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Darren Lynn Bousman loves to scare us. Whether it’s directing crowd favorite horror staples like Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, or Repo! The Genetic Opera, or it’s designing immersive real-time horror experiences like his infamous alternate reality game, The Tension Experience, Bousman is always looking for new and exciting ways to freak us out. We were lucky enough to catch Darren to discuss his new film, Death of Me, his work on the Saw series, and his new at-home horror experience, One Day Die.
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Horror Geek Life: Your new film, Death of Me, is a dark tale of mysticism and murder, can you tell us what drew you to this story and what fans can expect from this movie?
Darren Lynn Bousman: It’s a different type of movie than I’ve made before. I don’t want to say it’s a “slow burn,” but it’s much more a gets-under-your-skin type movie. The easiest way to describe it would be that it’s a horror version of The Hangover. The premise is a couple goes on vacation and one night, they drink too much and black out and have no memory of the night before. A series of unfortunate events happens, basically they lose their passports and cellphones, and they’re trying to recall what happened the evening before. They uncover a video file of the husband killing the wife in a very brutal way, yet they’re both very much alive and okay. It kind of sets them on this journey to uncover and figure out not only what happened, but how they can get off this island and back to the states.
So, it’s a lot of mythology. Kind of a folklore horror type of sub-genre. It’s set in Thailand, it looks beautiful. It’s an interesting homage of my own to The Wicker Man, which is one of my favorite movies.
HGL: Death of Me set on an island off the coast of Thailand, where the film was shot, really lends to the movie’s atmosphere; it’s beautiful. What can you tell us about making a film like this in Thailand?
DLB: It’s undefinable. There’s no way to describe it, or try to describe it to anyone. The movie is about a fish out of water, a stranger in a strange land. Making the movie, I felt the same way. Obviously, I wasn’t pursued by a cult for sacrifice, but I felt like a stranger in a strange land. One of the things about this movie is that you forget how easy it is to fall between the cracks. Like, I’m in Los Angeles right now. I have a cell phone and an iPad, I’ve got a computer, I walk down the street, I’m always connected. In Thailand, that’s not the same thing. You walk down the street and your phone dies and you’re stuck. I don’t know people’s number, I don’t have them memorized, maybe I should, I don’t. There is this inherent fear that no one knows where I am. How would someone find me? How would someone contact me? How could I contact somebody? There were a lot of places there that I would go where I’d have no services whatsoever. You realize how vulnerable you really are. So, we feel like we’re connected and part of this world and we’re just a phone call away from somebody, but that’s not always the case. It was a reminder to me that falling through the cracks and ending up in these scenarios is not that far fetched.
The ability to shoot over there was amazing. The people, the culture, the atmosphere, the way everything looks… it was incredible. And it was a learning experience. Every time I make a movie, there’s definitely a film school aspect to it, where I learn new things. New tricks or whatever. And when you work in Thailand, it’s done completely differently than it’s done in America. From the set design to the art direction to the camera crew, everything was completely different and unique. So it’s almost like restarting from the beginning and making my first film again. I had to almost re-learn how to make movies in some respects. You’re in a different place, you can’t just say “I wanna do it like I do it in America,” you have to make a film like they’re made there. It was a completely new experience. I’ve been very lucky. At this point in my career I’ve made movies in Tokyo, in Canada, I’ve made movies in Barcelona…So, I can add Thailand to that list now.
HGL: As a fan of the Saw series, news that Spiral: From the Book of Saw was delayed was sad, albeit understandable. What would you say to Saw fans who were anxious for the new film?
DLB: Lionsgate made the right decision to hold it. No narrative is worth anyone getting sick over. Obviously, it was devastating to all of us. We all were really excited about the world getting to see this thing. It’s funny, I remember that I was talking to Chris Rock over Christmas break, when I saw everything that was happening in Wuhan with the virus then, early January/late December, and he and I kind of made a joke about this movie coming out on time. Through text messages, as it started to get worse and worse across the world, we all made the decision that it wasn’t worth endangering an audience member to say, “Hey, go see this movie in a theater.” The thing that I was most impressed with with Lionsgate was that it would have been very easy for them to just go and release the movie and put it on VOD, but I think that we all kind of came to the conclusion that this is a theatrical movie. This is something we want people to experience in a theater with a group of like-minded weirdos and fans of this kind of stuff. So, I’m excited that it is being held for theaters, you will get to see it with an audience. It’s unlike any of the Saw films that have come before it. This is the ninth version of the Saw movie and I think that, for me, the last few films, they kind of follow the same formula. They’re great, but they kind of follow the same formula. This does not. This is completely it’s own thing. I’m excited that fans are going to get a chance to see that.
HGL: The Saw series has a rabid fanbase that loves to deconstruct every frame and break it down to the finest details. What is it like to work on a series that inspires so much discussion?
DLB: It’s funny, but I know less about the Saw films than many of the fans do, and that’s come out numerous times in my imbecilic responses to questions. I was at a convention and someone asked me a question about the Saw movies. They were asking a question about Saw III and I was trying to answer it. I say, “Yeah yeah, good question,” and I answer it, then there’s this dumbfounded look in the audience. I realized I was answering the question incorrectly and was talking about something that happened in Saw IV, not Saw III. So, you realize that these fans are diehards and they know everything. You can’t pull something over on them. What that does for us as filmmakers is it challenges us to do better. When we’re doing something, we can’t just expect that they’ll never know. That’s not an answer you can give in the Saw franchise, because they will know. So, you really have to be aware.
One of the things with the previous Saw films is that they hearken back a lot to things that came before it in earlier Saw films. You have to make sure you’re a savant and you’re knowledgeable because a fan will call you out on it. If you’re rebuilding the bathroom like I did for both Saw III and Saw IV, you have to design it frame-by-frame and brick-by-brick exactly like it was in the first Saw because if there’s just one tile off, they will read into it. They will read into everything about it. So, as a filmmaker it challenges you to do better, be smarter.
HGL: Lastly, is there anything you have in the works that you want to tell fans a bit about?
DLB: I’ve got two projects. I start production on a new movie called Tension, which is based on an immersive experience that I created and run. Tension is a, so hard to explain, it’s a live escape room type of experience that takes place in the real world. So, people sign up for it and the narrative takes place all around them. At their house, at their work, in parks, and bars. We ran it out of Los Angeles for the last four years and they’re making a movie of it now. The Tension Experience is very much like The Game, the David Fincher film. They’re making it into a film, which I leave to film in a few months.
Right now, I am in the middle of doing a new immersive experience called One Day Die. I encourage everyone to check it out online. (www.onedaydie.com). It is an at-home immersive Halloween experience. So, you basically sign up and you buy a ticket, when you buy a ticket you get a box sent to you. That box comes with a time. So, say you buy it for Friday night at 8 o’clock, then you participate in an online seance with this box where random horrible scary things happen, It was created by myself, Joshua Dietz, and two master magicians that have worked with David Copperfield and David Blaine. So, it’s going to be a crazy fun immersive time in the comfort of your own home.
Check out Death of Me, available in theaters, VOD, and Digital on October 2, 2020. Check out www.OneDayDie.com for more information on the new at-home horror experience.
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