Fantasia International Film Festival is now entering its final few days. Since the 14th July, Montreal has been screening the best and brightest in genre cinema, including one of our favourites, The Breach. Directed by Rodrigo Gudiño, The Breach is a heady blend of Lovecraft, bad science, and body horror. It also features music and score created by Slash.
Slash is a man that needs no introduction. Easily one of the best guitarists to have ever graced the Earth, the British born musician has had global success with several bands, most notably Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver. What many might not know is that movies are Slash’s second love. Horror movies in particular. In 2013 he produced Nothing Left to Fear and has continued to juggle careers in both music and film since. His work in The Breach is exceptional, conjuring up exactly the right atmosphere for Gudiño’s creepy science-fiction nightmare.
During the festival we got on a call with Slash to find out more about the project.
You have a prolific career with music, what prompted the shift into movies?
The first movie that I got into was in 2013, it was called Nothing Left to Fear. I partnered up with a producer at that time because I was so frustrated with where the genre and films were at that moment in time. It just seemed like everything that was coming out lacked imagination. There was nothing. The writing was bad. It was just one of those periods that horror was in a really bad place. So I met this producer and we had this long talk over Halloween at a party one night. We were talking about horror, it’s one of my favourite subjects, and he goes, “you know, you should be a producer.” I never had any aspirations to be a movie producer, but he started sending me scripts and I was reading them and then I would start picking the scripts that I liked and stuff, and we ended up producing a movie together. And I’ve just… I’ve been doing it ever since. They’re few and far between to get one done, the financing, and this and that, and the other. It’s a tough business, but I have a real passion for it so I will continue to do it.
You’ve been a fan of horror for years, what were some of your favourites growing up?
I was just in love with horror in general when I was a kid. But I remember when I was living in Stoke it was all the Hammer movies that were coming out. The House that Dripped Blood; anything with Vincent Price or Peter Lorre, Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, that was a big thing. Then when I moved to the States, that’s when it really opened up. I moved to the states in 1971 I guess it was, and my parents being these sort of artsy hippie types, they took me to everything that they went to. So I saw all the early 70’s movies as a really little one. At the time I think that my favourite horror movie, that came out when I was little, was Night of the Living Dead. That was the one that really struck me as being pretty horrific, but there was The Exorcist. One of my favourite movies when I was younger was The Omen, but I loved all the classics too. I was a major fan of Bride of Frankenstein and all the Dracula movies, but the original one specifically. Creature from the Black Lagoon and the various King Kong iterations and so on and so forth. So I was just steeped in it. It goes on from there, but we don’t have time for all that.
Modern horror seems to have really found its feet again, which is great as a fan of the genre.
Yeah 2012, 2013, it was pretty bad. Then right around the time that Nothing Left to Fear actually came out, was when The Conjuring came out. It was actually a pretty decent sort of feature horror movie at the time and it seemed like a sort of a little bit of a resurgence for a minute. Since then there’s been a lot of cool stuff. A24 has been putting out some really great movies starting with The Witch. It’s actually a little bit more inspiring these days than it was when I got into it. For me it just makes it that much more fun to try and do something.
You’ve been friends with Rodrigo [Gudiño] for years. At what stage did he bring you The Breach and what it was that made you excited to sign on?
Rodrigo, I met him back in 2013, and I was a big fan of his magazine. Then he came out with this movie, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, and he turned me on to that and I thought it was a really creepy, slow paced, really well told story with really only two characters in the whole movie. I just thought it was really original and really moody. So he and I have been friends all these years and he had presented another script to me, which is actually still to this day, one of the best scripts that I’ve read called Cutthroats Nine. Ironically enough there was a script and then years later, this movie called Hateful Eight came out from Quentin Tarantino. It’s almost the identical story, and I don’t even know how that works because Cutthroats Nine was written a long time ago. That sort of put a cog in the wheel at the time and so nothing happened with it. As disappointing as that was, we kept in touch, and then he was given the job of doing a screenplay to this story that Nick Cutter wrote. He had done an adaptation of it and it was really good. He sent it to me, and I really liked it, and he goes, “would you be into pursuing it? You know, I’m thinking about making this,” and “I said, yeah, I’m on board for that”. We got into developing it and then as soon as it was time to go into production, we had the pandemic.
Andrew [Thomas Hunt] and Mike [Paszt] from Raven Banner managed to get behind it and find a location, and isolate the entire production in this one area in Ontario. They made the whole movie during the pandemic. They would send me the dailies and I started writing music for it. It was a fun, very unique, individual project considering the circumstances. I got into it because I just really like the story. It has a certain kind of almost 70’s vibe to it. It Reminds me a little bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s got a little bit of a science-fiction thing, it’s got a cabin in the woods vibe; it’s got all these little elements in it and I thought it was a really entertaining story.
How does composing for a film differ from creating an album?
Believe it or not. I’ve written and performed in a lot of movie situations, and the writing for me, it’s a different kind of outlet. It’s strange because when I’m writing for a band I put together a riff and get together with the bass player and the drummer and start fleshing it out. But with the script you get into a more cerebral approach and you start really going for the mood that the word on the page evokes. So it actually feels very natural for me to do it. I don’t have the wherewithal or the patience to be a true scorer and composer because I could not sit there that long. These guys that can sit in a studio in front of a console… but I can write ideas that come to me inspired by the script and by the visual. Then I can work with this scorer and composer going, “here’s the music, let’s try and translate it into this section.” I have fun doing that. That’s what I did with the intro to title credits. The title sequence for this movie was just something I worked together. I wrote something and then collaborated with a composer. The other stuff I just wrote, recorded myself, because it was all acoustic so we didn’t need a lot of orchestration. I wrote it to the scene and worked like that. I was saying before, I’m going to continue doing this, and one of the things I love about it is having the ability to get involved with the music in some capacity.
My favourite piece in The Breach has to be that opening theme. It just storms in and consumes the viewer. What was the intention behind the song?
I think exactly what you just said, what you took away from it. It was just this like this lakeside picnic type vibe. Then there’s this canoe and this bunch of kids. It’s all very calm and serene and then this canoe – which you have no idea what’s going on – pulls up to the shore and the girl looks into it and screams, then all of a sudden it’s like (mimics score). It was exactly meant to be like how it came out.
When you’re not making music or watching movies, you’re heavily involved with charity work, do you have any projects that you’d like to highlight?
When you say projects, I mean, I have ongoing conservation things that I’m involved with that just continues on. I don’t have any specific projects at the moment that I’m, that I could say, “yeah, I’m about to do this and about to do that, but just, you know, things that grab my attention and I can contribute to, I do all the time. It just depends on what it is and when it happens.
Why do you think it’s important that people like yourself, who are more prominent in the spotlight, take the time to help these charities out? What do you guys give to them that they might not get otherwise?
I mean support and awareness. Those are the two biggest things that you’re trying to achieve with any kind of, either conservation, or if it might be mental illness, or whatever it is. What you’re trying to do, and I think why a lot of celebrities do it, is because a lot of celebrities are high-profile and they can draw attention where otherwise it might not be able to get people to be concerned. I just started doing it because I just naturally had a thing for, especially wildlife, and I always have. What happens is because you’re a little bit more well known than the average guy, people are very open to you getting involved and participating. I think I just sort of grab the bull by the horns and say, “oh, I can do this and I can do that.” It’s really just for the purpose of trying to help.
The Breach next screens at FrightFest in the UK. Why should those from the motherland check it out?
I think it’s a cool movie and I think that people will dig it. I think that it is a unique movie and it’s an original story, but it also smacks of a lot of older stuff. They homage to a lot of cool movies that I was influenced by coming up.I think it’s definitely worth seeing… I’m not much of a pitch man, but I’d say go see it.
For me it’s like a cosmic Lovecraftian, bad science, body horror. It’s kind of got a bit of everything, including of course, some kick-ass music.
I think so too. I went to a screening of it in Canada a few months back and I was really pleased with how it turned out in the end. I think the Lovecraftian thing is definitely a big element in it.
You’re always ridiculously busy. What’s next? More music, more films?
Well there’s a couple of film projects in the works in a couple different stages of development. I’m really excited about it because they actually look like they’re going to get green-lit and be able to move forward, which is half the battle. So I’m looking forward to that. I’ve got touring stuff coming up, actually starting September throughout the end of the year, and then starting next year, a bunch of cool stuff going on. So just, you know, generally busy, but it’s all exciting you know, I’m having a good time with it.
And you’re technically part of the Marvel Universe now with Guns N’ Roses providing music for Thor: Love and Thunder.
I guess it’s funny you should say that though, because I had that thought last week, I guess about being part of the Marvel Universe unknowingly you know. We got the offer, a request to use one of our songs, and it was just a simple almost innocuous kind of like, “okay, it’s Thor, which is cool and we’ll have one little song in a trailer.” That’s how it started, and it snowballed from there. I haven’t seen the movie yet because now that we’re in it so much, I’m scared too. I don’t know if I can sit there, but I’m proud to be involved with it. I hear the movie’s actually pretty good.
The Breach will next screen at Arrow Video FrightFest on Friday 26th August; tickets can be purchased here. A release for the film is still to be confirmed, but we will update you all as soon as we hear anything.
