Having made several quirky horror films already, writer / director Richard Bates Jr is fast becoming an interesting voice in the world of genre cinema. He debuted onto the circuit with Excision, which demonstrated a talent for the macabre and funny simultaneously. This blend has been developed and finessed since then, and his latest film Killer Instinct is another hit.
The film, originally released in the States as Tone Deaf, tells the intertwining stories of Silicon Valley‘s Amanda Crew’s Olive, and T2‘s Robert Patrick’s Harvey. Olive is aimlessly drifting through life and, after a series of life-changing events, takes up residence in Harvey’s holiday house. Harvey is a bitter old man whom, after losing his wife, has started to hate the young and all they stand for. A clash of cultures ensues with murderous results.
We sat down for a transatlantic phone call with Richard Bates Jr to find out some more about the project.
Where did the concept for the film come from?
It was a combination of things. I would say my wife really helped guide me in terms of a direction. I was lost. I was so shocked after election night. So I said to my wife something to the effect of, ‘what scares you the most in the world right now?’ and she was watching the news and said ‘old men.’ The idea was to create these two characters based off of how the other side would stereotype each other, and sort of lampoon these stereotypes.
The idea was really to create this weird cultural artefact that could only exist now, that would maybe help someone gleam some sort of insight into what was going on and hopefully be entertaining too. I’ve no interest in making an art film with no showmanship. We had a little bit of money for production design, the idea was to really create this satirical, cultural artefact. Satire by definition is exaggeration. We put so much into the production design around each character because of aesthetics, because now in the United States we represent ourselves through our belongings. There’s so many little bits and pieces that I think will be fascinating down the road. I hope.
I guess depending on your age, political stance etc., you could at times view Olive and Harvey as both ‘hero’ and ‘villain’…
For me Olive is very much the hero. She just doesn’t know it. She doesn’t even know that she’s in a horror movie until she’s in the third act. The fun thing was that we’ve got this one person who has just started the process of experiencing the world and growing, and she doesn’t know everything about herself, she’s into everything. Then we pit her against this guy whom for many years stopped growing. He’s not open to new ideas. And because of that he’s obsessed with his place in the world. He’s just as self-obsessed as he believes she is.
The idea was that we have this villain, he’s very much in control of his world. She doesn’t know that she’s in this horror movie and he is obsessed with living out this John Wayne fantasy if you will. He’s reverting back to his childhood. For me Olive is very much the hero, even though she’s just as flawed as him.
If I want to win over say a conservative, I certainly don’t want to make a movie just making fun of conservatives. I have no interest in preaching to the choir, I don’t think it’s particularly interesting. It’s too safe. What’s the point in making a movie if I was doing that? Hopefully at the end of the day anybody watching the movie can reach the same conclusion that there is this common ground. We are all hipsters, we are all full of shit to one degree or another. The difference is Harvey’s become so self-obsessed, his motivations are darker, are more evil. They go far beyond personal growth.
Your films have a very particular tone and style, does the fact that you now have a back catalogue of them help with getting cast?
Maybe a little bit, but not a lot. Usually the reason my movies get made is because of the cast being down to do these experiments. I know a million people with twenty scripts on their desks that are unmade. I really pride myself on getting out there and hustling and begging – I’m completely shameless in every way, shape and form. Otherwise I don’t think I’d have a movie. Certainly not these types of movies that I want to make. I’ve been fortunate enough to get them made and I hope that it keeps happening.
The one good thing about having the back catalogue is no one says yes to one of my movies who is not down to go the distance. They inevitably watch one of those movies and see how we’re challenging structural conventions, tonal conventions… I’m not the guy that’s going to hand in a one note tone poem. I’m not that guy. I like more idiosyncratic films. I wanna step into someone’s head. I saw this movie Beach Bum this year that I really loved. I didn’t feel like I was watching any sort of product. I felt like I was in some person’s head and I was looking through their eyes. My God, if I ran a studio I would just give a billion people a camera and ask them to make their own movie without any knowledge of what it is to craft a film.
I would say really, I try to cast the movie right, and then we do a little bit of homework so then I don’t micro manage the actors. We had a lot of fun within the perimeters of what genre we’re working in that day. Tone Deaf’s a mix-tape of genres. The idea was after things were thrown into chaos is that one moment I feel that I’m living in an absurdest comedy. The next it’s a horror movie, I don’t know what’s going on. So the script we would go through it, it was all proportioned fairly equally in terms of absurdist satire, horror movie; so we tweaked the performances based on which genre we were in in which scene.
And how was it working with Robert Patrick?
He’s really funny, in a really dry way. We get along great. Robert is a little bit more conservative leaning than I would say Amanda or myself. That was important to me to cast someone that was like that. I didn’t want to be mocking…I didn’t want to make a deplorable movie. Between myself, Amanda and Robert, the three of us, we all grew from this and learned a lot about each other’s perspectives.
There’s a nice little cameo from AnnaLynne McCord who played the lead in Excision.
She’s just become like family. My first movie Excision, I made with her and she was on a big network TV show at the time, and I was just a kid who had just made a short film. I rented a few bunk beds, threw them in my living room and my friends flew out from New York and lived in my apartment, and we just tried to make a movie. It was just insane. We taught ourselves on the spot. Excision was unreal and she put up with it and we ended up having a lot of fun. She was really fantastic in Trash Fire as well. She’s very, very talented.
I loved how unexpected a film it was for her to do, it’s so unlike what she was playing in 90210.
It was remarkable. So I was young, so I was at the height of my pretension. So in my mind there was no way I was going to make my first movie with a girl from 90210. That’s what I was telling myself. Then in reality, there’s this girl who is in 90210 and has a successful, budding career – why the Hell would she do this first-time filmmaker’s crazy movie? I actually said, ‘no, I don’t want to do this’, because this was passed around her agency and she particularly liked it. I said, ‘no, I don’t think it’s right’. Her agent called and asked me to just have lunch with her. We were talking about the film and she took the knife off of the table and started cutting off like her actual hair. I realised she is absolutely insane in the most wonderful way. Right there I was like, ‘let’s do this!’ We both trusted each other from that point on. She gives me shit about the audacity I had to this day. I agree, I mean how fucking ridiculous in retrospect.
The film has been re-branded over in the UK from Tone Deaf to Killer Instinct. How do you feel about the change?
I’m not going to be a precious filmmaker about it. I obviously care deeply about what I’m doing, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. But in this instance, the first thing I wrote down, before I wrote a single page of the script, was the title Tone Deaf. The entire concept, the mix tape where we’re sampling different tones from different genres, the whole idea was based around this double meaning behind tone deaf. I guess anyone expecting to rent a movie bout a guy who goes around killing women in his house is going to be sorely disappointed. I’m really proud of Tone Deaf. I’m really interested to see how it plays watching it a couple of years from now.
So are you hoping it’ll be like an investment piece for the audience? They can watch it now and recognise life and then reminisce a few years down the line?
As an artist I guess we’re meant to document things how we see them in our time. It’s one of the most valuable things about film. Scorsese talks about film existing as a historic artefact. You can watch a movie from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and really get a glimpse of how people spoke then. What the culture was like etc. One very fascinating thing for me is when I watch them, it’s almost like a diary of my adult life. From Excision to Southern Gothic to Trash Fire to Tone Deaf. Each one documents the way I was feeling and seeing the world at the time. So at the end of the day, assuming I get to make a few more, it will be interesting. It’s almost like a journal.
What are you working on now?
I’m in post on a movie, King Knight, right now so we’re scoring it. It’s a Pagan comedy and is essentially a live-action cartoon. I guess most of my movies are; they take place in these heightened versions. Get ready for Matthew Gray Gubler because he is so good in this movie!
Killer Instinct is available on Digital HD now.
