Horror
Interview: SPRING Directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson
I knew I liked the directing team of Moorhead & Benson even before I talked with them. Their new movie SPRING blew me away when I saw it at Fantastic Fest in Austin this past September, but when I saw writer and co-director Justin Benson sitting with a coffee mug bearing the face of my long time celebrity crush Eva Green (something he got as a gift from the director of COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES), I knew this was going to be a good interview. Now with a full cup of coffee in my own mug that sported a silhouette of the Frankenstein creature, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, and I embarked on a long journey discussing monsters, love, Alan Moore, their upcoming Aleister Crowley film, and riding bikes around Cannes in $25 suits.
Talk about the process of writing, making, and getting SPRING released
JUSTIN BENSON: Spring was written while we were mixing our first film RESOLUTION. That film was just a passion project that we wanted to make and we didn’t know if anyone was going to see it. I was still working at restaurants and working as a production assistant and I just wrote SPRING without any sales or anyone interested. I just wanted to go write. After RESOLUTION was somewhat of an indie success, we had options. We started having people ask us what else we had and what we wanted to do next. At that point I had three scripts. We were showing the scripts to different companied and XYZ Films said you should do the “romance.” “We will help you on the business side.” They helped us on the business side a lot. What was it like Aaron producing SPRING?
AARON MOORHEAD: Riding around on a bike through Cannes in $25 H&M suits like hobos.
BENSON: That’s actually an exaggeration. Hobos don’t wear $25 H&M suits.
MOORHEAD: If a hobo needed a suit…
You don’t have a Salvation Army or a thrift store?
MOORHEAD: Ok. Ok. So slightly above hobos. So we needed to get the film made once we decided on SPRING. The problem is there isn’t a lot of precedent to get a film like that made. It’s more character centric and isn’t a straightforward zombie movie or werewolf movie. There are a lot of red herrings to what’s going on but this is ultimately a love story. Exactly how to make it is a little tough. All we knew was that the script was a little bit strong and the filmmakers had a pedigree. That’s all we had to go on. So we along with XYZ went to the Cannes Film Festival and double-downed out of our own pockets. Most of the people that go are paid to go by companies. We were like the only ones at Cannes paying out of our bank account. So our intent was to package the film, meet talent, meet financing, and get an Italian producer and scout the Italian coast. We did do some of that but what’s funny is that we had no money. We had nothing.
You just had the script at this point.
MOORHEAD: The script and the two of us. We stayed 30 minutes out of town. Rented cheap bikes. It was the year it rained all day every day. So we were riding around everywhere, getting soaked. Didn’t have WiFi so we were late to all of our meetings. There were people everywhere and wouldn’t get out of the way because they wanted to see Leoanrdo DiCaprio. It was just this insane trip. Cannes is an incredible beautiful place all the time but that trip made it feel like a nightmare.
We eventually got out of it and found Luca, our Italian producer, and we scouted the Italian coastline. We realized, “Ok. We can actually shoot in Italy.” There were other meetings, but it was basically green-lit when Lou (Lou Taylor Pucci who plays Evan) came on board. He read the script and liked it. He just came off of EVIL DEAD. His reps asked him what he wants to do and he said, “I kind of want to do a love story but also a horror story.” And they said, “Lou, those don’t exist.” Then a week later SPRING came across their desk. We sat with him and it was an immediate casting thing. We then had most of the pieces of the puzzle. Justin, why don’t you explain how we got Nadia.
BENSON: We sent an email to every international producer we met on the festival circuit asking if they know of a young woman who… it’s kind of like being photogenic but more like photo-smart. If that person on-screen says they are a geneticist, then they are a geneticist. Who is Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films?
Gary Oldman
BENSON: Gary Oldman is photo-smart. He could be the dumbest guy in the world but you watch him and think that he is noble and he is incredibly intelligent. Nadia had that quality. We interviewed her over Skype and she was very naturalistic and a charmer.
There was other stuff too but that’s basically the story.
Cool. I wanted to give the readers a general understanding of how this came about, especially because you guys came from short films and the micro-budget RESOLUTION, but this film looks and feels much bigger.
BENSON: It’s weird. We never had discussions about scale or scope. We were never conscience about that. There’s a story point in RESOLUTION that requires minimalism. Where with SPRING we didn’t have that. On top of that, we wanted the camera to feel like an omniscient presence in the film. When we had the opportunity to utilize the drone shots, that look kind of came out of it. This omniscient, floating, following, presence throughout the movie.
In the year 2014-2015, it’s harder than ever to get your second film made. We experienced a phenomenon where our first movie didn’t mean much to those financing our second movie. It was a micro-budget film we did ourselves, so they are convinced that if they give you a budget that you could pull off that trick. They treat you like you’re specialized.
So do you have to talk a big game? You just have to woo them with your words.
BENSON: Yeah. Pretty much. It’s interesting. The other thing is that there are so many more micro-budget filmmakers working now. Kevin Smith made CLERKS in the 90’s and Linklater made SLACKER then, and there were just less people making these smaller, minimal things that they made themselves.
The city itself becomes an integral character in the film. I didn’t know if there was ever a different city you imagined or wanted in the beginning stages?
BENSON: It was always an Italian city. It was written for the Amalfi Coast. When we found that region and went over to scout it, we found all the exact locations. It was weird with SPRING. You had Lou asking his reps he wanted to do a sci-fi romance. What are the chances of that? With the locations, being ignorant, we wrote the scrip for Italy then had everyone tell us it was impossible to make and it would be too expensive. Then when we finally got around to making it, there was this really tiny region in Italy that worked with us and wanted the film to come shoot there. Where if we were more business savvy we would have wrote it set in Giacarta or Colombia.
You have these incredible shots that push through the city or scan over the ocean, but then you have these tight biological shots of nature or plants in close-up. How much of that was pre-planned vs. just working off the environment when you got there? Was all of that part of the original vision of the film?
MOORHEAD: Most of that was in the plan. That was a big part of our original shot listing. We wanted this storm cloud over the story. This sense of doom. It was something that succeeded slightly in RESOLUTION. We didn’t use it as much in RESOLUTION. This omniscent encroaching force of nature idea. In SPRING it was even more important to Nadia’s story and the natural phenomenon. When we were shot-listing, we would ask the production designer to get some insects. In the script it says, “Close-up on insect, rack focus to…” Sometimes we would find things on location that it was so cool we had to shoot it. A couple of dead birds I think. Those were found just there. We planned something else but used them instead. As far as the drone shots, Justin and I talked about our hatred for really intrinsic establishing shots. They are filler. Time wasters. They are just informational and don’t really push the story forward. The worst thing in the world are all these films set in LA and there’s a pan down to a house in Pasadena
(Laughter)
So we said can’t we just cut out all those shots. When we were talking about SPRING we said, “How can we avoid establishing shots and still convey that its nighttime now?” So we created these shots that were establishing shots but still were observational to the tone of the story. So we had this drone when we were planning this. When our cameraman/steadicam operator Will Sampson said he had a drone that is when things clicked into place. On our off days, he would take the drone around and we’d be like, “Take it through the bridge!” What’s interesting is almost all the moving shots that looked like JURASSIC PARK were not as interesting as the God’s eye top looking down view.
It’s because they don’t have that John Williams’ score behind it.
BENSON: Can we talk about the score?
I actually love the score. It has this great romantic quality without feeling really cheesy.
BENSON: That’s exactly it.
MOORHEAD: Exactly it.
BENSON: Actually, if you want to listen to his music, he (Jimmy Lavalle) performs as The Album Leaf. He’s kind of like Trent Reznor. You have Nine Inch Nails but Nine Inch Nails is really just Trent Reznor. He has a revolving door of musicians that come in as The Album Leaf. He’s just incredible. Right out of college his manager hired me to document the making of one of his albums. So you travel around and really get to know someone. You bond and stay in touch. Aaron and I approached him to work on SPRING. We feel really fortunate to work with someone of that caliber. Aaron would walk away from the recording sessions and he would be like, “I can’t believe this music is going to be in our film.”
Yeah. It’s a great score. It definitely brought life to the film. There’s a romantic sensibility to it without sounding like a generic score that you would hear in something like YOU’VE GOT MAIL.
One of the things I was curious about is how you guys feel about critics and journalists describing the film as BEFORE SUNRISE meets H.P. Lovecraft? Outside of your feelings towards that comparison, was either of those two things influences on SPRING?
BENSON: I know it angers Aaron. I’ll quote him, “ I’m tired of being compared to this low-brow hack.”
(Laughter)
MOORHEAD: No. We love it. We don’t like to be compared to that because it puts this terrifying expectation on your movie. So that’s scary. We weren’t consciously taking from any one movie, but at a certain point, you have to describe a movie in a certain way. And we know that it isn’t really easy to do with our movie. That’s about as good of a description as any I guess. We’re honored.
BENSON: We recently got to meet him (Richard Linklater) very briefly. He might be the nicest person on the planet that we’ve ever talked to for 30 seconds.
(Laughter)
BENSON: I had a séance to communicate with H.P. Lovecraft but he wasn’t so nice.
So did you pimp out your film to Linklater? Were you like, “Hey, people say our film looks like your shit.”
BENSON: What happened was that Tim League at Drafthouse had already talked to him about it a little. It was crazy because he already knew about it. So that was pretty special. That was cool.
We love every single thing about SPRING. Maybe 20 years from now we’ll look back and say, “We fucked up!” But for now we love everything about it. So when someone says it’s like movies from one of the greatest living filmmakers right now…
(Laughter)
There’s a conversation towards the end of the film that takes place in a church between two characters about the unexplained or how things that people don’t fully understand are labeled as the supernatural. I didn’t know if you included this as a nod of sorts to the film itself and how hard it is to categorize it.
MOORHEAD: I don’t think it’s a comment itself about the categorization of the film. What do you think Justin?
BENSON: No. No. I’m trying to remember the conversation exactly.
MOORHEAD: It’s the one about how science is the unexplained…
Correct
BENSON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what’s sad: that’s my favorite scene in the movie and I have to ask what it’s about!
MOORHEAD: It’s because it’s 9:01 in the morning.
(Laughter)
It’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie and that’s why I was curious about it.
BENSON: Thank you! We love that scene! It’s very literal from my point of view. Maybe unconsciously.
Out of the whole film, that one scene kind of has everything that the film is about. You have the discussion of science. They are sitting in a church, which relates to ancient religions and societies. Then the whole time you have something right over his shoulder ready to… It’s a scene that packs a lot of elements of the film perfectly together. It’s a great moment.
BENSON: Thank you! That was part of the discussion. That scene is the tone of the movie. It’s heartfelt. It’s cerebral. It’s tense. Then it ends with a fun little joke.
Because you guys just came off of a film with two male leads, did you find it refreshing to develop a relationship between a male and a female lead?
MOORHEAD: It wasn’t so much we wanted to do a romance. It had more to do with wanting to show the beginning of a relationship instead of in the middle of a really long friendship like what RESOLUTION was. It was a deconstruction of being in love and the difference between love and infatuation.
For sure. You have this romance where you have the fear of the unknown or not knowing what the next step is or who this person really is that you’re falling in love with. Obviously it goes into some horrific and fantastical territory, but at the base of it you have this fear of something new.
BENSON: The script is consciously put into one week. What I put in there from my observations is the first 6 weeks or 3 months of a romance. Not really my own, but just talking to friends. A lot of what I know about romance is from friends coming to me or me witnessing friends’ relationships. For instance, I have had three different friends on their hands and knees begging for the girl to stay with them after a couple of months. The film only shows a week, but it shows all the familiar beats you encounter in a relationship.
The horror genre often has a need to push the limits in gore or to shock the audience, but with SPRING the “shocking” scenes are more beautifully grotesque. There’s a sense that you’re attracted to it but also repulsed by it. Can you talk a little about the imagery I’m referring to without spoiling anything?
MOORHEAD: Yeah. That’s kind of exactly it. That’s the sort of genesis of the movie – that exact idea. On a superficial level, it’s a visual film that has this body horror element set in the Mediterranean in this idyllic or fantasy place. It couldn’t be a more beautiful place. Then there’s this other idea of a beautiful romance and this horrifying dark secret. But there’s something beautiful about the magic in this world and the unpredictable nature of science. Every single level we tried to juxtapose as much of the beautiful and the grotesque. That was a big guiding thing for us.
BENSON: That’s also why the script is based in Southern Italy. You look out across these groves or these beautiful Mediterranean buildings and it’s so tranquil. Then all of a sudden there’s the most horrible example of body horror that just floats up from the Mediterranean. It has that much more of an impact because of where you are.
Can you talk at all about your Aleister Crowley film? Have you started pre-production? Is the script finished?
MOORHEAD: Yes. The script is done and is fantastic. I can love on it because Justin wrote it. It’s just one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself because you’re working on something so cool. Basically it’s a strange compressed bio-pic where we tell kind of the spirit and some of the events surrounding his life. Do you know who Aleister Crowley is?
A little bit. I know he was very much interested in this idea of blending religion and science and that some say his thoughts influenced Mormonism.
BENSON: Yeah. So early in his life he had these very interesting and progressive ideas. A lot of which people would agree upon nowadays. He had interesting ideas about religion, he was a poet, he was a mountain climber, and did this ceremonial magic that was important to him. So, what is it that changed in this man that believed in the spirit of rebellion for the health of it, that same man that was on The Beatled Sergeant Pepper’s album cover, into what the press would later claim “the wickedest man in the world.” He became a heroin addict, drove many of his lovers to suicide, and formed a sort of cult. So that’s the basic idea, to show this very large fall.
MOORHEAD: If RESOLUTION is about two men and their friendship and SPRING is about a man and a woman and their romance, our Crowley film will be about a man and his ego.
Are you nervous Aaron about filming a period piece and making sure the details of this world are accurate?
MOORHEAD: One really great thing about this period piece is that it’s mainly contained to his house along Loch Ness. When he brings his counter culture friends over to his place, it doesn’t look like any period piece you have ever seen. They are Victorian, spiritual hippies. They wear clothes that are very colorful and reminiscent of Indian garb. Most Victorian period pieces everyone looks like they are wearing shades brown. This won’t look like that. It’s possible that if you saw a frame from this it would look more surreal.
I’m definitely intrigued.
BENSON: Yeah. It’s a very cool story. One of the more interesting things on his Wikipedia page is that it explicitly states ‘though he is remembered as a Satanist, he didn’t even believe in Satan.’ The movie gets into why is that? How did that happen? That gets into this story about a character who was really one of the first pop culture figures that created this alter ego that completely took him over. Like an early Marilyn Manson or Eminem. It’s a really, really, really fun project.
It’s funny. Aaron and I did this small shoot yesterday and got home late and I was super tired. I started reading this interview with Alan Moore from The Mustard online. I thought I was going to read just a normal interview. That fucker went on forever.
He’s a talker. An interesting guy though.
BENSON: It was volumes! He talked about Crowley a lot. He always does. This is another interview where he talked about Crowley a lot and how it influenced his own practice of ceremonial magic. Yeah…
(Pause)
Alan Moore is fascinating. It’s fascinating to read an interview with the author of one of the greatest written works of the 20th century – WATCHMEN. To have that person speak so eloquently and be so funny and smart and witty, and then just get into talking about ceremonial magic and the entity he spoke to from another dimension. I’m not saying it didn’t happen or that I’m judging him, but there are very few characters in pop culture that would get into this. So I’m thinking maybe he did, but I don’t know. Even though I don’t believe in the supernatural myself, but… anyways. Alan Moore is a fascinating man and has talked about Crowley a lot for the past 10 years or so.
Do you have someone lined up to play Crowley yet, because it sounds like Moore might be your guy.
BENSON: It’s funny. That’s why we’re talking to you. We’re trying to line-up the lead. Can you shave your beard?
I can. My wife is not going to be happy. She loves the beard.
MOORHEAD: Can you tip your head back just a little bit? Ok. There it is. There’s Aleister.
Just let me know where to be. I’ll put on the Indian garb. We can do this.
MOORHEAD: We’d really like to cast the real Aleister Crowley. So, if you get a hold of him.
Good luck with that. I heard he died a while back. I would talk to Alan Moore. He might be able to connect with him though his conversations with other entities. You guys could just call him up, right? I mean, don’t all writers and famous people know each other?
BENSON: If someone said, “ Yeah come over. We’re having a few people over. Gonna drink some beers. Come over. Oh and Alan Moore is coming over to have some beers as well.” If someone told me this, my head would explode. If you drink beers with Alan Moore, your life will never be the same.
I don’t even think he would drink beer though. I’m thinking he drinks nothing but Chianti mixed with goat’s blood.
BENSON: He’s just smoking something. You’re like, “that’s not tobacco, that’s not hash, what is it?” And he says, “It’s wizard powder.”
I don’t think that interview could have ended on a more perfect note. I want to thank Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead for taking the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks. Their new film SPRING is absolutely fantastic. You can read my review of the film HERE. It’s currently the #1 horror film on iTunes, so make sure to check it out in theaters or on demand right now
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