Trey Edward Shults tells us about It Comes At Night, its dark history, and odd marketing… A film marketed, not entirely fairly, as a horror, its from writer/director Trey Edward Shults.
That extraordinary, impactful backdrop underpins the film, and was the logical starting point for our conversation.
Ive been reading quite a lot since sitting through your film.
In particular, that the movie was a response to your relationship with your late father.
But what was the difference?
What was in that original draft that you pulled back on and changed?
Its a good question, and Im not entirely sure in my head.
I would say that the final film is about 85% of what that first three days view was.
I think I was successful with that, because I dont enjoy watching the movie at all!
I have a weird relationship with it.
When I looked at it again, it put me back in that place I was in.
Not a fun place to be in.
I didnt anticipate it either.
But then at that point it had just become, you know, your new movie.
A piece of work.
Making it, you better detach from it, when youre doing certain scenes.
But the editing in particular?
It was really hard for me.
Ive always edited my own stuff, and I was an editor on this.
But from August through to January I was editing alone, I was going a little crazy.
I had to bring on another editor to help me out, just because…
I went down a rabbit hole with the movie quite a bit.
Did you feel at any point in that process that you were losing the film?
I cant imagine its easy, from what you were saying, to be unemotional about it?
Im an emotional person.
I cried a lot during writing, and I cried a lot during editing.
This one was tought for me.
The material really drained me, and drained a lot of me.
I had post-traumatic stress from a sequence at the end of the movie that I dont want to spoil.
Both are about ordinary extraordinary circumstances is how Id put it.
But how did you know youd got it?
That it was the version you needed to lock?
Honestly, this movie was harder for me.
It was just tough.
I felt like I was walking a thin line to failure right through the editorial process.
Failure may be a bit hyperbolic.
I didnt know if I was nailing everything I wanted, if I was getting across everything I wanted.
So much so that we picture locked and I un-picture locked the movie!
I changed stuff, and finished just over a month ago.
Ive been working with it for quite a bit.
Has it helped you as a human being?
The writing was 100% cathartic.
In hindsight, Im a movie guy, a movie geek.
My way of processing the grief was that.
At the time, that was very cathartic.
If youd spoken to me a week ago, I dont know Id have felt the same way.
Especially the way it was being marketed in the US.
All this crap, its very messy.
I read a book by Nicholas Hytner, about his time running the National Theatre in the UK.
That naivete, and surrounding himself with experts, paid off.
Not that Im saying youve peaked, but do you sense that naivete is an asset?
Its hard for me to say, because I pray that I am still making films in 30 years.
Thats all Ive ever wanted, but its one step at a time.
At the moment, its all new.
Im conscious of trying to push myself, challenge myself.
To try something new.
Its a naive thing.
Its about your collaborators, and that relationship.
And I love my collaborators.
At the moment I just want to make stuff I believe in.
But also to be ambitious for myself and really challenge myself.
Thats just what Im trying to do.
I hope when we talk in 30 years Ill still be doing movies I believe in!
That applies across books, too.
I picked up a new edition once of John Grishams first book, A Time To Kill.
I love that, I love that.
How do you process that?
Im still working it out.
Im humbled and grateful that its getting out there.
The other side of that is that I dont think the marketing is 100% accurate at all.
I worry the wrong audience is going in, and that some people are hating it.
But I care about the people it reaches.
Im in the middle of it, and I cant control it.
Its a strange place to be good, but I feel like Im making peace with it.
A week and a half ago, Im going crazy!
My initial reaction to your film was that it knocked my head all over the place.
My dream is that what you said is true.
The people who hated it, or didnt get it or something, can hopefully come back to it.
I dont know, because Im in it!
You cited the outstanding videogame The Last Of Us, and you played through that in the intervening period.
That you were influenced by the likes of Take Shelter and Melancholia.
Did they influence you as a director rather than a writer, though
Thats a good question.
I love Take Shelter.
I know Jeff Nichols, hes an amazing person, and hes incredibly talented.
Across the board there was an approach where I wanted some patience with it.
Even at the score level, I didnt want a traditional score.
I wanted it to have hopefully this haunting aspect.
Have you watched the recent De Palma documentary?
I have, I thought it was great!
Jeff Nichols is obviously a huge touchpoint for you.
I saw you worked on Midnight Special, a criminally underrated film.
Is his the kind of career you envisage?
I think hes brilliant, and so smart with his career.
Hes made, what, four or five films?
Theyre all Jeff films.
He hasnt taken a giant leap, but the progression hes made!
I think hes really smart.
I dont know if Ill have the same kind of career or anything.
But like him, I want to do movies that I can get behind and believe in.
One step at a time!
I could go chase that stuff if I wanted.
That been said, I love certain big movies.
Its about story, what the movies about.
I dont want to judge the Transformers movies, because Ive not seen those.
But for me, look at a guy like Christopher Nolan.
Hes making huge scale personal movies.
Thats what Im excited by.
And what is next for you?
Im trying to write something in my spare time, which is my new baby!
Another part of me that Ive got to express.
Its totally different fromIt Comes At Nightin a way.
Its more ambitious than anything Ive done so far.
Is that with a view to directing too?
Will you always be a writer/director?
I cant imagine unless Ive got to make some money, and someone will pay me to write something…
I just love writing my own stuff.
Im also open to directing stuff I havent written!
Trey Edward Shults, thank you very much.
It Comes At Night is inUKcinemas today.
