An Interview with Jac Kessler, Director of Dyscrasia

by Mike Haberfelner

February 2018

Films directed by Jac Kessler on (re)Search my Trash

Your new movie Dyscrasia - in a few words, what is it about?

Specifically, it’s a about a young woman who survives a ruthless attack in an alley. It takes a microscopic view of what can happen when one is faced with extreme adversity. The film explores the macabre nature of the human heart in opposition to life in its purest sense. It’s about things out of balance and what it may take to restore that balance.

Dyscrasia glimpses into the fight or flight mechanism, focusing on the sinews that make up the aftermath of a choice. It unpacks the decision itself, focusing on the ‘what comes next’ and the consequences that come with that, the additional choices required that often aren’t considered.

You just have to talk about your movie's villain, the Plague Doctor, for a bit, and what inspired you to create a character like him? And what drew you to the plague doctor appearance in the first place?

I came aboard the project when a different story was present. There was a Plague Doctor and there was a Woman - an apprentice to his murder madness spree of sorts. Upon agreeing to climb aboard, I reworked the script to what we see now. I don’t think I’d have approached the concept we wound up tackling with a Plague Doctor character in mind. Thanks go to Mr. Webster, the cinematographer, for planting that image in the initial draft.

That said, there was a certain element of darkness in those early pages that led me to the story that Dyscrasia transformed into. Something about the innocence of the apprentice, the being misled by her pseudo-master, the Plague Doctor. I wanted to enhance that darkness and give it something to grasp onto - something beyond shock and blood. I found myself asking about the moment before, over and over - wondering how they met, what’s with this world, etc. All those questions steered me toward a different realm, which became the one we see in the film now. It transformed into something more brutal, more personal.

It’s a story that works on the audience in a backward, sneaky sort of way. It’s one of those that, once you see everything that leads up to the final image, gains a significant weight, a particular, I hope, marrow-chilling jolt. I wanted to creep that up on people. The evil that is the Plague Doctor, what constitutes his ultimate goal so to say, tends to behave this way. Being shown the kindness of an offered rose, only to have that trust stripped away, creates something worse than simply never having been offered the rose in the first place. I think it’s a story any individual can relate to

(Other) sources of inspiration when writing Dyscrasia?

Failure. Being caught unawares. Being perceived as purely what others assume you to be. Life does that to you if you aren’t looking out for it. I think, with Dyscrasia, I wanted to touch on what one person can do - despite odds. It didn’t matter much to me who this person/character was once I cracked the story I wanted to tell. It just so happened it was Sia that would be driving the narrative.

Knowing it was Sia, however, aided in creating the specifics to the story. As wholly unfortunate as her tale would become, it was incredibly captivating to explore it and, ultimately, to see it realized.

Dyscrasia is quite visceral at times - so do talk about the bloody bits in your movie for a bit? And how important is gore for your style of filmmaking?

This is something I’ve put a great deal of thought into over the years. For my style, gore was really just a by-product. Gore is just icky innards, stuff, residue. We all have those bits. We all know what they look like. It’s not necessarily important to me because it’s not the story.

The advantage of showing those bits and pieces is in demonstrating a truth to the audience. It’s a “seeing is believing” moment; a handshake with the audience that says: Yes, this is happening. Gore typically signifies a moment of no turning back. It’s especially effective when there’s a character we love and we see them get all cut up or wounded. It’s their mortality leaking out up on that screen, the same as if they were bawling their eyes out. And we can empathize with that.

If gore is in horror (or any genre) it’s not really the horror of the moment to me - but I might just have an odd perspective on blood and gore. To me, horror is just a day when things go to shit and we notice. A typical day can easily take a macabre turn, and often does, but we just don’t focus on it. Pass some roadkill and it’s just a part of our day. Nosebleed? Dab it. Relative die? So will you. Tired? Go to bed because you’ve got tomorrow to mess with, and if a monster’s arm reaches out from under the bed and takes hold of your ankle when you’re climbing in - tough luck. Go ahead and scream - but know that it's not the arm that’s actually the scary thing... it’s the fact that it was there all along and could have, at any point, grabbed you. How many other arms in other places are there? And maybe more so, what is it gonna do now that it has you?

Movies explore our inner workings, be it romance, drama, western... it’s always about who we are at our core. Top onto that the fact that we’re all just walking sacks of gore, both physically and emotionally. So... if some spills out along the way, to me, it’s just an expected outcome, as we already knew what was inside. We know there’s tears from crying the same as we know an ax draws blood. It’s the how these things spill out, the why, and the what comes after, as a result, that interests me.

You show it if it enhances the story, if it’s truth. Like smiling and crying, gore happens. It’s not something I seek to insert into story -- but it keeps happening in what I find myself writing. So, it seems, the truth that gore provides interests me greatly.

Do talk about Dyscrasia's overall approach to horror!

For Dyscrasia, the goal was to slow things down. I wanted the audience to be sucked in, then wonder how they got there. I wanted them to come to an understanding along with Sia. I felt this would strengthen her plight, invoke audience empathy.

This is not a usual story, at least not in how we ultimately aimed to tackle it. Knowing that the content would venture toward horror, but understanding the value of the story, we took a hard look at how we’d implement the more gruesome aspects so as to not bury the story behind a bloody screen. I wanted to slowly introduce the environment and the goings on and strike a balance between overt and subtle in hopes to keep the audience engaged and asking questions. In essence, the goal was: show everything, explain as little as possible so that Sia’s every movement became crucial to understanding the story. That, while dancing the Plague Doctor about in a somewhat excessive manner. This was to showcase his cruelty and self-obsessed glorification, as well as his fragility.

It could have been a much more straight forward story, but I didn’t feel that would do much justice to Sia’s experience.

Much of Dyscrasia was filmed in a single room - so how limiting and maybe also liberating was this for you as a filmmaker, and what did you do to keep things interesting?

Liberating. It was very liberating. I’ve always been a fan of minimal location, if not single room films. Things in the vein of Clue, Arsenic and Old Lace, Rear Window, Deathtrap, stuff like that. Most of us spend a great deal of time in the same space, over and over again. There’s something to that familiarity that is both comforting and terrifying at once in that, if something were to invade that familiarity, you’d assume you’d be fine since you know the lay of the land - but what if you’re not? What if you’re caught off guard? Your sanctuary suddenly has weak walls and nobody can ever truly be ready for that.

The location, Thornhaven Manor in New Castle, Indiana, was perfect. It was beautiful in its decay, so there wasn’t too much by way of keeping things interesting that the camera didn’t simply soak in naturally. That said, hours (and days) of discussion went into the shots we selected, in how the characters would move about the space. We wanted to stray from insert shots showing off the location. We wanted to let the audience explore the space along with Sia, watch as the Plague Doctor moves about it, and ultimately succumb to the feeling of confinement Sia is experiencing.

What can you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand?

A 3-second film is how I described it in the early stages. Not that it was ever aimed to actually be that short, it was just how I described the somewhat hair-brained script I came out waving around. While what I wound up describing is, in essence, just three-act structure talk, that was not the intention of the 3-second film phrase I kept repeating, almost to the level of mantra.

Broken down, it went like this: Her initial confrontation was deemed Second 1 and the reveal at the end was Second 3. The middle, and longest chunk, was of course Second 2.

Second 2 is all about Sia making discoveries. It is her journey into fight vs. flight, and the confusion she suffers along the way. Working with Bridget Murray, the actress, we discussed how her character needed to, by virtually doing nothing, do everything at the same time. She is to be seen as uncertain of her surrounding, of taking it all in and realizing the horror surrounding her, confining her. But it had to be in something of a slow-mo, as this Second 2 is not actually happening. This is not reality. We don’t really get a look, for the most part, of the Second 2 reality. We relied on implication and Bridget’s performance to drive this portion of the story.

Ultimately, as Second 2 unfolds, it becomes it’s own mini-movie in a way. We see her change from almost a catatonic state to a person not only in control, but blurring the line between good vs. evil, in its most intentionally basic of terms.

There’s something in that Second 2 that resonates with us all. Fear of being ignored; used; controlled. Those precise emotions tend to make us act. Little fires brew within us and scream and scream, until we release them - or they release themselves. My goal was to stoke those fires as realistically (in an unrealistic environment) as possible so when Second 3 finally unleashes, what we see from Sia is not only vindicated, but as closely felt by the audience as possible. It’s a story about what happens when opposing instincts clash.

Do talk about your key cast, and why exactly these people?

The primary cast was in place by the time I arrived to the project.

In a grand sense, Bridget Murray (Sia) carried a positive energy with her to set that really helped the crew feel a bit better about all the torment we would have to put her through. There are at least two moments where she found herself covered head to toe in blood and, what’s best summed up as, lamp liquid. She seemed rather excited about both. But maybe she was just acting. I think she also drove home once covered in that blood.

Working with her on creating Sia’s character was in many ways a breeze. She was quick to ask questions and deliver immediately on any direction given. She was also extraordinarily confident in some choices she wanted to make. Those were by far some of my favorite moments working with her as I was able to somewhat act more as an audience member on set.

Taylor Watkins and I spent a great amount of time rehearsing the physicality of the Plague Doctor. We actually did this in the nearby basement of a friend - a location that somewhat rivaled the Thornhaven place by means of eeriness.

Specifically, concerning what Taylor had to endure on the project is difficult to quantify. There were hours behind that mask, one that fit almost just right, and eventually caused some headaches. He had to, essentially, live most of each shoot in a costume that was half blood, half cloth. He stuck to things and himself. It’s kinda similar to what I’ve read happened to Bruce Campbell during portions of the Evil Dead shoots.

Like Bridget, Taylor was a driving force behind the entire project. Cast and crew morale was nearly always boosted by his presence. He was also our production designer, which was truly fascinating since this allowed him to help create the environment his monster existed within.

Both were tremendous to work with. And for one of them, it was a good thing the mask was the type it was, otherwise it may not have been able to fit around his nose.

Of the voice actors, Sean Orlosky, Beau Thompson, and Barry McMullen all performed something unique with their individual humors (humoral medicine) over the course of several long hours in the booth. What Matt Cutshaw (sound designer and producer) asked from them was far from simple - but each managed to provide us with a great deal of directions to choose from.

A few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?

All and all, it was about seven shooting days. Maybe eight. It was a good kinda pressure throughout.

The cinematographer, Webster, was extraordinarily sick the first few days. I think he had a trash bag worth of prescription pills to keep him going, and it was someone’s job to remind him every now and then to take those pills. His voice was cracking, and he had a terrible fever, but he never once let this slow him down. I’d say he actually used it in a positive light, somewhat making fun of how horrible he was feeling, as well as how ridiculous his voice was beginning to sound. It made our long hours easier to endure knowing what he must be going through. I remember how impressive he was in front of the crew. They responded very well to his leadership throughout his sickness. There’s one thing in particular about working with Webster, and that’s his ability to steer through adversity. There were times, like any set, when it seemed the deck was stacked against us, but he found a way to power through.

Nicole Lehrman (1st AC) was instrumental in the project’s success. There was a moment when a massive rearrangement of the day’s schedule became paramount. Working against the clock, and during a time when we should have been sleeping to prepare for the next day, she and I found a path forward. It will be a scenario I’ll never forget, and forever be grateful for.

I really can’t speak highly enough for the crew. There was a massive set piece that needed to be built, two of these actually, and the amount of labor involved was simply nuts. Crew members (of particular note: Garrett Finn, Emily Fischer, Ryan Dietrich, and Shawn Weyerbacher) offered their time between shoots to help construct these and maintained a level of excitement throughout. There was a pervasive feeling that we were all on something that was gonna work - and that kinda magic is rare.

And I’d better point out Abigail Urbik (producer) as well. Her dedication, patience, hard work, and threats (at me) were responsible for keeping us all going. There wouldn’t be a film without her efforts.

The $64-question of course, where can your movie be seen?

Nowhere! At least not for most of the rest of this year (2018). It’s in festivals still. However, if you were to follow Pale Moonlight Cinema’s Facebook and Instagram, you’ll hear about the release. Vimeo, YouTube, and maybe elsewhere.

Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of Dyscrasia yet?

It’s been positively received in festivals that select it. In some viewings, we get to hear gasps and awws, and even some well-placed shouts from audience members encouraging characters to act in certain self-preservation ways. That part, is very cool.

Any future projects you'd like to share?

Several actually. Pale Moonlight Cinema has another film currently running around the festival circuit. This one, Hinterland, is written and directed by Nicole Lehrman.

Another one is in post and should hop into festivals come Spring. This one is Tryst, written and directed by myself, and starring Mia Dietrich, Sean Orlosky, and Nate Shumate, along with Erin Oechsel and Adrian Blackwell.

Beyond that, we are finding time to create several micro-shorts. These will be up on YouTube in the coming months. Expect some particularly offbeat dark comedy and horror!

What got you into making movies in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?

I’ve had a handful of solid teachers in my life. I’d say that Michael Daehn, an acting instructor at Ball State University, was instrumental in my understanding of working with actors. He possesses an acute awareness to the human soul as well as a kindness with his time that is rare to find.

Additionally, there’s Wes Gehring, an instructor of Film History and author of well over thirty books. I actually wrote a piece on horror in his class years ago and he remarked very positively on it. This came at a time when some encouragement was almost more than required for me. I may not have continued on this path, had it not been for him. He remains extraordinary and typically always has an eye on my work at some stage or another.

But, what got me into movies in the first place is likely some odd combination of my mother and her father. With my mom, it was her relentless showing of horror movies and the way she laughed and squirmed while watching them - my step-dad, Brent (or B) is perhaps just as guilty because he scared the hell out of me with Carpenter’s The Thing and his affinity for dressing up as Freddy Krueger and telling me he’d ‘see me in hell’.

With my mother’s father, Papaw, it was maybe a little more direct. He’s a massive movie aficionado with well over... maybe ten-thousand films? His house, growing up, was better than the rental places (as much as I miss them). There were walls of movies to choose from, towering over me. Staggering. It remains to this day one of my fondest memories.

My father, I’d like to add, had an interesting affect. The movies he showed me, namely The Terminator, had a very realistic grittiness to them. I think I was very lucky for my childhood’s unintentional film-school for providing me with a uniquely well-rounded knowledge and exposure to films. That and all the G.I. Joes I had that I used to recreate and ultimately play out my own little stories. Someone always fell into a vat of something and came out all wrong.

What can you tell us about your filmwork prior to Dyscrasia?

Writing primarily. I had been on various projects, but writing was the everyday. I think I spent a handful of years as a madman with the craft. By drowning in it nearly every single day, something clicked. For anyone looking to write I can’t recommend highly enough the madman approach. Spend every moment of every day writing and after a while you’ll come out the other side surprised by what your hands can scribble out. Just don’t forget sunlight, friends, and family.

How would you describe yourself as a director?

Specifically, I wouldn’t. I don’t think I can do that. But I can talk about my approach to the stories I want to tell.

I stray from anything I’ve seen. Or at least try to re-invent if I’m encroaching on familiar territory. I hear, quite often, ‘artists’ are to steal. I’ve never agreed with that sentiment, as it’s inherently lazy, but I get it. It’s not exactly easy to show audiences something they’ve not seen already. But that’s not discouraging. It’s a good challenge that lends itself toward increasingly creative stories.

I guess, the spin on the whole ‘steal’ thing to me is better summarized by, I think it’s Bruce Lee to have said this, “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” I think this is a much more reasonable and respectful approach.

Filmmakers who inspire you?

Stallone, Shane Black, John Carpenter, Mel Gibson, Sami Raimi. And I’ll think of more later and shake my fists for leaving them out.

Your favourite movies?

Edge of Darkness (2010), Ghostbusters (1984), Raimi’s Evil Dead films, Indiana Jones movies, Jaws, Clue, Carpenter’s The Thing, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Halloween (1978), Robocop (1987), The Terminator (1984), Arsenic and Old Lace, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - and maybe about 100 others.

... and of course, films you really deplore?

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Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

Just a sincere thanks to you for noticing our film, taking the time to write your review of it, and going so far as to offer this interview.

Thanks for the interview!

Dyscrasia bts-photos by Sadie Lebo

© by Mike Haberfelner

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