Glenn McKayd, director and co-author of the horror comedy “Repairing Grayson Manor,” has built the film around his favorites, even if the genre appears to be far away. But as a gay man who grew up in Ireland in the 70s and 80s, there were certain pop culture touchstones that helped him through his strict youth.
“I have found a lot of relief not only in the escapism of terror, but also in the escapism of melodrama,” says McQuaid. “I was sucked into ‘Falconcrest’, ‘Dallas’, ‘Dynasty’, ‘Knotlanding’. It’s self-medicine.
The result was a viciously funny, bloody, and acquiescedly strange film set to premiere tonight at Austin’s Fantastic Fest. Chris Colfer plays Boyd Grayson, a sleazy musician who gets involved in an outrageous accident when he loses his hand. Luckily, his best frenemy mother Jacqueline (Alice Kriguet) invests in experimental surgery, and things get more out of control from there.
McKayde, who wrote the film alongside Clay McLeod Chapman, found inspiration for a central twist from real-life technology.
“I watched a YouTube clip of the amputee using the remotely controlled robotic hands in his conscious mind,” he says. “I told myself, ‘Well, what if it was the subconscious? And what if it was the subconscious?” Then I started playing with the idea of tapping the killer hand subgenre. ”
The film’s heart was the hostile relationship between Jacqueline and Boyd, and had to put the tone just right to make the story work.
“We were really inspired by the melodrama,” says McCade. “I was joking with clay from the start and wanted to make the killer hand movie “Winter Lion,” so we ran a bit. It was a subtle line with the relationship between the two.
Another important part of the film was normalizing Boyd’s sexuality. This starts with an early scene that includes one night stands with poppers and male nudes, that is, elements that are not often seen in horror.
“At the end, I really didn’t want to censor myself,” says McQuaid. “I just wanted to read a lot of scripts, watch a lot of movies, make something I really didn’t watch. It just came naturally. I thought the popper bottle was a plot device, like, ‘Oh, this is a bit of a rhythm’.
McQuaid will continue his exploration of the intersection of oddity and genre with his next film.
“I love horror,” says McCade. “I feel that this is a great way to talk about topics that affect me. The next piece is to tackle dying to homophobia, but through the lens of an Irish haunted house. For some reason, horror was my escape. I think it continues to this day. As with all the ideas I came up with are within the genre, I can’t help it.”
Glenmaccade with the “Repair of Grayson Manor.”
Courtesy photos
