Interview with Darren Lynn Bousman (audio)
Interview with Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2, Saw 3, Saw 4, Repo! The Genetic Opera) on his film Death of Me. This interview aired originally in What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie s3e1 “Death of Me feat. Darren Lynn Bousman”
TRANSCRIPT
Parker Herren
I'm so excited that you're here. The first thing that I want to do is just get to know you a little bit better and let you speak to the listeners about what you're all about. So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what draws you to horror specifically. Obviously, you've made kind of a life around it. So just a little bit about that.
Darren Lynn Bousman
For me, horror is a guttural feeling that we don't feel often. So when we do feel it, it stays with me. I mean, at least I'm talking on my, for me, it stays with me. So, you know, every day I laugh at things like my kids, or I deal with drama with my wife. But to be scared and to be disgusted is something that is not something that I'm used to feeling. So I think that when a good horror movie comes around, they can actually hit you, and stay with you. That's something that I'm just drawn to. And so for me as a watcher of movies, horror has always kind of been my genre.
Parker Herren
Do you have any formative experiences from when you first started watching or anything that really set you on to it?
Darren Lynn Bousman
You know, when I was growing up as a kid, my dad would always take me to blockbuster and my, you know, you're probably too young for the memory of the video stores. But you chose a movie based on the box. And so, you know, I was always drawn to the sci-fi, fantasy and horror because they had the coolest boxes. So when I was a kid, I mean, I would always kind of gravitate towards those, the horror titles, and my dad would always let me watch within reason what I wanted to. So when I was a kid, you know, I watched Gremlins or Fright Night, or any of those. But Elvira was kind of my first foray into horror. So that's how I kind of really started to fall in love with the genre, was through those kinds of things. And I love anthologies, you know, I love things like Tales from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone. Those I just love. I love just macabre little tales.
Parker Herren
And you've been involved in a couple of anthologies yourself. What was it like transitioning from fan to creator and making what you love to see?
Darren Lynn Bousman
I mean, for me, I just want to do weird movies that I like, you know, like, I'm a huge fan of rock operas and musicals. So I've made three musicals. So, I've been very lucky in my career that I've been able to kind of just, you know, carve my own path and do what I want to do. So, in the case of my career, I started with the Saw movies, doing those. And that gave me the freedom to go off and make something like a Repo! The Genetic Opera, which I never could make today. But I think at the time, I just kind of bulldozed my way into the type of movies that I wanted to see and make. And that was how it happened.
Parker Herren
Now, speaking of movies that you wanted to see and make, Death of Me, which we're talking about, just basics first, how did you get involved with Death of Me and what really attracted you to want to make it?
Darren Lynn Bousman
So for me, Death of Me - so I'm friends with the two producers named Lee Nelson and David Tisch, and they came to me and we've been trying to make a movie for a few years. They came to me with this one, I read it. I love the concept. There were some changes that we all made. Originally, it was kind of set in a Haitian Voodoo based backdrop. We were going to be filming in Thailand, so we changed the mythology to have something more unique than just the Voodoo thing. Honestly, I saw a lot of ties to some of my favorite movies - Rosemary's Baby, The Wicker Man, and, you know, any movie that deals with faith or religion I like because I find myself questioning my own faith and own religion quite a lot. So anything that gives me a chance to explore that, I just dive in. And so getting the chance to go to Thailand, getting a chance to work with those producers, it was a quick and easy yes for me.
Parker Herren
When you were creating, you said that y'all shifted from, you know, Haitian story to Thailand. And so when you got to Thailand, what was kind of the process of creating the story and how much of that was influenced by what actually happened when you actually got to Thailand?
Darren Lynn Bousman
So I mean, a fair amount changed in Thailand for sure. You know, you get there and you're immersed in the culture and the people and the environments. Things change. The movie was a constantly shifting thing from the day that I got the script to when we filmed it. It was really quick though. The turnaround was you know - something like Spiral, which I've spent over a year on from prep to shooting to post I mean, this movie was three months. Like it was - prep was in like, you know, we prepped it in two weeks. We shot it in three weeks, three and a half weeks. And then we edited it very rapidly. So this is very much a guerilla style film. Not something that you know - and I think that poses challenges and pros, obviously, you wish you had more time, but the good thing about something like this is you're not over producing something. You have to just trust your instinct and go with it. But it was also probably the fastest movie I've ever made, which was, which was harsh.
Parker Herren
But I do think that your kind of stamp is still really apparent in it that you know, the thread between all of your movie. A few things that I noticed was, it seems like you - you mentioned Repo and musicals you've made before, obviously this isn't a musical, but there is quite a bit of music in it. And I was wondering how important to you or what role does music play in kind of your process.
Darren Lynn Bousman
The most important role. To me, music is everything. It dictates the feeling, the tone, the pace, the cadence. I work with music quite a lot. So Mark Sayfritz did the score, who I'm a huge fan of. Mark Sayfritz and I did Abattoir together, we did St. Agatha together. I am a huge, huge fan of his so yeah, it was great. But I think music to me is a character in the film just as important as Maggie Q is.
Parker Herren
And then also Luke Hemsworth. I feel like you know, I'm a huge Westworld fan. And that show is all about this - especially this past season was all about freewill and what's real and what's not. And I felt like a lot of that really tied in with Death of Me. What kind of are your ideas about freewill in this movie? And what were you really trying to like, get across with that idea?
Darren Lynn Bousman
I think freewill is such an important thing in horror films. Because if a character is being only pushed to do something, she has no choice versus having to make the ultimate choice, which in this case, will she sacrificed herself and save 1000 people. I think there's something horrific about that. Because imagine if you were put in that situation that your one death could save 1000 deaths. I think there's something interesting about that. And I think the only way that works is if you freely choose it, because if you're forced into doing it, you only have one path. This is giving you multiple paths. And it's something that I play with a lot in my not only my movies, but the immersive work that I do is freewill is paramount.
Parker Herren
Yeah. And obviously, that's a big part of the Saw movies too - you know, who's really the orchestrator, the puppeteer here. How do you think that all of that really plays into like, real world? Like audience going to see Death of Me right now? What are you hoping is the contextual takeaway of the movie?
Darren Lynn Bousman
I mean, it's a couple of things. How we look at belief, how we look at faith, how we judge other people's beliefs and faiths. You know, I guess in some respects, it is kind of a metaphor a little bit for climate change. And I had someone actually brought this up to me. I don't think I was meaning this necessarily, but you know, the sacrifices that we must make if we're going to stop the impending storm coming towards us. But you know, I wanted to make just a creepy film about what happens when you fall between the cracks and you lose your cell phone, you lose your passport, and you're in this, you know, in this hellscape. I just think that I'm fascinated by those type of things. And I think, set against such a beautiful backdrop of Thailand.
Parker Herren
In Thailand, I was reading a different interview with you, and you were talking about how you really, like, Incorporated local people into the story. What was kind of the process of really immersing the story in Thailand, and like getting people to be part of the movie.
Darren Lynn Bousman
It was, you know, for me, I just like walking around the streets and meeting people and seeing people and things that look authentic. Because the problem with movies is it's smoke and mirrors, it's polish, it's face paints, it's makeups, it's whatever. And I think with with walking around, you find, like one of the town elders that's been there for 95 years. You can't fake that, you can't cast - you can't recreate that in casting. So you just cast that woman, that person. And so you know, about 25% of the movie was people that we found on the streets that lived like that, that live there, that were part of the community. And I think that it just has such a more realistic feel to it.
Parker Herren
Did they give you any sort of like insider advice on like, hey, this is how we would do that, this isn't. Anything like that?
Darren Lynn Bousman
Of course and you change things to make sure you were not either insulting their beliefs or you were trying to be as true to what they actually would do as possible. Which, you know, dealing with a movie in Thailand, there is a very big - like language barrier and societal barrier, like how I would do things in America is not how you would do things in Thailand. And so I think you learn a lot.
Parker Herren
Obviously, I'd be remiss not to ask at least one Spiral question. So what can we expect from Spiral that's going to be different from the previous Saw movies.
Darren Lynn Bousman
Chris Rock, Sam Jackson, Max Minghella, and - the cast is insane. It's next level. It's very much more in the vein of Seven than it is anything else. I think it's, it's more suspenseful than the last few films. It's a whole different take on this whole universe. I think that's what why we're very excited that it's something completely new and unique. So, you know, it's a brand new thing. Chris Rock came in with an idea and I think we did something really, really cool with it.
Parker Herren
Awesome. Yeah. And I kind of got the idea with the whole you know, name rebrand that, you know, we're in for a surprise. I can't wait for that. What other projects do you have that we can look forward to?
Darren Lynn Bousman
So, I encourage your listeners to go to OneDayDie.com. That's One Day Die. And it's a crazy immersive at-home horror experience that I'm doing and all the information is online, but you can sign up and take place in this really crazy horror experience online.
Parker Herren
That sounds incredible and perfect for all of us bored at home right now.
Darren Lynn Bousman
Exactly. Exactly.
Parker Herren
And then my last question, have to ask it because of the podcast: what's your favorite scary movie?
Darren Lynn Bousman
It changes every day. And I'm looking right now to try to answer that question. My go-to or its two, I mean, I love Wicker Man. I love Rosemary's Baby. I think those are great. I really liked in the last year, two years ago Suspiria. I really like The Witch, Hereditary. You know, those are probably I would say, those are five, but there there you go.