By Shannon McGrew
In MADS, eighteen-year-old Romain has just graduated and makes a stop at his dealer's place to try a new pill. As he heads off to a party, he sees an injured woman on the side of the road and decides to help her, but when she gets in his car, she suddenly smashes her own head against the dashboard, bleeding out until she dies. Is this a bad trip? Or is it something else? One thing is for sure, it's only the beginning of the night.
For the release of MADS, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with writer and director David Moreau. During their chat, they discussed everything from how a nightmare inspired the film to the challenges and intense demands of filming in one take.
Thank you so much for speaking with me today, David. What inspired the story for MADS, and were you always planning on doing it as one long shot?
David Moreau: It's funny because, right now, I'm at the same place I had the idea. [It all started] when I woke up after a strange nightmare, [where] somebody put drugs in my drink, then I had a bad trip, and it started to go very bad. I was wondering if it was the end of the word or not. So, [when] I woke up in the morning, I [started] asking if what I experienced happened. It was really strange. After that, I decided to think about a story focusing on that.
I live in the middle of nowhere in the forest near Fontainebleau, about one hour from Paris. Unfortunately, I'm not a sports guy, but I [went for a run], and I started to think about this idea and this disease and that you don't know if it's because of the drugs or not. [While I was running], I realized it was raining, and I saw a zombie in the middle of the forest, and it was a real zombie. I was so scared. Then I heard "Cut," and [found out] they were shooting the American zombie show, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol. They were shooting five minutes away from my house. I knew it was a sign that I had to proceed and make this movie. I saw it as the God of Zombies sending me a strange sign.
Regarding the one take, the last time I was shocked in theaters was 28 Days Later. I've seen tons of genre movies. I've been a big fan since I was a teenager, and this movie shocked me so much because it felt so real. The use of the DV cam and all that. It brought back the zombie universe, which was not dying, but after Romero, it was not in amazing shape at the beginning of 2000. This movie came out, and I was so blown away. I always had it in mind to do, not a zombie movie, but I wanted to tackle bringing more realism into those stories. When I saw a movie called Victoria, which I loved, it was a German movie. It's about five or six years old. It's not a genre movie, but it focuses on a bunch of kids in Berlin hanging out at night and finally robbing some stuff. It's a two-hour long one-take. The movie feels like part of a documentary. It's fiction, but it felt so real. Despite the technical aspect, I thought that making a one-take film was the best thing for me to try to achieve to make a realistic genre movie.
When it came time to hire actors, how was the process of finding the right people for the job? How did you prepare them to do the film in one take?
David Moreau: First, I have to [get actors who are] very young and fresh. They don't think it will be hard because working and diving in is so exciting. So, they say yes, of course, it's possible. It's great. The rest of the crew, who are more experienced, were like, "Are you sure you want to do it in one-take? It's impossible." So, they did not think it was impossible.
When I found my great actors, we started to rehearse in a room and then on set, which was a luxury because you rarely rehearse on the set. It was cool. I was [using] my iPhone with the Director of Photography, and we started to rehearse scene by scene with an iPhone and started to make choreography.
It was really short because we had one week of rehearsal in the office, one week on location, one week with the technical crew, and one week of shooting. So, it was mainly five weeks of rehearsing and the shoot.
The whole movie, I'm sure, was a challenge. But, looking back, was there one aspect or one scene that rose above the others as the most challenging?
David Moreau: I think the first scene in the car was the most challenging because it's a tiny set, and as we were moving for real, I needed to find a way to have them move so it's not boring. You have about three or four minutes in the car, and I knew that we needed to go from A to B with this kind of car. I couldn't go too fast with a cameraman inside the car and the actors. There was also security. There was a bunch of stuff that was tough.
The choreography Sasha Rudakowa [had], the actress who plays the woman on the road, was physically challenging because she had to bend down to jump on the other side. The actors were so nice and wanted to do it well, but it was tough for them. We rehearsed it probably 40 times to get it right because you couldn't really move, and we didn't have a crane.
There's a great scene in The Children of Men where the set has a motion-activated camera. The car is a set, and they removed the roof so the crane could go there. We didn't have that. We just had a camera, the actors, and a car. It was tough. Some of the choices guided by the one-take are easier to take because you don't have a choice. You work with what you have, which, in a way, gives you a lot of liberty. It's strange because you would think the opposite is better, but no. That scene was pretty technical, tough, engaging, and exhausting for the actors, but they did a great job.
After seeing this movie with a crowd and hearing some people call it a zombie movie while others call it a vampire film, I wondered if it was meant to be ambiguous. For you, what has the reaction been like from people who have seen the film?
David Moreau: I'm so happy you said that because this is exactly what I wanted. I don't want to give [away] too many answers I probably do not have. Zombies and vampires have surrounded me since I was a kid because they are my friends. I love them. I hate them. I'm scared of them. I'm in love with them. I needed to find some new rules inside [this] family of rules that fits in this story, and because it's in real-time, you cannot change yourself too much in real-time.
Time is tricky when you deal with the rules of transformation, and all that is because you cannot play with time. After all, you have an hour and thirty minutes. I don't have the answer, and I don't want it because sometimes, it's better not to have all the answers in life. I like when people at the end of movies say, "Do you think it was that, or that?" because that makes a movie still live after the screening.
MADS is now available to stream on Shudder.
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