Christopher Smith is a filmmaker that's hard to pin down. He launched a good run in horror with his 2005 subterranean creature feature, Creep, following it up with a cheeky slasher comedy, Severance, a Bermuda Triangle-set time loop mind-bender, Triangle, and the historical horrors of his plague-meets-occult period piece, Black Death. Then he went and made a kids Christmas movie, Get Santa. Smith has spent the past decade jumping through genres, time periods, and settings, but he'll tell you there's a "degenerate spirit" that ties them all together. That, and an interest in playing with structure.

That spirit is on full display in his latest, a neo-noir riff on Strangers on a Train set against a tricky narrative construct of parallel timelines. Harper (Tye Sheridan) is a good kid in a bad spot -- his mom is in a coma and he blames it on his step-father, who tends to his business rather than spend his time at the hospital. Drowning his sorrows in a bottle one night, he meets Johnny Ray (Emory Cohen) and Cherry (Bel Powley) and carelessly strikes up a deal to pay for his step-father's murder. The next day, it all hits the fan when Johnny Ray and Cherry show up on his doorstep, ready to get on with the plan. From there the narrative splits in two, one story following the trio on the road to Vegas while the other stays back at Harper's home, and each path has its own fallout.

I recently sat down with Smith to chat about the film -- and we did. But we also talked about a whole bunch of other crazy stuff. Like Rogue One, Making a Murderer, and the right way to get rid of a dead body. He also talked about the nutty Yeti movie he's dying to make -- inspired by the Abbas Kiarostami's Iranian Koker trilogy, which is famous for blurring the lines between reality and fiction with meta-structural self-reflection. Which sounds just about as perfectly up Smith's alley as anything could be. It was one of the most fun and unpredictable chats I've had in a while. Enjoy.

detour-movie-image
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

Detour's a bit different from what you've done in the past. There's not as much of a horror lilt to it.

CHRISTOPHER SMITH: There was a scene in it where he puts the leg in the ... He actually cuts the leg off, we took that out. There was a scene where when he's trying to get the body and he can't get the leg in, and so he cuts the leg. I just felt in the edit that what it had done is it pushed him into a crazy-person, so we pulled out. There was some more gore in it, but I took it out because I didn't want it to become -- and I thought I'd done that joke before with Severance, so yeah. There was a bloodier telling of it.

It's certainly still dark.

SMITH: Yeah, it's still dark. Someone earlier said that I do sleaze with style, so thank you. I didn't realize that. I think there's always a degenerate spirit. Even this Christmas movie I did for Ridley Scott, it's a real degenerate style, a quality to even a kids film. I love the sort of humor that's in Bad Santa. We deal with characters where you think he's a bad guy, Emory, but Emory's a sweetheart. By the end of it you go, "Actually, he's a real sweetie." Then, I think he's the good guy of the film by the end.

Oh yeah? I guess it is the "good guy" that we see kill someone.

SMITH: Yeah, well he does it by accident so you kind of let him off. It's kind of like -- ugh, self-defense moment of rage. She says to him, "Well, you just call the lawyer. If you'd have called the lawyer instead of had a fight," but people don't do that. They think ... people say "Well, if you'd just call the lawyer you're going to get two years inside." "No, I don't want to get anything! I don't want to go to prison for a day." So people will make that mistake.  I've always had this idea in my head for a long time about disposing of a body. I read this Ian McEwan book called The Innocents, and they have a body that you have to get rid of in that.

If you think about mobsters, they dig a hole. You see a Scorcese movie. They've got the hole dug, they go and kill somebody and they put them in the hole.  If you actually think about what to do with the body, you don't run, but everyone does the wrong thing because you're fucking ... You didn't expect to do it and you're panicking.

You're terrified.

SMITH: You're terrified and you're literally thinking, "Oh, I've got to get rid of the body". Actually, what you've got to do is keep the body in the house and not do anything.

Don't touch it.

SMITH: Don't touch it, don't move it, and then go and dig a hole and then put the body in the boot of the car, then drive it, put it in the hole. Bury it properly. People just fucking throw the thing under some bushes. And you find the body, and they go, "What the fuck?" Look at us, what we're talking about getting rid of bodies.

detour-emory-cohen
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

It's a good start.

SMITH: Did you listen to Serial? Did you listen to that podcast?

Oh, Serial. No, I haven't.

SMITH: You know, with the guy Adnan or whatever, yeah. That's crazy.

I haven't caught up with that. That's a big pop culture weak spot for me.

SMITH: Well he's now, he's got another trial.

Wow.

SMITH: Yeah. It's very similar to Making a Murderer.

That's what I was just going to say. Brandon's getting a new trial as well now.

SMITH: [Laughs] Brandon, we all know his name.  So you know who could have played Bradon? He's the actor that was in spirit. He plays the kid.

Paul Dano?

SMITH: Paul Dano, yeah. He would have played it brilliantly.

Yeah, he would.

SMITH: You can just see him doing that.

Wow, that is really good casting.

SMITH: Yeah, but he's too old now.

So, how did you get into Detour and this story? Because you really don't have a certain "thing" that you do.

SMITH: A lot of people say that. In my head I do. I think it's ... someone said to me it's like Triangle made easy, this film, it's kind of like -- and weirdly I had written Triangle and it was 2007 and Disturbia had just been out. And I love those kinds of Hitchcockian little thrillers. I think film noirs and horror movies are both the same in the sense that they are that edge of cinema. We call it genre cinema now, where first-time filmmakers can take a hundred thousand dollars and go make a film. So I've always been drawn, not for the independent filmmaker sense, but I've always been drawn to stories like The Last Seduction and Blood Simple, I've always loved those American noirs ... you're on a road, you got a girl and a gun. They are very kind of Jean-Luc Godard kind of thing. It's that whole period of American cinema, where all you need is a girl and a gun and you got a film.

So I saw Disturbia, and obviously all the execs were like, "Fuck, we want to make another Disturbia." And I was with an exec having a beer and he was trying to make a Strangers on a Train for the studio. Boy meets boy and decides to kill the wife or the girlfriend of each other. Which I'm surprised they haven't done yet. And so we were doing that and I thought, what if we ... because I was in structure mode, having just written Triangle, what if we get to the door and it's a split of story? This isn't to kill or not to kill.

He said, "The problem with those stories is how do you get them back together?" I said, "Well here is the thing, the twist is that it's not what you think. He's gone to the door and he's thought back, but we read it as a split narrative. That's how it came about. And I'm obsessed with structure. I'm obsessed with films about the process of filmmaking. I loved the Joaquin Phoenix thing -- I'm Not There. When you see them interviewed, they're like, "We couldn't understand. Does anybody think reality TV is real?" The phone rings, and they're there to go "You got into university." Are we meant to believe you've been waiting for that fucking phone to ring for seven hours? Clearly, the person picked up the phone just to go "Oh! I got in!".

detour-tye-sheridan-emory-cohen-bel-powely
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

People were surprisingly slow to catch on to those tricks

SMITH: Fucking hell! The one thing reality TV isn't, is real. And the one thing found footage isn't is -- what fan footage became is a lazy, shaky cam, lack of character. When it's done well, like in Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project, it's masterful when it's done well, but it's so often no done well. I think reality TV has killed all of that. So I want to make a film about that, really. I'm planning to do a Yeti -- I keep saying this, I've had it in my head for fucking ages -- a fucking Yeti movie. But a very clever thing. My agent keeps telling me, You can't do that. You can't do another indie!" I said, "I don't know, If I just make indies all my life I will be happy."

Yeah, as long as they're good movies.

SMITH: Exactly. I'll just keep making them. Just keep making things yourself. People say "It's only low-budget. It's only six million dollars." Six fucking million dollars! That's a lot of fucking money. That's a lot of money!

Yeah, it is!. How was Detour compared to your other films in terms of scale? Because it seems like Triangle was a huge struggle and a big concept--

SMITH: It was a huge struggle for lack of budget and everything and  I've made films where ... I made this films, which love. Get Santa. You should try to see it. People didn't see it because it's a Christmas movie, but it's very much a kind of Bad Santa for kids. It's very twisted and funny, but there's a car chase in it, a very simple car chase. Every single shot that was storyboarded, every single shot is in that car chase. Usually you'll shoot a lot of stuff and you'll throw a load away. That's how tight the budget was. And you only see it for want of it. But in this, we had one action scene in the script, which was a fight between the dad and Tye. And I'm like the last thing I want to fucking do is start adding a punch there, a hit there, a roll on the floor, because after the Bourne movies -- somewhere between the Bourne movies and ... what's the Korean film? The long one-shot.

Oh, Oldboy.

SMITH: Oldboy. Between those two, right ... first,  this is not a Matt Damon movie. He's not a special agent, these are two men having a floppy fight on the floor. So I just said, we do the whole thing slo-mo. So then suddenly, we've got a lot more pressure taken out of our schedule. So actually, this was a very, very good schedule. Very easy. We shot it in about 33 days. We did a day in Vegas and a day in LA, and all the rest in South Africa.

How was it working on a film that so much of it was set in a car and around the car?

SMITH: It's boring.

Yeah?

SMITH: Yeah. The car scenes are hard because I like to be near the actors in the room and you're not, you're in a van. It's funny cause we had one day --  because we all got on so well, it was literally from day one, it worked. And I was watching the monitor and it starts, I'm not feeling it. I just cut, "Stop the van." This is a week from day one. I go, "You're all shit! Fucking hell, what's going on? Stop being shit." "Oh, okay." And afterward, they were all laughing going, "That's the best note we've ever had because we were all shit." They were all a bit tired. "Stop. I didn't even get close ups, stop being shit!" Okay, all right, let's go.

[Laughs] Energized a bit.

SMITH:  That's the sort of relationship we have where it was a lovely, lovely process from start to finish. By the way, did you see the cop dancing at the end?

Yes, I did!

SMITH: Okay, good because someone just missed it.

detour-image-bel-powely
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

Yes, I did. I loved that because you haven't flaunted your sense of humor so recently so much.

SMITH: No, no, no. It was a strange one because I really wanted to be in the movie, in the movie. But I couldn't. Where could I put it?

Right.

SMITH: I couldn't. Because when he runs off, he runs off the ... where it was in the script. It was ... he runs off and they say, "Go to the music festival!" Just laughing at that for me. I think there's lots of humor in this, to be honest. Like when she can't get the boot closed, "Get the fuck in the car!" But he runs off and then in Vegas, when they find the body, it was supposed to go in there. But obviously, you need the tone to be "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit."

Don't worry. There's a sense of humor coming back. Don't worry.

Oh, good, good.

SMITH: So yeah, I want to make some funny stuff. I want to do this Yeti, let me do the fucking Yeti.

Hey, I support it. And I mean, it's like you said, you've been kind of pondering Detour since you've made Triangle. Movies take time, man.

SMITH: They do. And yeah a Yeti film based on the Kiarostami Through the Olive Trees trilogy. The Yeti horror movie based on that is, for me, hilarious. The film was the genesis of the movie I want to make, Yeti movie, based on the Through the Olive Trees, Abbas Kiarostami's Iranian trilogy. It's like, it's so fucking out there, but I'm going to do it. Fuck it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to riot.

Yeah!

SMITH: Yeah, because it's fucking great, but it's one of those things that no one is going to give me money until they read the script. I have to just write it on spec. Because... a Yeti movie? Are you fucking serious? I'm serious. I can do it and I can make it hilarious.

Well, you mentioned that your agent wants you to take on bigger projects as opposed to, you know, the Yeti movie.

SMITH: [Laughs] Yeah.

Is that something you're interested in? Do you want to make those kinds of massive scale movies?

SMITH: But, you know what? The whole model of how it use to be is no longer there for me, I look at the way that Hollywood works now, it does work still. Gareth Edwards makes Monsters, then he's totally into Godzilla. He is an amazing filmmaker. He loves the whole visual effects. He's the perfect match to go into the studio system.

Because what they want in the studio system is a visual artist, someone that they can work with. They really want to be involved in most of the story stuff. They want to be doing that. I was always dreaming that you kind of movie into the Hollywood system and you go and make something like Jagged Edge or Basic Instinct. But when you look at those movies, those movies were actually made by someone like Paul Verhoeven, so they are actually kind of coming out of writer-director. So yeah, in a weird way I think I'm just going to keep going and see what happens.

detour-christopher-smith
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

That's tricky.

SMITH: Yeah, it is tricky. Because as I get older it's not, you know, "Oh now you are going to go work in the studio." If the studio says we'd love you to make this film for us because we loved Detour, I go great. OK, I'm up for it. But it's a weird one.

Well, it's what they always say right? You have a less budget but you can make the movie, want, and then you get all the resources in the world that you can't ... you have to make their movie.

SMITH: Well, no, yeah. Exactly. If you look at something like the new Star Wars, you can just ... it's just difficult man. I'm like, fucking hell. Do you want that on you? You know, do you want that thing on you?

It's a great example, it's like the example right now.

SMITH: It is, yeah.  It's the example-example. It's like, you can feel there's things not in that film that should have been in that film, like narrative elements in the beginning. But it's still ... I really enjoyed it, but the audience, my god. You have to deal with the fascist fans.

[Laughs] No kidding.

SMITH: Well I say fascist, I don't mean, obviously.... I mean, I am one, But "I own Star Wars, Star Wars is mine. It's not yours, it's mine."  And you can't fuck it up, it's mine.

And there are millions of people, and each and every one of them is the one who's right.

SMITH: [Laughs] Millions and ... It's my film.

Yeah. Exactly.

SMITH: I saw that film when I was a kid, it's mine. I saw it with my mum, you can't just ruin it.

It's not just their film, it's their childhood.

SMITH: Yes! Their whole childhood.

[Laughs] You are in charge of not ruining their whole childhood. Holy shit.

SMITH: No, I thought all the stuff in the second half is really clever, when you see the death star. It made the death star really scary.

Oh, it sure did.

SMITH: It really did.

Is there any property that if someone came calling you would be like, I have to direct that, that's mine ... that's my jam, that's my thing.

SMITH: Yeah, there's lots of films that I start to go, "I should have done that." My wife has always said to me. She says, "Why do you keep making these deep fucking movies? You should be making Mannequin." That's what my wife says, Mannequin, do you remember?

Yeah!

SMITH: [Laughs[ She says you should be making stupid films like that. She's right, she's right. I should be doing funny ... I want to do the fucking thing. I'm doing the Yeti film, it's official. I'm doing the Yeti film.

detour-tye-sheridan
Image via Magnet/Magnolia Pictures

He's doing the Yeti film.

SMITH: I'm doing the Yeti film about the ... it's a film within a film within a film. And it's got a little bit of Hollywood in it as well. I'm doing it because it's going to be funny.

I support it. A lot.

SMITH: I'm going to put Eddie Redmayne in it again. I'm going to get Eddie in it. "Eddie, you know I never come calling ... you're playing a movie director, you're going to play me as a cameo. In the movie."

You actually put together sort of a crazy talented group of young actors for this one.

SMITH: I know, it was ... put yourself into mind space. Two and a quarter year ago. It was Christmas two years ago. You got Bel, who is apparently is going to be good in a Sundance movie. She's going to be in Sundance and apparently she's going to be really good in this movie that no one has seen called Diary of a Teenage Girl. Emory Cohen had only been in Place Beyond the Pines that anyone had seen. He was in Brooklyn, but no one knew what Brooklyn was.

Exactly. You landed this awesome cast kind of right before their big breaks.

SMITH: But we'd rather have them all after they're Nicholas Cage and Tom Cruise [Laughs]. We knew we had a really cool cast. And then, when I saw Bel after ... I didn't see Diary of Teenage Girl until after we shot. I called and I said, "Bel, you're going to be a fucking star."

That movie is so good.

SMITH: "Just, you are unbelievable in that movie." So much so that if I would have seen it before, I would have been different around her, I would have been like "oh, um..." And instead I was like, "Powely, you're shit! What the fuck was that?" I wouldn't have done that, I would have blamed myself and been like, "I made her rubbish." Tye was the first person to cast, I just thought Tye's performance in Joe was... I just thought, he could be Brandon Dassey.

True, he's the right age.

SMITH: He is the right age. But the very good looking version of Brandon.

Well, it always is the very good looking version, isn't it?

SMITH: Of course it is. Of course it is. That's a fit!