Interviews: Director Jason Horton & Actress Rachel Amanda Bryant Talk About The Genre-Bending Horror Film The Campus
In the story, Robert (Robert C. Pullman) has died after breaking a deal with the Devil. His daughter returns for his funeral, only to be drawn into a family curse.Now, Morgan (Bryant) is in a never-ending cycle of being murdered, resurrected, only to be killed again.
The Campus is a genre-bending thriller ride, deftly combining sub-genres such as body horror, zombies, ghosts and monsters. The Campus is currently available exclusively on Amazon Instant. Later, the film will be available on iTunes and VUDU, at the end of February. Then, The Campus will show on home entertainment formats (DVD, Blu-ray) in April. There will be lots of opportunities to see The Campus’ thrills and chills this month!
We had the opportunity to interview director Jason Horton and lead actress Rachel Amanda Bryant.
Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Jason Horton moved to Louisiana where he worked offshore and wrote screenplays. He studied film at the University of New Orleans. Upon graduation, Jason began production on his first feature. He's directed and written several features since, and has earned a reputation as a prolific editor as well
TMS: What’s up with The Campus? Where can people see it? And what do you want them to know about the movie?
JH: The Campus is not like regular mainstream horror movies. We tried to something a little different. It has a somewhat similar framework to Groundhog Day or Happy Death Day, but we really tried to take that framework and give something to horror fans that they normally don't get. So we wanted to do the graphic violence, and we wanted to have all of these stories come together in a really unique way. And I also wanted to play with different horror subgenres in one movie, while still feeling like it's a whole. I wanted to play with zombie movie stuff, siege movies like The Strangers or You're Next, and then mix that with a body horror movie, and a movie about the devil, and put that all into one.
TMS: What was the inspiration behind this story? Were there any films that influenced the story or visual style?
JH: I'd say visually and tonally the thing that probably influenced me was John Carpenter, especially his '80s work. It's also why I chose to shoot the film anamorphic. I wanted to use the wide frame, play with the suspense within the frame, longer shots, less cuts, and stuff like that. Storywise, a lot of my work, maybe not at first glance, has to do with family and strange relationships between mothers and daughters, or mothers and fathers, or fathers and sons; which goes a lot into my relationship with my mother. We were very close, she passed away last year. I had just started to write this , so a lot of that kinda worked its way into it.
TMS: How long did it take to get out that initial draft?
JH: I wrote the first draft of the script probably in just a couple of weeks, this was in December of 2016. Basically, I own a production company and we had just moved into this new office, it was the upstairs of this two-building location. And it's just an awesome location. It has an office downstairs, a warehouse in the back, and this really cool retro upper floor second building that was built to model after the Queen Mary. I was like, "Man, I have to shoot something here." It's all enclosed by this big giant iron gate, so I was like, "I should do some kind of siege flick or horror flick." So, I started saying alright, "So, we want to do a movie about somebody trapped in this location. How and why would they be trapped?" And I came up with kind of the general framework. Then, I went home to Indiana for my mother and she passed and when I came back it kind of took a life of its own.
TMS: Did the script change over the course of the next few drafts?
JH: It did. In the initial draft, it really wasn't the devil. It actually was the girl's father. He had died and they were alienated and he wanted her back so bad, he basically placed a curse on the place so that when she came back his spirit wouldn't let her leave. And so she would keep dying and coming back. I think I also made it that he was a horror filmmaker, so she would come back in his movies. That was the initial idea, which was actually pretty cool. Then, after I got back from Indiana I started talking to a sales agent and a producer who were putting some money in and they had some different ideas for what they wanted the creature to be. So when you're dealing with other people's money, sometimes you have to acquiesce and so it ended up becoming the devil and basically what it is now.
TMS: Is there anything you found more challenging when penning the screenplay?
JH: I guess the hardest thing in writing the screenplay, and also in production of the movie, is that you have this plot device that basically brings the girl back to square one, and you're going through a similar scenario and it's really tricky to keep that fresh each time. So I had to make sure we weren't doing the same thing over and over, both visually and with story. So I had to create it like a mystery, where every time she comes back she learns a new piece of information until she eventually learns to kill the demon and get out.
TMS: You end up crossing into multiple horror subgenres. Besides what you previously mentioned, was there anything that you drew inspiration from in creating those individual sequences?
JH: Yeah, for sure. I mentioned before Carpenter, especially in the first story. It was a siege picture and I was drawing a little bit from You're Next and The Strangers (especially in the look of the demons, there's a straight-up Strangers homage), but the actual feel and tone is very '80s Carpenter. When I moved into the body horror, I mean it's David Cronenberg stuff. The ghost story was a little more modern, I was going off like The Conjuring, Insidious, and some of those. The zombie stuff was George Romero, he's my zombie influence. Then in the last one, honestly a lot of the comes from Legend. The demon even looks like him.
TMS: Yeah, I did think that the demon kinda resembled the one from Legend. How long of a shoot was it?
JH: It was actually the longest shoot that I've had. I've been making low-budget movies for ten years, but because we had access to the location over a long period of time and we owned a lot of the equipment we were able to squeeze more days out of it. We shot for I believe 22 days. It was all night shoots and it was the toughest shoot I have ever done in my life. I was still working, editing Syfy channel stuff in the day at my office (which was also the location of the shoot). So, we would shoot from 7PM to 7AM, and then I would have to edit from like 9AM to 5PM. And it was pretty much everyday, so it was tough.
TMS: You kind of answered some of this question, but I'm still going to ask it. The props and locations in the film are excellent and play a major role in the film. How did you come about finding and securing your filming locations and all of those wonderful props?
JH: Yeah, I can get into that a little bit more. Like I said, I was basically working there. The thing was, there was a little bit of a time crunch. While we were renting the office upstairs, the warehouse (which basically doubles as a sound stage) was being rented out to a really big company for a Netflix show. I think they were coming in June and this was January, so I had to finish the script and shoot the movie before those guys moved in. So, basically I just grabbed my notebook, and had the general beats of the story down, and I would just walk room to room and say, "Ok, so she comes into this room an then she goes here." I knew I had access to every nook and cranny, so I was totally blocking out the the script in the actual locations like six months in advance. So I used pretty much every room in that facility.
TMS: And what about the props? Like the taxidermy and the Marilyn Monroe mannequin? Was that stuff you already had?
JH: Some of it yeah. Some of the props were on location. Like I said, there a lighting production company, but they also did movie productions. My actual production designer was the wife of the guy that managed the place, they had this big giant prop room; yes the mannequins, the Marilyn Monroe. When I first went there, they had always opened that same closet door, from the movie where the Marilyn Monroe, and they used to put her sitting just like that with the light on her just to freak people out. And I said, "Oh, I gotta put that in the movie." Then the taxidermy animals was just something I came up with, it was something we had to rent. At one point, it was going to be really expensive, so we were trying to think of cheap ways to do something else. And then I was going to make it insects and I had the PA running around collecting insects. We were going to dump them on the actress, but then she freaked out that and we ended up finding a cheaper taxidermy company. So, we ended up with those.
TMS: Can you talk about some of the initial ideas for casting?
JH: This one was really, really uniquely casted. Typically you have auditions, you might have open auditions, or a closed one where you accept submissions where you bring in anywhere from 10 to 20 people. In this instance, initially the budget was much lower so I knew I needed somebody that I kinda knew or trusted. So, I went to my special effects artist, who I've worked with for years, and I asked him to recommend people. The first words out his mouth were Rachel Amanda Bryant. I was like, "Alright, bring her in." She came in and we met and it was just one of those things, before she read i was like, "That's it." I honestly auditioned one other actress for it, just at the behest of the producers. But, it was pretty much her from the beginning. Everyone else we had auditions and then cast the rest of the parts.
TMS: Was there any rehearsals prior to the shoot?
JH: Yeah. That was another cool thing about having access to the location ahead of time. I brought Rachel in and I think we did 3 or 4 full day rehearsals. We did an initial one where we just met and talked about the script, talked about where she was emotionally in each scene. I took a not from Carpenter when he was doing Halloween and basically him and Jamie Lee Curtis would have a number system, based on how terrified she was in each particular shot. So alright, you're at a six here. So we did a similar thing. Then we did 2 or 3 other rehearsals where we did some initial blocking, worked out where she would move and the stunt stuff since she did like 95% of her own stunts.
TMS: The special effects, blood, and gore are incredible. Can you talk about how you managed to achieve all of that on such a small budget?
JH: I've worked with Robert Bravo now going on probably ten years, so we've done much cheaper stuff. You learn tricks. You learn how to clean it up faster and how to apply the stuff faster. And also, he's a friend of mine. He didn't do it for free, but he did it for a very reasonable rate. Plus, while he's worked on many things, this was his first full-bodied creature and he was really excited about that and gave it the extra effort.
TMS: In terms of directing choices, anyone that you try to emulate? Or ones that have influenced you? Maybe besides ones that you have mentioned.
JH: Well Carpenter of course. I say this a lot, I hate to be the cliche filmmaker that starts going on about Tarantino. But, I think I was 17 or 18 when Reservoir Dogs came out. I was always a huge movie guy, that's all I ever did. I didn't play sports, I just watched movies. I think it was when I saw that movie and then saw him being interviewed and talk, he's such a movie buff. He's sitting there talking about other filmmakers, Hong Kong cinema, Sam Peckinpah, John Ford, and horror movie directors. He was all over the place in his influences. And all of a sudden it clicked. I knew all of these movies, but I had never really put it together that Peckinpah did The Wild Bunch and The Killer Elite. And then started putting together what directed did what, and that's what kinda started me down my path as a filmmaker.
TMS: The score is a really cool '80s style mixture of piano and synth. How much involvement did you in the actual creative process of building the score?
JH: When you're doing low budget movies, a lot of the time you really don't get to have much influence in the score. Usually, they pay so little, you give them some money and cross your fingers and hope it's good. Or, your using a can score or stock stuff, which I've done. With this one, I had a pretty specific idea from the beginning. Again, I wanted a Carpenteresque thing and I wanted to do synth, so I talked to the composer quite a bit about it. We did a spotting session where we went through the whole thing. When I locked up a cut of the movie, I added a temporary score through it comprised of like every John Carpenter movie there was and I used his score for the whole movie. So, I had the beats all there. I had where the music was, where it stopped, and where it started, as opposed to doing a music cue sheet which you usually do for the composer. I said, "Here's my temp score. You have to emulate the music exactly, but where it stops, I want you to stop. Where it starts, I want you to start." Then we did the spotting session and I assumed that with every reel we would end up talking about it and changing things, but honestly my notes were very minor. Like he gave me a reel and I was like, "Oh my God, this is awesome." He was definitely the best composer that I've ever worked with.
JH: Yeah, it goes back to the casting. My special effects guy had worked with Rachel and so he kinda knew she had a high threshold, but I mean it was tough. I talked me working in the day, but she still was too. And then she was covered in blood, and was being physical, and screaming and crying. And then all of the crew as well dealing with the schedule. Night shoots are just tough. If you're in a studio film, staying up all night is tough, but usually your circumstances aren't so bad. You might have a trailer, it's warm, there's more food. You might have a driver to take you home. Here, it's just like me and the guy that ran the building, who was our production manager. He was doing twenty hour days. he would run that building all day long and then he's come into our set and work all day. Plus, you would think that I would have a better idea about blood and the cleanup, seeing as I've done so many horror movies, but as a team we really underestimated the amount the cleanup time. We would have a big blood effect and then hose down the cement. It was funny, outside the place every morning was just this giant river of blood going to the drain on the street.
TMS: Is there anything that you learned from filming The Campus?
JH: On a business side, yes. You always know the more cooks you have in a kitchen, the more difficult the thing is. I had more producers and multiple sources of money coming in than I ever had before, and it really felt kinda like a low budget version of a studio movie. What I realized is that you really have to structure your hierarchy. If you have four producers, who's in charge of what. And when you don't do that, you have fights; I'm in charge of this, I'm in charge of that, my credits here, their credits there. During production and all the way through release, that can be a real bug nightmare.
TMS: If your film was playing as one-half of a double feature at a Drive-in theatre what would be the perfect support feature?
JH: I think it would be cool to play it over a couple of weekends and have some of the different subgenres play with it. I'd probably do Assault on Precinct 13 or possibly The Strangers or the siege part, The Fly with the body horror, Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead with the zombies, the demon part I would definitely do Legend.
TMS: If you had a choice to remake a genre movie, what movie would you like to remake?
JH: Oh, that's a good question. Vamp, yeah late '80s horror movies.
TMS: Oh yeah, I know what it is. Grace Jones, yeah. Great movie.
JH: It's such a cool movie. They kinda did it with From Dusk til Dawn. I would probably change it from a strip club, but I really like that movie. It's not so big in the public conscious. Either that or maybe The Hidden.
TMS: Yeah, that's another great movie. But, it's totally '80s.
JH: Oh, totally. So, how do you update it? I have no problem with remakes, but I like when they remake something that wasn't so great and then kinda make it a little better. But, not that these two movies are bad. Vamp and The Hidden are really good.
JH: Right now my production company Gas Money Pictures has really ramped up production. We're doing an adult animated cartoon coming out, most likely on Showtime in the next six months called Hollywood. We are doing an animated feature film called Mr. Wiggle Saves the World, which I also wrote. And then I have two horror movies, one called Kill Momma and the other called Exit that I'm actually going to package with bigger budgeted films at Cannes this year when we go.
Haren Yong of GornoBlonde.Wordpress.com wrote that Rachel Amanda Bryant is a "likeable, blossoming indie talent." She stars in Gas Money Pictures newest horror feature film The Campus as the lead role of Morgan, a performance that has garnered rave reviews. When Rachel's not studying at Anthony Meindl's Actor Workshop or playing with her pet turtle, she's usually cheering on the Denver Broncos or hosting her cosplay cooking show Cosplay Cuisine on YouTube. Her production company, Blueberry Hill Media, just finished up post on her newest film The After Party, a Twilight Zone inspired thriller (also starring Rachel) set to premiere at festivals in Spring of 2018. Rachel recently co-produced and starred in the horror thriller Jet Set LA which has won 3 awards (Best Thriller Short, Indie Spirit Award, Excellence in Filmmaking) and 11 nominations (Best Actress Nomination for Rachel and Best Short Nomination among others) at festivals all over the world, including the Burbank International Film Festival, Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema, Hollyshorts, Macabre Film Festival, Bram Stoker International Film Festival and Calgary Horror Con. Rachel also appeared in Hollywood and Sunset which screened at Dances with Films, Dam Short Film Festival and the Las Vegas Film Festival over the last year. Notable film credits include a supporting role in the horror feature Solitary Confinement opposite Robert Carradine and To Kristen with Love. Notable TV credits include a series regular role on The Disappearance of Madison Bishop, guest star on Crypt Tv's The Sunny Family Cult, guest star on Horror Haiku and co-star on The Eric Andre Show.
TMS: First off, can you provide us with a little bit of background information. Did you always want to act?
RAB: Actually no, I was a writer more than anything. I love writing, I was reading and writing stories as a kid. And one day I decided to audition for a play at my local community theater for Anne of Green Gables. I got cast as the best friend Diana and it was such a different experience. I remember loving the fact that I could tell stories in a different way. As a writer, I was enjoying the written way of telling stories, but now I was up on stage exploring character and getting people excited about literature. That's when the bug hit and it just never stopped.
TMS: Did you have any formal training?
RAB: Yeah. I got a BFA from Chapman University in performance and then I studied at various studios throughout Los Angeles. Anthony Meindl is my most recent teacher I would say, Anthony Meindl's Actor Workshop.
TMS: Did you have a lot of support when you decided to get into acting?
RAB: I did. I'm really grateful that I had a family that is supportive. When I was doing theater in school I was a good student, so I think because I made sure my academics were strong my parents didn't mind that I was doing acting. And then when I went to college and pursued a BFA, I actually double majored in French and got a minor in English. Just to kinda let them know that even though I have this passion, I have these other things in my back pocket in case something happened. And they were very supportive of me. I'm really grateful for that, not a lot of actors have that. Or there's a lot of friction because they've chosen this profession. So I'm really grateful for that.
TMS: What attracted you to the project?
RAB: Robert Bravo, who is are special effects artist, and I had worked on several projects together previously and he first mentioned this movie to me maybe December of 2016. He mentioned that it's gonna have a lot of blood effects and he knew that I could take the makeup really, because we worked together so much previously. He knew I was a good actor. I don't think he realized how committed I would be once I was on set. Then I met with Jason, I think that was a month or two later, and I had a treatment. It was kind of a different story at that point, it wasn't totally different but I was into the idea of this girl grieving her father. It really humanized her. I liked the fact that she fights back, and that she's empowered and strong and doesn't just give in. I think she's kind of a badass, which is nice. I like that there's more stories of that happening in films, but there's not as many strong female characters as I'd like to see on the screen. So, I was really excited to be portraying that.
TMS: Jason spoke a little bit about the casting process. In your point of view, how was the audition process? Was it similar to what you typically go through?
RAB: Actually no. Because of my relationship with Robert Bravo, I was essentially offered this role without an audition. I think at the time that it initially happened, Jason was cool with that but then he had auditioned some other people for my sister. I think he started getting a little nervous about the fact that he hadn't seen me act in person, he's only seen my reels. So, then I went in to read with a girl who potentially was going to be my sister, just to kind of show who I am. And I think that's when he really felt full comfortable with casting me as Morgan. It does happen where people get straight offers like that, but it's rare. More often, there's an audition process. It was an entirely different process for me because I knew Robert so well, who brought me on board at a very early stage.
TMS: Battling demonic forces might be hard to prepare for. What type of preparation and research did you undertake for this role?
RAB: It happens every weekend for me (laughs). The initial script evolved a little bit, but Jason had been inspired by different films for each section. So, he kind of gave me those films, not necessarily to watch, but to research a little bit. The way that I prep as an actor is that I focus a lot on how does this scene, or this sequence, fit into the story. What are we telling with the story? How does this character help the story? What choices can I make that are those most beneficial to what we are trying to say? I think that through my discussions with the director, it was very much that you were letting go of your hate in the big scene in the film. And for me, I really took the thought process of this girl is estranged from her father and didn't even get an opportunity to reconcile with him before his death. And I kind of wanted to explore this idea of how does she grieve because of that. I want people to leave this movie maybe thinking,"If someone I knew passed away unexpectedly, what regrets would I have?" And encourage people like us to reconcile with the family that we are estranged from. And of course, watching other horror films and researching other horror films, kinda get all of the subgenres and make the subgenres as specific as possible.
TMS: So, were you not a horror fan going in?
RAB: I've seen some horror, I haven't seen a ton of horror. Zombies are the films I've seen the most of out of the subgenres. However, I was really inspired by Sigourney Weaver in Aliens and think that there's a lot of that in this film. This girl who kind of keeps getting hit over and over again, figuring out what to do, and getting in the thick of it in order to survive. As far as character inspiration, that was a big one for me. It was where I was going with Morgan.
TMS: Your role has a minimal amount of dialogue. Do you find that to be more or less difficult than a role that is dialogue heavy?
RAB: I don't think it's more difficult. I think what was more challenging was me being by myself than the lack of dialogue. However, as people, conversation does happen, but there are a lo of moments of silence, a lot that happens in the unspoken in life as human beings. So I kind of enjoyed exploring that character in that way.
TMS: I've had some actors refer to it as the mime or Charlie Chaplin role.
RAB: Yeah, I can understand why they would call it that, they're just emoting and feeling rather than speaking. I didn't find the lack of dialogue challenging though, because there is so much said in the unsaid.
TMS: But you found it challenging to be by yourself during most of the film?
RAB: I definitely am used to being in a scene with some other person. It's very rare to have an actor by themself for a long extended amount of time, and even just being on set and being the only actor was an odd experience. The challenge came from wanting to make sure what I'm doing is interesting to watch, that it's compelling. The challenge comes from having to put a ton of trust in my director, because I'm not with somebody else. I can't necessarily go up to another actor and say, "How did you feel about that scene?" It was me by myself with various inanimate objects. But, thankfully Jason and I communicate very well and we could talk about things that worked and didn't work. We'd do the take again and shift it slightly to make it more effective as far as the storytelling goes.
TMS: Did you feel any added pressure basically being the sole actor in a majority of the film?
RAB: No. I mean I was excited, I was nervous in the way that I get nervous right before I go on stage. But, it's like a happy nervous. I know that I'm a talented actress and I know that I will be doing more features, and i was excited to be given the opportunity to really showcase that and that I could carry a film. And just random nerves that you get when you're about to do something exciting.
RAB: Oh yeah. Physically, obviously it was a very taxing film for me. It was also extremely exhausting because we were shooting nights for almost the entire month. And at that point, you go home and I'm all of a sudden like a vampire. I was sleeping during the day and then I spend my night running around this space and get chased by things. I was emotionally exhausted too, because it's hard to sleep sometimes during the day. I was always not quite sure what time it was, or where I was, or what I was doing. But, once I got back on set, because it became routine, it was very easy to get ready and prepared and be in the moment. The makeup effects at times were uncomfortable, I mean obviously. At times they hurt. I was covered in bruises by the end of the shoot. I think there are two times I trip and fall that made it into the final cut, but there were other times when I was tripping and falling. You know, that was just one take, you gotta do it again and again. And I'm a committed actor, who says let's just get it and keep doing it until it's perfect. So I don't really care in the moment about a bruise, then after the fact I'm like, "Ow, my knee." It was tough at times, but overall it was a very fun shoot for me. I love blood effects. I love being covered in blood, it's so weird and fun. It's like I'm a kid, like when you put your hand in Play-dough or the sand as a kid and that tactile feeling is all over your skin. I know that it sounds strange, but it is fun, it is gooey. The only time when it was frustrating was when I was covered in blood and I was outside. You, it's in the middle of the night, so it had gotten cold. So there was this massive jacket that I got wrapped up in between takes. It was cold out.
TMS: That was actually going to be my next question, about how difficult it was to be constantly covered in fake blood. What about the practical effects applications, how long did that usually take?
RAB: Robert is a tremendous artist and he had made sure to practice a lot of those things prior to us being there on set. I think the thing that took the longest was the eyeball gag, I think maybe it took 30 to 45 minutes.
TMS: That's pretty good.
RAB: Now in that whole sequence, there's layers of makeup. There's veins on my chest and arms, the blood on my face, the splatter, the cut that's on my forehead. Then putting blood up my nose, like a bloody nose. So all of that layers underneath the bloody eyeball, I would say that whole day I was in makeup probably for three hours total. The removal process is a little faster, alcohol wipes for all of the makeup on my body. he had special liquid that removed the latex appliance off my eye. It's just part of the gig, you sit in the chair and you let them do their thing.
TMS: Out of the different subgenres that were presented in the film, was there one that you particularly enjoyed more?
RAB: I think I liked the zombie sequence the most. I like where she is mentally in that situation, she's like, "Oh gosh, I can't believe this is happening again." She's like laughing about it, and then being like, "Oh shoot, I'm about to be killed again." And there's a fire, a sort of resourcefulness that kind of gets woken up in her to do whatever it takes to survive. To kind of figure out this puzzle. It was also a day on set where I had a bunch of people there. I was like chatting with people, and we're all in makeup and covered in blood eating pizza. It was fun in that capacity as well. We had the extras there, who were so awesome. They committed so much. In that scene where I get my intestines ripped out and they're eating my stomach, was so gross. And in the moment even, I was getting so grossed out and I know it's all fake. And I'm right there looking at these zombies eating the things out of my stomach thinking, "This gag is so good. People are going to be grossed out, because I am grossed out right now."
TMS: Yeah, it's a good scene.
RAB: It's a crowd favorite. They love the zombie sequence and the body horror. I get a lot of discussion and compliments.
TMS: Can you tell us anything about the other projects that you are working on or planning on working on? Or, anything else that you would like to plug?
RAB: I just produced and starred in a Twilight Zoneesque inspired short film that is a dramatic thriller, shot in a black and white film noir style. It's about a young woman, like a social media queen, who uses a lot of people for her own gain and she gets her comeuppance at the end. That will be premiering at a film festival soon, we are in talks figuring out where that will be. I will be touring the film festival circuit with that. And then I am in the midst of writing a feature and a series that I want to star in. The series is more horroresque, if you could imagine Cold Case and Medium put together with the graphic visuals of a show like Hannibal. So I'm working on that and planning to pitch to a place like Netflix or Hulu, that's my plan. And then maybe there will be a Campus sequel where Morgan returns as the devil. I don't know, maybe.