Alix Turner
A striking slow-burn film that combines natural horror with domestic drama, The Nest uses some familiar tropes to raise contemporary themes within a chilling atmosphere. I was privileged to spend a little time talking about the film with writer Jennifer Trudrung and director James Suttles recently.
I started by asking Jennifer what it had been like moving from writing short films to this fairly long feature. “It was quite daunting,” she said. “The Nest was actually the first feature film I’d written. I had submitted it to some screenplay competitions, got some good feedback, and took a writing class. Then James approached me and asked if I had any feature screenplays. At that point, I’d written two, so I gave him both to read; this one—called The Bewailing, at that time—clicked with him. Then it became sort of a six-month process of revising the film to lock it down for production: it was such a great learning curve process for me, for sure.”
My son gate-crashed at that point and asked why The Nest was set at Christmas. “I absolutely loved the idea of juxtaposing the season of Christmas with what is going on with the family,” answered James. “That’s really what it comes down to. It’s a setting which feels like the opposite of what it should be.” My boy had been used to Christmas-set films being released in the winter. “We are hoping that it will do well again around Christmastime,” added Jennifer. “Maybe it will become a thing for people to watch then, like Black Christmas and other Christmas horror films.”
My turn again. Jennifer had mostly focused on the horror genre in her writing to date, whereas the films James has directed have covered a range of genres. I asked him what it was that drew him to The Nest. “My career is one that’s been pretty diverse. I’ve done everything from faith-based films to sports films, and then in the past four or five years, I’ve been attracted to doing horror, thriller genre films. Partly because of the business—it’s a great genre to be in to get the distribution—but also because it’s a great world to be in and play with: the rules are a bit looser, and you have more creative freedom. That’s it really: the business and the fun!”
The two hadn’t worked together until this film, but interestingly Jennifer had a little history with one of the cast: Kevin Patrick Murphy, who plays Jack, the father in The Nest, had been Jennifer’s acting coach for several years. He then came on board as director of her short film The Ebbing (screened at a previous Grimmfest event). “It was really cool reading with him when he was auditioning,” Jennifer said.
I thought I had noticed someone in the cast connected to James, too, and checked with him: was that his daughter I saw there on the screen? “Yes it was!” he replied with obvious pride. “Maple is my youngest daughter, and it was a bit of a process to cast her, actually one of the more difficult decisions: I was worried about casting my own child and about how that might be viewed. But I took a gamble. I thought she was the right choice, having considered a couple of different girls, and she was always the one I thought was the most honest in the auditions. And in the end, I’m super-proud of what she did, both as a father, but also as a filmmaker. She’s been around sets her whole life, with little bit parts here and there for fun. She’d never shown any interest in acting—was only eight when we shot the film—but I’ve been watching and saw that she was intrigued. So one day I was like ‘why don’t you try a scene?’ And she took it seriously, memorised it in ten minutes, and we were up and running. I could tell she’d be committed to making it work.”
In other interviews about films with child actors, I’d asked daft questions like “which was harder to direct, the child or the special effects?” but I wasn’t going to give that to James, as it was his own kid. James laughed about that and added, “It’s all part of the same puzzle, really. You know, whether or not it was my kid, the performances came down to those three family members jiving together. I think a lot of it is owed to Sarah [Sarah Navratil, who played Beth, the mother to Meg] because she took Maple by the hand and created the mother-daughter bond with her.” The family unit certainly gelled in my opinion: the casting worked in that respect.
I think James did a beautiful job of showing how Beth is a bright, nuanced woman with all those different pressures being put on her; and with so much love, especially for Meg. And how much is she willing to give for her family?
Talking about Sarah, I raised something about her character Beth: I was intrigued about her past, which was hinted at but left ambiguous. There were several references to some kind of recovery and the impact it had had on the family, but recovery from what—addiction, depression, trauma? Jennifer responded, “We came up with a back story of drug addiction, and that she lost her job and carried some guilt because of losing it. Also, it’s very subtle, but there’s a moment of inaction when they discover Meg choking on the ground: Beth hesitates to run down, and there’s clearly a lot of guilt, fear and not knowing how to do the right thing. In the original screenplay, she had childhood trauma, so that was kind of mixed up into the back story too.”
James expanded on this: “We kind of kept it all. Looking at the genesis of what you originally had, we added the addiction. But for me, it was about the way the dissolution of a family doesn’t just happen overnight, so there had to be some seeds planted earlier in the relationship and the family structure. So when the ‘bug creatures’ came in and started influencing things, it wasn’t just out of leftfield: there had to be some semblance of struggle beforehand.”
I had seen something from a different angle: because there was already some fracture in the family, they were essentially open to influence when the insects arrived.
As for the insects themselves, I really liked the way their source was left unexplained. Some other sci-fi horror films might add a pre-credits scene of them arriving on a meteor or something, but The Nest didn’t stoop to that. I was happy with the ambiguity, but I’m aware that some other filmmakers pride themselves on having everything worked out amongst themselves, so I asked whether James and Jennifer knew where the insects came from. Jennifer answered first: “I feel it is open-ended. There are so many aspects of our natural world that are undiscovered, especially insects and the fungus world. So I just envisaged them as another creature that lives among us that are perhaps climbing up the food chain: not alien or anything, just a natural evolution of the species.”
James confirmed this: “Yeah, a hundred percent. I think at one point we had a conversation about this, and it was exactly how I saw it too. You’re right that there’s still so much that’s undiscovered, and that kind of opens up all the possibilities. It’s kind of clichéd by now that a meteor lands with something on it, right? We’ve not really explored the deep ocean, but there’s also the insect world, the fungus, and all sorts of things we find in the rainforests and everywhere.” Natural horror was a popular (if cheesy) subgenre in the seventies and eighties, and it’s interesting to see that the modern take on such a theme is so much more serious.
When I first saw the insects in The Nest, I was reminded of the Amazon TV show Braindead, and I asked Jennifer what had inspired or influenced her story. “For me, it was more about what was influencing or infecting the bear and the girl, and about the mother trying to figure out if it was in her head, if it was real or psychological. I have this horrid fear of ticks (especially here, because of Lyme disease) and spiders (but I won’t kill spiders), and so I had in my mind this hybrid of a tick and a spider, a parasite. That became the idea of what was infecting the family, and creating new versions of themselves.” So the story came Jennifer’s own fears, rather than film influences as such? “Well yes, but of course as a horror fan and reader I’m influenced by so much: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Babadook, Hereditary. These all shared the idea of trying to trust yourself as a parent and trust what’s going on around you. I guess I’ve had a lot of influences.”
At the risk of slipping into spoiler territory (and prodded again by my sci-fi loving son), I had to ask about the scene where the insects finally established their queen in her nest: where did that striking look come from? “In every one of these interviews we’ve done,” said James, “we’ve had to bring up John Lauterbach’s name. He did our special effects, and he’s worked with us on four films I’ve made, as well as working together in other capacities. He is the guy that I always lean on to create any look. ‘Honeycomb’ was the description Jennifer had used early on, so it was pulled out from that, and also some of the research we had done on vinegarone scorpions. Once we had settled on vinegarone scorpions as the model of the bug we were going to use in the film, there is some really interesting imagery you can find online with the egg sacs they carry on them. So it was very much a collaborative effort between what Jennifer had thought of when she was writing and then the research we had done with the animal world, all given to John, who did a fantastic job on the practical make-up. We did just a little bit of visual effects work, just to make it a little bit more icky, when you see the boils moving and all that.”
In a very affectionate way, I laughed. “Oh very much so,” agreed James. “That’s what I love about the ending: it’s a very sweet and tender moment, very disgusting.”
Moving the focus back to a more serious topic, I mentioned that I watched with real discomfort the way she was put down and controlled by those close to her. It made sense as the story developed, but I wanted to know what Jennifer had in mind in this aspect of her writing: was she making a comment about gaslighting, about the female position in the home or maybe something else I’d not considered? “No, you’ve really hit it on the head actually,” said Jennifer. “When I was writing it, it was definitely about the gaslighting and the way people manipulate and can treat each other—also the social pressures on parents, especially the mother figure: you’re doing it wrong if you go to work, and you’re doing it wrong if you stay home. I think James did a beautiful job of showing how Beth is a bright, nuanced woman with all those different pressures being put on her; and with so much love, especially for Meg. And how much is she willing to give for her family?”
James came in here: “I didn’t consciously attach this to it, but there’s something I’ve experienced with my wife: we have four kids, and she made a decision to stay home, and has mentioned it as a struggle when we talk about this. She gets judged for staying at home, as if she’s not doing the right thing, and judged for not working: it’s a social pressure she’s brought up many times over the years. I think because it was such a part of my personal life, I brought it in to the film subconsciously too.”
Jennifer added, “When you have a child who is struggling, especially at school, there is that pressure, too: you don’t want to have the kid that you have to talk to the counsellor about or get another call from the teacher. There’s such an idea of perfection, not only in how we present ourselves, but for kids, fitting in like squares into round holes. They’re all supposed to be and act a certain way, and there’s some of that in the film, too.”
“That’s really interesting,” agreed James. “Part of what I see as true in this film is about the parent who is advocate for the child: you’re looked down upon if you become too much of an advocate in the school, but as a parent, you’re supposed to ‘deadvocate’. There’s a hypocrisy in society about parenthood, and in some ways this movie sums that up.”
Isn’t all that so much simpler amongst insects! “Exactly,” agreed James. “All they need to do is eat, breed and move on: simple.”
It timed out perfect. We’re releasing the film in the UK, and then in America on July 20th, so this [Grimmfest premiere] at the end of May is good timing. Hopefully, if the audience likes it at Grimmfest, the awareness will reach the American market.
So ready to lighten the conversation again, I asked what on Earth have you got against teddy bears, and Jennifer cracked up a little. James helped her out: “This came up the other day, actually. When we were in the middle of editing, my sister-in-law was in town with my five-year-old nephew. My kids have grown up around this stuff, and I can show them anything; I didn’t remember that he didn’t realise it’s not make-believe. We were sitting on the couch with this teddy bear, and I thought I’d show him what Maple had been doing…he screamed, threw the bear across the room and ran out. And I realised at that moment I need to remember not every kid knows about make-believe. I was afraid I’d ruined his teddy bear for life.”
“That’s so bad,” said Jennifer, shaking her head. “I had a stuffed animal all through my childhood, took him to college, with me into my marriage, and he finally got off the bed. I gave him to my daughter, and she has slept with him all through her life so far, and I imagine he’ll go to college with her. To me, it was something so comforting that you’re attached to, and in the film it turns into something horrible: that’s where the horror component came in for me.”
I couldn’t help but recommend the British horror-comedy Benny Loves You to the pair at this point. In that film, the central character decides to throw away his childhood bear, but the bear does not want to be separated from him. It might make a great double bill with The Nest, in utter contrast.
We’d talked a little about the main cast who played the family characters, but in addition, The Nest was also blessed with the legendary Dee Wallace as their long-time friend. I asked how that casting came about. “One of the things with low budget films,” said James “is packaging it right, getting people to talk about it. That often starts with a list of people we might want to talk to about being in it, and Dee’s name came up with the casting director. I texted Jennifer and asked what she thought. And you know, there is a throwback eighties vibe here and there in the film, which her presence really added to. A lot of the films I love are from that period, and a lot of the films I love from that period feature Dee. So it really was one of those ‘stars aligned’ things: someone we knew who to talk to. And there was something she said in one of those Q&As we did recently: she said it wasn’t a mother’s role, and so that piqued her interest. She read the script, loved it, and then she was here with us three weeks later.”
It’s always good seeing someone familiar playing a different kind of role. I’d never seen Dee Wallace playing anything as sinister as her part in The Nest. “Powerhouse moments, for sure,” said Jennifer with a shiver.
“Oh and the twitch in her eye”, added James. “She’s yelling at Beth, there’s a twitch, then she takes a step back, and she’s a different personality, just like that. Just brilliant.” Dee must be a terrific model for James’ daughter Maple to be around, too.
And now, the world premiere is coming up, at Grimmfest’s May Madness event. “Exciting!” said Jennifer with a bashful smile.
“It timed out perfect,” said James. “We’re releasing the film in the UK, and then in America on July 20th, so this being at the end of May is good timing. Hopefully, if the audience likes it at Grimmfest, the awareness will reach the American market.”
“And I love Grimmfest,” added Jennifer. “I’ve had some short films screened at Grimmfest, and they’re so supportive, got so many great films out there, and they’re just good people.”
It’s almost a cliché by now, but I couldn’t interview filmmakers in 2021 without asking: what’s it been like releasing a film in pandemic conditions? “We wrapped production about a week and a half or two weeks prior to the shutdown here,” said James. “We were going right into editorial and when everything happened. We had to put a pause on things for about five weeks. In a weird way, it kind of allowed us to focus more on it: there wasn’t so much client work to do. It’s been an interesting journey. Here we are, in an isolated state doing post-production on a film about isolation. In a way it’s been very timely, but it was never intended that way. It was a very appropriate way to complete the film.”
So what’s next? Jennifer answered first: “I have an animated short horror film that should be done soon; I didn’t animate it, I have some incredible animators working on it. So I’ll be submitting that to some festivals. I’ve just been writing screenplays and scripts, keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll have some more turned into feature films. And I do have a bit role in Halloween Kills that’s coming out in October, so as an actor, that’s exciting.”
“I have another film that I have in post-production, called Seven Days ‘Til Midnight,” said James. “We shot it before The Nest, but it took us longer to finish. So we’re in the process of doing some festival rounds with that, seeing what we can do with it. Aside from that, on the creative front, I’m trying to figure it out: I’m on the lookout for the next movie. That’s the thing with The Nest. When Jennifer gave me the script, the prior two films I’d done were very product-oriented; they were entertainment we were creating as products. The Nest is something that came out of nowhere for me and became much more than that, and I’m particularly proud of it. I’m hoping to find another one like that, but haven’t found it yet, so I’m kind of sitting around, waiting to read something.”
Watch this space…and in the meantime, watch out for The Nest.
The Nest premieres at Grimmfest and will be available everywhere July 20th.
