By George & Josh Bate
“Big ideas in small spaces.” That’s how director Casey Walker describes his new surreal, unsettling sci-fi horror film Home Bodies, which recently made its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival’s 30th anniversary event.
From director Casey Walker (A Little Bit Zombie), Home Bodies follows Red (Emma Ho) and Blue (Ian Ho), siblings whose entire existence is confined to a retro and somewhat dilapidated indoor living space. Food is readily available, entertainment comes in the form of VHS tapes of a show called ‘Barn,’ and the two only interact with one another and, on occasion, the disembodied voice of Papa through a locked door. But on Christmas, Red and Blue are ‘gifted’ a new member of the household, a silent figure named Pal (Ess Hödlmoser). When two becomes three, a wedge is driven between the siblings, which sets off a series of events that forever changes their lives.
The HoloFiles recently had the opportunity to speak with Walker about his new film, drawing on other contained sci-fi movies, Lynchian influences, the extraordinary production design, and more.
Walker directed episodes of Taste Buds, The Hardy Boys, Prank Patrol, and more before taking a hard pivot into genre fare as executive producer of films such as The Void and In a Violent Nature. His sophomore feature, Home Bodies, finds the Ontario filmmaker leaning on his sensibilities as both a horror director and children’s entertainment veteran. That’s because his new film features just three characters, two of whom are adolescent siblings navigating life in a confined indoor living space.
“I’d come from children’s television,” Walker explained. “It was like the first decade of my career and till I like did a really hard turn into genre film….In children’s entertainment, you usually notice that there’s like scenes with kids and scenes with adults and there’s a split in between. And that’s just because of the amount of time you have to work with kids is very limited. So then you run off in the rest of your day and shoot with the older siblings of the older adults or the weird person who runs the convenience store down the street, that kind of stuff. We had none of that in this movie. And once the scenes with us were done, it was just me, Emma and Ian.”
The Emma and Ian that Walker refers to are Emma and Ian Ho, the brilliant young leads at the center of the movie. “I’d worked with Ian on a kid show during the pandemic, and he really impressed me,” said Walker. “And then Emma had worked during the pandemic with a friend of mine on a show, and she was opposite Ron Perlman and held her own.”
Emma and Ian Ho’s characters live permanently in an ominous indoor living space. Stunning production design from Chareese Steinhoff makes this home of theirs a character unto itself. The space feels sterile, yet lived-in. Futuristic, yet vintage. Coupled with the intermittent presence of the rule-enforcing disembodied father figure Papa, Home Bodies very quickly encroaches on thriller/horror territory and, although devoid of traditional scares, does more than enough to creep under your skin.
“I always saw the house as another character,” Walker remarked. “We were going to have a very pristine and clean space that then kind of fell apart as those decisions led to it breaking down. But the economics of resetting and stuff where it’s going to be really problematic with our schedule and the time we have to work with kids. And I always wanted this like wet thing in the back end of it. So I was like, ‘Well, what if this place has just been falling apart all along?’ And it was just one of those epiphany moments for sure. And I was like, ‘Oh, so we could lean in and put more resources into things that I’d center, like peeling wallpaper and cordon steel rusting and a thing behind a thing behind a thing behind a thing that was so much antiquity that you could never really put your finger. It’s not timeless because that’s a different statement, but you can’t figure out the time.”
Setting his film entirely in an indoor space and casting only children brought on certain challenges, but Walker was determined to make a contained sci-fi movie. “I was looking for contained sci-fi during the pandemic,” Walker said. “I mean, obviously, Vincenzo [Natali]’s Cube harkens back to probably a year or two before I started my career, he made that movie. Knowing that a Canadian could make a contained or literally a mystery box movie always just sat in the back of my mind. That’s inspirational. But I think most recently, one of the reasons I put the call out for this script to friends was that I’d seen The Platform and it kind of just reinvigorated that whole… I’ve always loved big ideas in small spaces.”
If one were to succinctly characterize Home Bodies in a single word, the most apt descriptor would be ‘intriguing.’ Walker’s film is strange, slow, and plummets audiences into an experience difficult to wrap your head around. What is the backstory of Red and Blue? How does food just miraculously appear in cabinets? Who is Papa and why are they being kept in such confined quarters at all times? And what the hell is up with the weird children’s show they keep watching? All of these questions (and more) loom large over Home Bodies and create a palpable curiosity as a result.
Taking a page out of David Lynch’s playbook, Walker embraces ambiguity, rather than providing concrete answers to all the questions posed. “It’s a puzzle box. The whole thing’s meant to be a mystery,” Walker commented. “ I think that’s something I probably learned from Mr. Lynch, too, is that you don’t have to give all the answers, or you have to have a feeling sometimes of what the answers are. He had a great quote that was like, ‘Life doesn’t make sense. So why do you want your fucking movies to make sense?’ His work has been so important to me since the beginning of my career. And not always have I been able to bend in that direction with my creativity. But in this one, most certainly there’s a lot of Lynchian thought in my plans and execution”
In the interview, Walker describes his film as “a social experiment” but is hesitant to provide concrete answers. Instead, Walker wants audiences to experience the film for themselves, uninfluenced by pre-existing thoughts or ideas. In turn, viewers can theorize, contemplate, reflect, and generate their own interpretation of a movie that flourishes in the abstract.
Watch the full interview below…
