STACK January 2017 Issue 147

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“I’ve always been a big fan
of Westerns – it’s one
of my favourite genres,”
Ti West tells STACK. “I think as a
filmmaker, it’s a uniquely cinematic
genre and in the back of my head it
was certainly one thing I wanted to
do one day.”
In a Valley of Violence is a
very traditional Western, in which
a mysterious drifter (played by
Ethan Hawke) is driven to exact
vengeance upon the misfits of a
small town following the murder
of his beloved companion. With
its quirky tone, black humour
and oddball characters, the film
is reminiscent of The Quick and
the Dead, although West cites
Spaghetti Westerns as a major
influence.
“I’m a big Sam Raimi fan of
course, and that movie is great,
but I think directly I was affected
by the Dollars Trilogy. High Plains
Drifter and The Wild Bunch are in
there as well,” he says. “There’s
an absurdist nature to the Dollars
Trilogy, a lot of absurdity to the
filmmaking, and to me that’s
visit
22 JANUARY 2017
DVD&BD
FEATURE
Best known for his slow burn horror movies House
of the Devil and The Innkeepers, writer-director
TiWest ventures into theWildWest for his new
film, In aValley of Violence. Words Scott Hocking
cinema, when you can explore
those things and go with the
characters. To make a film too
serious, in this case, it becomes a
lesser movie and I’m not interested
in preaching to anybody.”
West’s films have always been
astutely cast, from character actors
like Tom Noonan and Gene Jones
in House of the Devil and The
Sacrament , respectively, to Ethan
Hawke and John Travolta in In a
Valley of Violence .
“Casting is 85 per cent of
directing, I think,” he offers.
“Editing is the other ten and the
last five is what I do. If you can
cast the right people, you just take
it from there. In the case of In a
Valley of Violence , I wrote it with
Ethan Hawke in mind because I’d
met him and pitched him the idea.
If we hadn’t got him, it may not
have happened.”
In a Valley of Violence was
Hawke’s second appearance in a
cowboy hat for 2016, following The
Magnificent Seven remake. But for
Travolta, whose career spans four
decades, it’s surprisingly his very
first Western.
“When I met him he said he’d
always wanted to do a Western,”
recalls West. “He’d been looking
for one and said that this was the
first one that he’d wanted to do,
which for me was a really cool
experience. [The character] was
there on the page but he Travolta-
ed it and made it so much more
engaging. It was surreal to watch
him, to be honest.”
[Mild spoiler ahead] Revenge
is a familiar trope of the genre and
the catalyst for Hawke’s vengeance
is the murder of his dog, which
West agrees is something of a
cardinal sin in a movie.
“I think we’re pretty
desensitised to violence in
movies; the most commercial
films have entire cities destroyed
and millions of people are killed
and nobody thinks anything of it.
But if you even threaten a dog
or any kind of animal, the whole
theatre turns.
“This movie is about how
violence affects people, so I
needed an act to really have a
visceral feeling, and I knew that
would do it.”
While his horror films have
given him a reputation for
favouring slow burn narratives,
West says this isn’t the
case with In a Valley of
Violence.
“It’s a decent
amount of time before
the dog thing happens,
but right from the
very first frame it’s
a Western. I always kind of joke
that it can’t be slow burn because
from the moment it starts, there’s
the horse, there’s the hat, there’s
everything, so we’re already in.
“I always feel like you have
to spend time in a movie to care
about the movie,” he adds. “By
the time the plot kicks in, you’re
invested in not just the characters
and the story, but the aesthetic
of the film and the tone. I don’t
always feel the second half of
movies work that well, so I always
try and get you into that world in
the first half.”
To me, what makes
horror movies scary
is contrast, and the
more contrast you
have, the scarier and
more effective it is.
So I like to spend
a lot of time in the
non-horror part of
the movie before
the horror movie;
because you’re
waiting for the other
shoe to drop, it’s a
slow burn. I’m known
for that, but it’s sort
of like hearing your
voice on tape – you
don’t really hear it
yourself.
House of the Devil
The Innkeepers
The Sacrament
• In a Valley
of Violence
is out on
Jan 18
TiWest