Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: These are my interviews for the film in a violent nature with producer Peter Kilpowski and actor Ry Barrett. Like and subscribe for more content like this.
What the.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Animals don't get too hung up on reason, they just keep killing.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: First up is co producer Peter Kopowski, best known as a programmer for Toronto after dark fantastic Fest and TIFF Midi Madness. Peter Koplowski's previous producer credits include the Interior, the Void and Psycho Gorman. He previously worked with director Chris Nash on producing the Z is for Zycodes segment of ABCs of Death Two.
I guess I'll start by asking, could you talk about your history of Chris Nash and how you came to co produce his feature film debut?
[00:02:13] Speaker C: Well, my relationship with Chris Nash begins as a curator. My first year curating short films for the try not to Dark Film Festival, which largely was the first time I ever created any form of cinema.
I selected his York University short Day of John, which went on to enjoy a really healthy film festival run. And I just was a fan of Chris's. I screened the short. I would screen other shorts of his that he would make afterwards, particularly his skinfections trilogy.
And we grew to become friends. And I remember I was producing a short film for Stephen Kostanski called Biocop, and I was doing a call for extras, and I included Chris on that list, and he was an extra in that film. And he had a really positive experience that only further cemented our friendship. And after that screening or after that production of Biocop, he asked me if I was interested in potentially producing his next project. And he pitched me a feature that has yet to be made that was another project, but I grew very interested in it and helped develop that project. And as we continue to develop stuff together, I was also a producer on ABCs of Death two, the Zeus for Zygote segment. I did that with Shannon Hamner, who had also been producing some of Nash's films and working very closely with him. And. Yeah, and then violent nature came along and this was really a case of we had this other project that we were working on.
Shannon and I were producing Psycho Gourmand. We brought Nash on Psycho Gourmand to do effects. And while he was on set, he started discussing his idea for a slasher movie with Stephen Kostanski, who liked it a lot and was interested in helping on that, on the project.
And after Psycho Gorman was done, he just went home and wrote the script, which both Shannon and I really loved. And it was just a matter of bringing the script to the right partner and finding the right supporters for it.
And I know Nash had been already interested in doing this project even before Psycho Gorman, just by watching Gus van Sant films and thinking about slow cinema and thinking about the idea of combining these sort of art house aesthetics with a schlocky genre framing device.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: I think you partially answered it some. So why did it take so long for Chris Nash to make a feature?
[00:05:03] Speaker C: I would say that, you know, it's always different for every filmmaker, but you never know when it's always about timing. I suppose it was not for lack of trying. We had a number of different projects. We had a project get very close to being made.
It was a much more ambitious project than this. And we had a television project as well that was in development for a very long time and commanded a lot of his attention.
And then it was interesting. This was a very simple idea, though. It was an idea that had ambitious aspects to it, but it felt something that we could achieve easily, and we had, and the timing was right. We had just done psycho Gorman, so we had proven that this team could pull off a production. And so when we turned around and had something that was both original but also, you know, a relatively low budget, independent production, it provided a perfect storm for people to trust us and that we could make something interesting and special.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Oh, so I'm talking about low budget, independent production. You don't really expect, like, a canadian film, like, in a vile nature, to get as much attention as it's been getting. So are you, like, surprised about that?
[00:06:17] Speaker C: I mean, we're very thrilled and humbled by the attention and the reception to the film.
Nevermind Canadian. It's just simply rare for a slasher film, this film, in this subgenre, to be receiving the critical appreciation that it has been receiving.
But I do think, speaking as a curator, I think it was a testament to the originality of Chris's vision.
Certainly there have been movies made from the perspective of antagonists before. I mean, there are films like behind the Mask or Tucker and Dale versus evil. We were inspired by elephants, or a film like angst. I mean, this device is not entirely original, but there was a commitment to the bit. There was a tone that I think was very original and very striking. I think the fact that the film didn't condescend to its subgenre, but rather indulged in its subgenre was something that I think made it stand out, and I think it was the right timing. It's been a. You know, I've observed myself that there haven't been, there's been a bit of a slow renaissance in the slasher genre and interest in the slasher genre since the reboot of Halloween. But, you know, Nash, Nash was bringing something that I think was not seen in the marketplace, to use a crude term.
And I think that's what encouraged and fostered interest in the film because it's a song that these musical metaphors, it's kind of a song that everyone's familiar with, but it leaves out certain notes and introduces notes that are unusual and strange. And I think these were the elements that made it stand out and made people interested in checking it out. And then gratefully, so many of them, you know, began to appreciate the film and like the film. So that's been great too, because it only encouraged and emboldened our distributor, both our canadian distributor and our american distributor, to give it a serious release.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Well, just like I'm amazed. Like, you know, I'm like Facebook friends of Bry Baird and he's hosting like, everything to do with the film and he's like amazed that he's on like the front page of IMDb.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: No, we're all amazed.
I mean, I think horror has gone through a lot of cycles and sometimes, you know, I feel horror films are always profitable, they always make money, they're always a good solid bet in industry terms.
But there has been definitely a real renaissance of industry support and appreciation of the horror genre. I feel like horror films are getting a little bit more real estate than they used to in movie theaters, for instance. As you know, I think audiences have gotten a little bored with big budget comic book movies. I think there is kind of an interest in appreciating and enjoying horror films. So I think that certainly helped. I think the success of so many of the independent horror films that preceded us, even as recently a skinnamarin, I think, really paved the way for distributors to take low budget horror seriously.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Well, I guess like the connecting tissue between innovative nature and skinny membrane because the distribution by IFC and shutter.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, and I think that's, you know, their success with skin and rink, that certainly emboldened them to have a considerable us release.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So did that distribution deal come before or after the Sundance premiere?
[00:09:48] Speaker C: We were in talks with Shudder before the Sundance premier. They'd been supporting this project from the very beginning.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Could you really talk about the experiences on shooting the film?
[00:09:58] Speaker C: It was one of the most challenging productions I've ever worked on. I think that goes for everyone involved. It's no secret that we actually ended up shooting the film twice.
The first time through, we got about two thirds of the way through the movie, but we were experiencing horrendous weather equipment malfunction.
We had actors that had to leave the production due to medical illnesses. We had the heads of department get exchanged at the last minute. We had issues with wardrobe. And at a certain point it got so challenging that we ended up actually shutting down early to regroup. And in that time, we reviewed the footage and realized that there were things that we would have to return and reshoot. We realized there were certain actors we weren't able to get back again and so we would have to recast. And invariably, we also realized that the way we were shooting the film, the way we were lighting the creature, the way it even designed Johnny's look, all of that wasn't quite satisfying, what Nash's vision was. And so we joked that the first block ended up becoming one of the most expensive previs sessions that an independent film has ever done.
But we went back at it about six months later with a tweaked design for Johnny and with a different approach to the cinematography and certainly just, you know, a lot of hindsight that was guiding our hands. And it was with a pared down, much smaller crew as well. So, yeah, it was quite challenging. And even the second block, because we were such a smaller crew, we ended up shooting multiple chunks. So we did about four blocks total of shooting. And it began in late 2021 and shooting completed in December 2022. So it was a very, very lengthy period of development and trying things out, trying it again.
But I do think that gives the film a certain type of quality to it that I don't think would exist had we not gone through all of that.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: I don't really want to get into spoilers, but I do have to talk about the kills in the film.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: I think there's, like, one kill in particular that's been getting a lot of attention, that people have been just calling it the kill.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah, the movie is. We always envision the film as being a kind of taxonomy of slasher kills. We didn't want all of them to feel the same. We wanted each kill to have a different timbre, a different tone, and kind of encompass the scope of the violence that you see in slasher films. Sometimes the violence is off screen, and sometimes it's completely in your face. Sometimes it's operatic and almost comic book and it's elasticity. Other times it's subtle and as unnerving and as uncomfortable as a paper cut.
So these were the kinds of notes we wanted to hit.
And. Yeah, the one that became the kill. I mean, that is kind of our tribute to the outrageous kills that you might see in an italian jala.
And it was a very complicated sequence to do.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Or Jason Voorhees in the latter films.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, some of the more elaborate Jason pills, for sure. For sure. I mean, and the Friday 13th films and the burning, you know, all very key, you know, influences on the movie. Absolutely. That the kill, the one that everyone seems to talk about, it was a very complicated kill, but was, it was something that was written in the script, beat for beat. And it was definitely one of the kills that we knew that we could not afford to not make work. There were some other kills that we did tweaking and change that maybe were too ambitious on the page, but that was a kill that we knew had to be there. It was a very important one. It's very much the midpoint of the movie.
Nash would say that its placement is even very important given where Johnny is following that sequence. Not to spoil things, but we learned a little bit more about Johnny right after that sequence in a very specific way. And, yeah, it was a tough sequence to shoot.
I believe that sequence was shot over four days, but not consecutively. They were weeks in between those days. In fact, one of the shots in that sequence was shot was the very last thing we shot in December in Shannon's backyard.
And if you pan to the right or left, you would see snow.
So it was, yeah, it was really a granular sequence that we worked on to get right. And, you know, some people ask us, well, how did you even come up with it? And it was, you know, Nash has said it was very organic. It was just, you know, he had come up with these tools for Johnny to use, and he just sort of thought logically how those tools might work and how they would. And so it wasn't even in an effort of, like, we have to come up with the craziest thing ever. It's just him trying to think of a logical way to kind of use these very unique logging equipment. And that's what we came up with for that sequence.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: What is next for both the film, you, Chris Nash?
[00:15:27] Speaker C: Well, we're just going to enjoy the fact that we have an unprecedented opportunity for an independent canadian slasher film to, to reach as large an audience as we're being offered. And that's just overwhelming and wonderful. And I just hope not even just for the sake of our production, but for other productions that the film does well and performs well. And there's only further proof that there is an audience that has an appetite for horror and that they, you know, it doesn't need to be hundred million dollar horror. It can be low budget. It can be something in which the ideas are paramount and not necessarily, you know, it's not necessarily about who's in it. And it doesn't necessarily need to be tied to a franchise either. I love all these franchises. I hope they make another Friday the 13th. I hope we continue to see these horror icons from the eighties. But I also hope that, you know, producers look at this as an opportunity to explore and introduce new, new monsters and new creatures and to take chances and be, you know, and let horror filmmakers continue to experiment with the genre. Because I think if you look down the line, I think all of the horror films that have endured were often experiments in the genre to begin with.
And so as for what's next for this team, I'm working on a few other projects with other filmmakers that I work with. Chris is working on projects as well. A lot of people have asked us if we'll continue to see the adventures of Johnny in the future. And while we can't confirm anything, we've certainly been thinking about it as well because, you know, the fact that audiences have embraced the character and are interested in this unique way to tell his story have us also considering, well, what else could we do with this character and how else might we photograph this character again in a unique way? I think if we do continue to make movies with Johnny, I think we probably wouldn't repeat ourselves. We would not necessarily make a conventional slasher either. But I think we would find opportunities to do something unique again because I think that's what, you know, keeps us interested in the genre. Okay, wonderful. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, man. It really means a lot that you liked it.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker C: And because I know it's a, it's a strange movie. It's very slow by design, but I'm.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Really, I know it's the slow parts, but then, like, I broke down laughing and Prescott. Next up we have actor Ry Barrett, who plays the killer Johnny, the Gulf born and Toronto based actor's best known credits include Tittler characters in 20 fourteen's the drownsman, 20 fifteen's the demolisher, and 2020 two's cult hero. Okay, so let's get started. How did you end up getting cast for what is essentially the canadian wilderness equivalent of Jason Voorhees?
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Well, I got in touch. Well, Shannon Hammer actually sent me an email about the film and kind of what the character was. And then I. So I met up with her and Chris Nash and just had a little talk about what, what the project was and what the character was and what was kind of needed and how. How the different perspective was going to be in play and everything, and knowing their work and what they've done in the past and, and how great their, what they've done, I was just really excited to be a part of that and to jump on board.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: So for pretty much the majority of the film, you're either shot from the back of the head or wearing the mask. So how challenging it was to form a mostly silent and physical role like this.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, it's a different kind of animal, really.
You have to rely on total physical elements. And I kind of, I give myself rules for characters like that just specifically for this one, too. And this was after a lot of talk with Chris as to what exactly Johnny was and what kind of character he was. But you kind of have to give yourself some rules and some kind of a checklist that before I started rolling, I just go through mentally and be like, all right, Johnny does this. This just to keep it consistent so that throughout the film and with all the walking and from jumping from this scene to this scene and this part of the film to this part, just to make sure it was all consistent and that Johnny would always have the same kind of flow and everything, and then to, you know, add in little bits of flavor and nods to other past characters, but then doing my best to not copy too much of that and to create, like, a, an original character himself.
But, yeah, it's a challenge when you can't talk or really express with your face.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Well, I guess we'll talk about the nods of previous characters. So, obviously, I think most people are going to be comparing in a violent nature to Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees is killed, but Johnny, like, pretty much no two kills in the film are actually the same. And so could you talk about variety of kills in the film?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
So those are all designed and created by Chris Nash, our writer director.
He designed all these kills and, you know, they're all in the script, and then they built the prosthetics and all the effects around how they had to be. But I think a lot of it was just wanting to be creative and to do something interesting that maybe people haven't seen in either a slasher film or any film, for that matter, and to just, you know, do something different each time and kind of up the ante to a degree. There's kind of like, you know, an ebb and flow to the kills, too. Like, some of them are extremely complicated and long, and other ones are really kind of fast and jarring. So it was kind of keeping that sort of a flow for that and then, and just, you know, keeping it entertaining for the audience and doing something different. So it didn't just become, you know, repetitious or the same thing over and over again.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I was previously talking to Peter Kaplowski and he was talking about, quote unquote be kill and how that was pretty much the only kill that Chris Nash wanted to stay in the film unchanged, so could be without spoiling too much talk about filming that one kill scene.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: So that. Yeah, we're gonna. We'll call it the yoga. Yoga death. Yoga death, yeah, it's kind of what the term has become for it, I guess. That one. Yeah, that one's. It's crazy. It's.
It was in the script, and it's listed like written line for line, exactly as how it showed up on camera. And I think they even added a couple little elements to it, like, without spoiling, without going into too much detail. But there's a whole lot, like, it starts and then it keeps going and there's more layers and more elements to it. And I got to sit back and watch, watch that all unfold. And that scene particular took, they shot it over the course of basically almost a year. There was a huge gap in between because when we shot the original, like, lead up to the death, we were losing light. We didn't have time to do the entire effect and get it finished in the day, so we ended up having to come back and it didn't fit into the schedule, so we ended up coming back. It might have been a full year or, like months and months later, and they had to, you know, match the landscape and the growth and everything.
And then we did all the effects, all the practical effects on that day. So it was a. Yeah, it was a big, big job.
Multiple people involved on that and lots and lots of blood and guts and prosthetic limbs and everything.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: So I think with your career, I most compare in the violent nature to the drownsman, which you made a decade ago.
Back then, you kind of made play like a Freddy Krueger character, and now you're playing Joseph Porhees character. So how would you compare the two?
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. It's funny. They do. They're two kind of slasher we used to call the drownsman, a splasher movie.
But, yeah, they're two very different characters, but at the same time, there's some similarities, too.
[00:23:55] Speaker C: Just.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Just the menace and, you know, physical, very physical roles because the drownsman didn't really speak either. You can see much more of his face through the whole thing, but he didn't really speak much at all.
So, yeah, it was very. It's always interesting playing characters like this because you try to separate them and create different versions of. Of, you know, different kinds of monsters and creatures, but it still is you in. In the suit or in the makeup and everything. So it's kind of, you know, if you look at a character stacked up against each other, they might. They kind of might look the same because they're gonna have that same physicality, but you hope that people are gonna look at them and differentiate how different they really are. But, yeah, dronesman was fun to play. That one was. Biggest difference is I was a lot more wet and soggy and cold during the dronesmen than I was during in a violent nature. I was generally hot most of the time, and I was wet that one day in the lake, but that was a good day to be wet because it was very hot.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: So is it more fun for you to play these silent monsters or the more charismatic and crazy characters to play, like, in chamber of terror or cult hero?
[00:25:09] Speaker B: You know what?
I love having the options to be able to play both characters. I think if I was just doing the one all the time, it might get a little tired. But the fact that I get these chances to create these totally different kinds of characters and play in completely different types of films, I'm really lucky off the bat to be able to get to do that and with great people and great teams behind them. But, yeah, I don't know. I can't really pick a favorite just because I love doing it all. So it's so much fun to create this kind of a character and then to create this kind of a character and to, like, constantly being focused on what the differences of those and how to make them each interesting, that's a really fun part of acting.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Well, okay, so this is a bit of a rhetorical question, because I've been seeing all your social media posts. Are you amazed at all the attention in violent theater has been getting?
[00:26:07] Speaker B: I am absolutely blown away with the attention has been getting. And, like, every single day, I get messaged a new thing or tagged in something, and I'm just like, this is crazy.
This is nuts. And I just try to. I'm trying to share everything to help promote the film, but at the same time, I'm like, people must be getting annoyed with my social media posts at this time because I'm, like, just sharing so much about the film, but it's like, I'm just trying to share people who are supporting it and promoting it, too. So, yeah, I'm just blown away by how much it's getting attention and support and hopefully love.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: You got to go to Sundance and get fancy portrait photos.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it has gotten a lot of love, too, so I can't say hopefully the love, but, yeah, it's about to open to the public in theaters, so we're waiting on seeing what that's gonna be. You know, it's one of those films where people are gonna. It's gonna be one way or the other. You're gonna absolutely love it, or it's just gonna be not for you at all. We're ready for both those reactions. We just hope that the ones who love it are the louder ones.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, like, the press screening last week, I kind of, like, broke out laughing during the big chaos scene because I'm that kind of guy.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it's supposed to, like, there's. There's definitely laughs in there and there's. There's comedy in there, so we're glad when people, you know, realize that, too, so.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Okay, well, thanks.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks a lot, Sean.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Take care.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Man in a violent nature opens on Friday, May 31. Get your tickets at one of the URL's shown on screen.
