The Loved Ones: Psycho in Pink

It all started with the vision of a kid in a bloody tuxedo, tied to a chair. Who is this kid? How did he get here? Who’s done this to him? And most importantly, how is he going to get out? Miguel Gonzalez talked to the creators of The Loved Ones to find the answers.

Knowing horror is a popular genre, Tasmanian writer/director Sean Byrne saw an opportunity to create his first feature– if only he could find a point of difference that would make him stand out from the pack; from the countless generic horror films saturating the market. His inspiration came from classics such as Carrie and The Evil Dead, taking the prom sub-genre into a cabin in the woods, and turning prom rituals like the dancing and the crowning of the king and queen
into the actual instruments of torture. Byrne then had the tuxedo vision described above and the story evolved from there: that of a young man (Xavier Samuel), struggling with an enormous guilt over the death of his father in a car accident, who suddenly finds himself in a nightmarish and bloody “date” with the girl (Robin McLeavy) whose invitation to a school dance he’d turned down earlier that day.
“I don’t think The Loved Ones would exist without the horror films of the 70s and 80s,” admitted Byrne. “When you first start developing your style, it’s the imagery you had as a kid, those early films  that really leave an impression. I remember when I was too young and naive to realise that the killer would just keep getting up again and again!”
Another element Byrne tried to rescue from that era was its sense of fun and “unpredictable cinematic madness”, which has become rare in the industry. “There is a real sense of risk aversion and you end
up getting films that are clones of each other, which is very disappointing and not particular commercial, because people want to feel comfortable within the genre, but they also want to be taken places they haven’t been taken before. Who wants to pay for a ride they’ve already been on a thousand times before?” said Byrne.
The script had to communicate very effectively the intentions and emotions the actors would have to portray, sometimes through screams. It also had to define the right tone.
“It has a delicate tone, mixing black comedy with extreme violence and a John Hughes kind of approach. Mixing those elements is quite difficult,” explained Byrne.

Creatively, says Byrne, there is room for a prequel – dealing with the back story of ‘Princess’ and ‘Daddy’. But for that to happen, he would have to retain a certain creative control of his characters: “I’d always want to make sure that I was involved in some way.”
LOOKING FOR FINANCIAL LOVE

US-born producer and Screen Australia investment manager Mark Lazarus was looking for a horror film, and got Byrne’s script through agent Anthony Blair. He read it while waiting at a doctor’s office, and decided to option it immediately.
Lazarus says he was lucky because although The Loved Ones was to be Byrne’s feature debut, his awardwinning shorts – such as 2001’s Ben – had already proven his taste and talent. During the financing stage, Byrne also made a supernatural tennis-themed horror short that screened at Sundance, Advantage (written by Rob Beamish).
“It was a real benefit to go out into the financing environment with a Sundance director; someone who actually had brought the goodies home and made a short in the genre in which he wanted to work,” said Lazarus.
“It worked as a dress rehearsal,” added Byrne. “It was tonally quite similar, and an indicator of the look of The Loved Ones That made investors comfortable.”
The budget – “less than $4m” according to Lazarus – was raised by combining funds from Screen Australia, Film Victoria, the MIFF Premiere Fund, Omnilab Media, sales agent Darclight and distributor Madman.