Beauty School : Interview: Director Joe Lynch Talks Suitable Flesh, Stuart Gordon, Letterboxd, and Troma

Suitable Flesh is a celebration of the late Stuart Gordon by the people who knew him best and directed by a man that was deeply inspired by him on multiple levels. Joe Lynch started his career in filmmaking under the madcap tutelage of Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and went on to helm the likes of Wrong Turn 2, Knights of Badassdom (starring Peter Dinklage), Mayhem (which stars Stephen Yuen and Samara Weaving), and Everly (starring Salma Hayek). He was also one half of the horror comedy series Holliston alongside Hatchet director Adam Green.

Suitable Flesh sees Lynch return to horror with a cosmic body-swapping adventure served with a large dollop of smut. It’s a welcome dish and a highly entertaining ride starring Heather Graham, Barbara Crampton, Judah Lewis, Bruce Davison, and Johnathon Schaech

ComingSoon’s Senior Editor for Horror, Neil Bolt, spoke with Lynch about the film, his relationship with Gordon, why he loves Letterboxd, Heather Graham’s underutilized qualities as a horror actress, and how he ended up in every shot of Troma’s Terror Firmer.

Neil Bolt: Joe, Congratulations on Suitable Flesh. I’ve been seeing through Letterboxd that it’s been quite an emotional journey for you as it’s played the festival circuit. Is it kind of a relief to almost finally have the movie out there?

Joe Lynch: Neil, you don’t understand how excited I am for it to come out, for multiple reasons, one of which is I am exhausted from all the press. There’s nothing wrong with that, y’know there was something that my mom had said that wasn’t press or media-related it was ‘’Oh, I’ve got to do this’’, ‘’No, no, you get to do this’ because there’s plenty of people out there who would kill to be in your position’’, and it’s true, I am truly blessed; to be making movies, to be talking about movies. My own films, subjectively talk about other people’s movies. It is an honor for someone who loves the art form so much, I’m thrilled

That said, it has been since Tribeca in June, we have been constantly moving this thing along and trying to get buzz. Y’know, we’re an independent film, we don’t have the marketing money that most studios do, and we don’t have another major component of the promotion, which is the actors to be able to go out there and do the dog and pony show. It’s all been me up until two weeks ago when Dennis was able to start doing press. It’s all been all my shoulders, and again, I get to do it, but do you know what I can’t wait to get to do? Sleep! Can’t wait! It’s gonna be great!

Actually, last week, I got into this pretty bad car wreck, nothing related to this; it just happened, but I had to cancel a festival appearance, which was such a bummer because it’s a festival I love, Toronto After Dark, and I really wanted to go up there, but my doctors and my better half and even Barbara said, ‘’You got to stop, you need a day off or two.’’

That’s understandable!

But Dude, I never thought it would take me this long to get six hours of uninterrupted sleep. I woke up felling like 100 bucks! It was awesome! But again, that said, being able to engage with people and talk about the movie, you know, when you were talking about Letterboxd, I have friends who make fun of me, like, ‘’Why do you engage with people on Letterboxd?’’, and I’m like, ‘’they’re the reason I make movies, to engage in a dialogue, even if it’s using my movie or someone else’s, we usually go off into about 17 different tangents and with a movie like this being a homage to Stuart Gordon, and tethered to H.P. Lovecraft miskatonicverse, my blatant rip…homages to movies like Dressed to Kill and Un Chien Andalou. I throw that one in there, and folk are like, ‘’Really? Tell me more.’’

But having this dialogue, just like I am with you, it’s so engaging, so having something like Letterboxd, I like being able to talk to people, and if you didn’t like the movie, I wanna talk to you more! Not to be a dick or be defensive, I think the filmmaker has no right to be defensive on something as long as the opinion (of the viewer) is their opinion, like, ‘’I didn’t like the movie because of this…’’. Now if you say, ‘’That movie sucks; it’s bad filmmaking!’’ then I think we have words because I know 50-75 people who worked really hard on this movie who would beg to differ.

Now I’m the first person to point out the flaws, but I know I worked my ass off on this, and I’m really proud of it, as scrappy as it is, but if you’re sitting on Letterboxd and lazily call it sloppy, go fuck yourself. But if you didn’t like it, I’d like to know more. What didn’t you like? What didn’t you respond to? In most cases, and this happened this morning where someone said ‘’This movie sucks, it’s bad’’ I replied, ‘’Sorry it didn’t work out for you,’’ and he was shocked I’d even replied. Then we had a back-and-forth and ended up the best of buddies, talking about Orson Welles movies and stuff. The fact that even that kind of opposition brings people together, filmmakers shouldn’t be afraid to ask others their opinions. You don’t get that very often, you don’t that kind of dialogue, especially now you don’t get that opportunity because when a movie comes out that’s it, you just look at The Rotten Tomatoes score and go, well, there it is’’. But to be able to have that kind of dialogue is kinda fun for me.

So I talked to Dennis Paoli about the film a few days ago (he was great), and he told me you already had a history with Stuart Gordon long before Suitable Flesh. So, how and when did you meet?

Well, thankfully, I got honored to be part of the Masters of Horror dinners that Mick Garris puts on, and after I’d done Wrong Turn 2, he must have seen something in that or my work and thought, ‘’This kid seems okay’’ and invited me to these dinners and as a disciple of horror I was always, ‘’someday that’s gonna be me!’’ Lo and behold, I’m sat there and there’s Wes Craven, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, and Michael Mann? That’s cool; he did do The Keep, so that’s awesome. And Guillermo Del Toro! Going around the room, I’m thinking, ‘’These are all my heroes, and they’re all in the same room,’’ and one of the early ones I sat next to Stuart Gordon, and dude, I was so nervous because when you see pictures of Stuart, he looks like this gruff ‘’wouldn’t wanna mess with him in a bar’’ kinda guy, he always has a scowl, but he wasn’t like that, it was just like a public identity.

So, one time, Quentin Tarantino was going off on these amazing lenses he was using for The Hateful Eight. He was saying, ‘’Ohh, I got these lenses from Ben Hur’’, and me with the big lens fetish was like, ’’Wow’’. But then I heard Stuart talking about a new movie he was doing, The Thing on the Doorstep, and immediately, having grown up with Lovecraft, and hearing he would be working with Dennis, Brian, and possibly Barbara and Jeffrey (Combs), I went, ‘’excuse me one second, Quentin…,’’ and I went over and said, ‘’Stuart, tell me more’’ and he told me about the project and as a fan, I was so excited, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen which was a major bummer.

I think it was about two months after he died I got an email from Barbara asking me if I would read the script, and that’s where all of this really started.

I suppose that was a good thing to be in on it from so early on.

I had learned so much, whether I knew it or not, about myself and my own cinematic fetishes from Stuart’s work, especially Re-Animator and From Beyond. But also, when you look at a filmmaker and their oeuvre, fancy word, sorry, but when you look at their filmography and see a guy who also wrote a goddamn Disney movie in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, I mean that was the reason I went to see that movie. I was in because it was the guy who did Re-Animator doing a kids’ movie, but then if you look at Stuck, King of the Ants, Castle Freak, Dagon, and Space Truckers, the guy was so versatile; he had his hand in so many genres.

Like as a kid, and even today, I stand by that DNA that was tantamount to my own choices because I never wanna make the same movie twice, and after this I’m so curious where that’s gonna go, but it’s definitely not what I did before with Point Blank, or with Everly, Knights of Badassom, or Mayhem, any of those movies. Stuart was one of those directors who taught me that it’s okay to play outside of the wheelhouse that you maybe established yourself in. And tone, he was a huge purveyor of the tonal rollercoaster. One minute you’re screaming, next you’re laughing, then you’re like, ‘’hehe, I’m feeling kinda funky and hot here!’’ I learned all that from Stuart.

I would say you can definitely see that in Suitable Flesh. You clearly have a cast that clearly understands exactly what the film is going for in tone as well, and it’s an interesting mix that makes a lot of sense. Obviously Barbara Crampton was likely to be involved, but what about Heather Graham and Judah Lewis, who just seem to be having a great time?

Well, I think when you have material that allows an actor, whatever the genre is, when they get to play multiple parts, it’s like a litmus test for them because if you can tell they really care, they’re going to put 200% into every version of every character and that’s the dedication to that you see. Judah had worked in horror a little bit with The Babysitter and Summer of ‘84, but Heather had not really delved into the dark side much beyond a couple of psychological thrillers, and when you give the opportunity to these fantastic artists that have faces that fit into the genre, Heather is perfect for horror because she is so reactionary. Her face, especially her eyes and mouth, when she’s reacting. There’s something about a reaction shot with Heather looking at some horrible shit; take that out of a shocking scene, like the one in the middle, you know the one, it takes the shock out of it. You need an actor that’s an embodiment of what you’re human reaction should be.

As an experiment, we took those reactions out of those scenes and they did not work at all. The second you put Heather’s face in there and she’s reacting the way she did, it makes the moment. I hope she does more horror. To be able to work with Heather, Judah, John, Bruce, and Barbara. When you explain to the actors exactly where you’re going tonally and all the madness that brings, and they trust you? They will come to set every day, prepared, but also they’re ready to play, and they’re having fun, and the audience is having fun.

Definitely, so just to move away from Suitable Flesh, you were in Terror Firmer, which I think was the first Troma movie I ever watched.

Oh wow! Really? That’s awesome’’

Yeah, I discovered this while researching for this interview, I saw the credit, went back, and lo and behold, there you are.

You know what? I’m in every single shot of that movie.

Every single shot?

I’ll give you the short version: as a huge Troma fan, I grew up with The Toxic Avenger, Sergeant Kabukiman, and Class of Nukem High. I got the opportunity straight out of film school to be a grip on the film. I’ll tell you now, I didn’t know what a fucking grip was, but I was like ‘’I’ll do it, I don’t care, It’s a Troma film’’.

Like ‘’Gimme that!’’

Yeah! ‘’Gimme that grip; I’ll grip anything you got!’’. Quickly, Lloyd saw how eager and on standby I was to do anything for him. So I started as a grip, then he saw me two or three days in and said, ‘’You, why don’t you be in the background?’’ because this is a movie about making a movie so he needed more crew in the background, and if you know what a grip does, they’re usually covered in clothes pins to put up lights and stuff, so I started this character arc where my character is into clothes pins, a little like BDSM, and by the end, I shit you not, I had 256 clothes pins on my person everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. I was fully committed, I was very method. Then I would act in every scene, and there are certain shots, Neil, where, you know, when it’s a shot of what Lloyd’s directing and then a shot of what Lloyd’s looking at? I’m in both shots sometimes. I would say to Lloyd, ‘’But I was just in that shot’’, and he’d say, ‘’I don’t care, Troma!’’ and I’d go ‘’Ehh, fair point’’.

Can’t argue with that!

By the end of it, I was taking over James Gunn’s job as he left during shooting, he was going off to L.A., but I don’t know what happened to that guy after that. So I went from grip, to actor, background director, and on-set writer. Then I became a writer for Troma for a year and a half, and co-wrote The Toxic Avenger Part IV. Troma, I will always be indebted to; Lloyd is like my Roger Corman. Lloyd was that for me, James Gunn, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone. He gave us our shot. I’m fully indebted to him, even if he doesn’t seem to remember I worked there for some reason.

SUITABLE FLESH is now available everywhere you rent movies.