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| KC Clyde and Renny Grames in Alien Country |
Frightfest is, without a doubt, one of the world’s greatest horror films, and every year, on the weekend closest to Halloween, fans queue up to get a good scare there. All fear would be no fun, though. The art of festival curation is balance, enabling audience members to go up and down emotionally. A good horror comedy is just the thing to help with that, and this year it’s the turn of Alien Country. Directed by Boston McConnaughey, who co-wrote it with his partner, producer and star Renny Grames, it follows the latter’s character, Everly, and her boyfriend Jimmy (KC Clyde) as they navigate two major life crises: first an unplanned pregnancy and then an alien invasion, which sees them plunged into a position where they may be the only ones who can save the Earth.
“As far as feature films go, this is my very first feature,” says Boston, when the three of us meet to discuss it. “We did a lot of YouTube for a while, about ten years, and really wanted to get into more long form narrative.
“Renny and I met on a movie set. I was just out of film school and we started dating and we started a YouTube channel and we. We found a really good audience for people who like sci-fi action comedy mashups on YouTube, and learned a little bit of filmmaking skill – you know, more practical stuff than what you would learn in film school. How to put a crew together, all that kind of thing. And then after a number of years, we decided we had todo the dream, which was to make a feature.
“We'd kind of been noodling this script about something that had to do with aliens, something that had to do with a couple in the desert living in a small town. Where we lived in Utah wasn't a small town, but we spent a lot of our vacation time out in the desert in the American West. And so we basically threw this script together in 2018, 2019. We read it for a few friends and they were like, ‘Yep, let's get together and make it.’ And so that's how the thing came to be. It took momentum, snowballed, and eventually became the unruly first film that it ended up being.”
A lot of the cast and crew were people they knew personally, he says.
“Most of the cast and crew are from Utah,” says Renny. “They're Utah locals. We had a couple of the actors come up from LA and some of them even had roots that were from Utah, so they were kind of returning home. This film really showcases not just the landscape of Utah, but also our cast and crew's talents.”
She’s done a couple of genre films in the past – Orcs and Vamp U – but most of her career as an actor has seen her appear in more mainstream fare. I ask if genre fare has always been a personal interest.
She laughs. “Yeah. Well, this is something that we did together on YouTube so much. And when I get cast as an actress in other people's films, they often cast me as very dark characters, alcoholics or addicts or, you know, sometimes the sassy best friend. For us, we really want to encapsulate a strong female character that got to fight aliens, and that's one of the exciting things of writing your own part, in a way, because I wanted her to be deeper than just an action hero. I wanted to have real worries and concerns about her career and settling down. And is Jimmy the right man for her? Can she move forward and have this baby and have a career? These are questions that I feel like everyday women face, and actually they were very real fears of my own. And we just wrote them into the script and brought her to life.”
It seems particularly important that Everly avoids the trap of being denied agency because of her pregnancy.
“Yeah, precisely. And actually it's interesting. When we started this movie, we didn't have children, and now that this movie is over, we have a two year old. And I've never been more fulfilled or happy or busier. I produce commercials full time and we're developing scripts full time, so this is something that is very much reality. Just the balance of motherhood and sharing that responsibility with an amazing partner.”
As Boston blushes, I ask if either of them has seen 2010’s Skyline, which also involves an unplanned pregnancy and a subsequent alien invasion. The discovery of a pregnancy is so disorientating, it makes people have to rethink their whole lives, so it seems like the perfect metaphor.
“I think a lot about what are monsters and how we represent monsters,” says Boston. “I haven't seen Skyline, and I'm like, ‘Oh my goodness, I have to watch this now.’ But I think aliens in general are a monster that represents an external threat, right? Something that you're unfamiliar with, something that's unusual, something that necessarily isn't a part of your life, just by what they are. Extraterrestrial. And so that invading threat can be anything that comes into your life and disrupts it. So it definitely is a parallel for the new phase of life. You're completely unfamiliar with being a parent and this new creature, this new little baby that's going to come into your life and maybe cause some disruption.
“In this movie, I think if they can handle this ridiculous monster mess, they can handle about anything, whether it's parenting or otherwise. So that's the general idea behind it. I think overall we were lucky to find that parallel and it was just as much intuitive. And now as I start to analyze and really think through, we want to make more and more monster movies. As I really get more analytical about what monsters can represent, I'm glad that we didn't screw that up. I think it makes sense.
“I'm starting to recognise that I love monsters. In the sci-fi genre, I loved Star Wars as a kid, but I was obsessed with the tauntons and the sarlacc pit more than anything. I was like, ‘Oh yeah, Han Solo's cool, whatever. But, like, look at all these creatures.’ And so I definitely wanted to create an alien that was new. I didn't want to just rehash the xenomorph from Alien or anything like that. I really wanted to find something that felt original and authentic. So two things came together. I worked with an incredibly talented creature designer named Stephen Oakley, who had done work for Sony PlayStation's God Of War series.
“I was noticing all the designs of what I wanted my aliens to look like. I started collecting his art and I realised ‘I think this is all coming from one artist!’ I looked him up and he worked with us on this. We basically said ‘There's two things the creature is going to do. It's going to evolve. Hyper evolution. That was based off of this idea that what if a virus was the size of a person? What if there's a creature that could evolve within its own lifespan? And it does that because if you kill one, then it sends a signal to the others and then they'll randomly mutate to try to become more resistant to that threat. That's what viruses ultimately can do.
“But, yeah, so that was the idea behind the thing. And then we added this really cool idea of bioluminescence, which really came out of the necessity of not being able to have tons and tons of alien shots. People talk about Jaws, and the buoy will come up. You know, when the buoy's there, the shark's there, but they don't have to show the shark. And so similarly, we were like, ‘Well, what if it could glow?’ Then we could just flash lights in the background occasionally and that would add that visual threat. But then we had to justify, well, if they glow in the dark, why?
“Of course, there's a couple animals that do glow in the dark. And so we designed...” He trails off, suddenly self-conscious. “I'm going about monsters. I can talk about monsters for too long. But basically, they communicate to hunt. One will say, ‘Oh, prey's over here.’ ‘Great. I'm on my way,’ you know? So they glow to communicate, and they also hypnotise their prey like a cuttlefish. In a nutshell, that was what we came up with. And I think the team and the people we hired to bring those creatures to life just did a fantastic job.”
Picking up on his mention of Alien there, I note that there are a few Alien references in there, but what about other influences? The film felt quite Tremors to me, in places.
“One hundred percent,” he says. “You know, Tremors is one of the movies I saw pretty young, probably younger than I should have, but loved. And so there was a vibe there. I don't know if there's full homage shots, but there's a lot of things that happen in Tremors that we mimicked. And then Grabbers, actually, an Irish film, is a huge influence on me because it's really just about a small town and something that culturally feels Irish. You know, in Grabbers they all have to stay drunk to fight the aliens, which I think is beyond hilarious. And I was like, ‘Well, what's a cool version of that for where we live?’
Renny interjects that they were also inspired by Attack The Block.
“Yeah,” says Boston. “And so it's like, if you're going to fight aliens in Utah, what do people do? Well, they probably get in their demolition derby cars.”
I venture that the films they’ve mentioned are quite unusual across the whole span of monster movies and action movies in general, in that they're about communities fighting a monster and working together, rather than one hero or a couple of heroes.
“Well, you literally hit on our theme,” says Renny. “Our theme was how to take responsibility for each other rise up to work together, for the couple not only to save their unborn baby, but to work together with their friends and save their town and their entire planet. So, literally, we tried to work through that theme in every scene of our movie, even in small ways. When we see the sheriff picking up trash from the side of the road, he's taking responsibility, he's taking care of his planet, and so that's exactly on the mark there. We really wanted to showcase that theme throughout the movie.”
I tell them that to me it feels like one of those towns where there's not very much to do for entertainment. So, obviously, a lot revolves around the cars.
“I grew up in a small town, but on the east coast of the United States, so near Boston,” says Boston. “I came out to Utah after college, attended a demolition derby, and it was bizarre and alien. I’d kind of heard of them, but I didn't know how weird they were. It was basically like bumper cars until the other cars stopped working. And it's dangerous and ridiculous. One of the great drivers that we met through this process called it ‘the most rich hillbilly sport you can come up with’.
“When we were making YouTube videos, always looking for something fresh and new, I was like, ‘Well, I don't want to just make a YouTube video about demolition derby. This needs to be on the big screen because it's such a unique cultural thing to these small towns and all throughout the intermountain west, which is Utah, and that area, and really the central and western United States. This is a big hillbilly sport. All summer long, there'll be demolition derbies. People will go out on tour. They build these cars together. They put rails inside to make them more durable, and then they'll win $20,000 or $30,000 in a night, becoming grand champion by hitting every other car. So it's a weird one, but I felt like it's a really fun one, and so visual.
“The only caveat I would say to new filmmakers is: don't work with vintage vehicles that have been smashed up ever and don't work with vintage vehicles that are designed to explode. Because, yeah, continuity wise, it was a little rough, but we made it through.”
We discuss their time on set.
“We had a very succinct principal shoot, period,” says Renny. “We had about 18 days of our principal shooting. We did some pickups the next year. So in 2020 we were actually shooting, and in 2021 we did five more days of pickups. But we'll just give you a feel. In that opening derby scene, there's actually scenes from three different years. Anytime you see an insert shot, that was in the studio, and anytime you see the actors actually driving, that was on the derby grounds, but without an audience. And then when you see the wide shots, that was actually in 2019, when we were going to get promo footage for the movie at a real demolition derby. We really wanted that scene – all of those scenes – to feel very filled out, and it took three different years to actually get that footage.”
The final battle sequence was also spread out, says Boston.
“I learned a lot in this process about what really is, as our cinematographer Wes Johnson would call it, the meat you need to get. What do you have to get today that you really can't get with a second unit? And so we had to be a lot more crucial and critical about, ‘Okay, could we pick up this without the lead actor? Could we get this shot here, and is this just drone stuff that we can have professional drivers for?’
“We did a number of things where we had our actual actors driving a few takes and then we would do stuff in a studio to get more close up shots of them. And then we did stuff with actual demolition derby drivers on the track and aerials and really cool first person view drones flying around and all that kind of stuff. So it was interesting. I think overall we approached it a little bit like a documentary, like let's shoot what we can try to shoot and then find how to cut this together. And then as we're going through that process, we rewrote some scenes for the actors to perform so that it made sense with the footage we had already captured.”
“I would say one of the most exciting parts of actually making the movie was when went down to the red rock slot canyons are and we were just running through the canyons,” says Renny. “It was a very peaceful set of days where were just out in the desert with our film crew. We actually didn't have cell reception, so there was a lot less notifications and emails and things to worry about. We were just out in the wilderness shooting action scenes. I think that felt really bonding as a crew. We were getting this beautiful footage, and the production value of that is so amazing because it's very inexpensive to go shoot in that nature, but it also feels so grandiose and majestic.”
“I totally agree with that,” says Boston. “Alien Country is unapologetically funny. We know it, we designed it to be a comedy. And because it is our first film, first and foremost, we feel like the audience we found on YouTube, those people, we're giving them what they loved. So I know that there is an audience for this film and we're finding it right now. We're seeing a lot of people who come in and they love it. But I'm realising now that there's a lot of things when you look at horror comedy versus sci-fi comedy, where sci-fi comedy seems to be a lot less touched. People are more familiar with horror comedy.
“With your first film you get to make whatever you want, really. I think you should make something that is authentically you. And we did that. It also authentically represents, I feel, Utah. Utah is a much more family friendly culture and state here in the United States. But overall, now, as we go forward, we're not afraid to dive a little darker. Make something a little bit more cerebral or scary. Overall, I think Alien Country just gave us the confidence that we can deliver. And, you know, with just a little more money, we can even deliver a little faster.”
So how does it feel being at Frightfest after all that?
“Oh my gosh, it feels like such an honour,” says Renny. “I can't believe it's happening. We actually were able to go to Rhode Island Flickers Fest and we met a lot of people from the UK at that festival as well, and they were just raving about Frightfest. So we couldn't be more excited.”
“The programmers had reached out to us pretty early on,” says Boston. “They were like, ‘Wow, your film is really great.’ And they helped us actually consider other festivals. But what's I think amazing about these festivals is you meet people who just know, they understand. Hopefully they love this film and hopefully they understand it's going to be funny more than it's going to be scary. Being the Woodstock of gore, we don't have a ton of gore in ours, which is fine, but we've got a ton of laughs and a little bit of alien gore. So I hope they really enjoy it. We're excited to show it to them.”
“We had someone say at our last film festival that our movie was like a palate cleanser, a breath of fresh air,” says Renny. “So people, we're excited to provide that.”
