Jordan Downey’s The Cycle which I caught at the 35th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival and is currently available on Shudder is a film where the themes ultimately become the driving force of this engrossingly ambitious midnighter that’s chock full of surprises. The film follows Meg Garland (Deborah Ann Woll) a renowned forensic anthropologist who is called from her body farm where she studies human decomposition to give some insight on a grisly crime scene. When she arrives she finds two women torn to shreds, the bodies appear to be from a recent animal attack. But she’s there to advise on an odd twist to the mystery, a corpse found about 100 yards from the double murder, untouched and who appears to have been dead for sometime before the attack.
That corpse just also happens to be that of Meg’s father who has been missing for about 36 years.
In my downtime at the fest, I got some time to chat with the writer/director of The Cycle Jordan Downey (Thankskilling, The Head Hunter), who is originally from Granville, Ohio and was in town for the fest. He moved to LA at 18 and interned at Midnight Pictures, the production company co-founded by none other than Wes Craven. He made his debut with the cult holiday horror oddity ThanksKilling, and has since continued to make modestly budgeted films with big ambitions. We talk not only, all things Cycle, the practical effects behind the film, and his love for the Critter franchise as well. To be honest his Critters fan film is one of the best takes on the property since the second film and I hope given his love for these tiny monsters someone else takes notice.
Dan Tabor: I really enjoyed The Cycle, and congratulations on getting it into the Philadelphia Film Festival! Did you get a chance to explore the city at all?
Jordan Downey: I got in late last night. I walked out to get breakfast this morning, then walked over to do an interview down the street from the theater where the film is playing. So, no, all I know is a few blocks. I did sit in the park, which was nice. I wish I had more time because I’ve never really spent much time in Pennsylvania. I grew up in Ohio, but we never came here that often, even though we’re neighbors.
Dan Tabor: You wear both the writer and director hats on this one, co-writing the script with Kevin Stewart, who also served as cinematographer. What was the initial germ of an idea that ultimately became The Cycle?
Jordan Downey: The movie makes a big shift halfway through, which gets into spoiler territory, but that shift was the initial idea. We started with that concept and then figured out how to put it into a sort of crime-mystery, police-procedural framework. That was the germ of the idea. The writing and development process was then about figuring out what to build around it and which characters should guide us through the story.
Dan Tabor: There are cycles within cycles here, both literally and metaphorically. The title applies to so many things: the creature, the cycle of life and death, and generational trauma. What drew you to exploring the repetitious nature of, well, pretty much everything?
Jordan Downey: The title applies to a number of things. I’m sure people will watch the movie and point out things I didn’t even intend, whether they happened subconsciously or were just accidental.
Obviously, there’s the creature element. There’s also the cycle of trauma that some of the characters are dealing with and how that affects their lives. Then there’s the life cycle of birth and death, along with the life cycle of maggots and larvae on a corpse.
Forensic anthropologists can use the development of maggots to help determine when someone died because flies arrive and lay their eggs very quickly. So the title applies to a bunch of different things.
It didn’t start out that way. It started with that original idea, and as we continued working through draft after draft, we kept adding layers. Ideally, you want to make a movie that’s as complex as possible while still being palatable, so there’s something new to discover on your fifth viewing that you didn’t pick up on the first.
Dan Tabor: I love how all those threads eventually come together. You move from maggots and decomposition to generational trauma, and then you weave those ideas into the characters and their relationships. Even details like the assistant being pregnant feed into those themes. How did you land on forensic anthropology as the profession for your protagonist?
Jordan Downey: When the original idea involved discovering a cadaver, we knew our heroine would probably be a police officer or an FBI agent. We were trying to capture a little of the feeling of The X-Files, so it made sense that, once you found a body, you’d go to an expert.
But what could we do that was more unique than the standard small-town coroner or medical examiner we’ve seen so many times? We thought about someone who worked at a body farm.
Before this project, if someone had said “forensic anthropologist” to me, I wouldn’t have known what that was. I probably would have thought they were digging up dinosaur bones or something!
I did know what body farms were, though, and I thought they were a strange, fascinating location that we hadn’t seen explored much in movies. We started researching and realized forensic anthropology is the study of human decomposition. These professionals often work alongside law enforcement, but they’re also pursuing their own specialized scientific investigations.
It felt like a really interesting career to explore for this character.
Dan Tabor: I recently watched a documentary produced by Eli Roth about the funeral industry, and there was a whole section about people donating their bodies to body farms. It’s such a fascinating area of science that most people don’t even know exists. For some people, it seems like a meaningful alternative to traditional burial or cremation: even in death, they’re contributing to something.
Jordan Downey: Absolutely. I don’t know all the ins and outs of donating your body, but for some people, that might be more comforting than being buried or cremated. Their bodies become teaching tools for forensic anthropologists and students, who study how decomposition happens under different weather conditions and in different environments.
For some people, it’s a way to continue giving back after they die rather than simply fading away.
Dan Tabor: Going back to the idea of cycles, did researching all these different forms of repetition change the way you thought about anything personally? Was there something you discovered that made you look at the world a little differently?
Jordan Downey: Not necessarily, although one thing did make me think about how objects pass through families and generations.
There’s a watch in the movie that Jeffrey Donovan’s character eventually acquires. It originally belonged to his son, played by Will Hochman, who tells a story about receiving it from his grandfather. The father doesn’t know how the watch came into the family because he didn’t have a great relationship with his own father.
It made me think about how objects and tokens get passed down through generations. Someone might be gone, but something they left behind can eventually help solve a serious problem in the present.
I like that idea: artifacts from the past helping us in the present. It made me think about the things we hold on to, what we pass down to our children, and what those objects mean to different generations.
Dan Tabor: Deborah Ann Woll is one of those actors I think deserves a lot more recognition. I remember watching her on True Blood when she was really young, and she’s terrific here. How did she come aboard the project, and what did she bring to the character that wasn’t necessarily on the page?
Jordan Downey: We offered her the part, and it didn’t take long for her to get back to me. She said she’d read the script and wanted to meet, which was a big deal. It meant she’d seen something in the material that interested her.
We met on the USC campus while she was working in the library. I do a lot of work in libraries myself, and we both carry backpacks everywhere, so we immediately connected on a personal level. We’re also around the same age.
As we talked, I learned that she’s really into math and science. Beyond being a fantastic actor, she’s a bit of a nerd about forensic anthropology and those sorts of subjects. I felt like we’d found the perfect person for the role and hoped she’d say yes.
What she really brought to the character was levity and warmth. This could have been a very dark, gloomy role: someone dealing with daddy issues who spends her days around corpses. You can imagine other versions of the script becoming a pretty depressing viewing experience.
I love dark, atmospheric movies, but I also want them to be entertaining. Deborah lifted the character out of the gutter a little. She made us genuinely like this person while still allowing us to sympathize with the darkness she’s carrying.
Dan Tabor: I think that’s one of the film’s biggest strengths. The story about her father could easily overwhelm her own journey, but her performance keeps us invested in her as a person. She’s engaging, and she takes the character in so many different directions.
There’s one thing I was wondering about, though, and this gets into spoilers be warned going forward: did her mother know what was really going on?
Jordan Downey: No, her mother didn’t know.
All her mother knew—and this doesn’t really give anything away—is the little bit of information she reveals in the scene where Deborah’s character talks with her. Her mother, played by Gretchen Corbett, mentions a man named Lou Bishop. That was a name the police gave her back in the ’90s when they were investigating the disappearance.
That’s all her mother knew. She really doesn’t have much more information to work with than her daughter does.
SPOILERS BELOW!!
IN…
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Dan Tabor: All right, we’re going into full spoilers now. I’m a sucker for monster lore, and I’m glad you didn’t call this Zombie Werewolves.
Jordan Downey: We actually called it the “W word” a lot while we were making it. On the call sheets, Trevor Newland, who plays the werewolf, was listed as “Creature.” We tried to avoid calling it a werewolf because, as you said, if someone tells you they’re making a zombie-werewolf movie, your mind immediately goes somewhere very different from the kind of film we were trying to make.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’d absolutely rent the hell out of a zombie-werewolf movie!
Dan Tabor: Same! What’s interesting is that The Cycle starts out feeling like a crime procedural, almost True Detective, and then keeps pulling the rug out from under you. There are so many fake-outs about what’s really happening and where the story is going. And then you deliver a creature with its own mythology and a scientific element I wasn’t expecting.
How much of that lore did you have worked out from the beginning? Did you have the rules of how these werewolves operate written down, or did you develop them as you went?
Jordan Downey: The initial idea involved an undead werewolf: a corpse that would continue transforming after death. That concept alone dictated certain design elements. Because it’s decomposed, it’s a bony, malnourished, scrawny kind of werewolf.
I love little details like imagining that, before the person died, the creature would have walked on two legs. We never confirm that on screen, but I liked the idea that it would have been a more traditional, upright werewolf when the human was still alive.
I love An American Werewolf in London. It’s my favorite werewolf movie, and we drew a lot of inspiration from it. I prefer the more bestial versions of the monster over the traditional hairy-man version.
But because this person is dead, the only animal left alive is the one we’re seeing. That justified having it run around on all fours. Since it would be uncomfortable in that posture, we also gave the design a strange, elongated neck. The character died by suicide, so we incorporated aspects of that death into the creature’s appearance.
The version we see on screen isn’t necessarily what the creature would have looked like during the 30 years it had been transforming on its own. We never see that earlier version.
But if this person had been dealing with the condition for 30 years, he’d have tried everything. As werewolf fans, we know the usual potential cures, like silver bullets. He would absolutely have tried those. If they worked, though, he wouldn’t still be around.
We had to take some of the traditional rules and throw them out the window. That also helps explain his frustration. He’s tried literally everything, and nothing has worked.
Dan Tabor: I love that aspect of it. He’s not simply happy being a monster; he’s trying to solve a problem he can’t escape.
The transformation scenes are also fantastic. There’s a moment when you can see the bubbles moving underneath the skin, which immediately brought An American Werewolf in London to mind. Practical transformations are notoriously difficult to pull off, but yours have a real sense of evolution as they happen on screen.
And the practical effects are chef’s kiss. I’ve seen a lot of werewolf movies, and this creature looks incredible. It’s gnarly, it moves beautifully, and it’s genuinely terrifying. I can’t imagine it was cheap or easy to pull off. What went into designing and bringing that creature to life?
Jordan Downey: All the credit goes to Patrick McGee and his team, who built the werewolf, and to Trevor Newland, who wore the suit and gave it a personality.
I think people would be surprised to learn how low-budget the movie actually is. The werewolf was the most expensive element, along with the cast, so we had to get pretty scrappy with everything else.
Time was our biggest ally, along with having a passionate, dedicated artist like Patrick. He had a shop and a team of artists, sculptors, hair punchers, and everyone else needed to bring a monster like this to life. They were all committed to making a great werewolf.
We scheduled production to give them as much time as possible. First, they made the corpse version, which we shot for a week. Then we filmed the dramatic material. At the very end of production, they brought out the werewolf, and we spent a week shooting the scenes involving the creature and the actors interacting with it.
After that, we waited another five months until the following spring so they could build the hands, snouts, and all the transformation pieces.
We had those five months for Patrick’s team to keep working. At one point, I broke down how many stages or pieces we needed, and he overdelivered.
One of my favorite details was something we hadn’t even planned: the hair growing out of the skin. They punched a bunch of hair into a small, 12-inch square of latex, wrapped it around a basketball to give it a curve, and pulled the hair out. When you run the footage backward, it looks like the hair is sprouting.
The bubbling effect is also practical. They’re applying those prosthetics to Trevor at the beginning of the day. Ultimately, time was the biggest factor in pulling off effects like these.
Dan Tabor: Most monster movies seem to have either a great creature or a great story, but you managed to deliver both. The climax, when the werewolf is chasing her while she’s in the boat, those dead eyes are absolutely terrifying.
I grew up loving An American Werewolf in London, and your creature really captures some of what makes that film so effective. That’s difficult to do, especially now, when so many filmmakers seem reluctant to take their monsters completely seriously.
Jordan Downey: That’s awesome to hear!
My favorite monster movies are great dramas, too. The Fly is probably the best example. You get this incredibly effective drama that builds toward a devastating monster-movie payoff.
Chris Walas’s practical effects in The Fly, especially the Brundlefly transformation and that ending, are genius. The movie blows its head off and cuts to the credits. It’s an incredible way to end a film.
That’s important to me. I think these kinds of monster movies, particularly the practical-effects films of the ‘80s and modern interpretations of them, sometimes get treated as if they need to be infused with comedy. Maybe the filmmakers don’t intend to undermine the monsters, but I miss movies that simply take their creatures seriously.
That was one of our motivations with The Cycle.
Dan Tabor: Speaking of comedy, I watched your Critters short, and I’m a huge fan of the original movies. Is Critters something you’d like to tackle as a feature someday? We haven’t had a truly great Critters movie in a long time, and your short made me think you’d be a perfect fit.
Jordan Downey: Yes, yes, and yes! It’s my favorite movie.
Critters was the film that made me start paying attention to the credits and thinking about who actually made these movies. I watched it repeatedly and studied it. When the third and fourth films came out on video, I was driving around town trying to find copies.
I’ve collected props from the movies over the years, too. Don Opper, who played Charlie in the Critters films, appears in the opening scene of The Cycle. I reached out to him because I love his work, and he agreed to do the small role. That was amazing.
I have a whole take on what I’d do with Critters. The moment someone is willing to listen, I’ll die on that hill. If someone told me I could have a blank check to make one last movie, that would be it.
I think the first two films, especially the original, have been unfairly dismissed. The first is my favorite because it has that sci-fi bounty-hunter element, which is still present in the sequel, but the original is darker.
I also think there’s a much bigger world in Critters than most people realize. I’m absolutely dying for the opportunity.
Dan Tabor: When I was looking through your IMDb page and saw Critters, I immediately pulled up the short. I loved the way you handled the bounty hunter’s head, almost like a hologram, and the ending really sold it. It felt like you understood what made those movies work.
How did that short come together? Was it always intended as a pitch for a potential project?
Jordan Downey:I made it because I’d seen an announcement online that they were developing a Critters web series. I think it eventually became Critters: A New Binge, but at the time, it didn’t have a title.
I wanted to figure out how to get my name in the hat to direct it. I managed to get in touch with one of the writers, who told me they didn’t have a director yet. But I hadn’t made The Cycle or Headhunter at that point, so I figured I needed to prove I could handle it.
We made the short as a pitch, and supposedly it made its way into the right hands, but I never got a call. I don’t know what happened with it. Still, I’m really proud of that short.
Dan Tabor: As someone who rented the original Critters on VHS as a kid and has loved the franchise ever since, I would love to see someone come along who understands what makes those movies special. We’re rebooting all these other horror properties, so hopefully whoever owns the rights eventually gets the itch to make another one and puts it in the right hands.
Jordan Downey: I hope so. I was just in Spain for the Sitges Film Festival, and there was Critters merchandise everywhere.
You’ve got Chucky, Freddy, Jason, and all these other monsters getting plenty of attention. People get worked up over whether those franchises should be remade or continued, and Critters is right there alongside them. For whatever reason, it’s always been treated like the ugly stepchild of Gremlins.
I’ve never seen it that way.
Dan Tabor: It’s not like the franchise is in the same category as Munchies or Hobgoblins.
Jordan Downey: Exactly! Hobgoblins is terrible.
I rented all those movies growing up, though. I’m sure we watched a lot of the same things. I’d go straight to that section of the video store and rent whatever I could find, especially Little Monsters. The more swearing, the better.
Dan Tabor: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I hope people discover The Cycle, both for the procedural mystery and for that incredible creature work.
Jordan Downey:Thank you. I appreciate it!
