Patrick Rea

Over the last few years, Nebraskan filmmaker Patrick Rea has gained acclaim for his series of short films that has seen him explore numerous styles and genres. Following his graduation from the University of Kansas, Rea formed an independent production company, SenoReality Pictures, alongside collaborators Josh Robison and Ryan S. Jones. In the last five years, Rea has produced around twenty short films in Lawrence, Kansas and Los Angeles, including the Regional Emmy Award winner Women’s Intuition. The feature film Nailbiter is currently in post-production.

Patrick Rea reveals the life of an independent filmmaker…

Like much of your work, your new short Get Off My Porch boasts a dark humour mixed with subtle horror. Would you say that you have a cynical nature that comes through in your films?

“Haha. Maybe, just a little. It might just be my sense of humour, but I’m always trying to find the dark side of something that is seemingly innocent. With Get Off My Porch, I was pulling from my memories of being a Boy Scout and having to go door-to-door raising money by selling candy bars. I basically took that idea and made it into a horror comedy and threw in a little social commentary on people’s obsession with Girl Scout cookies.

I would say that there is a level of cynicism that underscores all of our films. Now That You’re Dead has a not-so pleasant viewpoint on marriage, while Paint Shaker displays people’s contrasting and sometimes self-serving reactions to being caught up in a traumatic experience. However, the main character in Next Caller is perhaps the most cynical personality that has been featured in any of our short films.”

Get Off My Porch also has a vintage Joe Dante feel, in that the picturesque American suburbia is peeled back to reveal something more horrific. Do you ever attempt to make serious statements in your work or are you more of a playful filmmaker?

“It depends on the film. With Get Off My Porch, I was trying to be playful. I made a conscious effort to tap the Joe Dante-style and create something that was fun and creepy, like The ‘burbs or Gremlins.

With the short film, Mrs. Brumett’s Garden, which deals with an elderly woman talking to invisible fairies in her garden, much to the dismay of her husband, I was really trying to make a statement about Alzheimer’s. The film is also about aging, and how hard it can be when a spouse starts to drift away, but of course I put a dark spin on it. Again, with Paint Shaker, I think the film really deals with some serious statements, such as ‘job-place shootings’ and how people react to those situations. The film took those very serious ideas and added black humour in it’s presentation.”

Are there common themes that runs throughout all of your work?

“Again, I think the combination of horror and humour is a constant element that I put into the films we make. Though I have to say the humour ranges from being very apparent to being more subtle. With Get Off My Porch, the humour is really apparent, but with Do Not Disturb, the humour is way darker and twisted.

Another theme that runs through Get Off My Porch and Time’s Up, Eve is the fear of losing one’s individuality, much like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That sense of paranoia also runs throughout some of our other films, like Next Caller and Do Not Disturb.”

You seem to like torturing your protagonists. Would you say you agree with Sam Raimi’s statement that, “The innocent must suffer, the guilty must be punished and you must taste blood to be a man?”

“Well, Sam Raimi has always been one of my primary influences, so I’ll agree with most of what he says. Haha. I have been told that a lot of our films have the protagonist being either made to suffer or in the end they get some sort of comeuppance. With Now That You’re Dead, each character is rather unlikeable, and it’s almost like a game of leapfrog to see which character will outsmart the other. In Get Off My Porch, the main character isn’t super likable either, so you don’t want to see him fully succeed. In the short we did, Do Not Disturb, I think that may be one of the few occurrences where the protagonist, who is also a serial killer, reaches his goal and gets away, but we’re not really sure where he went or what he sacrificed by escaping.”

With Time’s Up, Eve, in you managed to recreate the look of a 1940s film noir thriller. What are your key inspirations as a filmmaker and how easy do you find it jumping between genres?

“I’m inspired by all different types of genres, with the exception of the “romantic-comedy.” Haha. With Time’s Up, Eve, I wanted to blend genres of film noir, horror and sci-fi. Jon Niccum and I wrote the script and originally we had a male lead, and we decided that if we were going to go with the forties aesthetic, that we were going use a femme fatale as the protagonist. Our DP, Hanuman Brown-Eagle and I both wanted to give the film a forties detective serial style, but also capture a darker Hichcockian vibe.

I’ve been inspired by directors like John Carpenter and Spielberg probably the most. The thing about Spielberg is that he can do any kind of movie. He has gone from sci-fi films, to adventure films and to war movies with great ease. I’d like to be able to do that as well.

Our next short film is a drama/thriller titled Rhino, which was written by Jon Niccum and Jai Nitz, who also wrote our short film Paint Shaker. It deals with drug dealing in a college town, so it isn’t a horror/sci-fi piece and that’s what attracted me to it the most. I want to stretch myself as a director and not do the same thing over and over.

However, I do tend to lean more toward sci-fi and horror films because those were my favourite kind of films to watch growing up. Raiders of the Lost Ark is still my favorite film of all time, along with other childhood favorites like Big Trouble in Little China and, of course, Star Wars.”

To create an effective short film, you have to devise a simple-yet compelling premise that can play out in a three-act structure in just a few minutes. Is this something you find to be a constant challenge and how did you manage to expand your ideas when writing your feature script Nailbiter?

“Telling a three-act structure in fifteen minutes is a challenge. The biggest challenge is to make the characters interesting enough in that short period of time. With a feature you have more time to develop the characters and make them relatable. In a short, you have way less time.

Kendal Sinn penned the Nailbiter screenplay, based on a story that we both came up with. The concept does deal with characters trapped in a claustrophobic location, so we had to keep the script fairly tight, so not to outstay the central premise. The film is also a monster film, and does have a little bit of a Joe Dante feel to it as well. Basically, I wanted to apply the knowledge that we accumulated from doing the shorts to a feature. The film, while a tad more serious in tone than some of our more playful short films, does have some underlining dark humour to it.”

To avoid becoming stale, do you constantly have to push yourself and create new challenges?

“Yes, absolutely. Like I said, our next short, Rhino, is entirely a different genre from what I typically delve into. We wrapped a short film titled Hell Week in December, which dealt with a sorority prank that goes array. I’m trying to constantly keep working and try new things, not only in storytelling, but also in using the constantly evolving digital technology. We shot our last few films with a DSLR camera and the results have been pretty mind-blowing.

My next feature, titled The Mirror Watcher, blends elements of Rear Window with science fiction. It primarily takes place in suburbia, which is a change from Nailbiter, which is set in a more rural Kansas location. I’d like to make a film in every genre, again with exception of the “romantic-comedy,” though I have a feeling that I will end up doing one at some point. Haha.”