Feature Category: Features

To celebrate the UK release of new horror, Hunter’s Moon, we spoke to writer, director, and producer Michael Caissie about his directorial debut, what’s coming next, and his advice for new writers and filmmakers.

In Hunter’s Moon, three girls throw a party in their new country home when their parents leave town. After a group of dangerous local hoodlums show up, the women are forced to defend themselves from a predator, as well as a mysterious evil lurking in the orchard outside!

Caissie himself penned the Al Pacino thriller Hangman, and Hunter’s Moon stars Thomas Jane (The Punisher, Deep Blue Sea), Sean Patrick Flanery (TV’s Dexter, The Boondock Saints), Katrina Bowden (TV’s 30 Rock, The Bold and the Beautiful) and genre favourite Amanda Wyss (A Nightmare on Elm Street, TV’s Highlander).

STARBURST: How did the idea for Hunter’s Moon come to you?

Michael Caissie: I see it as a female empowerment movie. I was raised by my mother and grandmother and all the women I know are strong. I don’t like seeing weak women on screen, and I try to write strong female characters in all my stories.

Back when I wrote the script, I was running restaurants in Los Angeles, working ridiculous hours, with no free time to write. However, my script for Hangman was optioned so my wife and I talked about it and we took a leap of faith and I quit the day job. I decided to invest the same hours into writing that I had done for my job. I wrote script after script, blasting out first drafts in seven days, and out of that process one of the scripts was Hunter’s Moon, originally named The Orchard.

After developing it with my other producers, Christopher Sherman, Clayton Turnage and exec producer Arnold Rifkin, who is a huge mentor for me, I felt it would be a great first-time directing project. However, after a few months of hitting hurdles with financing and other issues, we decided to just go and make it our way. It would be harder, but it would be made on our terms. Fortunately, we still had financing in place.

What was the experience on set?

We started filming in Kentucky and were shooting back in 2017. The plan was to shoot what we could and cut a pitch trailer to show the production value. In that process we also ended up re-casting the sheriff role (which went to Thomas Jane) and when we totally finished filming, back in LA, the majority of the scenes had been re-shot.

It was a great, hugely educational experience but it was hard work at times. Even though it was quite a long process, the cast got to know each other really well and grew as a family unit, so it helped the film. The main family, played by Jay Mohr and Amanda Wyss as mom and dad, bonded a lot with their daughters, Katrina Bowden, Emmalee Parker and India Ennenga. That was an unforeseen benefit from having all that extra time.

Can you talk about the werewolf?

I didn’t want to push it too much within the film, and it’s a bit of a spoiler. In my mind, he’s one element in the story but not the main focus. However, the biggest inspiration for the werewolf was Jaws. I didn’t want to show much of the creature, which I know was a random thing for them since they didn’t want to show their mechanical shark. As we know today, that strategy turned out to be so iconic. So, while I’m not comparing my movie to Jaws, I really loved using that idea to show less and build tension. Our effects guru, Vincent J. Guastini, recommended a great stunt performer called Lucky who walks on stilts. So, we had him in the movie wearing the werewolf suit, all made practically with no CGI, and the werewolf stands 9 feet tall! It’s pretty cool and old school.

How do you develop new ideas, especially in horror, sci-fi, etc?

I’ve had a relationship over the years with a website called InkTip which is a platform for writers, where writers post their work and producers can connect with them. Recently, I was telling them what I was looking for, as a producer, and wanted something more skeletal which we could work on when it’s safe to do so.

One night I was up late, and it hit me, instead of trying to do just one movie, why not help shepherd multiple projects? My friend Clayton Turnage and I talked about a creative co-op where we pair five filmmakers with five up-and-coming writers on InkTip, we produce the five projects and I’ll direct one. I know a lot of filmmakers and know how much of a struggle it is in the indie world, no matter what genre you’re doing.

We’ve found some great filmmakers now, so we’ve just been working on budgets, schedules and putting together packages for financiers and distributors, with a goal of being ready to shoot once we’re able to get back to work.  One big inspiration was to make the process fun for filmmakers and the way I wish it had been for me as a writer early in my career, because I’ve got horror stories – and not in a good way! The co-op aspect means we’re each bringing our experience to the table and helping each other.

For another creative outlet, I always wanted to write a novel and I have a screenplay that lends itself to that, so I’ve been adapting that which has taken up most of my writing time. I think if you’re any kind of creative, you just need to work at your craft. That’s my biggest advice.

What’s coming next?

Before the pandemic, I was in Armenia filming a new TV show called Purgatory with Clayton Turnage. I wrote 16 episodes and was co-directing but we had to stop half-way, so we’ve turned it into two seasons of eight episodes in order to get our first eight episodes out. We’ll go back to finish season two. The first season of Purgatory is streaming now on Popstar! TV which is available online and on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV Stick. Hopefully people will enjoy checking that out.

A script I wrote even before Hunter’s Moon also got bought and made into a movie called Sin Origen and translated into Spanish. Rigoberto Castañeda is a cool horror director from Mexico and that’s supposed to be coming out in a few months, so people can look out for that. It’s about vampires whereas Hunter’s Moon is obviously about werewolves, so it’s fun to play with those conventions.

I love horror and I’m a lifelong fan. Stephen King is one of my heroes. In Hunter’s Moon, we wanted to create something fun, and even if you guess the twist, it doesn’t really matter. I just hope people have fun with it!

Dazzler Media presents Hunter’s Moon out now on DVD & Digital Download

Writer/director AMY SEIMETZ has been making genre films as an actor and director for several years now, but her latest, SHE DIES TOMORROW, is a massive leap forward. The indie film sees a slow contagion begin to spread out from a woman named Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), who might be suffering a relapse into alcoholism or actually becoming cognizant of the fact that she will, in fact, die the next day. As the idea takes hold in Amy’s mind, she begins voicing it aloud, and it starts spreading out among her friends. Watching the contagion take root in the minds of everyone in the film is quiet, but nothing less than paralysingly terrifying. We spoke by phone with Seimetz about her process of writing and directing this stellar film.

STARBURST: We talked to you last year ahead of the release of Pet Sematary, and one of the things that you had said, regarding directing, was that it’s very important to have a grounded and emotional experience in horror. Was the reason so many people on She Dies Tomorrow were ones with whom you’ve worked before due to wanting to have a small and honest performance from every actor?

Amy Seimetz: Yeah, the reason I work with all of them so much is because – well, they’re great, but also we have throughout the years developed a shorthand. And that’s not just with the cast but with my cinematographer Jay Keitel. He and I have known each other for 17 years so, when you have that shorthand and that base of friendship and then also, collaboration over the years, you can go much deeper, in a way. There are a lot of things that you can reach or you can execute without having to say too many words. You have this trust and this understanding with these people that really get you on an intrinsic level. It’s almost like you don’t have to really over-direct them.

There’s a level of acceptance in all of the characters in this film. What led you to go with that? Jane (played by Jane Adams) is essentially the only character who really has a super freak out about this. Everybody else seems to be very accepting of their situation.

I guess we’ve already seen the apocalypse movie where everyone’s running from it. There’s this really great story by Ray Bradbury [The Last Night of the World]. It’s just a short short story in Esquire, and it’s about this couple who both realised that they had a dream that the end of the world is coming and they don’t really do anything but make tea and go to bed. What’s weird is that I had read that when I was younger and it wasn’t until we were well into the middle of shooting that my assistant, Alex, was like, “This reminds me of this short story.”

I reread it and I was like, “I have read this before and it’s somehow stuck in my subconscious.” It’s so overwhelming, you know – that feeling that I was trying to like have them express is that there is no arguing. It’s just a fact to them. The feeling is so overwhelming that it’s just become effectively like there is no argument of the feeling. It’s just going to happen. There is no fighting it. Once it comes, it’s like, “This is just a fact. There’s no refuting it. We can’t run from it. No matter where we are, even if we run, we might run and get hit by a car. It doesn’t matter.” It’s not the how: it’s just going to happen.

Jane has the hit her own freak out because she’s just trying to connect to people that understand the feeling and she wants to be with people that understand the feeling and then, with Katie Aselton – who plays Susan – her response is to blame Jane, as opposed to completely accepting it. It’s like, “We need to we need to blame Jane. It’s Jane’s fault.” Which happens a lot, in fact.

I feel like I’ve really responded to that Ray Bradbury story but, also – again, I forgot I had read that until well into shooting and I was like, “Oh good. If it’s good enough for Ray Bradbury, then it’ll be great for a movie,” because there is the temptation, if you’re making something like this – a contagious movie or apocalypse movie – to really push it into territory that you’ve seen before. I just was interested in watching, in a darkly comedic way, what if everyone’s kind of failing at having their last day, in a way?

It’s interesting you say that because it feels like the performances are so much more honest, because it’s things that hadn’t been in film before, but it’s things that are seen in real life. When people accept that something is over, their false front drops and there’s just this honesty. The conversation between Tilly (Jennifer Kim) and Brian (Tunde Adebimpe) is just refreshingly honest, while at the same time being absolutely brutal.

Oh, god, yeah. I want to say that was completely made up, but somebody actually said that to me when my dad died and I actually – this is really fucked up – I actually really appreciated it when he said to me, “I was waiting to break up with you until your dad died.” If you haven’t gone through it, on the surface it sounds so cruel, but it actually was telling me, “I know that you felt that this relationship was bad for a while, but like I was trying to be nice and not bring it up.” It was actually kind of kind.

Exactly. They were being honest but they weren’t being unnecessarily cruel.

Right? It would be different if it was like, “You’re a nightmare. I’m glad your dad’s dead” or something but it’s not what it was. It was like, “Now, we can breathe. Now, it’s time.”

Considering the use of sound and colour in the film, it seems as though ‘psychedelic’ is getting thrown around a lot regarding the light seen by the characters as they become infected, as well as the photographs that Jane takes of the bacteria under the microscope. Where did you pull this idea of using color for communication? It seems like light and color and flashing lights does seem very Close Encounters but where did you pull it from, particularly?

There is a little bit of that way otherworldly: whether it’s being abducted by aliens and being implanted with this knowledge, being probed with light, but also just based off of people having near-death experiences and trying to express visually – and sonically, with the sound design – what would that feel like, to be flooded with every single emotion.

The performances and what the actors are doing – I never said, “It’s purely fear.” While they’re so scared, what I wanted them to perform and they did a fantastic job doing is there’s a curiosity to the feeling. There’s a sadness. There’s an elation. There’s these ecstatic, really conflicting emotions that they’re feeling, so trying to reach that ecstatic state with the flashing colours was overwhelming the senses in the best way I could for a movie, because I only have sight and sound. If I had smell-o-vision, I don’t know, but they say people smell burnt toast when they’re having a stroke?

But, yeah: just trying to reach what I interpreted from reading near-death experiences or also physiologically what happens to the body, which is your body – when you die – it’s flooded with all of your hormones right. I wanted to think about how wild that would feel: it’s your serotonin, of course, and then they have this theory that DMT gets released from your perineal glands in mass quantities when you die, so it’s like all of the hormones essentially being released.

What would that look like? What would that sound like to you? What would it feel like to you?

Speaking of sound, was the Lacrimosa movement from Mozart’s Requiem that Amy listens to – where she’s just lifting the needle up and dropping it back down again at the beginning of that record – was that written into the script?

I wrote it into the script and I wanted to keep it. I wanted it so bad that I filmed it live with her listening to it, but then I had the Mondo Boys cover it and we replaced it, but I always wanted that. I double-checked and knew that we could get it if we covered it. That was the song that I was listening to over and over and over again, thinking that I’d go through some sort of metamorphosis and realise like, “Oh, I’m not scared of death anymore, because Mozart confronted it.”

I guess you could say in some ways, this would be my Requiem, but I didn’t really approach it that way. At the same time, I think it’s a fascinating sort of endeavour to really confront your own death with composers but then also just in writing. Johnny Cash had all those cover albums that he came out with. That, to me, would be a requiem.

The other song that I thought maybe would go in there, but it’s too sentimental and not the right thing, was Claire de Lune, which I listen to be really indulgent. Obviously, because the movie is confronting death or my way of confronting death in some way, I was like, “Oh, yes: this is perfect for this movie,” and also just the relationship of wanting to be so indulgent, too. I find myself doing that. Where, when I’m feeling sad – and everyone does this – I just want to listen to really sad music or really dramatic music.

Blue Finch Film Releasing presents SHE DIES TOMORROW on Curzon Home Cinema, BFI Player, and Digital Download on August 28th. Read our review here.

This month, Arrow Video is releasing a lot of its titles in 4K ultra HD. Among them is the 2000 classic Pitch Black, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and which has since spawned a multimedia franchise centred on its antihero, Riddick. To celebrate, STARBURST had the chance to talk to Pitch Black star – and legendary actor – Keith David, who reprised his role of Abu ‘Imam’ al-Walid in the sequel The Chronicles of Riddick. With 320 acting credits spanning over 40 years, David is one of the most prolific figures in genre entertainment, making his name in John Carpenter’s The Thing and They Live, as well as lending his voice to an array of animated characters. We borrowed a brief moment of David’s time to talk about his memories working on Pitch Black, how he feels it compares to roles he has had since, and why he thinks it continues to have such an appeal.

STARBURST: We’re here talking about the 20th anniversary of Pitch Black. Looking back, what’s your fondest memory of making the film or watching the film?

Keith David: Oh well, I have great memories of making the film. I remember that there was so much of the film that was done in post. I never saw what the monsters looked like. When you’re making that kind of sci-fi, there’s a lot of simulations and things that you know definitely get taken care of after the movie after the main photography has been shot. So seeing it all put together was exciting. It really was. That’s one of the things that still fascinates me about the movies – angles. It only has to appear a certain way. It doesn’t have to necessarily be that way. And the way people do their movie magic never ceases to amaze me

Did you approach your role in any particular way? Did you go in with any particular mind-set for it?

Well, I’ve played many priests and preachers, but I’d never played an Imam. An Imam… I guess he’s like a bishop in the Muslim community. So I started doing a lot of research on Islam, and it was quite wonderful a lot of the things that I discovered. Of course all the major religions share a commonality; and that’s one of the things that I discovered was the commonality of our different belief systems. It was very interesting to me that both in Pitch Black and in the sequel, the enduring religion in the end was Islam. That’s the one that went out into space. Which only goes to show you how dangerous and wrong it is to lump a people into a generality, because you’ve had some bad experience with Muslims and whatever society, then you know you blanket them as all bad people because most Muslims are very, very peaceful people.

Why do you think the film, which has went down as a classic as many of your films have, has retained such a loyal following? What do you think fans of the film continue to get out of watching it? 

I mean it’s a great ride. The one thing I learned doing The Thing… Kurt Russell, Richard Masur, and Charlie Hallahan – they were all quite big sci-fi buffs. I think if I remember correctly, Kurt might have done some script doctoring at some point. They knew craft-wise about scriptwriting and especially with science fiction, it’s the case of ‘I’ll believe anything you tell me as long as you keep with the premise that you set up’. You have to be honest to the story. Once you’ve set up a promise then, as long as you’re true to that, we’ll go along for the ride. The movie only starts to break down when you start saying ‘well, the monster does this, this, and this’ and then all of a sudden he starts doing other things. And sometimes even that can work depending again on the premise that you set up. In a bad hokey movie, it just falls apart and you say ‘ah that’s not what you said in the beginning.’ But other times, if you see the way they can make adaptations, you kind of go ‘oh, wow. That’s why he was able to do that’ and you get that feeling. But here, I think we stuck pretty much with what the premise was and that was it. That’s a good thing, you know.

Movies we enjoy the most are those like you were just talking about, that manage to take something that on paper can feel so fantastical and unbelievable and managed to convince you that not only is it genuine but it matters. Coraline, where you voiced the Cat, was one of this writer’s favourite films growing up. And that I think is a really good example. It took something that on paper seems so wildly imaginative and it makes you care deeply about it because it only goes as incredible and out there as it needs to, to keep you on board with it. At least that’s how I’ve always looked at that film. Is that why you think Pitch Black still has a lot of fans? They keep getting something out of it and appreciate its fantastical elements?

Yeah. It’s like when you read a book again, and when you see the movie the second, the third time, you always see something that you seem to have missed the first time. In your periphery, in your mind, you’ll say ‘I remember seeing that, but I didn’t realise it meant that’. It’s quite a wonderful feeling. When you can look at it and still get something else out of it.

How do you think the role compares to others you’ve had in the past. We know you said you’ve played a lot of preachers of the equivalent of preachers in your career – Greenleaf recently finished up – so how does it compare?

Well, first of all, I got to explore what it was like to speak English as a second language. That was a task I set for myself because I think Abu’s native tongue was Arabic. So in Pitch Black, I got to experiment with a little bit of Arabic. And it’s funny because I had an uncle who I think he was stationed in Morocco when he was in the air force. So when he came back he spoke a little Arabic. So I enjoyed that part of it. Whenever I hear Arabic spoken now, I keep my ears tuned and sometimes think ‘oh, I can say that’ or ‘I know that.’

Has much of it stayed with you?

Some of it has. I’d have to go back and review my notes!

You were, of course, in the follow up as well, The Chronicles of Riddick, which was in terms of the scale anyway a much bigger film since Pitch Black proved to be a hit; bigger budget, more visual effects… how is it taking the same character back, knowing that you have the success of the first film to build on and that the new film had a lot more weight and money thrown behind it?

It was great to see how they expanded the story; people growing up, people growing older, you know? I understand that they [Vin Diesel and David Twohy] are coming up with another one. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to be in it except maybe like Obi-Wan Kenobi coming back as a ghost or memory or something, which would be nice. I love the way they fit him back in, and keep him woven into the story. So it would be interesting.

Looking ahead, as we mentioned earlier Greenleaf has finished up recently. Will we get to see that show in the UK?

If you haven’t seen it yet, it should be coming soon. It’s on Netflix.

Some other things you have coming up include The Seventh Day and Horizon Line. Are you able to tell us anything new about that?

I’ll have to keep The Seventh Day closer to the vest right now. What I can say right now is that it’s coming. Horizon Line… that one should be coming out soon too. So just look out for it, it’s coming out.

Lastly, what do you think the most important thing about Pitch Black is now it has been rereleased? If someone was to watch it now for the first time, what would you want them to think?

That there are more things out there. To quote Shakespeare, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth… than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. So, be aware. Because there could be things out there that you didn’t count on.

That’s the joy of a science fiction movie.

Yeah, that is the great joy of science fiction, because it is as real as your imagination.

The Ultra HD 4K and Blu-ray of Pitch Black are available now. Check out our review here. All five seasons of Greenleaf are now available on Netflix UK.

An experienced film and television actor, Tania Raymonde is most noted for her roles in the J. J. Abrams series Lost and alongside Billy Bob Thornton in the Amazon drama Goliath. With her new movie Deep Blue Sea 3 out for release Tania sat down with us to discuss all things shark related.

STARBURST: How do you feel about the water now after making this movie?

Well, we had to learn how to scuba dive and get certified for this film. And I thought that because I was scared of flying and being all the way up there, how am I going to feel being all the way down there? But I absolutely loved it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a state of peace and tranquillity as I did under the water. It’s incredible; the light, the sound, it’s almost trancelike. You feel so calm underwater that it was hard to act in a panic for the film.

We presume you didn’t encounter anything underwater close to the size of the sharks in your film?

[Laughs] No, thankfully nothing like that. I’m sure if I did, I might feel differently about the water now!

The Deep Blue Sea franchise has always had strong female characters. Your character Emma is driven but there’s also a humanity to her. How would you describe her?

Emma is very motivated by her work, a true marine biologist and she cares deeply about climate change and the environment. And she carries a guilt because she can see how important sharks are for the eco-system. And she’s more comfortable around sharks than humans. So, at the beginning she’s firmly rooted in her belief of science and conservation, but she feels she’s fighting a losing battle. As the film the progresses she must figure out how to save her team and the sharks they protect from the bull sharks that come in and start killing.

Does the overall message within a film or series have a bearing on how you select a role?

I think it’s a combination of many things. It always starts with the script, though, as it must be entertaining. There was something in the writing here that was very direct and wasn’t winking at the audience in anyway. There was an earnestness in the way the film and the character were written and that made me invested in it. If I end up caring what happens then the choice becomes easy.

Is there something in the action or shark subgenre that’s enticing to an actor?

Yeah, sure. You know, this was one of the best sets I’ve been on in my life. I remember watching Waterworld with my Dad when I was a kid and this set looked exactly the same. As a little girl, I went to the Waterworld theme park ride and I remember thinking ‘there is nothing cooler than this’. And so when I walked on set it and it was the same it was amazing. It was such fun, like an adult Jungle Gym.

You did a great Instagram video from the set.

Yeah, that was my first day there. It was amazing, but it was cold. They couldn’t heat the water as it would change the colour or something, but it just felt so real.

Did you film in sequence as, without giving away spoilers, there are some explosions?

We sort of did; the third act was all filmed last. It was a shame because this amazing crew built this set and aged it, and then we destroyed it. I remember the first day things started blowing up we were all a little sad.

Why do you think shark films remain so popular?

I think it’s because it’s something that provides a universal, common fear. I think human beings are innately terrified of these prehistoric creatures under the surface of the water. The ocean is such a mystery and perhaps we feel at such a disadvantage in their world.

DEEP BLUE SEA 3 is out now. Read our review here.