Craig Spector says he has complete confidence in director Doug Aarniokoski
"It starts with me sitting in the dark with a little screen glowing in front of me and it ends with a bunch of people sitting in the dark with a big screen in front of them. Everything in between here and there is just the shit you got to do!" – Craig Spector, 2007.
Craig Spector is very passionate about his work - and so he should be. He’s a best-selling author and now screenwriter whose 11 books have sold millions of copies and inspired modern horror literature.
Animals is the first Spector novel to make it all the way through the machine and into production. The book has a large fan-base and there is a certain amount of anticipation for its release. Spector feels a certain amount of debt to fans because of this.
Animals is the story of a working class guy called Jarrett whose life has fallen apart. He’s divorced, has lost his well-paid job and feels his life is disintegrating around him. Spending his days working at his new-found crappy job he seeks solitude at night in a roadhouse blues bar owned by a friend. One night, the most amazing women he has ever seen walks in and changes his life. Out of everyone in the bar she picks him. They have a wild weekend together which leads to more... but what Jarrett doesn’t realise is that he has run into Vic and Nora, a pair of extremely psychotic, promiscuous shape-shifting animals who like to drive each other crazy by picking up the opposite sex and then tearing them apart.
When adapting the book for the screen - the film is very linear in structure - Spector had to rewire the circuitry of his story to achieve the same effect but maintain its heart and soul. The screenplay contains the same plot points and is very faithful. However, there is also some streamlining and compression which is for the better. Spector explains: "The book was free to go to places the movie can’t go, but the movie took that and chose to go places the book didn’t think to go."
Spector said he found it fun to revisit and reinterpret his own structure 15 years later. He also had an opportunity to revisit the myth underlying the story and do some new things, such as explaining what these creatures are and why they are here.
Producers Barry Rosenbush and Bill Borden – who have been trying to make the film for 10 years, ever since they read the original source material – supported Spector and involved him in production from day one. Spector felt he was privy to things writers aren’t always invited into. He visited the set several times and found the whole experience "gratifying and wonderful". Writing the novel was a solitary process where he found himself very much in control of everything, from the way the book looked to the way the characters spoke. His movie experience was very much about collaboration, where lots of people’s visions came together to improve the film.
He recalls the first time he saw the bar set interior which he had seen in his mind for 15 years and it was everything he thought it would be and more. The set designer had crafted it to look exactly as it should down to the tiniest detail. By no means does the movie look or feel like a low-budget film – it is, but Spector said the set design looked amazing and had the feel of a $15-20 million dollar production; not bad for a film whose budget was just under $4million.
Spector informed me that Animals could have been filmed in any "blue collar dying industrial town" as long as it maintained its vibe. They had considered shooting the movie in both Canada and Australia at one point but Salt Lake City, Utah, prevailed in the end.
The reason? The producers had generated a lot of money for the state of Utah from previous film productions they had shot there (both high school musical movies). Utah came with a talented crew who had become a reliable well-oiled machine known for putting their heart and soul into every production they worked on.
The screenwriter enjoyed his time on set immensely. He even re-geared the end sequence battle upon discovering a fantastic location in Utah. Jarrett and Vic’s final showdown takes place in a defunct cement plant. This required Spector to both re-write and re-choreograph the scene, to take advantage of this astonishing set. "It was hot, filthy and more than a little dangerous – train tracks were 30 feet away and every 20-30 minutes a freight train would lumber by," he says.
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"I have been impressed with all the actors and how they have brought their characters to life. If this movie doesn’t make Marc Blucas [who plays Jarrett] a star, it should.
"He’s a great actor, a great guy and when he is on screen you can’t take your eyes off him. He has a power to him – like the best friend you grew up with."
Spector says Blucas is very committed to his the project, adding: "Marc was mesmerising to watch. On set he was constantly redefining his character and his portrayal of Jarrett was very intense. He brings a wonderful authority to the character." The writer made revisions to the role once he knew Blucas was cast to make the actor feel like he was Jarrett.
TV veteran Nicki Aycox (Supernatural, Cold Case) and British actor Naveen Andrews (Lost, The Brave One) play Nora and Vic, while Eva Amurri plays Jarrett's love interest Jane. Spector feels Aycox brought a wonderful vulnerability to her character - which was only implied in the book. Aycox’s performance was fierce, yet as Nora she too could seemingly fall apart at any point, revealing that she was a wounded creature. Spector recalls that during pivotal scenes her chemistry with Andrews and the pain they were going through was almost uncomfortable to watch. The writer was a little surprised when she was cast at first as she looks physically different to Nora as described in the book but when he saw on screen he thought "Wow!" His conclusion: "She has so much dynamic emotional range, she completely owned the part. She was really intense and came across as a mixture of a young Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh."
On Nora and Vic’s relationship in the film, Spector says "Nora has a tragic love affair with Vic and they are going to kill each other, but they do love each other. In a weird and twisted way they are perfect for each other, because who else would have them?"
Naveen Andrews’ portrayal of Vic was also interesting. Vic was originally intended to speak in a New Orleans southern twang; however, Andrews decided to deliver his lines in his native British accent. This meant that Spector had to comb through the entire script and rewrite Vic to suit his voice. This wasn’t a problem, though, for a writer who has lived this story most of his life.
At the time of our interview, Spector has just seen a rough cut (work-print) of the film and the question is whether he is happy with what he has seen so far? "I’m very impressed," he says. "The first half of the movie was refined and missing CG and effects but the second half of the film was very stylish. I emailed Doug the other day and told him I have complete confidence in his vision for the movie and I’m thrilled with it."
Doug Aarniokoski is the director of the film. After seeing the first cut and Aarniokoski's heavy fusion of styles, Spector describes his director’s visual style as a cross between Robert Rodriguez and Guy Ritchie. He says "Ultimately it’s a Doug Aarniokoski picture, but its editing has a lot of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels/Snatch flamboyance to it."
Animals was shot on High Definition Digital Video and Aarniokoski shot most of the movie himself, keeping the camera close. It's his fluid and intense choice of camera work that Spector feels added even more to the drama. As for the film's score, it's mostly temp track at the moment - however, Spector was impressed by the director’s choice of music and hopes to keep some of the tracks in the film. The music he feels helps drive the story and should be retained is smokey sounding music like dirty bluesy rock.
The movie features two intersecting love-triangles, both involving Jarrett. It’s a story about relationships, animal instincts and passion. Spector thinks the movie will shock people through its marriage of sex and violence within relationships. He also thinks those unfamiliar with the book who see the film and then decide to check out the book later will still enjoy both experiences, as both mediums tell different versions of the same story. He says: "I want people to love or hate the movie - but either way, please do it passionately." ?Animals is due to be released in summer 2008, so I ask what we can expect? "Hot chicks and very nice gory bits," he says, "but more than just that. Animals is a horror-movie for grown-ups. At the core of the story is something you can appreciate if you’ve lived – meaning you take a look at your life and say ‘Oh my God, is this it? Is my life over?’ and then all of a sudden something happens and you feel alive again. It's interesting for the horror genre as it's normally geared towards kids." Spector says Animals is a very scary, visceral film for smart grown ups, adding: "There will be no Animals theme park rides in the near future."
The film is very personal to Spector and he has put a lot of himself into the story and the characters. He realises it’s his job to write something that is evocative and that makes people care and Animals, he hopes, will be the first of many of his novels to be transferred to the big screen. He understands that what he does for a living is a privilege and he does this because he loves it - not just for the pay cheque.
We'll be bringing you more news about Animals, closer to its 2008 release. For more information about Craig Spector, visit his official website.
