Robbie Zagorac (played by writer/director/star/cinematographer/editor/effects person Robbie Banfitch), his brother Scott and his best friend Ange have roadtripped into the Mojave Desert to make a music video for their friend Michelle. It’s staggeringly beautiful, and the shots they get are looking incredible. But there’s something going on in the desert besides the recent spate of earthquakes and the Zagorac brothers’ attempts to get at the unspoken schism in their family that flows with a perceptible but invisible current throughout everything we see and experience. Weird energy abounds, as do little moments where things look normal but feel off-kilter. As desert nightmares go, The Outwaters sits comfortably alongside Gerry and Twentynine Palms.
We know things aren’t going to turn out well, because: 1. The Outwaters is a found-footage film (truly the most structuralist of horror subgenres, predicated on the utter absence of happy endings), and 2. we heard the 911 call that starts things off, before we even start to see the contents of the three memory cards retrieved from the video shoot that make up the film. But there’s something quietly revolutionary about the way Banfitch plays the first half of the film, rooted in beauty and kindness and exceptional composition. Even the signifiers of chaos are granted an artfulness that is usually eschewed in the found-footage genre.
And then when this film kicks into gear after a glimpse of a behatcheted silhouette, it hits the ground running with violent and surreal glee. The emotions here are strong, with the kind of thematic resonance and ritualized sparagmos that have been a key to drama that explores the collision between humanity and forces beyond our comprehension since Aeschylus. We’re in the midst of a New Queer Wave in horror, and The Outwaters, Skinamarink and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair constitute a flashpoint for the most exciting trend in genre cinema since Dogme 95 gave way to the New French Extremity. So know then that when the chance arose to talk to Banfitch about this singular work, that Zoom link couldn’t get here fast enough. Read our interview with Banfitch below.
I feel like both of these questions sort of dovetail, so I want to ask what sort of religious upbringing you might have had, and also if you have any sort of classics background?
As far as a religious background, Roman Catholic. But I stopped believing at an early age. I grew up with religion, but it wasn’t by any means a strict religious household. As for the classics, only in lit class, and I was pretty bad at it. I’m not great at memory. I probably got a lot more of my structural habits from watching the same films over and over again.
Which are the films that continue to scare you?
The original Candyman. The Changeling. Event Horizon. Session 9. And The Blair Witch Project.
When you were making this film, did you start with a traditional script, or was there just an outline that you worked from? It’s such a terrifying film both because of what specifically happens and the ambient terror that seems to be pervading everything.
It was all built out from a central idea; a very specific idea, and despite the film feeling chaotic at points, and all over the place, it’s actually very organized, and everything that’s there is there for a reason and has a purpose. It was very much planned out, but I also did a lot of exploring, which is why I hope the film is a little bit unique as well. I found things that I couldn’t have included if there had just been one set and locked script.
Are you a pro-desert or anti-desert person? Because honestly I could see it going either way.
I love the desert. I mean, I love nature and wilderness in general; the oceans and forests and deserts and jungle.
There is an honesty in this film that we don’t often get from found-footage cinema. The character Robbie is not running into danger, and is in fact often paralyzed by fear, and there’s a truth to that that a lot of horror tends to shy away from. This may be the first found footage film I’ve ever seen that likes all its characters, and I wondered if that was a conscious choice on your part.
Aside from a couple of found-footage movies, all the fighting and arguing, it just doesn’t feel real. I didn’t see why there needed to be tension between the characters if we knew that something bad was coming. I wanted to explore what actual road trips are like in real life. Usually, they’re with your friends and people that you like. I just wanted to have the first half of the movie feel kind of warm.
The thing about found footage is that the great ones — and I do consider this to be one of the great ones, up there with The Blair Witch Project and Incantation and REC and Found Footage 3D and Lake Mungo and One Cut Of The Dead — they endure and they help the art form evolve and the genre grow. And the terrible ones are like 96 percent of them, and they’re all streaming and they all run into each other. So here’s a low-key philosophical question for you: Does Robbie the character use the camera the same way that you, Robbie the director, does?
No. I hate filming myself. And Robbie the character likes it. I’m not someone with a selfie stick, that sort of thing makes me cringe and wanna die. But in high school I did bring my camera to school and film a lot, so for this film I did have to go back and remember my mindset when I was filming everything. But it was way before video blogs, it was just this thing I was doing in high school. But yeah, it was fairly cringey, me filming every day. It was definitely not my jam.
Real talk: Those donkeys are terrifying. I mean, you look at Eo and this film, and donkeys are having a major movie moment. Hell, throw in Jenny the pony from Banshees of Inisherin and call it a non-horse equine renaissance. But did you have to train them or use some digital work to make them do those creepy synchronous head tilts? Or even more terrifying, did that just happen and you got it on camera?
That just happened. They were there. I will say that I’m good with wild animals; I’ve shot a lot with wild animals for other features, and I’m pretty good at capturing them, and getting close without startling them. But they were just there, and there’s no digital work in the film at all.
The Outwaters' donkey performers
Well that just makes it all the more terrifying. Respect.
I’ll say this: In real life, when we were out there filming, there was a wheelchair with a rusted knife and a hammer sitting in it, right in front of a dug-out hole in the middle of the desert. So these things are out there. And I filmed it for the movie, but it was just so creepy and clichéd, and I thought, "No one is going to believe that we came upon this wheelchair and dug out hole and stayed here anyway." But we did. We filmed a few things that were too cliché creepy to keep in the movie.
So have you seen the “To Hell and Back” sequence in V/H/S/99? When I saw it, my first thought was, “This is like a screwball stoner comedy take on The Outwaters.” And that’s amazing, that you’ve got your Spaceballs already.
I haven’t seen that, but to be honest sometimes it’s hard to watch a lot of films when there’s season after season of Housewives to be experienced.
What’s your franchise of choice?
Beverly Hills is my favorite, but I’ve always been a Beverly Hills/New York/New Jersey person. Though I am watching Potomac. I’m a Beverly Hills girl, and I am so excited to have the new season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey premiering the same week as my movie.
Did you know that they put both seasons of Vancouver [unavailable for almost a decade] on Tubi? It’s really something; they are very Canadian and very upsetting.
I haven’t, but I have a friend in Australia that I made pick up the DVDs for Melbourne and the one season of Sydney. I’m a big fan of Melbourne.
Could you see The Outwaters becoming one of the attractions at Universal Horror Nights? Like, you’re given a flashlight and chased through a desert-themed labyrinth and then a trap door opens up and you fall into a lazy river of blood, or something to that effect.
I would love to help them with that. Can they even do that?
It’s possible.
I did love the Poltergeist house they did there a few years ago. I could imagine an Outwaters attraction being pretty fucked-up.
The moment that I realized I was experiencing a new kind of queer subjectivity with this film was the line “can you put her hair down and make it look better?” That and Michelle’s sort of dusky turquoise Dyan Cannon glasses — they’re magic and I love them. For my friends who are a tad reticent of the horror experience but who want to support queer art, I’ve been pitching this film as “What if the shoot for Madonna’s 'Frozen' video collided with unspeakable cosmic horror?” That seems to do the trick.
If The Outwaters were a Real Housewives franchise, it would be Miami, because they’re all friends and that vibe is palpable. And then wham-bang: Salt Lake City for the chaos and isolation. For some reason, it is only showing locally at the Regal in Clarksville, so my recommendation is to put yourself together a little roadtrip with some of your friends and check out this exquisite and visceral nightmare.
