A broke college student who happens to be a genius. A dog breeder with five perfect daughters. An unlikely partnership that will leave you either squirming in your seat or doubled over in disbelieving laughter. That is BREEDER, the new horror film by Alex Goyette that is on the darkest corner of the horror/comedy spectrum, because the titular breeder doesn’t just breed dogs. In fact, she has something deeply disturbing in store for the student she has trapped on her farm.
Veteran actress Dot-Marie Jones plays Patti, a completely unhinged poodle breeder who lives on a remote farm with her five daughters. After Russell, a struggling college student played by David Doheny, is offered research funding by Patti, he goes to her farm to negotiate terms, and discovers that her philosophies on breeding extend far beyond dogs. What follows is an unbelievable tale of how far one will go to achieve perfection in the human race.
RUE MORGUE spoke with Goyette, Marie-Jones, and Doheny about what it takes as creatives to make a film of this nature. Indie horror is a beautiful thing- when you have complete creative freedom, catharsis can be a result, according to Goyette.
“It’s been really rewarding to take something that’s been eating at me, and trying to make it into art,” says the BREEDER director. “It’s also the journey, where you have this idea, and it’s this little inkling that you love so much, and you have to find the people who love it the way you do.”
And that he did, particularly in finding leads Dot Marie-Jones and David Doheny. In finding these two actors for these roles, one being weak-willed and subdued while the other is larger than life and abrasive, both the horror and the comedy came in equal measures. The characters’ clashing personalities automatically makes for great drama, along with well-earned moments of levity.
”I think not going for the scares brings it,” says Marie-Jones on playing the villain. “With some of the scenes we did together, it’s such an intimate situation where it’s just the two of us. I’m completely serious, which makes it even more terrifying.”
”It’s weird, it’s kind of a tough balance,” Doheny adds. “For me, I think I have a bit of a third eye, thinking about the movie. Like, ‘is this scene supposed to be scary?’ In my mind I’m going, ok yes, I do want it to be scary. So I think, what’s the best way to do that? Do I do a completely natural performance in this scene, fully human? Or should I be a little bit aware that it’s supposed to be scary, and try to bring some creativity and play into that.”
According to Goyette, the film is constantly walking a “tightrope”, trying to properly balance the correct amount of humor in a script that has some very high and very human stakes. It’s not a simple process- it took many takes to get the line delivery of the humorous moments just right.
”A good part of that comes from casting, actually,” says Goyette. “Writing these characters that have opposing personalities….you get those two people in a room together and [Patti] steamrolls him every time. There’s this natural comedy that comes out of those two cast members playing those two characters. There’s tension itself comes from that Odd Couple pairing. We feel the way that Daniel’s character feels- very uncomfortable.”
While it took the creative team a long time to find the right Russell, who is played to meek perfection by David Doheny, they knew from the beginning that Dot Marie-Jones was the right choice for Patti. Marie-Jones has an impressive range as an actor, known by Millennials for playing the lovable Coach Beist on Glee. In BREEDERS, her character is anything but lovable, but every beat is still played to finesse, a testament to Marie-Jones’ acting chops.
”You lay it on the floor and you go for it,” she says of her method. “I used to be so nervous about how I would deliver something- I didn’t want it to be too stupid, I didn’t want it to be too corny, I wanted it to be real. With Glee, it was an emotional rollercoaster for those seasons I was on there, and I’m so grateful for that, but this was something so different. I’ve done a few thriller-slash-horror films, but nothing to this extent.”
Meanwhile, Doheny’s Russell is the straight man to the extreme, a role that is vulnerable in a way that actually subverts the stereotypical horror tropes regarding gender. Russell becomes trapped in a house with Patti and her daughters, a group of women who victimize, exploit, and ultimately assault an innocent college student- a young man. Doheny was up for the challenge, and as a self-proclaimed “film nerd” was grateful to get to play with genre expectations in this way.
”I just try to bring myself to the role, and think how I would react in these situations,” Doheny says of his process. “I know all about horror tropes, and I had no problem subverting them and doing something different. Being an actor is about being vulnerable, so I have no problem being vulnerable and trying my best to make something someone will call art one day.”
Of course, the beauty of making art is getting to run wild with one’s ideas, usually stemming from real-life experiences. Goyette has his own opinions about dog breeders, which was the catalyst for this movie, inspired by an incident his mother had with a very strict, unsettling breeder.
“I’ve come to learn that poodle breeders in general are very interesting people,” he says. “I really wanted to make a horror film about how insane these people are. No offense to poodle breeders, but they’re built different.”
Poodle breeders aside, the images in this film are bound to remain stuck in the viewer’s mind, long after watching. BREEDER is a strange, wacky, horrifying film, one where you’ll never know what’s coming next. All we can say of the horrors that await you is this- next time, adopt, don’t shop.
BREEDER will be released in theatres by IFC and Shudder on October 28th.
