The new horror film “Suitable Flesh,” directed by Joe Lynch (“Knights of Badassdom,” “Point Blank”), opens in theaters and theaters on Oct. 27.
Joe Lynch, director of “Proper Meat. ” Courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A via RLJE Films and Shudder.
Moviefone recently had the excitement of speaking with Joe Lynch about his paintings in “Suitable Flesh,” Dennis Paoli’s screenplay, H. P. Lovecraft’s adaptation, the themes he sought to explore, the balance between the film’s other tones, Heather Graham’s gritty functionality, and the collaboration with producer and actress Barbara Crampton.
Joe Lynch, director of “Proper Meat. ” Courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A via RLJE Films and Shudder.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Please note: some adult terms and following.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you tell us about your initial reaction to screenwriter Dennis Paoli’s script and the demanding situations of adapting an H story?P. Lovecraft?
Joe Lynch: My first impression of Dennis Paoli’s script was, “This is great. It seems a little old-fashioned,” and you will also be the first user to admit it. It was a script that was written 15 years ago, and when I won it, it seemed a little overdone to me, especially in the progressive details and the times we’re in now, where I think casting two older men and one younger man. This woman would have felt a little defeated in the Me Too movement. I mean, as a filmmaker you have to think in the context of fashion. At the time, the fashionable view was that long-term was feminine, which is why I wrote that in the draft. But it was something that scared me a little because that was the communication that my writing component and I had. We said, “What would happen if we reversed the sexes? » Thematically, it had to be more than that, and they accepted it. They said, “We literally like this idea. Let’s do it. ” So that was it. What’s it like adapting Lovecraft? I mean, to be honest, Dennis did the most work. He’s the one who cracked the code on how to tell these kinds of stories. Lovecraft is known for being very verbose, and if you need to adopt a fashion sensibility about it, you can’t have many other people walking around in corsets and strollers and having this vernacular that would be indicative of the ’20s or ’30s. You had to capture the essence of everything he wrote. One of the things that Lovecraft did for this particular story that Dennis took advantage of was a more cinematic noir detail, which is the art of a character telling a story. Then you have a voiceover because it’s told in a modern way, but the whole movie, except for the bookends, is just one long flashback. That’s something that I think Dennis controlled to make sure it was a structural component that felt very Lovecraftian. If you go back and read the story, it’s someone telling it. It’s really another character telling the story, but we thought it had to be, “Let me tell you my story because I’m not crazy. ” That was something that I thought was incredibly vital to exploit in terms of Lovecraftian details. Then we took it into the fashion era and added a lot of fashion details, mobile phones, emotion and all that smart stuff too.
(From left to right) Heather Graham as “Elizabeth Derthrough” and Barbara Crampton as “Dr. Daniella Upton” in the horror/thriller film “Suitable Flesh. “Photo courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A via RLJE Films and Shudder.
MF: What were the themes you planned to explore with this project?
JL: Look, I had a lot to say with this film, both personally and cinematically, about how the global has become less sexy, has become less relaxed with its eroticism. It seems that pfinishulum has turned in a very conservative direction. As I got older, and for better or worse, everything I learned about sex I learned from watching movies. But I think a lot of the eroticism that the public embraced from the ’70s, when the audience code relaxed a little and the new Hollywood guy was left burning with its own concepts about sex, until the ’80s, when he advertised. until the 90s, when independent cinema opened all avenues of sexuality. Then we got a little stale after 9/11 and posted that the studio formula and global indie were falling apart a bit. Sometimes to get a clever explanation as to why, especially when you hear some of the horror stories about the making of those films. I can understand why it’s increasingly difficult these days to get other people excited cinematically. Plus, with the advent of the Internet, you didn’t have to watch part of a movie to see those two lovely people crossing paths, with clever explanations of the story and characters. You can go online and type in some keywords now. So those topics. But also ultimate identity, sexual fluidity and physical authority, there were all those themes that I was so excited to infuse. The moment you say topic, many people get bored. So I tried to make sure that we were still taking them on a fun and exciting ride, especially once they had gained by seeing the first hour of more erotic and histrionic mystery and then you literally step on the gas at the end. I let them go through this crazy adventure and then they look back and say, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that. Wow. ” Or maybe they come out and say, “What would it be like if I were in this position or if someone came here and stole my meat?” These are things I like to call “homecomings. ” It’s like that really bad joke your dad told you and then when you get home from Thanksgiving dinner you’re like, “Oh yeah!” These are some of the themes I need to highlight after enjoying the movie.
(From left to right) Heather Graham as “Elizabeth Derthrough” and Johnathon Schaech as “Edward Derthrough” in the horror thriller “Suitable Flesh. “Photo courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A via RLJE Films and Shudder.
MF: Not only does the film have horror and supernatural elements, but it’s also an exotic thriller, melodrama, and comedy moments. Can you tell us about the balance between all the other tones in the film?
JL: That’s a very smart question. And you know what? I’m the worst user to ask this question, because life is a tonal rollercoaster. For the past few months, my life has been a romantic comedy, a gruesome open-footage horror movie, a melodrama, and an action movie all rolled into one. But that’s life. Life today can simply be a horror movie, a comedy and the next day it can simply be “The Notebook”, who knows? But when it comes to a story like this, I mean, this movie’s closest cousin or relative is the adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “Reanimator. ” He even settles in the same hospital. I grew up in a time when splatter films were becoming quite relevant, at least in the lexicon of the genre. For those who don’t know, Splatter takes horror and comedy and puts them in the blender, grinds the puree and you get this very red smoothie that mixes humor, horror and melodrama in a bouillabaisse. It’s the case with some of the filmmakers that we were watching, and some of the movies that we were watching, that if a lot of terrible things were being conveyed in this movie, we had to make sure that there was enough sugar to make the medicine going down. . Especially when you have something as bombastic as a frame-shifting movie. Some critics have asked me, “Where are the tentacles?” It’s a Lovecraft movie. “I felt like there were a lot of things you could do before you lost your audience because of the supernatural of the story you’re telling. I felt like as long as we anchor that enough, we hope to motivate the audience to put themselves out there. ” in the shoes of Elizabeth Derthrough, or in the shoes of Asa, or even in the shoes of Johnathon Schaech, who plays the hapless wife usually played through a woman. We tried to make sure that tone was realistic enough and grounded enough, but at the same time enough to wink at the audience and say, “We know it’s crazy, you know it’s crazy, so let’s laugh a little. We “. It’s the kind of tonal rollercoaster I was looking for audiences to convey. enough clues that they know they can take it seriously, they can think it’s sexy, but also laugh with it and think it’s funny too, once they get that license and know that all the tones are there, that’s where I feel like we deserve that last third of the movie because you never know what tone will happen next, if any.
Heather Graham as “Elizabeth Derthrough” in the horror-thriller film “Suitable Flesh. “Photo courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A via RLJE Films and Shudder.
MF: Without giving anything away, Heather Graham has an incredibly confusing role to play and gives a very brave performance. What was it like running with her and being ready for everything she would have to do in this movie?
JL: We knew we needed someone who couldn’t care less when it came to fainting and being brave. I’ve been a fan of Heather. I think every single one of them is thinking about the post-“Boogie Nights” component of her career, but I consider it my first thought about “License to Drive,” the Corey Haim and Corey Feldman classic. But there’s a role she played in “Drugstore Cowboy” that I remember: “She’s the woman from “License to Drive” and, wait, she’s betting on someone surely different. ” Knowing that she had this diversity was really exciting. Then I felt like she was someone I knew was at least worth discussing to see how much was at stake in terms of the extremes we were looking to move to Array. But she also has to play many other characters. Some actors aren’t interested in that because they’re like, “Tell me the assignment. Wait, I have to play more than one character? It’s hard. ” She was not. Less than 15 minutes into our first Zoom call, she told me, “I’m so excited to do this. This is the kind of role I’ve been wanting for a while and no one has given me the opportunity to do. ” “, and we were just off to the races with it. The amount of paintings she put into it, the amount of hobbies she put into this role, I mean, she gave us so much every day, she never looked back. That was it, she wasn’t afraid , surely he wasn’t afraid. That kind of power drove each and every one of them. It’s like a competitive sports scenario where if you are number one on the squad list and they start looking for reasonable spots, you have to too. to do the same. She encouraged every single one of them, from Judah and Johnathon to Barbara and Bruce. Every time Heather walked on set, she thought, ‘Here I go, here we go. ‘
(Left to right) Heather Graham as “Elizabeth Derby” and Barbara Crampton as “Dr. Daniella Upton” in the horror/thriller film “Suitable Flesh. ” Photo courtesy of AMP and Eyevox. A from RLJE Films and Shudder.
MF: Finally, actress Barbara Crampton is also a producer on the film. What was it like working with her as a producer and actress, and with the inclusion of screenwriter Dennis Paoli? Did you realize you were also doing a mini “Re-Animator”? ” meeting?
JL: Of course. Oh my gosh, Barbara is the explanation for why I’m here talking to you right now. She was the one who animated Dennis’ story. I’m going to print the title on this one, however, she would have spoken to Stuart Gordon about this before she died and he would have discussed my name, which is surprising that he even remembered me in any conversation we had at the “Masters of Horror” Dinners “So, Barbara is the explanation for why they gave me this email that said, ‘Would you be interested in this? Then we went from there. Now, as an actor, I started working with Barbara, it was after she contacted me, After I came on, while we were working on the script, I ended up having two episodes of “Creepdisplay. ” When we cast one. In the episodes I was doing called “Pipe Screams,” I was looking for a “Karen. ” I was like, “Oh my God. ” , how wonderful would it be to see Barbara Crampton play Karen in that moment?” I thought, “But this is also an opportunity for me to audition and say, ‘This is how I paint. ‘” Because in that moment, she I was only passing to produce, not to be in the film. But she wanted to show him that I can get through the day, that I can take good photographs, and that I can work with actors. I tried to show her that I was a big fan of hers and that I think more of her now that I’ve worked with her. She means a lot to me, but I tried to show her that I’m a boss. Then she painted in “Creepdisplay. ” We had a wonderful time. Seeing her perform there made me say, “God, I wish she was in our movie. ” Then once we got cast together, she was like that kid in the corner and she wanted to play with everyone on the playground and she was like, “Why can’t I play? »And that’s why she took the step. She wasn’t meant to be in this movie. But then to see it, like when we have the scenes in the basement, we did more than twenty pages in one day. It was just her and Judah going back and forth playing multiple roles. Because when you’re filming something like that in such close locations, you have to film everything in that direction before you go around global and film everything in that direction. So for all the scenes we had to film everything one way at the beginning of the day and then do the same thing again, filming in the other direction for the second half. It was intimidating. But watching Barbara Crampton set up the moment I called for action and then the moment I asked for cut, she said, “Okay, that was wonderful. ” She would smile and then say, “Hey, do we want to make sure lunch is ready for everyone? Hey, do you want anything? Are you okay?” She produced immediately. It’s a whirling dervish, and it’s precisely what the horror genre wants right now. She is amazing.
Adapted meat “Who are you!” NR1 h 39 minOctober 27, 2023Schedules and ticketsSee Adapted Flesh Online
Psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham) begins helping a young patient, Asa (Judah Lewis), who suffers from excessive personality disorder. She digs deeper into the scenario and realizes that there is something dark and supernatural at play with the patient.
“Suitable Flesh” opens in theaters and in convocation starting Oct. 27.