Acclaimed monster-maker Steven Kostanski (Star Trek Discovery, It, Crimson Peak) wrote and directed Psycho Goreman, a romping tale that roots for a forgotten ancient alien overlord to come back into his powers of universal destruction and chaos. But first, he must escape his bounded tie to Mimi, a zany, precocious child who wants him as a new best friend.
Psycho Goreman follows siblings Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) as they wield a magical amulet that lets them control the galactic threat, PG (acted by Matthew Ninaber and voiced by Steven Vlahos), and introduce him to the killer boredom of small-town suburbia. In an interview with CBR, Kostanski divulged what led him to make a gore-first, family film that he hopes inspires a new generation of monster makers in film and television.
CBR: I love the monsters in this film! They remind me of old-school Power Rangers and at the same time, Clive Barker’s Nightbreed and BBC's Doctor Who which seems fitting, considering the movie’s tone is one for all ages and tastes. I know that you’re also a prolific makeup artist, so I’m curious what inspired you to develop such a wide range of monsters? There are some monsters who are only in two minutes of scenes and are still highly detailed!
Steven Kostanski: In The Empire Strikes Back, the line of bounty hunters that obviously everyone was a kid when they saw that moment, they all thought, like, "Oh, I want to know what those guys deals are." And like every single one of them clearly had their own story that we just weren't seeing in that 20 seconds that they're on screen.
Yeah!
With Psycho Goreman, my approach to the movie -- because obviously, it was super low budget -- I would love to do a huge epic sci-fi fantasy movie that's entirely off-world with ships and monsters, and just magic and all kinds of crazy stuff. The budget did not allow for that. I approached it kinda like 1987's Masters of the Universe, where you're taking a property that is naturally a big, sci-fi fantasy thing and you have to scale it back for budget reasons and bring it to suburbia. Which, of course, everyone at the time thought it was super lame in that movie, but I thought what if you embraced that logic a bit? And have a little bit more fun with the idea of putting this crazy roster of creatures and villains in more mundane settings, and just really run with that, and make that the charm of the movie. And so as far as the creatures themselves and their designs, yeah, it was the key was to just have as much variety as possible and was to never really aim for full realism. I wanted it to feel, like you said, like Power Rangers, where the lack of realism makes it more interesting.
Like some of our creatures don't move but they talk and have a personality. The less they do, the more interesting they become to me. It becomes less of a look at this insane effect that we pulled off and more of a look at this artistic representation of it. And just kind of bask in the overall look and flow of the creature, as opposed to seeing how perfectly realized it was like a bigger budget show would do, where it's all about making it as articulate as possible. I like to live in the inarticulate qualities of these creatures because it makes them uncanny and unsettling. I wanted to really embrace that with these designs and not make it about realism. Make it about making them fun and interesting and weird. I would always steer towards weird. I find what gets the best reaction out of people is when you take a total left turn and make a thing that unsettles people. That doesn't feel like it's trying to be scary, or funny, necessarily. There's just something off about it.
Yeah, I think the one monster that represents that idea so well... Oh, the one that kind of looks like a dishwasher and garbage disposal at the same time and spews out blood?
Yeah! The Death Trapper.
Yeah! It's so eerie and at the same time scary because it's just spewing out blood everywhere.
Like the whole hope was to make the monsters as impractical as possible. Like you see a creature like that and you're like, "How does that guy like, go about his day? Like, what does he do? Like in between these epic fights? Does he just hose things down with blood all day?"
I wanted the audience to be asking those questions. I want them to be wowed by the quantity of the effects, and just the craziness on screen. But I also want them to be thinking about it afterward. That's the mark of what makes an engaging movie to me is one that you're ruminating on after wondering, "What is what was even going on in that thing?"
Building off what you said earlier about taking a huge intergalactic mythos and scaling it down, how did you decide what of PG's backstory to share? How did you decide what to put into the film and what to leave to the imagination of the audience?
Well, I like the idea of teasing that larger universe as much as possible. But also, yeah, utilizing it as a way to motivate a punch line. Like having characters not actually be interested in the stories that PG is telling about himself, which I think is an interesting dynamic that runs through the whole movie. Yes, he's this epic, evil overlord that's gonna conquer the universe, but the people around him just are not interested. I feel like, it's maybe a little bit of me personally representing myself in the movie. I think that's anxiety that all nerds have, where you just want it you just want to talk Star Wars all day. But you know, you're at Thanksgiving dinner with your family. And they don't want to hear it. So I wanted a little bit of that in the movie.
I definitely put thought into what his big story was, like what PG was doing off in the galaxy like in that super quick montage of him blasting space cops and doing all this crazy stuff. There's definitely a mythos there. I wanted to show the highlights and just leave it at that so people can try to fill in the blanks themselves. And also, it'll be a fun way for me to gauge which stuff landed the best people. I want to see what people are like, "I demand to know what this thing was about. What was that giant tentacle thing that PG was flying towards?" I want to see which stuff hooks people in a sneaky way, almost like a proof of concept for further PG adventures.
Do you think you would create further PG adventures? Or is this something that you're not sure about yet?
If there's a demand for it, which already kind of feels like there is, I would gladly continue this universe because really, it's just a mishmash of all the stuff I've made up to this point anyway. It's got a little bit of Manborg, a little bit of "W is for Wish" [from 2014's ABC's of Death 2], and even hints of The Void. I think it's an easy universe for me to dip my toe back into and make some more stuff. So yeah, I would gladly do more PG adventures, or even just explore characters in that universe, because there are clearly so many characters that we've established now that it'd be easy enough to branch off into other side stories as well. I think there's a whole universe there that's worth exploring.
One thing I really appreciated about this film was its attitude and style. I thought it was going to be this anti-bullying morality tale, but then we meet Mimi and she was just this anti-establishment little monster leading the film. So I was curious -- since you're the writer and the director -- if there was a particular message that you were aiming for?
One of the big ideas I wanted to convey with this movie is that, like, kids are full of imagination and totally crazy. I don't think movies represent that very well. I think there's this like Harry Potter syndrome with a lot of younger characters where it feels like they're just pure innocence. And they're just totally infallible and they're vulnerable. And I find that so boring because all the kids I know in my life are totally wacko. And they're fun to talk to because they're in their own weird little headspace. And it's like before they've become fully self-aware and, you know, maybe gotten enough self-awareness to feel like anxiety about the things that they're saying. It's before insecurity kicks in, in your teens, and then you are full of self-doubt. I really admire that. So I wanted to make a movie that shows how charming kids can be, and show them in a way that isn't pandering and shows them as real people with thoughts and ideas that are interesting.
And you know, a little girl I do think does have has the energy and the gusto to stand up to an evil space overlord. I think really, in their heads, they're both the same. They're both thinking the exact same way. Like PG is the evil overlord of the universe, but Mimi is the evil overlord of her house in suburbia. Is there a difference between those two things? I don't think so.
What's something you want fans to take away from this movie?
My real, most selfish intention with the movie is that I want a kid that's maybe a little too young to be watching this movie to watch it.
Mm, like Creepshow.
Yeah, or when I was a kid I watched the Terminator movies when I was way too young. And it really scarred me but also those scars sparked my creativity which carried into my film career. So I want a kid to watch this and be a little traumatized but also enticed by the stuff that's on display. And maybe have them be filled with the desire to make their own films and traumatize other kids. I want to spark some creativity. Because if I can convince some other kid out there to go pick up a camera, and maybe, you know, grab a ball of clay and some sculpting tools and start making some monsters and filming them in their backyard, I think I'll have done a good job. That's really all I want, just to inspire some more monster kids out there to go out and be creative.
What's one thing that you wanted Mimi and PG to do that either was in the script that had to cut due to time reasons or for whatever reason didn't make it into the final cut?
Well, there was an idea that we were pushing around on set that I'm sad that we didn't do, but I'm confident we'll work it into a subsequent version of PG, whether it's a movie or series or whatever. I really wanted Mimi to give PG a makeover, but like, like full-on, like plastic surgery makeover for him to try and integrate into society. So like totally redo his face to try and make him look human, but have it make him look even worse and more horrifying. I thought that would be a funny montage to have.
But, there just wasn't a way to work it into what we had. There's already so much crap happening in that movie. There would have been no time for it. And it was just a big ask to try and make that happen in such a short period of time. We're already low on time with this movie. So you know, we had a tight schedule. It just didn't work. But I hope to bring it back in some way.
I would definitely tune into more PG adventures with Mimi bossing him around, but is there anything else you'd like fans to know about this movie?
Right on. I don't want to spoil anything because I think half the fun of the movie is being surprised. I want people to go ahead and not really knowing what to expect. And yeah, get their asses blown out the back of a theater if they can see it in a theater, and if they do, see it safely, wear a mask, socially distance. But yeah, I'd rather it'd be a surprise for people.
Written and directed by Steven Kostanski, Psycho Goreman stars Nita-Josee Hanna, Matthew Ninaber, Steven Vlahos, Owen Myre and Kristen MacCulloch. The film arrives in theaters and VOD on Jan. 22.