What goes into the process of casting actors for this kind of film with such a bizarre subject matter?

Casting is really important for these kinds of movies because when the script is written the characters aren’t detailed too specifically. They’re just kind of very general like age, gender, and maybe a little bit of their social class. A lot of it is just going on the street, word of mouth, doing casting calls specifying no experience necessary, and some of my brother’s movies have actually starred people with zero acting experience. When we approach a person, we tell them generally what the movie’s about. During the actual filming, most of the actors aren’t given the full script once they’re selected. Little by little is better because if it’s too rehearsed, especially if they’re not professionally experienced actors, they start to create ideas about how it should be and they lose spontaneity.

How did the director approach the decision of whether or not to reveal too much or too little of the creature?

The first thing that comes to mind is that it’s very expensive for the special effects and it’s a pretty low budget movie, so that’s very important. If you want it to look good and have the creature on screen a lot, then you’re going to be stretching your dollars really thin. But it’s also a creative decision; I remember the creature’s very first scene at the beginning of the movie and how in the script, that part didn’t happen until much later. So, initially, in the first half of the movie, we didn’t have any idea of what this creature was, but in the final cut, it ended up being right there in the beginning to kind of take away that cheap thrill of not knowing. It makes it less traditional of a movie and more unconventionally challenging and we liked making that kind of film.

Were there any direct sources of inspiration for this kind of story?

People who have seen the film have cited other movies like Possession for a resemblance. That film’s director, Andrzej Zulawski, died last year and we actually have a dedication for him at the end of our movie. There are several dedications we have for people who were either collaborators or sources of inspiration to the director. As far as Lovecraft goes, my brother never had that in mind, but I saw the influences when I first read the script. Alan Moore’s Neonomicon was especially prevalent. Even if my brother didn’t read Lovecraft, there’s still a lot of imagery that has been around for a long time that other artists have referenced, either from Japanese culture or comic books. They’re references, either directly or indirectly.

What did your role as music supervisor entail?

Making sure the soundtrack was going in the right direction and achieved what feeling we wanted it to convey. The composer did the themes and anything you hear with an actual instrument in the score. Sound design was a very important part of the film. Some of my brother’s favourite movies are Eraserhead and other David Lynch films, so there’s always a reference for him whenever he’s working on sound.