A film which the site covered after its screening at Celluloid Screams in Sheffield, UK last year, Offeason (2021) is about to land on VOD and digital release on Monday 11th, 2022 thanks to the folks at Shudder and RLJE Films. Is it worth checking out? Well, to help make up your minds, you could always check out our full review here, but in summary, this is a visually slick, creepy dose of outsider horror with a distinctly Lovecraftian spin. It comes off as a love letter to certain established filming styles and gives a couple of nods to directors you may already know and love (see below) – so if any of that sounds appealing, then congrats! You have a new film in your watch queue.
Ahead of its wider release, we were fortunate enough to grab director Mickey Keating for a quick chat about his aims and experiences with making the film. Whilst he’s remaining quiet about future plans for now, I’d definitely recommend his work to date, and we hope to be able to bring details of upcoming projects as soon as these are available. In the meantime, over to Mickey…
WP: Firstly, thank you very much for talking to Warped Perspective! It’s much appreciated. To start, I’d like to ask about your filmography to date: you made your first run of feature-length films in quite rapid succession, then you took a four-year hiatus before Offseason came along. In that time, did anything change about the kinds or styles of film you wanted to make?
MK: Nothing really changed, but I definitely had the luxury of being able to take the time and to really storyboard Offseason (and a few other films I haven’t made yet). I’ve always mapped out my films, but this was really the first time I was able to actually pre-edit an entire film with storyboards, and see it before we shot a frame. It’s very surprising how much that helped, and how much the story grew. Then, on set, we were able to be very precise about what we were shooting each day.
WP: You both wrote and directed Offseason: can you tell us how the idea for the film came about? It’s been compared visually and thematically to some great horror directors’ work, notably Carpenter and Fulci – certainly City of the Living Dead jumped out for me. Was an element of homage intentional, and if so, how tricky was it, if at all, to balance with your own style?
MK: I definitely hear a lot of Fulci references for this, but honestly that wasn’t as much of a conscious effort! I suppose when you lean into heavy fog, atmosphere and a seventies inspired production design the comparison’s inevitable. We use some of the same songs that play on the radio in The Fog, so that was a little more intentional. I’ve been very open about my influences in the past, and so I think people just assume that everything I do is an homage to this film or that film.
WP: One of the film’s greatest calling cards is in its remote location, and the contrast between ‘tourist season’ and the real lives of the full-time inhabitants lends the film a lot of its sense of foreboding. What attracted you to this as a setting, or a theme?
MK: I just love the idea of fading Americana, failing tourist traps, and the disconnect of a place that both relies on, but hates, outsiders. A beach town devoid of life is inherently just very uncanny and bizarre, especially when the weather is stormy and foggy!
WP: Tell us a little about how you came to cast Jeremy Gardner [Gardner has a very, shall we say, memorable role in Offseason]. Warped Perspective has been championing his work for a long time, around a decade in fact – and since before the site was even Warped Perspective, but still known by Brutal as Hell.
MK: Jeremy is a brilliant, brilliant actor. He’s just got such an incredible presence, and is so captivating to watch. I didn’t have any other options in mind for this role, because I knew he’d be so perfect for it. He was also a good sport about all the prosthetics he had to wear, which were super uncomfortable and sucked to have on. He’s a great director and writer too!
WP: Offseason seems unashamedly a horror film; on occasion, directors and writers seem to want to distance themselves from that particular genre, or at least to re-brand their work as something other than horror. What keeps you interested in the genre, and what do you make of the current state of play in horror cinema?
MK: I genuinely love horror movies and find the genre to be such a wonderful vehicle to explore endless themes and stories. Horror goes great with so many other genres too: crime, romance, whatever! I think we’re in a great time for horror movies, and that on a much larger scale, they are being recognized for their artistic value and impact on cinema history. It’s been long overdue.
WP: Absolute agreement with that! Finally, do you have any current or future projects that you could tell us about?
MK: I have a lot of things in the works, some great surprises, so you won’t have to wait another four years for my next feature!
WP: Many, many thanks for your time!