moments, right? 

The AI Driver is really that thing that you’ll never see in a screenshot and be like, “Man, the AI Driver’s great.” But, you’ll see how the game adapts and plays to you, and you’ll play with somebody else, and it’s like, “Oh my god, this is different, I’m with all my friends who just do nothing but headshot every enemy, and they’re super great twitch players and all of a sudden nothing’s on the path anymore, and I’ve gotta go search in all the side rooms.”

And that’s the AI Driver doing that. It adapts over time in ways that aren’t just, “Let’s send more enemies at you” or “Let’s make the enemies have more health.” It’s more like, “Hey, if you’re a bad team and you’re struggling, let’s not throw enemies behind you because that’s really hard for a team to deal with.” We still may occasionally, just because we want to mix it up. But, having that control and that kind of finesse around the game really makes it different than anything I think most people have played before.

The Anacrusis is coming to Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, and PC later in 2021.

The post [Interview] The Developer of ‘The Anacrusis’ Discusses the ’70s-Infused Co-op Survival Shooter, ‘I Am Legend’ and Working at Valve appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Horror has always been a staple in Frost’s life, from watching zombie movies with his sister to walking around graveyards trying to scare Simon Pegg. “We were… We kinda… We didn’t have women in our life,” Frost laughed, “Why don’t we drive up to this old Saxton church and see if we can’t get in, or just walk around the graveyard? We’d go and try and frighten each other!” Often to great success, resulting in the pair sprinting out of forests and trying to get home as quickly as possible.

The Boo Crew also asked about the iconic record-throwing scene in Shaun of the Dead, “Me and Simon were really frightened about throwing things at Mark and Mary ‘cause we didn’t want to hurt them… Edgar does a thing where he’ll come over and then say to us really quietly, ‘really go for it!’”

Frost has a knack for embodying iconic characters, which he credits to his appearance. “There is something about being fairly plain looking that means you can be anyone and people believe that,” he says, “… But I just love it, it’s not easy for me, I struggle doing the job I do, because I suffer a lot with [anxiety]… I’m physically ill a lot when I do a job, I work like every hour to make sure I know everything about the script, because I don’t want to fuck it up.”

Why Women Kill pushed Frost to new extremes to create Bertram, “He’s an oaf, he really loves Alma, he loves the family… And he doesn’t see that he’s doing anything wrong. He thinks he’s helping people.” Why Women Kill was brought to life by the incredible set, props, and of course the iconic costumes created by Janie Bryant (Mad Men, It). “She would always insist on me wearing socks from the 1930s. I think men must have had really thin ankles 100 years ago because it literally took me 20 minutes to put a pair of socks on,” Frost says.

Want to hear about some of Frost’s other work? You’ll have to tune in to hear the chilling true story that inspired his role Declan in “The Nevers”!

You can follow Nick Frost on:

Instagram: @friedgold

Twitter: @nickjfrost

And you can find The Boo Crew on:

Instagram: @talesfromtheboocrew
Twitter: @talesfromtheboo

The post The Boo Crew Chats With Nick Frost About ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and New Project ‘Why Women Kill’ [Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

There used to be a dismissive knee-jerk reaction whenever a new adaptation of a video game series got announced, but the stellar work that’s been accomplished through Netflix’s Castlevania series has confidently broken the “video game curse.” Castlevania’s mature and sophisticated breakdown of gothic horror and action often feels more like a horror-infused Game of Thrones than a hack-and-slash monster series. Castlevania challenges horror expectations with gorgeous animation and its success has started a whole adult animated trend on Netflix. 

Castlevania’s fourth and final season is its biggest yet (our review here). A demonic power vacuum ripples through the world and leaves Trevor and Sypha with more enemies than ever before. With Castlevania’s final season now available, the series’ executive producer, Kevin Kolde, details the production of these final episodes, why the horror show is really a love story at its core, and if this is really the end of Castlevania or if a resurrection is in the cards.

*This interview contains spoilers for all four seasons of Castlevania*

Bloody Disgusting: When season four of Castlevania got announced it was also revealed that it would be the final season. Was the plan always for it to end with four seasons or was there an even longer story envisioned at one point?

Kevin Kolde: The plan was always to end with the fourth season. The series was kind of split into two halves. Season one really focuses on telling the story from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Then the show did well and the characters were loved, so we thought it’d be good to expand upon the story, which is what pushed us into seasons three and four. So the plan was to end with season four and we approached season three from that standpoint, even though we didn’t know that a season four was a sure thing at the time. Thankfully we were able to bring all those threads together. 

BD: There are tons of nods from the Castlevania games that longtime fans of the series can appreciate. Were there any other major references or elements from the games that you wanted to include, but weren’t able to happen?

Kolde: A lot of that stuff will happen organically. However, there will be specific elements that we’ll consciously decide on, like Alucard’s shield coming from Symphony of the Night. The animators and artists have also packed in all sorts of Easter eggs that don’t distract from the story or anything. It’s so exciting to find all of that stuff hidden away and I honestly can’t even tell you about every detail that’s in there. There are just so many. It’s fun, for me at least, for when the fans discover those things, start to share them, and then look for even more.

BD: Death is a classic Castlevania character and you incorporate him beautifully into this final season. Was the intention always to include Death at some point? Was the big twist around the character always part of the plan?

Kolde: I’ll speak for Warren Ellis here and hopefully I’m right, but I believe that the plan was always for Death to be the final villain behind everything in the fourth season and the one who wants to bring Dracula back. It just makes sense from a story and game lore standpoint. It’s a big moment when that gets revealed and it definitely needs to be done carefully and at the right moment. I think it works out pretty well with how we execute it. Malcolm McDowell is just amazing too and we were super lucky to get him. He does a great job and all of his dialogue with Trevor at the end is some of my favorite stuff from the entire series. 

BD: Castlevania has a large cast of characters and you add even more figures into the mix this year. Talk a little bit on figuring out the structure of this season and how characters were split up?

Kolde: Warren Ellis has been the architect behind seasons three and four, but really the entire series. To his credit, he was able to bring in all of these complex characters, elements, and storylines, and find ways to bring them together and keep them all on track. Part of that was planning from the beginning around the structure of the third and fourth seasons, but it’s still not an easy task and it becomes even harder since we’re dealing with half-hour shows. An hour-long show is typically what you’d have for this type of story when it’s in live-action.

BD: I love that despite all of the violence in Castlevania, it essentially boils down to a love story. Why did it seem important to emphasize these themes during the final episodes?

Kolde: Because there’s got to be a reason for it all, right? The underlying humanity of it all and what’s the point of this giant war. These questions have always been important and we wanted to make sure the characters and their stories have meaning. I think what’s special about these episodes is that we give them an ending by really giving them a beginning for the first time. They all finally have a chance to experience life without the influence, or under the shadow of, Dracula—including Dracula himself! It’s the first time in the series where it feels like the characters might have a life and can breathe. 

It’s so satisfying, especially since this season starts with some characters in such a bad place, like Alucard. He’s probably suffered more than any other character. He lost his mom, his dad goes nuts and hurts him, then he has to go and kill his dad, and then he has a bad experience with Trevor and Sypha in season three. He’s definitely been kicked down a lot.

BD: There’s been news over continuing this universe through spin-offs or other projects and the series definitely ends with threads that could be picked up on. What can you say about continuing the Castlevania universe or at least what you think more stories might explore?

Kolde: There’s not much that we can get into at this point, but obviously the Castlevania universe is rich with characters and stories throughout history, including history that’s prior to the adventures of Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard, as well as stuff that’s far in the universe’s future. Our goal has always been to faithfully tell the stories from the Castlevania universe and there’s plenty of places that we can go in the future. Before we head into whatever is next, we’re just focusing on the audience enjoying this final season as much as possible.

BD: Additionally, there are more Netflix animated series that are adapting video games, much like Castlevania. Would you be interested in some sort of Netflix connected universe that includes Castlevania and bridges other series?

Kolde: Personally, it’s not a goal of mine at this point. Castlevania as a world of its own has so much to explore that it’s still far too early to merge all of that with the world and characters from another video game. At some point in the future it might be worth looking into that, but there’s so much been untold and untouched in Castlevania, which is our priority. 

BD: Finally, what do you hope that people take away from this concluding season of the series and what were you trying to say in these final episodes?

Kolde: We just wanted to do justice to these characters, their journeys, and their storylines. Knowing that this was the last season, the team and everyone involved really gave it everything that they had. On the animation side of things you’re going to see some of the most spectacular animation that we’ve had from out of the entire series. I think the cast comes through beautifully in these episodes and the stories just really respectfully handle everything that’s been building in a meaningful way. I’m just excited for people to be able to experience and that they enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.

All four seasons of Castlevania are available to stream on Netflix.

The post [Interview] “Castlevania” Executive Producer on Bigger Bloodshed, the End of Dracula, and the Future of the Series appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s one hell of an adventurous concept that, when combined with the classic vector graphics, makes for a refreshingly original experience. Solo developer, Mike Schmidt, ought to be commended for his ambition, especially since he tackled the project all on his own. To tell us more about he pulled off this miraculous feat, Mike took time out of his busy schedule (he’s still refining the game in early access) and answered some of our burning questions. Among other things, we talk about his history with Escher’s work, the old-school aesthetic, and the intricate design behind the geographically impossible levels. 

BD: To start off, could you explain where the idea for Paradox Vector came from?

MS: It is a combination of several ideas I’ve had floating around for some time. First, the style of vector graphics has been on my mind since the 1980s. I guess 3D graphics kind of took up where vectors left off, but there was always something about those stark outlines that I felt was unique and deserved more attention. 

The idea of a game with impossible geometry is also something I’ve thought about for a while. Ever since I was introduced to M. C. Escher, and later played Realm of Impossibility as a kid, those weird angles have been a great source of inspiration to me. Later titles like Monument Valley and Antichamber further convinced me that I should work on something similar of my own.

BD: It’s impressive that you’ve been able to develop this highly ambitious project as a solo effort. How did you approach such a massive undertaking?

MS: It would have been very intimidating, [were it not for the fact that] I recently developed another game called Star Explorers. It was a procedurally generated, space exploration title – one that I had been working on since 2013 – and it provided the catalyst for what would eventually become Paradox Vector. 

BD: How so? 

MS: The 3D mapping system was made using the same line draw commands. Once I had that working in Star Explorers, I realized it would be pretty easy to make a whole game based on the graphic style.  

Another factor that helped me as a [lone developer], was my general approach to art. I paint, I write, and over the last 20 years I’ve been making games. All these things take time to accomplish and if you are expecting instant results you will likely be disappointed […]  Some of my paintings have taken months or even years to complete. The secret is to try to get little bits done every day, and to resist the urge to “finish” something before it’s actually done or just rush. I can’t say I have been perfect at this, but I think I have improved over time.

BD: On that note, what was the most challenging thing that you had to tackle on your own?

MS: I guess it would be working out the impossible geometry of the levels. Moving the player through the complex virtual space was one thing, but the real challenge was making it feel seamless and erasing all the subtle clues that [reveal] how it is accomplished. Even now I am still finding little hints that threaten to expose the illusion, and I will continue to squish them out of existence.

BD: Could you talk a little about how you planned out the Metroidvania aspects of the game? For example, how do you keep track of where the various keys need to be placed or structure the rate at which players obtain certain items?

MS: Originally, Paradox Vector was going to be more linear in its design. The earliest builds did not feature the outdoor hubs that connect all the dungeons together and [upon completion] each level simply teleported you to the next one.

However, that felt very unsatisfying to me as a player. I wanted to know where I was and where I was supposed to be going. I also wanted to add little secrets that would allow you to unlock areas you’ve already seen but could not visit. So, I started with nine rough dungeons and arranged them in a way that made sense in the outer world.

Right now, the game has three main environments: the citadel; the caves; and the factory.  The citadel is where most of the upgrading takes place [and] the caves basically serve as a transition between the citadel and the factory. As for the final area, that tests you in new ways and allows you enjoy the full arsenal of weapons and items that you’ve [accumulated].

This was an [alternative] to the typical Metroidvania, where upgrading happens throughout. If I am nearing the end of a game, and I acquire an item that suddenly unlocks a bunch of areas, it almost feels silly to go all the way back to the beginning just to explore these hidden paths. So, I felt it was important to have a kind of cutoff point, where the player is fully equipped and can explore without all the usual back-and-forth. I also never liked the idea of getting a super powerful weapon right near the end of a game. I want the player to enjoy all their equipment and skills for the entire duration of that third act.  

BD: You mentioned earlier that you were inspired by the art of M.C Escher. How were you first introduced to his works?

MS: My mother introduced me to his art at a very young age, through the book “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter.  She was taking a college course at the time that involved this literature, and I would flip through it just to look at the pictures. 

The images Escher came up with were so compelling to me. I would marvel at how a stairway could keep going up in a circle, or how a waterfall could flow downwards and around strange corners to feed itself. They are obviously illusions, and you can see how he did it right on the paper, but those impossible structures made me ponder whether it could happen in real life.  

BD: And were there any specific images that you drew from or wanted to incorporate into the game? Any favourite Escher pieces?

MS: Waterfall was always one of my favorites.  Another one was the triangle made of three right angles that often appeared in Escher’s work. I believe the concept for that was actually designed by an artist named Oscar Reutersvärd, and was then later popularized by Lionel and Roger Penrose. 

Finally, his image Relativity was a big influence on some of my dungeons. A room with three different centers of gravity offered a unique challenge. You have to play through quite a few levels to find the one that was inspired by this piece, but it is definitely included in Paradox Vector. I should also mention that a similar illusion was replicated in the 2006 game Prey, and later in the game Dusk (which is another incredible retro shooter that inspired me).  

BD: What is the average process like for creating these mind-bending environments?

MS: I wanted each one to be as different as possible. They tend to use similar techniques to achieve their various illusions, but I always tried to find new ways to present [them] to the player. Some are glaringly obvious, whilst others require a little exploration to really notice.  

Basically, each level has one or two geometric illusions that the player is required to pass through. They are crucially not puzzles and Paradox Vector itself is not a puzzle game either.  Rather, I call it an ‘’action game set in a puzzling environment’’. In terms of designing them, the first few were easy, being based on Escher’s art pretty directly.  Later ones required a bit more thought, however.

BD: Is a lot of playtesting required to ensure that players are able to figure the dungeons out and that they won’t get too lost? As the lone developer, you presumably know them inside out, but how can you be sure the layouts will make sense to everyone else?

MS: This is the benefit of having Steam Early Access. It gives a solo developer a [source of] good feedback from players who are not going to beat around the bush. If they don’t like something, or can’t figure it out, they will tell you. [For example] a few of the first streamers got stuck in similar areas, so I knew I had to make those more intuitive to explore. 

BD: Speaking of which, were there any design tricks that you utilized to signpost people around? 

MS: One [way] is to cut off access to other areas until a certain feature is implemented. For instance, in a certain dungeon the player is forced to use a time-bomb to blow up a wall and progress to the next area.  Having a cracked wall [texture] is a time-honored development clue as to which surfaces are actually removable, so I used that. I also made sure the player could not go too far between [encountering] the wall in question and finding the time bombs needed to destroy it.

Another thing that I picked up from Quake and Quake II is that you need to make secret areas visible from other parts of the map. That way players will be aware of their [presence] and will be actively encouraged to look out for ways of reaching them.  Finally, there are actual maps for each dungeon and the outdoor areas as well, [which] should help players keep their bearings.

BD: Aside from the Escher influence, another thing that makes the game stand out from the crowd is the aesthetic. Why did you choose to use vector graphics?

MS: Vector graphics, in my mind, were unfinished business. We saw games in the early 1980s developing along two very distinct graphic styles. Pac Man and Donkey Kong established the now-ubiquitous “raster” graphics that every computer and console uses by default. However, there were also games like Battlezone, Tailgunner and the original Star Wars that used an entirely different technology to render images on screen.

At some point things changed and all the games started to look more like Donkey Kong than Battlezone. Bright colors filled the monitors and the minimalist line art that had previously fascinated me went away […] Yet the idea remained in my subconscious: ‘’What would have happened if those vector games won the war against raster graphics? What if, in some alternate universe, game companies had decided to invest heavily in that alternate technology and it became the default look?’’

With all the pixel art games that have come out in the last decade or so, I had this idea to explore a different kind of retro style […] I felt like, as an indie developer, it was my job to explore new territory. Once I realized how easy it could be to draw 3D lines in my mapping system it was just a matter of time before I had an idea for a vector based game.

[Mine] is certainly not the first game to try [resurrecting] vector graphics, but none of the others have really taken hold. One significant attempt I encountered was called Vectropolis, and there was a near-successful Kickstarter for that. Unfortunately, they did not meet their funding goal and, as far as I know, the game was never finished.  Still, they raised enough money to demonstrate that there was quite a bit of interest in a vector-based game. Being a solo developer, I knew I could do my project without needing a huge budget and that set me on track to finish Paradox Vector.

BD: The score is very memorable as well. Is it original and if so, how did it come about?

MS: When I was developing Star Explorers, I took a detour for about six months. I was trying to produce interesting looking nebulae [and] I got really inspired by some of the procedural shapes that were being generated. To explore this further, I created a different script and started a new game that was initially called ‘’Trees in Space’’ (because that’s what those shapes looked like) and was later renamed “Anomalies.” 

Anomalies was pure experimentation and, compared to the task of having to design a procedural galaxy and planet, was such a freeing project to work on. So, I paused development on Star Explorers, and just let myself enjoy the unfettered art of Anomalies. 

Eventually, the ‘’space trees’’ began to move, change colors and produce noises.  At first these were totally random and strange, but I decided to [delve deeper] into how frequencies could work together. It was some of the most intense math I’ve ever done, and I don’t even think I could explain it to you now that it’s finished, but I was able to get the anomalies to play notes that matched some typical musical scales. I then started recording the “songs” made by various anomalies and now I have a whole catalog of albums on Bandcamp as a result. 

The music algorithm was then modified and actually found its way back into Star Explorers.
Anyway, some of those songs, where they are actually generated in real-time as you play, have been recorded and used in Paradox Vector. 

BD: The storytelling is largely confined to cryptic in-game documents. Was that a conscious decision to keep the momentum going throughout and or was it motivated by more practical considerations?

MS: I am one of those people who hates cutscenes in videogames. Honestly, if I wanted to watch a movie, I would just turn on Netflix and if I wanted a story, I would just open up a book. I don’t really like spending a lot of time without control over my character. So, for me, having a few short text messages is more than enough to get across a [narrative]. Of course, producing storytelling devices would also take up precious development time, and relying on brief snippets of text would allow me to focus more on the gameplay instead.

Remember, I come from a generation that was fascinated by a little block that you could move across the screen with your joystick. So, in my controversial opinion, it is the graphics, the sounds, and the interactions that make games what they are. Everything else is fluff.

BD: Finally, what element of the game are you most proud of?

MS: That’s a tough one. I think it’s the careful balance between combat and exploration. Some games are so action heavy that they can wear you out and overwhelm your senses. You may end up running backward and shooting all the time – a pet peeve of mine – and often it’s so obvious where you need to go that there is virtually no sense of mystery or discovery. 

On the other hand, games without combat can get boring for me, even when there are interesting puzzles. The lack of conflict eventually makes me feel like I have [no incentive] to play. In Doom there are demons taking over earth if I don’t wipe them out. I can’t just stop; I have to fight them!  But a puzzle game generally does not offer these kinds of high-stake situations. 

Having high energy combat, with more careful exploration is a balance that was part of the best Metroidvania games. Also, probably my favorite game of all time, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, has relativity long, quiet periods of exploration, punctuated with brief moments of intense combat. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did not directly inspire Paradox Vector, but I assume its influence was as strong as anything I thought of consciously.

Paradox Vector is available now on Steam Early Access.

The post [Interview] Schmidt Workshops Discuss ‘Paradox Vector’s Impossible Geography, Old-School Visuals, and Cosmic Horror appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Takashi Miike is one of those rare filmmakers who is seemingly capable of directing anything. He’s made significant contributions to the horror genre, most notably Audition, but he’s catapulted from Samurai films, to courtroom dramas, to high school musicals, to spaghetti westerns, to superhero films without batting an eye. Not only is Miike capable of variety, but his movies tend to contain extremely memorable set pieces that are emblematic of the director’s fearless, gonzo style. You may not always love a Takashi Miike movie, but there’s a guarantee that it will at least be something that you won’t soon forget.

With over 100 films now to his name, Miike isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. His latest effort, First Love, is a twisted love story that sees a boxer and a call girl get roped into a complex crime saga where there’s a growing body count. First Love makes for yet another strong example of how Miike is able to blend together so many different sensibilities and turn out truly unique pieces of cinema. We got to the opportunity to talk to Takashi Miike about First Love, but we also discussed the journey his career has taken, the level of responsibility involved with directing adaptations of other people’s works, and how he’s too afraid to watch his own horror movies.

Bloody Disgusting: First Love is such an interesting combination of ideas and themes. What about this story initially caught your interest?

Takashi Miike: “Absolutely. It’s a very simple story where there aren’t that many characters and some of the main characters are considered to be scum. They’re considered to be kind of useless to society. Then you have all of these people that have their desires and things that they want to achieve or obtain. From all of that, these two people fall in love, it becomes a love story, and everyone else kind of dies. But out of all of that death and chaos comes this one love story that will continue into the future, and I like that. I like the story. I like the idea. And so I decided I wanted to make this movie.”

BD: Was it a challenge to balance the romance and violence of this film? Were you concerned that there may be too much of one or not enough of the other?

Miike: “You’re right, there is a lot of violence and romance in the film, but I’m really not interested in objectively thinking about what the balance is like between them. The amount of violence is actually something that I don’t calculate myself. I actually kind of leave that up to the characters, so balance may be lost or completely broken in the film, but I think to some extent that can’t be helped because instead of me making the characters for the film, I focus on the characters in the script and I let them make the film. So honestly, I don’t particularly care if it’s a huge success or if there’s a balance there, but I just want to make a film that I like and I’m proud of how this one turned out.”

BD: I love the animated segment at the end of First Love. It made me think of the insane ending to Dead or Alive. Is it fun to sometimes make these crazy left turns at the end of your movies?

Miike: “Honestly, that scene in First Love speaks a lot to the current insecurities in the Japanese film industry. It’s because by the time that we got to that scene—and we added that scene at the end of the film in post-production—we were already over our budget. At the same time, there’s a big aversion to risks right now in the industry. Maybe there could be a car accident or something while we’re filming the scene. So because there’s an aversion to risk right now in Japan, a lot of the movies that are made are these big, warm, fuzzy movies that don’t really have any danger—like real physical danger—for the actors. So there are very few new stunt men that are being developed in Japan.”

“We could have said, “Okay, we can cut that scene because it’d be difficult to do with the current situation in the Japanese market. In a way, a car chase scene is almost clichéd for an action film, anyways.” But instead of cutting it, we decided that we’d find another way to do it and still honor that idea that was in the script. Now, if we had not filmed the movie in Hong Kong, we would have actually shot it, but we were, so we got creative.”

BD: That’s so interesting. To make something less physically dangerous, you turn it into what’s probably the most stylistically dangerous moment in the movie. On the topic of animation, a lot of directors struggle with bringing anime or manga series to life, but your adaptations are some of your best films. What’s so appealing to you about adapting anime?

Miike: “A lot of this can also be said about if I were adapting a novel as well, but specifically when dealing with a manga, when you’re turning that into a live-action film you’re doing that because you think that it’s just going to be fun. Or sometimes you read the original work and you’re like, “Okay, the original work is fun, so it’d be fun to turn that into a film while still respecting the intent and style of the original work and the writer’s intention. But at the same time, it’s more important for us to have fun with it than to rigidly stick to exactly what the original work was. When adapting someone else’s work you’re also freed in a sense because you want to respect the writer, but we don’t actually have that many meetings with the original writer—maybe just one “meet and greet” and that’s it, but what we do want to do is make something that the fans are going to love, even if we don’t specifically cater to them, but also a product that feels like it has my voice in it as well.”

BD: With the wide range of films that you have made, it really feels like you can literally adapt anything. Are there any projects that you’ve turned down out of fear?

Miike: “So this is maybe related to my experiences as an assistant director too, but what’s scary when you’re making a film is just realizing that it’s going to cost way too much money in some cases. At the same time, I’m not the one who’s funding the film, so I have to work within the constraints of my co-producers and sponsors. Now if they don’t think that we’re capable of making a certain film with the money we have, that’s fine, but what I try to always do is instead of cancelling or not accepting a project, I’ll brainstorm over modifications to make things cheaper, which usually also make things more interesting, too. We’re looking for a synergy there. A lot of people are usually funding these films, so we try to look at all of the possible ideas from everyone involved. Again, during my time as an assistant director I saw a lot of troubleshooting to pull off interesting ideas within budget.”

BD: You’ve done some very memorable work in the horror genre, but what do you think is your scariest film and why?

Miike: “I’m actually quite a scaredy cat, myself. Since a child I’ve been this way. I’ve even a little afraid of the dark. If I’m alone in the dark I’ll sometimes feel that there’s a presence behind me and I’ll even be afraid to turn around, but then if I do get the courage to turn around, I’ll just be scared that whatever was there has just jumped over to the other side of me. This sounds really silly, but as a child I’ve always been a bit of a coward so I don’t watch many horrors films myself. I personally think I don’t want to pay money to go to a theater to get horribly frightened! So even after I finish making horror films, I usually don’t go to a theater to watch them myself.”

“All of this being said, the scariest of the projects that I’ve worked on is “Imprint,” my episode from Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. Everyone kept telling me that America’s a free country and that I could really do whatever I wanted. It’s cable TV, so don’t hold back at all and make it as scary as possible. So I did that and then when I showed it to the producers in Japan, they were like, “I know we told you that you can do anything, but this is going too far. This is way too far.” We even had to publish this article in the New York Times apologizing that said that this was supposed to be a 13-episode series, but an episode’s been cut because it was too scary, so now it’s just twelve episodes. “Imprint” was definitely the scariest project that I’ve worked on.”

BD: Have there been any updates on a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable sequel? Should people still have hope?

Miike: “When we started that project, we expected that we’d be making a couple of them, but it was just not a big hit in Japan. It was way less well received than we expected. So that’s actually horror for a director that’s in that situation. So no, there’s no sequel planned and it wasn’t a hit.”

“That’s an interesting situation because the writer of the original work, Hirohiko Araki, liked the film a lot, which was one of my main objectives when making the film adaptation. When we talked to some of the journalists, many of them said they liked the film, but I couldn’t tell if they were just being nice or if they actually had fun with it. In any case, it was well received by the writer and a few other people, but no, there won’t be a sequel.”

Takashi Miike’s ‘First Love’ hits theaters in limited release on September 27.

The post [Interview] Takashi Miike on New Movie ‘First Love’ and the Evolution of His Filmmaking appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Some of the iconic items that could be yours include one of the stunt axes used by Jack Nicholson in Kubrick’s “The Shining”. All work and no play may be the secret to picking it up as it’s estimated at going anywhere from $6,000 to $8,000. Freddy can be your boyfriend now with the actual special FX phone receiver complete with animatronic tongue seen in the first Elm Street movie! Everything from Deadite Warriors from Army Of Darkness, the Stay Puft Marshmellow man’s head, to the Munsters‘ coffin shaped roadster, the Dragula, could be making your horror-nerd fantasies a reality.

Take a shot at the massive Teleportation Pod from The Fly II! “You can have it in your living room!”, adds Head Of Consignor and Client Relations, Brian Chanes, who’s adventures tracking down this stuff were once chronicled on SyFy’s reality show, “Hollywood Treasures” back in 2010.

“We’re not selling stuff we’re selling memories,” says Joe Moe, catalog editor. “It travels with us through time and keeps us plugged into this escapism, art, craft and the magic of moviemaking that’s a unique American tradition.”

Take a trip to the Profiles In History warehouse in Episode 68 of The Boo Crew Podcast for the fascinating stories behind the items (also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts)!

Register to bid here: www.profilesinhistory.com

Follow Profiles In History on:

Instagram: @profilesinhistory
Twitter: @pihauctions

Follow The Boo Crew on:

Instagram: @talesfromtheboocrew
Twitter: @talesfromtheboo

The post [Podcasts] Take Home Horror History with The Boo Crew! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Not only does it have a distinctive world that’s totally unlike anything else out there – a vampire-themed Mad Max with a hint of anime – but it also finds new and innovative ways to tackle things like co-op, leveling up, and character classes. We’ve really enjoyed what we’ve seen so far and can’t wait to get our hands on the finished product.

In the meantime, we did get a chance to catch up with Aude-Alexia Koch, a producer on Code Vein, to talk about everything from the title’s approach to difficulty, to how its unique character progression system works.

Bloody Disgusting: I thought we could talk about the ‘’code system’’ first. I’ve never really seen anything else quite like it, where you can switch between classes on a whim. How do you think it impacts upon the overall experience?

Aude-Alexia Koch: Well, the dev team really wanted players to experience something new within the Action-RPG genre. This idea of being able to switch codes whenever you want provides just that. It means that you can have a unique playthrough and also makes a huge difference in terms of co-op, where you can make a strategic decision with your friend about who’s going to play in what role and then [alternate] whenever you need to.

BD: And I suppose that’s something that you need to be mindful of when you’re designing the game. Specifically from a balancing perspective?

AAK: Yeah definitely. We had to take [that] into account, the idea that no two people are going to play in the same way. We also have to make sure that we didn’t repeat ourselves with any of the codes, so that they weren’t too similar to each other.

BD: Another of the game’s unique aspects is the buddy system. Obviously, it makes a big difference in gameplay, but I was wondering if our choice of companion might affect the narrative in any way as well?

AAK: Not really. Whilst the game is very story-driven, you will have the same experience no matter what when it comes to the narrative. You can’t make choices or have the plot branch off in different directions. Like you said, [The buddy system] is much more about the gameplay side of things.

BD: Gotcha. When it comes to these Soulsborne games, one of the key appeals is that trademark difficulty. A lot of people play them for the exhilarating sensation of overcoming a challenge. Did you want to cater to that audience with this game, or were you more interested in making it accessible to everyone?

PR Rep: Personally, I think both camps will find something to enjoy in this game. We wanted to make it work for those who come for the story, whilst also appealing to gamers who want the challenging combat. The best of both worlds really.

BD: Cool. Would you be able to talk a little bit about the actual setting of Code Vein? Because this world is really intriguing, mixing vampire mythology with a post-apocalyptic theme.

AAK: That’s definitely something that we liked right from the start. The fact that you’re playing as a vampire really brings something new to the table. You have this world around you that’s completely destroyed, and you yourself are already dead. But you still have to fight. You have to fight to reclaim your memory and discover what happened to the world. It’s a really exciting [premise].

BD: You just mentioned that idea of reclaiming your memories and I wanted to touch on that a bit more. In this demo, after defeating one of the bosses, we got to walk through their past and experience their memories. Is this something that will recur throughout the game?

AAK: It won’t happen every time you defeat a boss. This particular fight was something special, because you were fighting another revenant and after you defeated him you absorbed his blood code. That’s why you got to see his memories. So, it’s not all the time, but it will happen every now and then. When it does, you’ll get to learn more about your own character, as well as those around you.

BD: One of the things that impressed me about the demo was the enemy variety. How exciting was it to work with all these amazing creature designs?

AAK: That was all done in Japan. We weren’t too involved with that stuff directly. But we did get to look at the concept art, four years ago [when development first began], and it’s interesting to see how it’s evolved since then. As we’ve refined things over time.

BD: What would you say is the thing you’re most excited for players to experience when they first get their hands on the game?

AAK: I think more than anything we’ve made something that is quite unique and new. That’s probably the most exciting part.

PR Rep: For me, it’s that you’ll get to experience the whole thing from start to finish with a friend. That’s quite unusual for this genre.

BD: Speaking of which, you have a permanent A.I partner as well. How do you think that impacts upon the difficulty of the game?

PR Rep: Speaking gameplay wise, you can actually choose to strike out alone if you want.

AAK: It’s recommended that you do it with a companion though. It’s been designed that way, and obviously, it all depends on the type of partner you have. On their blood code – whether they be a healer, a brawler, a tank or a caster – it will change your experience.

BD: Are there any benefits to doing it without a partner, or is it just for that extra challenge?

PR Rep: Just the bragging rights!

Code Vein is out on PS4, Xbox One, and PC later this year.

The post [Interview] ‘Code Vein’ Producer Aude-Alexia Koch on Bringing Something New to the Action RPG appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The latest PS4 exclusive, Days Gone, has a score that truly puts across its post-apocalyptic wilderness setting almost perfectly, with a mixture of modern and folksy arrangements. We talked to the game’s composer Nathan Whitehead, who has previously composed scores for The Purge series among other things, about the choices and influences on the soundtrack, and of course, about horror.

Bloody Disgusting: Your score features slow strings and melancholia which seems to evoke a romantic notion of the Old West. How did you come to settle on that tone?

Nathan Whitehead: I love your description of the music and I think it’s spot on. I think this tone is inspired by Deacon’s character and by the game’s setting of the Pacific Northwest. I like the melancholia thread which runs through most of the score because I feel it hints at how much Deacon has been through. To me, it provides some context for Deacon – he’s fighting to survive like everyone else but he’s also thinking of his past and trying to find meaning. I also thought a lot about nature while writing the score. The setting for the Days Gone is really beautiful, but it’s also a deadly world out there. I think nature is awe-inspiring and encourages us to look inward sometimes. I wanted the score to reflect that and this made me to strive for a little more introspection in the music.
 
Did the score for any other post-apocalyptic game, film, or show help to inspire your own work?

In general, I found tremendous inspiration in the story and the beautiful visuals of Days Gone. There was a lot to chew on there. One score that did come up in conversation with my producers at Sony was Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for The Road. That score has some wonderful, aching, lonely pieces of music. It also has really interesting instrumentation with these droning organs and intimate solo string parts.

You have some history with composing for horror before Days Gone via The Purge series and last year’s He’s Out There. Is it a genre you enjoy composing for?
 I do enjoy horror. It’s not all I like to do but there is something special about working in the horror genre. With horror, I often find I get to be more adventurous with the score and really experiment with different sounds and textures in the music. I love trying to come up with a sound that is very evocative but difficult to place what instrument it is exactly. Horror is filled with those opportunities.

What’s your favorite horror score? Be it from games, movies, or TV?

I’m terrible at naming favorites because there are so many scores I love! I do think Garry Schyman’s score for BioShock was great and Disasterpeace’s score for It Follows was brilliant. And even though it wasn’t technically score, I’ll add Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. I first heard it when I was 8 or 9, I think. Also, I had not seen The Exorcist but thought it was creepy and thrilling. It’s also one of the first things I learned on the piano.

You’ve worked on scores for a wide variety of genres in several different forms of media. Does the process differ much between composing for a game and a film or TV?

 I think the overall mission is the same for all media; I need to find the musical identity of the project and participate in the storytelling in a meaningful way. There are a lot of differences in the logistics of each one. TV is always breakneck speed turning around episodes every week. Film is all over the place in terms of schedule; I’ve done a film in three weeks or I might have four or five months. I worked on the score for Days Gone for over two years! Games are just massive projects. There’s much more music to write and the games themselves take years to develop. Another huge difference with games is writing music that will be interactive and respond to the player’s actions.

On Days Gone, this involved a lot of back and forth with the brilliant Sony music team. They would design these interactive systems and I would write music to fit in that system. For example, I would write music in layers so that all the layers together sounded like a cohesive piece of music but the game engine could selectively turn layers off or on based on what’s happening in the game. That’s a little oversimplified but the result was a score that felt more like it was scored linearly, like a film, but it was responding dynamically to the action. It’s a big additional layer to the process that film and TV don’t have.

You’ve worked on a fair few game soundtracks over the years, do you play games that often outside of work?

I do but not nearly as much as I would like to because I’m always in my studio writing music!

The post [Interview] ‘Days Gone’ Composer Nathan Whitehead Talks About Favorite Horror Scores, Musical Influences, and More appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As Gearbox’s Managing Producer of Narrative, Randy Varnell oversees two out of three of the above selling points. And under his leadership, story has become a significant point of focus for the eagerly anticipated September 13 release. During an interview with decade-plus studio veteran, we asked the important questions.

Questions like: What’s up with the Children of the Vault? Why is Rhys suddenly a corporate shill again? And is Handsome Jack really (like really really) dead?

Bloody Disgusting: You’ve been at Gearbox for 10 years. You started six months before the first Borderlands launched. How has the series evolved, narratively, in your mind, in the time that you’ve been at Gearbox?

Randy Varnell: Tremendously. There have been generational gaps between each one. Borderlands 1 was such a project. I got there, and I wasn’t working on that project at the time I was going to test it a little bit and give some feedback… You’ve probably heard the stories of the big art style redo of the game?

BD: I remember that Game Informer cover.

RV: Randy Pitchford tells stories about restructuring all of the story in January of 2009 [Ed. Note: That’s just eight months before the game’s release]. So, it all came together and it worked out great and we were really happy. Then, we came to Borderlands 2. Borderlands 1 was showing: Okay, we’ve got something here; now let’s pay it off in a big way. At that point, we were like, ‘We need a team of writers.’ We went and got Anthony Burch and brought him in. We paired him with Paul Hellquist who did work on BioShock. And, like okay, story’s very important. We want to go there in a big way, we want to really pay off a good villain. And I think we did. Borderlands 2 is still selling and people are still playing it today. I did a stint in Battleborn, too, I was creative director on Battleborn. Story was huge for that.

The biggest thing to say about Battleborn in relationship to Borderlands 3 is: everything that we did in Battleborn leveled us up for [what we’re doing on] Borderlands 3. A big chunk of Gearbox worked on that game. There’s a lot of things that we learned on that: how you develop characters; we tried some different things with how you tell story and all of that. Found some things that worked, found some things that didn’t. The biggest lesson that we learned was: don’t make one writer do it alone. So, for Borderlands 3, one of the things that they brought me over to do was, actually build a narrative department. So, I have a group of writers now that work with me.

BD: How big is that team?

RV: So, we have four writers other than me that are just dedicated. We have a pair of co-lead writers, Sam Winkler and Danny Homan. Another guy, we actually brought from Telltale, Connor Cleary, who did a little bit of work on Tales from the Borderlands; worked on some other titles there. And, we hired a junior writer that’s worked with us, actually came up from QA, Dante Silva, who’s got one of the best lore minds [of anyone] I’ve ever met. That dude is just literally a data repository of everything on our franchise. Super good guy. So that group of guys come together, and we actually run it more like a conventional writers’ room, like you would have on a TV series or a large movie. And it’s been amazing. We worked very closely with Randy Pitchford and Paul Sage, creative director, along with several other leads, [game design director] Keith Schuler and art director Scott Kester…from the very beginning to be sure that the plot is structured, that we know where we’re going and that we really think through the themes and the arcs and the characters and the motivation.

And as we developed that it’s a big process change. Because before there were often moments where… you could hear Anthony Burch tell stories about literally writing in the booth while they’re recording to get some lines into the story. This game has been a lot more thoughtful and a lot more methodical. Apart from me, none of [the writers] have worked on a Borderlands before. And so we have big shoes to fill and making sure that we maintain characters, that we maintain tone, that we maintain continuity. In the writers’ room, they can go off and work on this little part and that little part and then we all come together and we’re hypercritical of each other. Like, ‘I’ve got a better joke,’ ‘That joke sucks,’ this and that, and ‘I don’t like what you did with Claptrap there,’ ‘Maybe we should do this with Lilith here.’ All of that, together, for several years working as a team I think is going to pay off in a big way. That’s been the biggest shift that we’ve seen in this from a story and narrative standpoint in the game.

BD: Just that focus on story from the beginning?

RV: Yeah, it’s bigger. I can say that too. There’s a lot more story. Our side missions in 3 many of them are as big as main missions in Borderlands 1. So, the game is not only more places you visit, more places you go, but the game is big in content, big in depth. We actually have a new type of narrative challenge type of thing that we actually haven’t spoiled much about yet, that will give you even more of that approach but from more of a challenge gameplay. But, it’s still got lore, it’s still got character development in it. There’s a lot more content that really opens up the game to that ‘play as you want.’ It’s a little bit open world-ish. You can go do these challenges, do these side missions. So, we have added some new ways that we engage story for you the player that’s different than before. Also, just the evolution of conversations for our player characters. In Borderlands 1, the player characters were fairly silent. You kind of made up in your head what Lilith and Brick and Mordecai and Roland would be.

In Borderlands 2 you had a little bit more, you got some Echo logs and you got to learn a little bit more about Maya and Roland. In Pre-Sequel, they started talking and you had those conversations. We did an immense amount of that in Battleborn because your ability to understand the character was all based on the dialogue and we had 30 in that game. So, when we got to Borderlands 3, we just continually heard from fans, they like that, they like hearing from the players, they like hearing the performances. So ,you’re going to see a lot of that in 3. So, we’re taking advantage of all of the lessons we’ve learned.

BD: Will playing with different characters open up different story arcs?

RV: Not in big ways but those conversations do give you information you wouldn’t get otherwise; a lot of it is about that player character but some of it is about the world at large and about history and about the past. They all come from different backgrounds. Amara’s… from a small community, small culture, kind of the community defender, whereas Zane has worked for every corporation ever. There’s even a passing line in this demo where he talks to Zero and says, ‘Hey, I remember you.’ You get some of that. So, while you’re playing different characters will do that. But, it’s not like a branching, choose-your-own story like a Telltale game, or like you’ve seen in other games, like what BioWare would do.

BD: Speaking of the corporations, Rhys seems like he’s a bit of a corporate shill in this game. He’s gone from Hyperion to Atlus. What can you say about his character and how we get from the end of Tales from the Borderlands to where Rhys is in this game?

RV: You can see Rhys, even at moments in Tales from the Borderlands, he has kind of that ghost of Handsome Jack on his shoulder. ‘I can make you rich. I can make you powerful.’ He’s constantly, in Tales, fighting that image. ‘Do I go full corporate? Do I follow on in this legacy or am I my own man? Am I free? Am I independent of all this?’ And that’s a struggle for him. And it’s interesting in Tales because how you choose to play Tales as a player can depend some sense of where he lands in there. But, in Borderlands 3, we’re basically finishing some of that in-between arc out. That lure of power was too much for him. He’s moved into Promethea, the planet, into Meridean City and taken over Atlus. You’re going to see—I don’t want to spoil all the game—but you’re going to get to see and learn some more about him as you interact.

You’re going to get a lot of interactions with Rhys on Promethea and get to hear him and hear what he thinks about corporate life. And that inner struggle is still there and he still kind of wants to be that approachable guy. But, then again he’s kind of enjoying wealth and power and influence except that it’s drawn Maliwan down on him and he now has this corporate war to worry about.

BD: Katagawa, the CEO of Maliwan, seems to be filling the Rhys role to Rhys’ Handsome Jack.

RV: Kind of. There’s a little bit of that. I think you’re going to see that there’s a really funny relationship. There’s a little bit of a bromance going on. Katagawa doesn’t just want Rhys’ assets, he just likes Rhys. And the only way that Katagawa knows to make friends with Rhys is to take over Atlus and force him to be his friend. So, there’s a kind of messed up dark humor in all that and it’s…man, I gotta stop myself here, because there’s so much in that relationship that’s fun to explore and you’re going to see some cool banter between them.

BD: Speaking of Tales from the Borderlands, I don’t want you to spoil anything, but can we expect to see any characters like Fiona or Sasha, or any of those characters?

RV: You’ve already seen a little bit of a hint in the teaser images that we put out that Vaughn is back. So, I don’t want to spoil the other ones but that image is out there and careful fans have already picked it out. He had an interesting arc at the end of Tales. He had been a Hyperion accountant. And, had been kind of a little mousy guy. And at some point during Tales he takes off his shirt and your realize he is strangely ripped. And, so he now has become a Bandit Lord. It’s more than just Rhys and Vaughn in there and… you gotta see where that pans out.

BD: We’ve seen a lot of the Children of the Vault. We learned today that Troy and Tyreen are streamer gods. Can you tell me a little bit about the dogma or the beliefs of the Children of the Vault. What is this religion promising to the people of Pandora?

RV: The best way to describe them is they are definitely a cult of personality gone bad. This is not really a dig at [streamers]. We’ve got so many streamers that we love and have done so much for us and love our game and promote our game. This is not a dig on any of them. This is just understanding that it’s relevant to our culture. What happens when you have a streamer who suddenly has millions of followers and starts using that power to, ‘Okay, go rob a store. Go bring me something. Go do something.’ And so you see Troy and Tyreen Calypso, they’ve done what was impossible for… In Borderlands 2, you see some bandit clans start to form up, but there were still some different ones and loose ones.

We land in Borderlands 3 and they’re all together, they have all moved together in the Children of the Vault and the Calypsos have accomplished what we thought was un-accomplishable. And you’re going to hear things. They’re going to talk about the Vaults. And the Vaults in all of Borderlands promises wealth and power and mysticism. And you’re going to see a little bit of that dogma militarized into a religion. Hey, you want that wealth and power? You help us find the Vault and we’re going to share that wealth with you, our children… That’s a lot of the story of the game. What are they going to do with that? How far are they going to take it? Do they have any other agendas in there? Those are great questions to ask… what are the Calypsos going to do? What do they really want?”

BD: Now, this may be a bit of a deep cut, but in Borderlands 2, there was a sidequest where there are bandits that are starting to worship Lilith, the Children of the Firehawk.

RV: Yes!

BD: Is there any relationship between those Children and these Children?

RV: Not directly. But, I think what you see in Borderlands 2 [is that] bandits are not all there. When we got to explore Krieg the Psycho as a playable character we did some really cool things to show you this deep divide that’s going on between his sane side and his bandit side. We call them psycho bandits; they’re a little bit crazy, they’re a little bit bloodthirsty and all that. They attach really quickly to things. And I think the safest thing to say is you see that start to form in some ways in Borderlands 2. And, I’m sure that that group, the Children of the Firehawk, moved into the Children of the Vault in Borderlands 3. But, there’s only loose ties there with that organization. Definitely the seeds, those seeds grew into something very different and very big.

BD: So, on an unrelated note: Handsome Jack is dead.

RV: So dead.

BD: There have been three games, Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, that have all developed Jack and worked with Jack’s personality. Is it difficult to move on from Jack? And what were the challenges of developing new villains to fill that hole that he left?

RV: It is. Handsome Jack was unusually successful as a villain. Good villains are hard. And I think your heroes always feel more heroic when they have a good villain to oppose them. I think Handsome Jack did that so well for Borderlands. I think ‘healthy respect’ is the best way to describe how we approach coming up with a new villain. We also listen to our fans a lot and after the three games you cited it was so much Jack that we actually heard from a number of fans, ‘You know what? We’re good for now if you want to take a little breath and show us someone else who could be bad for a second.’ So, canonically, yes, Handsome Jack is dead. You had a little ghost remnant of him in Tales and that’s even been dealt with. So, we wanted to come at the Calypso Twins and we looked at it from two ways: What are the lessons that we learned from Handsome Jack that are really important to preserve? His humor, his relatability, some of the snark, his presence in the world. You understand his goals; he’s after something that you can relate to and that’s really important. But, we also wanted to come with some twists.

Handsome Jack, while he had the Loaders and all that they were all expendable resources. And while the Calypsos might still see the bandits as expendable; they are definitely selling the line that they are a family, they are a group, they are a cult, they are a religion and they want to be worshipped as godlike power for all that brings. But, the Calypsos are also a hands dirty. They’re willing to get in the world. You saw a little bit of that today. They showed up as holograms but you see Tyreen’s work; you’ve seen the bandits that she has already drained all the life out and left as husks there in the world. You’ll continue to see that… You’ll see them diverge even more and more from that snarky humor that kind of draws you in into something that is even more threatening than Handsome Jack was.

BD: We’ve seen a lot of loot-shooters since the last Borderlands game. Destiny, Destiny 2, Anthem, The Division games. What have you learned from the storytelling successes and failures of those other cooperative loot-shooters?

RV: I think it’s confirmed to us that humor is really important. Humor is also really hard. And so, we wanted to be very certain that we maintained that humorous tone in Borderlands 3. I love all of those games but they’re all trying to do different things story-wise. Destiny and The Division are very serious in tone… Humor is always going to be just a cornerstone of Borderlands for us. Everything that you do, whether it’s mission objectives or how the players talk, we want to be sure that that’s in there… The importance of strong, identifiable characters. Where those games succeed it’s when you can remember those characters and remember the moments.

The best that Destiny was, was when they had memorable villains that you could remember the names of and memorable characters that came in there. And it’s certainly something that we’ve always, I think, done a fairly good job with, and it’s something that we wanted to double down on. We now have a massive trough of characters that we have to keep up with. So, making sure that we treat them respectfully, that we treat them right, put new characters in, but we develop those characters.

BD: One final quick question: if you had to devote your life to one of the corporations in Borderlands which one would you choose?

RV:“[Laughs] Oh my gosh, that’s a hard one! It’s an either-or for me. I love Jakobs because I love vintage, I love taste, I love seasoning, I love flavor, I love craftsmanship, and if it takes more than one bullet it’s not a Jakobs. I love that type of thing… But, the other part of me, other side of the coin, man, I love tech. And Maliwan is sleek and elemental and inventive, and ah, there’s just something about that style of design. I could find something I love in all of them. Those are probably my two top. Jakobs is probably my final answer on that.

And,  of course, Gearbox hopes that Borderlands 3 can capture that combination; traditionally made but charged with the innovative spark of the new.

Borderlands 3 is out September 13 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

The post [Interview] Gearbox Software’s Randy Varnell Discusses ‘Borderlands 3’ Story, Returning Characters, and Making a Memorable Villain appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: How much of the game had you seen before you started composing Devil Trigger?

Casey Edwards: I didn’t see much of the game at all during my entire process of writing Devil Trigger, The Duel, or Silver Bullet. When I first started Devil Trigger I was sent a few clips of Nero fighting in a confined apocalyptic urban setting to see how the game moved and looked, but that was about it. Later on, I had the pleasure of meeting Itsuno and a few other Capcom guys at a V/O session with Johnny Yong Bosch, who voices Nero. While I was there they showed me some brief early looks at how the final fight was going to look as well. Also, I don’t want to glaze over that last part so quickly. Not only was I already a DMC fan, but I’ve been a fan of Johnny’s work on MMPR since the early 90’s when I was a kid. That was a huge geek-out day for me!

Did the soundtracks for any previous Devil May Cry games inspire your musical choices?

Yeah, for sure! But only in the sense of genre-mashing, and not a direct song or theme referencing. My goal from the beginning was to represent Nero with EDM + pop. But at the same time, I didn’t want to abandon that hard edge that DMC music has had since the beginning. So I did my best to combine all those worlds together in one song.

Devil Trigger blew up well before the game actually released. Did it please you that the song resonated as it did beyond just being a soundtrack song?

It still blows my mind! I was both excited and terrified when they told me they were using my track as the announcement music for DMC5 at e3 in 2018. After the trailer dropped, the track was immediately put onto all major music platforms for purchase or stream and we also dropped a music video edit. Currently, on Spotify, the song has 7.2 million streams. At one point on YouTube, if you counted the multitude of uploads that were made by fans, we had over 30 million views. To me, that is INSANE!

You often see musicians agonize over the end result no matter what the reception is. Do you find it tough to accept praise for your music?

This is always a weird one. If someone showers me with praise I get skeptic as to why they like this regular thing I did that’s probably not even all that great. If someone dislikes something I did it’s kind of even more complicated because I’ll simultaneously think, “yeah you’re probably right…. ” and then “but it’s not that bad… is it?” With that said, feeling admired for making someone else have a joyful moment on some level never gets old to me. I’m moved by music pretty much every day of my life. I’m happy that in some small way I can give that to others.

While Devil Trigger gets most of the attention on the DMC 5 soundtrack, there’s plenty of other cracking tracks on there from you and others. So beyond Devil Trigger, what track are you most proud of?

I think that’d have to be Silver Bullet. Don’t get me wrong, writing The Duel was super fun and a total homage to teenager-me that played DMC back in the early 2000s, but Silver Bullet was a total risk experiment for me. Silver Bullet is first and foremost, a Devil Trigger remix that brings back a lot of musical themes and vocals from the original in a more hyped up musical context. Not only did Capcom double-down on the potential of Devil Trigger before anyone outside of Capcom had ever heard it by asking me to do a remix, but they let me get away with doing a full on 90’s inspired dance track. I thought for sure I’d be asked to rewrite it after my first demo. Yet, here we are. Fighting demons in DMC5 to dance music.

You collaborated with your wife Ali Edwards, who is a fellow musician, on the DMC5 soundtrack. Do you enjoy collaborating and hope to do more? Or do you prefer to work alone generally?

I do both week in and week out. I’m constantly genre-hopping, whether it be for work or personal projects. I song-write and produce tracks quite often. Either alone, with Ali, or other artists and friends. Getting together with other songwriters is like a therapy session wherein the process of catching up or discussing ideas, you find lyrical gems just floating around in conversations. Just in the songwriting world alone, in the past few months, I’ve written pop, rock, r&b, and even a bit of new jack swing. Most of these with collaborators, including Ali. Then there’s plenty of time where I get to crawl into my “composer cave” and create or really chisel out the details alone. Lately, I’ve been getting to explore animated TV orchestral and jazz styles akin to something like Richard Stone did back on Animaniacs. I can never stay in one musical space for too long.

You finished DMC 5 recently for the first time. Was it surreal to hear your work in the game? For many, it’s synonymous with the action now, but I can imagine for you it could be a bit strange and exciting to see it alongside the end product.

I’d be lying, and I think even doing a disservice to all those who work hard on these games if I said it wasn’t incredibly exciting to hear my music in a video game that is played by millions around the world!! It’s an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction and reward every time I hear Devil Trigger start playing during the action. Even if I get tired of hearing the song outside of the game, it’s always important for me to step away and remind myself what an incredible opportunity I’ve been given.

You’ve done a bit of composing for horror games, is horror a genre you’re particularly into? If so, any favorites in games/film?

I LOVE HORROR! Ever since I was young Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I grew up watching stuff like “Goosebumps” and “Are You Afraid of The Dark” when I was a kid. And occasionally caught shows like “Tales from the Crypt” on TV as well. Eventually, I started watching slashers classics and then our generation got a pair of our own iconic slasher films with the SCREAM series. Today we have incredible films like “The Conjuring” that really deliver the spooks! 

Musically it’s hard to not take a massive nod to both classical composer Penderecki and horror legend John Carpenter. Aside from those massive titans, I really enjoy Christopher Young, Joseph Bishara, and Disasterpeace’s work. All of them masters in their own way.

Game wise, I could play Dead Space 1 and 2 over and over until the day I die!!!

Is there another popular game series you’d love to compose for?

It’s always tricky to answer this without some sense of guilt because essentially I’m being asked to replace titans in the industry who have inspired me today to even do what I do! But, c’mon…there are plenty I’d love to be a part of. I’m a big fan of long-form thematic games that allow you to really have a relationship with the music and its ties to the story. The Last Of Us comes to mind. Halo was a big part of my college experience. Writing for games like that would be incredible. I’m also a massive Spider-Man fan, and being a part of Insomniac’s Spider-Man universe would have been incredible. And speaking of Insomniac, if there’s ever a follow up to Sunset Overdrive SIGN ME UP! Trashy punk rock vs drum’n’bass in a world that’s so insanely over-the-top is definitely a place I could call home.

Devil May Cry 5 is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

You can find the Devil May Cry 5 soundtrack on Spotify.

The post [Interview] ‘Devil May Cry 5’ Composer Casey Edwards On His Love of Horror, Writing Music, and More appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Responsible for this game is Toni Kortelahti (also known by his developer name, 98DEMAKE). Before September 1999, Kortelahti created OK/NORMAL, a creepy horror game built upon 90s game visuals. While September 1999 was released this past October, Kortelahti has already been working on a follow up entitled, December 2000.

Speaking to his reasoning for creating December 2000, Kortelahti shares, “Mostly it was due to the overwhelmingly positive response. September 1999 was really something to test the waters with — to see how people would respond to a very experimental gameplay style like [that of] September 1999. I really enjoyed the opportunity to focus on the environment of the game and seeing how much of a story I could tell, without saying a single word. Also, as someone who’s mostly [known] for their PS1-styled shenanigans [regarding game design], it felt great to get to show off something a bit more realistic for a change!”

Criticism towards September 1999 primarily focused on stating the game was in fact not a game. Kortelahti has spoken to this critique in the past, indicating that even if September 1999 is more experimental and doesn’t play out in a formal manner, he still considers it a game. That said, Kortelahti was happy to see that the game received a solid amount of praise.

“All in all,” he says, “I was completely overwhelmed by the overall response. Since the game is very much a “walking simulator” and only 5 minutes and 30 seconds long, I was expecting people to kind of shrug it off. As it turns out, people didn’t. People who usually don’t enjoy horror games enjoyed September 1999. People who usually don’t enjoy walking simulators enjoyed the game as well.”

Regarding what he learned from the praise and criticism, he shares, “I guess it taught me that with an interesting enough idea, you can really get people out of their comfort zones.”

As an indie developer, Kortelahti is fascinated with the medium of video games; through games, he sees the ability to tell stories and share experiences that would not be possible through other art forms. He is also aware of how to establish a sense of horror through his work and how to make the gameplay more interesting for players.

Explaining his feelings regarding video games and horror, Kortelahti shares, “Video games are obviously a unique medium in that you put the audience right there in the middle of the action. I feel that something like September 1999 wouldn’t really work in any other medium since a game is often a far more personal experience than say, a movie.” 

September 1999, Paratopic, and the Waiting Game

“As far as effective horror goes, I think it’s all about building suspense, and keeping that suspense and feel of dread. A lot of horror games tend to spill the beans too soon and too abruptly. Whatever scary things are out there, aren’t as scary as soon as the player sees said scary things.”

“I like to keep the player on their toes, without slapping them across the head with scary stuff.”

Speaking further to his craft, he adds, “I spend my evenings reading up on all sorts of real world and fictional horror stories and draw inspiration from there. I’m really messy when it comes to actually designing and building a game, and kinda [sic] just throw ideas at the wall until something sticks and feels right — hence the countless unfinished projects on my hard drive. It’s a lot of trial and error.”

Even with the praise September 1999 has received, it’s still tough for indie video games to catch a large amount of mainstream attention. For Kortelahti, he hopes that the industry as a whole will give indie titles more love; given the challenges they face among the significant competition, he sees the potential in players discovering fascinating works through indie games.

“Obviously as an indie developer, I’d like to see indies get more love,” Kortelahti states. “It’s getting there, but it’s still an industry dominated by the AAA studios. Like, take note of the games not selling hundreds of thousands of copies as well — there [are] some really good, worthy of attention [games] hidden [among them].”

Kortelahti has been hard at work in creating December 2000; with similarities to September 1999, the developer makes it clear that there will be differences for players to enjoy. “There’s a lot of different things. [December 2000’s] play area is larger, the house is far more detailed, and while the game will be short, it’ll still be considerably longer and more fleshed out; the challenge [in creating December 2000] was to keep the core gameplay concept interesting for a lengthier game.”

98DEMAKE Talks September 1999

Without any spoilers, Kortelahti hints that both September 1999 and December 2000 are connected. His main goal is that gamers will find December 2000 to be a creepier experience compared to his last game. “Yes, [the games] do link together, but December is still a stand-alone experience that doesn’t require you to have knowledge of September. You should still play it though. I hope people get the same kind of a creepy, unnerving, unique experience as they did with September — but better!”

There is no release date yet for December 2000, but we’ll keep you posted on details as they come! For now, if September 1999 somehow went under your radar, you can play it for free via Steam; OK/NORMAL is also available on Steam and for a small price.

The post [Interview] Toni Kortelahti (98DEMAKE) Discusses Praise, Criticism, the Games Industry, and What’s to Come appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

I sat down with White to talk about his new book and our mutual love of all things Alien.

Tell us how you got into writing?

I’ve always been a big movie buff and when I was in high school I used to complain to my friends about every movie we went to go see. So, understandably, one day they told me, “If you think you can do so well why don’t you write a movie.”

So I started writing movies in my study periods, went to college and did some independent screenwriting studies and found out I don’t really like the movie industry very much so I turned to writing novels.

Before we talk “Alien: The Cold Forge”, do you have a genre of choice? Or is your writing driven by an idea first, genre considerations second?

I always start with an idea first. That usually results in world that’s described as “genre-bending” when the intent was just to stay true to the original idea.

“Alien: The Cold Forge” is actually a perfect example.  The idea came from a user experience conference I was at. Double came in with their latest telepresence robot and presented through it. It was essentially an iPad on a Segway with a face, where the face was the presenter.  I thought that was so cool for an Alien novel, the idea of having a character  go through a contaminated area in a telepresence robot and help other survivors and see how the other survivors would deal with that person and feel about that person when they didn’t have actual skin in the game, so to speak.  So everything for the book sort of coalesced around that idea.

So when it comes to presenting this idea to Titan Books – who has a lot of these extended universe “Alien” books going back to the nineties – how much do you need to line up with what’s come before? Is there a story bible, do you need to connect to the cannon films? 

Yes, I had to pitch to Titan and the idea needed to fit into the canon books they’re currently putting out. So I couldn’t just pitch any old thing, I had to really workshop the idea with the editor, Steve Saffel,  before sending the pitch to FOX who have to give final approval.

Do you reach out the previous authors to let them know you’ll be continuing on in the world? Do you use their characters?

Oh yeah, though I was not allowed to use their characters. I could use movie canon characters if I wanted to, but they didn’t end up being very useful to the plot, so there are some passing references but that’s it. It’s mostly a self-contained story with some far-reaching, broader implications to the world.

I should say that only the five books that Titan have commissioned are considered canonical. The older, nineties books, belonged to Dark Horse all those years back.  And they were extended universe cannon with their Earth War series where essentially Alien 3 never happened and Hicks and Newt were the main characters.  So luckily I didn’t really have to compete with the whole back catalog of 20-some novels and all comics thankfully.

Some passionate Alien fans have felt, let’s say, underwhelmed by Scott’s recent Prometheus and Covenant and can get pretty vocal about their opinions. Does that translate to the book world? Dipping your toes into a big franchise, do you worry about Alien fans coming after you if they’re not happy with what you do in the world?

Well, I’ll tell you, surprisingly enough it can get pretty ugly. I was on a panel with an author who writes a Robin Hood series and I mentioned she mentioned getting death threats. I was shocked. Then the writer next to me who writes Arrow books said he’s gotten five for six and so on.

But if you think about it, the fans who read tie-in novels are really the super fans. They are the ones who care most about the franchise and that’s why I do appreciate them. Most of the feedback so far has been very positive… well, there was someone on Bloody Disgusting (yes, I read the comments!) who was saying the book would suck because it was the same plot as Alien: Resurrection.

But I want to say, here now, if you, commentor on Bloody Disgusting, are reading this, I promise you this is not the same as Alien 4, which I would also strike from the cannon if I could. That and the AVP movies.

Whoa, wait. Alien: Resurrection‘s got a lot to love! That production design is worth the return, love the cast, and that underwater scene is conceptually strong!

It’s got Michael Wincott doing what he does best!

Yes! That was when they were really starting to push the CG alien hard to mixed effect. And it seems like Scott’s been going down that road. 

Watch the making of Covenant. There’s a lot more practical work going on then you might think. Go find the Adam Savage Tested stuff and see everything there. A lot of that set was real. It’s pretty amazing.

Alright, most important question time. Are you an Alien guy, or an Aliens guy?

Complicated question, complicated answer involving growing up. When I was a kid we weren’t allowed to have horror movies or action movies in the house. I lived in the middle of nowhere in Alabama where all the other kids around me were watching the most insane, violent, awesome stuff, and I wasn’t really allowed to. Then, finally, Terminator 2 came out and it won Oscars for its special FX so my parents took me to the video store and we rented it with some family friends and we watched it and my parents were like, “oh my god, if your mind ruined?”. No. It was amazing, I loved it and I wanted more.

That was when a friend of the family revealed he had a treasure trove of 80’s action movies, Predator, Alien, Aliens, Warlock… we watched Alien. I enjoyed it, I was scared, but Aliens was where it was at for me. It was easy to grasp the concepts, gives you a rush.

What makes Aliens so accessible is that all the stuff that was so subtle in Alien is turned up to 11 in Aliens. The evil corporation, Ripley, everything. It’s what Cameron does. Of course, now that I’m older I love Alien just as much. Especially after joining the corporate workforce, it really speaks to me.

Me too, man. Alex, thanks for your time and thanks for doing your part to keep the Alien franchise alive.

You got it, man.

“Alien: The Cold Forge” is available now.

The post ‘Alien: The Cold Forge’ Author Alex White Takes On the Xenomorph [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, who co-created Platinum Dunes with Michael Bay in 2001, were also on hand for the premiere and stoked to be part of the annual event. “We couldn’t be more blessed to be here,” Form says. “We started our career in [Austin] and we’ve never been to a film festival before. […] So to open SXSW with this movie for us… there was nothing better!”

A Quiet Place makes for Krasinski’s third directorial effort and is a marked shift in tone for the director, following 2009’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and 2016’s The Hollars–both comedies with dramatic sensibilities. The dive into horror was a surprising one even for the director himself.

“Last night someone said to me, ‘I never thought you’d do a horror movie,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I can’t watch horror movies!'” he admits.

Yet given the film’s heavy focus on family, Krasinski gravitated toward the project without hesitation, having just had his second daughter with wife and A Quiet Place co-star Emily Blunt. “The producers pitched me the idea […] a couple weeks after we had had our second daughter, so we were still in that envelope of sheer terror,” he says. “I was already worried about whether she was safe and whether she would survive and all those things, and so I was a wide-open vessel, I was an exposed nerve. […] And so I was wide open to read that first script, and truly I think that’s what we put into the movie. We were right there from the beginning.” He further reveals that Blunt was actually quite forward in her insistence that she play the role of the wife after reading his rewrite of the script, originally penned by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck. “She said, ‘No, I have to do it. […] This is the scariest part I’ve ever played […] because normally you pretend the things that you’re scared of in movies, and in this… this is what I’m actually scared of–protecting my kids, doing everything at all cost, these are the real fears!’ And I thought, Wow… that’s amazing.”

Form and Fuller were equally excited by the prospect of making a film like A Quiet Place–which does not feature its first line of audible dialogue until about half-way through its runtime. Though first making a name for itself with a run of successful horror remakes like 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and 2009’s Friday the 13th, Platinum Dunes continued to find success with original franchises like The Purge and Ouija. “I do think that at some point we realized that in order for our company to grow, we would need to broaden out and start to do original movies,” Fuller states. “With what’s happening in the movie business where it’s harder to get a movie into theaters and where it’s harder to have audiences really engage in something, you really have to step out of the box and come up with something that has a very fresh and original concept. And when we read [A Quiet Place‘s] script, that part of it was undeniable.”

“It’s the first time that we had felt that since we read The Purge,” Form echoes. “You know, this script comes in at 67 pages, and you’re like ‘Why is this script 67 pages? Oh–there’s no dialogue!’ […] So now you just have to figure out, can you sustain an entire film that way and actually get to know characters without anybody talking and fall in love with them? And then it was, You know, I think we can do this. It was just so original and fresh for us, we did everything we could to get the movie made.”

One of these notably original aspects of the film involves the family communicating via American Sign Language for much of its runtime. When considering the role of the couple’s deaf daughter in the film (played by standout Millicent Simmonds, who is, in fact, deaf in real life), Krasinski knew he wanted both his representation of ASL and the character to be as authentic as possible.

“It was non-negotiable for me to hire a deaf actress,” Krasinski explained.

“I didn’t know I was going to get so lucky to have not only a deaf actress, but the most beautiful human being who would walk me through the experience and be honest about what it meant to be deaf. [… Simmonds] was not intimidated. She would tell me, ‘This is what I would do in the moment […] and this is what a fight would look like with my dad.’ It was so great.”

Even further, Krasinski reveals that the young actress played a huge role in guiding the cast as they learned ASL. “Learning ASL for this was so amazing because, yes, it would be great for the movie, and, yes, it was a really cool thing to show on-screen… but for us, it was so much more than that because we had Millie.” He continues, “Having her… it was almost like she was my parent because as I was trying to sign to her, she had the most wide-open face and was so appreciative that we were even giving it a shot. And just saying, like, ‘That’s not quite it, do it again.’ It was like my best friend, mom, sister, everything, was teaching me ASL! It was such a beautiful moment. So I think that’s why it plays so well because she was […] such a beautiful guide through the entire experience of what this movie was.”

Fuller also credits Krasinski for enriching the experience on set, namely through his high level of activity in the writing and directing process that led to many of the film’s key ideas and nuances coming together to make for a more emotional, family-centered story. “[Krasinski] started talking about what he wanted to do with the material and I don’t know if we’ve ever had a filmmaker respond to material the way he did. Where you’re just like, wow… that is exactly the movie we want to make,” he gushes. “It was an amazing experience. The little touches that he brought to it, like his character trying to survive, [Blunt’s] character trying to thrive […] and not giving up, you know. I loved those touches that he put in.” These details no doubt elevate the film’s focus on the family as fleshed out characters worth caring about amidst all the horror. “[Krasinksi] was able to achieve that without anyone even talking to each other,” Fuller adds.

The sense of familial unity appeared to carry over into the filmmaking process as well. “Making the movie was like a family,” Form says. “John and his wife were on set, it was a tiny cast– the four of them–and then, you know, it was just a bunch of us sitting on a farm […] in Upstate New York with nowhere to go. Making a movie in the same location every day… it became very personal to a lot of people because usually when you’re making a movie, people are coming in and out of the movie and the energy changes. But that didn’t happen here because everyone was there every day.”

With A Quiet Place set to hit theaters next month, we were, of course, interested in what else Platinum Dunes has coming down the pipeline. From the looks of it, Bay, Fuller, and Form will keep things familiar with a mix of horror (The First Purge) and family-friendly projects (a live-action adaptation of Dora the Explorer) set to come in 2018 and 2019, respectively. When asked about the possibility of producing film content for platforms like Netflix and Amazon, Form states, “I’d love to make a movie for Netflix. […] I just… you know, it’s hard for us to understand what that is in a Platinum Dunes movie. Like how does what we do apply to that [platform].” For now though, Fuller expresses gratitude in still being able to produce movies that bring audiences together for a good time. “It’s the communal experience,” he says. “And we think A Quiet Place does deliver [that]. You can watch this in a theater with a large group and really go on a fun ride together.”

Looking ahead as a leading man, Krasinski will next begin promoting his titular role in the series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan for Amazon Video–yet another Platinum Dunes co-production that will see a release this August. When asked if he would ever consider directing another horror film, Krasinski openly admits, “[A Quiet Place] hit me right in the heart, so it’ll be hard to find another movie that hits me in the heart like this.” He smiles after a pause though, adding, “But I’ll give it a shot.”

Paramount Pictures’ A Quiet Place will hit theaters on April 6, 2018.

The post [SXSW Interview] ‘A Quiet Place’ Director John Krasinski and Producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller On the Power of Silence appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As you may very well be aware, while reporting from the festival circuit, many of us journalists are contacted quite often to conduct interviews with talent following film screenings, and many times have to turn down such opportunities due to schedule conflicts and time constraints. With this film, however, the circumstances that led to my interview with Thoroddsen were quite different. Following my viewing of Rift–a low-budget, sophomore effort from a relatively fresh-faced director from Iceland–I was actually moved to contact the director immediately; I was dying to talk about the film with the talent behind the camera, to process what I had just seen, and to dig into the inspirations for this particular story, which I felt was especially important for the subset of gay-identified horror fans out there who rarely have an opportunity to see representation from our community so delicately handled in the horror genre. Luckily for me, Thoroddsen was more than willing to correspond with me and answer a few questions–even despite the fact that I emailed him like a crazed new fan well after midnight.

You can find our correspondence below as we discuss the film’s concept, representation of LGBTQ characters in horror, the Icelandic backdrop, and what’s next for this promising new director!

Ari Drew: Where did the idea for this particular story about the end of a relationship between these two men come from? 

Erlingur Thoroddsen: The idea for Rift came from two different directions. The first was that I was thinking of what I could do in Iceland with a limited budget and with a small cast and crew. I was trying to come up with stories that had two characters in one location that could sustain a feature-length running time.

The second thing was that I had just gone through a breakup of my own, and was having a lot of conflicting thoughts on that whole situation. Then I just started thinking, what if the story is about two guys who have broken up and are now in this isolated place together and are forced to talk about their relationship? That idea really clicked and the script started to take shape really quickly. Writing it was basically like a long therapy session for me!

AD: In a number of ways, Rift is a bit of a departure from your debut film Child Eater, which was a fairly straightforward, albeit atmospheric monster movie. What made you want to tackle a film that is more tonally and narratively ambiguous?

ET: After Child Eater, I knew I wanted to try out something very different, and because Rift was a very small movie, that gave me a lot of freedom to experiment during the writing process. I really wanted to push myself further and into a new direction. Even though I love the idea of a straightforward horror movie, I’m also a big fan of stranger and challenging, ambiguous cinema. Since Rift was pretty much my own baby with no one to tell me what I could or couldn’t do, I just went with my instincts every step of the way. I also liked the challenge of doing something that was scary, but in a less traditional way. I really wanted to create a mood that was full of tension and discomfort — basically how it feels when you have to face someone you had a bad break up with.

AD: I loved the genre-bending nature of Rift. What inspired you to make a film that crosses so many genre boundaries? 

ET: It was less a conscious choice to cross all those genres, and more just a result of letting the story go where it wanted and needed to go. When I was writing it, I always thought of it as a horror movie. The finished film definitely has horror elements in it, but it kind of refuses to stay in one category. Which I personally love. I was also watching a lot of European and independent cinema while I was working on Rift, where genre lines were being blurred all the time and it just felt refreshing. A movie like Stranger by the Lake, for example — on paper it sounds like a traditional thriller, but the execution takes it to a whole different place. Same with something like Don’t Look Now, which was a big inspiration for Rift.

AD: For gay horror fans like myself, it is a treat when we have an opportunity to see protagonists like us represented in the genre. Given that these are few and far between though, a movie like Rift is a breath of fresh air for me. I felt it very easy to empathize with Einar and Gunnar, even at their worst, and appreciated that they were presented as very humanized and complex individuals, as opposed to simply embodying gay stereotypes. Can you tell me a bit more about what went into writing these characters? Did you feel a particular duty to represent them and their relationship in a specific way?

ET: In terms of the characters, I think the only duty I felt, or that I put on myself, was to represent them in a truthful way. Or at least in a way that felt truthful to me. I didn’t want to write them as generalizations or representations for all gay men, but it’s that old golden rule of writing: the more specific you get, the more universal it reads. On the other hand, I do feel it’s important as a gay filmmaker to create stories about LGBTQ characters — because if I don’t do it, who else will? That doesn’t mean every story I do is going to be centered on LGBTQ characters, but I also don’t want to shy away from it. Representation in film and TV is still very lacking, and I actually think it’s gotten worse in a lot of respects, especially in studio films. And horror is such a great place for queer characters from a purely thematic standpoint. Horror is basically the queerest genre, anyway.

And for me personally, I was very upset that there were almost no movies in Iceland that dealt with gay characters in a serious way. So that was something I absolutely wanted to change when I was writing Rift. Iceland has almost no horror movies or LGBTQ movies, but now we have one that combines the two. I’m pretty proud of that!

AD: Stefánsson and Óskarsson are fantastic in the lead roles. They really have an amazing chemistry and embody two very distinct personality types that you really just want to see work out, but know probably aren’t meant for happiness with each other. How did these two actors get involved in this project? 

ET: Thank you! They are amazing, and without them, the film wouldn’t work at all. They are both primarily theater actors, and I had known about them for a little bit before I started writing the movie. But I didn’t know them personally, and in my mind, the only way I could get the movie made was if I convinced friends to do it for almost no money at all. However, that plan didn’t really work out so I ended up reaching out to Bjössi [Stefánsson] and Siggi [Óskarsson] to see if they’d be interested in reading the script. Thankfully, they both really connected with the characters — I think they had never been offered roles like this before — and agreed to meet with me, and we all just hit it off. They were truly a pleasure to work with. Literally, every take we did with them was good!

AD: There are some very ambiguous turns in the film and the audience seems to be left with the task of figuring out what really happened during Gunnar and Einar’s stay at the cabin. I found myself questioning this myself—which made discussing the film afterward a lot of fun. Was it your intent to have some of the turns in the story be so up for interpretation?

ET: Yes, the intention was always to end the film that way. I liked the idea of writing the story from the perspective of a character who enters a situation that is already in medias res and has to catch up. But [Gunnar]’s also a character whose point of view is tainted — he has strange visions and dreams, so we can’t be 100% sure of what he sees is true or even correctly interpreted. He’s trying to figure out the mystery with the clues he’s been given, just like the audience is.

I do encourage people to watch the movie less focused on understanding the logic, and more focused on understanding the emotions. Breakups are illogical and messy things, and the film takes its cue from there. If you look at the film as being about a person’s journey to deal with the aftermath of a breakup, I think that will give some of the more “out there” context and make more sense.

AD: It’s impossible to chat about the film without making a mention of the gorgeous Icelandic backdrop in which it is set. The setting alone really elicits a chilling, isolated, and rather bleak sense in a story heavily shrouded in mystery and sadness.  Can you tell me a little more about what went into finding this shooting locale and your experience in filming there? 

ET: A part of what made the whole experience so personal and strange in a way, is that the location we shot in is actually the area my mom grew up in when she was very young. I had heard about this place before, but had never been there. So when I was writing the story, this area — Hellissandur, up on the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland — came up in a conversation. I started asking my mom about the location, and all of a sudden I started to realize that everything I already had on the page could fit perfectly in that area. It’s remote, it’s creepy, and it’s beautiful.

When I did the first location scout up there, all the pieces just fell into place. It was just perfect. I ended up adjusting the script a bit to fit what we had there, and then we were off and running. My mom and grandparents actually lived in [the] scary dilapidated building [featured in the film] before it was abandoned. The cabin the two guys stay in is owned by friends of my grandparents.

On a story level, I thought that the barren fields and the empty, abandoned houses really worked for the idea of a relationship that’s gone cold. It was also important to film during the winter. The cabin is a summerhouse, so they are in the area at a time when they shouldn’t be. Basically, everything they had that was loving and warm has now grown bitter and cold, and I wanted the location to reflect that in every way possible.

Then there’s the actual “rift”, which is kind of an on the nose metaphor, but I think it works. Plus that specific location was too beautiful not to film in.

AD: You have now showcased your chops in crafting both a straightforward horror film and a more abstract and atmospheric story. What do you hope to take on next? 

ET: I always have a few things brewing at the same time because you never really know what’s going to take off and what’s going to fall apart. I definitely want to stay within the horror/thriller wheelhouse, and I’ve got some really exciting things that will hopefully take off not before long.

I am also adapting a best-selling Icelandic novel called Kuldi (which means “cold”) by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. I guess you could say it’s a Scandinavian crime thriller with some spooky elements. It’s a follow-up to an Icelandic film called I Remember You which was released earlier this year and was a huge success back home. So I’m super excited about that project, although I can’t say much more about it at the moment!

AD: How can our readers catch Rift?

ET: Right now the film is doing several festivals across the globe, but we have North American distribution through Breaking Glass Pictures, and they will be putting the film out a bit later this year, both on demand and as a limited theatrical release, which is extremely exciting. There’s a little Christmas connection in the film, so it feels like an appropriately dark alternative film for the holiday season! Hopefully, there will be more news on the rest of the world soon!

We’d like to once again thank Erlingur Thoroddsen for taking the time to chat about his impressive new genre effort. It was a pleasure to dive into the film a bit more, and I hope it resonates with many of you all out there as much as it did with me.

Rift will see its US VOD/DVD release on November 21st, 2017. It will be available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, Playstation, Vudu, Fandango, and on-demand via local cable and satellite providers.

The post [Fantastic Fest] ‘Rift’ Director Erlingur Thoroddsen Talks LGBTQ Representation in Horror, Breakups, and Iceland appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

I held very similar sentiments upon catching Haunters myself and found Schnitzer’s perspective to be honest, fascinating, and surprisingly heartfelt. During the fest, I was fortunate enough to sit and chat about the film with Schnitzer and legendary scare actor Shar Mayer, who has been working in the haunt industry for almost 40 years and who also details many of her personal experiences across various haunts in the film. Ever committed to her art, Mayer donned full zombie makeup during our interview–a likely off-putting show for some of the non-horror fans at the festival, but one I found to be in charming juxtaposition to her warm and gracious personality.

A lifelong lover of haunted houses and genuinely curious filmmaker, Schnitzer was also in high spirits and very excited to chat about the film. “I grew up loving going to haunted houses for Halloween,” he recalls. “My birthday’s in October, so my party was always at a bunch of haunted houses. We’d go from haunt to haunt to haunt. It’s so much fun, I love it. It’s your chance to actually scream your head off! Like, adults get to scream their heads off and be like little kids, you know?”

When asked about the inspirations for the film, Schnitzer recalls not the haunts of early childhood, but rather the various other types of haunts that began to pop up over time. “I started noticing haunts were getting more diverse,” Schnitzer states. “So I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. We can do something that really captures what’s going on, from the ‘boo scare’ mazes to the haunts that are […] full contact-extreme haunts.”

The film is framed around the exploration of the folks behind various types of haunts in the country–from Donald Julson and his more traditional Nightmare on Loganberry home haunt in Lakeview, California to more immersive, extreme haunts like Josh Randall and Kristjan Thor’s Blackout in New York and Los Angeles. “It’s the full spectrum,” Schnitzer explains. “And now there’s […] a haunt for every sub-genre of horror. You have […] Saw and you have escape rooms. You have Hostel and you have extreme haunts. You get supernatural thrillers–well, you have Delusion, the interactive haunted house play. You want a little bit of both of the extreme and the interactive, you have things like The 17th Door. There are so many really cool attractions that are out there, and I wanted to get to know the people who made them and the people behind the mask.”

What audiences will come to find very quickly about the world of haunts is that there is one individual very well known in the industry for his overt–and arguably exploitative–scare tactics and full-contact extremism. That individual is Russ McKamey and his haunt McKamey Manor (previously located in San Diego) has come to be associated with intense verbal and psychological torment, waterboarding, full-contact physical coercion, inductions of temporary psychological dissociation, and, even once, an incident involving dog feces. “I’ve been an actor with Blackout, so I love Blackout as an extreme haunt. You mentioned The 17th Door, I love that,” Mayer explains once McKamey is brought up. “The difference between those two and what Russ does–McKamey Manor–is there’s a safe word. If you’re done, you’re done. And that’s an important thing to me. I don’t want to… abduct people and torture them. I want to scare them, and play with them, and have fun with them, and make them scream, and have them in terror. And then they can go home and talk to their friends and tell them what a great time they had screaming. I don’t wanna… do things to people that damage them for good.”

The film spends plenty of time exploring McKamey’s version of “haunting” from his own perspective–which, according to McKamey himself, is centered on getting the most shocking video footage he can, no matter what it takes. Given his aforementioned decision not to use a safe word in his haunt–a staple in literally every other major haunt in the country–his place in the industry appears to be on the fringes. Mayer reveals McKamey is “pretty much on his own. Anyone that you talk to in the industry don’t… like him, don’t consider him as part of the industry, don’t like what he’s doing.” She takes this even a step further, explaining, “I’ve done this for almost 40 years! I’ve done this for a long time, so I’ve seen the gamut [… and] I love working in ‘em all, I love going to ‘em all. I would never set foot in McKamey Manor.”

Some argue that many of the folks who sign up to visit McKamey Manor know that they’re getting into; in a rather transparent move, McKamey makes much of his extreme in-haunt footage available on YouTube. Schnitzer sees the situation as a bit more complex than that, however. “When you watch those videos, you don’t know what it smells like in there, you don’t know what it feels like. That’s why I like having a safe word in the extreme haunts.” He continues, “When you go to a haunted house and your heart starts racing, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh my God. Can I take this anymore?’ And you can yell a safe word and be out of there, you can also feel proud of yourself for how far you made it, and you can actually have a sense of power there. I asked Russ only, like, maybe 200 times, ‘Why don’t you have a safe word? Come on, just have a safe word already.’ And he refuses to. […] He just doesn’t wanna do that.”

With this being the case, Schnitzer reveals one especially ironic fact about McKamey, which is touched on in the film. “I asked [McKamey], ‘Have you ever been through your own haunted house?’ And he said, ‘No, I’d never do it.’ And that was the thing with Blackout; they’ve all put themselves through to see themselves go through it.” Mayer chimes in, “I’ve talked to [McKamey] a few times. Actually, he came the haunt I was working at, The 17th Door. We freaked him out pretty good. He’s pretty easy to scare.”

Despite–or likely because of–his reputation, McKamey’s videos have millions of views, and Schnitzer ultimately appears fascinated by the number of individuals who are not at all shaken by his methods. He explains with a laugh, “Half of the people that I was testing this movie out on […] wanted to burn down McKamey Manor, and a half of them wanted to go there and wanted to go through it and wanted to work it! I was so surprised at how many businessmen were dying to go to McKamey Manor after they watched the movie.”

While McKamey’s seemingly villainous stature in the industry is made evident in the film, Schnitzer remains clear on his decision to simply present all of his Haunters subjects as they are. “I’m not narrating anything, because I don’t want to hold anyone’s hand in this documentary,” the director clarifies. “Everybody has something about them. We can always connect with somebody over something. And I just had no interest in just, you know… just demonizing somebody. [McKamey was] opening his doors to me and letting me film everything. But I wanted you to see. I was so curious when I watch his videos… what’s he doing behind the camera? What is it like when he’s filming? Filming him while he was filming the other people, […] it was wild to see it.”

[Related] All Fantastic Fest 2017 News and Reviews

Such debates presented in the film certainly represent many of its more thought-provoking highlights, but Haunters in its entirety is certainly not all gloom, doom, and ire. The movie ultimately finds tonal balance amidst a set of very humanizing backstories–from Nightmare on Loganberry creator Julson’s childhood and relationship with his new wife, to Mayer’s struggle with physical injury in haunts over the years, to the revelation of McKamey’s wedding singer past and close relationship with his late father. Schnitzer resolves, “I want people to get to know everybody, and I want you to at least have one part in the movie with every person that’s in it where you get to empathize with them for a moment and see things from their perspective.” Mayer adds, “I learned some things about Russ in this movie that I didn’t know. I mean… I interact with him from time to time, but I did learn some things, and seeing him as a wedding singer–that is really funny.”

Heightening each of these individual backstories are a set of killer themes that Schnitzer was ecstatic to chat about. “I was able to get the band Empty Set to give me that song for [the McKamey Manor] part of the movie, because that song captures […] this panic attack feeling,” he says. “Jonathan Snipes sent me that song and […] actually scored the McKamey Manor theme. He’s the composer of [Room] 237 and The Nightmare. […] Donald [Julson]’s theme was kid’s toys. Alexander Burke came up with the idea. He was like, ‘You know what? Xylophones and kid’s toys, because it’s about his childhood. It’s all about his childhood.’ I was like, ‘What a beautiful idea. What a beautiful thought.'”

The musical talent behind the film’s soundtrack elsewhere are also quite impressive, with some rather big names rounding out the list. “We have two songs from Dead Man’s Bones, [an act comprised of] Zach Shields, the co-writer of Krampus and the new Godzilla, and Ryan Gosling. Neil Baldock—who’s worked with Radiohead, Wilco and Kanye West–he worked on six songs with Alexander Burke, who’s worked with David Lynch. I mean, this is … I’m so lucky. I went after all the people I really admire, and they all signed up and helped out. The sound that goes with it, the music that goes with it… I hope it helps you into the world of Halloween.”

By the time the credits roll, Haunters clearly seeks to tap into a particular joy associated with Halloween–namely the experience of having a blast while being scared. Mayer perceives the film as a means of opening up the world of Halloween and haunts to people who aren’t so steeped in all things horror on a daily basis. “What’s really neat about this movie is […] it hits on people that aren’t in the industry and touches different things that they can relate to. Because as a horror fan, you have your next door neighbor that looks at you strangely and doesn’t understand what you’re doing, [asking,] ‘What’s going on there?’ and think[ing] weird things. ‘What’s wrong with you?’–I get that one a lot,” she admits with a laugh. “But I think this movie really opens the door up and lets other people see what we’re doing, and that we’re real people.”

“Plus, the controversy that’s in the movie helps with the contrast,” Schnitzer adds. “So that way, it’s not just people looking at people that are scaring people and blanketly going, ‘You’re all crazy,’ or whatever. When you get to see the whole spectrum–from the horror to the heart, […] then people get to understand it.” When considering the further hopeful impact of Haunters, Schnitzer notes, “I tested this [film] out on a lot of people who hate Halloween and have never gone to a haunted house, and after watching this, [they] went to haunted houses!”

If that’s not an early marker of success for a film like this, I don’t know what is.

Haunters: The Art of the Scare is available now on Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital platforms. 

The post [Fantastic Fest] ‘Haunters’ Director Jon Schnitzer and Actress Shar Mayer Discuss the People – and Controversy – Behind the Haunts! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

How did Phantom Halls come about? What was the inspiration behind it?

For a couple of years I had wanted to make a horror game that wasn’t necessarily reliant on gore or jump scares, but was more of a love letter to the genre, from the universal horror classics through to the B-movies of the 80s. There was also a desire to do something that all ages could enjoy, to revel in the humour of horror, so there’s something there for you whether you’re reading “Goosebumps” and watching Tales From The Crypt or you’re more into The Evil Dead and The Conjuring universes.

We developed this papercraft aesthetic, which gives us a unique lens to view the world of horror through, and it all has this stylized toy-like appearance, but with enough mood lighting and bloodshed to keep things suitably morbid.

What were some of the technical hurdles the team faced in bringing the game to life?

We’re a very small indie team and there’s always a restriction on time and budget in that scenario – we wanted to have cinematic movie lighting so the spaces could capture the horror atmosphere of our favourite movies, and so there was a great deal of tinkering to get the mood right. In terms of gameplay you can control up to three characters at once, each with their own passive, active, and equipped abilities, so there certainly are challenges around the control layout and this unique mechanic – but we’ve had great feedback from the community to refine that and now we have something that plays very differently to anything else out there.

What made you decide to base Phantom Halls as a squad-based game?

I’ve read so many stories about a group of kids entering a haunted house, it just seemed a no-brainer to make that into a game. From a writing point of view, you get to have fun and exaggerate the different characters’ attitudes and outlooks — some will clash, some will get along – we have a load of text based dialogue in the game and the characters all interact and respond differently depending on the scenario and who else is in their squad. In terms of play, they all have unique abilities, and you can chain those into some wacky combos – everything from headbanging your way through hordes of the undead to shooting basketballs at killer clowns.

We started out making it a turn-based game where each character would perform an action one after the other, and then the monsters in the house would counter. But then the idea came to control the whole squad at once, and it evolved into something we like to think is very cool and unusual!

What are your thoughts on Steam’s Early Access platform as a way for indie game companies to develop their games?

It’s a great way to get a working game out to players for feedback even if you’re not done with all the content and there’s still development work to be done. We were very up-front about the state of our game at launch, it really was just the core playable experience with a handful of characters and quests, but now it’s grown into something much larger and we’ve had invaluable community feedback to help improve the mechanics and the controls, and prioritise future content.

As with any new independent title, regardless of the medium, there’s a lot of content out there and it can be tough to cut through the noise. Early Access doesn’t necessarily do that much for you in terms of exposure, but it’s been a great way for us to build a community around our game and keep us on course with development.

Seeing as the game takes place within a haunted house, what are your thoughts on the “haunted house” subgenre?

It’s just a great blank canvas, really, whether it’s a creepy old house on a hill or it’s your swanky new build in the ‘burbs, there’s just so many ways you can depict a haunting and tonally you can go in a lot of different directions. It’s one of those genres that’s been heavily explored at this point, so there’s certainly a lot of cultural tropes, but there’s always someone doing something fresh with it.

I’ve always been fond of the house itself being an entity, giving the structure the appearance of a living thing or implying consciousness – it’s something we’re experimenting with in the game right now, in that once you’ve completed a mission and you’ve cleared out the creatures on your way to the top of the mansion, the house itself becomes the principle threat as you try to make your way out.

How did you manage to get Ash from Evil Dead 2 in the game?

It just so happened that our Early Access launch coincided with the anniversary of Evil Dead 2, and we’d met the rights holders at a licensing show, and they were keen on fresh interpretations of the Ash character for the event. We were thrilled to be able to play in that sandbox — Evil Dead 2 is probably my favourite horror movie.

Have you mentioned the game to Bruce Campbell?

Bruce actually approves his likeness personally wherever it is used, so we did get to send him through an early turnaround sheet with a set of expressions for him to check out, and fortunately he gave us the green light to go ahead. I wasn’t sure what he’d make of our origami-style Ash, but here we are!

Prior to the game’s release in Early Access, the press release mentioned plans to potentially bring more characters from the horror genre into Phantom Halls. Are those plans still in place?

Absolutely, we’re excited to be delivering on our promise to expand the Evil Dead 2 content beyond the playable character cameo from Ash, but once we’re happy with the full Evil Dead 2 experience in Phantom Halls we’ll be looking at the next horror movie collaboration. At this point we’ve done a lot with zombies and the undead, but I’m thinking something with killer dolls or puppets could be the way to go!

Thanks for sitting down and chatting with us, Llexi! Phantom Halls is currently on Steam Early Access. If you haven’t already, head over to the game’s Steam Page to get in on the action and madness.

This story was originally posted on Plenty Dreadful. Head there for more horror video game goodness!

The post [Exclusive] Incendium Games’ Founder Talks ‘Phantom Halls’ Update; More ‘Evil Dead’ Content! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

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Forever Midnight is a joyful discussion of horror in cinema for all horror fans, not just know-it-all nerds (and also for know-it-all nerds).

You can interact with the guys from Forever Midnight on Twitter and Instagram.

The Bloody Disgusting Podcast Network consists of The Horror Show, Women in Caskets, Forever Midnight, Test Pattern, and Virtual Pros. All of these shows can be found on our iTunes Provider Page as well as the Bloody Disgusting App on all iOS and Android devices.

The post [Podcasts] Forever Midnight – Episode 69: Jennifer Rubin appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with stars Dane DeHaan, Mia Goth, and director Gore Verbinski to discuss their new film A Cure For Wellness on behalf of Bloody Disgusting. In the interview, we discuss the mystery of the sanitarium, the relentless ambition that makes us all sick, and the psychological experiment that will be performed on all audience members who choose to see this movie in theaters.

“I think deep down he knows he’s not well” says Dane DeHaan of his character Lockhart. “I think he’s a person that thinks he’s in control of his life, but there’s this underlying part of him that he knows he’s not. I think he’s a person that thinks he’s on top of things, and really like winning at life, but really, he has the sickness.”

In the movie, restless busy body Lockhart travels thousands of miles to acquire his business partner, and return him back to the normal part of the world, a.k.a. Wall Street. Despite his intention to quickly grab Pembroke and head out on the fastest flight home, once he’s standing on the wellness center grounds, and under the watchful eye of Director Volmer, Lockhart discovers a sickness growing within him, and reluctantly accepts treatment in order to rid the harmful toxins of the fast paced money grabbing world out of his system, in the hopes that he will one day be well again.

But what is the sickness? Everyone here is searching for the cure, but what exactly is it that they are trying to heal? According to director Gore Verbinski, the sickness is blind ambition.

“It’s sort of diagnosing modern man, if you will, and I think to the people who are particularly vulnerable are the people who have done whatever it takes to sort of succeed or to get ahead” explains Verbinski of his characters’ willingness to accept treatment. “So this place is sort of preying upon oligarchs, and head of industry, and in this case, Lockhart, who is going to do anything to succeed, but I mean, that’s not really wellness, is it? Money and success, particularly in the case of Lockhart, who, he doesn’t make pottery or shoes or guitars, he makes money, he makes money off of people who make something, so the idea was to try to hand pick the people who come to this place because Director Volmer is sort of offering absolution in a way. He’s saying ‘You’re not responsible because you’re not well’ and that sort of note from Doctor I think in the initial phase, that’s what keeps them there, that’s the sort of narcotic if you will”.

Dane DeHaan says his character Lockhart is the perfect patient for this institute, because chasing money all of his life has left him with little humanity to speak of.

“For Lockhart in the movie, why he’s such a great protagonist for the story is because he’s blindly in pursuit of money and power, and he’s willing to step on other people to get to the top. He’s consumed by that quest and he’s like a slave to his company and his corporation and that’s all he cares about, and he thinks that makes him a well man, but that is the sickness, and that’s why when he’s diagnosed, he gives into the treatment”.

While at the hospital, Lockhart befriends a shy girl named Hannah, who says that she’s been in the system since she was born. Lockhart is instantly drawn to Hannah, both for her sweet nature, and for her closeness in age, but he’ll soon find that his new friend has just as many secrets as the sanitarium that houses them.

“I felt that I was able to find a lot of parallels between my life and her life, and this leap from having to go from girlhood to womanhood was one of them” says Mia Goth of her sheltered character Hannah. “It’s quite a journey for her, and at times it’s thrilling, at times it’s terrifying, at times it’s exciting and sometimes painful, and that’s something that I really connected with, and I think that’s quite a universal thing for women all over the world”.

Together, Hannah and Lockhart search for answers to the many questions that they hold about the seemingly tranquil sanitarium. What is the cure? How does one achieve wellness? What’s Director Volmer’s end goal? What’s the real story behind the history of this hillside hospital? Only time will tell, but one scenario that moviegoers may not have thought to consider is that as we are watching Lockhart and Hannah being toyed with, we, too, are being experimented on. At least, that’s what director Verbinski says about going to the movies.

“I think it’s one of those genres where you can kind of bend to a dream logic, I mean I think when Dane’s character Lockhart makes his way to this place, he’s entering the place of dreams and nightmares and so I think that you know that type of narrative, you can prey upon the audience’s motivation to discover, and you can use enigma to tell that story” says director Verbinski in a manner that’s just as mysterious as his nursing staff in the film. “You’re watching Dane’s character reluctantly become a patient of this place, but really, you’re the patient, aren’t you? You’re in a darkened room and we’re using sound and image to kind of conduct a psychological experiment on the audience”.

Verbinski goes on to say that we, as an audience, are just as unwell as the character of Lockhart. We need the cure just as much as the patients of this dreamy asylum.

“I think there’s a reason why we’re gonna buy these pharmaceutical prescriptions even though the side effects are ridiculous, I mean whether you’re doing that, or whether you’re eating a kale wrap, or whatever, we must, at our core sense that something is not right with us or we wouldn’t be susceptible to that”.

A Cure For Wellness hits theaters everywhere on February 17th, 2017.

The post [Interview] Gore Verbinski, Dane DeHaan and Mia Goth On Their Quest For ‘A Cure For Wellness’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

One thing viewers may not realize about television production is that the actors are usually only given a few episodes to learn about major plot twists in the shows they star in. For example, Amelia Rose Blair (Piper) didn’t find out she was the killer until the last day of shooting episode 6 of the 10-episode first season. Serafini was given significantly less time. “I didn’t find out I was the killer until about a week or two before shooting the finale,” he said.  “It was before our table read for the episode that I was told I was the killer and then everyone else in the cast found out at the table read.” This of course means that it was never Serafini in the Brandon James mask. “It was the stunt guy.” he said. “It wasn’t me!”

This is an interesting conundrum that the people behind the show put themselves in. On one hand, do they tell the actor ahead of time and risk said actor integrating some killer traits into their performance? Or do they hide the fact from the actor until the 11th hour to maintain an air of mystery. There are pros and cons to both options. As many viewers know, Kieran’s identity as the killer wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret (check out these photos that were released in the days leading up to the finale), so leaving the actor out of the loop may have been all for naught.

Serafini and the rest of the cast didn’t seem to know what to think. “Honestly I didn’t know who Piper’s accomplice might be,” Serafini said. “We all went over it so many times. There were so many different iterations and script changes. As actors we had a lot of different versions bumping around in our brains, but nothing that truly implicated anyone specifically. Eli and Stavo seemed suspect, but they were being made creepy in an exaggerated way.” He is right in that regard. Scream tried so hard to make you think Stavo was the killer that it would have been incredibly underwhelming had he been revealed to be the killer. Some may say the same thing about Kieran’s reveal, but I maintain that Scream did such a good job at making everyone look like a suspect that the phrase “It was so obvious” would have been tossed around no matter which character turned out to be the killer. Hell, people even thought that the series was going to pull a High Tension and make Emma the killer!

You may recall that Kieran was one of the prime suspects in the first season of the show, at least until Piper was unmasked. Many fans (myself included) did think that Kieran was the killer. “I thought I might have been too,” Serafini said. “And then it was Piper and I just assumed that I was doomed after that.” When asked if he thinks it was he or Piper who killed his dad, Serafini quipped, “I think Kieran did it.” Unless we get a third season with some flashbacks, it’s doubtful we’ll ever know for sure.

What sets the finale apart from the first season finale (and even the Scream films) is that the killer lives to see another day. Emma spares Kieran’s life and he gets sent to jail, where a phone call from the real (and very much alive) Brandon James is waiting for him. While a third season is not confirmed, I asked Serafini what he thought might be in store for Kieran in the potential third season. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. I imagine he will be locked up all season. I think Season 3 would be nice in that we may be able to see some flashbacks showing how Kieran was involved in some of the earlier murders.”

As I mentioned in my review of the episode, the finale had many homages to the Scream films. One particular line Serafini delivered is an homage to one of my personal favorites from the red-headed stepchild in the series: Scream 3. In the finale, Kieran says the following to Emma about Eli: “He was obsessed with that girl and now he’s obsessed with you!” This is, of course, a direct reference to Parker Posey’s infamous line from the second sequel. It’s a subtle nod to the film, but it gets the job done. “I’m so  glad you picked up on that,” Serafini said. “The writers have worked really hard to incorporate little homages throughout the whole season.”

I concluded the interview by bringing up the rumor that has spread like wildfire over the past week or so on public forums (seriously, I’ve gotten several Tweets and Instagram messages from fans asking about it because it’s all over Reddit). This is the rumor that there will be a two-part Halloween special airing in October.* Unfortunately, Serafini confirms that it is just a rumor. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “Nobody knows anything. There might be information later on, but I’m telling you that nobody knows anything.” Of course, he could be sworn to secrecy. My theory is that it is happening and will serve as a series finale for Scream, but that’s just my prediction.

*UPDATE: The Halloween special was confirmed after the finale aired last night. This interview took place on Monday. So don’t I feel silly for buying into Serafini’s lies?

What were your thoughts on the second season finale of MTV’s Scream? Did you think the season was better than the first? Or do you think the series should die a painful death? Let us know in the comments below!

The post [Interview] We Chat With the Killer of “Scream” Season 2! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

*We posted the portion on A Nightmare on Elm Street earlier this week as its own article, so the first section of this feature is a duplicate of that one. Skip ahead to The Thing if you’ve already read it (or read it again, because it’s pretty fascinating).

Heisserer got started his career writing for tabletop games in the mid-90s. After a failed attempt at submitting an idea for an idea that would be an adventure scenario for a game, he received a rejection letter telling him that it was too linear and sounded too much like a movie. Heisserer took that as a challenge. “I went and tried to figure out how movie scripts work,” he said. “I got Final Draft and I think I picked up a William Goldman screenplay from Barnes & Noble and…I wrote my first script. It was terrible, but I learned and it was like the first hit of a drug. I was addicted and this is what I wanted to do.” After writing 13 screenplays, Heisserer would finally get his first screenwriting credit with the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

A Real Nightmare of an Experience

It would be an understatement to say that the 2010 remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 classic slasher film was met with a poor reception. Directed by music video director Samuel Bayer (in his only feature film gig), A Nightmare on Elm Street has a staggeringly low 15% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 171 reviews) and a 35 Metacritic score (based on 25 reviews). It is one of the worst received horror films to come out in the last 20 years, remake or otherwise. High expectations certainly didn’t help matters, and neither did the lack of Wes Craven’s involvement (the studio chose not to have him on board as a consultant), something that made The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left remakes better films than they had any right to be. When thinking of someone to blame when it comes to any film’s end result, the common answer would be either the director, the screenwriter, the studio or some combination of the three.

Rather than go the Friday the 13th route and develop a plot that combined elements of the first few films in the franchise, the decision was made to simply remake Craven’s original and make it scarier. An original draft of the script was written by Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Arachnophobia), but Heisserer, without a single credit to his name, was brought in to take elements from Strick’s script and write his own. This would be the first screenplay that Heisserer would get credit for as a screenwriter. You may be wondering how a screenwriter with no credits was handed A Nightmare on Elm Street. I wondered that too.  “I was brought in on what I thought was a general meeting,” Heisserer said. “Instead of meeting a junior executive I was meeting the senior executive and one or two others at New Line.” Understandably, Heisserer thought he had done something wrong and was being brought in to be chastised. “It turned out that they had a pair of writers that they thought would work on Elm Street but they couldn’t get them out of a contract. They needed a writer very quickly and I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

The reason New Line was in such a hurry is that “they were trying to swing as hard as they could for the 25th anniversary of the original and that meant that they wanted to see a first draft from [Heisserer] in four weeks. It was ridiculously hard.” Funnily enough, they missed the anniversary by almost six months (the original was released in early November 1984 whereas the remake was released in late April 2010). It just goes to show that sometimes focusing on quality is more important than rushing something out to make a deadline. Still, the film went on to gross $115.6 million on a $35 million production budget, so it was a success for the studio.

Remaking a film that many view to be one of the best slasher films ever made is no small feat, and with it comes an understandable amount of pressure. “I was under a lot of pressure, for sure,” Heisserer said. “I also had some fairly direct orders of the shape of that story that the producers wanted and I had to follow within those lines.” Luckily for Heisserer, he had Strick’s script to go off of and essentially had a list of what the producers wanted in the film. “This was a case where it seemed like the producers knew what they wanted and my job at that point was to try and deliver the best version of that that I could, something that I believed in.” New ideas were brought in to the film, but since this was a major release with a lot riding on it, Heisserer was essentially given a instructions on how to write the film.

Something many people may not realize is that once the script is turned in, the screenwriter doesn’t have that much of a say over what happens during the filming process unless they are also serving as producer (something we will get to in a bit). I asked Heisserer if was one thing from his screenplay that he really liked that he was disappointed didn’t make it into the final cut and he bluntly replied “Uh, just about all of it.”  I was loathe to pry too much out of him regarding the circumstances surrounding A Nightmare on Elm Street since the man still needs to be able to work in Hollywood, but I did ask at which point he knew something was awry with the film. “I was fortunate enough to get a set visit,” Heisserer said. “My first night there the location was an abandoned church and Freddy Krueger was in this monk’s robe. I began to hyperventilate because I didn’t write anything like that at all. There was no scene in a church. The director had fallen in love with this location when they were scouting for places and decided they wanted something for that and were playing around with a scene that could take place in a church.” While that must have come as a rude awakening to Heisserer, it is unfortunately the way the industry works. If inspiration strikes, the director does have a certain amount of control over the proceedings.

As depressing as it is that Heisserer didn’t have much of a say with the film, it makes sense. “I’m the baby writer. It was my first real credit and work on a studio picture. My voice carried no weight there. I had my share of ideas and there were plenty of people that supported those, but it’s definitely a group effort to get a movie made.” A group effort, indeed. But what happens when everyone involved in the making of a film has a different idea for the film? The end result, like that of A Nightmare on Elm Street can become a muddled mess. The character of Freddy Krueger is arguably the most recognizable slasher in the history of cinema, if only because he is one of the few that actually speaks. Unfortunately, Krueger had evolved in the 25 years since his introduction from a terrifying bogeyman to a wisecracking comedian. “So many people involved with the film had a different idea of Freddy Krueger,” Heisserer said. Those different idea made for a confusing end result with Jackie Earle Haley’s portrayal of the character, and the film was damaged by it in the process.

Going back to The Blame Game, Heisserer has certainly inherited a significant chuck of it (he even went so far as to thank me for not crucifying him during the interview). “Sure, I feel like I do get the blame but that’s because my name is in the credits there next to Wesley Strick,” he said. While it would be foolish to state that Heisserer shares none of the responsibility, it would be equally foolish to lay all of the blame solely on him. This was a group effort, and thus it was a group failure.

One tidbit of information that came out of the interview is that New Line Cinema apparently still considers A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 to be a sequel in the franchise as opposed to an actual remake. “That’s why you’ll see ‘Story By Wesley Strick’ and not ‘Story By Wes Craven’ in the credits,” Heisserer said. Whether or not that was a way to get out of paying Craven more money is up to the reader, but it sure does seem fishy.

It wasn’t all bad though. When asked about the one thing he felt just had to be in the film (and did get included), Heisserer showed his true affection for Craven’s original. “What meant a lot to me about A Nightmare on Elm Street was what Craven had done with the original that was akin to Psycho. You follow a character who you believe is your main protagonist and then 30 minutes into the film she dies.”

Heisserer did try to inject some newer aspects into the story to add more terror to the proceedings. The most well-known of these aspects was the introduction of micro-naps. If you have seen A Nightmare on Elm Street, you know that while the concept shows a lot of potential, the film doesn’t really do much with it beyond its initial introduction. “One of the sequences I had been most excited to see was when the micro sleep got worse and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and Nancy (Rooney Mara) were driving and trying to track down where Freddy was. There was a micro nap sequence inside the car where Freddy just completely gored Nancy and Quentin freaked out at the wheel, crashing the car into a tree.”  Clearly, that did not make it into the film. Instead we were “gifted” with a similar sequence, but with Freddy appearing in the middle of the street, leading Quentin to swerve and crash the car. Any horror fan knows that this is a familiar trope, so it is regrettable that they went that route, though it may have been due to budget constraints. Who knows?

Something else that showed promise in the film was the idea that Freddy Krueger may have been innocent all along. I’m only speaking for myself here, but that idea would have worked better had Kruger actually been innocent. It’s a plot development that sounds great in theory, but didn’t work in execution. The reveal that he was a guilty child molester failed to pack much of an impact, especially since that removed any internal conflict with the characters. It made the majority of the film’s run time feel like a waste. “Both the doubt and the reveal that he is guilty were elements from Wesley Strick’s draft,” Heisserer said. That being the case, it was something that was always going to be a part of the film. It’s just a shame it turned out to be a copout.

Concluding the Elm Street portion of the interview, Heisserer touched upon how much of a learning experience writing A Nightmare on Elm Street was. The main thing he learned? Be explicit. “Subtlety can work very well for a reading draft or a spec draft,” he said, “but there are times when it’s okay to get sort of bold-faced about certain elements. If there’s a piece of dialogue or a little visual element in a scene that is a setup that has a powerful callback or payoff later on, it’s okay to be very bold about that so that when people are filming it they realize that it connects with something else later on.” The lesson here, screenwriters, is to spell things in your script out if they need to be spelled out. Don’t just assume that those reading it will understand what you are implying. You may not like how it gets interpreted.

Too Many Cooks in The Thing’s Kitchen

18 months later saw the release of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s prequel/reboot of John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic The Thing (itself also a remake). The obvious question here is: What kind of masochist would willingly subject himself to another remake after the incredibly poor reception of A Nightmare on Elm Street? “I was in the middle of [The Thing] when Elm Street came out,” Heisserer said, “so I had sort of doubled down on working those kinds of projects. And of course when I saw the end result of Elm Street it made me terrified for what The Thing could look like.” Unlike Elm Street‘s screenplay, Heisserer would be starting from scratch with The Thing (an original draft by Ronald D. Moore went unused), which also meant he earned the only writing credit for the film.

Horror fans are well aware that the script of The Thing wasn’t the biggest problem with the film (I actually enjoy it just fine). It was the film’s lack of practical effects. The over-abundance of CGI in the film was made all the more disappointing when it was revealed that practical effects were shot during filming, but layered over with CGI in post-production. Our own Evan Dickson had a conversation with Heisserer about this very subject a few years ago, but I wanted to revisit the subject.  As someone who does not know much about screenwriting, I asked the dumb question: Did Heisserer try to emphasize at all in the script to use practical effects. Heisserer went on to explain that van Heijningen was already hired when he was brought on to write the script and he knew his vision, so it wasn’t a concern for him. “It was clear to me that [Matthijs] wanted to go very retro, very old school. He wanted to make sure this version worked perfectly as the first half of a double feature with Carpenter’s film.”

Originally set to open in April of 2011, the film was pushed back six months to allow for re-shoots. No stranger to having his script tinkered with during production, Heisserer admitted that while changes were made, “it still held a good deal of the superstructure of [his] draft,” but the movie did face two major issues during the production. The first issue being that of the behind-the-scenes executive turmoil at Universal. “I believe we had five or six different executives in charge of the project over a six month period of time,” Heisserer said. “That kind of volatility from a decision-maker standpoint makes it really hard to get anything made. I know that at some point in time Matthijs had to shut everything down for a few weeks as they fought a battle over someone at Universal wanting the movie to be in 3D. When you’re having to fight those battles and not be able to focus on the story, it’s exhausting.”

The second problem that faced the film was marketing. “The film is a mutt. Carpenter’s film was mainly a paranoia thriller, with bits of sci-fi, horror and creature feature…A mixed breed movie like that is really hard for a big studio, especially a marketing team, to grapple with because they don’t know how to sell it. Add to that the kind of slow boil that we had built into it…and it just made it incredibly difficult to finish the film in a fast factory way for those who had been eager to make it that mutt as a paranoia thriller that we wanted it to be.” This is clearly evident in the film’s trailer, as the creature feature aspect was the main focus. It also made the film seem more action-packed than it actually was.

The biggest re-shoot of all was changing the film’s ending, as van Heijningen has detailed on his Facebook page. In the original ending (dubbed “The Pilot Ending”), Kate was to discover the original pilots of the spaceship which had all been killed by The Thing, which was an escaped specimen they had collected from another planet, implying that the ship was crashed in an attempt to kill the monster. As it turns out, even that was a bit different from the ending in Heisserer’s screenplay. “That was not quite the ending that we originally had,” he said. “That scene actually happened earlier when Kate and Sander’s team show up they actually find a way to venture into the ship right then and there and so we get early on in the movie some exploration of the ship and what they see is evidence that this thing broke out and devastated the crew of the ship. It was just a great bit of foreshadowing for what was going to happen to them. That got pulled so that the only time we venture into the ship was in the third act.”

The ending of the film sees Kate torch Sam-Thing as it makes loud Thing-y screams, leaving Kate alone in the Antarctic (Sam-Thing didn’t make those screams in Heisserer’s draft, so it was left uncertain as to whether or not he actually was The Thing). “There was a great little sequence early on…in which it is mentioned that if you start crying the water in your tears will freeze over your eyes due to the wind chill. They will lock up and that would be the last thing you feel before you die. It was supposed to be this big intimidating moment. So the very ending of the script is Kate having torched Carter…the cold is setting in and she starts to cry. It’s that moment of the wind hitting her in the face and the tears pouring out knowing what’s going to happen next. That’s when we cut it off.” Kate”s fate is death, and the audience’s fate is knowing that we never got that amazing moment in the flawed film.

Script-wise, The Thing 2011 does work as a double feature with The Thing 1982, especially when you take into account the scene during the credits (which features Ennio Morricone’s iconic score). It just feels like a completely different film because of the plethora of CGI elements.

The studio turmoil and marketing confusion hampered any success the film hoped to achieve, and it grossed a mere $27.4 million worldwide on a $38 million budget. Had the film been successful, we may have one day gotten a sequel to Carpenter’s film. “I wasn’t in those conversations,” Heisserere said, “but I would not be surprised if there had been talks like that. If that were the case I hope there would have been a way to bring Kurt Russell back. I mean he would be much older but you could say the damage of the winter just aged him overnight.” Heisserer’s tone with that last part is one of humor, but I would pay money to see that movie. Suspension of disbelief be damned.

As to what Heiesserer took away from his experience with The Thing, he imparted some words of wisdom that all screenwriters would be wise to listen to: “Despite a movie that doesn’t necessarily live up to your expectations, if you don’t swing for all of the things you want you will regret not swinging for them, and that is worse than trying and failing.” Basically, a missed opportunity is far worse than a failed risk.

At Death’s Door With Final Destination 5

Released just 2 months prior to The Thing but written after that script, Final Destination 5 marked Heisserer’s first true success in terms of both box office gross and audience reception. Heisserer audibly lightened up over the phone as we moved into the Final Destination 5 portion of his career, as it is a sequel that far surpassed everyone’s expectations and became one of the best sequels in a dying franchise. This is a film that no one wanted and no one asked for, and it ended up giving the series an adrenaline shot to the heart.

I spent a minute fangirling over the film with Heisserer, as I do think that it is the strongest sequel (though Final Destination 2 puts up a good fight). While The Final Destination is the only truly bad film in the franchise, it nearly killed it. After that atrocity, Final Destination had nowhere to go but up, and boy did Heisserer and Co. deliver.

One benefit of coming after The Final Destination is that there was really no way Final Destination 5 could disappoint. You just can’t do much worse than that film. “I did feel a lot less pressure,” Heisserer said. “But on the opposite side of things I thought it was going to be a lot easier to write. It turns out that writing a good death sequence in the Final Destination world is ridiculously hard. There are a ton of rules that you need to know are there and I was pulling my hair out over it.”

The Final Destination franchise is primarily known for its Rube Goldberg-ian death sequences, with many moving pieces. “All of that has to be on the page,” Heisserer said. “They don’t let me cheat any of that. I can’t say ‘I’m going to let the director figure this one out.'” Final Destination 5 is home to one of the most tense and arguably creative death sequences in the franchise. Candice’s (Ellen Wroe) gymnastics scene is a masterclass in subverting viewer expectations. While that is my favorite sequence in the film, Heisserer states that it is tied with the Olivia’s (Jacqueline McaInnes Wood) Lasik scene for his favorite.

The strength of the Final Destination films is that they take everyday habits and activities and somehow turn them into death traps. Heisserer got his inspiration for the Lasik scene after seeing his wife’s (then fiancée’s) Lasik procedure. “I foolishly scared the Hell out of myself watching someone cut open her eye. It timed out well with the fact that Final Destination fell in my lap.”

The most innovative aspect of Final Destination 5 isn’t its death scenes though. Astute viewers may have noticed outdated cell phones being used throughout the film and caught on to the film’s twist ending. I was blind-sided by the reveal, so I’m clearly not the most observant. Final Destination 5 is a prequel, set before the events of the first film. “It was always going to be a prequel,” Heisserer said. “That was an idea early on that [producer] Craig Perry and I had been obsessed with.”

Despite rumors of a Final Destination 6 (even from franchise staple Tony Todd himself) it seems to be dead in the water as of now. “If there have been discussions of that I’m not a part of it. I just went in and said ‘Let me wrap this up for you as best I can and give an ending that will hopefully please the fans.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a Final Destination 6 eventually but my phone is not ringing,” Heisserer laughed.

I wrapped up this portion of the interview by mentioning that Final Destination 5 is the only film in the franchise to have a “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes (it even beats the first one!), to which Heisserer guffawed. “I did not know that,” he said. “Is it really?” Yes, Eric. Yes it is.

Playing the Sequel Game Again with The Conjuring 2

While not given a screenwriting credit on James Wan’s latest scare-fest (it’s pretty awesome in case you haven’t heard), he did work on a draft or two of the script. Four screenwriters were given credit, but Heisserer was not one of them. Chad and Cary Hayes, David Leslie Johnson and James Wan himself all received a credit for the screenplay. Heisserer was really brought in to doctor the Hayes brothers’ script before David Leslie Johnson came in. “You don’t really find your name on a credit for something unless you’ve been an architect of the story itself. Changing dialogue doesn’t really give you a credit. If that were the case everyone would change dialogue for the free credit.” 10 years ago there were rumors that Beyoncé was changing song lyrics just for the credit, but I digress. Maybe the music industry just works a bit differently from the film industry.

One addition Heisserer made that he was thrilled made it into the final cut was an exchange between Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Anita (Franka Potente). “There’s a moment where Anita says ‘I don’t know what’s worse, the demons or the people that prey on our  need to believe these things.’ Then Lorraine just looks at her and goes ‘The demons are worse.'” It is those small character moments that added to the success of the film so even without a credit, at least Heisserer can know that a little part of him made it on screen.

Gaining More Creative Control with Lights Out

Finally, we come to Lights Out, which will see a wide release on July 22, 2016. In a bold move, Warner Bros. Pictures has decided to release the film the same weekend as Star Trek Beyond and the new Ice Age sequel. This shows a tremendous amount of confidence for the film, which has already received rave reviews out of the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Produced by James Wan and directed by David F. Sandberg, who created the short film the movie was based on, Lights Out tells the story of a woman who is haunted by a creature that only appears when the lights go out. Sandberg’s original short film was a viral sensation when it was release in 2013. “I was one of the 300 jillion people that had seen it when it came out,” Heisserer said, “but I really was reluctant to get involved because I’ve seen so many short films get a splashy reception from people in Hollywood and then when you get under the hood there’s nothing there to get you through a feature-length story.”

After a conference call with producer Lawrence Grave and Sandberg, Heisserer was swayed and agreed to write the screenplay for the film. “Not only did [Sandberg] have a set of characters that I cared about who were smart and were trying to avoid the standard horror tropes, but he had attached the monster Diana to a thematic core, which was depression. As a horror writer I am greatly relieved to have a theme to associate with whatever the horror subject is because if I ever get lost I just look to that theme and the idea of depression and ask how it affects people in real life. That’s where I can find the scare.”

The framework for the film was set by Sandberg. The concept of the film revolves around a mother/daughter relationship that has been fractured and had some history that needed to be resolved. “That was all his plan,” Heisserer said. “It was my job to take that ball and run with it.”

A big change for Heisserer is that a producing credit was granted to him. “I came on and wrote this on spec before we set it up anywhere,” Heisserer said, “and the contingent of my participation and writing this for free was that I get to be active in a producer role so that I can be on set and sure up any of those responsibilities that might be a bit rough on a first-time feature director being thrown into the deep end.” After the way A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing turned out, can you blame the guy?

Lights Out carries the much-maligned (by horror fans, anyway) PG-13 rating. While R-rated films are demanded by the horror community, the plain and simple fact is that PG-13 rated films have more of an opportunity to make money. It’s easy to say “don’t water down the creator’s vision,” but sometimes a PG-13 rating is always the intention. “David never had a rating intention in his head as he made this,” Heisserer said. “He crafted the scares the way he wanted them to be crafted and he made it as terrifying as he wanted it to be.” When the film was brought to the MPAA for a rating, there were “maybe two or three shots that were questionable.” Therein lies the conundrum. Do you sacrifice mere seconds of footage in the hopes of a more accessible film? Or do you stick to your guns and get the R rating with those shots? “I get that as a consumer of horror you see PG-13 horror and assume that it will be watered-down and that the studio is trying to appeal to a broader audience, but some of the most effective horror movies for me are always the ones that make me fill in the blanks. The biggest complaint about Seven, an R-rated film, was that the film showed Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box. Seven did not show her head in a box. It was left up to the imagination.”

On whether or not audiences will be in for a barrage of cheap jump scares, Heisserer informed me that while he “can only go so far in terms of how to set up the scare on the page, the execution of that is on higher shoulders. But David has done more with his film than a lot of horror directors have done on their third.”

Lights Out is the rare horror film to boast performances from high profile actresses like Maria Bello, Billy Burke and Teresa Palmer. Heisserer had nothing but wonderful things to say about those performances. “The actors involved in Lights Out have been tremendous. It’s some of the best performances I’ve seen in a genre movie like this in a long while so I’m really excited for everybody to cheer for these characters.”

What’s in Store for Sandman & Van Helsing

In addition to penning Denis Villeneuve’s (Prisoners, Sicario) new film Arrival, Heisserer’s next big projects are Van Helsing and the adaptation of the graphic novel Sandman. While he couldn’t say much on either topic. He specifically couldn’t say much about Sandman since he was brought on board seven months after Joseph Gordon-Levitt left the project (the leak earlier this year misattributed him to the project long after he had already left). While it is disappointing we didn’t learn more about that, he did offer up the following tidbit of information about Van Helsing: It is not a remake of the 2002 Stephen Sommers film. According to Heisserer, “It is something that John Spaihts and [he] pitched our hearts out for what [they] imagined with the character….[it] has horror elements to it so it can be very scary but it also has a lot more fun put into it as well.”

Lights Out will be released nationwide on July 22, 2016.

The post Taking the Blame: An Interview With Screenwriter Eric Heisserer! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

*This article only features the Elm Street portion of his career, but be on the lookout for the full interview later this week!

It would be an understatement to say that the 2010 remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 classic slasher film was met with a poor reception. Directed by music video director Samuel Bayer (in his only feature film gig), A Nightmare on Elm Street has a staggeringly low 15% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 171 reviews) and a 35 Metacritic score (based on 25 reviews). It is one of the worst received horror films to come out in the last 20 years, remake or otherwise. High expectations certainly didn’t help matters, and neither did the lack of Wes Craven’s involvement (the studio chose not to have him on board as a consultant), something that made The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left remakes better films than they had any right to be. When thinking of someone to blame when it comes to any film’s end result, the common answer would be either the director, the screenwriter, the studio or some combination of the three.

Rather than go the Friday the 13th route and develop a plot that combined elements of the first few films in the franchise, the decision was made to simply remake Craven’s original and make it scarier. An original draft of the script was written by Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Arachnophobia), but Heisserer, without a single credit to his name, was brought in to take elements from Strick’s script and write his own. This would be the first screenplay that Heisserer would get credit for as a screenwriter. You may be wondering how a screenwriter with no credits was handed A Nightmare on Elm Street. I wondered that too.  “I was brought in on what I thought was a general meeting,” Heisserer said. “Instead of meeting a junior executive I was meeting the senior executive and one or two others at New Line.” Understandably, Heisserer thought he had done something wrong and was being brought in to be chastised. “It turned out that they had a pair of writers that they thought would work on Elm Street but they couldn’t get them out of a contract. They needed a writer very quickly and I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

The reason New Line was in such a hurry is that “they were trying to swing as hard as they could for the 25th anniversary of the original and that meant that they wanted to see a first draft from [Heisserer] in four weeks. It was ridiculously hard.” Funnily enough, they missed the anniversary by almost six months (the original was released in early November 1984 whereas the remake was released in late April 2010). It just goes to show that sometimes focusing on quality is more important than rushing something out to make a deadline. Still, the film went on to gross $115.6 million on a $35 million production budget, so it was a success for the studio.

Remaking a film that many view to be one of the best slasher films ever made is no small feat, and with it comes an understandable amount of pressure. “I was under a lot of pressure, for sure,” Heisserer said. “I also had some fairly direct orders of the shape of that story that the producers wanted and I had to follow within those lines.” Luckily for Heisserer, he had Strick’s script to go off of and essentially had a list of what the producers wanted in the film. “This was a case where it seemed like the producers knew what they wanted and my job at that point was to try and deliver the best version of that that I could, something that I believed in.” New ideas were brought in to the film, but since this was a major release with a lot riding on it, Heisserer was essentially given a instructions on how to write the film.

Something many people may not realize is that once the script is turned in, the screenwriter doesn’t have that much of a say over what happens during the filming process unless they are also serving as producer (something we will get to in a bit). I asked Heisserer if was one thing from his screenplay that he really liked that he was disappointed didn’t make it into the final cut and he bluntly replied “Uh, just about all of it.”  I was loathe to pry too much out of him regarding the circumstances surrounding A Nightmare on Elm Street since the man still needs to be able to work in Hollywood, but I did ask at which point he knew something was awry with the film. “I was fortunate enough to get a set visit,” Heisserer said. “My first night there the location was an abandoned church and Freddy Krueger was in this monk’s robe. I began to hyperventilate because I didn’t write anything like that at all. There was no scene in a church. The director had fallen in love with this location when they were scouting for places and decided they wanted something for that and were playing around with a scene that could take place in a church.” While that must have come as a rude awakening to Heisserer, it is unfortunately the way the industry works. If inspiration strikes, the director does have a certain amount of control over the proceedings.

As depressing as it is that Heisserer didn’t have much of a say with the film, it makes sense. “I’m the baby writer. It was my first real credit and work on a studio picture. My voice carried no weight there. I had my share of ideas and there were plenty of people that supported those, but it’s definitely a group effort to get a movie made.” A group effort, indeed. But what happens when everyone involved in the making of a film has a different idea for the film? The end result, like that of A Nightmare on Elm Street can become a muddled mess. The character of Freddy Krueger is arguably the most recognizable slasher in the history of cinema, if only because he is one of the few that actually speaks. Unfortunately, Krueger had evolved in the 25 years since his introduction from a terrifying bogeyman to a wisecracking comedian. “So many people involved with the film had a different idea of Freddy Krueger,” Heisserer said. Those different idea made for a confusing end result with Jackie Earle Haley’s portrayal of the character, and the film was damaged by it in the process.

Going back to The Blame Game, Heisserer has certainly inherited a significant chuck of it (he even went so far as to thank me for not crucifying him during the interview). “Sure, I feel like I do get the blame but that’s because my name is in the credits there next to Wesley Strick,” he said. While it would be foolish to state that Heisserer shares none of the responsibility, it would be equally foolish to lay all of the blame solely on him. This was a group effort, and thus it was a group failure.

One tidbit of information that came out of the interview is that New Line Cinema apparently still considers A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 to be a sequel in the franchise as opposed to an actual remake. “That’s why you’ll see ‘Story By Wesley Strick’ and not ‘Story By Wes Craven’ in the credits,” Heisserer said. Whether or not that was a way to get out of paying Craven more money is up to the reader, but it sure does seem fishy.

It wasn’t all bad though. When asked about the one thing he felt just had to be in the film (and did get included), Heisserer showed his true affection for Craven’s original. “What meant a lot to me about A Nightmare on Elm Street was what Craven had done with the original that was akin to Psycho. You follow a character who you believe is your main protagonist and then 30 minutes into the film she dies.”

Heisserer did try to inject some newer aspects into the story to add more terror to the proceedings. The most well-known of these aspects was the introduction of micro-naps. If you have seen A Nightmare on Elm Street, you know that while the concept shows a lot of potential, the film doesn’t really do much with it beyond its initial introduction. “One of the sequences I had been most excited to see was when the micro sleep got worse and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and Nancy (Rooney Mara) were driving and trying to track down where Freddy was. There was a micro nap sequence inside the car where Freddy just completely gored Nancy and Quentin freaked out at the wheel, crashing the car into a tree.”  Clearly, that did not make it into the film. Instead we were “gifted” with a similar sequence, but with Freddy appearing in the middle of the street, leading Quentin to swerve and crash the car. Any horror fan knows that this is a familiar trope, so it is regrettable that they went that route, though it may have been due to budget constraints. Who knows?

Something else that showed promise in the film was the idea that Freddy Krueger may have been innocent all along. I’m only speaking for myself here, but that idea would have worked better had Kruger actually been innocent. It’s a plot development that sounds great in theory, but didn’t work in execution. The reveal that he was a guilty child molester failed to pack much of an impact, especially since that removed any internal conflict with the characters. It made the majority of the film’s run time feel like a waste. “Both the doubt and the reveal that he is guilty were elements from Wesley Strick’s draft,” Heisserer said. That being the case, it was something that was always going to be a part of the film. It’s just a shame it turned out to be a copout.

Concluding the Elm Street portion of the interview, Heisserer touched upon how much of a learning experience writing A Nightmare on Elm Street was. The main thing he learned? Be explicit. “Subtlety can work very well for a reading draft or a spec draft,” he said, “but there are times when it’s okay to get sort of bold-faced about certain elements. If there’s a piece of dialogue or a little visual element in a scene that is a setup that has a powerful callback or payoff later on, it’s okay to be very bold about that so that when people are filming it they realize that it connects with something else later on.” The lesson here, screenwriters, is to spell things in your script out if they need to be spelled out. Don’t just assume that those reading it will understand what you are implying. You may not like how it gets interpreted.

Lights Out will be released nationwide on July 22, 2016.

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In 1963, “The Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling was interviewed by Australian radio presenter Binny Lum. The interview goes over a great many topics, including the now infamous show, which Lum admits to never having seen (and Serling takes it in very stylish stride).

Serling also talks about Japanese “Kamikaze” cab drivers, how science fiction predicts the future, and his own writing routine, which involved writing for at least three to four hours every day of the week.

The video is just over five minutes and it’s charmingly and delightfully illustrated, so I definitely recommend giving this a watch. Additionally, there’s a wonderful write up on the Blank on Blank page, which is where this series was created.

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It’s not, obviously. So please, enjoy this brief Q&A in which a crazy goon harasses a game developer about an incredibly promising indie horror game that needs to hurry up and get here already.

BD: How would you quickly describe Ghost Theory to someone who’s unfamiliar with the game in a way that’d get them excited about it?

Ghost Theory is a single-player, first-person horror game. A university opens up a secret program of modern paranormal research and they put you in charge of the investigations. You travel to the most haunted places on Earth to gather evidence about hauntings. Each of the locations is a sandbox rather than a ‘corridor’.

BD: Continuing that thought — I might’ve once said your game is about “living the life of a clairvoyant, globetrotting Ghostbuster.” How accurate is that?

When you say ‘Ghostbuster,’ people tend to imagine someone with a proton pack and ghost traps. And that’s not what Ghost Theory is about. That’s why we call Barbara, our heroine, a ‘ghost hunter’ (actually, some paranormal experts actually get upset with the term ghost hunter, so ‘Paranormal Investigator’ would be even more accurate).

In Ghost Theory, you don’t have any guns to fire at apparitions. Even though this is a horror game, don’t expect ghosts to be jumping out at you from the shadows for no reason. In fact, most of them won’t respond to your presence at all unless you make them. It’s your job to find out how to draw them out – it’s the only way you will meet your mission objectives.

BD: Have you or your team experienced any activity of the paranormal persuasion while making this game?

We have experienced some really strange happenings since we started to work on the concept. But I wouldn’t call them paranormal. More like strange coincidences. We don’t all agree on their significance – I’d rather just leave it at that.

BD: Where does Dreadlocks stand on ghosts? Do you believe? Do you want to believe?

Speaking for Dreadlocks – some of us truly do; others are sceptics. But we all have one thing in common: we are genuinely fascinated by the unknown, by unexplained mysteries, by spooky stories, by horror movies and games, and we’re determined to make this project the most authentic ghost hunting experience ever!

Speaking just for myself – I am more of a sceptic, which I think is a good thing for the design of this game. I will need to do my best to make the gameplay believable and enjoyable to other sceptics, not just believers. I am not saying I’m convinced the paranormal doesn’t exist. The paranormal is a phenomenon, and that only means we (as in science) don’t know much about it. It’s kind of like playing games. A game is a phenomenon too and I absolutely love the idea that I will spend my life trying to understand its nature.

BD: Have any of the haunted places you’ve researched for Ghost Theory stood out for being more unnerving or terrifying than the rest? Do you have a favorite location?

There is a large ghost hunting community all over the world. We are dedicating a member of the studio to get in touch with experienced ghost hunters who can help us with the location scannings. Soon we’ll be able to just send a piece of equipment to a hunter located near a site we want and then just wait for the results. This whole process is still in its early stage of development. But it looks like it should work.

The last place we visited ourselves was a haunted castle, Houska, here in Czech Republic. It is a pretty creepy place. The castle’s administrators allowed us to crawl around it from the basements up to its attic. If we licence this place, it’ll definitely be one of our favourites. Personally, I can’t wait to start working on Poveglia Island.

Editor’s Note: We featured Poveglia Island in the very first entry in our ongoing “Creepy Places” series. You can find the latest batch of spooky locales over here.

BD: Quick! A thirsty specter is about to drink your life essence – what do you do? Fight, or flight? And if it’s the former, what weapon would you use to vanquish the foul spirit? There’s no wrong answer here (I mean, there definite is, but I’m sure your answer will rock), like Fatal Frame’s Camera Obscura, or maybe you’d prefer a Proton Pack? A priest and a dash of salt, perhaps?

Editor’s Note II: The Notening: I meant what Durmek would do in this situation, but it sounds like I just really want there to be guns in this game. I don’t, I promise, and I could’ve edited this question out of the interview, but that I would’ve meant getting rid of his response, and that’s my favorite part of this whole interview.

There are no weapons, you crazy goon – there’s no shooting or fighting involved in the core concept of Ghost Theory. Your goal will be to collect samples and evidence of paranormal phenomena and then bring it back to university, where your scientists can study it. You’ll have a lot of equipment common to today’s paranormal investigators: an EMF meter, Full-spectrum camera, UV Lamp, Pendulum etc.

There are a ton of ghost hunting gadgets on the market today. The list of those we’re going to use in Ghost Theory is still not finalized. We’re also going to come up with some new, hi-tech gadget inventions that your scientist will craft for you in the later stages of the game. This way you will be able to dig deeper than today’s real gadgets would allow.

BD: No pressure, but this last one’s important. What’s the best ghost in all of video games?

Each member of Dreadlocks have a different favorite spook. There’s Slimer, Aiden from Beyond: Two Souls…. a long list, really. But in the end, we’ve collectively settled on… the PacMan ghosts, “Blinky”, “Pinky”, “Inky” and “Clyde.” Haha!

Big thanks to Durmek and Dreadlocks for taking the time to A some of my Q’s. Ghost Theory doesn’t have a release date yet, but when it does arrive, it’ll come to PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One. You can follow the game on Kickstarter.

The post ‘Ghost Theory’ is Happening and it Definitely Won’t Have Guns appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

You can read my review of the film, which tells the story of a deaf-mute woman (Siegel) who is stalked by a psychotic killer (John Gallagher, Jr.) in her secluded home, when it goes up tomorrow (spoiler: I really liked it). You can also read Kalyn’s equally positive review from SXSW here.  

Bloody Disgusting: First of all, I really really liked the film a lot. I thought it was great and I like all of your films too.

Mike Flanagan: Thank you!  That’s amazing. Thank you.

BD: So I know the film is technically a home invasion thriller but there are obviously lots of aspects of slasher films in there.

Kate Siegel: Yeah.

BD: That’s my favorite sub-genre but–

Jason Blum: What is?

BD: Slasher.

Blum: Oh, slasher.

BD: I think it’s really nice to see a slasher get released today because I feel like that sub-genre has taken a backseat to a lot of other things, specifically supernatural horror and things like that. Do you think labelling something as a slasher film is akin to giving a film a death sentence in Hollywood? Or do you think it hurts your film.

Flanagan: Well when I hear “slasher” I think about the 80s. I think about Jason and Michael Myers. Horror is fascinating because it’s so seasonal and it’s like you’ve got these periods where slasher movies are in and it’s like everyone loves them. Next thing you know zombies are in. Then vampires are acceptable. It changes all the time and we bump into this all the time where we take a project out and someone says “Oh, that’s a zombie movie? That genre is dead.” Then The Walking Dead shows up. So I don’t really think there’s any label within horror that would be a death sentence because it’s like these sub-genres have their moments and they ebb and they flow and they resurge and they’re reinvented or they’re repackaged. Everything is so seasonal so I don’t think there’s any kind of corner of the genre that will ever really be hurting.

BD: I think comparisons to films like The Strangers or Them are inevitable.

Flanagan: Sure

BD: But making the lead character death….wait….deaf, is a nice twist on a tried-and-true formula that plays very well in the film without seeming like a gimmick. Where did that idea come from?

Flanagan: [looking at Siegel] Well we talked a lot but it kind of happened because Kate and I were out to dinner and we were talking about movies we liked. One of the ones that we stumbled on that we both really liked was Wait Until Dark. So we talked about that for a little bit and then talked about thrillers in general and the things that she had always wanted to do from an acting point of view and things that I had always wanted to do from a directing point of view.

Siegel: Right.

Flanagan: One of the things I had always wanted to try, which would be so challenging to me as a director, was to try something without dialogue. I coupled that with this idea that Kate was talking about a lot, which was the anxiety of seeing somebody try to get into your house. We thought that if we made the lead character deaf-mute then we would create the potential for really really fascinating version of these movies.

Siegel: At that dinner we were also discussing how the most scary aspect of the films we love was sound design. Sound design really sells a movie so we were discussing ways to make sound design more of a character on a script level. To really make sure that sound design is something that gets the weight it deserves. The opposite of that is to remove sound from the main character, since you have to balance that somewhere else in the movie. So sound design is something we really wanted to play with. I think that at the beginning Maddie being a deaf-mute was something that was more of a script challenge. Then as we started to meet this woman we realized  that it was a real benefit to character development, tension and things like that. We could do things that we couldn’t do if your character could speak or hear.

BD: Was there ever an intention to do the entire movie without sound?

Flanagan: It was a discussion, for sure. It very quickly became apparent that that wouldn’t work and the reason is that if you remove all sound, which sounds like this very cool experiment, you’re actually not doing that. You’re forcing everyone to listen to the sounds that are present in the room, which meant the audience isn’t going to be immersed in silence. They’re going to be listening to the audience. They’re going to be listening to popcorn and coughing and shuffling. There was this kind of realization very early where we said “Oh, if we actually remove sound then it would be impossible to build tension.” Modern audiences, having not grown up on silent films, are suddenly going to have to seek out every kind of audio stimulus anywhere else in the environment. Then I thought we wouldn’t even have people watching the movie at that point.

Siegel: They’d be frustrated with the guy next door.

Flanagan: Right! They’ll just be kind of hyper-aware. So that made us think about the parts of the movie that we wanted to pull the sound out and be in Maddie’s perspective, and that we couldn’t do that authentically silently. It was an impossible puzzle. How do we make it feel like there’s no sound while having enough sound to still get rid of all the other ambience and keep everybody focused?

Siegel: An interesting counterpoint to that was their decision to pull out all sound from the logos that open the film, you know? The Blumhouse logo appears and there’s absolutely no sound. It gets you very aware of your ears.

BD: And then that title card just booms on screen.

Flanagan: Yeah.That worked great.

BD: It does!

Trevor Macy: Well if you can sustain it. Those opening logos are about 45 seconds without sound and you start to wonder if something is wrong with the film.

BD: That actually went through my head while I was watching the film. 

Macy: Yeah, you think the sound is broken, which I think is so cool.

Siegel: It makes you think about sound from the very beginning.

BD: It’s a very interesting technique. You know, I saw Don’t Breathe Friday night which also uses silence to a considerable degree and there’s a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode–

Siegel and Flanagan together: “Hush!”

Siegel: Which we watch and love.

BD: Yes! It’s one of the best episodes of that show in one of the worst seasons. 

Flanagan: Yeah that’s true. You’re totally right. The whole Riley thing…..yeah. Anyway, yeah, um….yeah.

BD: So with that technique, I’m assuming the film did pose some challenges. [Looking at Siegel] You kind of get put through the wringer.

Macy: And she wrote it!

BD: I know! Did you know you were going to play that part when you were writing it?

Siegel: Yes, [looks at Blum and Macy] well I hoped that they would say yes.

Flanagan: That was the intention pending convincing everyone to do it.

Blum: Obviously, we said yes.

BD: Well I think watching actors and actresses do difficult stunts is really interesting, so was there a particular scene that you were having a rough time with physically.

Siegel: It’s interesting, but I was adamant about doing my own stunts from the beginning because I think I didn’t realize what that actually entailed. I thought it sounded fun because I hadn’t really gone through the whole thing before. There were two things that were rough. One was our amazing stunt coordinator Chuck Borden helped with was the door slam. I had to get my hand slammed in the door multiple times from multiple angles. I thought it meant “Oh I’ll be fine I won’t hurt at all.” No, it just means they safely slam your hand in a door.

Flanagan: So it won’t break anything, basically.

Siegel: Right, but they still need to slam your hand in the door. So what happened after Take 12 or 13 was that I would start flinching before the slam and that just couldn’t happen. We had shot pretty much in order so by that time I had already been through a lot of stuff. I was jumping out of windows, climbing on the roof with a harness and a lot of other things had happened. So I remember a point after some skin accidentally got pinched during the door slam I just went “That’s it! I’m done. We’ve got it!” I took my hand away and Mike’s deep, deep love of actors came in and he was like “Please know that you’re in the right place right now. This is exactly right. This is your talent coming out. Please can we just try this again?” So I tried it one more time and I think that’s the take we ended up using. It was just hard to stay in that place with Maddie because you have to have this deep level of focus since she can’t hear anything so as an actor I was constantly trying to touch things. That’s what my coach was telling me: when you lose the sense of hearing you want to ground yourself in the vibrations that are happening. So Maddie was so frustrated with her situation that my actual frustration with the stunt was the character coming out.

Flanagan: There’s some priceless pictures of her with the shattered, broken hand trying to eat lunch.

Siegel: Well ‘cuz they had tied my hand back!

BD: That’s a really hard thing to look at too. I mean it’s probably the last 20 minutes you’re watching her with this hand that’s been destroyed.

Flanagan: Yeah and two of her fingers were taped down underneath the application and she had to wear it for 12 hours.

Siegel: Plus the three hours to get into it and two hours to get out of it.

Flanagan: And this is toward the end of the shoot so everybody was exhausted, but she didn’t have the use of her dominant hand for the entire day. And she couldn’t take the application off so she was just stuck in it. She had to eat with it and get ready and check herself with it and she also liked to come up behind me and shove the prosthetic pinky into my ear when I wasn’t looking.

Flanagan: That freaked me out.

Siegel: The whole thing was just Cloud Nine. So here my hand was being slammed in a door but it was like the best way that could ever happen.

BD: If I was ever in a horror movie I would want to die in a really gruesome way but I hate being sticky so I don’t like the idea of having blood on me all the time.

Flanagan: Oh the sticky blood is nasty.

Siegel: It is sticky. Oh you’ve got me right back there. Sticky is the worst. If you ever get a chance to talk to [actor/actress name deleted for the sake of spoilers] about sticky…

Flanagan: Oh God.

Macy: By the way, he/she didn’t have to. He/she sat there all day to be dead on the ground even though we offered him/her a stand-in.

Flanagan: He/she was just like “No! I’m doing it!” Like it was a challenge to overcome.

BD: Something that irks me about horror criticism is that people like to say “Oh, it’s violence against women” or “Horror hates women.” I do think that what happens to the women in Hush is more brutal than what happens to the men. But Kate, from your standpoint, how do you feel about that? I feel like that trait is inherent of the genre, but that criticism is something I feel is thrown around a lot.

Siegel: Yeah, first thing is that I really like that people are sensitive to that. I have at times fallen on that side of the argument where I’m like “How many girls need to run into the woods in their underpants?” The answer is many.

Siegel: You bring up Wait Until Dark, but what we really loved was Die Hard. So I didn’t think of Maddie as a girl running in the woods in her underpants. I thought of her as an action hero, and what we love about Die Hard is that our main character is beat to Hell! His teeth are bloody, the whole building is used and he’s vulnerable, but he’s a warrior. So I think that with Maddie, there was never an iota of intention to do anything with sexual violence or rape.

Flanagan: Yeah we did not want to go there at all.

Siegel: But I actually think if you switch the genders you can keep all of the story points. Nothing happens to Maddie because she’s a woman and she doesn’t choose anything because she’s a woman. We could neutralize gender in this movie and you would have the exact same movie. That to me was very important and I wanted to make sure that my female friendship with Samantha [Sloyan, who plays Sarah in the film] wasn’t about about boys. It was about reading a book and talking about books. I wanted to make sure the relationship between the sisters was familial and didn’t need to be girly and giggly. I had a strong eye on that most of the time. A lot of this movie is, with a risk of putting too much into it, a metaphor for feeling unheard. It’s a movie about asserting yourself and of course as a female writer I brought a lot to that.

Macy: I also think if you look at his filmography that he’s pretty equal opportunity.

BD: Oh, absolutely.

Siegel: Mostly children.

Macy: Kids.

Flanagan: Yeah the ones I keep putting in the crosshairs are the kids, but I tend to think that there’s no person who is more or less acceptable to be treated violently than another. Within the genre I think it should be just as horrifying if the victim of violence is a man as opposed to a woman. Although I do think there’s a special kind of discomfort that comes when it’s a child. That puts me in a place of intense discomfort.

Macy: It’s more special if it’s a child.

Flanagan: Or a dog. People go nuts when you try to kill a dog.

Blum: Across the board, people are much more upset about killing a dog as opposed to killing a person.

Macy: Yeah I wouldn’t let him kill the dog in Oculus.

BD: I thought you were going to kill that dog, too. I also though you would kill the cat in Hush.

Blum: Cats are okay. People don’t care as much about cats.

Flanagan: That was the other point we had made. We knew people would be upset if it was a dog but a cat, people would be like “Whatever.”

BD: I think I’m getting the cue to wrap up, so I’ll ask my last question. I think the film plays very well with an audience and will play very differently at home on Netflix. The more I thought about it the more I thought if I was was watching it home alone it may not be as much of a “cheering” movie than I thought it was —

Flanagan: It will be a “hold your breath” kind of movie.

BD: Yes.

Flanagan: I wish we could put a card up in front of it ahead of the Netflix thing that tells you to turn the volume up. Something like “The producers humbly request that you turn the volume up and turn off the light.” Home is where we’re meant to feel the safest, so it’s kind of a great place to interfere with.

Macy: I mean I would hate to watch The Strangers at home by myself.

Flanagan: Yeah sitting at home alone watching this, sooner or later you’re going to look at the window.

BD: My last little thing, and it’s totally unrelated to Hush, but I know that you have been linked to I Know What You Did Last Summer in the past.

Flanagan: Yes.

BD: Is that still happening? 

Flanagan: My connection to that was strictly writing. We delivered a script to Sony.

BD: Alright, so a script exists?

Flanagan: Oh, yeah. Like fifteen drafts of that script exist. From what I understand with where that project is, is that the producers and the studio were thrilled with the script and they were just getting started trying to figure out how to proceed with it.

Siegel: And finding so many children to murder.

Flanagan: [jokingly] Yeah it’s just killing kids. The whole thing. But that one was always me and Jeff Howard, who have written together so much. It was always just a writing job that we were thrilled to have but there’s never been any conversation about me directing.

BD: I grew up with that book and the movie so I’ve got a special place in my heart for that one. 

After the interview, the group showed me a clip from Ouija 2, which Flanagan directed. While I’m not able to give any specifics about the scene that I saw, I can say that it looks promising. Of course, the bar wasn’t set very high with the first Ouija, but with a man like Flanagan behind the lens, I’m confident it will at least turn out decent.

The post [Interview] ‘Hush’ Director Mike Flanagan and Actress Kate Siegel On Their New Thriller! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

• Director Billy O’Brien (Isolation, The Hybrid)
• Actor Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
• Actor Max Records (Where the Wild Things Are)
• Author Dan Wells

*Interview has been edited to remove spoilers concerning specific plot details.

Bloody Disgusting: Billy, what brought you on to the project? Were you a big fan of the book?

Billy O’Brien: Yes. We found the book when we were looking for projects back in 2009. It was serendipitous. I found the paperback on a shelf and absolutely loved it. Then I contacted Dan and that’s pretty much how it started.

BD: And you co-wrote the film, too?

O’Brien: Yeah.

BD: So I haven’t read the book-

Dan Wells: I forgive you

BD: I wasn’t expecting as much comedy in the film, which I liked. I’m not sure if y’all have seen John Dies at the End–

O’Brien: I haven’t.

BD: Well it reminded me a lot of the tone of that film. It’s got a very similar dark tone with gallows humor. Was that humor present when you were writing it?

O’Brien: It’s actually there in the book.

BD: Perfect! I’ll do my homework next time before I ask a stupid question.

O’Brien: Yeah it’s dark and funny. Two of the touchstones for me.

Wells: Part of the issue of telling a story about a sociopath is that he cannot identify with the audience, so it becomes hard for the audience to identify with him. So making him funny was one of the little hacks that helped overcome that. John is hilarious while also being kind of awful and dark and hard to understand. So you like him even because of that.

BD: Max that’s actually brings me to you. John is a very lovable sociopath. Sort of a sociopath with a heart of gold. Did you do any research on sociopathy before taking on the role?

Max Records: Honestly, no. Though that might have been totally inconsiderate and a bad move on my part. But no for me the process was just me deliberately putting myself in emotional distress and see what happens.

BD: Christopher, your exact role is very ambiguous for quite a while until a certain plot development happens. Did you find it difficult in the beginning scenes to hide your what character’s true intent is eventually revealed to be?

Christopher Lloyd: Not really. I just played him pretty straightforwardly.

Records: What I like is that whenever the big reveal happens then the film could become this cool coming-of-age story where our characters go fishing.

BD: That would have made for a great movie. Anyway, the shoot looked pretty cold.

Records: Yes! You’re right.

BD: How was the shoot? It was in Minnesota right?

Records: Yeah, Minnesota.

O’Brien: Let’s put it this way: the people in The Revenant are pussies compared to us.

O’Brien: That was our joke though. They had $130 million and we had $1.3 million and our hot water budget was proportional to our budget. It was very cold though. It was -20° C

Records: In Fahrenheit the cold season was like 15° F or less every day.

O’Brien: Yeah so we had Christopher Lloyd out there in the snow on the coldest night.

Lloyd: That poor guy who had to lie on the ground though. He had to lie on his back for hours in the cold.

Records: Oh yeah! That poor dead guy on the ground.

O’Brien: Well I must have a sadistic streak because I found it great fun. Since I come from Ireland, I’m used to a lot of rain. To be in small town America in the middle of the most beautiful winter, filming on 16mm, it was a dream come true for me. We had fun on the shoot. Max loved it!

Records: I mean yeah but it’s also really challenging and hard.

O’Brien: But it was so cold that in the scene where we used a phone box [booth, for Americans], it was so cold that if you took your glove off for a second and touched the metal of your camera it sent a shock from your front to your elbow and it around five minutes for you to even get your arm back to normal again. But things like that. The cold will kill you if you’re not moving around. Your feet just turn into blocks of ice. It’s debilitating.

BD: Yeah I can imagine.

O’Brien: Dan Wells had the best head gear ever.

Wells: The night that we filmed the truck scene I had a ski mask that looks like Cthulu. It’s covered in tentacles and stuff at the mouth and everyone loved that. I was the only one with a warm face on the whole shoot.

O’Brien: I remember one time my jeans had frozen into tubes because they had gotten a little wet for some reason. I thought I had a copper wire or something in my pants, and it was just that my jeans were frozen. But using 16mm and filming it in the cold like that gives the film a real “authentic-ness” I think.

BD: I actually want to come back to the 16mm, but first I have to mention the poor guy lying on the ground in the snow. I interviewed the director of another film showing here at the fest and he had a similar story about a guy who had to lie on the ground all day covered in sticky fake blood.

O’Brien: [sarcastically] Oh no! Stickiness!

BD: Stickiness is my least favorite tactile sensation. Like, I would love to get butchered in a horror movie but I can’t handle being covered in sticky fake blood.

BD: So from anyone here, was there a particular moment or scene where you were just like “Fuuuuuck this. I’m done?”

Records: We had a lot of them, actually!

O’Brien: The worst thing for me was the frozen lake scene because I imagine that as a really overcast, cloudy day. For some reason, that day was really hot and the ice on the lake was melting. We shot the scene from very far away so I kept having to run to the middle of the lake to direct the actors and then run all the way back to the shore to film. It was horrible but beautiful at the same time.

BD: It is a very pretty movie. Going back to the 16mm, I think the grainy look gives it sort of a dirty feel were you as an audience member feel dirty while watching the movie.

O’Brien: Really?

Records: [tauntingly] Ooooooooh.

O’Brien: That’s a first. Were you at the screening last night?

BD: No, I watched a screener.

O’Brien: Oh you should come to a screening. Seeing that image blown up on the big screen? Everyone last night was saying how beautiful it looks.

BD: Oh no! You misunderstand. I’m not saying that the film looks dirty. I think the film looks very pretty, but the textures of the grain give it an unclean and dirty feel.

O’Brien: Oh okay I’ll buy that.

Wells: I think you’re absolutely right. A big part of that is Virginia, Minnesota. The town is run by steam power, which is all of those billows of steam coming up out of the ground everywhere. It gave it this kind of apocalyptic, grungy look.

Records: That town was wicked.

BD: Was the intent always to shoot the film in 16mm?

O’Brien: Oh yes.

BD: What was the motivation behind that?

O’Brien: Because we grew up on American films. Digital is a bit antiseptic and it gets mushy. We wanted to make a strong film that felt a sense of place about itself. There is something organic about film. There is something organic about the town. We even recorded the music analog. Plus, I just love film. So that was always the intent.

BD: Christopher and Max, how did you two come on the project? Did y’all have to audition together?

Records: We were actually cast years apart.

O’Brien: Max was cast when he was 12. He is 18 now. We spend six-and-a-half years getting financing for this film. I made a short with Max in 2009 before Where the Wild Things Are came out and knew I had to work with him again. Then we watched Where the Wild Things Are and really knew. We just had to get financing and wait for him to get older. It all worked out and was meant to be.

Records: Yeah I couldn’t have played this role when I was that young. I needed to be a bit older. This role required a lot.

BD: Well you did a lot in Where the Wild Things Are.

Records: I did, but that was also a four-month shoot and a huge laborious process.

O’Brien: And you had a Revenant-style budget.

Records: Yes! Something like that. But even if I was 15 I think the set regulations would have prevented me from doing much.

O’Brien: Yeah we call them the “child catchers” because they come on set to yank child actors out of there to follow regulations.

BD: So you were 17 when you filmed this?

Records: 17 when we shot. Yeah. I got emancipated from my parents so I could be there independently.

O’Brien: That sounds so intense. I always think of the Civil War when I think of emancipation.

Records: I mean I still live with my parents. It was just a work thing.

BD: Christopher, did they pitch it to you?

Lloyd: I don’t know if “pitch” is the right word. They sent me the script-

O’Brien: And I’m not good at pitching.

Lloyd: I read it and wanted to do it. I also just really liked the character. It wasn’t like anything I had ever done before. So that appealed to me. Well, working appeals to me.

BD: What is the release plan for the film?

O’Brien: Well we just finished 8 days ago. We’re here at SXSW and we’re very interested in buyers. We’re hoping to secure an American distributor and we’ll talk to them about their release package and see what the options are.

BD: And now with things like Netflix there are plenty of options.

O’Brien: But this is a film with a lot of elements, so we need people like you to tell us what kind of film this is. We’re not really a “horror” film per se, we’re a lot of things.

BD: I feel like genre films with comedic elements can be a hard sell. Writing for a horror site, I love gallows humor, but mainstream audiences don’t always seem to get it.

O’Brien: And I like films that don’t fit in a neat little box. They’re not just one thing, and that’s what I Am Not a Serial Killer is. I completely understand what you’re saying, but I just hope that people seem to like the film and want the story to continue.

BD: I’ve talked to several people who saw the screening last night and they all seem to like it quite a bit.

O’Brien: Cool. Well it’s original and very different, you know?

BD: Right. You can’t really pigeonhole the movie. It doesn’t fit into just one genre. 

O’Brien: I think we were even told yesterday that it was Donnie Darko meets Brick.

BD: That is an accurate description. I believe what I put in my review was John Dies at the End with a touch of Jeepers Creepers. 

O’Brien: I vaguely remember Jeepers Creepers.

BD: I only mentioned it because of the villain. Anyway, are there any other stories anyone wants to tell before I get pushed out of here?

Records: Billy does.

O’Brien: What?

Records: Spirit in the Sky.

O’Brien: Oh! Yes. We learned while filming that the second most popular song to play at funerals is “Spirit in the Sky,” so the fact that we include it in a film that is centered around a family that own a funeral home-

Records: There’s going to be two morticians watching the film who will be really excited about that.

O’Brien: We’ll have to come up with another one for the sequel.

BD: Is there a plan for more of them? I mean, there are a few more books in the series.

Wells: There are five books published. I’m writing the sixth one right now. I was in the process of writing number five while we were filming and we filmed that super cold freezing midnight scene and Chris said “Never write a scene like that again!” So [sarcastically] book five is set in the summer in Texas. Book six will be in Tahiti. But yes there are more books but it all depends on how successful the movie is.

O’Brien: You know how it is: if I killed off every character and the film was a huge success then they would find a way to bring them all back.

BD: So assuming the movie is a success, is there interest between all of you to do another one?

O’Brien: Well I haven’t read the sequels because I didn’t want to read them during the editing process of this one so that I wouldn’t try to plant clues for sequels. But yeah we’d love to do another one because there’s plenty of material there.

Wells: One of the things that concerned me was the character of Brooke. Because she’s here but she’s not really a big part of this story. But she becomes a huge part of the story, arguable the second biggest character after John, later in the series. So I was just sweating that casting and when we finally met Lucy I fell in love with her. And Max too of course!

O’Brien: Oh Max played John perfectly.

BD: I agree, and this is clearly a credit to you Dan, since you wrote him, but film is littered with annoying teenagers and here we have a sociopathic teenager who is not annoying. It’s a testament to the film and how unique it is. But I’m getting the wrap-up wave over there so I’ve got to head out. It was great talking to all of you!

The post [SXSW Interview] Roundtable Discussion With the Cast and Crew of ‘I Am Not a Serial Killer!’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

*The interview has been edited to remove spoilers of specific plot developments in the film.

Logan, you seem pretty comfortable in the skin of a prankster. What is the worst thing you did to your neighbors.

Logan Miller: Oh God I did terrible things. We were always getting into trouble, egging other people’s houses and TP’ing as kids. I mean we didn’t do anything to terrible. We didn’t burn down anyone’s house or anything. But I love playing characters like this because it’s always fun to be that sociopathic mind, a little bit. To try and manipulate others and be the enforcer is a huge treat. So that was a lot of fun and Kasra took a chance with me.

Kasra Farahani: Not at all.

Miller: And he let me work with Keir [Gilchrist] too, who is one of my best friends. So, I don’t know. It worked.

Farahani: And by the way, Logan is actually a really nice guy.

Miller: Correct. I am not a douchebag. I’m a lovable sweetheart and when you guys get to know me you’ll want to kiss me.

Kasra, this film had a lot of different elements from different genres. This also applies to the filming technique with using security cameras. What was your inspiration for the story of the film and how you wanted to film it?

Farahani: I think when you read the script it presents itself pretty clearly as having two different voices for these two different stories. Things that start out as two different stories and completely different points of view. The film is about the progression of this slow-motion car crash of these two worlds. So conceptually it was pretty clear. Actually figuring out what to shoot and how to shoot it was complicated. One thing I thought is that the boys are making a documentary with the combination of surveillance photography and DSLR photography. That’s pretty typical on YouTube or Vimeo where you see these increasingly well-made documentaries from young people who are interested in filmmaking. I think so many tropes of the found footage film are silly, you know? The cameras are always shaking and needlessly zooming and in actuality kids, even quite young kids, are pretty sophisticated with this technology. They’re good at it. My nephews are seven years old and they’re already able to film things on my brother’s iPad. I think that by the time they get to a teenage level that they’re pretty adept. So we wanted to make their story this kind of crisp, almost too crisp and clean, DSLR look. We shot it on these really crisp, spherical lenses and in the 16:9 aspect ratio. Then we were in the world of Grainey, Jimmy’s [Caan] character, we used this fully cinematic, omniscient 2.40 aspect ratio world. We shot it in a vintage, anamorphic way because we wanted things almost to feel jarring when you cut between the two styles so that when the characters merge as the film progresses then it means something. You see characters in this crisp, orderly documentary world entering this cinematic world.

For both of the actors, what was it about your characters that drew you in to this particular film?

Miller: Well for me there were so many things in this film that were combatting how I feel about the Internet and I found it really refreshing to be able to tell this story in a unique way. Like Kasra was saying: the whole found footage thing has been so overdone and in not very good ways lately. So to be able to take that and morph it and mold it in a way, I found it really refreshing. To show these two millennials that kind of have this desensitization of the reciprocations of their actions. They never once thought that events would unfold the way that they did and then they kind of see what they do online really effects somebody. I liked that aspect.

Caan: I don’t know enough about that stuff. I can play Solitaire now and that’s about it. But it was definitely that appealed to me. The idea of doing something unique is refreshing. And to play a character that doesn’t talk but yet try to…I don’t know….portray somebody that may be at odds with the audience? This character goes through a lot and to not say anything, which is for me nearly impossible [everyone laughs], was very unique and pretty difficult. I was just really interested to see what Kasra was going to do with it. He’s great.

Because you have so little dialogue in the film, did you find it difficult to play that part?

Caan: Yeah dialogue is not very easy. It’s pretty secondary to acting. I’m not slamming dialogue but you can’t say “fuck you” nicely. [everyone laughs] “Fuck you” is “fuck you” so basically it’s just taking away the easiest part and figuring out how to give this character life with nothing to go off of. I’ve had a director go to me “Jimmy can you talk faster?” And I’m like “No.” [everyone laughs] I can talk like I have to take a piss, but I can’t talk faster. So it was all behavior. It’s was interesting to try to give this character an inner life with no dialogue.

Farahani: That was a constant challenge because the story is really focused on the mystery of Grainey, Jimmy’s character, you know? Who is this guy? Is he a good guy or is he a bad guy? Trying to balance giving an honest performance without red herrings and keeping the suspense up-

Miller: Well and what we say to is that from our perspective in the film it’s so dialogue heavy. There’s so much technical jargon that we talk about and so we have this perspective that we know these kids automatically. But I feel like some of the greatest moments in cinema are the unspoken. To have Jimmy’s silence combatting against us in the film gives a good steady flow into the film. We are in two different worlds. We see these very tech-savvy and talkative jargon-speaking kids. Then you’ve got the loneliness of Grainey and-

Caan: That’s what is interesting though. Because there was a balance of dialogue where it’s like “Shut those fucking kids up already.” So you go from having almost too much chatter with the kids and then not enough with me. There’s a  lot of innovative stuff involved with the film.

I think there was a great authenticity to that. The end product ended up being a lot more genuine that had the film gone a more traditional horror or thriller route. Would you mind sharing the developmental process of how you got involved and what the product ended up being vs. what was tried with it initially?

Farahani: Sure. Well, I can’t speak too much about what other people tried to do with it. I know this script was written five years ago. It was on the blacklist and was picked up by a studio. The studio wanted to take it in a more supernatural/genre direction and it didn’t end up happening. Then the script kind of sat on a shelf and our guys found it. They really loved it and then they decided to make a play to get it, which is not a very fast process. I don’t know the details but I know it is really hard for them to liberate this cool script that is shelved like so many scripts get. Anyway, they were able to pull it out and they wanted to make the original version of the script. So we had a meeting with our agents and it just so happened that what I responded to in the material is sort of what you’re talking about. They fact that it isn’t a trope-y genre film. It has some of those elements but it has a lot of discipline in terms of staying focused on characters, which I think is weird, you know? The fact that people think a film has to be a horror/genre film or a character-driven film. It can’t be both. But every one in a while you get a film like Ex Machina, where it’s a genre film but it’s got strong character work and people love that. So it was our ambition to try to do something like that. A lot of it was in the writing and we just wanted to try to make a classy and substantive genre picture.

Miller: Well this film has the bottom-line structure of a thriller. The idea of this haunting project is there, but we give you the outside perspective of who is actually manipulating it so it ends up not being a horror film at all. You’ve got this story of this man’s life and along with that it ends up being this character story between these kids and the desensitization of youth. It’s good to have that structure of a thriller and be able to manipulate it into different genres.

Jimmy, you are also forced to act by yourself.

Caan: I’m never by myself.

Can you talk about the challenges of not really having someone to react off of?

Caan: Well in truth it’s a little more difficult because I was trained with listening, talking and being available. To do all of that by myself was a little difficult. I basically had to create my own dialogue within myself.

Last question: Jimmy, it was really cool to see you locked in a house again on screen. Did you get any flashbacks to the Misery set with all those scenes sitting in a chair and in a bed again?

Caan: Nah I was able to move around. Misery was Rob Reiner getting emotional. He thought it was funny to leave me in the bed for the entire time. This was different. I don’t know, it was interesting and new to me, but it was a different experience.

The Waiting is currently seeking a distributor. No release date has been set.

The post [SXSW Interview] James Caan, Logan Miller & Kasra Farahani On ‘The Waiting’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: What made you want to do a Western?

Ti West: I grew up with Westerns and it’s just always something I’ve wanted to do. I love the genre and to finally be able to get to do this is just amazing.

BD: I’m someone who didn’t grow up with Westerns. It’s not my favorite genre and it’s just not something I’m used to. That being said, I really liked the film.

Jason Blum: That is fantastic. That is exactly what we want to hear. I’m glad you liked the film.

BD: Westerns are a hard sell for the general audiences. Are you nervous about marketing it?

Jason Blum: You know I [pauses] I know that Westerns are a more difficult sell to American audiences, but I wouldn’t say I’m nervous. We are definitely aware of the challenge it will pose, but not nervous. It’s going to be a platform release. We just aren’t sure of the details yet.

BD: Westerns are sort of making a comeback now with films like Bone Tomahawk. Did you feel like the tide was turning on the reception of Westerns.

Ti West: That’s exactly what I was going to mention. This is the perfect time for this movie because of films like Bone Tomahawk now coming out and getting a great reception.

Jason Blum: We think we’ve caught the trend at just the right time and we’re confident in the film

BD: Was there a scene that you found particularly difficult to shoot or choreograph?

Ti West: Not difficult, per se, but I remember the heat. The very first scene of the movie was our second-to-last day of shooting and it was hot. We were filming in New Mexico in temperatures of 116 degrees and at that point I think that everyone was just so over it. So it’s not difficult in the traditional sense, but it was a very trying day for us.

BD: Jason, I feel like this is very different from a lot of the usual films you put out. What made you want to work on this? And are you seeking out non-genre films?

Jason Blum: I don’t think I’ll ever leave genre films, and those will always be my primary focus, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. Also, Ethan [Hawke] wanted to do a trio of films with me. For reasons that no one, not even myself, will understand, he wanted to do a horror movie, which was Sinister, a science fiction movie, which was The Purge, and a Western, which is In a Valley of Violence. I had sent him a bunch of Western scripts, maybe four or five, and he turned them all down until we pitched him the idea and he loved it.

BD: I’ll try to ask this next question without sounding like a dick

Jason Blum: Oh you can be a dick. That’s alright.

BD: Alrighty, here I go. I’ve seen Taissa Farmiga in quite a few things, and she’s just never really resonated with me that much. Even in The Final Girls, she still plays that same role of the glum teenager and you cast her as this bubbly young woman with a strong personality. Thank you for that.

Ti West: Well thank you, but really it’s all Taissa. As a director I can only do so much. I feel like there are limited roles for young women outside of the ones Taissa has been playing and I was happy to give her the opportunity to play this character. I think she really knocked it out of the park.

BD: I was surprised by the amount of comedy in the movie. Did you know when you were writing the script that it was going to have a lot of comedic elements?

Ti West: Writing the script I infused a lot of comedy in it, but I could only do so much. The actors really saw the humor in the script and brought so much to it. There’s a lot of gallows humor, which I think is fairly typical in my films. I just sort of planted the seed and the actors really helped it thrive throughout the course of the shoot.

BD: This is your first big ensemble film with a rather high-profile cast. Did you hold auditions or did you pitch it to actors?

Jason Blum: Well Ethan we pitched it to, but Travolta had actually read the script once it was done and reached out to us.

Ti West: Yeah, I got the call saying John Travolta wanted to be in my movie, and that’s not exactly the sort of call that I’m used to getting. He is a big, big name and it was wonderful that he wanted to do it. He brought so much to the character. All of the actors brought a lot to their characters. Even James [Ransome] who, as Gilly, is basically the most despicable character in the movie, gives him some endearing qualities.

Keep reading Bloody Disgusting for news on the film’s release. Even though it’s not a horror film in the slightest, we’ll still be covering it (because we’re rebels like that)!

The post [SXSW Interview] Ti West and Jason Blum On Their New Western ‘In a Valley of Violence!’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

When did “Outcast” make the leap from comic to TV show?

Robert Kirkman: It was a fairly unique situation. Sharon Tal Yguado, who runs Fox International, heads up the international side of “Walking Dead.” So, outside of the U.S.,  “Walking Dead” is a Fox International show. It’s on all the Fox channels, and they do these really cool worldwide launches, where they launch their shows like a movie.

Chris Black: Like in 120 countries at the same time.

Kirkman: Yeah, all at once. And it’s great! So we were at some kind of “Walking Dead” event between seasons one and two, and she just casually was like, “Oh, what are you working on now? You got any new things you’re cooking up?” And I just kind of thought I was at a comic book convention, talking to a fellow comic professional. So, I’m like, “Oh you know, I’ve got this thing I’m doing, it’s about this guy Kyle Barnes. It’s a sort of an exorcism thing, but not really. And it’s got some cool elements to it. And this and that and blah blah blah.” And she kind of interrupted me and went, “Well, I’ll buy that.” And I don’t know what that’s all about. And then the next day my people–as they say–called me up, “We got this deal from Fox International. What did you say? What’s going on?”

Black: “What did you tell her!? What did you promise?”

Kirkman: Yeah, yeah. And so even before I had even developed it much as a comic, I just casually sold it! Which was very strange.

How did that inform writing the comic, knowing it was going to be a show?

Kirkman: From then I was just left to my own devices to do what I normally do. So I started developing it as a comic book while starting to write it as a pilot. So, it was weird because I was writing them both concurrently. So there’d be time where I would writing the comic and I would say, “Okay I want to do this scene, but I only have four pages to do this scene. So, I’m going to have to take this element and this element out.” And then on the pilot script side, I could put that stuff in. So there were things where scenes ended up being very different just because there are things that work really well in comics and things that work very well in TV, and those are not the same things. It was pretty cool.

So they are in the same vein, but very particular to their media.

Kirkman: Right. Just the fact that there’s motion and sound (in television), it took me a long time on “Walking Dead” to get used to the fact that in television characters don’t have to say things. In comics, people have to say “I feel this way” or “I want to do this.” (In TV) you can do so much with gesture and movement and facial expressions. Sometimes you can do stuff with facial expressions in comics, but you can do so much more if somebody can move around without actually speaking. So that leads to a different style of writing between the two mediums.

We’ve seen a lot of possession stuff in horror the last five or ten years. Is that the biggest challenge in going into a project like this, finding a way to make it fresh, make it new, make it exciting for people?

Kirkman: Yeah, that’s a great challenge that we knew going into it. I feel like we rose to the challenge greatly in the first season and going forward. Knock on wood I guess. But going into it, we knew that like zombie genre, this is very well-worn. There have been dozens of movies based on this subject matter. We know what the audience expects from these stories, and I’m very excited to say that we’re not doing any of that. We’re taking a very different tract with this storyline and we’re doing very cool, very different things. We’re very much looking at this like it’s a solvable problem. I don’t think anybody has really every handled exorcism in the way that we have. Most exorcism movies you watch, somebody calls in a priest. The priest comes in the house, he’s like “I know what to do here! This guy’s got a demon in him!” And he takes the demon out, and he goes, “Alright, well, I’m going to go home. You guys have a good time.” And that’s the movie.

Black: Done and done!

That’s the nicest explanation of “The Exorcist” I’ve ever heard!

Kirkman: Well there ya’ go! And watching those movies, I always thought you don’t tell them how to keep them from happening again, and you don’t do any work to figure out why it happened or if it can be prevented or if it can be stopped or if you can make it so this doesn’t happen to anyone ever again. The fact that the priests in these movies are like “Well, it’s going to happen again and I’m going to get called and that’ll be great!” Is it job security? Is that what they’re after? I don’t really know.

Black: Here’s my card!

Kirkman: So, I don’t really know. Over the long form, this is a show that’s going to evolve. The exorcisms are very different. The tactics the characters use in order exorcise the demons will evolve and change as they learn more, as they figure out what this phenomena actually entails, and they learn better how to address it. And this is over the course of many many seasons, somewhere between 10 and 100.

Black: Wait!

Kirkman: (Looking to Black) I’m not nailing it down. (To Black) You’ll be fine.

I like the hesitance of Chris’s “Wait!”

Black: (Re-acting with playfully bulging eyes) Wait, what!?

Kirkman: Okay, just fifty. But you know, we’ll actually be looking at the phenomenon of demonic possession as if it is a solvable problem. Could we actually get to that point? That’s something our characters are investigating.

I saw an interview where you, Robert, said that “Outcast” was one of the few things you’ve done where you knew the ending when you were writing it. So in terms of the show, does that apply to the first season or the series?

Kirkman: That would be the ending of the series.  The length of it varies. I don’t have it issue-to-issue blocked out for the life of the series, but I do know what I’m working towards. Chris and I have been able to talk about it. We know what the end game is for both the show and the comic. I know that I have to make Paul Azaceta, the artist on the comic, draw fast enough to where it happens fast enough to where  it happens in the comic before it happens in the show, so the show doesn’t spoil the comic. These are the things that keep me up at night.

Black: It’s not a competition.

So no “Game of Thrones” situation where the show catches up?

Kirkman: No, we don’t have to worry about anything like that.

You don’t read stories about G.R.R. Martin missing deadlines and have panic attacks?

Kirkman: No, no, no. Although he is a much better writer working on a much more complicated project, so I don’t consider myself to be in any competition with him, because I would lose.

Black: I think that knowing where you’re going is important. When Robert says that, it’s not like we know what every episode of the next four, five, six seasons of the show is going to be. But I think Matt Weiner knew how “Mad Men” was going to end. Vince Gilligan knew how “Breaking Bad” was going to end. Mark Cherry knew how “Desperate Housewives” was going to end. But along the way, the process is about crafting the stories. You don’t know what twists and turns that road is going to take that ultimately get you there. That’s the fun of it.

Kirkman: And we’re open to those twists and turns and those new things that come in. Hearing you say that, I realize what an idiot I sound like in an interview because I write comics, which is a very long form storytelling medium where you don’t necessarily have to have the end game in mind. Where anyone who writes a novel or a TV series or anything else definitely has to know what that ending is.

Black: Well the thing is–

Kirkman: (Jokingly cuts him off) You stop it! You stop.

Black: No, no wait–it is a new paradigm. It’s this new golden age.

Kirkman: Yeah, yeah.

Black: It didn’t used to be this way where you have dueling (versions). Like the guys who created “CSI” they just keep doing it week after week. You don’t have an endgame. It’s an episodic procedural, so you don’t need an endgame.

Kirkman: But I realize now most writers probably hear me go, “This is the first time I’ve ever had an ending in mind,” and think “What the hell is this guy’s problem?”

Black: But you know Vince always said the pitch for “Breaking Bad” was turning Mr. Chips into Scarface. I mean, he knewwhat the big arc of that show was.

But even that pitch is very vague, and you can work within that.

Black: Exactly.

Kirkman: Oh trust me, the ending of “Outcast” is very vague. (All chuckle.)

Black: As is just about everything in it, from the beginning to the ending.

Kirkman: (Playfully scolding) Hey, hey. Careful, it’s not that bad.

What kind of research did you do into exorcisms? Do you believe in exorcisms? Did you talk to people claiming to be exorcists?

Kirkman: I didn’t talk directly to an exorcist, but I do a lot of reading. There’s actually a lot of cool Youtube videos of exorcisms, which is kind of interesting.

That’s a rabbit hole I don’t need to go down!

Kirkman: No no no!

Black: It’s a very deep hole.

Kirkman: But you know, between that kind of stuff–one thing we’re doing with this show is that it’s not Catholicism. This isn’t the standard “we have our rules” thing.

Black: It’s very ritualized in the Catholic church.

Kirkman: Yeah. We’re coming at this from a Baptist religion and there are Baptist exorcists that do work, and they do things a little bit differently. So I had to do a little bit of research into that, and what the ins and outs of that are.

What’s example of how a Baptist exorcist approaches this differently than a Catholic?

Kirkman: It’s a little more energetic. It’s got a bit more panache, I guess is the best way to put it. In Catholicism, the power is in the totems, the crosses and things like that. Baptists, it’s more like the guy himself is empowered.

Black: I think it also goes to the larger idea of the specific exorcisms and the arc of exorcisms is that our characters have to be a little more agile in terms of “okay this didn’t work, I have to try something else,” as opposed to traditional Roman Catholic exorcism where the rite of exorcism is very  you do this, you do this, you do this. With our guys, it’s a little more like we’re going in there and no battle plan lasts beyond the firing of the first shot. It all goes to hell and they’re like “We’ve got to do something different.” And that’s going to play out over the mythology, them needing to make adjustments, learning what works and what doesn’t.

Kirkman: It’s very much a case of two people figuring out their craft.

Black: Exactly.

I’m curious how much does the idea of faith play into the story? Are we going to see Patrick’s character dealing with his own crisis of faith?

Kirkman: The majority of how we address faith in the story is through Reverend Anderson (played by Philip Glenister), because he is a Baptist preacher. Patrick (Fugit)’s character Kyle is secular, so he doesn’t really believe in the stuff that he’s experiencing. Which I think is a fun dynamic and a good place to have that character in. As the series progresses, Anderson will see Kyle’s side of things, and sometimes Kyle will see Anderson’s side of things. That’s a good interplay between them. But also I think we try not to take a stance. There is no “this is the way religion is” or “this is the way you should believe.” We try to keep things open to interpretation as much as possible. We don’t ever want to come off like this show is preaching or evangelizing in any way.

Black: It’s very important to us that the show not cast judgment. They are people who believe this. And it’s important that within the context of our show, that the people–with Reverend Anderson as our starting point–that the people who resolutely have faith are not being looked down upon, not being written down to, not being mocked.

Kirkman: And that’s something that happens often in television, especially in modern television, where the religious character is not respected or is played for comedic effect or something like that. That’s definitely something that we are avoiding in significant ways.

Can you talk about the boundaries you’ll be pushing as a Cinemax series?

Kirkman: Yes. (To Black) Do you want to riff on that a minute?

Black: Yeah. Well, look, it is nice to not be held back by broadcast standards and practices. I’ve done a lot of broadcast network television where it’s like sometimes the limitations seem insane. To really be in terms of violence, where it’s about the graphic nature of the violence, or sex, well there’s not a ton of sex on our show, or cursing. We can do all of that (on Cinemax), but to me those aren’t the boundaries that are fun to push, it’s storytelling boundaries. It’s telling stories that would make a broadcast network executive go “We can’t have our main character do that. That’d be too much. You’ll offend people. They’ll betoo shocked. You’re damaging this character in a way we can’t get him back from, that we’re not going to allow that kind of storytelling.” At a premium cable channel, they’re like “Great! That sounds like a bold choice. Let’s do that.” So to me, that’s the what’s truly liberating about working for a place like Cinemax, even more so than we can show as much nudity and gore as we want.

(Jokingly) So that’s our headline: “Outcast” Promises You Nudity And Gore.

Black:  We promise you boobs and then deliver on the daring storytelling.

Kirkman: This is not a sexy show at all.

That’s the tagline: We lure you in with boobs…

Kirkman: Well, alright,

Black: Robert is like, “This suddenly took a turn I wasn’t expecting.”

Kirkman: There’s going to be a lot of disappointed people when they watch this show.

Like “Where are the boobs!?”

Black: This is Cinemax! What the hell?

Kirkman: Yeah.

So when it came to casting , did you have any input? Where you concerned at all about how might things might go over?

Kirkman: Casting was actually a unique challenge because the character of Kyle Barnes, he’s an evolving character. He starts in one place, and over the course of the first season and beyond, he moves into other areas. So just looking at the pilot as a slice, you don’t really get a full sense of where this character is going to go. So we had a problem with actors when we were doing casting that had a very, very extremely dark take on who Kyle Barnes was.

Black: And angry.

Kirkman: And angry, as is a fairly good of assessment as he is in the pilot. But we needed somebody who could do the pilot and also move into the areas we knew we were going to be moving into. It took a long time to find Patrick, someone who from minute one was doing the scenes that we were testing people with with a lightness to him. There was something engaging about him.

Black: He brought a humanity.

Kirkman: Yeah!

Black: There was a real empathy to him that you weren’t put off by, but drawn in by.

So when auditioning for that role did you only do scenes from the pilot, or did you sketch out sides that may not necessarily be in the series but give those later inklings?

 Kirkman: We did a lot of Kyle and Anderson scenes and Kyle and Megan scenes. The Kyle and Anderson scene especially ended up being in a later episode.

Black: Well, you wrote some additional scenes with Kyle and Alison, because Alison didn’t appear as a speaking role in the pilot.

Kirkman: Yes.

Black: Kyle and his ex-wife Alison are separated, so Robert wrote some extra scenes for that that we had (to audition people with).

Kirkman: Yeah, and we wanted to see people interacting. And there are characters who don’t interact in the pilot, who will be later in the series. So, you know we wanted to be sure we had all of our i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

Black: But pretty much we knew when Patrick walked through the door. The first scene he read, we were like, “Okay, that’s him.”

Kirkman: Yeah. And honestly it was the same with Wrenn Schmidt and Philip. Black: Wrenn Schmidt who plays Megan), Philip Glenister, who plays Reverend Anderson, it’s a wonderful cast. And we spent a lot of time in the casting process there, and Robert was there–

Kirkman: I was there more than I wanted to be!

Black: We went through scores of video taped submissions and sat in a room with actor after actor.

Kirkman: And honestly, Gabriel Bateman, who plays Joshua in the pilot and possibly–I don’t want to spoil anything–shows up later in the show too, that was a very involved casting process, because we had to find a nine-year-old boy that could do all of the things.

What is the audition like when you’re asking a nine-year-old to play a possessed kid?

Kirkman: With Gabriel Bateman it was amazing. A lot of times we would get the kids to come in. And I would tell Chris, “I’m watching them come into the room and when they leave to see how different they are when they are acting.” Because a lot the times, the kid would come in and be comfortable and be a normal kid, and then they do the audition and they were very stiff and not great. And so you wanted a kid that could keep that throughout. But Gabriel came in and was like a little adult. It was very strange and very off-putting in ways we really liked. He would go over to Patrick and say, “I’m going to say this now because I have a demon inside of me. And this is how I’m going to do this.” And he was like, “Okay, great. Let’s do this.” He understood so much nuance to the role that was really remarkable for a kid of his age. I think he is really going to go places. I think he’s got an amazing future.

Black: He’s terrifically talented. And when you get over to the other table, ask Patrick that exact same question.

Kirkman: Patrick has a lot of great stories about Gabriel, yeah.

Check out Outcast when it premieres on Cinemax on June 3, 2016!

The post [SXSW Interview] Robert Kirkman and Chris Black Talk “Outcast”! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Robert was talking about the casting of the series and they were saying that you had some interesting stories about the audition process.

Patrick Fugit: As far as I know we only met with one kid. I got the part and then Phil Glenister got the part and they said they needed to cast who would eventually be Wren Schmidt. Then they were looking for this little boy. We came into the casting director’s office one day and Gabriel comes walking in. He’s small for a 10-year-old at the time. He’s still pretty small but he has an insanely large personality and he’s very clever. He comes into the room and basically just owns the room. He comes in, he introduces himself, he shakes everybody’s hands.

Adam Wingard: He’s got a handshake, yeah!

Fugit: So his mom is like “Cool, you do your thing” and she takes off. Then he just sits down in the chair and I can see him sizing me up.

Wingard: And he’s not nervous at all, or at least he doesn’t appear to be.

Fugit: No, he was ready for something like that.

Did he make you nervous?

Fugit: Yes. So he sits down and Adam’s like “Okay so, are you good? Do you have any questions?”

Wingard: Well I thought I had to talk to him like he was a kid. I’m trying to break everything down in very simple terms and he’s beyond that. I would say “Okay you’re going to go into scary mode right here.” But he’s not looking at it like that. He’s thinking about his motivation and stuff and he said something to that effect during the audition where he had this in-depth approach to it. We were all like “Uhhh…..yes?”

Fugit: So Adam says “Do you have any questions?” and Gabriel says “Nope. I’m ready.” Then we do a take which is us coming in and talking to him while he’s possessed and going back and forth between an innocent 10-year-old and a demon persona. And we walk in and he’s so in it and so committed that I couldn’t help but really just be in it with him. So we did the first take and I was like “I don’t see any other possibilities. This is the dude. I think I turned around and looked at Chris [Black, the showrunner] and was like [mouths “Oh my God”]. “Who is this guy?” So we did it a few times and Adam made some adjustments and what’s really impressive is when young actors can change and take direction because a lot of times kids are coached. So they memorize what to do but not really why they are doing it. Once Adam figured he could direct Gabriel with why he should do something and Gabriel could interpret that in his own way (like an actor is supposed to be able to do) he could just run with it.

Adam for you. Coming from a film world, what was the biggest change for you in terms of directing the pilot. Was there a big change for you in terms of story telling?

Wingard: There’s definitely a different kind of time constraint. You’re on a much more accelerated schedule than you are on a film so that in and of itself was kind of scary for me. The main thing that was different for me is that when you’re making a feature film you’re making something that exists as a singular event, unless you’re setting up sequels and stuff. With this, you know that you’re trying to set up at least one season worth of episodes so for me I was trying to make my decisions like picking locations and casting and designing the look and feel of it. I had to ask myself “Is this something that’s duplicatable?” One of the things that helped me out was working with someone like David Tattersall, our cinematographer, who also shot The Walking Dead pilot. He’s shot so many movies from Green Mile to Speed Racer and everything in between. And he really helped me look at how to get through something like this. On the flip side of that coin, the network and everyone who’s putting all of this money in still want it to look and feel like a motion picture and not like a network series so you have all of these pressures to make it look and feel like that. Except in this case you only have half the time to do it.

To follow up on that: When you’re directing a pilot you’re setting the tone for an entire series. Is there a certain kind of pressure that comes with that as well?

Wingard: Fortunately for me all I can do really is put what was on the page and Robert [Kirkman, the creator] was a great guide in that sense that he has a very distinctive idea of what the tone and everything was. I come from a more humorous horror background. A lot of the stuff I have has humor in it and the horror that I’ve done in the past has a lot of jump scares and things of that nature. So there’s actually a moment on the pilot where I was approaching a creepy scene where a character is sitting there and in the script this possessed woman comes up to this little boy and his smelling him and grabs his hair and pulls him out of the chair. Whenever I was blocking it out I thought it might be fun to do a jump scare version of that where it’s the same thing but instead of her kind of looming over him we creepily push in on the boy and a hand comes in and yanks him out. I was doing a couple of takes of that and was a good ways into it when Robert comes over and asks “Um, what are you doing right now?” And I said “Well I’m making a jump scare” and he’s responds with “Well why don’t you take another look at what’s on the page and just shoot that.” I pushed back a little and then he kind of reiterated that it’s not a show about jump scares or the moment of violence. It’s about the creeping dread of that moment. That was a big turning point for me, which was really the first scary scene we had filmed. This is a show that’s about the anticipation of the scare and not the actual scare.

So how did you choose to approach your character?

Fugit: One of the things that’s always interesting to me about character stories is duality. For me what’s interesting about Kyle is his story is dark and his circumstances are very dark, but I like to try to get across that Kyle’s a very bright person and has a very bright arc and has these circumstances that surround him in darkness. That’s what he succumbs to when we meet him in the first episode and any character that appears one way but inwardly is something else is interesting to me. I wanted to get that across. I didn’t want him to feel to dark or down or depressing or something like that.

It’s kind of hard to watch a character that is one-note and dark. But the way you’re talking about Kyle it sounds like he has something that will make people want to keep with him. Is that something you think about?

Fugit: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like if a character is portrayed in one way and carries that momentum throughout then whoever plays that has to be really good at that note. You know, there are actors who are really good at that one note but most actors need more texture or variety to keep interested. I always think that if there’s more going on or a motivation to the character that they don’t get to express until they’ve discovered more about themselves then it makes it more compelling for the viewer to watch. You feel more of a desire to root for them or keep going because if a character is just a victim of the circumstances then he’s kind of annoying. So somebody who wants to be proactive and not be subject to anything is more interesting than the other way around.

Did you have a scene or a sequence that you found particularly difficult to film? Like one that after so many takes you were just like “Screw it, let’s move on?”

Wingard: For me I was nervous because there’s so much action with child actors. We’ve touched on that a little bit here but there’s some pretty extreme stuff that happens with Gabriel that involves him levitating and getting knocked around and all this stuff, so even beyond the fear of working with kids for the first time and being able to direct them in a way that feels realistic, I had a lot of questions as to how we were going to achieve the physical aspect of it. Those fears immediately went away once we hired our stunt coordinator and the rest of the team because they had a great handle on it. Hiro [Koda], the stunt coordinator, has a great knack of finding the perfect stuntperson for a kid. He’ll find a full-grown adult that looks like a child from the right angle and who can act believably in that kind of way and he’s able to coach the kids to do as much on-screen as possible while keeping them safe the entire time. But there was a lot of fears going into it but once we got going it was more a fear of if we could get all this and less about the technical ability of doing it.

Fugit: Yeah and sequences where you have to express physical space and time can be difficult to storytell because if you’re sitting there and watching it your mind can track what’s going on but as soon as you have to start telling the story and tell it for the audience then it become much more complicated. Like he’s talking about but also form the actor’s perspective there’s a lot of things that have to happen with your emotional pitch. Especially if you’re looking at a sequence like what we filmed which took two and a half days.

Wingard: Well it was sort of  several possession scenes spread out over the course of two and a half days. [laughs]

Fugit: So yeah two and a half days of pretty high-pitched physical exertion and portraying emotion on top of that and re-doing the makeup and hair and looking fake-sweaty again, getting blood off that may have happened. Add to that getting out of wire harnesses and stuff like that? It can be pretty exhausting. I think that going into that I kept wondering how Gabriel was going to handle it but the dude crushes everything so he crushed that too. He actually kept me going through a lot of it. I’d be like “What’s Wingard doing now?” But Gabriel is just 110% every take, all the time. He’s biting me and hitting me and jumping on me. That sort of thing.

Can you guys talk a little bit about the research you did with possessions and what you came into this with?

Wingard: Well I was already familiar with real-life possessions and a whole lot of different possession movies. The Exorcist is one of my favorite films. I sort of ironically but not really love The Exorcist II as well for different reasons. So for me I was really familiar with the idea but Robert’s approach to it was that he created this entirely new mythology to the way we were approaching the exorcisms and what I thought was fun was that you are watching characters who are looking at it the same way and playing by the rules that we know of it and then they’re kind of discovering that things are different and that this is the kind of thing that is a different reality than what we’re dealing with here. And that was also what drew me to the project to begin with. I didn’t want to do another Catholic exorcism movie or show. I want to tackle a lot of different sub-genres over the course of my career and exorcism is just one of those that is kind of lingering out there and if I’m going to do it it’s got to be something that’s really new and different and that’s what this is.

Before they send us off do you have anything you want to tease about the show?

Wingard: Um, that’s a good question. I don’t know.

Patrick is just hiding his face.

Wingard: [laughs] Um, well I think the pilot has a lot of surprises and mystery to it. That’s what makes it such a fun series. It doesn’t give you all the answers. I think it sets up the tone and feel and ha a lot of great moments but ultimately it leaves you wanting more and I think that’s what good TV does.

Fugit: Yeah. There’s always parts of the story that has a discovery period. Those are always really exciting to me. That’s what this first season involves. Establishing the rules of this world and sort of seeking out answers and things like that that I find really fun.

Were either of you superstitious about making a show about demons?

Wingard: I’m trying to think if I ever had any moments like that. I mean we were shooting in a real church and I didn’t want to be disrespectful to the people actually running the church. Even though the first thing we did is I think everybody was swearing like normal, but you’ve got to check yourself because at the end of the day you don’t want to be disrespectful. I mean it’s not my belief system but you still don’t want to disrespect.

Fugit: We had people put up signs up on garages on the street that said ‘Outcast’ is going to bring the devil to South Carolina.

Check out Outcast when it premieres on Cinemax on June 3, 2016!

The post [SXSW Interview] Patrick Fugit and Adam Wingard Talk ‘Outcast!’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: Hi! Nice to meet you.

Fede Alvarez: Nice to meet you as well.

BD: First I just want to say that I loved the film, and I was very happy that I didn’t know anything about it going in.

FA: Thank you I’m glad you watched it! Yeah this was interesting. Nobody knew shit about this movie and you never know what people are going to expect. With this, my goal was that no one would expect anything.

BD I definitely think that’s the best way to watch the movie though. I feel like nowadays trailers spoil so many things that to go in blind is nearly impossible so this was a real treat. But moving on to the film itself: What made you want to write this as a follow-up to Evil Dead? What gave you the idea?

FA: It was just me and Rodo, my co-writer on Evil Dead and this one too. We’re friends and we were just driving from Comic-Con in San Diego back to Los Angeles just trying to think about what we were going to do next. We knew- we kind of imposed some rules based on our experience with Evil Dead.

1) We knew we didn’t want it to be a remake. We wanted to do something fresh and original and new.

2) Because we used so much blood on Evil Dead. It was so much about that, you know? It was for shock value. So we said “Okay, let’s do a movie with no blood.” That was our rule: to not make a bloody film.

3) Let’s make it about suspense. Evil Dead didn’t have a lot of room for suspense so we wanted to make this one all about suspense and not related to the supernatural at all. That was and still is the trend for thrillers and horror right now. It’s always supernatural. We can tell great stories in the world that are not supernatural. If you go back to classics like Psycho, there’s nothing supernatural in there. There’s definitely enough real scary stuff in the world to make a movie out of.

So that was definitely what we wanted to do.

BD: I mean slashers are my favorite sub-genre so I like the reality of the situation.

FA: Cool

BD:  So I may be wrong, but I feel like I read an interview after Evil Dead with Jane Levy where someone asked her if she would do that again and she kind of skirted around the topic. You put her through the wringer on Evil Dead so it must have been tough on her. Did it take convincing on your part to get her back for this film because she gets put through the wringer again. 

FA: She said yes right away. She had read the script as soon as it was done because we are good friends, but no one had made an offer to her yet. So I called her out of the blue one day and asked her if she wanted to make this movie and she was like “Fuck yeah, let’s do it!” But I think once she got on set and she started to realize what we were doing she asked herself ” Shit, why did I get myself into this mess again?” I think she did an amazing job though. I was watching her on the screen and I was so proud of her. She really delivers.

BD: Yeah she’s two for two with you. I watched her on Suburgatory when it was on and she’s definitely got range, what with being able to do comedy and horror so successfully. 

FA: Yeah, definitely.

BD: So was this an easier shoot for you? Or was it more stressful?

FA: [hesitates] No shoot is easy and if it is then you’re probably making a shitty movie. Like when you watch Evil Dead and you see all of those effects you know that it’s not easy to do and it pays off in that way for the audience. Don’t Breathe had a lot of that too where it wasn’t an easy shoot at all. That doesn’t mean that it’s a negative experience or anything like that. Some of the best movies ever made were very hard to do and have nightmarish stories about how they made them but the audience doesn’t care. They want to see a good movie. That’s all they care about. I don’t mind making things even harder in order to give the audience a good experience.

BD: That’s good that you have your audience in mind when you’re making a movie. I feel like it can be easy to forget about them during production.

FA: You can’t make excuses when you’re making a movie. You can’t say “oh we didn’t have enough budget to do this” or “we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have time.” The audience doesn’t want to hear that. You get the shot. You get the moment. You want them to see something unique. Don’t Breathe definitely had many challenges though.

BD: I imagine one of those challenges was telling a story with so little dialogue. What did that script look like? Was it a really short script?

FA: No, it’s probably a 90-page script. It was always the idea that were were going to do something that was almost a completely silent film. It was ambitious though. At first we didn’t want to have any music, but changed our minds. And I think that Roque Baños did a great job with the score. It’s very simple with great moments here and there to hit you with tones but he never overdoes it. Wait, we were talking about the script weren’t we?

BD: Yes.

FA: Right. Well it was a proper script. Everything that you see in the movie was actually in the script. Most of the film’s beats are definitely in there.

BD: Did you have a lot of blocking instructions in the script? Or is that something you thought ahead and brought to the shoot?

FA: Before shooting we sat down at my house with our production designer Naaman Marshall, cinematographer Pedro Luque and costume designer Carlos Rosario and put a big map on the table and drew the house. We made it like a chess game and put the characters on the map and moved them around as we were reading the script to illustrate what we wanted to happen.

BD: So basically it was your version of storyboarding?

FA: Yes, exactly.

BD: I’m getting the cue to wrap up, and I have to ask that question you’re probably tired of answering.

FA: [Looks down] Oh, man. Don’t even start.

BD: Are there any plans for Evil Dead 2? 

FA: [Laughs] There are no current plans. We’re not talking about it with Sam [Raimi] at all. Like I know right now it’s all about the show and everybody is very happy with that and that’s it.

BD: What’s next for you then?

FA: I don’t know.

BD: Nothing?

FA: I have no clue, man. There are probably things but I just finished this movie. Literally just finished it a few weeks ago and the way I work is I don’t pay attention to any other projects while I’m making a movie. I think I owe that to the audience to really give them the feeling that they’re being taken care of and that I really care about every moment in my film. That’s why I don’t start thinking about doing anything else until I’m done with what I’m working on. Now that we’re finished I’ll go back to Los Angeles and start thinking about what I’m going to do next.

BD: Good! Well again, I think it’s a great film and I’m really excited for people to see it. 

FA: Thank you so much.

Check out Don’t Breathe when it hits theaters on August 26, 2016!

The post [SXSW Interview] Fede Alvarez Talks ‘Don’t Breathe’ and What’s Going On With ‘Evil Dead 2!’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: First thing’s first: I loved it. It was great.

Dylan Minnette: Awesome!

Daniel Zovatto: Great!

BD: What brought y’all onto the film. Did y’all audition or did you seek it out?

Dylan Minnette: We auditioned. We each met Fede and then read together with other people. We got it first, then read with a bunch of girls and then went to film the movie.

Daniel Zovatto: Yeah it was pretty standard but at the same time it was unique.

BD: It’s a pretty intense film. You both have had experience with intense films, but this is probably one of the more crazy ones. Did you have any reservations about doing it? 

Daniel Zovatto: No.

Dylan Minnette: For me it’s not really a reason you would expect, but here’s my story: It was originally supposed to film in Toronto, and then they called me to tell me I got the part, but that the shoot had been moved to Budapest. It took me a week or so to come to terms with it and say “Yes. I want to do this movie.” But I was so afraid of leaving. I had my summer planned out

Dylan Minnette: I had my band and, you know.

Daniel Zovatto: I called him and went to one of his concerts and was like “Bro you have to do this.”

Dylan Minnette: But it’s Budapest!

Daniel Zovatto: Exactly!

Dylan Minnette: I knew I was going to do it. I think I was just stalling.

Daniel Zovatto: Yes, you were stalling. You were telling me “I’m gonna do it man. It’s just gonna take me a week.” [laughs]

Dylan Minnette: I just had to convince myself because I was excited about the movie but the idea of just going away for the summer was intimidating.

Daniel Zovatto: This was your first time outside of the States?

Dylan Minnette: It was my first time out of the States so I was just intimidated by the idea. I’m glad I did it though because it was one of the best experiences ever. I’m unbelievably proud of the movie and I’m excited to be a part of it. There was no world where I wasn’t going to do it. There was never a chance I was not going to do it.

Daniel Zovatto: Or I would have fuckin’ killed you.

Dylan Minnette: Exactly.

BD: So were y’all friends before?

Both: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Zovatto: Well I moved to L.A. and we met because we both did an episode of Agents of Shield and we met there and…[looks at Minnette] you were sixteen. That’s crazy.

BD: Well I forgot you were in Scandal. I watch that shit and I was like “Oh shit he was in Scandal.”

Dylan Minnette: Yup!

BD: Well, not anymore.

Dylan Minnette: Yeah, in and out on Scandal.

BD: Anyway, was there a particular scene where you were…I don’t want to say ready to throw in the towel, but where you were like “Man, fuck this.”

Daniel Zovatto: Yes! There was a scene in a car. I couldn’t say a lint.

Dylan Minnette: Oh oh oh “The guy’s a shut-in!”

Daniel Zovatto: Yeah. I have to say “The guy’s a shut-in” and I would say “The guy’s a…” I don’t know.

Dylan Minnette: What were you saying?

Daniel Zovatto: I don’t know but it took me like eight takes and I couldn’t say it.

Dylan Minnette: I couldn’t stop laughing.

Daniel Zovatto: He took me aside after the takes and showed me the bloopers and by the last time I’m like “I can’t fucking do this!” I’m not American though, so there’s a lot of words that I really have to make sure that I say them right so I don’t sound like I’m Latino. There were a few lines where I just said “Fuck this shit! I can’t fucking do this!” Fede was in the back cheering me on though. “You can do this Danny! You can do this!” They were all laughing at me.

Dylan Minnette: But what were you saying?

Daniel Zovatto: I forget. I was saying something like “sha-da” or something. I don’t know. Anyway. That was a hard scene for me.

BD: The should just add the blooper reel to the credits. It would probably do wonders for the movie.

Dylan Minnette: It was amazing.

Daniel Zovatto: It was so horrible.

BD: Well you’ve each had a horror film come out in the past year, and yes I am counting Goosebumps as horror film even though it’s not a horror film.

Dylan Minnette: Okay. Yeah.

BD: So Dylan you did Goosebumps and Daniel, you did It Follows. Are you wanting to do more horror or is it something that just kind of fell into your lap?

Dylan Minnette: If I’m going to do horror I only want to do horror that’s good. So reading the script and knowing that Fede is making it I knew that it was quality stuff.

BD: But what if it’s not Fede? What if it’s written by someone else?

Dylan Minnette: If it’s a script that I like then yeah, totally. It has to be something that is different from the last character I played. I don’t want to repeat myself and I don’t want to make a trend.

BD: Yeah and you were the bully in Let Me In, so you’re doing a pretty good job in changing it up.

Dylan Minnette: Yeah.

Daniel Zovatto: I did a few horror movies but I’ve been really fortunate to work with three genius directors. Larry Fessenden (Beneath) is a genius and David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) and Fede are as well. Those are three very different movies and I’ve been given three very different roles. I did get the whole “Are you sure you want to do another horror movie?” questions from people and I said “Uh, yeah I want to do this one.” It was unique, different and the character was completely someone else who was so far removed from who I am.

BD: Is that something that you feel is looked down on in Hollywood? Taking a horror role?

Daniel Zovatto: No, but that fact of doing two in a row-

Dylan Minnette: And a lot of people get their start in horror movies so it’s kind of inevitable. It’s not frowned upon. It’s kind of like a rite of passage. It’s going to happen at some point.

BD: This is sort of related but it’s like how it used to be looked down upon for film actors to do TV shows. Now, a lot of film actors are doing TV shows. So my dream is for actors to go back to horror. 

Daniel Zovatto: Well you know what I think it will happen because there’s a resurgence with how films are being made. I think we went through 10 years of shit horror but that in the past couple of years it’s changing. The Witch is a great film

BD: Oh I love it. Not everyone loves it, but I love it. 

Dylan Minnette: I really liked it

Daniel Zovatto: The Babadook was great. Cloverfield is supposed to be good.

BD: Cloverfield is good. I saw it two nights ago.

Dylan Minnette: I want to see it.

Daniel Zovatto: But I really thing things are changing. I’m dying to see another The Shining-level of film.

Dylan Minnette: Well for me the best horror movie I had seen in a long time was the Evil Dead remake when it came out.

Daniel Zovatto: It’s so different.

Dylan Minnette: It is so different and then I saw It Follows and was just so impressed.

BD: Well that’s another thing. It Follows, The Babadook and The Witch are films that the festival circuit really loved but then when they got a wide release the mainstream was like “NO. What the fuck is this?”

Daniel Zovatto: Because they want to see Transformers.

BD: Exactly. Some people just want jump scares every two seconds and don’t really know how to handle “smart” horror.

Dylan Minnette: But audiences are becoming smarter.

BD: That is true.

Dylan Minnette: I feel like the movie has to be marketed properly though. Like with our movie we had all this secrecy and I think that really helps audience reception.

BD: I completely agree. All three of those movies I just mention had a lot of hype, and hopefully that doesn’t happen with this one. Well, I’m certainly not helping matters. I gave it a 5 out of 5 so…whoops. 

Dylan Minnette: Oh thank you!

Daniel Zovatto: Yeah man, thank you!

BD: Anyway, I’m getting the wrap-up here, but it was great talking to both of you.

Dylan Minnette: You as well!

Daniel Zovatto: Same to you.

Check out Don’t Breathe when it hits theaters on August 26, 2016!

The post [SXSW Interview] Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto On ‘Don’t Breathe’ and the Current State of Horror! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

One of the most beloved aspects of the film is the score, which was composed by Mark Korven. Hailed by our own Kalyn Corrigan as “unsettling” and Film on Wax’s Charlie Brigden as “lonesome” and “utterly rewarding”, Korven’s music is terrifying audiences everywhere and for very good reason: It’s scary as hell!

Related: Screamworks: Mark Korven ‘The Witch’

Below is an interview with Korven where we talk about the inspirations for the music, the instruments used, and whether or not Korven was himself so unsettled by the music that he had to step away for a moment here and there! Additionally, there are two unused tracks from the film that you can listen to!

Make sure to follow Mark on Twitter or check out his official website for more information.

‘The Witch’ has received massive critical acclaim since its premiere and has only grown in terms of audience interest. Are you surprised by this success or did you have a feeling that this movie was something special?

I knew it was special right at the script stage. It was going to be good and I knew that I had to do the score for it. And then when I met Robert Eggers, I knew that I had to work with him. It was so inspiring to be around someone with that kind of laser focus, with such a unique creative vision. As far as the success of the film, this I wasn’t too sure about. It was very much an art house piece, which I personally loved, but I wondered whether or not a wide audience would connect with it. But I don’t think this question was at the forefront. Everyone was just intent on helping Robert realize his vision for the film.

‘The Witch’ is a movie that is different from many modern horror films in that it takes place during a time when there isn’t any electrical technology, not even for lights. Did this near-luddite lifestyle that the main characters live in affect how you approached scoring the film?

Yes, in that we both wanted to keep things quite minimal, and keep any human imperfections in the score. The score is tense and dissonant, but there’s also a certain fragility there, which reflects these people living on the edge of existence.

The movie rarely ever feels open, taking place mainly in the farmhouse and the woods. And even when the characters are outside, there is still this oppressive miasma that hangs overhead. Was this claustrophobic feeling something you embraced and utilized?

The claustrophobic feeling was really something that Robert was shooting for. He wanted the film to just lay on top of people like a 90 minute puritan nightmare. I think he said once that in order for it to be horror, it had to be horrifying. Musically speaking that resulted in a score that was far more dissonant than anything I’d ever done. It just never lets up.

Due to the time period that the movie takes place in, did you try to keep the instrumentation authentic to that period or did you feel like the supernatural aspect of the film granted a certain amount of sonic freedom?

Robert didn’t want any traditional harmony or melody in the score, but he wanted it to still fit within the family’s world. So it came down to the instrument selection. The backbone of the score was actually a Swedish instrument called the nyckelharpa. It’s a medieval keyed violin and when Rob first heard it he said, “That’s it, that’s the sound of the score”. It was unique, but felt like it was of that time. So no, we weren’t really slaves to the period at all and our ears were are only guide. Which made it I think, the only exception in the entire film, since its attention to period detail is extremely O.C.D.! The water phone was used a lot as well, and that’s a 20th century experimental instrument.

Being completely open and honest, your score freaked me out more than a few times. I have to know if you ever got unsettled by your own music and had to take a break from writing and recording.

No, I can pretty much handle anything at all musically. Most of the music I get asked to write is pretty tense. I guess I’m typecast! It’s the content that disturbs me sometimes, like when I scored “Shake hands with the Devil” which was about the Rwandan genocide. I definitely needed a break during that. Oh…and sorry about freaking you out!

The post We Interviewed Composer Mark Korven About His Terrifying Score for ‘The Witch’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The band is going to bring their sound as the opener on the upcoming 2016 Decibel Magazine Tour, which will see them share the stage with High on Fire, Skeletonwitch, and one of the biggest names in the black metal world, Abbath!

To celebrate this upcoming tour, we spoke with guitarist Adam Zaars about their latest album The Children of the Night, the tour, and their fascination with the occult and horror. Head on down for this exclusive interview!

You can also snag The Children of the Night via Century Media or via iTunes.

Talk to me about the upcoming Decibel Tour. It’s one helluva lineup, one that appeals to several different metal genre fans. What are you expecting? What’s it like knowing you’re going to be touring with the legendary Abbath?

We’re looking forward to going back to the US again, it’s always a pleasure playing there. For some reason it works there for us, we like it there. This time around it’s a bit different than the previous tour we did with Deafheaven since it’s four bands now instead of just the very convenient two, but I’m sure this is going to be cool anyway, we’ve done it before. All of the bands are pretty much new to us so we don’t really know what to expect to be honest. It seems like a very wide line up style wise which is always nice, so we’re expecting a lot of different kinds of people to come! The more the merrier…

 
‘The Children of the Night’ received incredibly high acclaim from several big name publications. What do you feel this kind of support brings the band?
 

It of course helps us in some way, but in the end it’s all up to the music and it’s up to us to deliver that music to people live. Albums are of great importance, but we very much see Tribulation as a live band, a full experience, a place to let go of the mundane world and your mundane self. It’s all up to us basically, and the fans, not journalists. Better distribution and better press is never really a bad thing of course and it helps bring any band to new people, but so does touring. That said, of course it’s nice for us to get great reviews in so many different places and in magazines and webzines that are so different in style, it shows that we can reach a wide array of people with our music.

I watched your video for “Strange Gateways Beckon”, which looked to me like it had a strong influence from Ingmar Bergman. There’s obviously a love for the darker side of art with your music and visuals. What draws you to that?
 

I’m pretty sure Gustav Öhman Spjuth who directed it is influenced by Ingmar Bergman, and we also wanted it to have that old Swedish feel to it. Darkness gives things an edge that is otherwise missing, and it’s what makes Tribulation…Tribulation. It’s always felt like home to us, so I’m not sure what draws us to it, it’s just there and it’s always been there. It’s what makes something otherwise dead interesting I would say. What we are doing, since we’re already immersed in it, is that we’re mining the gold that is hidden inside of it and bring that to the surface. That’s what we’re presenting to the world, because there’s a depth and a width to our music I would say, it’s not only the darkest of dark, there are also glimpses of light.

I know that Tribulation has some strong influences from the occult and supernatural mythology. Can you tell me about that and what kind of impact it has on your songwriting and general musical approach?
 

That’s a personal interest finding its way in to the art that we make. It would be strange if it didn’t affect it, and it sure does. I think we all (in the band) have different answers to this question, but to me it’s a matter of a lifestyle choice and world view that is always present even when I don’t compose music, so it’s not that Tribulation is the final outcome of a spiritual life, it’s a part of it, it’s the art of it. To me music in itself is a very spiritual and psychedelic thing because it makes you think, it makes you feel, it makes you travel to different universes and it can completely change your day or even your entire life. It’s activity that creates changes, and so is spirituality. Also when I compose music I always make a thing about making the foundation of the songs, be it a melody or a drum beat, come from some place unknown to me. A long walk is usually the best thing for that for me, eventually I find myself humming a melody and that then makes it into the songs. It’s an unconscious thing, and it’s been a very good formula so far. “Occult”, in a way I guess. The lyrics also always have a spiritual theme.

Metal and horror have long been bedfellows. Do you find inspiration in the horror genre and, if so, what about it intrigues you? What do you takeaway from it?

We take atmosphere and aesthetics (which in itself creates an atmosphere) from it. And it’s not really horror in general, it’s quite specific and I guess anyone can tell really. I mean, we don’t really have zombies all around anymore, and even when we did in the past that wasn’t really the big thing. Ever since the beginning of the band we wanted the music to have the same feeling we get when watching Nosferatu (both of them actually), it’s a very bone chilling atmosphere, deadly and poisonous in way, yet it’s very , very beautiful at the same time. It’s “necromantic” I guess. The music and what the music actually transfers to people is always in motion and it reaches outside of that feeling at times, but that’s still the core of it. Another thing we have taken from horror movies is inspiration from the soundtracks, most notably music by Fabio Frizzi and Goblin. Atmosphere again. I also personally have an interest in a lot of other horror and b-movies, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with Tribulation.

Tribulation online:
Official Website
Facebook
Instagram

Decibel Magazine Tour Dates:
Thursday, March 17 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Soundstage
Friday, March 18 – Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
Saturday, March 19 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
Sunday, March 20 – Ybor City, FL – The Ritz Ybor
Tuesday, March 22 – Dallas, TX – Gas Monkey Live!
Wednesday, March 23 – Austin, TX – Emo’s
Friday, March 25 – Scottsdale, AZ – Live Wire
Saturday, March 26 – San Diego, CA – The Observatory North Park
Sunday, March 27 – Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory
Monday, March 28 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent Theater DTLA
Tuesday, March 29 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
Thursday, March 31 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theatre
Friday, April 1 – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
Saturday, April 2 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
Tuesday, April 5 – Denver, CO – Gothic Theatre
Wednesday, April 6 – Lawrence, KS – Granada Theater
Thursday, April 7 – Minneapolis, MN – Mill City Nights
Friday, April 8 – Chicago, IL – Metro
Saturday, April 9 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Ballroom
Sunday, April 10 – Toronto, ON – The Opera House
Tuesday, April 12 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
Thursday, April 14 – Boston, MA – Royale
Friday, April 15 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer

The post Embracing the Occult With Sweden’s Tribulation [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Bloody Disgusting: Hi!

Elden Henson: Hi!

BD: I got to see the film last night and I really enjoyed it!

EH: Oh good!

BD: So your character Pollux, being an Avox, doesn’t have any dialogue in the film. Is it difficult for you as an actor to play a character that has no lines?

EH: I think I probably had some fears when I first got the job but those fears quickly went away when I started working and talking with Francis [Lawrence] about the character. I was such a big fan of his before we worked together and he totally surpassed my expectations. The great thing about him is that he not only has a great visual style but he’s a great storyteller which is really important. We were having dinner before we started shooting and he said something that really resonated with me and helped me get into the character. He said “Just remember that with all the terrible things Pollux has gone through he still chooses to see the beauty in the world” and that really put me in a place where I thought I could do this. To have a director that you completely trust is a real luxury as an actor, and I trust Francis. And being able to work with someone like Jen, when she’s giving those impassioned speeches it’s like I don’t even have to act. They’re actually moving. So I’m not so much acting as much as I am being present.

BD: I can imagine. There are a lot of characters/actors in the film and I imagine it can be difficult to give everyone a special moment, but Pollux is the centerpiece in, in my opinion, what is one of the most thrilling sequences in the film with the mutt attack in the sewers. How was filming that scene? I guess what I’m asking is: was it fun?

EH: [laughs] It was but it was a little bit challenging, especially for Liam because he’s so tall. You couldn’t really stand up all the way in those tunnels and there was water in all the tunnels so I just remember being wet for a couple of weeks. I was really excited about that sequence because when we were shooting Francis sometimes listens to music when we’re shooting something that doesn’t have any dialogue in it so there’s this shot of us running through the tunnels  and he called me to the side to show me some playback while listening to the music he was listening to and I remember thinking “Man, this sequence is going to be awesome!” And then when I saw it in the final product I was totally blown away. I mean I was there shooting it and I was still blown away. The mutts came out great to, because on the day of shooting it was a bunch of stunt people in onesies with green dots all over them. It was hilarious but we all had to try to be scared and it was just a fun sequence to shoot.

BD: Did they have sound effects for them as you were shooting or was it just people in the onesies running around?

EH: You know the funny thing was is that everything sound-wise was so heightened because they built all these tunnels on the soundstage so sound really bounces around in there and even just when you’re walking through with all the water created so much noise that I think all of those things put us in the mindset of the situation. And I’m also pretty claustrophobic in real life so I was really ready to get out of the tunnel. That wasn’t acting!

BD: How long did that sequence take to shoot?

EH: I don’t really remember. I think it was maybe a couple of weeks. I know the main junction where the main fight happens took quite a bit of time but it’s hard to remember because we finished so long ago and it was such a long shoot because we shot both of the movies at the same time. It’s definitely my favorite sequence in the film.

BD: Yeah mine too. I don’t know if you’ve read the books but that’s the one sequence I was looking forward to the most in the series. It’s a great standout moment for your character and to fit so many characters into one movie, they definitely pulled off a standout moment for you.

EH: You know again it’s a credit to Francis. He’s so detail-oriented and I remember him pulling Wes [Chatham] and I aside and you start thinking about how we need to find these moments to connect so that when Wes does die it does feel as devastating as it does for Pollux. Francis is able to layer in a lot of things to help in the end product.

BD: Well I mean you get to do a lot more action in this as opposed to a less action-y role in Daredevil. Is there a big difference between working on something like this for a major studio and working on Daredevil for Netflix?

EH: Yes! There is a huge difference. You know Foggy talks a lot, so there were many days where I was thinking to myself “Hmmm…I wish I was back playing Pollux who’s not having to say anything and not having to get mic’d” and then you know the reverse was that playing the Foggy character it’s like “Man, I’m just so happy not to be running anymore.”

BD: That actually leads into my next question. Do you have more fun doing an action scene or do you prefer dialogue-driven scenes?

EH: It really just depends. I wish I could choose. The truth is I really love getting to do the action stuff. I rarely get to run around with a gun or look cool in black fatigues, you know what I mean? But then there is a part of me that loves getting into dialogue-driven scenes and thinking about how best to phrase something so it’s really telling the story. Dude I’ve been really lucky to play a lot of different types of roles.

BD: You’ve had a very wide variety of roles, going all the way back to The Mighty Ducks when you were younger. I think I first saw you in The Mighty when I was a kid.

EH: Oh cool!

BD: Yeah! It must be rewarding to play so many different characters, and also to have Hollywood want you for those type of roles because I imagine its easy to get typecast.

EH: Yeah honestly I feel lucky with every job that I get. This business is filled with really talented actors and I’m sure there’s a lot of guys out there who could have also brought something really special to the role I have played. I just feel lucky that I get a chance to do them. I just try to not disappoint or get fired. I just try to do justice to the scripts that are written

BD: Can you tell us anything about Season 2 of Daredevil?

EH: The truth is Jeph Loeb, who is the head of Marvel television, is holding my son hostage right now so I don’t say anything, but what I can tell you is that what Jon [Bernthal] is doing with the Punisher is really going to make people happy and we’re really stoked to have Elodie [Yung] playing Elektra. She is a really talented martial artist, and also gorgeous, so I’m really excited for people to get to see Season 2.

BD: Are you done filming the season?

EH: No, not yet.

BD: Do you have anything lined up after that?

EH: I don’t. Honestly as soon as we finish Daredevil I’m just looking to spending some time with my son because you know there’s a lot of days I go to work before he’s up and then I come home after he’s asleep so I’m just looking forward to going back to Los Angeles for Christmas and New Year’s.

BD: Well you’ve been very busy.

EH: Yeah it’s been crazy, man. You know on top of having a son it’s just that the last year or two of my life have been incredible. I’m just so grateful and happy, especially now that I have a kid, to be employed.

BD: I’m sure. So I’m going to backtrack for a second. You mentioned how you try not to get fired on your jobs, but have you ever been fired from an acting gig?

EH: I’ve never been fired from an acting job. I’ve tried to get fired–No I’m totally kidding. But I started acting so young so I know from a very young age how lucky I was, and especially to have a job that I loved. With each job I get I try my hardest to do it in a way that people will like and will also do justice to the script, but no I’ve never gotten fired.

BD: Last question: Is there a certain type of movie or genre that you haven’t done that you would like to try?

EH: I think it would be fun to play a young Ozzy Osbourne in a movie about the formation of Black Sabbath. How awesome would that be? [Henson tells his agent, who is sitting nearby, to write that down and make it happen]. But I would love to do a western!

BD: They’re making a comeback now with Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and Kurt Russell’s new film Bone Tomahawk.

EH: Dude I can’t wait for The Hateful Eight. I cannot wait. I know people are talking about the things that Quentin said but he’s just that type of a person so I don’t think people should be surprised. In my opinion he’s one of the most talented filmmakers. I would die of happiness if I ever got a chance to work with him. I would be terrified and excited. I have so much respect for him that I would be afraid that I would let him down.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 is in theaters everywhere today!

The post [Interview] Elden Henson Talks the Most Horrifying Sequence in ‘The Hunger Games!’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Directed by Matthew Leutwyler (), the film stars Mark Webber (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), Lucy Griffiths (HBO’s “True Blood”), and David Clayton Rogers (ABC’s “Nashville”)

“For ten years, inventor David Kressen has lived in seclusion with his inventions, including Adam, a robot with incredible lifelike human qualities. When reporter Joy Andrews is given access to their unconventional facility, she is alternately repelled and attracted to the scientist and his creation. But as Adam exhibits emergent behavior of anger and jealousy towards her, she finds herself increasingly entangled in a web of deception where no one’s motives are easily decipherable.”

Leutwyler was kind enough to asnwer a few questions I tossed his way….

Bloody Disgusting: Your new film Uncanny deals with artificial intelligence, which is one of those things that seems cool on the surface but the more you dig into it the scarier it gets. What are your thoughts on artificial intelligence? Is that a field we should be spending money on?

Matthew Leutwyler: I am a huge science and technology junkie. Like most people, I use advancements in both of these fields every day but we do need to start to be wary of where this is all headed and the speed which it is moving there. The characters in our film are all interested in pushing tech to its limits. I don’t think any of them thinks that it’s science’s place to question the morality or the dangers of where it is trying to get us to. That’s for someone else to worry about. To legislate. Adam, David, and even Joy are pretty hardcore. Constantly in pursuit of empirical truth without concern for the consequences. Of course at the end of their journey there might be some regret. Some concern about where this might be headed. I mean, even if all these technological advancement can be considered the next step in our evolution, we have to remember that evolution will always have anomalies and that bad things can grow from it.

BD: Uncanny isn’t the first film to deal with unruly AI. Are there any past films that dealt with this subject that you looked to for inspiration?

ML: When I was reading the pages as Shahin was banging them out I remember thinking about the Demon Seed. A film that really freaked me out when I was a kid. I think I had that in the back of my mind throughout the shoot.

BD: When an audience sits down to watch Uncanny, what do you hope they take away from it?

ML: First I hope they had fun but I think you always want the audience to talk about your film later. This film definitnely is one where you can look back on it and see certain things that you weren’t aware of on the first viewing. It’s also dealing with issues that are really timely as they pertain to where we as a society are headed in regards to incorporating technology into very important aspects of our lives. How far can we, should we, push it before it will start to deteriorate or possibly completely destroy our world.

BD: As a director you’re kind of hard to peg to one specific genre. Is that by design that you’ve jumped around a bit or have things just kind of worked out that way?

ML: I am attracted to lots of different types of films and stories but I am always interested in films with characters that seem to have a hard time doing the right thing. Characters that struggle with their darker side. So that seems to be a constant in all of the films I have worked on as producer or director.

BD: You’re trying to convince someone to watch Uncanny. What do you tell them?

ML: I tell them it’s not just for sci-fi fans. I love films that stir debate. Not necessarily films that provide answers. I think beyond being a creepy, slow burn type of thriller, Uncanny does this. It’s also fun to hear the audience as they leave the theater discussing whether they figured out where it was all heading while they were watching it. At it’s core it’s a story that questions what it means to be “human.” Of course the complexities of that question reveal that it’s not really a single question but more of a multi-ˇpart. What is unique to humanity now? What will be unique to humanity in the future? Can science provide the answer? And, as we move closer to the “singularity” one has to wonder if this will give new meaning to the question altogether.

Also, I hope that it brings up ideas of evolution. Is this technological advancement that we are experiencing the next step in evolution? Since we have basically become, at a biological level, evolutionarily stagnant, is this technological advancement really just the next step in human evolution? And if that is true then how will our biological selves merge with our new technological selves? I think in our film, Rainn Wilson’s character feels more like Kurzweil in this sense. That this merging is a good thing. That there is a real possibility of human immortality in the next few decades if we keep pushing to find the answers.

I’m also curious, as this film finds its audience, how older and younger people’s feeling will differ about it. My sense is that younger people are less scared of tech. They like being wired and using tech to help them accomplish so much. To be the best, most effective person they can be. Older people are more hesitant, skeptical to give over tasks that they have done for their entire lives to a machine. And of course if you like a film that is smart and a bit sinister then we’ve got you covered.

The post [Interview] Matthew Leutwyler on His Newest Film, ‘Uncanny’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

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The post [Podcast] Whatever – September 5th, 2015 – “Mad, Solid, and Long” appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.