Tribeca 2021 Interview: Mickey Reece’s AGNES is Not Your Father’s Exorcism Movie
Drew Tinnin
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Director Mickey Reece can’t hide anymore. He’s a legitimate force of a filmmaker now with a signature style that’s starting to get a real following. Probably best known for his version of a vampire film, Climate of the Hunter, Reece now finds himself in the limelight of the Tribeca Film Fest with his latest, Agnes. Talking with Reece below, he and writing partner John Selvidge combined a confined story about exorcism with a kind of PTSD commentary about what happens after a group of nuns come face-to-face with the devil.
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Synopsis:
A nun’s disturbing behavior sparks rumors of demonic possession at a remote convent. When a priest-in-waiting and his disillusioned mentor are sent to investigate, their methods backfire, leaving a wake of terror and trauma.
Starring Mickey Reece staple Ben Hall (Climate of the Hunter, Arrows of Outrageous Fortune), Molly Quinn (Castle), Sean Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and featuring Rachel True (The Craft), Agnes is full of compelling characters. You may just be surprised which ones you end up following as the film unfolds.
In our below interview out of Tribeca, we chat about making an unconventional exorcism movie, writing stand up jokes for Sean Gunn and if Reece would ever want to make a Marvel movie.
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Dread Central: In a backward, headspin kind of way, Agnes starts off with the exorcism instead of ending with it. Did you always want to start the film where most possession movies end?
Mickey Reece: John Selvidge and I were like, ‘What do you think about nuns?’ I just one day wrote the structure of the movie I wanted to make…it’s hard for me to take someone else’s script and direct it. While John Selvidge did the bulk of the writing, I still had to create an outline. Because I still have to know what it is I’m gonna make to make sure I can execute every scene as a director. At some point, after that last exorcism in Agnes I was like, you know what? Let’s see what happens with this character. Let’s just go follow this and see what happens. It was all just stream-of-consciousness writing.
DC: Were you both watching a lot of exorcism movies at the time when you were writing?
MR: No, not at all. I did buy The Devils and Black Narcissus and watch them. But basically, the movie was already underway when I watched those movies. I don’t know if there was anything specific that I watched and said I want to do something like that. To me, it was just the natural progression from Strike, Dear Mistress…to Climate of the Hunter to nuns. I feel like, in that way, they’re all three this spiritual trilogy with all three of them together. Strike has some religious stuff in it and some religious imagery. Then, Climate is more horror oriented. So this is kind of a marriage of the two.
DC: Should anyone be thinking about Agnes of God in this film? Should film fans be thinking of Agnes of God when they’re watching this?
MR: You know what’s wild? I’ve never seen Agnes of God. I still haven’t. I was instructed not to, to be honest. For some reason, I thought “Agnes of God” was like “Lamb of God,” just a saying. I thought it was a saying!
DC: I just thought it was a band!
MR: Exactly. Or just some saying in the Bible.
DC: I would love if Jane Fonda got wind of Agnes just through that connection. She would actually be really good in one of your films at her age now. It probably would never happen but Jane Fonda in a Mickey Reece movie would be pretty epic. You’re getting some great actors here now like Sean Gunn. Molly Quinn is fantastic. She would fit right in.
MR: That would be fucking absolutely amazing. Of course I would love to work with Jane Fonda.
DC: Ben Hall and Jane Fonda together? That would be fantastic.
MR: To go back to what you were talking about the influences of the movie…when the structure was set in stone that that’s what we were going to do, it wasn’t that wild to me. I was thinking of movies like The Crying Game or Dead Presidents where they do have an event and here’s the aftermath. And it becomes another movie and a whole other story…the real world is just hell.
DC: Yeah, I like the idea of an exorcism and going through that kind of trauma, you’re still trying to process it. I wanted to mention Rachel True. Does it matter to you if an actor has been in a similar genre film when you cast them? The casting itself can be a nod or an homage to a film like The Craft. It’s just so cool to see her in anything.
MR: It’s such a small part but I was like of course! Of course, bring Rachel True on. She’s underused but it was just by design. She was great and awesome to work with. There’s this scene whenever the nuns are walking…walking down the hall leading to the first exorcism. She’s holding her necklace just like she did in The Craft and she did that on purpose.
DC: Was it hard writing stand up jokes for Sean Gunn?
MR: Well, I didn’t know it was Sean Gunn when it was written! We had another local actor in mind that was kind of a Bill Hicks persona.
DC: Agnes, at least in my eyes, starts as a dark horror comedy and then becomes quite melancholy. It’s like the plot almost gets possessed by something else. Would you agree with that and were you wrestling with those tones?
MR: Of course we said this is an exorcism of an exorcism movie! We talk about everything. Everything that anybody brings up, we’ve talked about it. We think that, well, the fact we’re talking about these themes means that other people will find them as well. You finding that is something you found on your own but it’s something we talked about. We just didn’t necessarily write it into the script. That’s one thing about this movie which is different than anything else I’ve ever done. I think every single person will watch a different movie. I feel like it’s going to be a different experience for everyone…The idea is every time to make something that no one’s ever seen before.
DC: I feel like this is the biggest cast you’ve ever had and I think it’s the longest movie you’ve ever made.
MR: It is the longest! It was longer, too. We cut stuff out of it. Obviously if there was something ridiculous and I had some wildly ridiculous budget, I would make some two-and-a-half hour movie…it’s always a pressure cooker every time making low budget movies. This one we shot in three weeks which is also the most time I’ve ever had to make a movie. At some point you’ve got to graduate from running so quickly and working so efficiently. Scorsese is shooting his movie here in Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon right now, and that fucker is not efficient at all. They’re going to be going forever on that thing.
DC: Unlike Scorsese, do you think you’d ever direct a Marvel film or at least your version of a Marvel movie?
MR: Uhh…no. I’m not like snobby about it. I don’t know if there’s any comic books that really inspire me.
DC: Are you still playing Garth Brooks in Country Gold? How’s that project going? Last time we talked, you were also working on the Heaven’s Gate movie, the Marshall Applewhite project.
MR: Yeah, that’ll be my two-and-a-half hour epic. Country Gold is shot. It is being edited. It’s a romp. It’s more like Mickey Reece’s Alien. I say that but they’re wildly different. I just mean in that it’s a historically inaccurate biopic of a famous artist.
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