DIABOLIC follows Elise, played by Elizabeth Cullen (Elvis, The Bureau of Magical Things), a woman who joins a healing ceremony led by the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints to cure her mysterious blackouts. But the ritual unleashes the vengeful spirit of a witch, setting off a terrifying chain of events.
Inspired by true stories that emerged from the cult-like practices of the Fundamental Latter Day Saints (FLDS), this new Australian horror film premiered at Adelaide Film Festival to high acclaim, along with premiere Monster Fest screenings in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, where it won ‘Best Australian Feature’. As Diabolic releases for limited sessions in Australian cinemas on November 20, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s co-writer and director, Daniel J. Phillips, about crafting scares for a modern horror audience, and the horrifying true rituals he discovered the FDLS do in real life that was then put in the film.
Nick: Last year, I had the chance to chat with Osgood Perkins for Longlegs, and it was the first time I really got curious in finding out what excites horror filmmakers about playing around in the world of religion, which is central to Diabolic…
Daniel J. Phillips: Yeah, absolutely. My first film had Catholicism as a backdrop for where the horror comes from. And I kind of promised myself I wasn’t going to make another religious film after that! When I read the first draft of this though, I was pretty excited about it and just wanted to do it straight away!
I guess, for me, there’s kind of an innate hypocrisy involved in those cults and organised religions, and they leave themselves open to the possibilities of horror to come forth. They are sort of the perpetrators of horror in many different ways.
There’s a familiarity to audiences with these kinds of religious tropes, which is exciting about this movie. But it’s also about the fundamentalist Mormon’s, which we’ve kind of never seen in a horror space before. It’s got enough touchstones for people to go, “It’s sort of catholicism, but not really.”
Nick: That familiarity probably also comes from the fact that this script was inspired by true events that occurred within this cult, and that fuels the real darkness within the film. What was the research into fundamentalist Mormons in order to find those grounded aspects?
Daniel J. Phillips: Well, originally the concept was more focused on the witch and stuff. And it was Mike Harding and Ticia Madsen (co-writers) who brought the Mormon aspect to it, and that really made the movie what it is. We spent many sessions over Zoom for hours and hours with Ticia, just talking through her experiences with Mormonism. And there were so many things that we couldn’t include that were just extreme and wild.
One of the things that really stood out was the “baptism of the dead”, which I didn’t know about before this. I read it in the script and thought they had invented this really cool ritual for the movie, and they were quick to tell me this was a real thing they actually do. It’s probably not as dark and moody as we make it in the movie, but this idea that they baptise them so they can get dead people into heaven is the most insane thing for anyone to be doing! But, it’s great fodder for horror, and it’s great to show audiences something they haven’t seen before.
I did my own research too. I watched a bunch of documentaries that are already out there. It seems like fundamentalist Mormons and all those other sex cults are having their moment in the sun right now, and I’m sure there are going to be many other films in a fictionalised sense that come out about FLDS soon because of that.
Nick: It’s not just the religious elements that you explore in this film, but also themes like trauma, abuse and even forbidden love. What does genre filmmaking give you when it comes to exploring those themes?
Daniel J. Phillips: Yeah, great question. Horror has really evolved in the last 10, 15 years in a way that has legitimised it a lot. Horror isn’t a “dirty” word anymore in fancy circles of filmmaking. Like, we had a shark film, Dangerous Animals, in Cannes this year! That’s showing something!
The centre of the story, for me always, is going to be the character and their journey. I think all the horror around that, the tension and the scares, the atmosphere, is almost a secondary consideration to what the character is experiencing and going through. I do think that there is a unique opportunity here to explore someone who has gone through every injustice on every kind of level.
Nick: I don’t want to spoil anything, but Elizabeth Cullen almost has this dual performance aspect to her character as her journey goes on. I’m curious to know what the collaboration and conversations with Elizabeth were like about finding the differences and balances as we get towards the climax of the film?
Daniel J. Phillips: Funnily enough we talked about Batman. I mean, he’s kind of three characters, right? He’s the real Bruce Wayne, the brooding, pouty one. He’s then the playboy, pretend Bruce Wayne. And then he’s Batman. Three versions of himself. And we kind of talked about how we could do that in this kind of context and bring something totally new to it.
One of the ways we did it was with the particular accent you hear with the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, which is really unique. And in the scenes where she is still in the FLDS, her accent is different to what we here in present time. I think that allowed us to help separate some of those things and create many different characters for her.
Nick: You mentioned earlier how horror has evolved over the last decade, and the genre is really having its moment right now – audiences love horror. How do you disturb and scare people in a way that is unique to you as a filmmaker?
Daniel J. Phillips: I had set pieces in my head that I wanted to do for a while that weren’t even specific for Diabolic. It was more just how I wanted to scare the shit out of people. And a lot of it was inspired or based on modern horror sensibilities. Like, I look at someone like James Wan, and really studying what he does because he’s really the master of the jump scare. Scott Derrickson as well. They both have this surgical nature of how they do a jump scare.
I also just focus on the things that bother me. I’m someone who doesn’t really like having dirt under their fingernails, or like greasy remotes and gaming controllers. So particularly with the digging stuff in this film, we really wanted it to feel uncomfortable when she is doing it, and we did that mostly with sound. There’s this audible texture when she’s digging that is really dry and brutal. You can hear the layers and the scraping, and that stuff really gets under my skin.
Thank you to Daniel for his time, and to Monster Pictures and NedCo PR for organising the interview. Diabolic is playing in Australian cinemas for a limited time from November 20.
