The Violent Kind

Saturday, 23 January 2010 23:01

The Violent Kind

A brief interview with The Butcher Brothers to discuss their new film, The Violent Kind, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival

by Todd Konrad

Modern-day horror filmmakers The Butcher Brothers (also known as Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) sat down and chatted with me on the eve of their new film’s premiere, The Violent Kind, at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Both directors continue their quest to craft intelligent yet still terrifying genre fare that hearken back to influences like Tobe Hooper and David Cronenberg. Speaking with both men as they literally finished putting together the final festival cut, we had a chance to discuss the film’s place within their body of work thus far amongst other things.

Vegas Outsider: First off, I'm curious to know how The Violent Kind fits into your general vision of the kinds of movies you two guys want to make together.

Phil Flores: I think what’s great about The Violent Kind is that it really fulfills what we’ve been wanting to do as The Butcher Brothers for a while now and continuing what we did with The Hamiltons, which is to create our own breed of horror films; where it’s not so locked into one thing and you get more bang for your buck. Mitch I think you can expand from there.

Mitchell Altieri: Yeah, well we’ve always been fans of certain directors and stories, and they’ve never really been formula-driven. I mean you have so many different subgenres and types of horror films, but with us it was more of an idea of bringing in two or three different genres and then pulling out the best elements of those genres and inserting them into one particular film. I think we found a unique voice and vision by doing that and so what we’ve heard from fans as well as peers and people in the industry is them telling us that when they watch a Butcher Brothers film, they can really distinctly see our own voice and vision. And while it has grown from project to project, I think this film shows us having really put together that Butcher Brothers’ vision and having this picture of genres that takes you along on not just a strict formula-driven path, i.e. a slasher film, but you on a fun ride that has all sorts of different pieces of ideas and genres. We feel like the ride is a lot of fun.

PF: To add on top of that, we always say that if you take the horror away from the story then what are you left with? So for us we always want to make sure the story’s still there so that if you take the horror out, the film is still entertaining; so that’s one of our overriding rules that we abide by.

VO: How did you guys come up with the story idea itself, especially playing with the motorcycle gang iconography, were there any specific reference points, i.e. films, stories, etc. that you referred to when making the film?

MA: I think the film itself really has this 70’s vibe to it, kind of early independent cinema all the way up to Easy Rider, which is one of our favorite films as well. It’s a mixture of a lot of things we were interested in and is a mesh of our favorite film ideas. What do you think Phil?

PF: Yeah, I can’t really point to one film but as Mitch said we were really inspired by what happened in early 70’s American maverick filmmaking, things like Easy Rider, Last House on the Left, or even David Lynch’s stuff or David Cronenberg, the list goes on. These guys all made these offbeat films and we soaked those up while growing up. Those influences then just came out naturally in the film; we didn’t set out going “hey we love this film, let’s rip it off” or whatever. So we created this new story with The Violent Kind; it’s a combination of a lot of what we love and I can’t really dissect it into one particular film influence or another.

MA: I think we’re still trying to figure it out in the sense that when we have the opportunity to do this project, we said we wanted to do something that we really wanted to do and make sure nobody else had the final say on this piece. So when we sat down and brainstormed ideas, we just pulled and picked up all what we wanted to do, ideas that might have been too racy for other projects, and then were able to throw all of them into this film and say “hey, within the first 30 seconds, this movie’s going to punch you in the face and from there on out it’s never going to stop”. I think that we’d been held back on other projects before, and on this one we really jumped forward to show what The Butcher Brothers are really about.

VO: It should also be noted that you've brought back many of the same cast that were in one of your previous films, The Hamiltons, essentially now having your own stock company of actors. Can you share the luxuries and or difficulties that this may have entailed while making The Violent Kind?

MA: Yeah (laughs), exactly what you’re asking is true. There are pros to it; that we feel that this pool of actors we work with is extremely talented. We’re so thankful of what they bring and we don’t really have to do much. The independent film schedule is so rough and so hard on everybody and you really try to make the impossible possible; so to have actors who you already have a shorthand with and where it’s not as much as having to direct them but rather give them quick looks or a quick hand signal is great. Like with Sam Child this is our fourth film with him, Joe Egender, fourth film with him, Joe McKelheer, third film with him, Taylor Cole second film with her, so you really get this thing dialed in quick and when you’re working brutal hours till six or seven in the morning, going through so many pages that quickly, you know what they’re going to bring and don’t have to worry about if they going to make it or what their comfort level is.

On the flip side, when you don’t have that kind of relationship with someone you can sometimes get what you want by telling the actor “do it this way” and the challenges aren’t as harsh. Obviously a good actor is always going to challenge you, but you can get to the goal a lot quicker with someone new, whereas when you know people you become friends and then, while everyone wants to get the best work out, you deal with different ideas and have to sit there and really work it out with them. Sometimes that tends to make things a little tougher because everyone wants to bring out the best and feel that since we’ve all been doing this together, they then come in with their ideas and we have to figure out what’s best.

VO: Moreover, how do you guys define your working relationship on set in terms of handling specific duties i.e. blocking, performances, etc. and how do you feel that you guys work so well as a team rather than individually?

PF: Well to answer the second part of the question, Mitch and I have known each other since we were kids and I think we’ve always just inspired each other in our storywriting together. I think we’re both equally strong writer/directors and producers so when we come together there’s this kind of third thing that’s born, which is very interesting and appeals to both of us. Obviously that’s where The Butcher Brothers were born. Of course there are pros and cons to it, but I think it’s more pro than con otherwise we wouldn’t continue doing it. It’s been a real blessing to come together and create these very interesting stories, which I think are pushing the envelope on horror, which I don’t know if we would have done individually. And I think there’s a challenge there in that we consistently challenge each other by saying “instead of going down this avenue, what if we go down this one instead?” So it’s like working with an ensemble of actors or a film crew, you have your own ideas and then others come back at you. So when there’s more than one person involved you collaborate more, and the way that we work it just goes hand in hand. We tend to work well together in being able to take all departments on, where one person will go over here, another will go over there, and we then come back together, coordinate, and sign off on what we do. What do you think Mitch?

MA: That kind of goes back to again working with the actors to where there’s pros and cons with everybody trying to make the best possible film. So while it sometimes feels like a con it’s a pro because as Phil said everybody is challenging each other. It’s already a collaborative effort between Phil and I, so other people see that and then think “ok we’re not following just this one vision, there are these two guys here and everyone else is supposed to bring what they have to the table” so I think that really helps out. The whole production becomes more organic as does the film, and everybody really works hard and helps out. Although you want to still keep a singular vision, there are all these different pieces that have to come together. It’s like making one piece of music; you still have all these different instruments working together. As Phil said we both believe in our talents and we’re both equally good directors and writers. But when this whole group comes together, including our actors, crew members and the same people we use on our projects, we know exactly what we’re getting.

VO: With the film now screening at Sundance, what sort of reactions do you hope the film evokes in audiences as well as what plans do you have moving forward with not only The Violent Kind?

MA: I have no idea right now, but it’s a wild ride (laughs). I won’t speak for Phil but I think for me I’m still waiting to see how people will react to the movie because as we discussed there is a mix of different subgenres in it, so there are definitely some scares in there and pretty wild things happening on screen.

PF: I want people to be slightly afraid of us when they walk out of the theater (both laugh). Because that’s how I feel when I watch this film. I think we’re definitely going into new territory with The Violent Kind, I haven’t seen a film like this before and we’re both banking on that being a good thing.

MA: Just as Phil said, it’s new to us and we haven’t seen anything like this before but we know there’s going to be some shock and scares. If they don’t then wow, people have changed (laughs).

PF: Another thing I wanted to note was after we finished The Hamiltons, we met a lot of people who could really relate to the characters and villains as well as the horror of it and the truth of the relationships. I think we have all of those elements baked into The Violent Kind as well. We think it has strong characters, strong storylines, and strong relationships, so that you care about what happens to these characters and you care about who dies. Ultimately, I think we want real and honest reactions from the audience and I think we will have that again because it’s something we set out to do with every Butcher Brothers film.

*To learn more about the film, go to www.facebook.com/theviolentkind and follow it on Twitter at @TheViolentKind