Alix Turner
Dark humour often works well in combination with horror and Eric Pennycoff brings exactly that in his new film, The Leech, about a priest who welcomes an apparently homeless person into his home and then comes to regret it. Eric shared some of his time and insights with me earlier this week, talking about this film and his career in general.
So far, Eric has written and directed both of his films (the earlier one being Sadistic Intentions); I asked him whether he might be prepared to let someone else direct a film he’s written, or whether he would consider directing someone else’s script? “I would, yeah,” Eric said. “I’m kind of in that position where no-one’s sending my any scripts to direct, and no-one’s calling me up and asking me to write anything for them to direct; so in the meantime, I’m making my own stuff, writing, directing and producing, which a lot of independent filmmakers do. It’s something I’ll probably always do, but I’m open to anything like that.”
I know Jeremy Gardner (who plays Terry, the unwanted guest, in The Leech) has directed as well, so I wondered if collaboration might be possible there. “I’d imagine he’s in the same boat,” said Eric. “He likes to write and direct his own stuff and I know if someone were to collaborate or reach out, I’m sure he’d be interested.”
This wasn’t the first time Gardner has featured in one of Eric’s films, and I asked what prompted him you to work with Jeremy Gardner and Taylor Zaudtke (who plays Terry’s partner, Lexi) a second time? “I love the two of them deeply,” said Eric, “both as actors and as people, and I tend to work with a lot of the same people (in front of the camera and behind) who are friends. I knew them before we made Sadistic Intentions and became friends on that film; then when it came time to do The Leech, I wanted to do something a little bit different, and I didn’t want to cast them in the same roles they’d played before (and I knew I had this role for Graham Skipper). And it was kind of written for them, in that it was written during the first part of COVID so working with people who knew each other and were comfortable around each other. But really they’re just wonderful people and I love working with them.”
Eric had mentioned Graham Skipper (who played Father David in The Leech), and I’d seen him in a number of films before, but this part had quite a striking range to it. I asked whether Father David was written for him. “I think I did write it for him,” said Eric, “well as soon as I realised what the film was going to be like, and how we could make it with a small cast and a minimal crew, he came to mind. I’d wanted to work with him for a while, having worked with Graham for some years, and I think it was exciting to have a role like this that I’d not seen him play before. I’ve not seen everything he’s played but I knew that this would be outside of his wheelhouse but something he could surely do, because he had a rich story background, and classically trained.”
I wondered whether The Leech had always been intended as a Christmas story. “I think it was, yes,” said Eric, “especially when I realised when we were going to make it and how cold and snowy it was potentially going to be. It quickly came about that if I have a story about someone helping a couple of struggling individuals off the street, then what better time to do it than a time of the year that is already a struggle for people.”
Considering how this decision came back to bite poor Father David, I was almost reluctant to ask, but did anyway: what inspired the story of The Leech? “Certainly the specific Catholic angle comes from myself being raised Catholic,” said Eric. “I went to Catholic school for 16 years, between grade school, high school, and some college. The story itself kind of evolved from something I’d been thinking about which is this classic screen-writing rule that producers told me for years when I was writing things that were not so straightforward: ‘you’ve got to read this book, called Save the Cat’. In that, the lead character does something humble or nice that makes you appreciate the protagonist, and kind of in my classic fashion I said to myself what if we save the cat, so to speak, but then the cat is feral and doesn’t leave the house, which make things escalate from there. Ultimately, he does do something generous in the beginning, but those actions become much more complicated and muddied after that.
“Also, a big part of the story came from when I was writing it: I was living in Los Angeles at the time, COVID came, I lost my job, felt very uncertain. I went down this rabbit hole of California squatters’ rights and thought about if I really couldn’t pay my rent, could I get kicked out, would I have to move back home; what would it all look like? There are some rights, at least in California, that you do have as someone who can’t afford to pay. That quickly turned into a story about someone not wanting to leave your house, which opened up a whole series of experiences I’ve had, either with friends or people I’ve heard about who outstayed their welcome. I think that’s something many people have experienced, maybe a cousin staying on the couch for a couple of weeks too long. So it started to lean towards the ‘unwanted house guest’ subgenre.
“The repressed character (Father David in this case) is a really interesting type too, with a mother or other parental figure that is the source of oppression for them. I think with Catholic priests, which is one of the only religious denominations that requires a priest to be celibate and not in a marriage or relationship; that can lead to a lot of repression too. So the mother angle, without giving you too much, can tell you a bit about where this guy came from; there’s enough there that it can trigger a response in people, plenty to make you wonder what might have been the initial breaking point for this guy.”
The Leech isn’t for everyone, of course (though Sean enjoyed it at Chattanooga Film Festival). I asked Eric if he had expected it to divide the audience. “I think when you’re making a movie you think about the audience on one hand, but mostly you’re thinking about getting through the day,” answered Eric. “You’re often shooting 12-or 13-hour days, there’s a blizzard going on and you just want to get through. But when you talk about the divisive nature of it, I think I knew during the writing phase that the movie would be taken one of two ways by people: they’d think either that this guy is just batsh*t crazy out of his mind, imagining the whole thing; or that these two people that he helped off the street are pulling one over on him, out to get him from the start, that what’s happening is very literal. I think it’s interesting that most people do see it as a man that’s lost his faith and is losing his mind. I have a friend, an older gentleman, who had a guest house that he rented out in California; and he had a bad experience with someone who took advantage of him and his place, trashing his home. He watched it with preconceived notions and that bad experience: he took the film completely on face value, believing that pair were completely out to get him from the start, setting everything up, and that what happened from there on was part of their plan. So it’s interesting to see how people take it, maybe based on personal experiences.”
There’s also a fine line between black humour, which can be tough to watch for many people, and simply hilarious for others. Having just watched Sadistic Intentions the night before, I wondered whether Eric considered both films to be horror stories. “I do,” Eric answered definitively. “With this movie, even more, actually, than Sadistic Intentions. Black Christmas is one of my favourite movies period, not just one of my favourite horror movies; and I believe that it is also the perfect horror/comedy movie. I’m always interested in talking about this concept because I believe there are horror comedies like Evil Dead II or Tucker and Dale vs Evil where the comedy is very much the horror; someone gets accidentally put into a wood chipper and there’s blood splatter and everyone’s laughing. Then you get a movie like Black Christmas, where there’s nothing funny about the kills, but every time one happens, it’s punctuated by something funny that’s unrelated to the kills; and you have the cops in the police station, completely clueless: genuine ’70s cop comedy in there. When I look at Black Christmas with my taste, it’s a horror comedy, which is what I was trying to do with The Leech. With Sadistic Intentions, though, I was trying more for a horror romance; where the horror was horrifying, and the romantic parts between Jeremy and Taylor were about these two people getting to know each other. Black Christmas was possibly an inspiration for both films, in the way it divides two tones like that.” Christmas films are ripe for a contrast in tone, and I love Christmas horrors particularly.
Having talked about the mood of the film, I asked next whether Eric had a particular message for his audience; maybe about trust or faith. “I don’t know, that’s tough,” Eric said. “When I write, I don’t necessarily have a theme or a message in mind; just the bare bones of a theme in the back of my head at most. That was about Catholic guilt, and how religion can drive a person to act outside their best interests. When I write, I try to give the facts of what happen almost like documentaries: I start with one scene, get to the next, and when we look at the whole arc, it might seem a bit ‘out there’, but I’m just trying to figure out what the next logical step for a character would be. After all, he’s grounded in his beliefs and he’s being put through a test of faith. I remember one documentary I saw called The Overnighters that Drafthouse films put out in 2014, kind of a crazy documentary that I don’t want to spoil, but it’s about a pastor and his family who helped out struggling people in Arkansas. Pretty much these displaced people keep showing up looking for work, and this pastor comes out and doesn’t want to turn them away, so they live in his house and his kids and his wife have to deal with this. It’s heartbreaking, but it takes a turn in the movie that completely took me by storm and I thought about how naturally it got there: I think that was because it was a documentary, but with The Leech, we know it’s going to fantastic places, but it has a realistic approach to getting there, not take too many liberties along the way.” The characters certainly were believable, and the writing worked for them.
Coming towards the close of our conversation, I asked Eric if he has something new to work on. “I have to figure that out next,” he said. “I’m really excited to get over to London in a couple of weeks, though; most importantly, see it with an audience, because so far, we’ve only played it in a couple of virtual festivals. There are a few physical festivals coming up, and hopefully, there’ll be more; I’d love to experience it with an audience.”
Eric Pennycoff’s The Leech will be playing Arrow Video FrightFest for its first screening outside of the USA on 27 August.
