WGTC: So if the opportunity to direct a big studio movie arose, how would you react? Would you jump and take it?
Mickey Keating: It’d be nice to have a combination of indie and big-budget. I’m not sure if I’m the dude who’d take Spider-Man 19 [laughs]. I think the Coen brothers have the greatest career in the world, where they made Blood Simple with 200 financiers, cobbling it together, but slowly, and surely created a bigger impact with a wider audience. My favorite filmmakers are the ones who successfully operated within that world, and also were able to very rigidly stay to their sensibilities. Woody Allen, to note.
It all comes down to the gut feeling on a project. If a studio came to me – well, here. Understand the dance you’re dancing. Where a lot of things go wrong is when an indie director gets involved in a studio system, and they still think it’s their show. If the conversation is there, and everyone is on the same page, that could be very exciting, but it’d have to be the right situation.
WGTC: On look and feel, Carnage Park seems like your most ambitious film. Were there any challenges with opening up production settings, and really going bigger this time?
Mickey Keating: It was really a nightmare to shoot in the desert during summer. Brutal. Then, one day, weirdly, it poured rain. Go figure. We knew on a Friday it was going to storm, and realized we had no covered sets. Ninety percent of the movie is outside. But it was also really exciting, because up to that point, I’d done three movies that were just four characters talking a whole bunch, contained. I knew I wanted something with a lot more characters, that could be a foray into an ensemble piece. At that time, I was really excited to take that opportunity.
In terms of general challenges, I think the movie, as much of a difficult shoot it was in terms of environment, was really smooth, and came down to the idea that I was building towards. Now, I’ve almost got graphic novels for how a movie should look [laughs], and it was really exciting to hone everything in and make something vast, but precise.
WGTC: So was Pat Healy always in your head at the sniper? His casting is dynamite, but I’m curious if he was your first choice.
Mickey Keating: I’ve admired Pat’s work forever. When I was interning at Glass Eye Pix, I was on the post-production work for Ti West’s The Innkeepers, so I got to watch that all the time thinking “This guy is fucking awesome!” I’d seen his other stuff too, and love Cheap Thrills.
It’s easy to go with the hermit mountain man who is incomprehensible, so, like The Most Dangerous Game, I knew I wanted someone charismatic. Honestly, I didn’t think he’d ever do it. If I did ever envision someone else, it’s only because I thought, “there’s no way Pat Healy will ever do this.” Then when he agreed, I was just like, “Fine. Great. Amazing. That’s it.” I felt very fortunate in that regard.
WGTC: Jumping to your next film, Psychopaths, how do you want to raise the stakes of your career?
Mickey Keating: With the way we tried to approach Psychopaths, it is through and through an ensemble piece. Carnage Park is dirty, loose, and rough around that mentality, so I wanted to make Psychopaths ultra-glamorous, and really colorful. All about composition and camera-movement as much as it’s about the characters. We looked to movies like Dressed To Kill, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Enter The Void – those kinds of really beautiful, hyper-stylized, colorful movies. That was the challenge. The script is super violent and super blunt, so I wanted to make sure my cast understood it’s not going to be just another exploitation flick, or B-Movie.
The other challenge is we shot for four weeks, and there’s all these different storylines. Every fifth day felt like a new start, with all new actors. By week three, IÂ just got exhausted. But it’s exciting, because it’s a wholly different narrative style we’re trying. It’s a lot more liquid. We’re going to have a lot of fun editing, making it psychedelic and surreal. I want people to watch Carnage Park, then see Psychopaths, and question how it’s the same director. Same with the characters. We have a lot of actors coming back.
WGTC: Including a one-time horror journalist, and current Shudder curator, Sam Zimmerman…
Mickey Keating: He’s so good in The Mind’s Eye. I was like, “you did so much with that little role, I have to put you in my next movie.” I saw him in Ithica, when we were with Darling, so I asked him, and he was totally in. He’s great in it.
WGTC: So do we know all the psychos at this point? You just recently revealed that Angela Trimbur and Ashley Bell have been added to the cast…
Mickey Keating: We’ll you’ve got Scorpion Joe, who will be playing a Shadow Of A Doubt type of strangler. There’s also a few surprise roles that are going to have people saying, “Oh, shit!”
WGTC: Who is your favorite psychopath, and can you reveal a little about their character?
Mickey Keating: Oh, I love all my psychopaths! [laughs]
Ashley Bell is going to surprise a lot of people. She plays a girl who escapes from a mental asylum, and she thinks she’s some glamorous 1950s movie star. Angela is great, she plays a character who captures men and tortures them in her suburban basement. Jeremy Gardener’s a maniac cop. Even Hellen Rodgers has a great role – she’s a house mother who ends up really fucking Sam Zimmerman’s day up. Sam too! Sam’s going to surprise a lot of people. He plays a contract killer, so it’s all these crazy different combinations of 70s and 80s sleaze.
There are parts of Psychopaths that I wanted to look like Paul Schrader’s Hardcore. I lifted lighting techniques from that, and Graham Skipper plays the owner of a club who looks like he should be beaten up by George C. Scott. If a studio came to me asking if I wanted to remake Schrader’s Hardcore, I’d be like, “Fuck yes.” Hardcore all day.
WGTC: As a final question, I’d like to get a little topical. For better or worse, some filmmakers and actors have recently spoken out against film criticism. Given your experience in the industry, do you read reviews, and has the criticism landscape changed over time?
Mickey Keating: Of course I acknowledge it. If you’re not making movies with the inclination that they’re for other people, then you’re being too sensitive. Good reviews come out, bad reviews come out. I don’t agree with being an artist who speaks for their work. The work should speak for itself, and in being an artist, you present the public with something. Here it is, talk about it, go for it. We’re artists.
Now you have a lot of filmmakers coming out on Facebook and Twitter trashing bad reviews. If you can’t take [criticism], don’t create. Go back to even French New Wave, and a lot of those people were film critics beforehand. Pauline Kael was important for some of my favorite filmmakers to have careers.
The bad part about social media and the internet is that everyone has an opinion, but pretty quickly you can sniff out the people who actually write insightful things – even if they are negative – versus the people who just want to get on the soapbox. It’s never going to change, and I think it’s stupid to try and challenge that.
