Summary
Based on the book by Andrew Michael Hurly,Starve Acreis currently available to stream on demand. The film follows a married couple who seek professional help after their son displays frightening behavior. When an unimaginable tragedy occurs, Juliette and Richard begin to drift apart, unable to cope with their grief. Something evil is lurking in the countryside, and the family finds themselves falling victim to its pull during their darkest hour.
Thegothic horror moviestars Matt Smith (House of the Dragon), Morfydd Clark (The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power), Arthur Shaw, Erin Richards, and Robert Emms. Daniel Kokotajlo is the writer and director, withStarve Acreserving as his second feature. Kokotajlo shares his excitement about the opportunity to turn Hurly’s novel into a full-length movie, feeling that his approach to film is well-suited to the author’s writing style. The director is open to all types of stories, but Kokotajlo hopes to continue exploring thefolk horror genrethroughout his career.
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Screen Rantchats with Kokotajlo about transferring the novel’s eerie atmosphere to the screen, working with an all-star cast, and how denial affectsthe grieving processinStarve Acre.
Kokotajlo Wants Viewers To Feel Like They’re Intruding On The Intense Events Of Starve Acre
Screen Rant: I read that you enjoyed Andrew Michael Hurley’s affinity for Gothic storytelling in the novel, and an author obviously uses different tools to create unease than a filmmaker does. What was your approach to transferring those same types of feelings to the screen?
Daniel Kokotajlo: You’re right. Andrew’s work is very lyrical and about the emotional inner-workings of characters a lot of the time. So that was something that we had to think about. But luckily, with this story, we had the very visual motif of the brown hare, the English hare, and what happens to that. So we could sort of structure it all around the nature of this kind of rebirth or resurrection. That’s how I started off, thinking about this animal that’s kind of resurrecting itself.
How can that be a symbol for these characters and their relationship going forward? And then also, I think my style of filmmaking or working with actors suits Andrew’s style of writing as well. In my first film, Apostasy, I was working a lot with the inner lives of characters and talking a lot to actors about the exact thought processes that they’re going through in any scene, and to just then put the camera on them and see them have those thoughts.
And so not necessarily explain that to the audience, either, just make sure that the actors are thinking and feeling the right things. And again, that’s the same thing I did with this, and I think it creates a mood and a feeling. Something that’s hopefully quite intense, or feels like there’s a window into something that’s happening that you maybe are not supposed to be part of. And hopefully, that kind of represented what Andrew was doing with the writing.
There are always a lot of creative changes when you’re doing an adaptation, but was there one specific scene or quote from the novel that you felt had to be included to capture the essence of the story?
Daniel Kokotajlo: Again, I think it has to do with the hare, this nature of what was happening to it, and the macro level detail of that, to the point where I did get macro lenses on set to try and capture that and see the different stages of that building towards the end of the film. And then also, in the book, there was a lot of talk about the whistle in the woods, and the nature of Jack Gray, so that’s something I stuck to and tried to embellish.
What is this whistling doing? Is it transformative? Does it beguile the characters? Is it like a spell? When these characters hear the whistle, what do they think and feel? Are they enraptured by something? Are they scared of it? It’s trying to work those things out. In the book, sometimes it was as simple as that he heard a whistle in the woods. I thought that could be something great to work with and deviate from in certain places.
Starve Acre’s Aesthetic Was Inspired By 70s Horror Films Such As Texas Chainsaw Massacre
In terms of the aesthetic, I saw in your notes that you took some inspiration fromTexas Chainsaw Massacre, which I love as a long-time fan of the franchise. Could you give some more insight into why you drew from that film?
Daniel Kokotajlo: I remember vividly the impression it gave me when I first saw it. I first saw it in a cinema when I was about 16. There was a rerun of it. I just remember thinking, “I’m not supposed to be watching this.” It feels like it’s been dug up from somewhere where it’s been buried, and you’re not supposed to be watching this. It was probably because it was an old print, and it was filthy, and you can barely see the image.
It had that dirty, grainy, low-light feel to it, and that, for me, was what 70s horror was all about. This low-budget, grainy, textured feel. It had a sort of looseness to it with the costumes and the hairstyles and the production design. It was trying to make sure that they had that feel—the characters and the camera work. We couldn’t afford to shoot on film, but then we print it to an old film stock, which had a very grainy feel to it as well.
I was going to ask you about that because there’s a soft vintage effect on the film that made me feel like I was watching a VHS tape.
Daniel Kokotajlo: Yeah, that’s the effect. We found some wicked old vintage lenses and a Morphix that stretch the image and create slight distortions and things that made it feel very 70s, and then we printed it onto a film stock, which gave it the grain and the right kind of colors, very reminiscent of 70s films. It also helped embed a lot of things into the animatronics and some of the VFX that we had to do in the end. All that stuff got compressed and pushed into the film in a way, so it sort of made it all fit together.
Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark are both well-renowned actors from epic fantasy series. How early on were they attached to this project, and what did they bring to the role?
Daniel Kokotajlo: I finished the script before they got involved. I was working with the BBC on the scripts. We got to a happy place with the script, and then we started talking about the cast, and they both came up very early on in discussions. Seeing Morfydd in Saint Maud, I knew she’d be perfect for it, because she’s got that classical look and has got quite a 70s look as well. I knew that she was into this kind of storytelling. She’s into Gothic stuff and horrors, so I had my fingers crossed she’d want to do this similar thing again. I’d seen Matt in a few things as well before working on the script.
I saw him in Charlie Says and Last Night in Soho—that was a bit later. I saw him in His House as well and that made me think he can be a character actor. He’s quite versatile, and I felt like this would be great for him. I had not seen him do something like this before. This was before House of the Dragon as well. I get excited by him. I always thought Matt had a great face, as well, depending on where you put the camera. It transformed the way he looked, and I started getting really excited about that, the kind of physicality of him.
The more I thought about Richard, the more I was like, “Man, this guy’s from the 70s. He would have been into The Beatles, he’s got this kind of post-hippie feel to him with a longer grungier hairstyle, and he’s a bit looser.” He’s a new breed of these archaeologists back in the 70s, and they’re all about the social sciences and getting their hands dirty. It was very different from treasure hunters with bow ties on and stuff, and Matt had that quality already just from when I was talking to him.
Richard And Juliette’s Story In Starve Acre Explores The Consequences Of Shutting Down A Natural Process
This is centered around a family who is experiencing significant hardships, so what story did you want to tell in terms of how that affects Richard and Juliette’s marriage?
Daniel Kokotajlo: How the trauma affects them. I think that was all, again, part of the novel. It was dealing with a very difficult subject, which was grief, and how sometimes people look for ways out of the natural process of healing, and they find solutions in religion or superstitions or magical ideas. That’s what struck me about the book, and that’s a preoccupation of mine as well in my first film, Apostasy.
It was a similar emotional story, really, about grief and religion, and what religion does to grief. Andrew was working with a similar thing here, but here, it was a departure from realism. It was about embracing something that was sort of pagan or spiritual in some way, or sort of ancient religion, embracing that in order to move forward. And the effects of that then on the psyche, and what that does to your ideas of acceptance and denial, and what that can look like. How crazy it can be to try and shut down a natural process.
The novel is only about 250 pages, and this is a full-length feature. Did you need to do any outside research on the mythology to expand on it?
Daniel Kokotajlo: A little bit. I did connect with that theme of rebirth and springtime. Any kind of additional work was based around that, having the characters come together and seeing how they embrace this thing at the end, that was a slight deviation from the way that the book ends. It did give me a bigger journey for the characters to go through, to see the breakdown of a relationship, and then how it reconnects at the end.
That was the change I made in order to make room for it. The book has this broken narrative switching between different seasons. I understood that in the book. It was to do with this sense that winter never really leaves these characters. There’s always a darkness there. I felt like that was going to be too disjointed on screen, and if we did do it chronologically, and end the final section of the film in springtime, then it would sort of reveal itself. It would be about this revelation at the end.
This was your second feature film, so what’s next for you? Do you have anything else in the pipeline or any other genres you’d like to explore?
Daniel Kokotajlo: I’ve got quite a few things on the go. I’m working on two feature scripts at the minute. One’s a sort of gothic story again, and then one’s more of a sci-fi espionage thing. But I’m open to all genres. I will quite happily make folk horrors for the rest of my life if I could. Hopefully, I’ll get something off the ground soon and get back into production.
About Starve Acre
When their son starts acting strangely, a couple unwittingly allow dark and sinister forces into their home, awakening a long-dormant ancient evil rooted deep in the countryside.
