Going into 2014’s SXSW, Patrick Brice was an unknown entity, opening the door for the horror knockout that was Creep. With Mark Duplass and an HD camera, Brice made one of the year’s best horror films with little to no dollar bills. All the more impressive is his follow-up, the hilarious and heartfelt The Overnight. With a bigger cast, more money, a formalized script and a sprig of confidence, Brice set out to out-do himself in every way possible. I sat down with Patrick for this two-part discussion of what is easily one of my favorites of the year. Join us as we talk about the transformation from first time director to Sundance sparkler, his desire to dip his toe into thrillers, the responsibility of doing bigger and better projects, pushing the boundaries of comedy, the potential of horror movies and those infamous penis prosthetics.

Let’s talk about this transition from Creep to The Overnight. I know that you said making Creep was a fairly nonchalant process, working with Mark up at the cabin and kind of just ad-libbing. And then, with The Overnight, you worked from a much more finalized script and have some more potent starring figures in the mix. It definitely looks on paper like a huge difference but was the transition as staggering as it looked?

Patrick Brice: Yeah, it was a fluid transition. There wasn’t anything that caught me off-guard or tripped me up. It’s funny, ‘cause while we were in the process of making Creep, I was kind of treating it as almost a large-scale experiment. Just in how we made it, the fact that we didn’t have a crew, so we were improvising the whole movie. The fact that I was acting in it. There were a lot of other factors going in. So I saw it more as a formal experiment in making a movie. It was really great because, in doing it that way, I was able to strip away a lot of the things that I thought I cared about as a filmmaker. I thought originally that I would be making a lot more of a structured, formalist movie. It was great with Creep because it didn’t matter what the frame looked like at any given time; what mattered was, are we propelling the story and do the performances seem believable, and do these characters seems believable? For me, it was a great primer for jumping into making The Overnight, which feels like my first real movie. It’s my second movie, but it feels like my first real one, for sure.

So does your ability to garner such a good cast and assemble a real, live crew give you confidence in your filmmaking that maybe you didn’t have before?

PB: Absolutely. When you’re making a movie, obviously anybody experiences moments of confidence and moments of great insecurity. To have all these people who have a lot more experience than I do, and have other options for what they could be doing with their time—to have them respond to a script that I’d written, that alone, to become a part of this project, that alone was all I needed.

Did you feel a lot more pressure to perform as well, though?

PB: Absolutely. Mainly because I wanted, both with the cast and the crew, all these people put their trust in me to make something, and I wanted to be sure I could deliver.

One of the things that I loved seeing remain consistent throughout Creep and The Overnight is your ability to draw out tension and ambiguity in any situation. In Creep it was like, “Oh, is this guy gonna kill me?” Whereas in The Overnight, it was like, “Is this guy gonna fuck me?” And it’s a really interesting choice, because we don’t usually see those kinds of filters put on comedy movies. It’s almost like you’ve planted these horror tropes into comedy trappings.

PB: That was a conscious consideration, for sure. I love the fact that I was able to take a lot of the tools I learned in terms of implementing narrative tension, and apply that into The Overnight. And I knew both these movies are movies where the joy of watching the film is the slow discovery of these characters, and what their intentions are, and as a writer and as a filmmaker, that just gives me so much leeway to play with there. In terms of planting bread crumbs to keep the audience engaged and kind of leaning in, as opposed to it being a passive act. And it’s funny, ‘cause that inevitably makes people uncomfortable, dealing with uncomfortable subjects. Creep was almost a film of uncomfortable silences or something. I know I’m putting audiences through it a little bit; I’m just excited. I feel like I’ve a better handle on what I’m doing with each project, learning from each one.

Props to you for doing it. More often than not, we get these comedy movies with cookie-cutter characters that we’ve seen time and time again. I love how unconventional you’re able to be with the comedy here, which might I add is just a riot. I was laughing the whole way through this movie. And yet I think it also engages us on some genuine human issues and human emotions, particularly in terms of body image and sexuality.

PB: I wanted there to be a balance between the more absurd comedy—which is something that I absolutely love—and trying to justify you actually giving a shit about these characters. What’s great about having people who are great comedic performers is, more often than not, they can probably do drama fairly well. I’ve always enjoyed it when I’ve seen comedians do dramatic stuff. Like Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love is a great example of that—just a great, interesting, kind of fearless way to use a performer like that, who you wouldn’t normally think about in that context. Luckily, everyone that was involved oscillates between comedy and drama in their careers. So it was really easy with these four actors to articulate what I want, and for them to understand and deliver it.

One of the things I want to touch on because it’s really a highlight of the movie: the prosthetic work that you did, and the subversion of the physical comedy in that. Can you just talk about where that came from, what went into that?

PB: When I wrote this scene in which the prosthetic are first revealed, I knew I wanted to use prosthetics eventually. I knew I wanted there to be one of those moments where it’s pushing your sense of reality with the movie a little bit. But then that was something where I could go back… I grew up on the Farrelly brothers movies of the nineties. It’s so funny to re-watch those movies now. There’s Something about Mary, where they push that stuff. They are presenting situations that in reality, if you were playing this straight, there’s no way it would fly that Cameron Diaz has cum in her hair. But yet they’re able to make it work. So for this, I knew I wanted Jason Schwartzman’s character to have this giant member, and I knew that prosthetics were gonna have to be part of that. I was just surprised and excited that everyone was so willing to go along with this at each step of the way. Both with Adam and Mark and Naomi responding to the idea of using them, to the fact that we ended up getting a special effects house to make them. That part was a lot of fun.

So as far as I see it, I think you’ve hit a bulls eye both with comedy and horror at this point. Is there another genre that you want to explore?

PB: I love crime movies and thrillers. I feel like that’s another opportunity to branch out and try something new, while still keeping the narrative tense in the funny. What’s great about horror movies or actions movies or anything—comedy is always welcome, I feel like, if it’s done right. Injecting comedy into any of those genres is always welcome, so that’s something I’m excited to play with, for sure. I think whatever I make next is gonna continue—you’re not gonna be able to describe it in one genre. I never think about genre when I’m going into a project. What are the elements that are gonna serve this particular story? And hopefully they’ll land somewhere that makes sense to people.

Do you see yourself returning to horror at any point, or do you see horror as more of a good, and almost more importantly, cheap way for new directors to cut their teeth?

PB: First off, it’s pretty much project to project for me, in terms of what I’m interested in. I’m completely open to doing something that has horror elements, for sure. And I think what’s cool about it is it feels like it cuts a wide swath in the genre. Someone like me who is able to make a movie like Creep, which has a lot of horror elements, and feels like a horror movie, but also doesn’t feel like any other horror movie I’ve seen, for the most part. It was a nice, big sandbox to play in. As a young filmmaker, it’s exciting to be able to make something, especially with the actual potential that it’ll be seen.

In finality, is there another project that you’re already started on at this point? What’s next?

PB: I’m writing something. I can’t talk about it, but I’m writing another film that I would direct.

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