RKSS are the three-piece directing team behind both Turbo Kid and Summer of ‘84. After a couple of years away, the team are back with not one, but two new genre films, both of which are currently on the festival circuit. The first is We are Zombies, an adaptation of a comic-book that sees the ‘living challenged’ exist alongside the regular humans. We are Zombies is set to open this year’s Celluloid Screams on 19th October. The second, is Wake Up, a slasher that sees a group of activists hunted by an overly committed security guard after they break into an Ikea style homeware store. During Wake Up’s screening at Sitges, THN spoke with two of the three directors – François Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissell – about both projects, and just how far away we are from Turbo Kid 2.
Wake Up is part home invasion, part slasher, what did you like about the idea?
Yoann-Karl Whissell: It’s a script we received that as soon as we read it we felt very passionate about it. It just felt like we needed to be the people that made it. It has such a high concept for a slasher that we fell in love with the story. It has a nice important message hidden in it that we loved, and it’s just a good ride.
François Simard: We were so passionate about it. We always wanted to do a slasher, we’re huge horror fans, and that take was so refreshing. I like the fact that it turns cliches….
YKW:…they reverse a lot of the tropes of Slasher.
FS: I thought that the victims are actually the ones that are wearing masks and not the killer. The fact that the jock is not the leader and he’s rather a coward. They’re not just there to drink booze and get laid, they are actually on the mission.
I have spoken to plenty of directing duos, but how does a directing trio work?
YKW: We’ve been directing the three of us together for more than twenty years now and I think it’s second nature. We have the same brain, we have the same sensibilities, we have the same DNA. To be able to make a movie with your friends is much more fun than going at it alone. We see making a movie as a collaborative art anyway. It allows us to be faster. Especially when we’re making indie films. So being three directors and having a shared clear vision together and doing it for more than twenty years makes us way more efficient than if we were alone as a director. We can split up, we can cover more ground, and especially in indie horror… time is of the essence. It’s always challenging to make those shoots fit inside the small box that we get from the producer. I think three brains to resolve those issues is much better than having just one.
FS: For the price of one.
YKW: Exactly. It doesn’t cost more. And if one of us got kidnapped by ninjas, there’s still a movie being made, that’s still two directors. Then those two directors will go train and then there’s a montage and then they go save the other day.
I love the location of the film, it’s set in an Ikea type shop. How did you find your location? I’m guessing that you didn’t actually get to run amok in an Ikea store…
YKW: At first we were meant to film in a run down store that we would just dress up, but we couldn’t have the location, so we built it. We built the store, and it was a very, very small place. It was an old car dealership and we rebuilt it completely which is a challenge on the type of budget we have. It was not a big place but we needed to make it feel like it was a big place. We had to be very, very clever with the decor. We would stay during our lunch break and just move pieces of the furniture and just rearrange the set. So now it was a new place. We had to keep in our mind, “okay, this new place connects from that old place from this entry, and this goes over there.” We had to draw it down so that in our minds, the store would exist. It was a challenging puzzle.
A great aspect of Wake Up is that the viewer could make an argument for either side being the protagonist and antagonist. How important was this ambiguity for you?
YKW: It’s one of the things that also has attracted us to the script. Everything that happens in the movie wouldn’t have happened if everybody just sat down and talked to each other. This is a huge problem we have in our society now. We’re so divided and we’re going full speed into a wall. We should be a brotherhood and sisterhood. We should be together. We should be one, and all work for a common goal of having a better, cleaner world, and we’re not. We’re fighting each other over our own survival. It makes no sense. In the end, none of us will survive this.
FS: That’s one thing I liked from the script, we don’t really take sides so it’s just a tragedy. It fits with the current state of the world.
YKW: If we don’t, if we don’t start talking, we’re not going to make it. We’re really happy-go-lucky people, and all full of joy, but we are still angry about how we’re treating each other. We should love each other. It’s not that hard! More love, less Hate.
Each of the activists wear a different colour geometric animal mask. What’s the significance of their varying colourings, and what do the animals say about the characters?
YKW: Well for the obvious one, they are being hunted.
FS: Because they’re really cool. We wanted those masks to be original and iconic. I know at the early stage of development it was supposed to be Halloween masks, but we didn’t like it at all.
YKW: We pushed against that pretty hard. I think each animal represents a little bit of the personality of the person that’s wearing them, and that’s what we wanted to come forward. That was one of the more complicated processes.
FS: I think it’s more interesting that those kids have made their own mask, instead of just buying them.
You’re also touring with We Are Zombies, which opens Celluloid Screams, how does that compare to Wake Up?
FS: Very different.
YKW: Very different. It was a challenge, to make two films in one year was a challenge. Especially when you’re making a horror comedy and a more serious slasher film. We kept having to turn that switch on and off. Like now it’s comedy, now, we need to be scary now, it’s comedy. The post production of Zombies was the same type as the pre-production of Wake Up. It was a weird process for sure.
FS: I would say that We Are Zombies, if people know us, it’s going to be very on brand. It’s an RKSS movie for sure. We love funny, gory stuff, but we also don’t want to do the same thing over and over again. We don’t want to be labelled as, “oh yeah, those are the 80s guys.” We don’t want to be put in a box and only do that. So, we would like to explore. With Wake Up, we feel way more confident to do more serious stuff. So that’s a good thing.
YKW: We want to keep challenging ourselves, and do weird things. We don’t want to be pigeonholed, or put in a box. There are so many stories to tell and we want to tell all of them.
FS: All of them!
YKW: All of them! Give us all the stories!
You say you want to do different things, but, just looking at Turbo Kid and Summer of ‘84, they might both be set in or inspired by the Eighties, but they are very different films. Is it important that you keep coming back and reinventing yourselves?
YKW: Yes. It is the most important thing. lf one day we get lucky enough that we make eight films in our career and we have a box set, I want somebody that goes from the first film to the last film, that every film, felt like one of our films, but felt different at the same time, “oh that’s their take on the action movie, and that’s their take on the sci-fi movie, and that’s their take on a pure comedy”. As artists we want to test ourselves and push forward. and so far everybody loved our new experience.
FS: And does that mean that, you know, that this universe drives us to keep doing something different?
Does that mean that we’re not going to get a Turbo Kid 2?
YKW: I think that’s going to be the exception. Too many people ask us for Turbo Kid 2.
FS: We want to do it, it’s our baby. The script is there, we just need the blessing from our subsidies. So it’s not because we’re like, “no we’re we don’t want to do that,” we definitely want to revisit the Turbo Kid world, we just need the blessing from the people that have the money.
YKW: Pray to the movie Gods. Every indie movie is a bit of a miracle, especially now. It’s harder and harder to get them financed. So pray to the movie God’s. We’re very lucky, the people that like our films, really, really like them. And they have been so generous. It makes us want to make more, but also it makes us able to make more. If you support an artist they have more chances to make more of their movies. So we’re very, very grateful for the people that come and see our movies.
FS: We’re so grateful. We love the fans. We respect them and they deserve a Turbo Kid 2. We’re insanely lucky. In 2014 we all quit our jobs to do Turbo Kid, and so far, we haven’t had to go back.
YKW: So far so good!
A UK release has still to be announced. Read our Wake Up review here.
