First dates are nerve-wracking enough. Going on a first date while an unnamed, unseen troll pings you personal memes that escalate from annoying to homicidal? Blood-chilling.
Director Christopher Landon returns to the thriller genre with Drop – where the playful, keep-you-guessing intensity he perfected in the Happy Death Day films with this of-the-moment whodunnit where everyone in the vicinity is a suspect . . . or victim.
With Drop hitting Australian cinemas on April 17, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s director, Christopher Landon, about how he created the films exciting opening credits scene, and the balance between tension and levity that he loves to showcase in his films.
Nick: Christopher, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! How are you today?
Christopher Landon: I’m good! How are you doing, Nick?
Nick: I’m doing very well. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I’m a fan of you, and your films. And I really enjoyed Drop! One thing I wanted to mention right off the bat is that I would love to see a comedy sketch centred around Alison Janney’s hat that is afraid of heights!
Christopher Landon: [laughs]
Nick: But it did get me thinking about how seamlessly you intertwine comedic elements into these horror or thriller premises! I think there is such an interesting relationship between comedy and horror. I’m curious to know how you feel about the symbiotic relationship between the two genres.
Christopher Landon: I mean, I have always felt like they make really interesting companions, you know? Because the structure of a joke and the structure of a scare are very similar, and I think that life is filled with both, you know what I mean? Like, any given day, you could wake up in a comedy and find yourself in a horror movie an hour later! That’s just sort of the cadence of life.
So, I don’t think that they’re very disparate and strange. I think what’s different here with Drop versus some of my other films, is that humour is used in a very specific and grounded way. The movie we’re watching is a very classic thriller, but it has punctuations of humour, mainly from one character in particular – our waiter.
And that’s just really to help give the audience an opportunity to, like, take a breath and to relieve some tension. Because otherwise, you’re asking to audience to stay in this very sustained place for a long period of time. And my concern with that is that it can get monotonous or could just get warn out, as opposed to being in the tension.
All of a sudden, there’s a punctuation of humour, but then you get back into the tension. And for me, it just makes for a more enjoyable experience overall. Plus, I just like humour. I love to laugh!
Nick: We as the audience appreciate it too! As a filmmaker, do you think it’s harder to make audiences laugh, or scare them?
Christopher Landon: They can be very similar. I will say, I think that with humour, you can have a little more of the element of surprise. There are so many different ways to write a joke, or to perform a joke.
And I find, like, when it comes to visual scenes specifically, I think the audience is so savvy, and they’ve accumulated so much information that when a character in a horror film goes to the refrigerator and opens the door, everyone’s like, “He’s behind the door!” There’s a visual language that we’ve all become familiar with, and so it becomes harder and harder o find ways to spring a trap on an unsuspecting audience member. But I do feel that both are very similar.
Nick: I love the stylistic visual choices in this film, especially with how you move the camera around the restaurant space. How much of your visual style is dictated by location, or premise, or even characters?
Christopher Landon: It’s very driven by location. I think in the past, I was always kind of having to work with the space that I was given, you know what I mean? In the lower budget world that I’ve operated in quite a bit, you don’t have the luxury of building your sets really. So, you’re trying to figure out how to make things look visually interesting with what you have.
What was really different about Drop is that we got to build this beautiful, really large set. And with that came a certain level of latitude and malleability. I could put the camera wherever I wanted, and that was really a first for me, career wise. It was so special to just have the much creative freedom.
My director of photography, Mark Spicer, and I were kids in a candy shop, getting to create all of these unique shots, especially because the story allows for it. I’m not a director who likes to be flashy and overly stylistic. I think it has to be rooted in story first. And because this movie is so subjective, and we’re telling it from her point of view, it allowed for me to do all these things that I normally would not do, just because I need to put the audience inside of her head.
Nick: Another visual element that really stuck out to me was how you showed the text messages from the villain. It’s just done in a way that not many filmmakers would do it, and it was so engaging and unique. How early into the process did you have to decide on that style, because it feels so deliberate?
Christopher Landon: It was interesting. I realised very early on that I was not going to do phone inserts or text bubbles because I felt like that would get really boring. And the huge challenge of the movie is that you’re having to create a character that doesn’t really exist. We never see this person who’s doing this to her. So, how do we create a sense of conversation happening between two people that isn’t just “I’m looking at my phone.”
So, we went into the process knowing that we were going to need some form of animated text that would appear on screen, and that the shots needed to be designed to facilitate that, and make sure we had space. So, all of that was thought out in advance, and it was really interesting that when we went into post-production, and we started to work with the company that was creating all of these text messages, I remember their reaction to seeing all the footage where we had mocked it up for them, and they were like, “Oh my God! We don’t have to figure this out!” That was really cool.
But also, letting that character really shine through the messages, you feel there is this attitude from them. The way that they were interactive and menacing, and there’s moments where characters walk through the messages, and they distort. I just think it was a visually really fun and interesting way to approach the texting.
Nick: It looks amazing and feels so unique! I’ll wrap up on this, and I’ll finish by taking us back to the start of the film. I loved the opening credits. It has such a Bond, or even Halloween, style of vibe to them. Whether they may have been inspirations or not, do you have an opening titles sequence that stands out for you?
Christoper Landon: Oh, God! Well, first of all, yeah, every Bond movie ever made! They’re all so good. I think that [David] Fincher is another director who always does these like banger, amazing sequences.
Someone who works at Blumhouse very wisely said that a good opening credit sequence is a promise to the audience. I thought that was a very eloquent way of putting it. And what’s so cool is that what we did here is not normal in terms of Blumhouse. We usually can’t afford to do that.
But what was so great is that we finished the movie three days early, which is pretty rare, so I had extra money allocated, and I was able to do it [the opening credits sequence]. Everything in that title sequence is real. None of it’s animated. So, we had a whole element shoot on a sound stage where we rigged all of those props, many of which were from the actual movie, with explosives, and we blew them up on a high-speed camera.
Like, it was so cool! And I got to – funnily enough – work with a company that is owned by someone I went to school with, and that I grew up with! Which is another crazy, funny piece of the story. But, yeah, I love the opening title sequence. I think it’s really elegant and cool.
Thank you so much to Christopher for his time, and to Universal Pictures for organising the interview. Drop is in Australian cinemas on April 17.
