Following the recent screening of Abruptio at Grimmfest 2023, we caught up with writer/director Evan Marlowe.
Abruptio is quite a unique take on horror, can you tell us about the writing process?
My wife, who has a much better memory than me, says that she first came up with the idea of exploding necks. But I do recall expanding that idea into one of all mankind being coerced into carrying out tasks. So the world’s gone mad, which has a lot of potential as a starting point. Again according to my wife (this was about ten years ago, so my memory is fuzzy), I woke from a dream and told her all the characters had to be lifelike puppets. From here, I took off with the themes of the film – we’re being manipulated like puppets, all of us, by factors internal and external. Then I continued to tweak the script over the years until my ideas had fully crystallized.
Did you always want to direct the film too?
Yes, my first love has been directing. Kerry wrote our first two features. But I thought I’d take a crack at our third film. And then, mostly out of budgetary concerns, I became the DP and the editor.
What is so creepy about the look of puppets?
My direction to our fabricators had been to keep them about 90% realistic, then make the other 10% puppety. So for example, you’d create pores around the cheeks and chin, but keep the area around the center of the face smooth. Allow seams to show. Make the eyes realistic but slightly too large. And so on. What this did was place us squarely in the uncanny valley, where things look almost right, but not right enough. I think that’s why it’s all so unsettling to many.
Was it always your intention to have the film shot this way?
As far as using these puppets, I’d say yes. The tone and style has been noir, mainly – the sort of LA noir that happens in broad daylight. But the characters have, since the inception, been realistic puppets performing in real settings.
Did it help in terms of budgetary constraints?
Budgetary constraints are an indie filmmaker’s best friend. You can’t just polish things up in post or do something with visual effects. It forces you to be creative in camera. The scarcity of resources can lead to some amazing results. But as far as using puppets, yes, it did allow us to bring on a stellar cast that we would not have had the budget for with a live-action production.
The film is also very gory, what can you tell us about crafting the kills?
The funny thing is most of the sets we used would not allow us to use blood. As much as I prefer practical effects, we were forced to add some of the blood in post. Also, there’s the matter of popping off a puppet’s head. You have to keep in mind someone’s hand is in there. That demands a solution, which again is mostly done in post. In one case of a gunshot blast, we fabricated a before and an after head, and spliced at the moment of impact.
You also have a stellar voice cast for Abruptio, what was your pitch like to people such as Jordan Peele, Sid Haig and Robert Englund?
Jordan Peele has a background in puppetry. That was his area of study in college. So I think that drew him in. Robert Englund thought this was going to be a cool experiment to see how audiences would react to puppets. Could we get away with this level of violence? Would it cause the same emotional reaction that using live actors would? James Marsters also wanted to see what that would look like. So yeah, I’d say for these actors, the concept was too intriguing to say no.
How excited were you to screen at Grimmfest?
We have deep roots in the UK. Kerry is British. Many of the cast and crew are as well. We couldn’t wait to get selected into an English fest, and when Grimmfest picked us, we were ecstatic. We’d heard so much about the festival, and it was an honour to be in the company of bold films from prior years, like Piggy and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.
Read our verdict of Abruptio.
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