In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo pops in a tape to discuss “V/H/S/85” with director Scott Derrickson (“Doctor Strange,” “Sinister,” “The Black Phone”). The sixth installment of the beloved horror anthology series follows five sinister found footage tales that delve into the grim underbelly of 1980s America. The film stars James Ransone, Freddie Rodriguez, Jordan Belfi, Dashiell Derrickson, and more.
During the interview, the modern horror master discussed joining the V/H/S franchise through his wife, Maggie Levin, who had done a short for “V/H/S/99.”
“She asked me, and I was like, ‘I don’t think so.’ And she was like, ‘I think you should do it,” Derrickson said. “So, I thought about it for a while. It’s an opportunity to play. It’s an opportunity to do something daring and inventive, and there are no constraints on the gore. You can be as violent as you want. So, I spent two straight days—it was cold out because I was sitting in front of a fire in my backyard, I remember—I spent the better part of two work days, what’s usually my writing period, sort of staring at the fire and trying to think of something that would make it interesting to do…the typical constraints of found footage, the rules of found footage I think are one of the reasons it’s kind of died out as a genre. And I thought if I could find a way to bend those rules, play with it more, do something more interesting with the found footage constraint—that would be interesting. Then I came up with the idea of a VHS tape recording of somebody’s dreams.”
Derrickson is known for leaving his unique mark on traditional horror tales, most notably with “Sinister,” his boogeyman film starring Ethan Hawke that was recently named by a scientific study to be the scariest horror film of all time. During the interview, Derrickson described his reaction to hearing that for the first time.
“When I read what they actually did— that it was a sizable group and they were measuring pulse rates and that ‘Sinister’ didn’t just win, it won by a great margin,” Derrickson said. “I mean, the pulse rate for that film was way above the second-place film. And when I saw the list of films that everybody watched, I was pretty astonished. It’s great. It makes me feel really good. You know, it was a very personal movie made from a very personal place, but I really wanted to make the horror film—I thought it might be the last film I ever made, so I tried making the horror film I most wanted to see. And, it turns out, a lot of other people wanted to see it too. You know, when you’re working in the genre, and you hear something like that— isn’t it the highest compliment there is? It’s like the movie people laugh at the most is the best comedy. The movie that gets people’s pulse rates the highest, well, that’s a very good horror film.”
Of course, you can’t talk to Scott Derrickson without at least mentioning “Doctor Strange,” and the fallout that led to him leaving the sequel that ended up being directed by horror legend Sam Raimi.
“All I can say is that what we said publicly is exactly the truth. We had real creative differences,” the director said. “You know, the movie I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it was different than— it was just increasingly obvious that we were pulling against each other. And that’s how you make a really bad movie, I think. When the producer or the studio and the filmmaker are making different movies, you end up with a monstrosity, and, you know, that’s why I had to bounce.”
But did Derrickson end up seeing the sequel? Of course!
“Yeah, I went to the premiere. I’m still friends with Kevin [Feige], and everything with me and Marvel is really cool. They invited me to the premiere, and I went. And I’m friends with Sam [Raimi]— I love Sam, so there’s no bad blood over that.”
Much of the discussion centered around I.P. filmmaking and original filmmaking (Derrickson praised ‘Barbie’ in our interview as a great piece of I.P.), two types of filmmaking that Derrickson seems to swing between, and the director used that to talk about his upcoming film, “The Gorge” starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Jones. It’s a big piece of filmmaking for expensive, a big budget for AppleTV+, but an original movie.
“I think it’s gotten way out of hand the degree to which I.P. drives [the business] and material,” he said. “’The Gorge’ is not I.P., it’s totally original, and when you eventually see the film, you’ll see that it’s just not like anything that’s been made, it’s a very unique movie, and I like that. I like that about the ‘Black Phone’ too.”
Derrickson wouldn’t say much else about it other than what’s out there, but it’s been described as a genre-bending romantic action written by Zach Dean, co-stars Sigourney Weaver, and was featured on the screenwriting list, the Black List.
“V/H/S/85” is streaming on Shudder on Friday, October 6th. You can hear the full discussion below:
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