Ahead of Jakob’s Wife’s premiere at South by Southwest last month, STARBURST caught up with filmmaker Travis Stevens to discuss his sophomore feature, a feminist vampire flick starring horror icon Barbara Crampton. We discuss genre tropes, different definitions of empowerment, and Stevens’ movie inspirations.

STARBURST: How would you describe Jakob’s Wife?

Travis Stevens: I’d say Jakob’s Wife is the story of a woman who has been married for thirty years, and who feels that her life has gotten too constrained. Then through an unexpected encounter, she rediscovers her own power and decides that things are going to change, and her pastor husband is going to have to change with her or he’ll have to get out of the way.

Basically, trying to do a movie that honours stories that look at women in the later stages of their life – like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – and combine that with a really fun horror movie.

What was it that made you want to direct this screenplay?

Travis Stevens: Barbara Crampton. She found the script originally, years ago, and had worked on it, developing it and working with different people. By the time it got to me, it was very clear what this movie could be, both as a story and as a role for her. Barbara Crampton had become a horror icon as an actor, and then stepped away to focus on raising a family. And she recently got back into acting, and wanted to move more fully into storytelling as a producer. And so it was immediately clear from reading the script that this movie and this character wouldn’t just be great for her, but it also reflects her own story that she was going through both personally and professionally. That was really exciting to me as a director, to get to work with her and bring her truth into this story.

Of course Barbara Crampton was attached from the start, but how did you go about assembling the rest of the cast?

Travis Stevens: The idea was to create an on-set environment that can be loose and flexible, and encourage a bit of improvisation. People could bring a spark, a bit of naturalism to the story because I wanted to counterbalance the fantasy elements with a more grounded naturalism. It really became about casting actors who could do that, starting with Larry Fessenden as Pastor Jakob Fedder, all the way through to Bonnie Aarons, Sarah Lind, Mark Kelly, and Nyisha Bell, Robert Rusler, etc. Basically, we were just finding people who could be loose and funny, and flexible. We did a lot of improv and I got very lucky with such a great cast.

This is your second time directing a feature, both of which have been horror movies. What do you enjoy most about working in this genre?

Travis Stevens: You can use the horror movie format to talk about a lot of different subjects, and I think it’s a very flexible and malleable genre. So, with every script, whether it’s something I’m going to write or produce, I look at it and ask, “What is the core idea here, beyond the horror aspect? What is this movie about, and what does it have to say? And does that answer have relevance in our world?” And only once that’s been identified and answered, then we look at the horror elements and try to make it the scariest, goriest, most fun movie possible.

And what would you say Jakob’s Wife’s core idea is?

Travis Stevens: I think at its core, it’s about a woman who regains the confidence to state what her needs are, and a man who tunes into the fact that he has stopped listening to his partner. And that can happen in any sort of relationship, where we stop really being aware of our partner’s needs.

We also spoke with Barbara Crampton the other day, and she explained you were the one who suggested casting a woman as The Master. Why was that important to you?  

Travis Stevens: Well, this is tied to that last question. This is a movie about a woman deciding what she wants from life, for herself. It was important to make sure that the movie wasn’t asking her to make a choice between two men [her husband and The Master], that The Master wasn’t coming in to seduce her and make her choose between him or the pastor. That’s not what the movie is about, it’s about what Anne wants for herself. What does she want to do? Where does she want to go? What does she want to spend her days doing? And so, changing The Master’s gender allows all these interactions to completely change and be about Anne. That was really important.

It’s interesting too that often in mainstream horror, women are “empowered” through their struggle for survival.

Travis Stevens: There’s capital E “Empowerment”, and then there’s real empowerment. And one of the things that’s become clearer over the last few years, as the dialogue surrounding different kinds of social and cultural representation in films continues to evolve, is that a lot of movies think they’re doing something empowering or representative, but they’re not. It’s just on the surface and to really get to the core of what someone’s experience is outside your own experience, you have to have a dialogue with the people in question. That’s how we have movies that empower, in lowercase.

I think the most exciting and rewarding aspect of this project was the conversation with Barbara, reflecting on how she identified with Anne, on her experiences, and bringing that into the screenplay. And talking with Larry [Fessenden] about what his marriage was like and his experience with life, and then speaking with them both together. That allowed us to ground the story in truth and make a more honest empowerment story.

Another great thing about this film is the number of nods and homages to prominent horror and cult movies. What were some of your biggest style inspirations for Jakob’s Wife?

Travis Stevens: That’s a good question. So, the movie sort of reflects the experience the characters have; it starts very drab, then this event happens, Anne starts to grow into her newfound power, and the world suddenly becomes more vibrant and exaggerated. That’s what she goes through, and that’s what I wanted the audience to experience. That dictated the visual approach, where we were going to set this movie in a banal, American small town, and try to infuse it with that sort of Gothic lighting; and as the story goes on, that gets more exaggerated. We were trying to find clever ways to combine Gothic or traditional iconography from the genre, and put that in a very familiar, generic, small town environment.

One of the fun things we did was pepper in some tributes to what I consider to be the classics in this subgenre, and there’s a lot of little Easter eggs for fans. And then we tried to make some new scenes that hadn’t really been seen in this type of movie before, that would push the genre forward.

There’s a really interesting marriage between the supernatural, exaggerated style of some of the scenes, and the naturalistic dialogue and quieter character study that you were mentioning.

Travis Stevens: Thanks, it’s a balance where you’re never quite sure where it’s going to go. Sometimes it’s easier to go from A to Z because it’s been tried and tested, and you know where it’s going. But here, combining two genres and different terminologies, we don’t know how it will go down. So, I appreciate that.

And lastly, both Jakob’s Wife and your previous feature, Girl on the Third Floor premiered at South by Southwest. What would you say the importance of global festivals is for indie filmmakers?

Travis Stevens: For the filmmakers, the festivals are important because it literally gives them a global stage to step on and say, “This is what I’m about. This is the type of art that I want to make, and this is the type of artist I am.” And at any point in your career, to be able to do that, that’s the most empowering thing. It can unlock future collaborations, other opportunities, and even just playing the movie in front of people and hearing their feedback directly, that makes you a better filmmaker. Then I think for the audience and for the entire industry, having a festival that highlights different voices from around the world, different perspectives, that introduces first-time filmmakers, that helps the entire business to discover and celebrate a more diverse type of filmmaking. That’s the really exciting, and it’s great to be a part of that. I think it expands our perspective on the human condition around the world [laughs].

Jakob’s Wife releases in US theatres, on digital, and on demand April 16th.