In a remote Australian town, terror takes the form of Rippy, a giant Zombie Kangaroo. THE RED is an outrageous comedy horror set in the Australian outback, starring what promises to be Australia’s next iconic personality: Rippy—the giant Zombie Kangaroo. Rippy is your average bloke by day, and a terrifying Zombie Kangaroo by night.
In The Red, this unforgettable character is hell bent on terrorising the remote town of Axehead, and is set to become a beloved fixture in the international comedy/horror genre. Alongside Rippy, the film features an all-star Aussie cast, including Terminator and Alien legend Michael Biehn, Australian acting royalty Angie Milliken, Mystery Road’s Aaron Pedersen, and rising star Tess Haubrich.
With The Red hopping around cinemas all over Australia, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the film’s director, Ryan Coonan, about expanding his short film into a feature film, and the unique animal sound that was used to create Rippy’s menacing growl.
Nick: The Red has the universal sentiments of a creature feature, but it is also has these inherent Australianisms with the creature being a kangaroo, or being set in a regional, out back town. With the movie now out in Australian and US cinemas, I’m curious to know what the reception has been like between the two countries?
Ryan Coonan: I’d love to say I got over to the US to look at the difference in responses! I haven’t had the chance in person, but maybe one day! I mean, you’ve probably heard this before, and I experienced this with the short film Waterborne, Americans think there’s something a little bit kitschy about Australia. Our animals, how dangerous it is.
I first noticed that when I got to travel to the States and Europe with the short film, and people just kind of go crazy for something as ridiculous as a killer kangaroo [laughs]. Most of the time they see it as a very cute marsupial, so when you transform that into a homicidal beast, there’s something about that where you either hate the idea because of it’s B-movie shlock, or you love how ridiculous it is.
I’ve been fortunate enough to see that people have loved how ridiculous it is. So, yeah, it’s played really well. I actually spoke to a mate who saw the film at the drive-in the other day, down here in Melbourne, and he said it played really well in the drive-in. Which the drive in seems like the perfect place to watch this movie.
Nick: I’m glad you mentioned the short film, because I was curious as to how the story evolved from Waterborne into The Red over the last decade. Was the idea to always have a feature film stem from the short?
Ryan Coonan: Yeah, look, I started making horror short films because it was something that always seemed like a good idea, right? A lot of people do that. It’s a very well-trod path because the horror genre audience is very loving and generous. They’re very keen. Making an indie horror film as peoples first movie is a common thing.
And so, the idea of making a short to go into a feature was always kind of the rough idea. It’s kind of like the fantasy. You start making shorts, and maybe you get to make a feature one day, which is incredible. You realise as you get a bit older, and you make more short films that it’s not impossible to get a feature film up these days.
Waterborne we were actually looking at doing as a micro-budget horror feature after my first short film that was a zombie film set in my hometown. And someone suggested that we should focus our energy on a short film that could be a proof of concept. Which again, is a very common pathway these days. So, Waterborne was absolutely set up to be a proof of concept to see if we could sell the idea of a zombie kangaroo. Ultimately, it took a long time. It still took 10 years, but that was absolutely the plan.
Nick: I’m guessing part of the evolution of the story over that time was having the character of Maddy, and her wish to honour her father’s legacy, as the emotional core that grounds the film?
Ryan Coonan: Well, you’re right, man. We always knew that people would respond to the concept. They like the idea of the B-movie vibe, and that’s cool and fun. But, as a writer who’s got older and older over the years, and trying to get films made, and particularly with my co-writer Richard [Barcaricchio], who I have written everything with over the last 20 years together, it was important to us to sort of try and have a little more meat on the bone.
So, the film quickly became kind of thematically about grief, and some of the lies we’re told growing up, and what that does to you. It sounds heavy, but we knew we were offsetting that with this crazy creature running around and ripping people to shreds. But it was something important to have in the film.
It wasn’t until the last iteration though that Maddy presented as that character, and it being about her journey. We’d actually written a couple of other versions where there was different characters, different settings, where a zombie might come to town.
Nick: I’d love to talk about the sound design of this film, and not just the ripping and tearing that we hear, but also that menacing sounds that comes from Rippy. How important is sound design to you in a horror context, and what was the collaboration like with your sound team on finding that perfect sound for Rippy?
Ryan Coonan: That’s cool, man. I appreciate you pointing it out, because it’s such a big part of trying to construct a film, especially when you’re in the low budget world. You’d love to embrace the idea of having like 5 kills a minute and have Rippy going nuts and constantly giving the people what they want. It’s not always that easy. I mean, people would also get sick of that after a while.
A big part of horror filmmaking, I think even indie horror filmmaking more so, is about constructing a world and giving a sense of what’s happening outside of the frame, and sound is the number one doing the heavy lifting. We worked with two incredible people on the sound design of this. Brian [Cachia], who was also the composer, sort of headed up the sound team. And then Sasha [Zastavnikovic], who is our sound designer.
We did a lot of work designing what the sound of the bush would feel like, and then what Rippy would feel like in that. A lot of conversations, a lot of planning, listening to the weird and wonderful sounds of Australian animals. Like, kangaroos themselves sound quite bizarre. It’s like the bark, growly thing happening. But, we used koalas, possums, as well as the Tasmanian devil, and just tried to create this sort of grounded sense of an animal, but also something that’s twisted. I mean, in the lore of the film, he’s died and is then re-animated, so that’s going to do something to your vocal chords.
Brian also took the great recording of, I think, the Eastern koel which is this crazy bird up north that almost sounds like this crazy monkey screaming off in the distance. He woke up one night and thought it would be really useful one day! So, he grabbed his recorder and recorded it, and we got to exploit that in the film. But it’s something we did spend a lot of attention on, so I’m glad you noticed it.
Nick: Another important aspect within the horror genre is the blood and gore. I loved seeing the practical effects with all the bodies that you rip up. But, Rippy is also predominantly CGI, so I’m curious to know what your experiences was like blending together the practical and visual effects?
Ryan Coonan: The hope was to do as much as possible practically. It always is. I think there’s people who do connect with that a lot more. And to be honest, some people are just put off by CGI. I understand that as one of those people.
What we found really hard was to make a fully practical kangaroo that had to move and do the things it needed to do in the film. And you can’t train them to do it either! Not that we ever tried! We sort of found ourselves wanting to lean into practical as much as we can, because that stuff stands out. It’s really cool.
We did use a lot of practical stuff as reference, to be honest. We had different versions of Rippy, so we got as much material in the film as possible to sort of inform the CG. I learned a lot in that regard. We would have loved to have more Rippy in there, but I think as I listened to more and more filmmakers and their experiences of what they hoped for and what they got, is pretty similar. There’s always a gap. But we ended up with, what I hope, is that bizarre idea that’s a bit crazy and maybe gets people thinking twice about camping!
Nick: One of my favourite shots in the film is when you do a match cut from a jogger about to get slaughtered by Rippy, to Gran throwing the bloodied meat on the dinner table. I thought the edit was just perfect. I’m curious if there were any match cuts that were inspiring that scene in The Red?
Ryan Coonan: We didn’t rip that shot off anything that I was consciously aware of! We certainly lent heavily, in that previous scene, into American Werewolf in London. I really love that film, and we referenced a few moments in this film, particularly with that kill.
But that moment was one of those things that was all on the page. Richard wrote that and it’s kind of funny, but also kind of apt. It allowed us to drum home a little bit more horror.
Thank you to Ryan for his time, and to Hold Fast PR for organising the interview. The Red is in Australian cinemas, and on VOD in the US, now.
