Exclusive: Director Jackson Stewart Talks Beyond the Gates
Staci Layne Wilson
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First-time feature director Jackson Stewart has made a splash with his lovable indie-horror 80s throwback flick, Beyond the Gates (review), which premiered at the L.A. Film Festival on June 2nd. It’s generating great buzz, and fans are really getting into the throwback spirit of it.
We wanted to know what inspired Jackson, so we asked him!
Dread Central: This is your first time writing and directing a feature film… if you’re like most every filmmaker, this was not your only script. So why this story first up?
Jackson Stewart: Initially, I’d been thinking about a few different thematic elements that I really wanted to include in a horror movie, dead formats, alcoholism and transcending the father. Most of the scripts I’d written were probably in the 50-million-dollar range and simply unfeasible for a first-timer at my level. I grew up in the video store, and every Friday night my parents would let me rent two movies — it was always the highlight of my week, and I have such a great affinity for these places. I also worked in a video store up in Eugene, Oregon, in my early twenties and made a couple of lifelong friends there. I have found some incredible stuff in the video store aisles that I’d never in a million years see on Netflix or other streaming services. A company like Shudder is probably the closest modern equivalent to that because you have people with good taste recommending things you’d probably enjoy. I am so happy there are still a few video stores left in Los Angeles. The thing with this movie is that if you like watching it, you’d probably get along with me. I put a lot of myself in it, and Stephen did too. We are basically the two leads in this movie.
DC: You have some great actor friends – and they are perfect in Beyond the Gates. Were some of the roles written with them in mind?
JS: One hundred percent. I first saw Graham Skipper in Re-Animator the Musical and was utterly blown away by his performance as Herbert West. He was incredible in it, and I quickly set out to capitalize on his talent by putting him in a short I directed titled Sex Boss. Same with Jesse Merlin from that play — it really was incredible and I miss seeing it. Chase Williamson was such a standout in John Dies at the End, I also cast him in Sex Boss. He’s such a brilliant actor who pulls off so much in just a look or his body language when he’s doing something as simple as eating. He had such a full view of the character, and it was a huge joy to work with him. Brea Grant as Margot, I have known for years and wanted to work with forever. Basically everyone in the cast I’d worked with and wrote the roles for them based off of that. Chase is essentially playing me, and Graham is basically playing Steve Scarlata, coupled with some of my own alcoholic history that we gave the character.
DC: A lot of the reviews are referencing Jumanji, the 80s kids’ movie – is that something you set out for from the beginning?
JS: Weirdly, no. I have actually still to this day never seen Jumanji. Steve [my co-writer] has, but my friend Roxanne Benjamin described it that way when I pitched the logline to her, and people always seemed to know what the movie was anytime I said ‘horror Jumanji’ from that point on. My producer, Amanda Mortimer, was very upset at me for not having seen Jumanji. The really big influences were The Gate, Phantasm, and The Beyond.
The Gate because on a story level it utilizes the idea of your parents trying to kill you, which taps into a primal fear I think most of us grew up with and maybe got from watching The Shining; it also puts the kids in a situation where no one is off-limits to die. Phantasm because of the spooky, mysterious nature of the Tall Man and his home world they venture into toward the end of the film. Also, the very end of The Beyond was a big influence on us — Poltergeist was a large influence on the cinematography.
Story-wise it was basically a grown-up version of The Gate set against the backdrop of a dead video store and an obscure VCR board game coupled with some thematic elements I wanted to hit and somewhat of a morality lesson toward the end. I thought three people would be into this idea, and it seems people are really latching on to it. I’m very excited!
DC: We are huge fans of Barbara Crampton. She is a true icon of 80s horror, and she continues to amaze in every new role. What was it like to work with her, and what’s one of the things she brought to the movie no one else could have?
JS: She’s been a dream to work with. I am embarrassed to admit this now, but I toyed with the idea of casting between three different actresses and wanted someone really scary. Barbara is probably the least scary person I have ever met, and I ended up shooting some footage with a different actress that just didn’t work out. I thank the universe on a near daily basis that that was the case because it suddenly hit me how perfect Barbara was as a connection and guiding point between our 80s motif and somewhat more modern story. I had her watch Kathleen Byron’s performance in the Powell and Pressburger movie Black Narcissus, and the much more obvious one is Barbara Steele in Black Sunday. When we started talking about it, I realized how badly she wanted to play a bad guy, and it felt like the right decision.
She needed to be queenly and commanding, and the only real direction I needed to give her was to never blink and to adjust occasional lines here or there to make her more venomous. She’s disarmingly kind but has a real sense of authority about her when someone is putting up a roadblock with her getting her way. Additionally, she’s got a lot of gravitas and world experience that few younger actresses have. Honing in to that maturity had a lot to do with people enjoying the movie thus far, and I sure hope it continues!
DC: When it comes to the horror elements of the film, what’s your favorite thing?
JS: I latched on to the idea that obtaining each of these keys would be connected to a different body part in a loved one. I sort of stole the idea from the NES game Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (one of my favorites), and it felt like a great way to get the gore gags Stephen and I felt were necessary. The real horror (or one of the few things that still scares me) is the idea of someone being in your house at night and having access to your space. Being watched by a stranger in my home troubles me deeply. Also, I love the idea of discovering some kind of treasure or accursed object and it having deadly consequences. Not enough movies do that these days. The VCR board game idea really provided the appropriate engine for all my loves in horror movies.
DC: Do you already have your next movie in the works?
JS: Yes, I’m working on three right now. One would be a sequel to this, titled From Beyond the Gates, where Chase’s character, John, would become the protagonist along with a new female character. The other one is more of a psychological riff on slasher movies, a bit like The Dark Half mixed with Halloween II, currently called The Day After Halloween. The last one is a genre comedy about our modern remake cycle we seem to be trapped in, and it is a bit in the vein of King of Comedy, titled The Hollywood Reboot.
Synopsis:
Two estranged brothers reunite seven months after their father’s disappearance to liquidate his anemic video store. While there, they unearth an old VCR board game that acts as an inter-dimensional hub to a nightmare world where their father’s soul is trapped and can only be saved by playing the game. The film is an adventure horror that pays loving tribute to the VHS format, video stores, and board games of the era.
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