Interview: Writer/Director Ti West Talks THE INNKEEPERS, Torture Porn Vs. Demons, Kelly McGillis, And More

Special thanks to Magnet Releasing, not too long ago, I got to  interview with writer/director Ti West who brought you The House Of The Devil and whose latest film, THE INNKEEPERS (watch the trailer) is available now on VOD and will open in Theaters Feb 3rd, 2012. I enjoyed the film, I think it’s great andif you love horror movies as much as I do, you’ll definitely want to watch The Innkeepers.
I asked Ti West a ton of questions because I wanted to know what his thoughts were on which type of horror movie is scarier and he also talked about the cast, his upcoming projects, apparently he’s got a Werewolf movie that he’s been wanting to make and he also talked whether or not 3D is an important element for horror. Check out the entire interview below…

RS: What many people enjoyed about your previous movie, The House Of The Devil was that 80s look and feel to it, why didn’t you use similar approach for The Innkeepers, why wasn’t the story set in another era other than the present?

TW: “Well, the thing with the house of the devil is that I got a tremendous amount of credit for the 80s vibe and I’m happy to take it but I didn’t expect to get that because the only reason House Of The Devil was in the 80s because the satanic panic craze was in the 80s so to me, I was just making a period movie, and the funny thing is we got all this credit for being retro, and all I wanted to was ‘let’s get the period down right, so no one could say we were lazy about that’ and I think we just went above and beyond so everyone focused on it and that’s great, I love the way the movie looks, we worked very hard on it, but this movie doesn’t take place in the 80s and it just didn’t make sense to take place in the other time, it seemed like a modern movie, there’s not really cellphones in the movie, the computers are pretty shitty, the website is pretty bad and almost pretty 90s but that to me was just the charm of it more than anything else”

RS: The Innkeepers feature hotel employees, have you ever worked in a hotel?

TW: “I have not. But I’ve had every other minimum wage job known to man, so what I wanted to do with this movie is make a charming ghost story about what it’s like to be stuck in a minimum wage job.. because I can either make movies or be like a bus boy, I don’t know how to do anything else so it’s one or the other for me.”

RS: This past decade we saw movies like Saw, Final Destination, and Hostel which are labeled as Torture Porn, and in recent years Paranormal Activity brought back demons and ghosts and of course The Innkeepers falls under the category of the latter, so do you prefer one over the other?

TW: “I think there’s room for everything. What’s great about horror genre is that it could be more diverse than any other film genre, it’s borderline an experimental film genre, because you could do anything under the guise of a horror movie, you could do hostel, you could paranormal activity, you could do this, you could do we need to talk about kevin, you could do attack the block, so diverse, the problem is everyone keeps doing the same thing over and over again, it’s great that there’s a hostel or a final destination but.. do we need 5 Final Destinations? Do we need other movies that are like Final Destination? Couldn’t we just have one or two and then just have different things. But I think what happens is when something is successful, the nature of the business is to aim for the lowest common denominator and they become very derivative and people just make remakes, sequels, and they just do the same thing over and over again with different people in them, and I think that’s a shame because you can do so much in genre.”

RS: Which one is scarier to you? People torturing people or demons chasing people?

TW: “A lot of times it has to do with the filmmaker who makes them, but I think demons is probably scarier because.. I don’t believe in that stuff but if I’m wrong, it could get me at anytime whereas I can probably use my best judgment to stay away from getting tortured, whereas if my house is haunted, that’s where I live, I can’t do anything about it and we all relate to that because we all deal with death so I think that’s a little move scary but I think it really has to do with the filmmakers who make it.”

RS: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

TW: “I’m not sure what it is, it might be The Shining, it might be The Exorcist, it might be Rosemary’s Baby. It’s probably The Shining but it’s hard to say favorite, but what’s brilliant about all those movies is that The Shining is a movie about a man who hates his family and then a ghost story, The Exorcist is about a woman with a sick daughter and then a possession movie, Rosemary’s baby is about a woman and her paranoia and then it’s a satanic.. and I think that to me is what makes those movies great is that they’re a movie first and then a horror movie second and because of that, you care about the characters, there’s interest, there’s a relatability, so when it becomes a horror film, you’re invested, and I think that’s when you can truly be scared, when you’re invested in a movie, then the filmmaker is a step ahead of you and they can sort of control you and that’s what I meant when I said it depends on the filmmaker on how scary a movie is, it’s like a magician, if you don’t know how the trick’s done, it’s the most amazing thing ever, as soon as you know how the trick’s done, it suddenly loses its mystique, and the really great filmmakers are the ones who never let you know how you do it.”

RS: In my review, I mentioned that the Yankee Pedlar is the scariest hotel since The Overlook hotel

TW: “I appreciate that, it’s good company to be in. I hope people, after seeing this movie, will go to the Yankee Pedlar because it’s in Torrington, Connecticut, it’s still open and if you walked in there, it’s like you walk into the movie and I don’t know any other place you can do that. There’s other place where you can drive by something and go ‘o that’s where they shot whatever’ but I’ve never heard of a place where you can go inside and everything is almost exactly the same, even people who work there wear the same outfits, so it’s almost like when you meet an actor from a movie, that’s almost what it would be like to go to the Yankee Peddlar, so I hope we get some curious people that book a room there just to see what it’s like.”

RS: Any ghost encounter stories when the camera was off when you guys stayed at the Yankee Pedlar?

TW: “There’s a lot, I don’t believe in ghosts because I need to see a ghost, as soon as I see a ghost, I’ll tell the world that ghosts are real, but.. doors open and close by themselves all the time, lights turn on and off by themselves, there’s a weird vibe, the whole cast and crew had very vivid dreams every night, and something’s just off there. And then one thing that happened, the room in the film where all the haunting takes place for the most part, the honeymoon suite, the only reason we used that room because it’s on the third floor at the end of the hallway and big enough to do a dolly shot, so it was just technical reasons. After we wrapped the movie, I found out that that’s the most haunted room in the hotel in real life, that’s a coincidence but when you added up with all the other stuff that I told you, I don’t know, man! It’s the closest I’ve ever come to believing.”

RS: You planned to shoot this film in 18 days but you finished it in 17, how intense was that?

TW: “We made the House Of The Devil in 18 days which is nearly impossible so I don’t wanna go below that ever again in my life because usually 25 is a good time to make a movie, you can imagine. 17 was tough, but what happened was, on The House Of The Devil, everything that could go wrong, went wrong, it was a very difficult movie to make. I think there was some sort of karmic payback on this movie because the joke on set was we were waiting for the other shoe to drop, because we got there, we prepped the movie, we started shooting the movie and we finished early every single day, every 17 days and it just worked out. So for whatever reason this one, balls were bouncing in my court, I don’t know what happened, so it was a remarkably easy to make, I mean it wasn’t easy, it was still very difficult, I got very sick, that was hard, but other than that, it just went ok, I had a great cast and crew”

RS: I liked the design and the look you have for the ghosts or the demons in this movie, who’s the makeup artist and did you base the look off some other ghosts/demons you saw in other horror movie in the past?

TW: “Brian Spears was the makeup artist, he’s great. I had an idea for.. because I wanted it to be a very traditional ghost story like an 1800 ghost story, I mean it’s not cliche, but these are familiar troupes, I just wanted what I thought would be scary about it, I feel like I found a few images that I sent him but I generally tried to just picture something in my head and articulate it to the best I can and then see where they take it.
I get very nervous about showing a different movie to someone because I’m very cautious of copying something else, I’m very insecure about that. And when I set out to make a movie, I try to do everything out of my head and try to articulate to everyone and let them take it and run with it as opposed to saying ‘I want this scene to be like this like in this movie’ because once you do that, it just starts to become that, and I don’t want to become that.”

RS: Can you talk a bit about your key cast Pat Healy and Sara Paxton? Because I think they did great in this movie

TW: “They were fantastic. I mean the movie is a cast-driven movie, it’s a character-driven movie, so it really rests on their shoulder, particularly Sara, and it was very important for me to get that stuck at work sarcastic dry humor down. What’s amazing is people think ‘o they must’ve had a rehearsal time’, they met the night before we started shooting but when you watched the movie, you’d think they’d known each other forever and that’s a testament to how good they are. When Sara takes the trash out in the movie, that’s my favorite thing I ever shot in every movie I ever made, when you see the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The charisma that she has is pretty amazing, I think she’s going to obviously continue to do really well like she always does, but I hope this really shines a light on her because she’s a really amazing actress that I think people haven’t seen this side of her yet and I think they’ll love it.”

RS: Now, I gotta ask you this, how did you get the hottie from Top Gun, Kelly McGillis to agree to do this film?

TW: “Absolutely, she had already done a movie called Stakeland and the producer of this movie, Pete, had done Stakeland with her, he recommended her and so I skyped with her and what happened was when I talked about this role to people, a lot older actresses were kind of offended, ‘how dare you think I’m an older actress’, but I was like ‘that’s now what I think of, you’re a spiritual person now, you’ve moved on’..but it was too close to home. So Kelly and I got on skype with, and I don’t know what to expect and she’s smoking cigarette, she’s London, and I’m like trying to be delicate about it ya know ‘she’s not a has been, she just moved on to something more important’ and she blew the smoke in the camera’s face and was just like ‘I don’t give a shit’, she wasn’t sensitive about that stuff and she was also able to bring some personal tough of having been in a way something like the character’s talkin’ about, like an 80s celebrity so she was able to elevate it in a way that I couldn’t but it was really because Pete had done a movie with her, they got along, he put us on skype together, she liked the script and fortunately we made it happen because she’s great in it”

RS: What’s the design for the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) machine in this movie and why did you choose to feature it?

TW: “It’s just a mixture of microphone that we liked, and kind of a old shotty recorder. Ya, a big part of the movie was to do.. I’ve never seen a movie that focused on EVP, they always do the Paranormal thing with video for obvious reasons because it’s a movie but I thought I’ve never seen something where you go into the perspective of someone’s headphone, you can’t see anything but you’re hearing it, I thought that was really scary, I thought it was also unique, I’ve never seen it done before, so we tried very hard to incorporate sound specifically into this movie because we don’t get to see that enough.”

RS: I read that you prefer shooting on film better than digital, why is that?

TW: “I just think it looks better and I prefer the process, it’s getting hard to make that argument, because certainly as of now there’s the Arri Alexa and Red Epic, two very good cameras, it’s getting very competitive. I still think film is better, but it’s not tremendously better anymore, I shot this film on a 35mm and we finished on a 35mm print and it may very well be the last one, I don’t want it to be but it just may be, so there’s also an element of ‘I’m glad I got to do it the proper way one more time if this is the last one’ because the days are numbered.”

RS: What’s your next project?

TW: “I’ve written several things that are done and they’re set up all over the place, I have a science fiction movie that to me feels most likely will be next, it’s called THE SIDE EFFECT, that’s very likely to happen hopefully early next year, I have a film that I have a part of, called VHS, it’s at Sundance, it’s an anthology movie, and I did one section of it. And I have a werewolf movie that’s written that I would like to make, but that’s a bigger movie so it might take a little longer, and I also did a segment in the ABCs of Death which is another anthology movie that comes out next year, I’ve been busy since The Innkeepers, but I’m very eager to get back out and make another feature particularly the sci-fi movie.”

RS: Which letter did you do on THE ABCs OF DEATH?

TW: “I can’t tell you what letter, I’m sword to secrecy but yes I have a letter, mine is done, I turned it in, I don’t know when the movie’s going to come out, they’re probably doing the post-production stuff now, I assume not too long.”

RS: And what about VHS?

TW: “It’s kind of a unique take on a found footage anthology, I did one section, I think it turned out very well, I got to work with a cast I really liked”

RS: So you didn’t find any problem working on these collaboration projects?

TW: “Not yet, so far so good, the thing is also, the ABCs thing it’s so many people but the way it’s going to play out, it doesn’t really feel like a collaboration as much as it’s like you’re just a little chunk and then VHS, it’s a little more collaboration, but I liked a lot of the other filmmakers and I liked the cast of the movie, I liked the people who were a part of it so I don’t seen it being a problem, I don’t want to keep doing anthology but it just happens and I look forward to seeing how they play out”

RS: Are you planning to stay in horror? I mean even THE SIDE EFFECT would be some kind of sci-fi horror, right?

TW: “kind of. I mean if I’m writing and directing, then I don’t mind it, because they just feel like my own movies, they don’t feel like horror movies, they just feel like I’m doing my thing. And that’s all I want to do. When I get offered a script that’s for a remake or a sequel, I don’t know if I want to spend two years doing that, I don’t mind to spend two years doing this and talking to you about it but to do that for something else just to do it. I mean if they pay me hundreds of millions of dollars where I can just retire maybe, but they don’t.
It’s not worth it to make something you don’t care about, because I’ve been talking about this movie for two years, and you gotta care about it to do that. I’ve built in a way a brand that I want to try to keep it going.”

RS: Why did you leave the project THE HAUNTING IN GEORGIA?

TW: We were going in different directions on it. I see this not working out, it’s better they get someone else to make that movie, so I left that movie to make this movie instead. I wanted to make ghost stories, big movie, let’s try it but I realized that the kind of movie I was making and the kind of movie they wanted me to make were two different things.

RS: So that’s good then, right? I mean other filmmakers would quickly compromise, but you held on.

TW: “Well it’s weird because compromise is not quite the right term because everyday making movies is compromise, but it’s a matter of you just realize.. that kind of compromise would’ve been like me just doing whatever someone else wanted but I wouldn’t be doing that well, I mean I can listen to what they want and do it but why wouldn’t they just do it?! Because they don’t need me, if they’re like ‘it should be like this’, then go do it, you don’t need me to be the next middle man. So that’s the way I feel about that, they wanted to make one thing, I wanted to make something else, we weren’t just going to agree on it at some point, so it was better for them to get someone else more interested in doing what they wanted.”

RS: One of the popular shows on TV right now is The Walking Dead, people love zombies, are you going to make a movie about the dead in the near future? And which zombies do you like better, the running ones who are like Olympic sprinters or the walking ones ala Romero movies?

TW: “The walking always makes more sense to me, the running one doesn’t seem to make any sense. It’s one of those things like I get it they want to make it scarier but that’s just talking down to an audience. What’s scary to me is if you go ‘they’re outside, they can’t get in but eventually they will, and there’s so many’.
Maybe in a couple of years I’ll think of a zombie idea, I’m not opposed to it, I’d love to direct an episode of The Walking Dead, that’d be fun, but I don’t know, I don’t have a good zombie idea yet but one day I might go and write it and make it”

RS: What do you think of the horror movies nowadays like My Blue Valentine and Piranha that are shot in 3D, do you think that makes the experience scarier?

TW: “No, I don’t think so, I mean I think 3D is cool but that’s about it. I’m very comfortable watching movies in 2D, I mean I saw Hugo in 3D, it was pretty great, I might have just liked it at home on 2D also, I don’t know. It’s an extra element but it doesn’t change the movie enough for me to think that it’s important.”

THE INNKEEPERS

Release date: Available now on VOD & In Theaters Feb 3rd
Synopsis: From director Ti West (The House of the Devil) comes THE INNKEEPERS. Set in the venerable Yankee Pedlar Inn, which is about to shut its doors for good after over a century of service. Believed by many to be one of New England’s “most haunted hotels,” the last remaining employees -Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy)- are determined to uncover proof before it shuts down for good. As the Inn’s final days draw near, odd guests check in as the pair of minimum wage “ghost hunters” begin to experience strange and alarming events that may ultimately cause them to be mere footnotes in the hotel’s long unexplained history.
Find the film On-Demand: http://www.magpictures.com/ondemand/