Writer/Director Calvin Lee Reeder’s dark, goopy sci-fi horror comedy The A-Frame dangles the potential for a medical miracle when a quantum physicist’s machine opens a portal to a subatomic universe. Things, of course, go awry.
The A-Frame introduces Donna (Dana Namerode) at one of the lowest points in her life as a musician with bone cancer that will require the amputation of her most crucial tool: her arm. But then Donna meets Sam (Johnny Whitworth), a quantum physicist with a groundbreaking machine that could save her limbs and career. But in their desperation for a scientific breakthrough and miracle cure, the blurred ethical lines lead to catastrophic consequences.
The film made its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival (our review), where Bloody Disgusting spoke with filmmaker Calvin Lee Reeder and stars Dana Namerode and Johnny Whitworth about the characters and goopy sci-fi horror.
“I wanted to explore something in the genre space that I found compelling, and I always really liked this homemade science stuff,” Reeder explains. “I’ve always really been into that, and I think that that comes through on this. There are many films that we could reference, but man, when I got to thinking about how we might do that in a unique way and how we might go about seeing that through the protagonist’s lens, what would make that protagonist vulnerable?
“Then I started to think about that in a very literal and economical way. How could I get her clock ticking, and how could we start asking real existential questions? Not necessarily, even in a poetic way. Our clock is ticking. How can we do that? I think that that will advance our plot and keep people engaged.”
The dark sci-fi horror comedy introduces its protagonist at a low point in her life, and the threat against her career leaves Donna both desperate and furious. She’s not yet hit despair or grief. Did starting at that emotional state help connect Dana Namerode to the character?
Namerode answers, “She’s already starting the film running a race for her hand, maybe not her life. She’s going to live either way, but she’s fighting this incredibly difficult and painful fight right off the bat as we start. Then, from there, things just go twisted, crazy unexpected up and down. And I think that element of it definitely drew me to the character for sure.”
While Reeder’s film veers into macabre comedy, it approaches the topic of cancer with care. That also applies to Namerode’s performance. The actor explains the process of representing a cancer patient. “I actually have some people in my life who have gone through cancer,” Namerode tells us. “Luckily, these specific people have made it safely out the other side, and I was very lucky to have people to sit down for long conversations with and talk to them, and being very frank and open, learn about their experiences with the purpose of wanting to do that justice because it’s not something that I personally went through. I definitely took a lot of time to learn their stories and experiences. Some things I personally didn’t expect.
“For example, I naturally thought that when someone tells you good news in that realm, the reaction would be joy,” Namerode continues. “Then I spoke to some people, and they told me no. The reaction is when you swerve out of a car crash, you don’t celebrate. You’re just almost in a state of shock. This is just one example that unless you’ve gone through that, you don’t really know. I thought it was really important to take the time to actually speak with people who have gone through this. And I learned a lot from that, and I hope that I was able to do them justice.”
Opposite Donna is the charismatic Sam, a cool scientist with disarming swagger. Beneath his cool exterior, though, lies ambition that makes it clear there’s a bit more to his character than he initially presents. Is it a mask?
Johnny Whitworth answers, “Well, it’s a utility that he utilizes so that he can manage to put people at ease, our person at ease. I mean, it’s this situational kind of thing. So, I don’t know. Is it a mask when you’re just conscious of it, or is it a mask because you’re unconscious of it? Everyone wears masks, so I guess the argument is that a lot of people are unconscious, so they’re running around with a mask. I think he was pretty straightforward.”
The setup and occasionally goopy moments earn The A-Frame easy comparisons to David Cronenberg’s early works, The Fly in particular, and the film did inspire Reeder in part here. However, the filmmaker’s influences go well beyond Cronenberg.
Reeder explains, “We love The Fly. We love Cronenberg, so I would never want to deny that. But I would also want to add that we love all of The Flys, from the 1957 Playboy article that became the 1958 OG with Vincent Price. Then you got Return of the Fly, you got Curse of the Fly, then you got Cronenberg’s The Fly, then you got the 1989 Eric Stoltz’s The Fly II by Chris Walas. It’s fantastic. So we love all that. That’s all part of it. Additionally, we got things, maybe even more so From Beyond. Re-Animator.
“Altered States is like my spirit animal, so that’s always in everything I do. Then I would definitely say a lesser-known film that also has Vincent Price in it is Dead Heat, and that is an important film for me here, where we talk about technology and mortality. That said, those are just influences. We didn’t lift their stories. We just wanted something that looked and felt like those things. And to join that curriculum. I’ve recently seen a lot of really successful types of films that might be considered homage. Something like M3GAN, something like X. These are all films that I really dig, and I was like, wow, this is kind of what’s happening right now. I maybe want to give that a try.”
With all of those intriguing influences, it’s worth noting that The A-Frame makes stellar use of some goopy, gory practical effects. That was something Reeder committed to from the outset.
“We never saw this film without some practical elements,” Reeder reveals. “I would also say that our VFX digital elements are working in perfect unison with them, so we really rely on both heavily, and that’s always how I feel like you get the best result. But yes, practical, as long as we can continue to get away with it as filmmakers, before AI steals everything from us, but for now we want to hire as much practical effects and put that in front of the audience.
“The audience deserves it, but the audience also deserves really cool VFX, too.”
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