Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to the Shawn Kelly.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: On Movies Interviews podcast. Today I have an interview with Blaine Thurier, the co writer and director of the canadian vampire film Kicking Blood, which is opening in Toronto at the Scotiabank Theatre. Blaine Thierrye was previously known as member of the indie rock band and new pornographers, and his feature film Kicking Blood was described as TIFF Steves Gravestock as a sultry, perma stoned, ultra modern spin on the vampire genre, which evokes cult horror figures like George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon. Please be advised that while I try to avoid major spoilers in the interview, we still talk about some major plot points. I hope you enjoy.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Okay, so we'll start off. How did the idea for King Blood come about?
[00:01:01] Speaker D: I was just trying to, you know, come up with something punchy, something sticky, some like one sentence thing. So it's mashing up genres and ideas. And I thought, you know, vampires is a lot thematically going on there. Let's try to put that with some kind of real, you know, human, intimate kind of drama. And just the idea of addiction and rehabilitation made a lot of sense. And I just started after I had the idea. I started writing it about six years later.
Fast process.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: So what specific rules did you have for the film as vampires?
[00:01:48] Speaker D: For the vampires?
Yeah, we talked a lot about the rules, and I figured if in the Twilight movies, vampires can sparkle in sunlight, all bets are off. It's basically what you want it to be. As long as they are immortal and suck blood, that's what you want it to be. So we chose the rules that were interesting to us. Bats, garlic, that sort of thing didn't really appeal. But the idea of, like, immortality, of being addicted, needing blood to live, needing a substance to live, the alienation from humanity, those are the sorts of rules that appealed to us, so we focused on those.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: So when did you think of the element that Anna is like, working a day job at the library?
[00:02:52] Speaker D: What did I think of that?
[00:02:53] Speaker C: No, no. How did you come up with that?
[00:02:56] Speaker D: Oh, I guess because I had just. I had been working at the library, and it was. It was in my head, and I also wanted her to have some sort of connection with the world that she was just part of her was holding on to somewhere where she was kind of anonymous, but also had something that fascinated her, which was still like the culture of the humans and their art.
You know, she was still into that, and then in that way, she would be drawn into, you know, a relationship that could, you know, change her.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: Well, let's talk a bit about the character of Bernice, her co worker at the library, who. It's one of the elements that, like, kind of, like, has Anna want to reconnect her humanity in some ways, and. And I guess Robbie as well, when she, like, sympathizes with his alcoholism.
[00:04:02] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Bernice is played by the great Rosemary Dunsmore.
She was one of my favorite scenes in total recall with her. And, yeah, we wanted somebody warm for Anna to connect with. What often brings, you know, people with addiction issues back into the real world is people who don't judge them. People accept them for what they are and have empathy and warmth to them. So, you know, you know, somebody. We wanted that person to be somebody with, you know, some life experience, you know, and then to contrast that, we had, you know, Robbie would help bring her back by, you know, sort of demonstrating that it was possible to rehabilitate yourself and rejoin humanity.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: So how would you differentiate the other vampire characters, Boris and Nina, from Anna?
[00:05:12] Speaker D: Right. Boris and Nina are.
They're committed to the life. They embrace it, they like it, they love it. It doesn't make sense to them why somebody would leave.
Nina's in it for the fun. And Boris is in it because he believes strongly that this is what the hierarchy is. This is the way the wheels of the universe turn. They are at the top of the food chain, and they must follow the order imposed upon reality, you know. And so then we sort of, you know, in earlier drafts of the script, they didn't change.
You know, they sort of remained like that. And then later on, we thought, you know, it would be cool if they actually found perhaps not redemption, but some sort of beginnings of questioning whether they really do have to do this or not. So I was about to spoil it, but, you know, we put them on a journey.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think you're kind of, like, alluding to, like, Nina's final line.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: In the film, which I won't say.
[00:06:26] Speaker D: Yeah, I was about to say yes. Thank you. I'm glad you remembered that. I'm glad you connected those two things. Yeah.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: We don't really get much of a.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Backstory for Robbie, other than he, like, wakes up, been a drunken super in his sister's house. And then later in the film, we're introduced to Vanessa, who is hinted to be, like, a bad influence on him. So did you ever intend for there to be more into Robbie's backstory?
[00:06:56] Speaker D: Well, I would hope that it's all pretty, you know, intimated there. You know, backstory is a tricky thing.
I like to have the element. I like to have people behave rather than explain.
They had a tough upbringing and all of that.
You can show that in the way they behave without expositing upon it, without explaining upon it. I understand that for some people, it's like. It's just they don't want. They want to know, but I don't want them to know all of the time. Of course, we had talked about it. We discussed it with the actors, and everybody knew a full backstory. They had a whole biography. They could each have their own book. Right. But, you know, I just. I like to sort of keep that, you know, sort of in the background.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: So.
So do you actually prefer the kind of more romanticized depiction of vampires or the more monstrous version with fangs and blood?
[00:08:14] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely the capital r romantic version.
The sort of lush, pretty version. It just seems to.
I don't know, they're very different. They just. It just seems to focus on the psychology of the beings, you know, how they interact with the world and how they feel about the world.
But on the other hand, you know, two of my favorite vampire movies were the Carl Theodore Dreier silent film vampirization, which is basically a surreal nightmare.
And actually, my favorite is the Werner Herzog. I think it's also called. I can't. Geez, I can't even remember what it's called.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Nosferatu the vampire.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: No, thank you. Thank you.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: I've seen it.
[00:09:05] Speaker D: Thank you. Okay, great.
That's definitely the monstrous version. That's definitely. He is just a monster. We don't know anything about him. He's a grotesque, evil monster. Terrifying. So I appreciate that. I appreciate that version, too. It's more like the horror that lurks within us sort of thing, rather than, here's a vampire you'd like to hang out with or date.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Then there's also somewhere in between, like girl walks home alone at night from.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: A few years ago.
[00:09:40] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I found that. Yeah, I loved that movie. It had a great balance with a. The monstrousness and the monstrousness and the more romantic stuff.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: And also, I think, like, that film, kicking blood, actually has some good uses of music in some scenes.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Justin and Ojad from the band do make safe think. Yeah, they did a fabulous job. I sent them a playlist, and they instantly connected with it. They said that some of their favorite composers were on there.
Yeah. And then. Yeah, then some of the songs, like my friend Dan Behar Destroyer song, and I relaxes listening to Tinseltown swimming in blood, which was sort of maybe on the nose and then, yeah, the son of the credits, I'll quit tomorrow. Bye.
I don't remember.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: I'll look that up.
I indeed looked it up.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: And the cozy credits song is I'll.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: Quit tomorrow by dog yop. Now back to the interview.
[00:10:55] Speaker D: Sorry, band, but yeah, there's southern Us band, and it was just a beautiful, beautiful lament about being addicted.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: So what do you hope audiences ultimately take away from kicking blood?
[00:11:13] Speaker D: I hope they find a way to connect the story with their lives or somebody in their lives. I never want to tell somebody, this is the interpretation. You stick with this interpretation that I tell you what it means. I want people to think about it, come up with their own interpretation in a way that hopefully says something about their own lives and their own humanity.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: Okay, that's it. Okay.
[00:11:50] Speaker D: All right. That's great.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Bishawankelli on Movies podcast is a production of skrmovies.com. episodes and show notes can be found at skrmoviespodcast, CA or skimovies substack.com. you could subscribe subscribe to us via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and where else podcasts are hosted. Support us by becoming a paid subscriber at sqlmovies substictack.com.
