Exclusive Interview: Richard Bailey (The Dark Sisters)
Prior to getting into filmmaking what was your background and what life experiences have you brought into the film world?
I grew up on a small farm in Texas, and so the idea of making movies seemed pretty remote. I found that I had a cinematic imagination. Chores like feeding cows, mowing fields and mending fences were all invested with cinematic flourish. I saw apocalypse-inducing machinery in large rusty tractors. I saw my ghost every day in the fading glass of an antique mirror. I imagined lens flares and tracking shots in all my labours. I’m grateful for the digital technology that makes it possible for people like me to make movies. I’d have no way forward if it wasn’t for digital.
What can you tell us about your horror film THE DARK SISTERS (2023), without giving any spoilers?
There are these two sisters, Jorie and Kaidon, who travel deep into a forest for vacation. The woods allow them privacy while they try to reconnect. Years ago, they were driven apart by a dark secret. They’ve each been living a double life, like anyone with a secret must do. And now they’re exhausted with duplicity and want to be whole. They presume mutual forgiveness will break the spell they’ve been living under. But there’s a hidden power in the forest that measures life and death, and this power means to weigh the sister’s future against the dark crime of their past. This way of judgement is mysterious, but final. What happens to the sisters is like something out of folklore, or out of a nightmare. It’s unusual but thrilling.
Your recent feature film THE DARK SISTERS (2023) has a dreamlike quality to it, mixing poetry with Edgar Allan Poe-esque attributes. How did you explain what you want from your cast and crew for the film?
Thank you for mentioning Poe. He was open about his methods in different essays, and I’ve learned a lot from them about how to craft something memorable and macabre. Most interesting for me is how Poe shaped suggestive and undefined qualities into a form of truth and eerieness. Suggestive qualities involve the real world aspects of his writing. Undefined qualities involve the ethereal or spiritual aspects. Intertwined, they form an archway. Through this, the reader enters the macabre.
I’m very interested in cinema’s ability to cast spells. It’s wonderful to be absorbed in a movie, to feel the transport. Spells are the plots of my movies. Storylines diverge and come together like phrases in a spell. A spell is traditionally made of ritualistic chant and gesture. I use poetic language and montage. I should hurry up to mention I don’t think of myself as a magical person. I’m a regular sort of person. But as long as cinematic art is a possibility, my way of pursuit involves making up spells. I enjoy this, and the results are always unique.
With so many films including horror films stretching over the 2 hour mark nowadays, THE DARK SISTERS (2023) is a nice viewing experience at under 90 minutes. Was this a conscious effort to make the film this length, and what are your thoughts on film length in general?
The runtime for me is like a promise of good faith to the viewer: Please indulge me for a few experiments and I’ll have you out of here at a decent hour. With the release of The Dark Sisters, I’ll have three films that are available on blu-ray or streaming platforms, and each one is about an hour-and-a-half. That seems the right duration. Because it’s a balance, isn’t it? Respecting the viewer’s attention span while allowing appropriate time to weave the tale you want to tell. Underground filmmakers have to haggle in this way. A modest runtime and attractive production values are how I lure viewers scrolling for content.
As you both wrote and Directed THE DARK SISTERS (2023) how close was it from script–to–screen to its original vision?
Sounds immodest, but I think we externalized the vision exactly. We were successful because we were prepared. We had the right actors at the right location at the right time of day, every day. As for the script itself, it wasn’t a Hitchcockian construction. It didn’t demand precise blocking or transitions. We had room to feel things out and be flexible. And although the movie presents many mysteries, we all had internalized its rhythms and themes before going out to location. All that was left for us to do upon arrival was to roll camera on the movie we’d been dreaming about for months.
What was your favourite day on set and why?
We shot at Caddo Lake in Texas, which is a magical place. When you get there, it’s easy to think you’ve arrived at prehistoric times. Every day it was a dream to film in this environment. But there was one day we chartered a boat for a scene with the two sisters, played by Nicole Fancher and Edna Gill. The DP Jay Flowers and I were operating cameras. Our pilot carried us across the lake and through hidden channels perfectly. There was no dialogue for the scene, only reactions to the environment. Nothing for us to do but be present on the water and roll camera. It was a brilliant day!
For you personally, what do you think makes a great horror film?
Horror films have a purpose in the culture. A great horror film searches the status quo from underneath, searching for some irregularity or weak place to press against, setting the whole rig rocking a little bit. The purpose isn’t to turn the culture over, just rock it a little. The disturbance creates a new state of balance. The Exorcist rocked things and the culture had to adjust. The Shining did too, just not as immediately as The Exorcist.
What are your Top 3 horror films of all time?
For the criteria I just mentioned:
The Exorcist
The Shining
Rosemary’s Baby
Alternate:
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Personal favorites:
Lost Highway
Thirst
Madeline’s Madeline
Alternate:
Titane
For any budding filmmakers out there, what is the best piece of advice that you could give them?
Read novels and imagine how they’re lit. Reading opens more neural pathways than watching movies does. An independent filmmaker needs these pathways. It’s golden training to look at evocative language and imagine a light source for the scene. Practice this and you’ll have one of the readiest minds on set.
Finally, what projects do you have coming up that you can tell us about?
There’s a project called Howler. It’s about a poet on the eve of receiving a major award. But as friends and colleagues gather, our poet, who is usually a disciplined and scholarly person, threatens to discard her speech and speak instead of an apocalyptic vision. Is it the stress of the award that’s causing this or is something metaphysical happening? She’s crossing from the creative imagination into the prophetic imagination. It’s a journey accommodated by weird and dreamy visuals. I’m tremendously excited about this!
Interview by Peter ‘Witchfinder‘ Hopkins
