Clare (Rose Riley) is an addict in recovery when her mother’s sudden death turns her carefully measured world upside down. Returning to her hometown, she reconnects with teenage sweetheart Jerry (George Mason). He’s the one Clare could never stop thinking about. It’s been 15 years since a tragic accident tore them apart. Now they have a second chance at happiness. But as their love returns, so does the ghosts of the past, threatening Clare’s sobriety and triggering a powerful demonic presence determined to control her.
Proclivitas is a new Australian-made horror flick from Miley Tunnecliffe (in her feature film directorial debut). As the film prepares to release in Australian cinemas on March 19, Nick L’Barrow spoke with Miley about exploring grief through horror, the writing process of revealing information to audiences, and the rise of female filmmakers in the horror space.
Nick: I feel genre filmmaking, and especially horror, is such an interesting vessel to explore the way Clair tackles grief in Proclivitas. I’m curious to know when you first found that emotional connection between really intimate themes and horror filmmaking?
Miley Tunnecliffe: I mean, I’ve always been a horror fan, even back when I was too young to watch it. My favourite film as a kid was Poltergeist, which definitely was a gateway horror with all of that Steven Spielberg wonderment about it as well. I grew up with Alien, Predator, all of those franchises. When I started working in the industry as an actor, I was immediately pigeonholed into comedy. And I love comedy, but I started moving into that as a writer and director as well. So when it came to my first feature, and I was planning over the last few years towards what was the most feasible path for me, it actually came around to horror. There’s a beautiful history in our country of female led horror with Jennifer Kent, Natalie Erika James. There’s so many more coming out right now. I was just about SXSW and there was an extraordinary amount of female filmmakers. It’s very exciting.
I really love when a movie can move seamlessly between bonkers horror and a gut punch reality. And do it in a way that you understand there is a fantasy element to it all, but you go along with the world and you realise what is going on at the core of it all.
Nick: Horror is a genre that feels like it’s been cinematically tried and tested for so long. How do you go about balancing the tropes that work for the genre, and then adding your own unique spin on it all?
MT: Like, when I look back at what always scared me, I remember as a child it was being taken away from my parents. That was so scary to me. I always found that the most effective horror was psychological. And it’s about, in terms of building those scares, you envision it in the writing and when you go into production, but the horror is mostly in the editing. It’s very similar to comedy in the way that you edit it towards this rhythm that you’re feeling. It comes to that whether it’s a laugh or a scare.
Nick: That psychological horror you mentioned is very much brought to life by Rose Riley’s performance as Clair. How did that character evolve as Rose became more involved with the project?
MT: It’s interesting because Rose actually came into it far later into the process. Luckily, we were able to have a full week of rehearsals with me and all the actors. And she flew over from Sydney to Western Australia and just jumped into the world, asking a billion questions about her character. It was interesting for me because, like so many of my lead characters, I take a facet of myself that I know so well so I can authentically create a journey for the character. It’s going to feel real and not forced. And sometimes I’m not even aware I’m doing that, it just feels right to me.
So, she’s asking lots of questions, and I am realising how much of the character’s anxiety is driving her. And once Rose really dug into that, she got it. That’s why she moves away when the pressure becomes too much. Or some of the dancing sequences are her just getting that nervous energy out. I really feel like Rose stepped in and just owned that character. I was lucky to have her. I remember the first day, I just knew that Rose and George had palpable chemistry.
Nick: I love how you use concurrent storylines to slowly reveal information about Clair’s past to the audience. From a screenwriting perspective, how do you decide when it’s the right time to reveal important information?
MT: When you’re plotting something out, I had an idea of when I think those major beats should take place. And then I tend to overwrite and make things a little more explicit on the page in the dialogue and in action because when you’re selling the script, it doesn’t come with the visuals. It’s this language of cinema you’re trying to create and fill in the blanks on the page that the great technicians will then bring to life on the actual film. Then, once there is funding, and we’ve got the actors, you begin to pull things back and pull things out. And that happened in conversations with the actors about how much we really thought we needed to get everything across. And then again, once we’re in the edit, we pull so much more out because the actors might do something where it doesn’t actually need to be said.
To your point about certain reveals, it was a crazy process. We did jigsaw things a little bit to see if they were more effective in different places. Oftentimes, we would just end up leaving it where we had it originally, but we definitely learned something by doing that. It’s like writing the story all over again in the edit.
Nick: You mentioned how other people who work on the film bring certain things to life. The sound design in this film is astounding and very effective. Was that one of those elements that you overwrote in the screenplay? And how did the soundscape evolve with your sound design team?
MT: I feel so lucky with the sound design team that we had. They were so excited to take this on and sink their teeth into it. They came with all of these incredible ideas. In terms of my direction, it was a bit more general with how I wanted the sound to build certain things up. Having watched so much horror, you can tell when certain sounds are just like a carbon copy of something else. So, I was definitely looking for my crew to take certain risks and try out ideas. Sometimes it didn’t work, but most of the time it did. One of them was creating this animal inspired sound that was 152 animal sounds layered on top of each other to create the monster.
Thank you so much to Miley for her time, and to Icon Film Distribution for organising the interview. Proclivitas is in Australian cinemas on March 19. You can also watch the full interview with Miley on YouTube.
