By John Noonan
“I said to my wife, ‘What a way to publicly fail if I don’t make the $100,000!’ And she was like, ‘What a way to publicly succeed if you do!’”
That’s filmmaker, Kyle Rankin, talking about venturing into crowdfunding to finance his film, Night Of The Living Deb, which sees the titular Deb (Maria Thayer) wake up after a one night stand to find her hometown of Maine overrun with zombies. Talking to FilmInk from his home in LA, Rankin is candid about his reason for turning to crowdfunding to get his film made in the first place. “It was kind of a necessity,” he admits. “I wanted to get the budget together myself. I wanted to have creative control. I’ve been in the business long enough to get very sick of the business and the glacial pace at which it moves. You’re dealing with these low level execs, and they’re like, ‘We hate it!’ Or they say, ‘We kind of like it.’ Sometimes saying that they ‘kind of like it’ can hold up a project for years. So I was like, ‘I am making this movie.’’
And indeed he did. Whist the undead run free, Deb has to team up with her one-night lover, Ryan (Michael Cassidy), which might be easy if the alcohol hadn’t worn off, showing how incompatible the two really are. He hates her, she hates him: what’s going to happen? It’s the kind of thing that you can expect from romantic comedies such as Trainwreck or When Harry Met Sally. “I really like the [genre] blend,” Rankin admits. “Because when you think about someone jumping out and scaring the shit out of you, laughing and gasping are very similar. What makes us laugh is the unexpected, and what makes us frightened a lot of times is the unexpected as well.”
Whilst the temptation is usually to run with Ryan leading the way to freedom, the roles are more or less reversed, with the ditzy Deb taking charge. In world that saw the 80s classic, Ghostbusters, being rebooted and gender swapped, was it a conscious choice to choose a female lead? “It was a very conscious choice,” Rankin admits. “It interested me. I couldn’t do a zombie comedy with a goofy guy, because Shaun Of The Dead is awesome and it can’t be improved on. And people will still compare this to Shaun Of The Dead, which is wonderful. Because I mean, even to be mentioned in the same breath – even if people are saying, ‘This thing sucks! – is fine.”
Rankin has loved filmmaking since he was teenager, gathering his friends around to create short home videos. And whilst today he jokes that they’re “rubbish” and “derivative”, Rankin would later commit himself to his career path after dipping his toe in the business world. “My dad really wanted me to go to business school, which I tried for a year; it was just so boring to me,” Rankin laughs. “So I switched to the arts in college at my own peril, but I’m really glad that I did.”
It was Rankin’s early work that found him crossing paths with Ray Wise, the veteran actor who has appeared in everything from Twin Peaks to Robocop. Having appeared for free in one of his student films, Rankin and Wise have worked together on numerous occasions, including on Night Of The Living Deb, in which Wise plays Ryan’s father, Frank, an oily water tycoon. “I always have to track him down as he’s a bit of a luddite. He’s barely got an email,” Rankin admits. “You still have to do the old school drive-down-to-his-house-and-leave-a-script-on-the-front-porch. He’s not very technical.”
And it seems appropriate that Ray Wise, Mr. Leland Palmer himself, should make an appearance. During the course of our discussion, we talk about filmmakers that have influenced the director, with people such as The Coen Brothers, Fellini, Peckinpah and, wait for it, David Lynch, all coming up. Whilst the Blue Velvet director is perhaps not best known for his thigh slapping comedies, he was a big influence on how Rankin approached his blend of comedy and horror whilst editing Night Of The Living Deb. “Lynch does this thing where he will have someone stare pass camera and then have the most horrified look on their face. And he’ll really hold it for a long time, so much so that your imagination starts to go, ‘What are they seeing?!’” he explains. “And I pitched this whole thing to my editor and I’m saying, ‘It has to be this way because of David Lynch!’ He hit a few buttons and was like, ‘Yeah, because David Lynch is the king of comedy.’”
When FilmInk puts it to Rankin that he shares a maverick quality with David Lynch in terms of getting his films made, the director agrees. Rankin’s next film will be The Witch Files, a found footage film in the vein of The Craft starring Paget Brewster (Community). Like Night Of The Living Deb, it’s low budget, and Rankin is continuing to keep creative control. “I heard a phrase that LA is the kind of town that will kill you with encouragement, and that is so true,” the director says. “You’ll always feel like your close to something. You’re close to getting a movie out. You’re close to getting that great agent. I realised that everyone will pat you on the back and go, ‘Good job! You’re doing fine! Something will happen.’ And I was like, ‘No, wait a minute…I have to make something happen.’”
Night Of The Living Deb is released on DVD, Digital, and Blu-ray now.
