“Some really dark stuff happened,” Emily (Brittany O’Grady) tells Danny (E.J. Bonilla), the cinematographer she’s asked to tag along with her on a trip back home to Las Cruces in “In Our Blood” when describing her past, adding that “When it started coming together as a film, it felt less scary.”
She’s the only one who may feel that way as “In Our Blood” progresses, the unnerving narrative feature debut from Pedro Kos that sees the director of documentaries such as “Rebel Hearts” try his hand at a found-footage thriller, a steadying presence behind the occasional shaky cam that’s bound to make others tremble. If all were to go according to plan, Emily would simply be going home to reunite with her mother Sam (Alanna Ubach) from whom she was separated at 13 when her drug addiction became too much and as Sam worked her way through recovery, Emily went to film school, now ready to make amends since it might make for an interesting movie with Danny’s help. However, long off the narcotics, something seems off about Sam when Emily and Danny come to visit for Thanksgiving and after a tense attempt at a sit-down interview, Sam disappears, leading the two to look into the places she was known to frequent around town, including a clinic run by a stern administrator (Krisha Fairchild).
Emily may look at the locals with suspicion as increasingly questionable details pop up regarding her mother’s vanishing act, but to them, she is the one who looks suspect and “In Our Blood” exposes how preconceptions complicate an already tense situation when a lack of understanding and empathy prevents anyone from wanting to actually tell the truth. The effects are particularly devastating when Mallory Westfall’s script holds plenty of secrets just waiting to be uncovered and while the characters may close themselves off from one another, Kos shows a real curiosity towards both the genre he’s exploring for the first time and the denizens of the forgotten corners of America, which has been a longtime passion for the filmmaker. With the film premiering tonight at Fantasia Fest in Montreal, Kos spoke about how he was able to fuse these filmmaking skills and interests together to get the blood going in a number of ways, the exhilaration of working with actors and having the camera become an extension of their characters.
As a fan of your previous work, I did not have a horror film on my dance card. How did this come about?
It all goes back to college. The seed of the idea came from Aaron Kogan, my dear friend, collaborator and producer of this film. Aaron and I made this movie called “Blue Devil,” and he’s one of my closest friends, but he didn’t tell me about this idea [for “In Our Blood”]. We were in college together and he had this idea and [later] started working on it with Steven Klein, who also went to school with us. They developed the idea with Clay Tweel, another documentary filmmaker, and then they brought in the genius Mallory Westfall, who back then was an up-and-coming writer — this was over 10 years ago — and has now written for “Fear of the Walking Dead” and “Chucky.” So Aaron comes to me and [says] “I think I have a project that would be your first fiction film to direct.” And when he pitched it to me, “I was like, really are you sure? i don’t know if I’m the best person for this, even though I’ve been a fan of genre films since I was young.” But Aaron said “No, that’s exactly why you’re the right person to make this.”
I had [directed] theater back in college, but after graduating, I eventually went into documentary filmmaking, which has been an extraordinary gift and when I read “In Our Blood”, I got to the end, I was like, “What?” [laughs] “Wait, wait, let me go back.” And then I went back and I started seeing not only a really cool genre story, but I actually saw the themes that I actually tackle in my work as a documentary filmmaker — really the dehumanization of so many swaths of people and how we’re how we’re as a society preying upon the most vulnerable and reconciling with the ghosts of our past and our decisions. It really began to seed itself into my brain and because i am so familiar with the documentary language, it really stayed with me. I met with Mallory and Aaron and Steven, and we kept developing the film and really working to add more layers and bring out these themes, and for me, it was a way to really dig in and continue this exploration, but with new and really fun tools.
One of the things that I really love about horror is the myth and allegory of it all. It allows us to look at our own world through a different lens. Films like “Get Out” are within that world, but actually have a lot of layers that really look at what we are doing to one another as human beings, so I saw this as an opportunity for that. That’s been my true north, really never letting go of our world and our reality. And the people that you see in the film are real people answering those questions. These are their lives and these are real interviews that you saw. The clinic that you see in the film, Community of Hope of Mesilla Valley, they work with people who are experiencing homelessness and helping them to find rehabilitation services and housing. Krisha [Fairchild], who plays Anna brilliant, she met with people who work in that space, so I approached it both as a documentary film and as a fiction, doing the research and the groundwork to hopefully bring Las Cruces in our world to life.
It was interesting to think of how the cameras could be used as an extension of the characters – what’s it like to work with the actors or the camera operators to connect their personalities to the equipment?
It was really thrilling, and in a way, one of our biggest challenges. We gave ourselves a lot of rules for the film language because the film is either seen mostly from Danny’s camera and sometimes from Emily’s iPhone, so every decision had to fit within that space, from the narrative structure to the camera placement to how we cover a scene to the editorial choices that we made afterwards. But creating that language was something really special seeing. I asked for a rehearsal period, which is not usual for a film of our tiny budget and resources, but I wanted not only to workshop the scenes with Brittany [O’Grady] and E.J. [Bonilla], but really rehearse and feel the beautiful ballet that happens between E.J., who plays Danny, and Camilo [Monsalve], our extraordinary cinematographer, and them melding the personification of Danny and this outsider lens and our lens into this world.
The cinematography really has an emotional arc, so we approached the cinematography not only as an aesthetic thing but we would talk about each scene we filmed [like] what is Danny’s emotional state here and what is the camera like? Is it shaky? Is it more smooth, [with] Camilo and E.J. talking it through and Camo asking E.J., “What is Danny feeling here? That was really important to create that space and to have that dialogue to inject that emotional truth within the cinematography.
You had to have certain rules for yourself in putting this together on the back-end as well – you can’t use music and certain editing tricks are off the table. At the same time, were there opportunities that were exciting to you in this format?
I think these challenges are also huge opportunities to explore and to do something that is impactful in a different way. Our guiding light was that this is the real deal. This is our world and [anything we did was in service of] how to bring the emotional truth of these characters in a way that doesn’t give away all the twists and turns, but makes you feel grounded in their reality and their perspective. One of the things that I love about documentary film is that it allows us to see life through a different set of eyes that we would never have the opportunity to see [otherwise], and in a way I tried to bring that ethos to this and supercharge it with some of the same tools, but maybe even more constricted.
It was really exciting and it was a challenge, but at the same time, as a documentary editor, I love solving these enormous puzzles that don’t necessarily have a right answer, but that have all these different possibilities and trying to get the truth behind it and it was really following all of the incredible work that was done on set and breathing that reality from E.J.’s and Brittany’s brilliant, multi-layered performances. The hardest part of editing is actually what you have to exclude and we have so much gold. The actors are so so extraordinary. Alanna Ubach, who plays Sam, just blew us all out of the water and trying to embed all the intricacies… I wish I could have a 10-minute take of the dinner scene because there’s so much that’s going on that each of the actors brought. [Editing was] one of the biggest challenges, but really exciting to do.
It sounds like working with the actors was also an exciting part of this – and in particular, that Alanna Ubach interview scene really stands out as an emotional rollercoaster. Coming from documentary, was that an interesting part of the process?
It was, and by the way, that was one of those pinch myself moments. I had a lot of that on making this film and I think all of us were blown away. It was really special and transcendent, to the point where the first AD remarked to me, “He’s never seen a set so quiet.” You could hear a pin drop on the day that we filmed that interview because Alana brought so much. When I first met with her, she said, “This has to be raw. This is not acting. This is so much pain and suffering that’s been pent up,” and I [thought] that’s exactly it, and for me to work with actors, I had the most amazing and phenomenal experience because everyone was so open and brought so much love and passion.
It was not my first time working with actors [since] I studied theater in college, but I was nervous, [thinking after all this time] “Am I gonna know what to do?” I had a lot of insecurities. But I used some of the tools that I used as a documentary filmmaker to working with actors. I took E.J. out to to dinner during his first few days in Las Cruces and I interviewed [him as] Danny, and that was wonderful to see him putting the pieces of the character together. And I was really nervous to work with such an amazing, such experienced cast from Alanna to Brittany to E.J. to Krisha, Bianca and Steven, but they were so generous that they put me at ease right away. It became like riding a bike — I hadn’t ridden that bike of directing actors in many, many years, but it was really thrilling to do again and after a while, because I lucked out with the actors that I worked with, they just made it feel so natural.
“In Our Blood” will premiere at Fantasia Fest at the Salle J.A. De Seve on July 31st at 7:10 pm and August 3rd at 3:15 pm.