Horror movies &stuff - Seth Landau, "Bryan Loves You" interview
Director Seth Landau has a long resume of indie projects, stemming from comedies such as "Take Out", to horror films such as "Ted Bundy". Not only does he direct his own movies, but he also stars in and writes them. Now, he will soon be bringing us a new experiment in terror called "Bryan Loves You", a film based on the true story of a dangerous cult that takes over an Arizona town. In this interview, he discusses the film, and the impact he hopes it has on the genre.
MR. H:So I noticed that you're a Queens guy, born and raised in Queens New York. Do you ever visit your old stomping grounds every now and then?
Seth:Uh well my dads side of the family is from the Bronx and my moms side of the family is from Brooklyn. When my sister was born, we moved to Long Island, so I was raised in Suffolk County. Then we moved to Arizona which is where I attended high school, the last time I went back to New York was about 6 or 7 years ago. But I still have the Long Island accent.
MR. H:You seem to posess a nack for directing, writing, and starring in your own projects. Does that ever get exhausting?
Seth:Yeah it does, it's really tiring but um, I come from a background where I've done different things like I wrote for the paper in college, I have a theater background, I acted in theater like everyone else did in High School. So I did those things, and I basically put them together and moved to Hollywood with the intent to act. Then I realized that it's kind of difficult when you put yourself in the position of only being an actor...so I started to write, and I studied screenplay format. I think the important thing is to be a leader, whether you're captain of a team or boss of an office, so like I said I kind of put all of that stuff together and while it does get tiring there's nothing else I'd rather do.
MR. H:You've done other films before "Bryan Loves You", but do you feel that this movie will be the film that gains you major recognition in the indie film community and in the horror community in general?
Seth:Yeah I do because before I did "Bryan" I did a short which is currently on You Tube, and I did a feature which was completed and -- as for "Bryan", yeah I do because it's a genre film and for some reason the horror community is just very supportive and want good content delivered to them. Unlike the comedy community where people say "that's not funny", on the horror/sci-fi side everyones really into it and everyone enjoys watching new stuff. We have a supportive community, and good names in the movie that are attractive to buyers and fans so it's up to us to deliver a good film.
MR. H:What did you mostly set out to accomplish with "Bryan Loves You", to make a creepy movie that people will enjoy just for the duration, or to make a film that will scare people immensely and end up being one of those cult horror movies that a certain segment of genre fans never forget about?
Seth:I think anything that I do I want it to be memorable, and to be embraced, and referred back to in conversation. To me growing up, to this day...movies were my favorite form of art, things I confide in. If I'm feeling down, they bring me up, if I'm feeling happy they sustain my mood. Anything I do, "Bryan" included..I want people to connect with the movie, and talk about it. Basically when I made "Bryan", I tried to make something topical and universal at the same time, something people can relate to like that feeling of having no control, and being powerless, and the character feels that way because of this cult in Arizona (and they really exist in Arizona). So I tried to make something people could embrace and relate to, a movie where you can identify with the character's outside environment, an environment that's quite dangerous even though he doesn't realize it at first. But as the movie goes on he begins to realize he's in more and more danger and you're wondering whether he will live or die, and you're watching and really care about what's happening to him. So hopefully people can relate, and be creeped out by that kind of thing where you think something like that could happen to me.
MR. H:What target audience would you say "Bryan Loves You" will most appeal to? The 13-18 year old horror fan, or the 18-30 year old horror fan??
Seth:It's hard to say because first of all when you make a movie it's hard to know who will connect like you think "oh he's going to love it" but they don't, and you think "he won't like it", but he does. But it has all of the traditional genre elements like the cult, the masks, that Freddy and Jason stuff that the younger audience loves...however the idea is fairly sophisticated in that it's about a community on lockdown, under control, and a central character who discovers this over a course of scary events. On a certain level, kids can get into it when you've got the cult wearing masks, and fighting, and breathing like zombies, etc...elements the younger audience can connect to. The central character in the movie is age 30, like I am so anyone who's ever felt they don't fit in, or are the outsider will connect with it. But to put it in simple terms, both really, college and older. Seniors, probably not.
MR. H:How long did it take you to complete the script for "Bryan Loves You"?
Seth:Actually really fast, it too me about 6 to 8 weeks. My writing style is different from most people in that I never rewrite, and it's all handwritten. I hate the public school style of writing, like I hate the standard english format. When I write I don't do standard format, I take my handwritten notes, go over what happens in act 1, 2, and 3, go over my central bad guys and central good guys, you know kind of like you're mapping out a football play. As long as I have my notes. Compiling them takes me about 1 to 2 weeks, the script takes about 4 to 8, once I start writing from page 120 or whatever it turns out to be. I actually lived the story so it wasn't hard making stuff up since it actually happened.
MR. H:As far as the talent is concerned, Tony Todd, Tiffany Shepis, Brinke Stevens, Lloyd Kaufman, etc...did you specifically want these actors in your movie, and actively pursued them, or did they come in to read for the film and as fate would have it, you just happened to wind up with a very talented cast?
Seth:Well the way it worked was I built on my past movie, which we're now selling had Dan Roebuck in it from "Bubba Ho-tep" and "The Devil's Rejects" and he's an amazing actor so he came aboard right away. George was someone I met during "Take Out" which was a film he couldn't do due to scheduling conflicts and all. So when I was ready to start filling the movie with good names, he was someone I thought about. The others I got through Stuart Gordon, a mutal contact. I sent him the script when he was working on something, I think a script..up in Canada. He called me in, we started building, and pretty soon we had 7 good recognizable actors, and other actors began to find out about it and wanted to be a part of it. Tiffany was a weird circumstance, I saw Tiffany on "Ted Bundy", that was the first time I actually saw Tiffany Shepis. I knew of her though, and I bumped into her in L.A. when I was meeting with my DP and we started talking and we got onto the subject of my film and she asked "So you got a part for Tiffany Shepis?", and I said "Will Tiffany work for scale?". But yeah it was a total fluke I ran into her, movies are weird like that..especially indies because you start with a core of solid actors, and if people like what you write, and you're reputable..people show interest. So anyway, George comes in, Tiff comes in..Tony was the last to come in, because we were looking for a solid actor as the narrator, but we wanted someone recognizable for the genre audience. Tony kicks off the movie, and we really believed in him because this guy carries some weight, and he saw the cast we had, and he came aboard. In fact other good names wanted to come aboard later on but we were full, people were talking about the movie, Tiffany was talking about it around town and all but the great thing is, hopefully the next movie they'll be in it. So in short, how did it come about? Partial chance, partial who did I know before.
MR. H:You play Jonathan in the film, tell us a little bit about his character and how his relevance to the overall story.
Seth:Basically he's from New York, moves to Arizona, he's a therapist, and basically moves out west for work because the cost of living is cheaper and it's not as fast as New York..typical big city to smalltown story. But what he thinks is more peace of mind turns out to be the exact opposite, and he realizes he's wacked himself into zombie central you know extremely dangerous. He has a couple of friends, and he notices things are very wrong when one of his friends gets clipped by the cult, and then his close friend soon falls under such a fade as well. Now he's trying to figure out what's happening because he's been abandoned and there's not many friendly faces around and in most of the third act he's commited to a mental hospital so he's very much a character who's out of place. You begin to think very much that he might get killed and he comes close alot of times, and the way it's shot hopefully the audience can live vicariously through the character since the movie is supposed to look like it was shot in recovered footage, you're supposed to believe that everything you're watching actually happened, in a standard narrative style.
MR. H:Should "Bryan Loves You" do well, do you see any possibility for a sequel? Is this a film that you think could be sequelized, or is it the type of movie that would be ruined by a followup?
Seth:Definitely, for many reasons. It's impossible to say without seeing the movie, or giving too much away but most definitely there could be a sequel, or several.
MR. H:I remember hearing that you guys had some problems with the Arizona locals because you were filming this particular movie. Is that true, and if so what exactly happened?
Seth:Um, it's hard to say exactly but weird shit definitely went down during production, but I wanna stay mutual. I would say alot of people in town were really supportive, but one day during this pivotal scene we were going to shoot at this big house, essentially a church for the Bryans in Metro Phoenix for a couple of days. Every day we would check the local media to see if we made any hits, and the Arizona Republic wrote this blurb in the Statewide Section and they published the location and time for our scene and gave out my producers personal info and email, which you never do. I have no clue how that happened because you don't want everyone having access to that regardless of if it's a movie or not. So they ran a story inviting everyone to show up, and it said we were looking for cultists, crazies, and we were trying to keep ourselves out of the papers due to the type of movie were were shooting. Because Arizona is very conservative, it's not like New York or L.A., it has that whole smalltown vibe, so we were trying not to ring up any contoversy. However, when this thing ran in the paper we didn't want to create a panic, and have lots of people show up only to have to turn away an angry crowd. So the next night, I called the editor, who ironically I used to work for, and asked him to please remove us from his online edition immediately. But we got 300 emails from people who were going to come down, and were asking what kind of part we were looking for, so we had to turn away hundreds of people via email, and that took time out of our production schedule. Luckily we averted an ugly situation because the last thing you wanna do is have to say no to all of those people once they come down to the set. Think of it as a concert where the main act doesn't go on stage, it can get ugly. Someone leaked it to the paper and I have no clue if they had good intentions or bad intentions, it's impossible to tell. Could've been someone trying to help out or send a message that we were not wanted there.
MR. H:Who are some of your biggest influences as a director?
Seth:Um...don't know if I have any director influences, I have movie influences but um..I would probably say Danny Boyle, most of what he does is really good. Even movies that aren't horror influenced me either negatively like prevented me from getting any sleep, or positively and gave me a good idea. Some of the movies that influenced me were "Alice In Wonderland", the 80's made for tv version, it was like a big thing in New York back in those days and everyone was talking about it, like how scary the jabberwooky was, and Alice was the central charatcer in this world where everyone was out to hurt her. It was a huge drug movie too because everything was crazy, really disoriented, and weird. That movie had a big influence on "Bryan" in a sense that the central character is trying to navigate through this world where everything wants to kill it, that movie stills creeps me out. And movies like "E.T.", movies not referred to as horror's that scared me. It's this alien with a weird voice and the government is trying to flush him out. "28 Days Later" is one of the more effective horror movies I've seen a long time, I saw it at the arclight in Hollywood that had a great sound system, and it freaked me out because it's these mindless violent zombies that want to kill you. The "Blairwitch Project" also influenced the film in a sense because your perspective while watching that film is throughout the camera, which I did alot of with "Bryan". "The Blairwitch Project" made it okay to shoot a movie like that, but I had to be careful not to overdo it with "Bryan". I also think Wes Craven is really good as far as director's go.
MR. H:Are you planning a theatrical release for "Bryan Loves You" or will it be heading direct to dvd?
Seth:I would definitely like to go to theaters, whenever a movie goes to theaters first it's a much bigger deal...so that's definitely the intent. We're at a point now where we're fielding offers, seeing what people are saying about it. But we have to be careful about it because people have been burned before where someone gets passionate about a film at first and then loses interest. But we're trying to hook up with someone who knows how to blow it up, and take a smaller scale movie like ours and score alot of popularity, release it into the right amount of theaters, in the right parts of the world, and get a good dvd package together with the appropriate extras. Stuff that people would be interested in buying or renting.
MR. H:What made you choose this particular film to do?? As an artist, did you just need a new project to work on and thought this would be a good one, or were you really intrigued and captivated by the lore of the 1993 Arizona cult incident, and thought it would make a good story to tell on film?
Seth:Anything I do I care alot about. I've never done anything for the sake of working, the story was personal to me in alot of ways, the idea that this stuff really went down. To me real life is always scarier than fantasy when you have a group this dangerous, and can really extrapolate that and create a world where no one is safe, because I feel that way living in Arizona and some of it really happened to me like when Jonathan gets put into the mental hospital, that actually happened to me. The cults, and the cult angle, really scares the shit out of me, especially the idea of living like the people in "Bryan Loves You". But when you sacrifice everything to make something you should care.
MR. H:What exactly is "Bryan Loves You"? Is it just a psychological horror/thriller that will give people chills, or is it a smart movie with an overall message, and do you think people will actually "get it"..get that message?
Seth:I tried to tow the line between psychological horror and violence. I think overall people will refer to it as a psychological thriller, not to say there aren't action and gore elements..but I tried to make a point that I want the viewer to identify with this character who is never safe, and all the tme..running. It's adventurous in the sense that it's always something there to make you jump, or surprise you, to have and establish enough moments where the viewer feels on edge. This isn't the kind of movie where we're going to show someone's head getting cut off and the person eating their brains with a spoon, but you will find yourself in this position of being scared and jumping alot during the movie.
MR. H:Without giving anything away....are there any homage scenes in the film? It seems to be a trend now for directors indie & non indie alike to film scenes that slightly mimic or are a take off of famous scenes from other horror films directed by some of the genres best directors.
Seth:Well I'm sure somewhere along the line,me, the DP, or the editor were influenced by other horror films. Will it be recognizeable and with intent? No, to me anything familiar to me is not scary, if I were to pay homage to a movie or pay homage to a character. In comedy it's done all the time, but it's not right for horror, horror needs something that's not recognizeable, or comfortable. I tried to keep things raw, and original, like you believe that this actually happened. It's too difficult to tow that line because we're dealing with recovered footage and there are rules that you have to play by where there's simply no room for an homage.
MR. H:What's next for you as far as upcoming projects are concerned?
Seth:I wrote a movie that I wanna make next, I really can't say what it's about but it's called "Youse is a bitch". It's about this girlfriend who tries to kill her boyfriend..it's basically sort of the same as "Bryan", with this perpetual sense of danger, only it's shot in regular narrative style..and we're looking to shoot this summer or next, either this August or next August.
End.
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