Creator conjures up a slow burn
Pyewacket finds its terror in the buildup writer-director Adam MacDonald says
Montreal actor Adam MacDonald has two films under his belt as a writer-director: 2014’s well-received dramatic thriller Backcountry; and now Pyewacket, a horror film in which an upset teen accidentally summons a witch. Neither one moves quickly, which is (A) precisely why they’re so good and (B) just what the filmmaker was going for.
“It’s just being a fan of the slowburn horror film. I’ve always been that way,” he says at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Pyewacket had its world première. “My favourite part of a movie is where you’re unsure what’s happening. It’s ambiguous. You’re feeling unsettled. You know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know what. Those movies touch me the most.”
He concludes: “The buildup is my favourite way to tell a story.”
He points to The Shining as a great example of a slow-burn horror, but he also has an unlikely hero in Derek Cianfrance, the writerdirector of such slow-moving romances as The Light Between Oceans and Blue Valentine.
“Imagine Blue Valentine done with the occult,” he says of Pyewacket. “Or Blue Valentine in the woods with a bear attack.” That’s Backcountry.
“I’m not trying to check boxes off and see how many jump scares I can get in,” he says. “I’m not counting how many times the audience jumps. But if they’re feeling dread? That’s what I want them to feel. On the page not much happens. That’s kind of the point. It’s what WILL happen.”
Another similarity between Backcountry and Pyewacket is that some of the scariest moments take place in the woods. MacDonald says that comes from spending time in northern Quebec as a youth.
“I got really inspired by the woods. When that dusk starts happening it’s like meeting someone, and their personality shifts. It was beautiful a minute ago and now it’s getting darker and the shadows are coming out. You start feeing things almost.”
That’s certainly true for the main character in Pyewacket, played by Nicole Muñoz. We’re never certain whether the evil in the film is something from beyond, or conjured up within her troubled mind. “The black magic and the darkness takes us over as it does her,” the director says.
MacDonald continues to work as an actor, most recently in TV’s Rookie Blue, although he’d like to transition to more directing; he’s already attached to another horror project, The Friendship Game. But 20 years of acting work, mostly in television, has served him well.
“I was always watching the directors and how they worked,” he says. “You can tell when the time’s being wasted.” He’s seen directors uncertain what to do, and those who try too hard to be liked. And he’s seen bullies, “when they strip you down as an actor and belittle you in front of the crew. That is not the thing to do. I’ve seen blowups and yells. It doesn’t work. In infects the whole crew.”
His method is to stand back, and only offer guidance as required. He remembers one scene in which Muñoz was having “a little bit of trouble. And I was just telling her: ‘You’ll never be in this room again. Take a risk. You’ve been so good in this whole movie. Don’t let it drop right here.’ That’s all it took.”