Anyone who has been following “Film Thoughts” for any amount of time knows I'm a big fan and longtime supporter of Lucky McKee, the filmmaker behind such deranged classics of indie horror as “May” and “The Woman.” They are films I've written about extensively, recently even, and I'm constantly recommending them to friends.
Lucky's latest film, “Kindred Spirits,” recently became available on video-on-demand and digital rental. McKee has been doing a lot of guerrilla marketing for the film through his Twitter account. When he asked if anyone was interested in giving the movie some free press, I immediately jumped at the chance to interview a writer and director I've greatly admired for over a decade at this point. Soon enough, we were chatting about his career, his frequent collaborators, rumors, and how “Kindred Spirits” came about.
I've never done an interview of someone whose work means so much to me before, so I was both elated and extremely nervous to be talking to Mr. McKee. I don't know if I avoided coming off like a nerd or a weirdo but hopefully this interview will get a few more people to check out “Kindred Spirits.”
Zack: Wow, it's very exciting to be talking to you. I'm a huge fan.
Lucky McKee: Awww. Thanks for saying that.
Z: Let's start with something I've been curious about for years... I believe on the audio commentary for MAY, you mention an earlier short film that touched on some of the same themes you explored later on, about an angry doll attacking a man. (I want to say the title was "Fracture") I've often wondered if this still exist in any form.
LM: A black and white Hi8 short called FRACTURE was indeed the first iteration of the MAY story. I still have it! Been thinking of putting out a collection of weird shorts I’ve made over the years. Also, the short where a doll attacks bites my friend Ben Boyer’s dick off is a whole different short!
Z: That would be amazing! I've often hoped one of the boutique cult movie labels - Arrow or Scream Factory or the like - would give MAY the special edition Blu-Ray release it deserves, I know there was a lot of behind-the-scenes footage on Youtube and other sites like that at one point in time. Do you know if anything like that has ever been attempted?
LM: The little bits of footage that were on YouTube are the tip of a massive iceberg. I have maybe 50 or 60 hours of BTS footage from that whole experience! I’d love to make something happen with it someday but haven’t had the right opportunity.
Z: MAY is so clearly a deeply personal film. It certainly touched me in a very personal way when I first saw it as an incredibly socially awkward teenager. Did MAY's themes of isolation and alienation grow out of personal struggles of your own?
LM: Well, it was written by an incredibly socially awkward college kid so that tracks! To answer you second question, absolutely 100% yes.
Z: It's still an all-time favorite film of mine. I actually re-watched it this past October and still discover new details I've never noticed before. Polly's line about imperfections making people special seems to be a key moment, that directly connects with May later plucking out her own eye to bring Amy to life. As someone who has struggled with OCD and perfectionism, the film struck me more than ever as a story about self-acceptance. Is the ending to be read as tragic or hopeful?
LM: Polly’s line is for sure a key moment. Isn’t Anna great in that part? As far as the ending, how the ending is read depends on the viewer. Ideally they feel different about it each time they watch it.
Z: Yeah, Anna is great, a very underrated dramatic performer.
Z: I do have some questions about the original ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE. Obviously, you and Chris Sivertson have a long working relationship, from that first film up through KINDRED SPIRITS. How did you two first meet and what is your process like?
LM: Chris and I were neighbors on the dorm floor our freshman year at USC. We became fast friends and have been making movies together ever since our late teenage years. We learned how to make movies together and share a strange sense of humor. It’s always a blast working with him. He’s one of the funniest, sharpest people I’ve ever know. A true brother.
Z: Presumably ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE grew out of these early films you two made together? When was the decision made to create a bigger budget remake?
LM: Making the first CHEERLEADERS a year after graduating film school was our way of teaching ourselves how to make a feature film from soup to nuts. We shared all duties, from producing, to writing, directing, camera, sound, and editing. A full meal of an experience. It was a great way to make a first film with a partner like that. We learned twice as much by sharing that experience. After that we were able to kickstart our solo careers and years later decided to revisit the core idea of ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE and reimagine it using whatever we’d learned from our first decade of making movies. It’s cool to see the contrast between the two versions. It was also important to me personally at that point in time to work on something light and fun after living in the dark world of THE WOMAN for the two previous years.
Z: Speaking of THE WOMAN. The great Jack Ketchum was another frequent collaborator of your's. Was THE WOMAN conceived as a novel or a screenplay first?
LM: It started out with me pitching a sequel to the producer of the OFFSPRING film. I pitched it to Ketchum around the same time and we decided to write both the book and the screenplay together. It was all part of a wonderful collaborative run we had together for many years.
Z: Obviously your partnership with Ketchum was a fruitful one, as you went on to write two more novels together. What was the collaborative process like with Jack? How did you two split the writing duties? How much of "I'm Not Sam" and "The Secret Life of Souls" was "your's" or "his?"
LM: Ketchum and I worked remotely. Phone, email, instant messenger. Occasionally we'd be lucky enough to hang out in person, but we are both homebodies with our writing work so we were usually communicating from our respective caves. We would hash the broad strokes of a story out together, then one of us would go off an write pages. If I was writing the first draft pages, it would be in screenplay form, if he was writing first draft pages, it would be prose. We gave each other notes, rewrote each other. It was such a smooth collaboration. I cherish the time I had working with him. He was an amazing thinker, mentor and friend. I am still working to get everything we wrote together made into films. I miss him every day.
Z: I'm sure you get asked this a lot but... What exactly happened with RED?
LM: The production ran out of money halfway through the shoot. I disagreed on how to correct the problem and get the film finished. Ultimately I was replaced. It was a crushing experience that almost made me quit the movie business for good. Thankfully, THE WOMAN rose from the ashes of that clusterfuck.
Let me be clear though... RED falling apart for me was as much my fault as anyone else. I didn't see it that way at the time, but I see it that way now. Hubris did me in, but I learned some valuable lessons.
Z: Another project of your's that there doesn't seem to be much behind-the-scenes information on is BLOOD MONEY. How did you get involved with that and how much input did you have on Jared Butler and Lars Norberg's screenplay?
LM: BLOOD MONEY was a director-for-hire job that kept the lights on when I really needed it. I rewrote the script a zillion times in the year and a half leading up to the shoot. I loved working with the three lead kids. Willa Fitzgerald is so damned special. It's a shame the final film doesn't honor her hard work. With that film, I did the best I could with the resources, moral support and creative control that were not provided.
Z: I think that one is pretty good, a solid thriller. I definitely feel the “Lucky McKee sensibility” inside it.
Jumping back in time a little: I love your “Masters of Horror” episode. Was it intimidating being listed as a “master” alongside some of the most well-known and beloved directors of the genre? And did you ever attend any of the legendary dinner parties the series spawned from?
LM: It was quite an honor. It was supremely intimidating to be invited but that just made me work harder. The work of all those veteran directors was such a huge part of what made me want to make movies in the first place. It was surreal to be apart of that experience. Another bonus with my episode is that many of my good old friends were allowed to contribute. I turned 30 as were finishing up the sound design in Vancouver. I felt like I had pulled off some sort of trick and fooled everyone. Major feelings of impostor syndrome.
I went to many of those dinners. My friendship with Tobe Hooper was crystallized at those get togethers. We became such good friends. He was a wonderful mentor to me. I miss our long, crazy, enlightening talks.
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| An early TOOLBOX MURDERS poster possibly featuring Lucky's face. |
Z: There’s a rumor you were originally going to play the killer in Tobe’s TOOLBOX MURDERS remake. Is that true?
LM: Yes. We did make-up and camera tests, it was all set to happen and then my movie THE WOODS was greenlit and I had to back out. I wish it would have panned out! A lot of my crew from MAY worked on that film.
Z: While we are on the topic of rumors, here's two others I was wondering if you could confirm or bust. At different points, you were supposedly attached to a remake of FIEND WITHOUT A FACE and an adaptation of Brian Harper's novel SHIVER. Any truth to that and, if so, why did those projects never get made?
LM: I worked on FIEND with Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson (the writers of TOOLBOX) for a brief period. I think my take was a little too outlandish for folks to get their heads wrapped around. I wrote a little treatment, but nothing ever happened with it.
I was attached to SHIVER for quite some time, but ultimately parted ways over creative differences. The film was eventually made but I haven't seen it. I was really into Richard Fleischer's great serial killer movies at the time so the hope was to make something of that ilk. Just didn't work out. It's too bad it would have been fun to make that type of film.
Z: Something I've always admired about your films is that almost all of them revolve around female protagonists. This continues in KINDRED SPIRITS, your latest exploration of the secrets and intimacy of sisterhood. Do you find women easier to write than men? Where do you find such insight into the feminine mind?
LM: Any character I write is going to have little fragments of me buried in them. It doesn't matter what gender they are. I always work with actors on a heart to heart basis. We almost never rehearse, we mostly talk about why a character is saying or doing what they do. We ask each other tough, challenging questions and just explore the given subject matter together. It can be a very rewarding, intimate, enlightening process if the actor is game.
Z: How much do you storyboard? There's a real visual preciseness to your films - seen in the dreamy asides of MAY, the spooky witch sequences in THE WOODS, and now in KINDRED SPIRITS - that I've always been keen on.
LM: Some films I storyboard more than others. There is always a shot list. On the kind of budgets I usually work with I have to be flexible and adapt to the given situation so a lot of times I only get about 60-70% of what I initially hope to do. I feel like I shoot in a pretty old fashioned sort of way, but try to push myself where I can.
Z: There's always been an element of dark comedy and interpersonal drama in your films and KINDRED SPIRITS sees that moving towards the forefront, in that it's less of a horror film than some fans may expect. Was this an intentional move or where you just following your muse where it took you?
LM: I simply responded to Chris's script. As I said before, we share very specific mutual sense of humor and I just felt like I "got it". My year was coming to a close and the opportunity to make the film came along and I just jumped on it. It was good group of people to work with. We had very little time to shoot (15 days) and very little resources (well under a half million budget), but I feel like we did what we set out to do which was to make the type of pulpy character driven thrillers the studios used to make in the late 80's/early 90's.
Z: The film made its surprise debut on Lifetime last October, which is rather ironic considering more than one review described it as an especially dark Lifetime movie. How did that debut come about?
LM: The company I made the film for makes a lot of low budget movies for Lifetime, so I always knew that possibility was in play. No one thought to tell me it was going to air. My producer just happened to find out with a random internet search shortly before it played. I think it's super cool that my work was seen by a whole new type of audience. There's a huge fanbase there and, if you take a step back an think about it, my sort of work pretty much fits it like a glove.
Z: Before we wrap up, I am curious: What is next for you? I know you have a segment in the to-be-released DEATHCEMBER.
LM: Yes. The next piece of work to be released is my anthology segment in DEATHCEMBER. I made an odd little black and white western short! It was super fun to work with Sean Bridgers again and his co-lead Justin Stone is magnificent. Very proud of that one. Excited for folks to see it.
Z: A black-and-white Christmas themed horror/western? That sounds amazing!
Thank you so much for talking to me, Lucky! It really means a lot that you took the time to do this interview. I've been a fan and champion of your films from the beginning, so getting to talk to you has been a real treat.
LM: No problem man. My pleasure. Thanks so much for helping spread the word!!!
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