Interview with “Burrowers” Writer/Director J.T. Petty
Written by Elaine Lamkin
Writer/director J.T. Petty may not be a horror household name…yet. But after the recent release of the stunning Western/horror hybrid, The Burrowers (review), one can feel fairly confident that Petty will soon be playing with the “big boys” of the genre. For those true horror fans who have seen Petty’s earlier film, the disturbing Soft for Digging, his success with The Burrowers should be no surprise (and if you haven’t seen Soft for Digging, check it out!).
Petty recently took time to speak with Fatally-Yours.com about how long it took to bring The Burrowers to life, his thoughts on the Western genre and just what in the heck IS a “Wilhelm scream”.
Elaine Lamkin: Thank you so much for taking time to speak with Fatally-Yours.com about your new film, the amazing The Burrowers. First though, how about a little of the JT Petty Story? I recall you saying in the commentary that you are originally from North Carolina and according to the ALWAYS “reliable” IMDb, you went to NYU.
JT Petty: I was born in North Carolina, raised outside of DC and Baltimore, came to New York for school and have lived in Brooklyn since.
EL: How long had the idea to do a period Western/horror film been on your mind? To my knowledge, there are unfortunately not too many Western/horror films out there – the wonderful Ravenous springs immediately to mind. And just for strict period horror films, I can only think of Alex Turner’s Dead Birds (one of my favorites) and Clint Eastwood’s uber-creepy The Beguiled (1970), which some might argue is not a horror movie but…
JTP: The two genres have a kind of peanut butter and chocolate quality to them. I’ve wanted to make Westerns as long as I’ve wanted make movies, and often end up adding monsters to a story by default. I’m a big fan of Ravenous and Dead Birds both. Though you can see a lot of the horror beats in more straight-ahead Westerns like Ulzana’s Raid or The Missouri Breaks, both those movies have an almost supernatural-seeming grinding sadism to them, but one that feels completely natural to a Western. The first draft of Burrowers was called 10,000 Little Indians, and I wrote it around 2002.
EL: You mentioned in the commentary that it took three years for Lionsgate to greenlight The Burrowers – what concerns did they have? And I read that the prequel to The Burrowers, Blood Red Earth, did not make it onto the DVD due to some problems. Where can fans view the prequel and do you think it might eventually be added to a future DVD?
JTP: The biggest studio concern with The Burrowers was simply the lack of other movies they could point to and say “It’ll make a bunch of money like _____.” A big part of the reason it got made was an executive there named Peter Block, who championed it from the start. Blood Red Earth was made for FEARnet.com, and I believe can still be downloaded there. It was nothing more than legal minutia in actors’ contracts that kept it off the DVD; hopefully we’ll be able to include it in some future version of the movie.
EL: You have assembled an amazing cast for The Burrowers: William Mapother (interview), Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchison, Sean Patrick Thomas, Laura Leighton. How much were you involved in the casting process and did you have a wish list of actors you were hoping you could get for the film?
JTP: I didn’t write the roles with any faces in mind, and wanted to have an Alien-style ensemble, where casting choices wouldn’t give you clues about who’s going to live to the end of the movie, actors who would feel genuine in a period piece. I knew Parcher and Clay (Mapother and Brown) needed to be cast as a couple, you had to feel there was a history between them without a lot of exposition to explain it. I’m trying to think of how to compare Karl Geary to Sigourney Weaver in a way that’ll still make him seem macho-but I do think he has the quality of charisma inside of naturalism where he can be a leading man but still exist as low man on the totem pole within the social structure of the movie.
EL: How much research did you do while writing the script? There are several references to real historical events, the New Ulm Massacre being one, and just the attention to period detail, which I was so happy to see.
JTP: I’m always excited about research, and here especially loved the excuse to read up on the Old West. A horror movie, if it wants to be scary, absolutely needs to feel grounded; if you don’t believe in the world you’ll never feel threatened.
EL: How did you come to be working with Rob Hall and his company, Almost Human? And having Rob as one of your co-producers? Possibly from seeing his work for Dead Birds? I also noticed that you and Rob “shared” an actor: Seri DeYoung. She was your “Audrey/Coma Girl” and then Rob cast her in his film, Laid to Rest as “Bound Girl”.
JTP: I met Rob before I had set up the movie at Lionsgate and we started brainstorming ideas for the creature in Burrowers. One of the benefits of having so much trouble getting the movie made was having a solid three years to build the creature from the bones out. He’s a co-producer on the movie because he’s a good negotiator, and was involved in the process right from the start. I never asked him why he chose Seri for “Bound Girl,” (though I did chastise him for treating her so poorly) but Seri was great to work with; it doesn’t look like she’s doing a lot in Burrowers, but to be as still as she was in the conditions she had to work was remarkable.
EL: How much input did you have as to the look of the creatures? And thank you for going as practical as possible with them. CGI is being used way too often nowadays, in my opinion.
JTP: The look of the creatures evolved over three years of concept sketches. We started with the biology, right from the start we had their method of eating/hibernation/travel, and built outward from there. Right from the start I wanted to keep the critters as practical as possible, and there’s more CG in the movie than I would have ideally used, but I think the fact that we always started with a suit performer/animatronic gives the creatures real weight and presence.
EL: You also referenced, if not, in your words, “outright stole”, from several classic Westerns, mainly John Ford’s classic The Searchers as well as Winchester ’73, Straw Dogs and Miller’s Crossing. Was it always a dream of yours to make a Western but then turn it on its head with the horror elements?
JTP: I think theft in movies is so much more honorable than homage; if you’re just making a movie to remind people of how cool other movies were, then you’re just making a fetish, not telling a story. With anything I’m doing, I’m trying to get a little outside the genre conventions. It seems like movie watchers, (and especially horror movie watchers) are sophisticated enough to know all the genre beats that are going to be laid out before them. I’d hope they’re interested in being surprised every once and again, seeing something outside the rut.
EL: How did you find Phil Parmet, who many genre fans might recognize as the DP for Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005) and Halloween (2007)? He certainly has a thing for VERY high crane shots which worked so beautifully in The Burrowers. And the sepia look you all went for – this film looks like a MUCH bigger budgeted film!
JTP: I looked for Phil after seeing Devil’s Rejects, the photography in that movie really jumped at me. His work on Buscemi and Rockwell’s movies cemented my faith in him, especially considering his documentary background in things like Harlan County USA. How can you discount a cameraman who’s been shot at on the job?
EL: Joseph LoDuca scored The Burrowers. Are there any plans for a soundtrack release? His music really added to the film as well as Grant Campbell’s creepy rendition of the lullaby, “All the Pretty Little Horses”, over the closing credits.
JTP: I love the work LoDuca did, and hope a soundtrack comes together. It’s hard to say, and there’s a lot of unfortunate gaps in the way the movie’s being released.
EL: Just for my own edification, what is a “Wilhelm scream”? You mentioned it in the commentary and I have read about it elsewhere but haven’t the faintest idea what it means. And there is one brief scene where the camera is shooting Coffey sideways as he whittles a cross for a grave – was that an accident or just something to further mess with the viewer’s mind?
JTP: A Wilhelm Scream is a sound effect that’s been used for decades, started in B pictures, usually shot Indians or Germans would wail like Goofy while dying. Sound designers started incorporating it into big budget pictures in the Raiders of the Lost Ark days and it stuck. Nothing more than a bit of fun. The sideways shot of Coffey and the cross is intentional, and one of several in the movie.
EL: The Burrowers was shot in four weeks in the summer of 2007 in the Santa Fe National Forest with a budget of around $7 million. Not bad for an independent film which is also a period piece. How grueling was the shoot for you? Any anecdotes you care to share? You also mentioned in your commentary that the original title of the film was 10,000 Little Indians – or was that just a working title?
JTP: The movie’s been called The Burrowers as long as Lionsgate has owned it; the idea being that a monster movie will sell better than a Western. The shoot was difficult but fun, I always wanted the production to be out in the elements, to add more chaos and dirt. But I absolutely would have liked to have more time, twenty-two days is an obscene schedule when you’re working on an ensemble piece filled with horses and practical monsters.
EL: You have worked with Karl Geary before in Mimic: Sentinel but how was it working with Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchison (and his handlebar moustache), William Mapother and Sean Patrick Thomas? There was a lot of testosterone on that set. And how many of your actors actually went to the week-long “cowboy camp” prior to shooting?
JTP: Everybody but Clancy went to cowboy camp, since he showed up already knowing how to cowboy. And yeah, lotta testosterone. Doug insisted on the handlebars and I’m glad he did. They’re all a great bunch of guys and remarkable actors; and were consistently professional despite all the trouble that comes with horses and guns and a set sporadically shut down by lightning strikes and flash floods.
EL: Again, relying on the unreliable IMDb, there is a listing for The Burrowers as a TV series. Same cast, you directing – can you elaborate on what that is about?
JTP: That’s Ol’ Reliable IMDB mistaking the short prequel Blood Red Earth for an episodic TV show. There’s no TV series that I know of, (though every possibility that Lionsgate could be making Burrowers in Space without me).
EL: As with Dead Birds and Ravenous, this film takes its time evolving from a Western to a horror film so it will probably not be a big hit with the younger horror crowds who want blood and guts in the first scene. What are your feelings about today’s crop of PG-13/CGI overload/20-something actors horror versus horror one has to really pay attention to. Or what I like to call “intelligent horror”?
JTP: I recently watched a 35mm print of Rosemary’s Baby at an arthouse theater in NYC with a packed house that mumbled and shifted all through the movie, and when it was over got to their feet blowing raspberries and calling it boring. And these were not teenagers; they all looked like people in their twenties. Breaks my heart. I think there is a risk of cynical, low-brow horror harming the genre. And I think the popular media presentation of gore as what makes horror pornographic is entirely wrong. Horror becomes pornographic when it explicitly ignores the story. I think actual pornos are designed to have shitty stories because masturbators don’t want to be distracted by plot or tension while they’re masturbating. Horror can go the same way, and there are all sorts of movies that just give you laughable plots and characters to either mock or ignore while you’re waiting for the next kill. All that being said, I can enjoy that sort of horror; I just never want to make it.
EL: There are quite a few comedic moments in an otherwise somber, bleak film (poor Coffey’s “fuck-you” scenes, Parcher not being able to feel his neck, then his hand after touching his neck THEN his face after touching it with his hand, Callaghan’s total disbelief at what he’s gotten himself into, etc.). In the screenings you have had of The Burrowers, have audiences appreciated these lighter moments?
JTP: I hope people laugh in the movie, though I’ll admit I don’t like watching my own stuff with an audience. The bit with Parcher’s arm always gets a laugh. A couple of Clancy’s lines as well. I think it’s hilarious when the Utes show up and have a conversation with the Irishman in French.
EL: Several reviewers, myself among them, have compared The Burrowers to Tremors or The Descent. How do you feel about these comparisons? You yourself felt the film more akin to Ridley Scott’s Alien.
JTP: The Tremors comparison falls apart to me outside of broad categorical ideas; Burrowers would be in the same section of the video store, but differs drastically in tone. I love The Descent, and that’s definitely closer to the feel of it. In terms of structure, I was definitely stealing from Alien, I think that movie’s an amazing example of creating a new monster. You build the rules of your monster and then slowly dole them out to the audience, and more slowly still to the characters at the cost of pain and death.
EL: The Burrower” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and has also played at FantasticFest in Austin, Screamfest Film Festival and the Lyon L’Étrange Festival. Any chances of it playing in any more theaters as this film REALLY should be seen on a big screen?
JTP: The studio hasn’t been very supportive of festival screenings and we haven’t been able to play as many as we’ve been invited to. We shot the movie with the intention of a big screen, but it’s a hard market for original horror these days. (And I don’t mean some pretentious statement of originality, just a movie that’s not a remake/sequel.)
EL: For the average horror fan, how would you sum up The Burrowers for them?
JTP: The Hollywood pitch was The Searchers meets The Thing.
EL: Is there anything you would like to add that I haven’t touched on?
JTP: I feel pretty well covered.
EL: As a horror fan, as well as being married to an award-winning horror author, the wonderful Sarah Langan [author of The Keeper - review], what are some of your favorite horror films and books?
JTP: Yes, we have a creepy household. Movie-wise, I always comes back to Alien, Don’t Look Now, Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Suicide Circle, Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Kairo, Clean Shaven, all the regulars. Book-wise, I’m a big fan of Carrion Comfort [by Dan Simmons], The Road [by Cormac McCarthy] , Stephen King, Fangland [by John Marks], The Painted Bird [by by Jerzy Kosinski].
EL: What is up next for JT Petty? Is the horror genre your niche or might you one day branch out into more “mainstream” films?
JTP: I’d like to play around in all sorts of genres. The most successful thing I’ve worked on so far was a technothriller videogame called Splinter Cell, and I write kid’s books and have written screenplays in other genres. It’s more of a question of what I can convince the studios/financiers I can get away with. Though, of course, my most likely next movie will be a horror movie, and I can’t imagine ever leaving the genre behind.
EL: Final question and everyone I interview gets this one so…What is one thing no one knows about JT Petty that you think they should?
JTP: I always carry string with me, just in case.
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