Director of new indie horror film The Outwaters looks to slay on its opening weekend
Things go seriously wrong in new indie horror movie The Outwaters.
New indie horror flick The Outwaters is scaring up serious hype.
The film’s distributors have waged a campaign to get it into as many theaters as they can for its Friday, February 10, opening weekend. For San Antonio-area horror lovers, the closest screening will be at New Braunfels’ EVO Cinemas 14.
For anyone not wanting to make the jaunt, The Outwaters will hit horror streaming service Screambox after its theatrical run. However, no date has yet been set since the distributors hope it can go into wider release if it yields a strong enough opening weekend.
A similar distribution path paid off in spades last year, when slasher flick Terrifier 2, shot for only $250,000, grossed more than $11 million in theaters. That was a significant amount given the film’s intense violence, which led to it being released unrated.
Hype for The Outwaters also stepped up yet another notch after another indie horror production, Skinamarink, made a splash two weekends ago.
Both scary and elusive, The Outwaters’ trailer reveals that the film revolves around four friends in an idyllic desert on a music video shoot. The preview reveals little else save a quick flash of gore and the sound of someone screaming in mortal terror. This much it leaves clear: things will go wrong — big time.
It’s easy to see why the producers reveal so little. The movie is presented in the found-footage style used in films such as The Blair Witch Project, REC and Cloverfield, but what unspools in the second half, after the friends hear mysterious loud noises, is singularly disorienting, trippy and most assuredly not for the squeamish.
The Current spoke to The Outwaters’ director, Robbie Banfitch, via Zoom, from his home in Los Angeles. He was eagerly anticipating the release of the film, his debut feature. We agreed to keep the conversation spoiler-free, since Banfitch maintains that going into the picture unaware adds to the experience.
“I hate spoilers,” said Banfitch. “I’m grateful they allowed me to make the trailers so vague.”
Where did you get the idea for The Outwaters?
A deep love of The Blair Witch Project. And then a deep love of Terrence Malick, and thinking about what it might look like if Terrence Malick filmed something hellish. But with a cheap camera. (Laughs.)
That’s an interesting mix. I wouldn’t have thought that of that comparison, but now that you mention it there are some shots — particularly in the first half of the film — that appear influenced by his style.
I don’t want to sound conceited. I’m not comparing myself to Malick. I just love his films.
All the actors have the same first name as the characters they play in the film. As I understand it, they’re your friends rather than actors cast through agents.
Yeah, the relationships you see are the real relationships. Well, Scott isn’t my brother in real life. (Laughs.) That was Ange meeting Michelle for the first time [before the trip in the film]. Although I am close with both of them. Scott and Ange know each other through me. Scott and I know each other through Greenpeace. I kept the same names as a logistical thing, to not have to worry about calling them different things when we were filming our slice-of-life stuff.
The film has a lot of casual interactions between the characters, but there some lines that could have been scripted. I enjoyed “Coachella hippies aren’t dirty. They’re millennial bloggers with four-thousand-dollar shorts.”
That was just us talking, literally. That’s a favorite line of mine as well. Ange has a gift for one-liners, naturally, all the time. That’s why I wanted her to be in the movie in that role.
Were there any scripted elements?
Yeah, there was a lot of scripted stuff. All the family stuff — the stuff with our parents. All of that was all fake. There was no script in terms of dialogue being written down. But there was definitely, “This is what needs to happen in this scene. This is what needs to be said at some point.” When me and Ange are having a slight friend fight in the tent. It was, “So we need to be fighting. This is what you’re upset about, how I’m gonna be, and we’ll just fight.” But each scene is different. Some of it is just spur-of-the-moment, because we were actually doing our road trip. Some of it was mood.
The film is divided into three sections. The premise is that three memory cards survived that depict the events. Why did you decide to make those divisions as opposed to just letting the events unfold?
One memory card wouldn’t be able to contain all of that footage. So, I felt that — using logic — that if the police department had these three memory cards and put them together on a disk that they would separate it out. Also, I liked the idea of a three-act structure, but as memory cards.
This is an indie film, which typically comes with budget limitations. How does the funding impact creative decisions? Were there things you wanted to do that couldn’t happen?
No, there was nothing like that. I knew the story and tailored it to what I could do. And there was barely a budget. I made it with my friends — no crew. I didn’t have a producer at the time I filmed most of it, and I was working full time at Greenpeace. It was really just gas money and some props.
How long did the film take to shoot overall?
Days-wise? Maybe 20.
Was it a continuous shoot? Clearly a lot of it was shot at night.
There were three large desert trips where we got an Airbnb and stayed out there for four or five days. There were a couple overnights, a few days trips and a few camping-in-the-middle-of-nowhere nights as well.
This film has some strong psychedelic elements. Was that by design?
I understood while making it that it was going to be feel trippy and psychedelic in spots. I’ve never done psychedelics, personally, so I can’t speak to that. It seems like what it might be like to be on a bad acid trip. I’ve never described it that way, but I’m aware that many people have.
Part of that perception might be due to how the film plays out, and the immersion and disorientation it generates in the second half. It’s almost something to be experienced, like an amusement park ride. It’s truly a first-person film. Would you agree?
I could see that. It’s obviously first person because it’s mostly me holding the camera. Then once shit hits the fan, it becomes even more tunnel vision-y.
Terrifier 2 struck gold last fall. The movie was made for $250,000 and made $11 million in the theater. What kind of impact did that success have on the horror movie industry?
You could only get unrated movies into indie movie theaters not too long ago. It made me so happy that an unrated film, uncompromised by producers, was playing everywhere. It’s an historic moment for horror and the box office. Just because of how uncompromising it is.
Horror seems to have been gaining in popularity over the past few years. Why is the genre relevant now?
I think it’s just that it’s always been steady. There’s all kinds of people that don’t necessarily like horror movies, but still like some horror movies. For all of my life, there’s always been a very passionate horror crowd. Horror films are a pretty safe bet at the box office, even if you have a low budget. I can probably look at any period and there are a few big horror movies that did well. Right now, people are excited because of movies like Skinamarink and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair getting bigger theatrical releases. People are always hungry for new things. I love a sequel — I’ll watch the Scream movies until there’s 30 of them and still be excited. But it’s always exciting to have original projects that aren’t a sequel or a remake. And there’s been quite a few of them that are popular lately.
What do you think of the new Scream trailer? It looks good.
I’m so excited. It looks like a Scream movie. In my opinion, there’s not been one bad movie in that series. Even the worst one is a good movie. My favorite thing about Scream is the character development from movie to movie. They always introduce great new characters, and you always actually get to see some changes and revisit these people over the years. They’re careful with that, even in the one that came out last year. I’m excited.
That’s a more commercial side of filmmaking. If you were approached to make Scream 7, would you do it?
I would totally make Scream 7. But that’s because it’s Scream. It would depend on the project. There’s a million things I want to make that I can do with my friends and try to make something good. I was stressing. How’s it gonna be? I just saw Gummo. That was one of my favorite films throughout high school and college. I’ve seen it a million times, but I haven’t seen it in years. I just saw it at the New Beverly Cinema that Quentin Tarantino owns. It relieved any worry or pressure I had. You can do whatever you want. If there’s some dumb studio thing, I don’t have to do it. Or, if there’s something like Scream, which I’m actually passionate about and have ideas for, I would totally do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s commercial or not. You don’t want to spend time working on something you’re not passionate about. I have some ideas for Scream. But I think the guys are gonna keep the franchise for a while. (Laughs.)
$7-$10, various showtimes, EVO Cinemas 14, 214 Creekside Way, New Braunfels, (830) 643-0042, evocinemas.com.
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