The filmmaker’s latest effort, The Night House, is out Aug. 20.
The director became familiar with the genre from an early age, albeit reluctantly at first.
“My father used to watch a lot of horror movies,” Bruckner recalls.
David Bruckner.Ernesto Distefano/Getty Images
“I remember just trying to escape.
Below, Bruckner breaks down his life and work in horror.
We were able to do so much at that time.
I mean, we shot that film in 13 days, which just astonishes me.
It was a huge collaborative process.
We were very disconnected from the Hollywood machine or any kind of professional route to making films.
We were just making stuff because we could and because we wanted to.
We made that film for $50,000, sent it to Sundance, got in.
When I heard the idea of a found-footage anthology I thought, ‘Sounds perfect.’
I really loved found footage.
So I jumped on board and had a weird idea, and we fought for it.
We shot that in five days for really cheap.
I think many of us had studio projects that were idling that we couldn’t get across the line.
I had just moved to Los Angeles from Atlanta when that came together.
I remember we ran out our location scout budget in like the first week.
And it’s a very location-based movie.
So I got to study the topography of California on my own.
There’s a certain magic to doing your own scouting and standing alone in a vast nothingness.
There’s plenty to draw on if you’re going to put a camera to it later.”
The Ritual (2017)
“Rafe Spall was so down for proper horror.
IthoughtI was down for a forest movie.
It was an embarrassment of riches in that regard, you could put a camera on any of it.
[But] it was very cold weather.
We had a legitimate bear problem.
It was just an exhausting shoot.
It took everything out of us.
You’re wearing it on and off screen to some degree or another.
I can’t imagine making a comedy.”
I found the originalCreepshowlater.
I don’t think the tone of that has been recreated anywhere.
The Night House (2021)
“I met Ben and Luke years ago.
They’re also from Georgia.
They had adapted [my] short film fromV/H/Sinto a feature version calledSiren.
That was really the first time we worked together.
I think they wroteThe Night Houseoriginally in 2014, and there was another filmmaker involved for a while.
He was totally right.
I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to do this!’
It was an offering to the movie gods, and she really took to it.
The movie is very singular.
This is in the days immediately afterwards, and emotionally she’s all over the place.
I think Rebecca was just really excited about the challenge of taking that on.”
Look, it’s a dream come true.
TheHellraiseruniverse is deep and dense and vast.
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