Interview with RUN HIDE FIGHT Director, Kyle Rankin
Dread Central Staff
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Kyle Rankin is an American writer and director. He’s directed such films as The Battle of Shaker Heights, Infestation, Night of the Living Deb, and The Witch Files. His latest film is the extremely controversial school shooter thriller, Run Hide Fight. Run Hide Fight has come under a lot of scrutiny for its subject matter and affiliation with right wing news outlet, The Daily Wire. In this conversation with Kyle, we explored the genesis of the movie as well as some misconceptions about the film and its intentions.
DC: So how did Run Hide Fight come about? What was the inception of the movie?
KR: I guess that a lot of times you don’t know where an idea comes from. You’ll be showering or driving and you’re like, “Oh, a young gal who fights back during a school shooting.” That was an idea that I first had maybe seven or eight years ago, but I thought, “Eh, that’s a little…” It’s obviously a touchy subject so I stayed away from it. And then it was the spring of 2017, a little over three years ago, that I was talking to my wife about it and she was like, “You keep mentioning the school shooting movie. You should just write it and get it out of your brain.” And so, with that inspiration, I dove into it and then I was really digging it and I started to feel, this is the best thing I’ve written.”
There have actually been several school shooting films that follow the shooters. And I never understood, why is it better to follow the shooters and that’s not exploitive, but if you follow someone trying to fight back, somehow it is? I couldn’t square that angle. Yeah, there were a few major studios that were very interested, but by the time the younger execs would put it up the ladder, someone up top would kill it and be like, “No, there’s no way we’re doing a school shooting movie. It’s too touchy.” I would get amazing feedback on the script, like, “This is a really good script. There’s no way we’re doing it.” I was like, “Okay.” After a while, a lot of the younger film executives that read it were like, “Well, this is the world we live in now.” They actually weren’t scared of it, in a way, and I think they got that I was going for a thing that wasn’t exploiting victims. That was never my goal.
DC: Now that the movie’s out–to call it divisive would be an understatement. But from your perspective, how has the response been?
KR: It’s been good. It’s so funny, because the people who are like, “Oh, it’s controversial. It’s divisive,” a lot of them haven’t seen it. People can say, “A school shooting movie? No way. F off. I don’t want any part of that.” Fine. Okay. It’s not for you. There’ll be a bit of that. But in my small filmmaking circle and family and friends, people are just excited. They’ve seen it and they know that I tried to write a very balanced movie. I tried to very much walk a political line, and I always told everyone, “I want this to be so that two friends on opposite sides of the political spectrum could go watch this and both feel like it honored them, and they could go out for coffee or a beer, and talk about it and be like, “Oh man, I liked how it did this. I liked how it did that.” I mostly just wanted to write a story about bravery and putting others ahead of yourself.
DC: Despite the right-wing association with The Daily Wire, it doesn’t feel really weighed down with right wing ideology. I mean, you could make the argument that there’s definitely a pro-gun element there, but other than that, I really didn’t find that it was heavy-handed with ideology.
KR: Yeah. I guess it is pro-gun. I just always loved action movies. If you watch Run Hide Fight and you’re an action fan, you’re like, “Yeah, man. Guns show up.” And that’s why it’d be fairly hypocritical if there wasn’t that much gunplay. And I don’t personally own a gun, but I don’t begrudge anyone owning a gun. I feel like there’s a lot of heart in the movie, as well, and I think it’s coming from a sincere place. It’s not coming from a nihilistic place.
DC: There were definitely things that I never even considered in the context of school shootings, like the way that the media would treat it and how in some cases they would further enable the shooters by the way that they cover it. How much of that was based on reality?
KR: There’s a lot of things I wrote that ended up coming true, which was scary. We were actually filming when there was a shooting in San Bernardino, California. Dallas led us in a moment of silence on set and after I read that the San Bernardino shooter was actually inside the building watching the news so he could be like, “Well, oh, that’s how many cars they have out? That’s how many cops are out there? Maybe I can go out the back door.” He was trying to use it as a way of planning. I was like, “That’s terrifying, because that’s exactly what I wrote.”
DC: Wow, that is eerie.
KR: But in the writing, I was just trying to make it mostly human. I love people, and I know that all of us can head toward our own desires and wishes first and only later be like, “Oh, shit. What’s the community perspective?” I got my degree in broadcast journalism and I’ve seen firsthand that sometimes those people, they want the ratings too, and they want the better images, and they could maybe not be looking at the whole picture sometimes.
DC: Yeah. So from that perspective of looking at the whole picture, what are some of the most common misconceptions about the movie?
KR: Well, it remains to be seen. We went over to Italy with it because it premiered at Venice. And that was actually just lovely. It played in a huge, beautiful theater in September and the reaction was just fantastic. The movie has since been acquired by the Daily Wire, which is Ben Shapiro’s company and a conservative news outlet. So I think now there might be a whole barrage of like, “Oh, it’s right-wing propaganda,” or whatever. And so, it almost remains to be seen, but probably the biggest criticism someone could level at it is, “How dare you. You’re exploiting the deaths. You’re exploiting real life deaths.” But there’s an easy answer to, “How could you?” which is also, “How could you not?” This is a major problem in America, so why not make a movie about it? Because my whole point was to get people talking. And like I said, I wanted to make a very middle-of-the-road movie because there’s certainly a lot of not talking on both sides of the aisle right now.
DC: When you watch the movie, yeah, there’s certainly elements of it that are very uncomfortable, but I feel like movies are intended (or at least they used to be intended) to shake you out of your comfort zone and make you start thinking about things from different perspectives. Again, I mean, we just talked about how the movie is not very ideological, but were there any specific takeaways that you did want the audience to gain from the movie, either political or not?
KR: Well, probably my favorite thing about it is to watch it and to look at all the everyday bravery. What I like about the movie is there’s a lot of bravery of the secondary and tertiary characters. There’s a lunch lady that’s very brave. There are several teachers that are very brave. There are other students that are very brave, and I really liked that stuff. Because I do believe in humanity veering toward good, and I do believe that a lot of us are waiting to be a hero if we ever need to step up in those moments.
DC: Yeah. It’s that concept of the dormant hero in everybody, and all it takes is a scenario for that hero to rise.
KR: Yeah, even Mr. Rogers was like, “Look for the helpers in life.” And there’s a lot of helpers in this movie, and I do believe there’s a lot of helpers in life, too. I tried to research every school shooting I possibly could. In a lot of those stories, there were also stories of people being incredibly brave and putting other people behind them and that kind of thing, or running at the shooter. I believe that happened in Parkland. A couple of guys tried to just charge the shooter, and that’s amazing.
DC: Were there any movies that you saw to prep for this movie? I mean, what was your cinematic diet like as you were approaching directing this?
KR: I always go back to a lot of 1970s cinema, and I actually gave Isabel and Ali (who plays Louis) a list of my favorite movies like Dog Day Afternoon, which there’s a lot of the DNA of Dog Day Afternoon in this. There’s obviously some Diehard DNA in this. There’s, some Deliverance. There’s Straw Dogs. I love Sam Peckinpah. There’s some Five Easy Pieces, which you would think has nothing to do with this, but I so love the acting in that movie, and I love the naturalistic style of that movie. Oh, and I’m a huge David Lynch fan so there’s a lot of Lynch in this, oddly, too. Yeah. And none of that might make any literal sense when you watch the movie, but those are the things that inspire me. I guess often, I’ll go back and watch Night of the Hunter or some old movie that inspired me.
DC: I love that one. It’s so tragically good.
KR: Yes. I love it. Most things with Robert Mitchum in them I love. Yeah, odd movies, but always older. Always, usually from the ‘70s. That’s my go-to decade, I think, because they say that was the decade where Hollywood gave filmmakers the keys. After Easy Rider did so well, they were like, “Whoa. Maybe the directors and writers know something,” and they let them steer the ship for eight to ten years, and you’ve got some amazing movies coming out of the ‘70s.
DC: Yeah. I don’t what happened in the ‘80s. I mean, the ‘70s was so good for cinema, but the trajectory didn’t quite keep up. It feels like Bonfire Legend is working on bringing that raw and dangerous feeling back to cinema.
KR: I know. There’s a lot of theories. I think one of the best is maybe that the filmmakers still had the keys in the late ‘70s and then you had a lot of financial loss. The ship was running aground in different places, so there was a taking back of the keys and more committee filmmaking and that kind of thing.
DC: Yeah, it’s a shame. But I feel like we’re getting to another place in cinema now, possibly, with the ubiquity of streaming. I mean the fact that it’s way less expensive to make a movie than it used to be, with digital technology and the democratization of a lot of this stuff. I feel like we’re getting to a place where there’s going to be more director-led, auteur-driven cinema. I think it’s an exciting time.
KR: I would agree, and I would love to see that because there are so many outlets. I mean, look, we’re premiering on a conservative news outlet. Who would’ve thought? They loved the movie and they’re doing well enough to purchase the movie, and so there’s tons of options. I think my next movie is something that’ll feel throwback-y and 1970s-ish a bit in its grittiness. I like grit.
DC: Yeah. I like grit, too.
KR: Yeah. Now that I’ve made Run Hide Fight and I really feel like I blossomed more into the movies I want to make, I’m going to lean into that more. I love things with a lot of heart and a lot of grit and-
DC: Yeah, it’s a magical combination when you have the hard grit, but then you also have some heart in there as well.
KR: Yeah, yeah. Wow, man. That’s everything for me.
DC: Well Kyle, thank you for taking the time. This was great. Any parting advice or wisdom for those aspiring filmmakers out there?
KR: Keep going. I mean, I’ve had, like I said, some dark times where I was getting nothing together and I did the Kickstarter thing for a feature. I did that five, six years ago and at the time I’m like, “Oh man, I’m begging for money. This feels embarrassing.” But then, that ended up going really well, and it was really fun, and I met a lot of new people and there are people that became fans that are now tracking what I’m up to. The idea of a Go Fund Me or a Kickstarter thing, if you’re just feeling that you cannot get the financing together or whatever. The Nike phrase: “Just do it.” Just keep plugging along. And in those hard times, I always went back to waiting tables or plumbing or whatever if I had to, but yeah, make sure you’re still loving it.
DC: Yeah. I feel like that’s the most important part.
KR: Yes, indeed.
DC: Cool. Well, Kyle, thank you again. This was great.
KR: Thank you, Nick. Yeah, it was really good to talk to you.
DC: You too!
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