Although classic horror films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hitcher inspired San Antonio native and writer-director Kristian McKay, the 1992 Churchill High School graduate wanted his first horror movie to be distinct.
“I was trying to make a film like Sonic Youth makes music — like your guitars are deliberately out of tune,” McKay, 53, told the Current during a recent interview.
In Kill Trip, shot in the Central Texas town of Bastrop early last year, McKay follows a group of friends traveling to a music festival. When their car breaks down, they accept a ride from a charming van driver, only to find themselves on a detour where survival is anything but guaranteed.
The film was produced by McKay’s production company, Obscura Film, and his producing partner, Daunesh Alcott.
During our interview, McKay talked about what it took to make Kill Trip feel “off” and what he really thinks about the film incentives in Texas.
Kill Trip is available to stream on several VOD platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play and Fandango.
Kill Trip is your first horror movie. What led you to that genre?
Yeah, most of my other films are dramas and thrillers. But you can only convince somebody to give you the money if they think there’s a possible chance the film will get in the black. So, I took the idea to write something that had my sensibilities but was buried in the horror genre. I’d like to think of Obscura Film as a micro-Blumhouse sort of thing.
What is it about Kill Trip that makes it different from other horror films?
I think a lot of older people dig it because it’s not a slasher gore horror movie. I think everything today looks like a Netflix movie, so I wanted the film to feel different. I wanted the acting to be stilted. I put a lot of attention into the film to make it feel off.
Off how?
I wanted to play with ideas on acting, so I asked the actors to slow down their performances so the viewers would have to sit there for a second. I wanted it to be like [author] Sherwood Anderson’s book, Winesberg, Ohio. Once you read every chapter, you know the town because every chapter is a character. You may think the bad guy is the bad guy, but there are also things going on outside of that narrative. It’s like Natural Born Killers meets Clue.
Who are some of your filmmaking inspirations?
Visually, David Lynch (Blue Velvet). Probably Nicolas Winding Refn (The Neon Demon) too. I don’t necessarily want to follow anyone directly, but Lynch was definitely an inspiration. He was on my mind when I was making Kill Trip because he had just passed away right before we started filming.
Why is the Texas landscape such a good setting for a horror movie?
Texas is a place where it feels like anything can happen because there’s miles between cities. When you’re in New York, everything is so dense. In California, one city begins where one city ends. In Texas, there’s all this landscape where you could discover a body or find a bag of money. Anything is possible.
But again, this is an obscure horror movie rather than something typical, right?
Yeah, we got feedback from certain distributors that were like, “This is a love-story drama.” They didn’t buy it at all. The blood is very subtle. I wanted to focus more on performance or the oddity of non-performance. [Actor] Todd Jenkins, who plays The Glove Man, didn’t really want to do the movie at the beginning. He doesn’t speak a line. It’s very Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird. He was like, “What is this?”
How did you talk him into it?
I told him there was a challenge in playing the role. It was all about trying to become relevant without any dialogue. Once we got through that door, he took it on and made it his own. We could have been bloodier, but it was more of a challenge not to do that. Some people hate it, and some people love it. I’m proud that the film is undeniably a distinctive piece.
So, you’re not too worried that someone is going to rent it on Prime thinking it has a large body count because of the title?
It’s already happened! Classic horror fans on Letterboxd are very rude. Some of that stuff is toxic. You can only listen to “Dave from Tampa” for so long. But you live to fight another day.
Your next film, Do Not Open, was shot in San Antonio. Tell me about that.
Yeah, we wrapped in July. We wanted to do something a little bigger, so we went out and got [actor] Freddy Carter from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Lulu Wilson from The Wrath of Becky and Mark McKenna (Overlord). I had this great story set in a storage facility unit. It’s kind of like Christine meets Videodrome. We’re looking at a 2027 release. There’s still a lot of post-production work to be done.
Did the Texas film incentives help?
No. We’re talking about going to New Mexico for our next film. The incentives are for projects that are over a million dollars. It’s fluff. It’s not for independent filmmakers. It’s for [Matthew] McConaughey and [Taylor] Sheridan. In New Mexico, you can go there and make a $50,000 movie and ask for 35% of it back. I mean, what independent filmmaker in Texas is running around with $250,000?
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