Joshua John Miller and his private and artistic associate, M.A. Fortin, by no means got down to make a film about an exorcism as a result of, as Fortin says to Miller, “Your father stars within the biggest one in all all time.”
Miller’s dad was the actor Jason Miller, who performed Father Damien Karras in “The Exorcist.” He typically advised Joshua tales of the purportedly haunted set, recounting fires that began across the manufacturing and the accidents and deaths that will influence those that labored on the movie.
That real-life expertise was one of many massive inspirations for “The Exorcism,” a brand new film Joshua directed and co-wrote with Fortin, by which Russell Crowe performs Anthony Miller, an actor portraying a priest in what seems to be a contemporary “Exorcist” remake whereas residing along with his estranged daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins).
Though the meta parallels are on show — from the daddy’s issues with alcohol to the household’s final identify “Miller” — Joshua and Fortin needed to make use of the story as a springboard to cowl extra formidable themes.
“There was simply one thing in regards to the time and the private {and professional} experiences that we’d undergone,” Fortin mentioned. “The language of exorcism films all of the sudden felt weirdly compelling to us — the truth that they’re all the identical form of verse, refrain, verse, the place the Catholic Cortana is inviolable, good and it’ll prevent. Additionally, ladies are at all times those you recognize who’re going to be possessed as a result of they’re receptive — it’s very sexist.
“Additionally, there appears to be a type of nastiness that has been unleashed, and it appeared on the time particularly that males had been those who had been particularly receptive to and inclined to it,” he continued. “It made us marvel how we might fuck round with the exorcism style. Additionally as queer folks, we’ve been a pair for 20 years, and I particularly had some nuns in my background for a sizzling minute. I’ve at all times had a tenuous relationship with the Church and with its relationship in direction of queer folks.”
Joshua John Miller, left and M.A. Fortin
Armed with all of these concepts, the pair determined to construct the narrative round an in-story set that’s combative and in the end harmful for Anthony. Beforehand, Joshua and Fortin’s largest initiatives collectively had been creating the USA Community crime sequence “Queen of the South” and writing the 2015 horror comedy “The Closing Women,” which gave them loads of expertise with caustic personalities within the trade.
“[Fortin] and I had an expert expertise years in the past on a challenge,” Joshua mentioned. “It was so traumatizing and emotionally violent that it shook up our world in an excessive means. I assume you possibly can say we noticed the satan. In that second, you both develop from that have otherwise you shrink. I believe that made its means into this film loads, subconsciously.”
The duo was unafraid to look instantly into the darkness with their script, which speaks frankly about points together with dependancy, which Joshua spent a lot of his life watching his father take care of.
“I believe the concept of writing about dependancy is rooted in our personal experiences and the folks round us,” Joshua mentioned. “As a child, I used to be witnessing my dad’s deep, painful wrestle with dependancy. That was very current in my life for me, most likely an excessive amount of to be fairly sincere. However it taught me to wish to be the higher variation, the higher model. My father got here from a time that romanticized indulgence — ‘that’s what artists did.’”
These tough, masculinity-examining conversations manifest in different areas of the script as nicely, similar to scenes when a personality’s abuse by the hands of the Church is mentioned — not commonplace fare for a typical horror film.
“By way of traumas, I believe that’s not one thing folks count on in a horror movie, per se,” Joshua mentioned. “I believe most studios wish to have leap scares solely and a semblance of pathos. From the start, we at all times knew we had been going to battle for the emotionality. If in case you have that, then you definitely’ll be extra scared, you’ll be extra invested. It’s at all times been about specializing in the characters and relationships.”
One other space Joshua and Fortin needed to look at was Lee’s budding lesbian relationship with a younger actress on set, performed by Chloe Bailey.
“Rising up, there was a sure phase of Judeo-Christians that might not speaking sufficient about how queer folks had been both damned or outright evil,” Fortin mentioned. “There’s something so disfiguring about having to develop up in that. It feels enormous to me {that a} pop film that’s a lot a Catholic story additionally facilities younger queer ladies as being merely on the facet of excellent. It argues — quietly, with out politicizing it — that two queer ladies are a part of God’s plan and never anything. It’s a small factor, nevertheless it simply feels essential to us.”
Joshua held agency too when he needed to battle to maintain in a quick love scene between the 2 characters.
“At one level, somebody mentioned, ‘Nicely, it’s not “Euphoria”-type lesbian intercourse, so why do we’d like this storyline?’ It was really probably the most misogynistic issues I’ve ever heard,” he mentioned. “We had been each devastated upon listening to that observe, however I’m a fighter — it was integral. There’s no means I’d have stood behind this film. Thank God we had been in a position to convey that storyline again to life. It’s like saying take out part of your self.”
In the end, Joshua and Fortin are inspired that audiences will stick to them on this emotionally-dense journey, which exhibits the darkness, gentle and complexity in lots of relationships — together with the bond which impressed the film within the first place.
“I can actually say a number of the greatest instances I had with my dad had been once I was nonetheless ingesting and I might have these form of moments that had been our assembly level,” Joshua says. “‘That’s what males do.’”