'Super Dark Times' Screenwriters on Changing Up the Horror Genre
von Clayton Davis
The nineties. Banter on bikes. Stunning cinematography. If you fancy yourself a fan of unsuspecting horror, and in particular, a fan of exquisitely shot indie sleeper hits like It Follows or atmospheric homages to simpler times like Stranger Things, then you can’t get much better than Super Dark Times. The feature directorial debut of visual auteur Kevin Phillips and the brainchild of writing partners Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (SiREN) beings as what appears to be a We Need to Talk About Kevin-esque coming-of-age drama, until it takes a pulse-inducing turn into the horror genre and leaves its mark. We got to pick the brains of Collins and Piotrowski.
AWARDS CIRCUIT: I wanted to start by asking, why was Allison (Elizabeth Cappuccino) the one you wanted to root the story in?
LUKE: That was a character that I thought was interesting and, along with a couple of other characters, tried to beef up her role and her presence , and I think Kevin really picked up on that and sort of became really interested in that character. And we were like, anything that’s more for her to do, that’s something worth pursuing. … It wasn’t a decision that we necessarily made consciously early on. But I like that we ended up in a place where ... she doesn’t know that she’s in the movie that she’s in, whereas Zach (Owen Campbell) knows very much what movie he’s in. … In the end she’s able to, perhaps unlike some of the other characters, continue on with her life and move on from this. So it’s definitely the note we want to end on, which is not super depressing.
What about the decision to set it before Columbine, and before school violence was really so prevalent? How did that come up?
BEN: It’s obviously one of the problems with movies in genre that a lot of the times, you don’t care about the characters. So it’s like, okay, we’ll have some time at the top to get to know these kids, this horrible thing’s gonna happen, we’ll see what happens then after. And one of the sort of logistical, or just sort of pragmatic things is, we’ll just set it around the time that we were that age, because that way you can add a lot of detail and nuance that we couldn’t otherwise. That way, hopefully, you’ll care about them more. At least this was the thinking at the time, ‘cause I was—1999 when the Columbine shootings happened, I turned 15, right before or right after the shootings. So it made sense, when I thought about that, and we talked about that. And that kind of, at least for our teenage years. I don’t know if that affected other communities in quite the same way, but Luke and I are both ... fairly unremarkable, white middle class suburban guys , at least that’s how we grew up. That was the biggest thing that happened to people like us, because suddenly, overnight, a normal unremarkable suburban middle class white guy could be a murderer. And that, having been one of those people, and the year prior, having been able to skateboard with my friends, and listen to whatever music I wanted to listen to, and sneak into R-rated movies, and play whatever video games—suddenly all those things were being reported on the news as like, “Oh, if your kid listens to loud music and goes to watch movies with guns in them, oh he might shoot up a school.”
LUKE: almost feels like it had to exist before that, because a story that existed after that moment would be a very different story.
When it came to actually working with Charlie Tahan about Josh’s evolution, how did you guys approach that?
BEN: I don’t know how he came up with all of the stuff he did. Some of that him and Kevin dealt with. Like he doesn’t wear glasses in real life, and all of us do, and in the audition, apparently, Kevin took off his own glasses and gave them to Charlie. And some of that started there, where he just started using the glasses, and just using his own— But all the weird, like, the sniffling and stuff, we showed up on set and he would just be doing them. … But we definitely had conversations about the psychology of the character, as much as it could be discussed … And he would bring questions to Kevin, and sometimes those extended to me, and sometimes those extended to Luke. ... I remember one day in particular, sitting on set with him, and talking about the movie, Taxi Driver … and we had conversations about, sort of, sociopaths, and what that means, and I think being able to share with him that it’s okay to relate to the character. … And it was like, there’s a range to this sort of stuff, and the Josh character isn’t designed to be like, you’re scared of him from like the word “go.” I think, had things gone differently, he could have been more or less normal. I’m not a psychologist, so I’m not gonna diagnose exactly what he is.
What’re you guys watching now in terms of horror?
BEN: I don’t know how many horror movies I’ve seen this year. I mean, just off the top of my head, I’ve just finished Mindhunter.
Oh, how was that?
BEN: Oh my God, it’s so fucking good.
LUKE: You’d be interested in this one, Ben, I just watched a slasher movie from 1971, called Just Before Dawn.
BEN: Oooh, I have that one somewhere.
LUKE: It’s interesting ‘cause I’ve mentioned it online and stuff, but it was early enough that it was before the establishment of tropes and people were adhering to them out of reverence or out of laziness, or out of, you know, laziness disguised as reverence, and before they had to operate back then they had to actually still be movies.
BEN: Even though I knew most of what was gonna happen, Gerald’s Game was incredibly engaging on a very visceral level. … You know, I think Luke and I are both a little desensitized from doing this for so long having a visceral reaction to something I’m looking at is definitely a thrill for me.
I’m assuming it’s better than mother! Then.
LUKE: Well, Ben, you really liked mother!
BEN: I did!
LUKE: I don’t really know how I feel about mother! Conflicted.
BEN: I thought mother! was fun, but, you know, I’m in the vast minority.
LUKE: But I would rather just watch Black Swan.
BEN: We were trying to make a list of recent horror movies of like the past ten years or something like that, I feel like Black Swan would probably be in the top three. Yeah, you can’t touch that. That movie’s fucking amazing.
What are the other top two?
BEN: Aw man, past ten years? When did House of the Devil come out?
LUKE: Yeah, House of the Devil always comes to mind.
BEN: Huge, huge one for us. What else, Luke? I’m trying to think, not like I can’t think of any, I’m just trying not to give a dumb answer.
LUKE: Yeah, recently, I don’t know. I think it’s just shy there. When did Marauders come out?
So not It Follows?
BEN: I mean, that’s a big one.
LUKE: The Witch. The Witch—I like The Witch more than It Follows, but I like It Follows as well.
BEN: Yeah, you could throw all those into like the same conversation, for sure. I mean there’s definitely some others like that I liked a lot.
LUKE: I liked IT.
BEN: Yeah, IT—I’m curious to see how I feel about IT in a couple of years, ‘cause I think it’s like the success of IT is almost like so huge that I can’t even see straight at this point.
LUKE: I think it’ll hold up, ‘cause it’s filling a void that the others are not, and like so many of like the Top Ten of the year, or the past ten years or whatever, you’re gonna have a lot of indie movies that are big on atmosphere, and music and compositions, characters that you kinda don’t really want to—I’m not like, “Oh God, I gotta go back and hang out with the characters from It Follows as they swim in the pool and stare dispassionately at their cell phones.” But like, am I gonna wanna go hang out with Ritchie and Mike and—? Yeah, fuck yeah.
…
BEN: Here’s a controversial take: No Country for Old Men is the best slasher movie of the past. I mean, Chigurh is probably the best killer. He’s got the same posture and threatening as Michael Meyers, but that movie—
LUKE: He’s got his unique weapon, with his cattle killer thing, he’s got his weird haircut.
And he plays a game with his prey.
BEN: Yeah, he’s such a gimmicky guy.
LUKE: He just needs half a dozen sequels to reach his true potential.
Are all your upcoming projects horror, or horror-esque?
BEN: We wanna expand our genres into other territory, like as much as we can. But I think our natural state is as horror writers. I think, whatever that says about us, I don’t know.
LUKE: … I don’t think we’re ever gonna write like a straight drama, I think there’s always gonna be flavors of genre in general. Whether that’s quasi-supernatural element, or horror elements, or language that’s shared between the characters, I think there’s gonna be something that’s a little left-of-center.
BEN: I did have an idea for a romantic comedy the other day. I’m not joking at all. Luke, I haven’t told you about it.
LUKE: I’ve got that one too.
BEN: I got a straight up, what would be like, a 90s Meg Ryan movie.
LUKE: I’m not saying we’re gonna do it.
BEN: Unless it is the plot for one of these movies, we should just write it, because it’s like unbelievable. But if not, so who knows, maybe we’ll do a romantic comedy next.
"Downsizing" opens in theaters on Dec. 22.
AWARDS CIRCUIT: I wanted to start by asking, why was Allison (Elizabeth Cappuccino) the one you wanted to root the story in?
LUKE: That was a character that I thought was interesting and, along with a couple of other characters, tried to beef up her role and her presence , and I think Kevin really picked up on that and sort of became really interested in that character. And we were like, anything that’s more for her to do, that’s something worth pursuing. … It wasn’t a decision that we necessarily made consciously early on. But I like that we ended up in a place where ... she doesn’t know that she’s in the movie that she’s in, whereas Zach (Owen Campbell) knows very much what movie he’s in. … In the end she’s able to, perhaps unlike some of the other characters, continue on with her life and move on from this. So it’s definitely the note we want to end on, which is not super depressing.
What about the decision to set it before Columbine, and before school violence was really so prevalent? How did that come up?
BEN: It’s obviously one of the problems with movies in genre that a lot of the times, you don’t care about the characters. So it’s like, okay, we’ll have some time at the top to get to know these kids, this horrible thing’s gonna happen, we’ll see what happens then after. And one of the sort of logistical, or just sort of pragmatic things is, we’ll just set it around the time that we were that age, because that way you can add a lot of detail and nuance that we couldn’t otherwise. That way, hopefully, you’ll care about them more. At least this was the thinking at the time, ‘cause I was—1999 when the Columbine shootings happened, I turned 15, right before or right after the shootings. So it made sense, when I thought about that, and we talked about that. And that kind of, at least for our teenage years. I don’t know if that affected other communities in quite the same way, but Luke and I are both ... fairly unremarkable, white middle class suburban guys , at least that’s how we grew up. That was the biggest thing that happened to people like us, because suddenly, overnight, a normal unremarkable suburban middle class white guy could be a murderer. And that, having been one of those people, and the year prior, having been able to skateboard with my friends, and listen to whatever music I wanted to listen to, and sneak into R-rated movies, and play whatever video games—suddenly all those things were being reported on the news as like, “Oh, if your kid listens to loud music and goes to watch movies with guns in them, oh he might shoot up a school.”
LUKE: almost feels like it had to exist before that, because a story that existed after that moment would be a very different story.
When it came to actually working with Charlie Tahan about Josh’s evolution, how did you guys approach that?
BEN: I don’t know how he came up with all of the stuff he did. Some of that him and Kevin dealt with. Like he doesn’t wear glasses in real life, and all of us do, and in the audition, apparently, Kevin took off his own glasses and gave them to Charlie. And some of that started there, where he just started using the glasses, and just using his own— But all the weird, like, the sniffling and stuff, we showed up on set and he would just be doing them. … But we definitely had conversations about the psychology of the character, as much as it could be discussed … And he would bring questions to Kevin, and sometimes those extended to me, and sometimes those extended to Luke. ... I remember one day in particular, sitting on set with him, and talking about the movie, Taxi Driver … and we had conversations about, sort of, sociopaths, and what that means, and I think being able to share with him that it’s okay to relate to the character. … And it was like, there’s a range to this sort of stuff, and the Josh character isn’t designed to be like, you’re scared of him from like the word “go.” I think, had things gone differently, he could have been more or less normal. I’m not a psychologist, so I’m not gonna diagnose exactly what he is.
What’re you guys watching now in terms of horror?
BEN: I don’t know how many horror movies I’ve seen this year. I mean, just off the top of my head, I’ve just finished Mindhunter.
Oh, how was that?
BEN: Oh my God, it’s so fucking good.
LUKE: You’d be interested in this one, Ben, I just watched a slasher movie from 1971, called Just Before Dawn.
BEN: Oooh, I have that one somewhere.
LUKE: It’s interesting ‘cause I’ve mentioned it online and stuff, but it was early enough that it was before the establishment of tropes and people were adhering to them out of reverence or out of laziness, or out of, you know, laziness disguised as reverence, and before they had to operate back then they had to actually still be movies.
BEN: Even though I knew most of what was gonna happen, Gerald’s Game was incredibly engaging on a very visceral level. … You know, I think Luke and I are both a little desensitized from doing this for so long having a visceral reaction to something I’m looking at is definitely a thrill for me.
I’m assuming it’s better than mother! Then.
LUKE: Well, Ben, you really liked mother!
BEN: I did!
LUKE: I don’t really know how I feel about mother! Conflicted.
BEN: I thought mother! was fun, but, you know, I’m in the vast minority.
LUKE: But I would rather just watch Black Swan.
BEN: We were trying to make a list of recent horror movies of like the past ten years or something like that, I feel like Black Swan would probably be in the top three. Yeah, you can’t touch that. That movie’s fucking amazing.
What are the other top two?
BEN: Aw man, past ten years? When did House of the Devil come out?
LUKE: Yeah, House of the Devil always comes to mind.
BEN: Huge, huge one for us. What else, Luke? I’m trying to think, not like I can’t think of any, I’m just trying not to give a dumb answer.
LUKE: Yeah, recently, I don’t know. I think it’s just shy there. When did Marauders come out?
So not It Follows?
BEN: I mean, that’s a big one.
LUKE: The Witch. The Witch—I like The Witch more than It Follows, but I like It Follows as well.
BEN: Yeah, you could throw all those into like the same conversation, for sure. I mean there’s definitely some others like that I liked a lot.
LUKE: I liked IT.
BEN: Yeah, IT—I’m curious to see how I feel about IT in a couple of years, ‘cause I think it’s like the success of IT is almost like so huge that I can’t even see straight at this point.
LUKE: I think it’ll hold up, ‘cause it’s filling a void that the others are not, and like so many of like the Top Ten of the year, or the past ten years or whatever, you’re gonna have a lot of indie movies that are big on atmosphere, and music and compositions, characters that you kinda don’t really want to—I’m not like, “Oh God, I gotta go back and hang out with the characters from It Follows as they swim in the pool and stare dispassionately at their cell phones.” But like, am I gonna wanna go hang out with Ritchie and Mike and—? Yeah, fuck yeah.
…
BEN: Here’s a controversial take: No Country for Old Men is the best slasher movie of the past. I mean, Chigurh is probably the best killer. He’s got the same posture and threatening as Michael Meyers, but that movie—
LUKE: He’s got his unique weapon, with his cattle killer thing, he’s got his weird haircut.
And he plays a game with his prey.
BEN: Yeah, he’s such a gimmicky guy.
LUKE: He just needs half a dozen sequels to reach his true potential.
Are all your upcoming projects horror, or horror-esque?
BEN: We wanna expand our genres into other territory, like as much as we can. But I think our natural state is as horror writers. I think, whatever that says about us, I don’t know.
LUKE: … I don’t think we’re ever gonna write like a straight drama, I think there’s always gonna be flavors of genre in general. Whether that’s quasi-supernatural element, or horror elements, or language that’s shared between the characters, I think there’s gonna be something that’s a little left-of-center.
BEN: I did have an idea for a romantic comedy the other day. I’m not joking at all. Luke, I haven’t told you about it.
LUKE: I’ve got that one too.
BEN: I got a straight up, what would be like, a 90s Meg Ryan movie.
LUKE: I’m not saying we’re gonna do it.
BEN: Unless it is the plot for one of these movies, we should just write it, because it’s like unbelievable. But if not, so who knows, maybe we’ll do a romantic comedy next.
"Downsizing" opens in theaters on Dec. 22.
Read the full article
Clayton Davis
Keine Verbindung
Verbindung wird wiederhergestellt
Etwas ist schiefgelaufen
Wir sind gleich wieder da