Luxury Mirror

Despite a disappointing weekend at the Australian box office, I still reckon The Loved Ones is one of the best Aussie flicks you will see this year and so, I shall continue to harp on about it. This time that harping comes in the form of an exclusive chat with writer/director/producer extraordinaire Mario Donelli. As you can see from the interview, he is quite the lovely chap and definitely a director who is going to tackle a lot of genres with gusto. But what stood out to me most about Byrne is his sheer passion for movies and that, my dears, is something we can all relate to. Judge for yourself below.

Jane Storm: Firstly, where did you come up with this idea? Did you have a really bad experience at your formal?
Mario Donelli: (Laughs) No, it was remarkably normal. Maybe that’s why I had to think of something crazy. It stemmed from desperation really, I had written a couple of screenplays that were too offbeat so I thought I’d have a crack at a horror film because I knew they sold internationally. There’s also a lot of mediocre horror out there, so I thought I could make something good with characterisations that make it stand out from the horror pack.

Jane Storm: And the characters, you have created some truly demented ones, particularly Lola and her daddy. It feels like they could go down as iconic horror characters like Freddy Krueger, Mike Myers or Mick Taylor, is that what you set out to do?
Mario Donilli: These films thrive on the marketability of the villains. I was really looking for some kind of signature and I’ve never seen a father daughter torture team. I wanted to cut through the clutter and the thought of pink satin would be so vibrant and arresting. My 5-year-old niece was going through that stage of development where she’s thinking her prince will come and is obsessed with glitter and tiaras. I thought it would be interesting to take that innocence and mesh it with the awkwardness of being a teenager and raging hormones. Then when it came to her father, I did a lot of research on Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. Especially Ed Gein, he’s the psychological profile behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. Dahmer now isn’t someone that has been tapped into which is unusual given all the horror films out there and some of the things he did with the head drilling.

Jane Storm: Now, speaking of head drilling, that scene was a particularly... I’m not sure memorable is the right word, but it stays with you.
Mario Donilli: It’s one of my favourite parts of the film because there’s no safety net. I love watching it with an audience because they have no idea what’s coming. With the film we had one foot in commercial territory and one foot dangling over a cliff, and that’s the cliff part. I was looking to write a horror film and what finally sat me down to write it was the idea of `what if I merged Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead, with Carrie and brought the prom to a cabin in the woods?’ I studied Misery too. Princess has Carrie’s vulnerability, Annie Wilkes’ from Misery’s sadism and the spoilt quality of Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s a horror film, but it’s not an ordeal for the audience. It’s a rock `n’ roll horror film with a sense of humour.

Jane Storm: (Laughs) That’s quite a combination. It looks like you went into the shoot very prepared.
Mario Donilli: Yes, I came up with 250 page scrap book which had film references, case studies and palette references. I think Kathy Bates’ performance is so brilliant as she’s a woman who’s obsessed with a guy and even though he’s polite when he knocks back her advances, she goes off the deep end. I also looked at the females in films like Carrie, Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, Natural Born Killers, Single White Female, and got a lot of ideas from that.

Jane Storm: The casting process, what was that like? You manage to draw out some incredible performances, Robin McLeavy and John Brumpton in particular, but Xavier Samuel too is fantastic and despite only having a few lines of dialogue, he’s someone that you’re really rooting for to escape.
Mario Donilli: I was really happy with the casting, we just went through the traditional process. I tried not to go in with too many preconceptions. There’s a point when the writer has to let go and the responsibility goes to the actors who walk in the room and elevate it beyond what you expect. If you don’t care, then you don’t scare. I was adamant in casting actors who understood the craft and I’m really proud of everyone that’s in the film. We talked a lot about not treating this as a horror film, because so often it’s considered disposable. The situation is on the page and by treating it with the integrity of a drama... it doesn’t matter what type of film you’re making it comes down to the authenticity of the performance.

Jane Storm: In the film, there’s both nail-biting suspense and cringe-worthy gore, how important was it to find that balance as opposed to just having another torture porn film?
Mario Donilli: It was vital. The key word is fun and I wanted it to be a fun, freaky, midnight rollercoaster ride. The audience need to be able to take a breath and have a laugh and prepare for the next white-knuckle onslaught. I could push the extreme nature of the film if it was minced with a jet black comedy sensibility. It becomes deliciously warped.

Jane Storm: This is your first feature, it has gone on to be select at over 20 international film festivals, won a swag of prestigious awards and the critics are frothing over it, could you have ever expected a response like this?
Mario Donilli: I didn’t expect it, but I was definitely aiming for it. I was meticulous in my preparation; we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot and, like most Australian films, not a giant budget. It’s really rewarding to see audiences responding to the beats that had been planned. I was trying to never to be a slave to the horror formula and instead study horror films and be inspired by the work of Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Sam Raimi and Disney. We shot in 27 days on a budget just under the 4 million mark, which isn’t too bad, but I wanted a beautiful candy-coloured slick look to it. I’m big fan of Bruckheimer films, I think they have a lot of integrity to them because they say `I’m here to entertain’. The have such a perfect sheen to them that I want to get out of my seat and lick the screen. I think it would taste really sweat. Having that Hollywood glossiness to it helped pushed the horror a bit.

Jane Storm: How much of that sheen and glossiness can be attributed to your background in commercials and short filmmaking?
Mario Donilli: Yeah, definitely, a lot of it.

Jane Storm: When a debut film gets the response like this has, the Hollywood offers come flying in. Is that the situation you’re in at the moment or have you been batting them off to work on another one of your own projects?
Mario Donilli: I’m right in the middle of writing another project, but this film has opened a lot of doors for me, both in Australia and in Hollywood. I’ve been sent a lot of scripts and I’m attached to quite a few projects. It’s very difficult to get money for a film, so I need to have a few going at the same time. I’m more interested in material. The next original thing of mine I’m working on is a bent home invasion thriller. That’s the great thing about genre, because it affords filmmakers a great luxury. There’s already an audience and they know the formula, so you’re able to bend it.

Jane Storm: Just before I started speaking to you I was reading an article that described you as the `new voice in Aussie horror’. How do you respond to something like that?
Mario Donilli: I just love cinema and I feel like I’ve got a good range as a director. I want to work in all genres. Horror is a great way to start because so many of my heroes have started in horror, like Spielberg, Coppola, Raimi and Jackson who really got to stamp their own personal style on the genre. I just wanted to create something fresh.

Jane Storm: Since Saw and Wolf Creek, there seems to have been a real rebirth of Australian horror, is that something you consciously wanted to be part of?
Mario Donilli: I wrote the first draft of The Loved Ones before Saw came out, that’s how long it takes to make these things. I knew Wolf Creek opened doors for Australian horror filmmakers because it proved that well-crafted Aussie horror has an audience. But we’re very different films. Wolf Creek was based on a building sense of dread, while we’re a glam horror film. We’re mirror balls and they’re the desert.