#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead Director on Telling a Tale of Revenge for a New Generation

Movies about characters who aim to seek payback by any means necessary go back decades, all of which emphasize the very human desire for payback. #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead is one of the latest entries into the revenge subgenre, and with its goal being to not only spill buckets of blood but also to make the audience’s guts bust with laughter, director Marcus Dunstan had his work cut out for him on how to create a journey that navigated multiple tones. As indicated by the title, there’s also plenty of commentary on social media obsession, which adds even more themes to the adventure. #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead hits select theaters, Digital, and On Demand on August 2nd.

AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead is described, “A group of college friends rent an Airbnb for the biggest music festival of the year. A weekend of partying quickly takes a turn, as the group is murdered one by one, according to their sin.”

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead stars Jade Pettyjohn, Jennifer Ens, Ali Fumiko Whitney, Michaella Russell, Julian Haig, Justin Derickson, Cardi Wong, Jack Doupe-Smith, and Jojo Siwa.

ComicBook caught up with Dunstan to talk his new film, finding the right tone for the terror, and future projects.

ComicBook: How did you initially get involved with this project and what was it about the script and this story that really appealed to you so much?

Marcus Dunstan: In order, the original director on this film was Kevin Greutert, and Kevin’s schedule … Saw X came in and was like, “Hey, we’re going now.” And All My Friends Are Dead had to just shift. It was waiting for the right … I guess all the budget and everything that had to come together for it. So he kindly, and I’m grateful for it, threw my name into a hat to step in and pinch hit, and that is how it happened. 

He was available throughout, and Kevin has helped me so many times. He shared his shot list before I ever made my first movie, just so I could understand the way he organized. Because this man is not only a gifted storyteller of the movies he directed, he’s also the secret sniper storyteller for maybe 100 you didn’t know. These are big, critical, vital movies, and it’s just there is an alacrity of storytelling that is wonderful. To be in his orbit is a true honor, and that is why I’m a part of #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead.

Now, the script, Josh Sims and Jessica Sarah Flaum, this is their first screenplay that has been made into a movie. They are accomplished writers, performers on — I believe it’s called PBC — but when I hear some voices that are written in the moment, in the age of the characters, written in a perspective with modern influences of the adrenalized social media culture, but then they did something extra special. The bigger “why?” was they had a twist in there I didn’t see coming, and I wanted to be a part of this to protect that. 

Way back when Patrick Melton and I were first-time co-writers with a movie being made, John Gulager stepped up and said, “I’m going to protect this”. And if he hadn’t have done that, there would be no today. Hence there is a faux movie within this movie that is produced by “Juan Gulager.” So that’s my hug to John.

Once you got involved in the project and you actually bring in some, I guess you’d call them “Gen Z”? Is that what they would be?

So let’s say you start one of these, and the screenplay, when it was written, it has a date. Then you start to produce one of these, and that means you have to put all the players together. Well, maybe as much as a year or something can go by, then you shoot it and then maybe it’s another year before it comes out. You’re thinking, “Well, if it’s Gen Z, we’ve got to think of what that next gen is. Are we going all the way back to A? Are we going to start this alphabet all over again? Why did they say Gen X? That really didn’t give them that many more generations to go. Like how do we get from Baby Boomer to X? Like where’s L, M, N? What about them?” 

We wanted to feel like this could have just hit you like a headline of the moment as well. It has to feel like it’s got the right color, sound, beats per minute, and also stimulus. Stimulus that grabs the eye so you really can’t look away. If we can grab you for one second, let’s see if we can have you hold on for the full 90 minutes.

Bringing in these “Gen as Yet to Be Determined” cast, that experience, did the script evolve at all, if they brought things to the story that you hadn’t anticipated, that the script didn’t account for?

Yep. We definitely had pillars of hope throughout that … Well, I wanted to see how far we could push the tone and accelerating and differentiate tone. Because let’s just say we made this as a straight, by-the-numbers thriller with dashes of horror, I don’t think it would resonate because life doesn’t have that pattern. In a day, something may strike you as lethargy, then you get the caffeine and now all of a sudden you’ve got adrenaline. But then that thing takes you by the side and you might get pissed in traffic, and then you’re back in and you hear the joke that brings you back. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

You’re doing all this stuff in this frenzy because we just don’t want to die. With that in mind, now we have a cast. I want to give credit to Julian Haig, who plays L.B., who had the cast get together and got to know each other before we shot. This is a rarer-than-rare occurrence where a group of strangers may have shown up in Vancouver, Canada, but everyone who left there was an old friend. This cast is remarkable.

Then thank you Kirk Shaw, thank you Stephanie Rennie. These are the producers. We shot in order, so to your other point, yes, we could evolve in shape because, really, Josh and Jessica’s script had things that, due to time or budget or whatnot, or due to simply the resources we did have, we would be adapting that. You’re adapting their architecture into the reality of what we could do. In some cases, pushing, going bigger, further, moving certain things around. Because this cast was so nimble with humor … I want to shout out Jennifer Ens who was signing up to play someone who was mostly drama-thriller in the request, but revealed herself to be such a sharp comic timing ace that, “Okay, now I can make this person have these barbs.”

There was a particular joke I have been metaphorically dying to put in a horror movie for so long. It’s one of these obvious things and it’s just the people will know it when they feel it because I loved seeing this joke and I want to pat everybody on the back for making it happen. Critically, Jennifer Ens landed this joke just so, at the height of violence. She says something that is so character-driven, but is actually hanging its hat on an observation of anybody that saw a horror movie in the ’90s, and the ’80s, and the early ’00s where they’re like, “But wait, is that?” Bam! And we had three sold-out screenings in Tribeca, and to see that movie moment land and everybody that was tight in a ball go, “Bah!” Yes, thank you. Thank you, Jennifer Ens.

We were evolving, we were adapting, we were finding things because instantly there was a safe environment to push in every direction. The real hero here for what you saw is Andrew Coutts, our editor. We had almost humorous, dramatic, or tense versions of many different interactions. Then it was creating this Richter scale of how to go through it. We asked the audience for some patience because we have more than a typical amount of character development to set up these layers, and then use the rest of our run time to peel them back, peel them back. And in some cases, peel it down to the red stuff and then that flies.

I do have to look to the future a little bit since you’re so tied to the Saw franchise. Your imprint on that franchise has been so huge. Is there anything you can tease about Saw XI, whether it be what fans are expecting, what they’re not expecting?

Well, I’ve got two things I can offer. One is how grateful that I am, as not only a viewer but a collaborator, that Kevin Greutert is back in. I think Kevin Greutert is the Nicholas Meyer of Saw. Nicholas Meyer did Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer did Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, like this guy would come in and blow the roof off. I just think that Kevin is a master storyteller, and Saw X announced with a spotlight like, “Hey, this is a series that you can never put into a corner. There are ways to surprise and affect and to have heart.” When you have Tobin Bell involved, you just have a masterclass actor who has long deserved a moment in the spotlight, and it’s just getting brighter. I just think it’s wonderful.

The other thing I can say is, if anybody wanted to know what was up with The Collector, less than 24 hours ago, after five years of legal entanglements, The Collector is free. The Collector‘s coming back, and it’s going to be mad scary. You think this one’s loud and red? Wait until you see that sucker hit.

I just found out and I’m so grateful and happy about it. It’s five years, man. I kid you not, five years ago I was packing for Atlanta for our first run at doing a third. To your point, we weren’t to trespass into that until it could be the best one. Every next movie has a chance to be the best movie, and so to really, also to your earlier point of #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead has humor, has hope, has other emotions, and really uppercase “Humor” for a while to get us through the character development, then we use it more sporadically to keep people off rhythm. The Collector has been about that space in the darkness where you have two choices, terror or heart. And there’s a mental place to go for everybody that’s so … Now, on set, you’d never know, we always sound like we’re a chuckle party. But in the conveying of it, that’s where that voice has harbor. So it was nice to have Josh and Jessica’s screenplay bring us into the light, because where are we going next? We’re going into the pitch, pitch dark.

Well, on that dark note, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. I’m looking forward to more folks getting to check out #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead.

If I may, stay through the credits. We’ve got more twists of the knife that go on. We wanted to entertain with every single frame we could. So, please, even if you’re seeing it in the theater, just stay in the seat, it’ll be there for you. And if you’re at home and the algorithm wants to bounce it back to a tiny window, pop that sucker, let it be big. We’ve got something coming that’s a punch. 

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead hits select theaters, Digital, and On Demand on August 2nd.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.