John Rosman’s New Life was the talk of Canada when it screened at Fantasia International Film Festival earlier this month. The next stop on the movie tour sees New Life receive its International Premiere at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest. A film made scary by its real-world parallels, New Life is one of those films that you should enter into as blind as possible. The investment pays off as Rosman executes an excellent bait and switch for the viewer. To keep a synopsis brief, New Life follows two women, Jess (Hayley Erin) and Elsa (Sonya Walger). Jess is on the run for unclear reasons, and Elsa is the one tasked to capture her.
New Life is the feature debut for writer and director John Rosman and demonstrates a lot of talent. Rosman’s ability to blindside the viewer is remarkable and the filmmaker is certain to turn some heads with this twisting narrative. Ahead of New Life’s screening at FrightFest, THN spoke with Rosman to talk around the film, rather than about it. The following interview is light on spoilers to prevent any impact on the enjoyment of first-time viewing. We spoke about the significance of Bob Dylan, why this story had to be told from a female perspective, and how The Strangers inspired aspects of the movie.
I feel that New Life is a very hard film to discuss without giving away its secrets, how would you describe it?
I would describe this film as…it’s kind of a woman on the run and it opens up. We don’t really know why she’s running, and then we meet the other woman who’s supposed to bring her in. At first their stories don’t seem that connected and then they start getting closer and closer until the midpoint of the film when it explodes open, into a horror movie.
The most chilling aspect for myself is the real-world parallels, especially given recent history. How much were you inspired by our own society?
I think so. There’s an element that is really timely, but I think what the last few years has taught all of us is that nothing’s a given anymore. Everything feels upside down all the time. Look at Hawaii right now. All these assumptions that we have built over time, are slowly crumbling in these weird ways. So how do you exist in this time? How do you present yourself? How do you come to terms with it? When you are dealt a really unfair bad hand? I think that is one of the central themes of this story, and that is very much inspired by being locked in my house and having the best possible scenario for Covid happen to me, which was just having to work from home. I think all of us during that time… it was just so shocking because none of us have lived through something like that. So I think that really did influence a lot of this project.
It’s very much a film of two halves that in a way reflect the inner workings of these two women. What prompted you to tell this story in two distinct parts?
Early on I really liked the idea of just following someone on the run, and you don’t know why they’re on the run. And then you as the viewer kind of forget, or don’t really care why they’re running after a while. But having that as the question at the back of your mind was always interesting to me. Once I had that idea and I’d cracked how I wanted it to be in a horror movie space, it felt natural to me to focus on the person who was bringing them in. A lot of the work in later drafts of the script was, how do we bring these two stories together? How do we make it feel like it could just be one story depending where you come in or leave.
And why did you decide to tell the story from the perspective of two women?
First I wanted the characters to be as similar as possible. I think that’s where a lot of the power comes in. I’ve heard early feedback that someone wasn’t sure if the first cuts were a flashback to someone who is now older, which I think is really fun. That was important to me, but the film opens up with a young woman covered in blood, scared, walking towards the camera. That’s it. And so, how is that image different if it’s a young man covered in blood, scared walking towards the camera. I think there’s just a millennia of art and culture about men covered in blood. In the past, of being warriors. It becomes, what did he do? Obviously, he murdered someone. I think it becomes more interesting. It also plays with that cliche in a fun way, where you aren’t sure; it isn’t as black and white. I think the assumptions you make can be subverted in interesting ways.
Boy Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ heavily features. What is the significance of that song?
We were just really lucky to get that song to be honest. There’s two elements of it. One is that we meet this character Elsa and we quickly learn that she’s like the best at what she does. It’s kind of a trope, right? The best, the warrior mentality. But she’s coming to terms with something bad. So who was this person before she took on this job? And I think music, there’s really great examples in film where a song can represent someone’s personality. Like in The Wrestler, how they use Sweet Child O’ Mine. So that’s the character aspect of it, and then thematically that song is so ingrained in the psyche you forget how magical that song is. Because it’s on one hand, you can paint or visualise a picture, a movie with the lyrics, it’s just very black and white.
But then the magic about Dylan is there’s something about it that you can never really touch or grasp about freedom, about reinvention, about discovering yourself. It’s all there on the page. Having that in the film with these characters, I think it resonates thematically and just to have Bob Dylan in my first movie just means the world. He’s one of my heroes, so I think that’s probably a selfish reason as well. I would be lying if I didn’t say when we got the rights to use that song I was skipping up and down my street like a crazy person. It was the magic of our Music Supervisor Sam Carlin. I still have no idea how he pulled it off. When he did pull it off, I said that “you will never have to buy another drink around me again for the rest of your life.”
With New Life slowly getting out into the world, have you given any thought to what you might like to make next?
I have a couple ideas. Me and one of the producers of the film, Justin [T. Justin Ross], have been knocking around an idea that I think is close to this. One of the aspects I really like that we have in this film is there are some moments that I think really work with tension. Sometimes the audience knows what’s on the other side of the door, but the character doesn’t, or the inverse of that. When everything sets up and you’re in that moment, it’s really good. I’m just talking thematically, a huge inspiration for a staircase scene in the film is the movie The Strangers. Bryan Bertino takes the most bare-bones, overused home invasion idea and I still don’t understand why that movie is so scary. That movie is legitimately unnerving and terrifying. I really think he in that film, has found a way to play with tension and such a cool way. So, the next project I do, I want to lean into that a lot because you can do so much.
New Life screens at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on Saturday 26th August 2023. Tickets for New Life can be purchased here.
