Brent, a 17 year old student, still grieving for his father, declines an invitation to the school formal from Lola, the quietest girl in school. When Lola and her father kidnap Brent he must fight to survive the macabre celebration they have in store for him.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: Where did you come up with the idea for LOVED ONES?

SEAN BYRNE: I was searching for a low budget horror idea and woke up one morning thinking what if I fused Carrie and Evil Dead, bringing the Prom to the cabin and making its very traditions – the decorations, the dress up, the dancing and, of course, the crowning of the King and Queen – the instruments of torture. I got this image of a bloodied teenager in a tuxedo tied to a chair in the middle of a balloon littered floor. So then I started asking, who is this kid, why is he here and how’s he going to get out?

BD: What classic horror films inspired you and the movie?

SB: My filmic influences were a real mash up. Structurally the film is closest to Misery but tonally there are shades of Carrie, Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dazed and Confused, Footloose, The Terminator, Tarantino, Lynch and even Walt Disney. Audiences may recognize some of the influences but hopefully the film, as a whole, will be a fresh experience.

BD: While many of the themes have been done before, how were you able to make them feel fresh?

SB: You’re right, teenage obsession, the need for acceptance, dealing with grief, facing your demons and finding redemption aren’t new themes but I tried to present them in a new way.

While aesthetically most horror movies are as bleak as the situation the characters find themselves in we went the opposite route, going for pop or glam-horror. Hot pink replaces deep red as our signature horror color. Visually we give the world and the characters the spark of life so it hurts more when we strip it away from them.

We also care about the characters, which isn’t always the case in the horror genre. I didn’t want to make a nihilistic movie for the sake of it. I had a saying, which was repeated like a mantra through the production: “If you don’t care then you don’t scare”. I tried to make each character three dimensional, including the ‘monsters’ so the audience could relate in some way, which hopefully brings the heartbreak, the horror and the heroism closer to home. The themes may be familiar but if you’re genuinely invested then everything old is new again.

Adolescence is a confronting time but I didn’t want to lay the teen metaphors on too thick, preferring to present the scars between the lines rather than through exposition, which I think feels fresher than screaming themes in the audiences face. So often dialogue, editing style, grade, sound design and score are all saying the same thing at the same time and as an audience member I feel like yelling, “I get it!” But strip these elements away at the right moments and the themes suddenly have the freedom to stand honestly on their own two feet rather than being shoved down your throat. I took the making of the movie seriously but it’s not a super serious movie. It can be hardcore but there’s license to have fun. There’s sardonic humor, which works as a pressure release, and a kinetic, action movie pace, which hopefully keeps things feeling fast and fresh as well.

BD: What really works about the film is that it continues to up the ante, can you talk a bit about topping yourself?

SB: For me it’s about leaving room in the tank for the third act. So many genre movies burst out of the blocks at a million miles an hour and leave themselves nowhere to go. You’re numbed by the halfway point. I’m a big fan of eighties action cinema and the classic pyramid build, which starts off with an inciting incident (how our hero got damaged and became a lone wolf) then builds in pace as the action scenes get closer and closer together. So it’s a pretty simple formula, not much different to making a good mix tape or presenting a fireworks display; you want to get the building blocks in the right order then end with a bang!

Now we didn’t have an abundance of resources so it wasn’t about bigger necessarily being better but rather about giving each horror moment it’s own shape and personality, be it informed by cruelty, absurdity, insanity or simple everyday complications like things not going to plan so having to try, try again. The audience get to go behind closed doors with the sociopaths and witness everything from the obviously demented to the honest everyday complications that come with torturing and sometimes, because of the twisted context, the everyday things can seem even more outrageous than the signature demented moments, if that makes any sense!

Just like with anything in life one has to learn how to become good at torturing. We wholeheartedly embrace this learning curve and the most original and fucked up moments come from a father teaching his daughter to torture in a manner that’s no different to teaching her how to change a tire.

There are so many types of horror from quietly demented psychological horror to loudly getting in the audiences face, and we tried to use both extremes and everything in between.

In most horror hurting is nasty and efficient. In The Loved Ones hurting is messy and at times comically real.

BD: Was there a debate ever over the amount of blood in the film?

SB: No. And there’s not actually that much blood. Most of it is implied and much of the work is done off screen like the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. Our imagination is always more colorful than the reality and people think there’s more blood in The Loved Ones than there actually is. That said, the movie really goes for the jugular and that was never in question.

BD: What about the title? It’s a great title, but I can see it being something debated on…

SB: There was debate but the movie plays better as a slide into Lynchian madness and to slap an overtly horror label on it would have taken the initial everyday quality away and signaled to our audience exactly where we were going, which would ruin the surprise. Also the title is a part of the fabric of the storytelling. It’s tied into the themes and the eventual twist. Tonally it fits. Does it instantly brand the film within the genre? No. But neither does a title like Seven, which could be about a 7-y.o. kid. But add trailer, poster, classification and other marketing and things become clear pretty quickly. Plus it’s a point of difference, which will hopefully help it stand out from the thousands of overtly horror titles out there.

BD: How did you get the film off the ground? How was it working with Arclight?

SB: For the most part Australian films rely heavily on government funding so after writing the screenplay and getting an experienced producer on board the project was submitted to Screen Australia, along with my showreel of shorts and TVC’s, a Director’s Statement and a mood-reel. After a subsequent interview Screen Australia were convinced enough to give us a Letter of Intent, which basically means they’ll provide a major percentage of the financing provided the rest of the budget is in place by a certain date. So then it was about finding other investors in a hurry and soon Omnilab Media Group came on board as production company, Madman Entertainment as local distributor, Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund put in money on the proviso the film premiere at MIFF, Film Victoria also came to the party and then Darclight Films became our Sales Agent.

As for working with Arclight, well, they sold Wolf Creek, which reignited the local focus on genre so I was excited to be in the trenches with them and so far so good.

BD: Did you find any inspiration from previous Australian filmmakers?

SB: Though it’s tonally different from The Loved Ones, Wolf Creek breathed new life into Australian genre and illustrated that inventive, well-made local horror can have an international life, which was definitely inspirational.

George Miller’s Mad Max has a dangerous, visceral quality on a slender budget that I really admired and borrowed from.

BD: Your casting is superior to most low budget horror films, how did you assemble such a great cast?

SB: I’d seen Xavier Samuel who plays our damaged hero Brent in an Australian coming of age film called September and recognized he had a great internal quality to go with his leading man looks. Given he’s trapped in a chair for a large part of the movie with his voice taken from him this quality was essential in creating a believable character arc. He goes from shocked, scared and disorientated to courageously defiant to completely broken to then somehow crossing over to that other side where the primal animal takes over. All this almost without a word, which is incredibly challenging and is a testament to his skills as an actor.

Robin McLeavy is a highly respected theatre actor in Australia and brought another dimension to Princess as soon as she walked into the audition room. She walks a tightrope of loneliness, brattiness, sexiness and madness while still staying true to our fun, retro, rollercoaster vibe and after seeing her work I’m convinced she could play anything.

Princess is all shiny-pink-fractured-charisma so I knew Daddy needed to be quietly demented to keep the father/daughter torture team in balance and John Brumpton is a seasoned character actor who had the confidence and the ability to not do too much, which is much harder than it sounds. He knew how to honestly get inside the skin of such a disturbing character and be intimidating while barely saying a word. Princess wears her wounded adolescent heart on her sleeve but with Daddy we’re never sure what’s going on in his head, which in a way is more unnerving.

Victoria Thaine who plays Holly is such a grounded, soulful actor and owned the part from the moment she auditioned, Richard Wilson who plays Jamie, Brent’s best friend, brought a gentleness and genuine kindness to his character that elevated it way beyond the goofy-buddy-caricature you so often see and Jessica McNamee who plays Mia, a hell raiser and the object of Jamie’s desires, captured that fucking-cool-bird-with-a-broken-wing quality I was looking for.

Then there’s Andrew Gilbert, another great Australian character actor, secure enough in his abilities to play a man and a father first and foremost rather than relying on well-worn ‘cop’ tropes.

I knew what I was looking for but then these actors came into the audition and gave me that and much more so in a way the cast assembled itself.

BD: Can you talk about the contrast between the two friends – one having the worst night of his life, the other his best? How did you develop these two characters so well?

SB: The movie could be re-titled Parallel Proms! Much like Misery, which contains the horror within a claustrophobic setting, I knew there would be times we’d need to cut away so the audience can take a breath and dry their sweaty palms before catapulting them back into the mouth of madness.

The prom is such a rite-of-passage and I thought if we could open things up and keep the actual prom, which represents the type of night our hero should be having, that’ll serve as a poignant contrast to the night from hell he’s actually having.

But that’s easier said than done on a low budget so I started thinking of some of the best nights I’d had and it struck me how often the party in the car before the main event ended up being the highlight of the night.

We do make it into the prom for one awkwardly funny scene but for the most part we’re in the car park swigging spirits, sharing doobies and listening to music with the best friend and the object of his desire, who is on a path to destruction (for reasons that become clear later and link the A and B stories together) and wants to fuck away the pain. This probably sounds terrible but our guy is in the right place at the right time.

It’s morally dicey territory so I knew the best friend couldn’t be an asshole. To the contrary he had to be sweet and genuinely decent, the happy-go-lucky Sam to Brent’s introspective Frodo. We’ve all met this guy at some point – can’t stop thinking about sex but doesn’t get any because when it comes down to it he’s the sweetest guy in the world and always ends up being ‘the friend’. Well on this occasion he does get the girl but not because he takes advantage but because he’s the one who’s taken advantage of. I guess it’s kind of a male fantasy and I knew we had to love the guy because he’s acting on behalf of all us males in the audience who dream of being with a girl as hot as Mia but would never have the balls to ask her out!

As for the dynamic between Brent and his best friend, they actually only share one scene so it was crucial the two actors share a believable chemistry. Our hero is damaged after the recent loss of a family member, which he feels responsible for, so I figured his best friend would be someone who doesn’t run away from loss, is courageous enough to remain himself and who has a natural lightness and humor, which helps stop the darkness from overtaking Brent and keeps the film in balance.

BD: What’s next? More horror? Can you give us any info?

SB: I’m reading a lot of material and writing a genre bending psychological horror.

BD: How did the TIFF screening go? Any word on a US distributor yet?

SB: The TIFF screenings couldn’t have gone any better. We received the Midnight Madness Cadillac Peoples Choice Award, which is a real honor coming from such a horror literate audience. As for a U.S. distributor, following Toronto there’s plenty of interest so now it’s about the right deal.