Interview: Aaron B. Koontz on Directing The Pale Door

Jayson interviews Aaron B. Koontz, director, co-writer, and co-producer of the upcoming horror / Western The Pale Door. Koontz was previously an executive producer on Starry Eyes (2014), co-writer and director of Camera Obscura (2017),  co-director, producer, and writer of Scare Package (2019) now available on Shudder and coming to On Demand, Digital, Blu-ray and DVD October, 20. The Pale Door comes to theaters and digital streaming on August, 21.

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Jayson (BGH): One of the things I find intriguing about some of your work is your ability to swap effortlessly within multiple horror sub-genres including horror comedy, psychological horror and now Western. Is diversity of material something that drives you?

Aaron B. Koontz (AK): Absolutely. With Paper Street Pictures, my company, we want to do hybrid horror. We are always looking for angles on things we haven’t seen before or seen very little of. Even right now we are in development of a horror sports movie because we’ve never seen that before, you know? That’s a big thing that drives us because it’s a lot of fun. I think it gives us opportunities that others wouldn’t have.

BGH: The Western is a loaded genre dealing with violence, race, colonialism, technology, and many other themes. What was it that attracted you to telling a story in this framework?

AK: In this story in particular, I think it really centered around the anti-hero sensibilities and the idea that I didn’t want to have just a good versus evil story. What creates a gang of outlaws? And what creates a coven of witches? Maybe there’s a way to parallel them and talk about how violence creates more violence and hate creates more hate. That was a big thing that was going on when I was writing this, and has become even larger in our society today.

Bill Sage as Dodd in the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

As those scenes were circling around in my head there was just this thought: Who are these people in this gang and what happened to make them outlaws, to cause them to become criminals? Is there a way to stop the pattern and what could that be? I wanted to explore that from the [perspective] of brothers and sacrifice. And then with the witches. Let’s say we live in a world where witches are real. What created the first witches? Where did that come from? Maybe they both came from a place of violence and strife.

So then when I tied into the Salem Witch Trials, they were not witches during that time. These were just religious zealots doing awful things to these women. Maybe someone watching, maybe just dabbling in black magic at the time and then that inadvertently created the witches from there. I thought there was something really interesting about that. Pairing them off in a sort of survive-the-night sequence felt like something thematically was achievable and also different and fun all at the same time.

BGH: There’s a literary streak running through this film as well. There’s an author prominent in the film. Also we learn the title, The Pale Door, is taken from an Edgar Allan Poe poem called The Haunted Palace. One of the themes of that poem is the witnessing of something beautiful distorting into something ugly. How do you think that theme resonates throughout this film as well as the use of literary references?

AK: Yeah I mean look, when you get to work with folks like Joe Lansdale [executive producer] and Keith Lansdale [co-writer] it’s inevitable. It’s going to come out in the writing. And I think there’s these flourishes that they help add throughout the film that kind of elevate that.

I would say The Haunted Palace was a poem I loved for a long time. I thought there was something beautiful about the concept of the evil that hides within these walls. The line “To laugh but to smile no more” in particular, the idea of this person who is laughing but not smiling, is so creepy to me. I talked about that mix with Melora Walters and Natasha Bassett who played my two witches Maria and Pearl.

Melora Walters as Maria in the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

[The theme can apply to] this town our gang ends up in. Was the town once something else? Maybe more vibrant. There was beauty that got lost and decrepit over time. It just became a perfect way of setting up the story and then if you read the poem it’s going to resonate even more. But at its core element, to open up a film like this with a stanza from a Poe poem is so beautiful. Of course the phrase 'the pale door' has this western tinge to it. So then, this is perfect, you know? It became the title I just had to have and knew where this was going to sort of permeate [through the film]. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree with Joe and Keith’s writing. I was so lucky to have them on board.

BGH: Along with being a horror movie and a Western, The Pale Door is also a bit of a siege film. Are there any films that were a key influence for you that we might not expect?

AK: Yeah, I mean goodness. Definitely Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) the later Peckinpah film. Which I think cinephiles are fans of, but it’s not like a normal Western, like the big picture Westerns people think of. So I think that one was really interesting and had some minor heist elements in it. There’s also a little The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969). There’s a moment when the crew is trying to regroup and figure out what to do after a big fight scene with the witches. I talked to Pat Healy and Stan Shaw and Bill Sage, all them, and I was like, ‘look, this is our Wild Bunch.’

On the horror side, The Descent (Marshall, 2005) was one that we kind of played with a little bit. There’s a little bit of From Dusk till Dawn (Rodriguez, 1996) for sure in the setup and mid-act turn. And then I would say I pushed a little bit of Event Horizon (Anderson, 1997) with a descent into madness. What does opening this door to hell do to your psyche and psychologically? I thought there was something fun there to explore.

The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford (Dominik, 2007) was another influence. We loved what Roger Deakins [director of photography] did with the train robbery in that. It was fun to layer these all in.

(L-R) Devin Druid as Jake, Noah Segan as Truman, Pat Healy as Wylie, James Whitecloud as Chief, Bill Sage as Dodd, and Stan Shaw as Lester from the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

BGH: You’re working with a slate of incredible veteran actors including Melora Walters, Stan Shaw, Bill Sage, Pat Healy of course. When you were writing the script, did you have these actors in mind? I know you’ve worked with Pat quite a bit in the past. Did they have a hand in shaping their characters in the film or is that something that just happened organically?

AK: Yeah, it was kind of weird. Originally we were talking about some really big names and it was a much bigger budget movie. When that fell through in so many ways we decided to finance independently. I talked with my casting director and I was like, ‘let me just get all my favorite people.’ You know, let me just go after all these character actors that I love. We sort of joked that it was The Avengers of indie horror genre actors.

Noah Segan I asked for the entire time. I’ve known Noah for such a long time. He’s one of my best friends. So that was an easy one. I loved Pat for a while and his pensive nature I thought could play really well. Even Melora as Maria. (If I liked naming characters the same name I just would have named her Melora). Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite directors and her look at the end of Magnolia (1999) is so poignant and means so much to me. It’s one of the reasons I went to film school. To hire her was such an honor.

Stan Shaw as Lester in the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

Stan Shaw steals every scene he is in with movies like Monster Squad (Dekker, 1987) and Fried Green Tomatoes (Avnet, 1991). [Same with] Bill Sage in We Are What We Are (Mickle, 2013) and Hap and Leonard (Damici & Mickle, 2016 - 18). Even Devin Druid. We searched everywhere to find our Jake and someone told me to watch 13 Reasons Why (Yorkey, 2017 - 20). There’s a lot of really talented kids there. And he’s not the lead there. That’s Dylan Minnette and these other people who have blown up. But, I was blown away by [Devin]. He popped off the screen to me in every way. And I knew he was going to be a part of this. And Zachary Knighton too. I loved him in Happy Endings (Caspe, 2011 - 13). There were sentimental moments in Happy Endings that I was like, ‘woah, this guy has a lot more to offer!’ And he even jokes with me and says, ‘I’m so tired of people wanting me to play Ross from Friends so it was good to get to bite into something else.’ I think Zachary as Duncan and [Devin] as Jake are the heart of this film. It works because of them. It was just so magical.

We wanted to get all these people together who I thought were not as represented as I thought they should be. Each of them I think could and should be leads in their own movies. It was such a dream. I am over the moon with the cast that I got and I just love that I got to cast the lovable people that I did. It just came together so beautifully.

Zachary Knighton as Duncan in the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

BGH: The Pale Door employs the use of a bunch of different animals: dogs, crows, horses, chickens. What was that process like on set? And how easy or difficult was that to deal with those different types of animals?

AK: I mean look, I have a ways to go as a director. I learn something every time. That’s what's important to me. Just to have learning experiences. But, I think the one thing I’ll never get good at is directing animals. They just don’t listen to me. We had wonderful animal wranglers. But, it was definitely, definitely difficult. I wanted these bigger birds with the bigger beaks, so we had these crow-raven hybrids (cravens) which were majestic, but to get them to fly in this direction or that direction was difficult. And because I’m just this crazy person who wanted it, we didn’t go with regular dogs. We went with full on wolves. Like, those are full scale wolves.

Being an indie film, we had to be smart about how to piece these elements together and kind of maximize their use in particular moments. So you can sort of shoot them out. It’s almost as if they are big name actors. You have to shoot out all your horses, and then all your cravens, and then all your wolves so you can consolidate the time lines so it can work economically. But, I am glad that we did. To throw that into the mix with a period Western with stunts and 4 hour makeup jobs and all this was definitely an undertaking that I don’t recommend a lot of folks do but I am really glad that we were able to pull it off.

BGH: That’s really interesting. Knowing that those are wolves, does that change the precautions you have to take?

AK: It absolutely does. Safety is paramount. I had a number of shots in my head that we learned that we couldn’t do the way that we wanted. So, for example, there is a big high overhead where we show the gang running. There is a fire in the town center and the gang is running as those wolves are chasing them. We could not shoot those at the same time. So I had to shoot a plate. Because wolves can’t chase the actors. They can’t be running behind them. So we had to digitally cut the take in half so that when the wolves are running it looks like they are running behind them but they aren’t even in the same frame. So you have to find creative ways to do that and make that work.

But those are real wolves and they are massive. I had a lot of wolf selfies at the end. They are just wonderful, adorable creatures and they are so gentle. You know, they know what to do and you just have to be as safe as possible with the actors. So we definitely took extra precautions.

Natasha Bassett as Pearl in the horror/western, “THE PALE DOOR,” a RLJE Films/Shudder release. Photo Courtesy of RLJE Films/Shudder.

BGH: What’s your biggest horror influence as a director?

AK: Goodness. I think that with this film, like I said, The Descent. Also The Thing (Carpenter, 1982), as a kid that was one of my favorite horror films. I would also say something like Let the Right One In (Alfredson, 2008) is a really beautiful film that balances horrific moments. It’s definitely a horror film but it’s also sentimental and it has something to say...it plays with tone in such a beautiful way. That’s the kind of thing I’m always looking for and working towards. Or Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015) which I also think is a horror film but it has a lot to say. Similar themes [to The Pale Door] even such as hate and violence. I think those things are what really excite me.

I mentioned The Thing. It’s one of my favorite films, part of that is what that film is about. As a kid, it’s just a really cool movie with all these crazy things that happen. With a dog that transforms. But then, as you grow older and get to reflect on what the film means and see the themes behind it, it’s something very poignant and there’s something to say about identity. And I hope to find those threads that can be pulled in our own films. Scare Package, not as much. That’s just about fun, just 80s pastiche horror.

But with The Pale Door we really wanted to talk about sacrifice and hate begetting more hate and what could be these elemental aspects that we could play on. And that really comes from things like Let the Right One In and this journey of acceptance and love and what that means within a horror film. If you can do it, and do it well, it can be a really beautiful thing.

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RLJE Films and Shudder will release the THE PALE DOOR in theaters and On Demand and Digital on August 21, 2020.