Exclusive: Filmmaker Chloe Okuno Talks Screamfest Premiere of Slut; Trailers, Carpet Photos, and More!
Sean Decker
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Occasionally I’m privy to experiencing the first work of a filmmaker whose unique voice will more than likely go on to cinematically haunt our collective dreams and who’ll probably soon be attending those infamous Los Angeles “Masters of Horror” dinners.
Such was the case this past weekend with the October 18th Screamfest premiere of writer/director Chloe Okuno’s short film Slut.
With the 14th Annual Screamfest Horror Film Festival currently under way at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, CA, Okuno’s 21-minute student short debuted to a wildly vocal audience, and we caught up with her on the carpet following.
“It started off with ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’” Okuno told us of her inspiration for Slut, her AFI thesis project, which she wrote and directed. Produced by Lisa Gollobin, the film revolves around a naive young girl who becomes the target of a mysterious stranger passing through town. Molly McIntyre appears in the lead role; James Gallo, Kasia Pilewicz, Cody Beverstock, Alex Miller, and Sally Kirkland co-star.
“I wanted to find a way to do the classic moment of her coming home to discover the big bad wolf dressed as Grandma in a way that was realistic, or at least relatively realistic,” Okuno continued. “From that sort of conceptual beginning I thought about the character of Red Riding Hood herself, and this awkward, bespectacled 16-year-old girl began to develop pretty naturally, probably coming a bit from classic movie tropes and a bit from my own experience as an awkward teenager.”
Refreshingly shot on 35mm, Okuno said of the production, “Our team was very fortunate to receive a couple of grants, one from Fotokem and another from EFILM & Deluxe, that helped us with the cost of shooting on film; and we were very fortunate to have all our film stock donated by a very nice man named George Gush at Fujifilm. Apparently, it was essentially leftovers from American Hustle, which is pretty cool as I am more than happy to take David O. Russell’s leftovers! It was Fujifilm Eterna Vivid stock, which we shot 2-perf to give it that grainy 70s look.”
“Principal photography took place in late February 2014,” she offered. “Like all AFI thesis productions, we shot seven days and then had a day and a half of re-shoots, all in and around Los Angeles. We went out to Ventura to Skating Plus for the roller rink scenes, Piru for our farmhouse and desert exteriors, and everything else was shot on a stage in downtown L.A.”
We asked Okuno about the reasons for her choice of setting Slut in the late 70’s.
“I love that aesthetic, and I love movies from that time period,” she effused. “Whenever I envisioned the eponymous ‘slut,’ for some reason I knew she just had to have short shorts and feathered hair. Late 70’s/80’s slasher films were a big influence on the dynamic of the kids at the roller rink; that sort of small town America feeling that you see in a lot of movies from that era. Also, rightly or wrongly, I’ve always attached a certain innocence to that time period so it provided this atmosphere where we could deal with different characters’ attitudes toward female sexuality in a way that was more explicit, less coded, which was quite helpful in a short format.”
Concerning the genre films which influenced Slut, “Naturally I wanted to emulate the best so Carrie, Halloween, and Texas Chain Saw Massacre were all big influences,” Okuno stated.
“At very early days in the process, we got the team together and saw a gorgeous print of Texas Chain Saw at the Aero in Santa Monica, which hopefully permeated our collective consciousness during the many months of making Slut. Little less of a horror movie and more of a thriller, but Blood Simple was another big inspiration. We took a lot of visual cues from Badlands as well. I think I can say that Sissy Spacek directly influenced us.”
As for what’s next on the young filmmaker’s plate, “I’m writing a feature script that I’m very excited about,” she concluded. “Like Slut, it’s another coming-of-age story, but in lieu of misogynistic psycho killers, it features satanic rituals, demonic possession, a bit of animal sacrifice. Of course I’m trying to get it financed so I can unleash this twisted monstrosity upon the world.”
For tickets to the festival, which runs to the 23rd of October, visit Screamfest here. For more on Slut check out its official site here.
Darren Morze (composer), Molly McIntyre (lead actress), Chloe Okuno (writer & director), Lisa Gollobin (producer), Michael Block (editor), Yihong Ding (production designer)
Chloe Okuno (writer & director)
Synopsis
Maddy is 16 years old. She lives alone with her sick grandmother in a rundown farmhouse off a highway in Nowheresville, Texas. She does her best to take care of her mute, wheelchair-bound grandmother, but life at home is lonely and depressing. So, like everyone else within a 20-mile radius, Maddy spends her free time at the only place with half a pulse: the local roller rink.
With her shabby clothes, large glasses, and dangerous naivete, Maddy is a hopeless misfit amongst her peers. Determined to embrace her inner vixen, Maddy looks to a girl named Jolee – beautiful, blonde, and unapologetically promiscuous – as a sort of model for what attracts men. Unfortunately for Maddy, it’s just at this time that an older, charismatic Stranger enters her life, a man whose charm masks the impulses of a murderous, misogynistic psychopath.
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