Darren Lynn Bousman on TWISTED, Lauren LaVera, and Going Off the Rails
- creepykingdom
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
By Shannon McGrew
In Darren Lynn Bousman’s latest horror film, TWISTED, a con artist’s (Lauren LaVera) real estate scam unravels into a nightmare when she’s captured by a surgeon (Djimon Hounsou) with a terrifying plan.
For the release of TWISTED, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with director Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II - IV). During their chat, they discussed everything from…
When you first heard about this project, at what point did you realize it was going to be a Darren movie, not something you could just hand off to someone else?
Darren Lynn Bousman: When I realized that I could make it a little off-center. What I mean by that is that maybe people watching it casually might not notice, but I got to do some really pretentious shit in there that makes me happy. From the aspect ratio continually changing to the lens changing with every act, we started getting weirder with the lenses until the very end, where it actually falls off the rails and becomes hyper-color pinks and reds, with hyper-neon colors, while doing some of those stylistic things I love.
A lot of times, I don’t get that opportunity, like on a movie like Spiral, I can’t do that. With this, they let me do it, and that’s why I was like, okay, I know if they let me off my leash a little bit, I can do some cool shit. I also loved that the script had this genre flip. It started off as this kind of queer heist, and then it became something else, and it happened so gradually and subtly that I didn’t realize when it was happening. I thought that was cool for the audience. Nothing happens in the movie for the first 25 minutes; there’s no killing, no death, no violence, and then it just happens and goes off the rails.
Going back to the visuals, you have no problem crafting unique and striking looks. We see them in all the movies that you do. How early did the visual language of TWISTED start to take shape for you?
Darren Lynn Bousman: I had the DP, Bella Gonzales, come in. She is young, scrappy, and punk rock, and, to me, I respond so much better to that. Since she was much younger than I, she made me think outside the box. The DP is the most important aspect or tool I have as a filmmaker, and I think that her pushing me outside my comfort zone challenged me to use a set of lenses no movie had ever been shot on. It was supposed to be used for music videos because it is such a weird lens that distorts everything. The distortion is inconsistent, which means that when you want a lens, you want it to be crystal clear and perfect. This is not that. This is the opposite of that. You never know what you’re going to get, what it’s going to blur out, so I was committed to these things very early on, knowing I couldn’t go back and change them. That was right when I brought her on, and the movie took on a much more insane life.
You brought on a powerhouse of a cast. What was the process like, and what were you looking for beyond just the obvious talent?
Darren Lynn Bousman: For me, I think Lauren LaVera was huge because I wanted someone that I knew could anchor the movie. The premise itself is ridiculous, but so was Terrifier. When you look at Terrifier, she anchored that movie. It made me care for her as a character, and she was the emotional anchor. With this, I needed to know that my absurd premise of a brain transplant would work. To make it work, you needed two amazing actors, and Djimon and her made it real; it could have been completely comical if not done correctly.
With casting Lauren, were you excited to play with the audience’s expectations, knowing people associate her with Terrifier?
Darren Lynn Bousman: The best compliment that I’ve gotten so far from three reviews that I’ve seen is that they’ve all said this is Lauren’s best work. I agree because I think that Terrifier, and by the way, I’m a huge fan of Damien and Terrifier, but it is as much about the violence and the clown as it is about what she’s doing. I think in this, it’s more about her than anything else. It’s more about her than the brains, cutting, or killing. She had a lot riding on her shoulders; she had to carry this film and make us care.
What does TWISTED represent for you in your career right now? What do you hope people take away from the film?
Darren Lynn Bousman: I think I’m very lucky that somehow at 46 I’m still making movies. I’m 18, maybe 19, movies in, and somehow I keep getting people to give me money to do shit. I’m like a cockroach, you just can’t kill me [Laughs]. I think that with every movie I’ve grown a little bit. That’s not to say that my movies necessarily always get better, but as a filmmaker, I have matured and grown; there’s restraint in this movie that maybe I’ve not done before in other films. Yes, it’s violent, it’s got killing, it’s got death, it’s got throat slashes, but I think it’s as much about the performance and the actors than it is about any of the nonsense I’m doing. That is something that I’m really proud of in this film.
I also like that both characters are somewhat unlikable, and in a way, you, as an audience member, are presented with no clear-cut antagonist or protagonist. They’re both different. They’re both shades of gray, depending on how you view Paloma in each scene. She’s either the good guy or the bad guy. Same with Djimon. He’s either the good guy or the bad guy, depending on the scene. That flip-flopping, that moral ambiguity, is something that I really like in films.
TWISTED is now available on Digital.
