In-Depth Interview with the Director of the Upcoming Horror Film “The Hatred” – Michael G. Kehoe
Midnight Horror Show: Tell me a bit about yourself, and how you first became interested in film. When it comes to horror, were there any films you saw early growing up that inspired you as a horror fan?
Michael G. Kehoe: Yeah, you know I am from Brooklyn, New York originally, and my mother was a local theatre director, and I was watching her during the course of her career in directing. And I loved the fact that she was controlling the situation of these scenes, and how she was mapping it out in her mind. And that hit me. I was a big fan of movies. I would go to movies all the time as a kid. And there are some movies growing up during that time that scared me or made me think about the shift, which I loved. I love taking the audience from one direction and shifting into another. I saw Planet of the Apes when I was a little kid and went to the theater for that, and then, of course, Alien, and John Carpenter’s The Thing. And then a movie that actually inspired this movie was a movie titled The Changeling with George C. Scott. And it’s a brilliant little movie. Some people may say it’s a little dated for some of the sequences, but it’s pretty terrifying in the moments they’ve captured with this entity. I still love it today. That is what inspired the movie, and for me to write the script. And then as I continued on, in high school I directed a play called One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I played McMurphy and directed it, and I went to the sports booster club saying “Why don’t we raise money by doing a play?”. They looked at me and rolled their eyes. You know, they do bake sales and car washes. We pulled it off. Normally they just had these plays that the students put on or whatever on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Fridays usually ok. Saturdays some more people. Sundays not so packed. Well, we ended up doing two weekends, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Both weekends sold out. And in a small town in upstate New York, football is huge, so one of the things that I did was I took all the football players made the football players the crazies/patients in the ward. So everybody that came to see the football games came to see the football players in the play. So that inspired me.
I didn’t know what a producer did at that time, and that inspired me and I learned “Okay this is what you have to do in order to put it together.” So time continued, and I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. During that time I had two good friends that I was going to school with at the time, Jimmy and Michael. I was bartending at night, and we closed the bar one night and when we had closed the bar down we were talking and said when one of us makes it, we will pull the other two in. Well, when I came to L.A. I got a phone call from Jimmy and he had said that Michael had died from an overdose of pills. Jimmy had said he was going to be on Broadway with Al Pacino in American Buffalo. And I thought “Wow this is great, man. Congratulations.” About a month later, Jimmy was found dead as well. And it hit me hard about the friendship and the things that were going on for the future. And what I ended up doing was I took that story and I wrote a short film called Second Dance, and it’s about suicide. It’s a guy at the end of the rope when two of his friends have died, and he has nothing left to live for. And his friends end up coming back as angels to convince him that it’s not the thing to do. Well, that short film went to Sundance, and that afforded me the opportunity to do a feature. So I started working on some different films and continued my career of writing, and it just opened the doors up for me to meet some people like working with Tom Cruise on Jerry Mcguire, and some Mission Impossible films, and Vanilla Sky. I worked with J.J. Abrams, and I did two films with Tony Scott, and I really admire Tony Scott’s work, what he does, and how he is with the crew. I worked on Enemy of the State and The Last Boyscout. And that’s how I met John Connor who was my DP, and we made a promise to each other that we would try to make a movie together. And low and behold, years later, we made the short film for Hush which was from the feature script that I wrote.
Midnight Horror Show: In 1995 you wrote and directed the Thriller Dominion which was your first feature. What was that experience like?
Michael G. Kehoe: Well, before Second Dance went to Sundance what happened with that was I made Second Dance, and I had a producer friend of mine that said “Look, let’s get a screening over at Tri-Star / Sony and let’s screen it and see who shows up. You may get 50 people, Mike, but at least get the word out.” And this was before social networks, and computers getting the word out.
Midnight Horror Show: Yeah everything had to be by phone and just actually getting out there.
Michael G. Kehoe: Yeah you had to make postcards, and posters and phone calls. So I created a little network and got the word out. And we screened it in a 99 seat theater, and ended up getting 500 people and had to show it 5 times. And the projectionist who was there said: “Have you put this in Sundance?” I said, “No, we didn’t make the deadline.” She said “Why don’t you leave it with me, because there’s a guy named John Cooper who does all of the short films who now runs Sundance, and he’s coming in to watch some of the short films we are going to be doing, and I think this deserves to be in there.” Well, we shot that on film, so I had to give her the can, you know, and it was like leaving your child there for the weekend. And then about a week and a half later, UPS drops it off, and about two weeks after that I get a letter in the mail saying you’ve made it to Sundance. So that was incredible.
I go to Sundance and start talking to people, and there was a company called Prism Entertainment that came up to me and said “Do you have anything?”, and I said “I have this action script that I wanted to sell to make some money so I can continue on.”, and they said, “You should direct it.” And I ended up directing Dominion. And my DP at that time was Mauro Fiore, who would later win the Academy Award for Avatar. This was one of his first films. So that was an incredible experience. The producer was Alan Blomquist, who was actually the first assistant director on Iron Eagle, and we had remained friends. He just gave me full reign, and I was able to do the things that I wanted. It was a good movie to work on as far as that goes. It never got a theatrical release. I think it went overseas and did pretty well there. But it was a great exercise for me to continue on. And originally I was working on a movie called Airheads. And Ernie Hudson was in it. And Ernie would get some screenplays, and I slipped my screenplay for Dominion into his trailer. And Ernie called me up and said: “Hey did you write this?” And I said “Yeah.” And he said, “This is great, what’s the story with it?” I said, “We are going to make it with this company called Prism.” And he said “I’d like to do it.”, because it was a lead. I said “Great!” So we started putting everything together. They did a poster for it, and then almost at the last minute, Ernie calls me up and said “Mike, I have to back out.”, and I said Why?” and he said, “Because Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall called me, and they want me to do a movie called Congo, and it’s at the same time as the shooting.” And I said, “Don’t worry about it.” We’re still friends today. I ended up getting Brad Johnson to play the lead. and Brion James, who has passed away but was in Blade Runner and Southern Comfort, and 48 hours, and also Tim Thomerson, who was in the Dollman series. We did pretty well, and that gave me a great opportunity to work on another level with actors.
Midnight Horror Show: Moving on to your current upcoming horror film, The Hatred, it started as a short film called Hush, which has won 34 awards. what inspired you to make the short?
Michael G. Kehoe: Well, I had written the screenplay, and we had a number of different titles for it. As I mentioned before, I was inspired by the movie The Changeling. But I have twin boys and when they were five, they would say to me “Check the closet.”, “Look outside.”, “Check under the bed.”, “Look over here” etc. right before they went to bed. So that kinda stuck with me. And years before that I went to Ireland. I played soccer over there and was with my mom, brother, and sister, and we were staying in a hotel called “Newpark”, which was the home of Field Marshall Montgomery’s mother. And apparently they got into an argument, and before he returned she had died, and the legend is that she walks the stairs at night. So my mother had asked the woman who runs the hotel about people coming in at all hours of the night, and the woman said “No, you’re the only ones here.” and my mother said, “No, there are people walking the stairs.” And she blew it off a couple of times until finally, my mother said: “You have to tell us what is going on.” And my mother put me in the hallway one night and said you should go out there and look at this. and I could hear the footsteps, but I never saw anything. And that stuck with me. The sound of slamming doors, and the footsteps and these banging sounds. I thought somebody was fooling around, and as that was embedded in my memory and as time continued. All of these things started building up. All of these little moments and occurrences that happen in your life, you make note of those.
So when I was writing the screenplay after being inspired by the Changeling, I put those in there. And then when I was talking to John Connor he said: “Let’s do a short film and get something out.” So we took a scene out of the movie that could stand alone, and that was the scene we ended up calling “Hush”. And we prepped it for about 4 months, and got everything together and shot 11 hours, and it ended up winning 34 awards including the Wes Craven Award at the Catalina Film Festival. And there is one little great note on that film. Years before, I was working in new Zealand on a film called The Last Samurai. And the transportation coordinator’s daughter’s name is Austyn Cuccia. I said to her “What do you want to do when you grow up?” And she was 11 years old and said: “I want to be a special effects makeup artist.” And I thought “Wow.” And I don’t know why, but I said: “Maybe one day we’ll work together.” Well, cut two years later Austyn had created this thing called “Blood Rugs”. If you watch a movie or television show, and you see an actor lying in a pool of blood, it’s not liquid. It’s actually a peeled off rug made of gel that doesn’t ruin the location, and she patented that. And she continued to do special effects makeup. She did the monster in the short film, and then I brought her on the feature.
Midnight Horror Show: That’s a really good story, and about the blood rugs, I actually didn’t know that. That’s a really interesting fact.
Michael G. Kehoe: Yeah you can Google “Blood Rugs” and you will see the company, and things she has done.
Midnight Horror Show: The trailer for The Hatred looks terrifying, and also like you had a good budget for it. How did the short film come to evolve into the feature, and what was the budget like for the short film?
Michael G. Kehoe: Well, we took the short film from the full-length script. And we didn’t have a lot of money, but I had some incredible friends throughout the industry that came and helped with everything. And we made the short film for $600. And people had asked me afterward what I had made it for. $30k, or $40k. And the goal was to create something small budget and make it look like it was a bigger budget because what is really on the screen is the talent of the cast and crew. And I think we achieved that when making the short film. And when the short film started getting attention, winning all of these awards, we knew that we had something there.
Midnight Horror Show: What was it like being nominated for “Best Horror” at the Golden Trailer Awards?
Michael G. Kehoe: Well, at first I didn’t know about it. I heard about it but didn’t think anything about it. But I knew that it was like the Academy Awards for trailers. And Lionsgate let us know that we were nominated. And we were nominated with The Conjuring 2, Annabelle 2, Get Out, and Stephen King’s It.
Midnight Horror Show: All really big productions.
Michael G. Kehoe: Yeah I was just so amazed to be in that mix with some incredible iconic films. And I wasn’t able to make it to the awards, but Shae and her mother attended and Wayne Brady was hosting and said about our trailer “I will never look under the bed again. That was scary.” I just checked today, and the trailer itself right now has 17.2M views from all across the world.
Midnight Horror Show: Yeah, that’s a staggering number.
Michael G. Kehoe: It’s really remarkable. All over the world, people are responding and it’s been extremely positive. And our goal is to not necessarily beat any other movies out but to entertain and have the audience have a good time and enjoy the spooks.
Midnight Horror Show: Good use of lighting is definitely a must when making a solid horror film. The storm at night is a classic horror staple, and it seems like you really had a good vision for the use of the lighting and the storm to create the atmosphere. Was there any particular inspiration behind that?
Michael G. Kehoe: Yes. In fact from seeing some old, old movies. Black and white movies. The thunder and lightning were always something that can give you a great background for this genre. And when we were shooting the short film I said to my DP “Look, I don’t want to use any lights.” And he said “But Mike, it’s at night and it’s indoors. We have to have some source light.” And we used the Alexa to shoot the short film which captures any light. And we just used a flashlight and the fire, and upstairs a lightning box outside the windows for our source light.
Midnight Horror Show: How did you go about assembling the team for this film? It looks like there are some pretty notable names attached to it like Amanda Wyss (A Nightmare on Elm St.), David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London), Andrew Divoff (Wishmaster), and Malek Akkad who was a producer for 5 Halloween films, and also for the upcoming Halloween film from Danny McBride.
Michael G. Kehoe: A mutual friend of Malek and I had called me and said “You have to send the short film to Malek.” who I had worked with on Rob Zombie’s Halloween. So Tommy Harper and I put everything together and sent it to Malek who responded very well to the short film and said he wanted to get together to read the script. And then we met, and sat down and mapped it out, and decided to sign with Malek and we were on our way. And one of the great things about Malek is that he’s a very hands-on producer who loves to get into the script and develop it. Malek and I would go over the screenplay, and when we started casting we were trying to find a young girl, but someone that also had more maturity. And some were pretty remarkable, and some didn’t get it. And then our lead Shae Smolik came in and we said on the spot that “This is the girl.” And you’ll be amazed that a little 10-year-old can pull it off.
And we hired Alisha Wainwright who did a great job and Gabrielle Bourne, and Bayley Corman who at the time we didn’t know was Roger Corman’s niece! And Amanda Wyss wanted to join, and David Naughton was on the same level. I made a phone call to him and he said: “Mike, I’m there for you.” And Malek said he wanted to reach out to Andrew Divoff and he said he absolutely wants to do it. Malek knows the genre. We would meet at 5 a.m. and start working on the script for the day, be going to the set by 7 am, shoot for 15 hours, and then he and I would meet afterward to talk about what to prepare for the next day. It was chaotic, but Malek and I made it work and I am very thankful that he was there by my side.
Midnight Horror Show: Yeah, it sounds like you guys had some good chemistry and a lot of dedication to get it all done.
Michael G. Kehoe: Absolutely.
Midnight Horror Show: On IMDB, the poster has the title of the film as “Alice”. Was this the original title? If so, why the change, and what is the story behind Alice? She is also mentioned in the trailer.
Michael G. Kehoe: What happened was we were originally going to call the movie “Hush”, but Blumhouse released a film on Netflix called Hush while we were screening at festivals. So we had to change it. Then Malek and I were going to call it “Alice”, but we got a call from the studios about other films called Alice. And within the movie itself, you hear the line “The Hatred” and that sparked it. The studio liked it, and we continued on with it, but Alice is in the movie and a crucial character to the story. This happens in a lot of movies where it starts off as one title and 20 titles later, this is what it is.
Midnight Horror Show: What are your future plans following the release of The Hatred? Any more horror films on the horizon?
Michael G. Kehoe: I think I have one more horror film in me. I wrote something that deals with the Halloween holiday. Nothing to do with the Halloween films, but it involves a corn field and something inside and I’m thinking about that. But I do have another movie that I’m set to do in Iceland called Keflavík with True North. And I wrote this thriller which is inspired by The Thing and deals with some truth and the rest is my creative license. We are supposed to go with that next year and it’s a big sci fi adventure.
Midnight Horror Show: Well those are all of the questions I had. And thank you very much for doing the interview.
Michael G. Kehoe: Yeah, well thank you so much for the interview and support for this.
You can find Michael G. Kehoe at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikeyKehoe
Website: https://mgkfilmmaker.blog/
The trailer for The Hatred can be found here, and is closing in on 19M views: https://www.facebook.com/thehatredmovie/posts/1396719107091596
Official Facebook page for The Hatred: https://www.facebook.com/thehatredmovie/
You can check out Austyn Cuccia’s Blood Rugs at http://www.bloodrugs.com/ and also on twitter here: https://twitter.com/BloodRugs
The Hatred is currently screening at festivals and will be premiering at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival on August 17th in Miami Florida which may be sold out. Keep an eye out for upcoming festival dates where it will be screening again soon leading up to the release on Blu-Ray and DVD on September 12th.
Movie stills used in this interview were used with permission from Big Rock Films. (C)2016 Big Rock Films, LLC. All
rights reserved.
