STING Interview: A Mega Sesh With Director Kiah Roache-Turner

Well then, why don't we just get down to the basics, and let's start at the beginning. Just tell the readers where the idea of Sting came from.

Well, there's a few different threads. It's something that's been in my head for a long time because I have genuine arachnophobia. And so when you're a scaredy cat like I was when I was a kid, you know, there's a bunch of things that are just always in your head.

Zombies was one. I'm scared of ghosts and poltergeists and all the usual stuff, but the concept of a giant spider has been something that's been living in my head for many decades. I live in Australia, so we have a lot of spiders like the funnel web spiders - a big, giant, hairy fat thing that can kill you. If they bite you and you don't get to the hospital in time you'll die. So that's pretty full-on, that's what Shelob was based on, an Australian funnel web spider.

And we've got these things called huntsman spiders that are everywhere and they can be as big as your hand, it's terrifying. If they bite you it's okay, and most of them mostly kill flies and insects. So, a lot of people quite like having them in their house. I do not like them, huntsman spiders terrify me and they do this thing where they come in and they just crouch on the ceiling over the top of your bed. So again, and again, you'll just wake up and they'll just be this giant hand-sized spider just sitting there.

And so spiders have always been a big part of my life. And I've always had an actual physical reaction to them. Arachnophobia is a thing. When somebody gets close or goes near a cliff and they've got vertigo, they start to feel a bit weak at the knees. When I see a spider I start to panic. And so as a horror filmmaker, I've always been thinking about the worst thing that you could possibly encounter and it's for me, it's always been a giant spider.

I was in L.A., and I was having a meeting at James Wan's production company, Atomic Monster. I was talking to his producer and they mentioned that he really loved what we did, but you know that we might not be a match because of Wyrmwood and what I do is kind of crazy. We make really insane horror films that are really quite difficult to make and he says, “Well, we make quite simple horror films here at Atomic Monster”, and I reply, “Oh, tell me about that”. And he says, “Okay, so the template is this - single location, one family, one monster”, and he goes on, “We pretty much make that film over and over again, and that's our template.”.

And so I walked away from there going, “Oh, that's interesting. I wonder if I could write within that template”. And so I was trying to come up with a monster and I'm thinking, “You know, James Wan's done all of the demons and kind of all of the ghosts and the killer dolls. I can't do any of that. What's my scariest monster?”. And it was obviously a giant spider.

And I'm thinking, okay, so this single location is going to be an apartment building. How do I make it a little bit more like Alien, you know, with the Nostromo lost in space and you can't really leave. So I set it in the biggest storm in the history of the world so they kind of can't leave the house or the apartment. And the spider by definition can't be the size of a dump truck. Because if it's gonna move around in an apartment building and drag people into air conditioning ducts and stuff, like probably the size of a panther is about right and that's still scary as fuck, yeah.

Okay, well, who's gonna be in this film? And I just thought, oh, I’ll just put my family (in it). At the time it was in the middle of COVID and right after the fires that killed a billion animals in this country, like burned just through most of Australia, or most of New South Wales anyway, so it was a dark time for me and my family. I just had a baby and we were stuck inside for like a year and things got hard. It was quite a difficult moment, dramatically and emotionally and I just took my family and I put it in the film.

So I took all of that sort of claustrophobic COVID stuff and threw it into the screenplay, and I'm a husband, who just had a small baby and I've got a great relationship with my stepdaughter who I love but, you know, every relationship has drama. So all of the dramas that were going on in my family at the time, I just sort of slapped it onto this giant spider template and wrote probably the most emotionally connected personal movie I've ever written really.

So in a weird way, you know, Sting is very close to me. Obviously, I've never wrestled a giant spider. But if the giant spider is a metaphor, for problems and chaos, then you know that's, that's where we were at.

So, I did wonder how much of that was autobiographical. Because I think you have what two daughters?

One daughter. She's 17 and (we have) one son who's like five now. He was a baby when I wrote this, kind of about him as the baby. So she was yeah, that kind of the age that Alyla (Browne) is in the film. That was all about my stepdaughter. She draws comics and you know I draw, storyboards and comics and stuff, and so a lot of that was pretty on the money. She's super smart. So I'll go to my daughter for script advice. I'll give her a story problem and solve it. She's very good at that stuff. So a lot of that was very autobiographical, that relationship.

Yeah, I mean, the big differences like in the movie, Ethan and Charlotte have quite a good relationship, but they fight. Me and my daughter never fight, so I had to write all that shit (in). Because that's drama. You can't have a good relationship that's the basis for a film. So I had to invent a lot of the drama. I look at the movie and it's very wild man, you know?

Does that extend outside of the family, into any of the supporting characters?

I mean, everybody else is just big crazy made-up characters. Like the older women, the auntie, and the mother. I mean, my grandmother used to sit in a big armchair and she liked to knit, she would knit constantly. So she's very much based on my grandmother and I love my grandmother. The other one is just a fairytale archetype.

So one of the things that I like to do is to make horror a fairy tale. So a lot of my films end up being a bit sort of archetype like that. So I wanted the wicked stepmother in there somewhere. And you know, obviously, the the character that Jermaine Fowler plays is a pretty over-the-top riff on the John Goodman character from Arachnophobia. You know, the one from Amblin, a Spielberg-produced film back in the 90s.

And the the character that Danny (Kim) plays, the sort of weird, very spectrummy Korean medical student who lives upstairs is just a weird character. You have to have characters like that. The Spanish woman downstairs is played by Sylvia Colaco. I mean, she's really just a character that's thrown in there. That's got to be a bit of color, but you come to like them, you know, then kill off. You always need one of those characters. Unfortunately, she's she's like a dark mirror metaphor for the family. So this poor woman has lost her family and whole purpose being there is to show Ethan what might happen if he if he can't keep his family (together). So it's all structured to work in a story sense.

Okay. That makes sense. She's a striking woman too.

Yeah, and like a world-class opera singer. When she was filming I was like, “Oh, what do you do on the weekend?” And she's like, “I sang with Andrea Bocelli. What did you do?” Thanks. Didn't even know she was an opera singer. Oh, wow. She's phenomenal. She's one I love. It's just wonderful.

We should talk about the cast and how that came about. I guess it must have been pretty awesome to see Alyla Browne in the Furiosa trailer.

Yeah, man. Yeah, she is ungodly. Talented. She's one of the most amazing performers I've ever worked with. And she was only twelve at the time. It's just like, oh my god. Yeah, she was weird. Between action and cut I'm just staring at I'm just going “Oh, this is like a young Nicole Kidman”. She's so good. Yeah, and I don't understand how she knows, she just knows where to position her face and what to do with her eyes. She's just a star. You can't take your eyes off her when she's on camera. And then when she's not she's just a kid playing with tick tock and stuffing around and being naughty and being fun, you know? And then you go action and suddenly everything changes and you're looking at a star. I used to make the joke that she's like a living, breathing special effect. You just you press the button and your movie’s better. Magic. She was so fun.

And Ryan Corr I've wanted to work with for years. He's so talented. He's kind of this, broody Aussie, Marlon Brando type. He's such a good actor, a brilliant actor and he's very good looking. Just a great leading man. I think you know, all the things you want.

Penelope Mitchell was just wonderful to work with, and she's one of my very good friends. I just love her and she just killed the roll. Like again, you know, she just came in and just nailed it to the wall. So yeah, the cast was great. Like I was just lucky.

Obviously, Nikki Barrett who did the casting is probably the best in the country. I shouldn't say that, because there's some other lovely casting directors that I'm working with. Nikki's been doing it a while. She's like a ninja. Yeah, I think everybody would agree she's one of the best and great to work with. Just knows how to put together a bunch of actors.

Back to Alyla, where (the movie picks up). You've reached the halfway point in the movie and things just go to hell, right? Alyla walks into the living room and looks around (and) there's that stare, that look in her eyes. Is that moment where she's just staring, like, ‘What's going on in the room?’ Because it's all wrecked up and you see this look on her face. It was that moment right there, just like all (snap fingers) I could see it.

Yeah, she's just stupid and like she could play an elf queen. She could play somebody who jumps through the air in slow motion firing two guns. She's just a star. Like anything, anything you throw at her like she could do, you know. I kind of want to work with her as much as I can before she gets too famous for me to even be able to call on the phone. I'm sort of writing something at the moment where I'm like, “Oh, the character’s a teen like she'd have to play older. She could totally do that”. I'm excited to work with her again.

Tell me more about Jermaine Fowler.

Jermaine! He's a big star over in LA and a brilliant stand-up comic, he's so funny. But he's honestly one of the nicest dudes ever. He had a lot of heat when he when he came down. He'd been Eddie Murphy’s son. He was in Ricky Stanicky, which was quite a big film with John Cena. And The Blackening was about to come out, like, he had a lot of heat.

So he probably was the hottest actor on set. And so you're always a bit nervous when that person comes to set because (your fear is), “Oh, man, if this person wants to be a dick, they just can,” you know what I mean? Like there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. And he was so nice and respectful and funny. I immediately started talking to him about horror, and we both realized that we just love horror. Like, we're horror nerds, it was so good.

And he's giving me all these, like John Carpenter anecdotes like, did you know this and did you know that originally this person was cast. “How do you… Oh, you're a nerd!” Oh, we can actually, we can nerd out together.

And so I'm developing something with him now, a horror film that could be super awesome, (with him in) the lead. And he's a good writer too! I'm sitting down just like banging things back and forth with the script, so we're kind of doing a treatment together to go out and pitch it and I'm super excited about that. He's the perfect leading man weirdly because he's this good-looking guy. He's really funny, matched with a screen chemistry where audiences like him immediately. He can do action. He can also do all the sensitive stuff you need. But he can also write and so he inherently knows what you're doing in terms of script requirements. It's not just character requirements. Like, he gets it. And just, “Oh, man, I want to work with you again immediately. Please”.

Cool. It has to be very interesting for someone like that, who has a small but designated role in the film. It could have gone either way because all you're asking him to provide is a little bit of humor to an otherwise thrilling and scary movie.

Yeah, I mean, that character was written as the comedy relief. I think everybody knew that. When he came in, he was giving me a little bit of leading man stuff. I was like, oh, he's a bit sensitive, but he's also giving me some depth and this is great because that's the ideal. That's something Tarantino is really good at, and every subcharacter he does could have their own movie. And so when you look at the character Jermaine plays in the film, you think, I would like to see a spin-off of that guy. He's interesting, you know? And that's when you know you've got a good character. He really came in and he nailed it!

You got to work with WETA!

I mean, that is probably my favorite thing in the whole movie. Chris Brown came on and he's one of the co-producers and he produced Daybreakers and The Proposition and all this other stuff. He'd done quite a bit. He did Bait 3D, and a lot of monster movies.

So he came on as the kind of the producer who had done a lot of that stuff and he just knew Richard Taylor and goes, “Richard, should build this spider” and I'm like, “I mean, would Richard do a small indie film like this?” And he's like, “Of course, he fucking would. He loves this shit!” Yeah. So he contacted Richard, he had a quick look and went, “Oh, yes. I've always wanted to do a giant spider. You know? Shelob was great, but they did too much digital. And I always wanted to build up a puppet for a spider”. It was so funny. He was excited. We didn't have the biggest budget in the world. He goes “I don't give a fuck about that. I just want to build a spider!”. He gets excited like a kid.

Yeah, it was one of my favorite moments in my life. I think when I just got to Zoom with Richard. And he said my name right, he said, “Hello Kiah. I loved your script. And I think we're gonna make a really great movie together”. And I was just like yeah… yeah! It's like meeting one of the Beatles. I was so excited. He was, of course, brilliant to work with.

What's the balance of practical versus CG in it? Because the puppet features heavily in the end.

Well, when it's big, it's almost all the puppet. There's maybe two shots, maybe two or three, and everything else is puppet when it's big. The only time we ever did digital on the big one was when we had to kind of cut wide and have it crawling around the walls. Yeah. Because then you can't really do that with a puppet.

And everything else was just smoke and mirrors and mostly sound design, now and again you have a medium shot or a close-up of the puppet, you know, screeching or doing whatever, or interacting with the people. There was a point where we threw the puppet at Ryan, and I love that bit. Because you're going, “Is this gonna work or is this gonna look like the Muppets?” You know? And it totally worked. So it's probably 50/50 In the end because you see a lot of the spider when it's small, and obviously you can't do that again when it's when it's a puppet because there are wide shots.

But we ended up showing the spider more than we had anticipated simply because when Cumulus (VFX Studios) came in and showed us their shots, we were just like, “Ah, this looks really good”. And we just went to town and showed it more. Also we figured that because we needed to show the spider bonding with Charlotte we kind of needed to show it a little bit more. I had planned to hide it in the shadows and hide it behind glass and almost never see it. But I think in the end we decided that these are two characters that need to be liking each other or seem to be liking each other. And that's kind of part of the arc of the film. And now that we know it looks good. Let's show it a bit more so it's probably 50/50 In the end.

The reference to The Hobbit is rather overt in your movie, but, is her name Charlotte a nod to another book, Charlotte's Web?

Oh, of course. Yeah. There were a few nods there. She says, “What are we going to call you?” and she looks up at The Hobbit and she says “Let's call you Sting”. And it's a bit weird because I know Sting is adjacent. Sting is the name of the sword that he (Bilbo) kills the spiders in Mirkwood with.

It's spider adjacent, it kind of worked, that was a good name. And I was like, okay, we’ll kind of elbow that in. I was forced to read Charlotte's Web when I was a kid at school. I think everybody was, it was a good book. It was quite emotional. And of course, like, if you're gonna make a film about a little girl and a spider you're gonna call her Charlotte. Because you know, that's where the bonding comes from. Anytime a girl is bonding with a spider, everybody knows where it comes from, it comes from Charlotte's Web. So let's just call her Charlotte.

The greatest giant spider in literary history is, of course, you know, the spider or the spiders from Lord of the Rings. So you know, it's always both for me, it was always The Hobbit. Lord of the Rings was great. But as a kid, The Hobbit was the thing that I read again and again and again. And so the spiders in Mirkwood really made an impact on me. So that's where the giant spider thing came from. And the girl bonding with the spider obviously, was like a nod to Charlotte's Web. but at the same time, like it was always going to be a little girl because I was writing about my own family. So the little girl was my daughter.

You start to write and then you realize that you're taking things from literary sources. There's a bit of there's a bit of Tolkien in there. There's a bit of Charlotte's Web. And there's probably a little bit of Alien in there too, you know, so you kind of try and wear your references on your sleeve.

Yes! When Charlotte gets out the water pistol and you know, does a little ka-chunk lock-n-load, you know that's Ripley.

100% yes, mini Ripley. Yeah, definitely. Ready to go, one step away from “Get away from her, you bitch!” But you cannot have the 11-year-old swearing on camera.

The sound design was really, really good. Especially in the prologue where the (grand)mother hears the noise in the walls. You have traits, things that I think I've noticed as traits in your filmmaking. One is camera movement, this has a dynamic camera. You did a lot of zooms and dollies and camera movements. Another is montages, I think, because it (you have ones that are) kind of like the Sam Raimi montages, something I’ve always attributed to Sam Raimi because of Army of Darkness.

I think I probably stole it from Scorsese with Goodfellas and stuff like that. His cameras (are) always moving. Yeah. And he does those little mini story vignettes where the guy is talking, and he shows us seen in like, maybe twelve cuts is just boom, boom, boom, out and we never see that character again. Yeah, but I love how he does that.

I mean, Edgar Wright and Sam Raimi you know, do it beautifully. Yeah, I think I'm stealing more from Scorsese. I also don't do the transition phase much like I like the hard cut. You know, I'm stealing from multiple different sources. Yes.

But knobs and bells and little lights! I think the water heater downstairs in the basement, (you) added a little (to it) with a tricked-out panel, reminiscent of the doctors’ lairs in Wyrmwood.

Somebody once referred to that as switching button porn. But you like pushing buttons and lights are going on, you know what I mean? I get fetishistic, a little obsessed with buttons and gizmos and flashing lights and bits and pieces. I'm not sure where that comes from. Yeah, it's in all my films and it will always be in my films. I'm obsessed with that kind of technical process of modern machinery. I'm just obsessed, you know, the sounds that they make and the idea that you can push a button and you feel this kind of (mimics machinery starting) all the time.

It was really fun just to kind of watch as the film rolled out to kind of see things and see characteristics that I appreciate in your filmmaking.

Someone who's seen it said to me, “It's got all of your traits”, and it made me really happy. I was like, “Oh good, you know I have a style” because style is everything. But I appreciate directors who change their style. Somebody like Sidney Lumet changes his style according to the story but I don't do that. I have a very specific style so if I'm going to come to a thing I'm going to bring my style to that and that's what you're getting, and I love directors that do that.

You need a brand, you need a style. When your next films are coming up people are anticipating what to keep an eye out for. And it's not a bad thing at all.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I think it's great. Any artist like that is good. I grew up reading comic books, like, a Todd McFarlane comic is always going to look like a Tom McFarlane comic. My favorite artists like Jim Lee or Frank Miller have such distinct styles. And you know, same with musicians. You always know when Eddie Vedder is singing. You know what I mean? And there's nothing wrong with that. No.

I pick up specific comic books because of the people who write them or the people who draw them. It doesn't matter what they (the comic books) are and what they're about. I just do it anyway, because I appreciate the people who made them.

Alan Moore has a style. Neil Gaiman has a style. like it's just it's I think it's a wonderful thing. Yeah. Did you ever see that documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys? There's a whole section where they talk about style in skating, like the Elements of Style. And like this dude’s going ‘Oh man, style is everything you know, you guys, you know people come down to the rink and like, you know, like they might be technically good, but they just got a stinky style, man. We gotta kick those guys off the bow man. They can't be here. They're stinking up the bowl’. I love that. You know you can be technically good, but still look shit. Yeah, style is everything.

Was the spider always gonna be from outer space? I don't know if I'm gonna give that away. Are we?

It doesn't matter. I think I had like a five-minute conversation with some people early on, I think I was talking to my brothers about it (as well). You know, should we never say should it be from outer space? Should it be? It's so arbitrary and really doesn't fucking matter. Yeah.

I think I wanted it to be out from outer space because I love the movie Alien. And I kind of want to make an offshoot of Alien. The thing I liked about Alien was when you first see it you don't really know how it's structured and you think it could be spider-like like, the way that Ridley Scott shot it. It's it feels more like an insect or a giant wasp or something horrific like that. Yeah. And to me, it always activated the same things in me that made me terrified of all spiders. So I've always thought of Sting as an alien. I wanted to do my riff on that. That's why I wanted (it) to come from outer space.

I wrote the asteroid in at the start, with the asteroids coming down to Earth, and the producers (said), “Take that out. Let's just make it come from the storm”. So we don't know whether it's born on Earth or whatever. Or maybe it's like some god-like being, make it a little bit more esoteric. But then we screened it at an early screening people were like, “Where the fuck did it come from?” And I'm like, guys, I wrote that answer even. The audience is like, “Nah, man, he's right. Like, we want to know where it comes from”. So clearly it comes from space at the start.

I thought that was a funny back-and-forth. Whether the producers felt maybe it was a little bit too B Movie and I'm like “There is nothing wrong with It Came From Outer Space. That is a good, fun thing and (we can) get away with it if the tone of the movie is fun”. But if Ari Aster was directing it, they probably wouldn't question it.

You demonstrate what it's capable of by shooting it walking through the dollhouse. You're already preparing us to accept it at a bigger size. It's now in a proper ratio within the dollhouse as to how big it is going to be later on once it mutates.

That was my older brother's idea. I was talking to him about it, I sent him the treatment first, and my younger brother actually, both my brothers are very cine-literate. So I was banging the treatment back and forth. And my older brother goes, “You should have a doll's house in the opening sequence. And you should have the spider go through the doll's house”, and I was like that is genius, I'm going to tell people that was my idea. Because you’re foreshadowing, you’re foreshadowing its size? It sounds like it's such a good idea, man. Sometimes the best ideas come from come from you know, other people.

It comes from outer space permitting the spiders to mutate. To grow and to become monstrous, whereas anything within the natural world is like, “Oh, spiders don't get that big, fuck off. They get Chris Hemsworth big but they don't get, you know, the size of a Volkswagen bus big. No way. Doesn't happen”. Given it is from outer space allows it to get bigger. You're foreshadowing that with the opening sequence within the doll's house. But it has to be something small enough for Charlotte to be able to befriend it, without any question as to what it could become.

Yeah, I mean, I think once you see it, coming through the atmosphere, it's an egg. That comes from space. I think you can do whatever you want. And that's why it was important as a writing tool. It's like, okay, nobody can tell me what a spider can or can't do, because it's from space, you know? Yeah, it's a funny thing.

With that I remember getting into arguments with people online when I released Wyrmwood where people were just like,"Zombies don't bury themselves". And I'm like, "Zombies don’t exist". You know what I mean? Like you know, I'm taking a monster and I'm obeying the rules like they come at you and they bite you. And if you shoot them in the head, they die. Anything else I can refine. They had them running in 28 Days (Later)? and they had them behaving like ants in World War Z. You can kind of do whatever you want as long as you obey the basic rules.

And, spiders have basic rules. I guess geographical walls… it has to be able to do what a thing can do with eight legs. And anything else, all bets are off.

I remember having a meeting with Richard Taylor early on where I said “Let's not change the design, the design of a spider is horrific. Let's go with God's design. It's scary enough”. And he's like, “Great idea”. And then I sent him some drawings, you know, just basic, sort of storyboard stuff of what I wanted. He called me up and he went, “Now Kiah I'm noticing that you've given it like, a dog's mouth with teeth. You know, that's not what spider spiders have? Mandibles! Did you want it to have a dog's mouth?” And I'm like, “Can it have a dog's mouth?” and he goes, “Yes”. And I’m like, “Let's give it a dog’s mouth then”, I said. “Let's not change the design of like, oh, but we can still give it a dog’s mouth, can’t we, Rich?” and he loved it and was like, “Yes, it's horribly scary. Anything that makes it scary I'm happy for. I'll go till the crew”.

You'd be forgiven if you weren't doing any in-depth research and looking into what the mandibles of a spider looked like. I can't imagine anybody like you and me going, “Let's look up a picture of a spider, make sure I get this correct”. Because I would be like, you know, waugh!

I think I started off like that, Andrew, but I'm not that kind of director at the end of the day. I'm just like, let's just make it scary and fucked up. Like what's the worst? And you know, you just get excited. I'm doing a shark movie at the moment (Beast of War). I keep pushing them and pushing them and pushing them with the design. And the crazy dude who I love Steve Boyle at Formation Effects, he's up in Queensland, and he's going, “(Are) you trying to make me do a zombie shark?” And I'm like, “Oh, I guess I kind of am” And he's like, “Alright, well, let's push it in that direction. But let's be a bit careful now. Okay”. I guess I was trying to get into a zombie shark.

The movie has a little bit of an open ending. It has a conclusion and everything happens that happens. But then you have, you know, you have the “dun dun dun”, at the end.

Yeah, we've left it open for a sequel. Wrote a treatment for the sequel and it's cool, man. I can't. I shouldn't. I want to tell you all about it. No, no, it's like it's pretty different. I'm excited. Oh, man, I hope this makes some money so I can make it. Yeah, it's super cool. The ideas that I've got.

I mean, the other cool thing is I got to work with Anna Drubich, who scored Barbarian. I saw Barbarian I just called my producers, “Can we set this up?” She's amazing. She gave us a score that was at once terrifying, but also she really connected into the fairytale aspect of it, you know, so a lot of the stuff, moving into the horror, through the family and all that stuff just had a really beautiful, kind of a fairy tale aspect to it. You know, it was unusual.

And that's what I wanted to kind of do with this film. Like films are getting a little bit samey. samey, you know, especially horror films, they seem to follow a bit of an aesthetic template. I came up in the 90s watching films like Delicatessen, and in the independent boom, where filmmakers were really taking risks and you got quite unusual filmmakers at that point. David Lynch was still killing it. Now and again, you get like a Mulholland Drive or I was obsessed with Blue Velvet when I was a kid. So I love that kind of unusual approach.

And so it was really important for me to get the musician who kind of understood all that and she did, you know. She really got that weirdness that I was looking for, and didn't just give me a standard score. Half the horror scores, these guys sound almost like they're written by AI, they're all just kind of the same music. You know what I mean? And it's good, I love it, but it's like you kind of want your film to stand aside, you know, apart in a way and that's what we're talking about with style. It's nice to have something where you're looking at it going, “This is a bit different. Just a bit. You know, you don't want to be too different because then you're not commercial”. But yeah, it's a fine line.

More of a curiosity for myself, and, I guess, more so for writers over filmmakers… in your movie you decided that it's around the halfway point where the momentum just really picks up. When you're writing your script or you're writing the story out how did you decide where it was going to go… where it was gonna go tits up, for lack of better words.

Most of my films and most of my writing are like that. I'm not a character writer. I'm trying to become more of a character writer because I do think that is the strength of the writing in all of my favorite movies. Tarantino is a character writer. Aaron Sorkin is a character writer. David Mamet, you know. These are people who write very good plays, because they know about dialogue and people and those arcs are the things that hold films together, and I'm trying to work on that.

I'm a situational writer, so I put people in an untenable situation and then I write them out of it. And so, you know, obviously, the point in the movie where it goes tits up is when the spider attacks the family. I shouldn't do too many spoilers, but like, pretty much everybody is in the worst position they can possibly be in, then you've got this little 12-year-old girl who has to get them out of it. And by that point, we've set up the apartment building, it has become like a game of mousetrap. It has levels and all the levels are everybody's apartments that lead down into a basement and she's got to but she can't get out because, you know, various things that I won't spoil. So she's got to go down and rescue members of her family in the hellscape down at the bottom.

I guess that's inspired by video games and playing you know, Mario Brothers over and over again. Video games are very level-based. If you go back and watch Wyrmwood Apocalypse, it's the same thing. There's a point in the movie where somebody is taken to the big boss and somebody has to get through a series of levels or rooms to get to the big boss and then fight the big boss. It's all probably video game-based. And, you know, every one of my movies inevitably turns into a game of mousetrap, you know, where they're stuck in a thing and they've got to get out of it. I guess that's just my style as a writer. Yeah.

As a director, and as a writer, what improved this time around? Coming out of your previous films what did you want to improve upon? Or where did you see an area that you could grow in or try something that you couldn't do before?

This was the first time I templated from my life. In previous films, I'd taken bits and pieces but in this one, I just went okay, this is me, my daughter, my baby, and my fears around that, and my wife and I just used that shit, like, unmercifully. And that is a key to good writing. I realize, if you use your own life and the people in your life, then you're going to write truthfully, and the audience recognizes that. So I think, yeah, I think there's a personalness to this that my other films didn't have.

I think my other films felt a little bit more comic-booky, you know? Made up and maybe sort of two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. It’s maybe excessively unfair, but there's a little bit of that in some of my other films. Yeah, this film is a lot more personal, I think. And I think you can you can see it.

Yeah, I just learned from my experience on my second film, that just because someone gives you a note, you don't have to take it. And I now know that you have to come in with a vision and a structure for your story. And you've got to hold on to that like the filigree and you know, the little bits and pieces, maybe strengthening arcs, or whatnot is good for producers and financiers and distributors to come in and help you with. Their job is to come in and help you with your story. If they're coming in and changing your story, why are you even doing it? Then you’re just a head of department on your own film and that's not what you know people need from writer-directors or want from writer-directors. And frankly, that's not what they pay you for like if somebody is going to hire you to do a job and then do that job for you. It doesn't make sense commercially. So I had to grow up a little bit and learn that by getting through the experience on my second film, making Wormwood Apocalypse 100% on my own terms, and I was like, well, that worked. So I need to stick to that a little bit more.

And so Sting was very much made on my own terms. And I very carefully made sure that the collaborators I was working with liked the story, it's very important that the producers and distributors, everybody has to be making the same movie. And on my second film, that wasn't the case. So I presented them with the thing and they said, “Let's make something else”. And I was like, “Okay, I guess that's how it works”. That's not how it works. You should present them with a thing and they go, “We like that thing. It has brilliant potential. Now let's make it better”. And that's what Sting was, you know, and so moving forward, that's what I'm always trying to do with the films that I make.

So, should we expect a trilogy? Let's say that the theme for the two Wyrmwood films and Nekrotronic was undead or unliving kind of stuff. That’s a loose, central theme to those. Now you're doing you've done a spider movie. You're going to do a shark movie next. Are you going to do like a Things That Kill Australians trilogy, or…

I'm just doing monsters. What I realized a couple of years ago that really what I'm trying to do is just ape my favorite director and writer. So my favorite writer by far is Stephen King. And when I think about it, Stephen King is the other reason why Sting exists, because I pillaged heavily from the book It, where the killer clown in the sewers turns out to be, its natural form is a spider. In its spider shape, it drags these children into the sewers and down through the pipes, eats them, and devours them. I love the movie that (Andy) Muschietti did but I was like, “You didn't do the spider”. The spider was the best bit, and I was like, “Well fuck it. I'll do the spider then”.

Firestarter is kind of this dark, violent, science fiction thing and Carrie, although it is a horror film, it's effectively science fiction because it's about a girl who has telekinetic powers. Then he'll do a short story about giant rats eating people and then he'll do a book about aliens that invade your mind and then he will do a book you know about a dog that goes insane and tries to kill a mother. He jumps all over the place, but it's always horror-based. So whether it's science fiction action, you know, like the gunslinger, like dark fantasy, but man there are so many horror elements in there.

And so what I've realized is for whatever reason, even if I was doing a drama or whatever, I always naturally do horror as a base. So if somebody asked me to do a crime movie, I directed a horror film. If somebody asked me to do a science fiction, I directed a horror film because like that's what I am in terms of style. And so a couple of years ago, I sort of realized, “Okay, I'm just going to try and be like a shitty Stephen King and like, I'll, you know, I'll aid my hero in terms of the writing”.

I'm never going to be as good as him of course, but he doesn't direct so I've got that. I'll kind of try and write like him and then direct like me, and hopefully, I'll just be like a little Stephen King acolyte for the rest of my career, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Bonus Material

And it's the first film without (your brother) Tristan.

No, and I missed him every day. The film industry is for people who love this shit. And Tristan and I love working together, and we love movies, and we have a lot of fun, but like, the industry is pretty broken. I mean, it barely works and you have to be absolutely obsessed to stay in it. And it was just a point where it's just like, dude, like it's not gonna get any more fun than when we did Apocalypse. Let's tie it up in a bow and you know, we might work together again, but like he's off, got a job in the real world. He makes more money, it's easier and he doesn't have to deal with shit.

There's so much bullshit in this industry, like backstabbing and lying and it's pretty hard. It's the only industry where (during) the whole development process a lot of people still expect you to just develop for free. You know, like a plumber comes in and says, “Well, I'll install the toilet” and you pay him and they install the toilet. Whereas this one you say, “I've got an idea for a film” and they go “Why don't you go write it” and you're like, “Well pay me”. And they go, “You write it first. And then we'll talk about paying”, you know, what I've heard, “Then later, you'll get a paycheck”.

So you have to be very slippery and very clever in this industry to make a buck. It's not easy to economically survive in this industry. I'm in a lucky position in that I write, direct, and co-edit. I can double-dip on my fees. Tristan's a producer so he gets one flat fee. That's not enough. He's an electrician (now). He's like, “I can go and work on billion-dollar jobs and just get heaps of money immediately. And I love films, but I can just watch them on the weekend”. You know what I mean?

I do need to make them. I'm a sucker. I'm an artist. I love this stuff so much. I need this in my life. And so I'm prepared to put up with a lot of shit to make it happen. But yeah, I have so much fun working with my brother. When we did Apocalypse, when we did number one and number two was so fun. Sting wasn’t fun. Sting was work. It was amazing to work with Richard Taylor and to see your vision come alive. It is the best feeling in the world for a second only to my family. But, working with my brother we’d laugh all day, every day. And when I'm not working with him, it really is, “Oh, wowl, yeah, this is just a job”. .

And he’s also started his he's also started his family. This past year he's had his first child?.So a young guy, getting things going, has to look after him.

He needs stability. Yeah, like the film is too unstable. Like when you're winning, you're winning big and when you're losing, it's just like, oh my god! He's just, “I want an even life”. And, you know, we had that discussion. And I'm like, “Man, if you want an even life, the film industry is the worst place to be”. He's like, “Yes, yes, I see that”. He's really looking forward to coming and seeing the first film that I've made on my own He read the script years ago, but he has no idea what's going on. And he's looking forward to that. So I'm really looking forward to being able to show my brother a movie.

He was saying once when we were talking on the phone. he says, "It's so good to be able to see one of your films. Like without having it ruined" Because when you make a film, yeah, it's ruined. You don't get to experience it. This is the first time he's gonna get to watch one of my films and not know anything, so he'll be able to experience the film as an audience for the first time ever.

Good luck to him. Taking the sucker's way out.

That's my favorite. Jerry Seinfeld told my favorite joke about the industry in his Comedian documentary. There's a great bit where like this comedian’s going “It's so hard”. And Seinfeld goes, let me tell you a joke. And he goes, “There's a bunch of musicians and they've just been flown into this gig. And they have to walk from the airport to the gig and it's like 10 miles through snow and they're shivering and they're carrying these huge instruments. And they walk past a house and they stop and they see in the house a glowing window and there's a fire in there. And they're eating a beautiful ham and they're singing and music's playing and everybody's laughing and hugging each other. And one musician, turns to the other musician and says, “How do people live like that?” And they trudge on through the snow.

Bonus Material

Yeah, Sting's just a giant fuck off spider by the end (of your movie). I remember seeing your current national treasure Chris Hemsworth was taking a video of some giant fuck off spider on the wall. It probably would have been a huntsman or whatever. But if a spider makes Hemsworth look small? Just, like, good god. What's the deal? And that's not even the most dangerous thing down there.

Yeah, man. It's pretty crazy. He's further up north in Byron Bay. So there's actually more spiders and heaps more snakes up there. Yeah, we've got some of the deadliest snakes in the world. We got crocodiles. I’ve got a friend who lives right up north. And they went through I think 20 dogs when she was a kid, I was like, “How are you losing all these dogs!?!” and she said, “Well, we've got a little stream that runs down through the back of our property. And the dogs will run down there and never come back because they just get taken by crocs”. And it's like, “Oh my god, you got crocodiles in your backyard!?!”. Great White Sharks all up and down the coast of our country. Everything here wants to kill us. So no wonder you get pretty good horror film directors out of this country. Yeah, it makes sense.

You know what the number one thing, the top killer is in your country? Livestock and beasts of burden. Falling off of horses or being trampled by cows and shit. I looked it up. It's beasts of burden.

That's interesting.

Like you're the one to tap into the fears like spiders and shit. And like, I get spiders too. I fucking hate spiders. But we don't get anything that big up here. It's just too damn cold sometimes.

Yeah, but you guys get bears though.

Like bears and cougars. Yeah, where I grew up on the west coast you're up against the North Shore mountains. So when you're growing up, it wasn't uncommon for there to be bear scares or cougar scares. Basically, they tell you hey, this bear has come down off of the mountains or this cougar has come down and is walking around the neighborhood. When you get out of school just come home very quick.

We were lucky. The only weird thing we get moving around at night is you'll often see kangaroos up and around at night. Yeah. But they're mostly harmless as long as you don't try and box them.

You’ve got some fucking jacked kangaroos in Australia though. The internet keeps showing us all those pics of flexing kangaroos.

We’ve got kind of nasty ones where he's up in. You go up to the Northern Territory and you can get like eight-foot kangaroos. They look like renouncing Mike Tyson.

They're ready to go. Yeah, their chests are bigger than a bear.

Giant rats.

Bonus Material

Your (movie) brings conflict into the story's heart, between father and stepdaughter, getting people invested in the family before tearing it apart. Then father and daughter have to rebuild it again by the end by working together to defeat Sting and they decide, I know I don't want to die. They're brought back together by this cataclysmic fuck off giant spider.

I mean that's the classic monster movie template. They’re through battling this spider. Everything that was broken is kind of fixed through the battle. I mean, that's all standard stuff. But yeah, we spent a lot of time on character in this one. And I'm like, you never know because you get into audiences. It's like, should we have just done wham bam?

No, no. I feel the second time that I was watching Sting it was like when I was watching the second Grudge film. Where the first one freaked the crap out of me and by the time I was watching it the second time, the second one was like, “Okay, I know the setup and I was appreciating the execution and the stunts”. The second one didn't scare me as much. And I was like, “Oh, okay, that's clever. That's fun. That's good”. I had the same sort of reaction to watching your film a second time.

That's what you want with a movie like that! My favorite movies (are ones) you watch over and over and over again. Often you'll get a brilliant film and you'll get to the end of it, especially horror, and you just go “I love that film. It was great”. And I will never watch that again. Unlike rewatchable films like I must have seen Alien and Aliens like you know, just 100 times like this so rewatchable those movies they're so entertaining.

I sort of realized that the films that are the scariest to me are slow builds. The Exorcist is a slow build, Hereditary is a slow build. You know, The Witch is so fucking slow. That movie is so slow, but it's terrifying. I wanted to try - (I was) just done enough with like that punching Wham Bam, Thank you, Ma'am.

So, speaking of the Alien movies, what about Alien Romulus?

Yo, I just shared that on my page before. I was like, “This looks fun”. See? Like they've taken it back to a horror franchise. Thank God somebody finally did it. Yeah, it's really good that it was Fede Álvarez. He is a he is a very, very good horror film director.

He's doing swarming face huggers. I've never seen that yet.

Yeah, man, it's one of the things you see and you go, “Why didn't anybody kind of think of that before?” Because James Cameron did such a good with the running face huggers, running at the camera. Now you're like, OH! you just have six of them and it’s terrifying.

More terrifying now as it’s a bunch of them jumping out the door!

I mean, that looks really good. Fede Álvarez has never really made a bad film yet. Like it's going to be good. You just know it's going to be good. So yeah. I'm very much looking forward to that.

Cool. Well, I got a couple of minutes left on this (final recording) session, so I think we'll probably sign off.

Yeah, I'm gonna get I'm running. I'm trying to write a killer alien thing at the moment. So I should get back to writing.

Okay. Please. Write more killer alien right away. Don't let me get in the way of your process.

What am I selling it as its Close Encounters (of the Third Kind) meets Halloween.

Awesome. All right. Well, nice to like, essentially meet you for the first time.

Obviously, I’m a huge fan (I'm sure he meant ScreenAnarchy on the whole. I'm pretty awesome, but still...). (I was sure) we've met but I think with Facebook, you never really know because I feel like I've known you for years. I guess we've been going back and forth for so long.

Well, you know, I'm just able to get people to sit there and support you, appreciate your work, and appreciate everything you've done so far. We just want to keep that going and support you so yeah, thank you very much for taking the time to do this mega sesh.

Appreciate it, man. And you guys have always done amazing articles for me and my brother. I do appreciate that because without you guys were pretty fucked.

It’s a good thing you don't suck or I don't write it.