Ioncinema! profiles The Loved Ones director Sean Byrne. He talks about filmmaking, his favorite films and a little more about The Loved Ones.

"[I] woke up one morning thinking what if I fused Carrie and Evil Dead, bringing the Prom to the cabin and making its very traditions – the decorations, the dress up, the dancing and, of course, the crowning of the King and Queen – the instruments of torture. I got this image of a bloodied teenager in a tuxedo tied to a chair in the middle of a balloon littered floor. So then I started asking, who is this kid, why is he here and how’s he going to get out?"

He also talks a little bit about the film's eclectic influences from the fighting spirit of Rocky to the dreamy surrealism of David Lynch's films.

"In The Loved Ones, our damaged hero is dragged from the literal world into something vividly surreal. In a way it mixes the slick Bruckheimer/Simpson hero’s journey model with the surreal and subconscious elements you might expect from a Lynch film."

 

The Loved Ones screens at TIFF on: Sunday September 11, 11:59PM - RYERSON / Tuesday September 15, 3:30PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2 / Thursday September 17, 6:30PM - VARSITY 4