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INTERVIEW: NO LAUGHING MATTER – DIRECTOR JOE LO TRUGLIO ON “OUTPOST”

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 | Interviews

By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT

You know Joe Lo Truglio. Odds are, the comic actor has made you laugh as Detective Charles Boyle, Andy Samberg’s eager, oversharing partner on the hit cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Or perhaps you know Lo Truglio from his early days as a member of the comedy troupe The State and their delightfully absurd ’90s cult classic MTV sketch show. Or maybe you’ve seen him in such chuckle-fests as Superbad, Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models.

You may think you know Joe Lo Truglio, but behind that cherubic smile and those twinkling eyes beats the heart of a hardcore horror fan, a tried and true gorehound who whiled away his adolescence soaking up the films of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg during the horror’s home video golden age. Although Joe’s not ready to completely leave the laughs behind, he’s, at last, ready to unleash his dark side on the silver screen with his feature directorial debut, THE OUTPOST.

Beth Dover, Lo Truglio’s wife (best known for portraying Linda Ferguson in the Netflix dramedy Orange is the New Black) stars as Kate, a woman broken by violent assault, who takes a volunteer position in a fire watchtower. Hoping to find solace in the isolation of the wilderness, she’s consumed by her demons in a slow descent into paranoia and madness that echoes Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Lo Truglio was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to speak with RUE MORGUE about OUTPOST, his love of the genre and how horror and comedy are more alike than you may think.

Hi, Joe! Thanks for taking some time to speak with me today. 

Thanks! Thanks for having me. And I apologize again, and Beth apologizes. She got a call back for a project, and with the [writers’] strike, we need any possible employment we can get!

Understood. And I hope she gets the part. Let me get my fanboying out of the way up front. Of course, I’m a big fan of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But when I was in college, The State got me through some dark dark times. And years later, when I met my wife, one of the things we bonded over was our mutual love for that show.

That is great to hear. I gotta tell you that we’ve been we were just texting today, some of the group, and we were trying to figure out if we should do another show or reunion. And so, you know, there’s talk … There might be some stuff coming. But that’s cool. That’s a while back now, man!

Did you guys have a favorite sketch?

We love it all. My wife’s favorite is probably “Blueberry Johnson,” and I’m partial to the “Polar Bears.”

That’s amazing. I love that! That’s a  deep pull.

Let’s talk about OUTPOST. As I watched it, I was initially thinking, “Okay, this is a suspense film.” And then it takes this really hard left turn, and near the end, it becomes a flat-out horror movie.

You know, it seems with the reception, I think in general, the movie’s finding its audience, but it’s that last act that I think people were either into or not, and I kind of love living in that space as a filmmaker, to have a movie that people are either all in or all out on. This movie was very important to me because I was a horror fan and a lover of the genre, even before comedy. And so this was just a long-time dream – making a horror movie. 

This story was a little bit more specific and a little bit different in how I came up with the idea, which is to say I kind of reverse-engineered it in a way. I looked at the parameters I was working with, which was a low-budget movie. I want to have production value. I wanted to work with Beth Dover, my wife. And once I had those elements, and I’m like, “Well, what could take place up here on this mountain?” And then I thought about the great horror movies that I love, you know, that revolve around a descent into madness and paranoia. And it kind of went from there.

How are comedy and horror alike? What’s the relationship between scares and laughs?

Yeah, I’ve been asked that a couple of times. Well, they both evoke immediate responses, don’t they? In terms of when it’s working, whether it’s a laugh or a scream. And I think that’s a common denominator between them because I think they work [by] tapping into an almost automatic, instinctual kind of response, a visceral response. I think pacing and timing are similar in both of those genres. And they’re dealing in absurdity on one level or another.

In the pre-production phase, was it difficult to get backers and producers to take you seriously because they saw you strictly as a “comedy guy,” or is there a willingness to take a chance because of the influences of Jordan Peele, who also comes from a comedy background?

Well, I think Jordan absolutely opened the door for these comic filmmakers who love horror, but for me, I knew that I wanted to make this movie. I knew that I had a couple of people that wanted to invest in it, including myself. So in terms of backers, no, we didn’t have any trouble. I think we would have … But we had some money behind it. I wanted to put my skin in the game because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until I made a horror movie. So the funding wasn’t an issue for this one, but certainly, getting people to look at me in a different way was. I had a lot of help from the horror community. Fangoria and a few other people in the horror community really kind of welcomed me and welcomed this kind of big swing that I was taking. I find this community to be the most inclusive and generous and welcoming group of people that I’ve been lucky to be included with. And it really helped because, you know, this was new territory. I was nervous.

How did this idea of setting the film in a fire watchtower come about?

I wanted to use the mountain. I didn’t really think about the logistics of how to shoot on a mountain, but I want to think of some stories about isolation in that setting, in that environment. So the fire watchtower just was kind of the first thing that came into my head in terms of where a person would be stuck for a long time that they wouldn’t be able to leave. What would that do to a person’s state of mind? What would that do to a person who comes from a troubled and abused past? How does that play into her perception of things? The tower was just kind of a place where this might happen. I could have made a camping movie, too, I guess!

There was something about the responsibility of this job and that a lot of other people are in danger and are dependent on that person being together and having the wherewithal to know how to do that job. That just upped the stakes a little bit. Can this character handle it?

There are some really heavy themes in OUTPOST. Aside from addressing violence toward women, it perfectly captures the casual creepiness that some men exhibit toward women and that women have to deal with every day. Do you consider OUTPOST a feminist horror film?

Certainly. I mean, I knew that as a 52-year-old white cis male that there was going to be a challenge. For me to kind of approach some of the subject matter is very delicate. Aside from domestic violence, there’s also PTSD, and eight million Americans a year, in some form or another, are dealing with that. I wanted to be careful to be able to use the terror of PTSD as a device but not exploit it to [the point] where it seems insensitive. I mean, it’s going for the scare value, sure, but I was trying to create some connection and sympathy for a person that actually is dealing with this nightmarish condition where your body is in fight or flight all the time, even if you don’t know it.

I read a good book that was recommended to me by someone with that type of past, called The Body Keeps the Score, and it was really helpful in discovering how your body will hold on to stuff that you blocked out or don’t want to face. That’s a scary idea. That helped me write the character of Kate and the moments where she does break down because her body just makes her break down. It was a lot to handle. I hope for viewers out there that I handled it with respect.

Did Beth give you any insight into how to write this character? Did she clue you in on any nuances that you might miss as a man?

She was extraordinarily helpful just in terms of being brave enough to jump into a performance that she normally doesn’t do. [In Beth,] I had someone that was a big proponent of this movie. In terms of the writing, of course, I opened the script up to her and allowed her to contribute and throw her two cents in. Beth is more of the type of actor and writer who does all that work on set and works that way.

I thought it was a good idea that she and I had separate living quarters during production. I thought it was important that we each had space away to focus on our roles in the production aside from husband and wife. I think that was helpful in allowing us to keep focus and fulfill the roles that we had to do to shoot this in 16 days. If there was any moment that felt false, she was always very helpful. So she was an enormous filter for me and knew the challenges of this script. She was brave enough and confident enough that we’d be able to pull it off. And I hope that we did.

What’s your dynamic like with Beth on the set? Is it easier because you’re a couple? Does it present any specific challenges?

It’s great! Beth and I really worked well together. We’ve worked together [as actors]. This was the first time we were acting and directing together, but we had a hunch that it would work out. Beth wants and encourages directors who really lay it out. I’m the type of director that likes to come in with definite ideas on blocking and approach and then work with the actors, like, “Hey, is this working for you? If it doesn’t, let’s change it.” So it was really nice. There was a shorthand that we had. I knew that because I was an actor I was going to be able to like talk to not only Beth but the other actors in a way that I would want to be talked to by a director. I thought it went really well. I think that she would say the same. 

Earlier, you said that you were a horror fan long before comedy became a career. I learned in my research that you even made Super-8 horror films as a kid. Tell me about some of those early experiments and some of your favorite horror films and horror movie moments.

I kind of was introduced to the world of horror through Stephen King and Fangoria around 10 or 11. I read Night Shift. “Graveyard Shift” was, I think, the first King story I read.  I drew as well, so I was drawing horror comics. Then, when I got hold of a Super-8 film camera, me and a middle school buddy shot a movie called The Woodland Meadows Massacre. Woodland Meadows was just a development that we lived in down in South Florida. It was about a hand that crawled around and killed people …  It was kind of slapstick [like] a Three Stooge bit, so it had some humor in there, but then, we dove into [things like] getting a sandwich bag filled with red food coloring and tearing that open and dripping it on things. I did a Faces of Death  Super-8 movie as well when that was the rage in the mid-’80s. 

I was always, of course, watching everything – all the John Carpenter films and stuff. I was just always fascinated and obsessed with being afraid in a safe atmosphere, and horror movies allowed me to do that. That’s where it all begins.

What’s your favorite horror film?

The Brood would be my favorite. You know, that was a movie that I saw at 9 years old, and those little creatures just haunted my dreams forever. They were in there for a while you know. 

Jaws was the reason I got involved in movies. It was the first movie that made me ask myself, “How are they doing that? How did they do that?” … Other horror movies that I just love are the classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers –  the Philip Kaufman version. I’m leaving out the obvious ones like The Shining, Halloween, and The Exorcist because those are like the guideposts. I think Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse was a movie that was hard to keep on the channel, but I still did. That creature just messed me up pretty good! But The Brood is front and center for me.

Do you have the next film planned?

I have the next one written. We do need to get a little funding. I don’t think my business manager wants me to invest in any more of my movies! There’s another one. It’s not lined up to shoot, but we’re trying to get it out there and get the funds going for sure. It’s a creature feature.

So is this the career now? Are you a full-time horror movie director?

I think it’s part of the career. Yeah. You know, I found, on this kind of journey here, that no one’s only one thing – and no one should be only one thing. I think you need to follow the creative moment. This movie had to get out of me. Making a horror movie had to get out of me. I loved it. Because I began with the genre, I hope that it will be in my career and in my world for a long time, but I love comedy. And I love acting, too. I think that’s not something I’m ready to give up, either. So I think there’s a world where I can walk both sides of the line. I’m not ready to go all in like Jordan did and retire from acting yet, but I hope to be in the world of horror and making horror movies for a long time.

OUTPOST from Gravitas Ventures is now available on VOD. 

“I was just always fascinated and obsessed with being afraid in a safe atmosphere, and horror movies allowed me to do that. That’s where it all begins.”

William J. Wright
William J. Wright is RUE MORGUE's online managing editor. A two-time Rondo Classic Horror Award nominee and an active member of the Horror Writers Association, William is lifelong lover of the weird and macabre. His work has appeared in many popular (and a few unpopular) publications dedicated to horror and cult film. William earned a bachelor of arts degree from East Tennessee State University in 1998, majoring in English with a minor in Film Studies. He helped establish ETSU's Film Studies minor with professor and film scholar Mary Hurd and was the program's first graduate. He currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife, three sons and a recalcitrant cat.