Hard Candy reminds me a bit of that great Hitler film from last year, Downfall, in that it isn't afraid to portray the bad guy in three dimensions. Did you see Downfall?
Yes, I thought that was an amazing film. It really blew me away, and actually, what was really striking to me was not so much the Hitler business, but the subsidiary characters who were sucked into it, and how they faced that or rationalised what they had done.
Our film is very similar; it faces you with the totality of what your revenge fantasy might be like. Because everybody has had those moments where they think, "You know what should be done with these paedophiles, you should just cut their balls off." And those fantasies are very human and understandable, and yet at the same time, we often make social decisions based on those fantasies. If we act on those urges and give in to that, then what happens to us? And that's one of the questions our film asks. And does not answer, because we don't tell you what happens to Hayley. We hint at what might happen, but you look at her face at the end and you have a lot of questions to consider. And that's what we like.
Have you spoken to people since the film's been out that have had extreme sympathies with one character over another and have challenged you about it?
Well, it's interesting, because I have spoken to people who have been sexually molested and who have a lot of empathy with Hayley, then I've also spoken to people who feel guilty about that at the same time. There's part of them that really responds to her, and at the same time there's a part of them that's very troubled about the fact they respond to her. And I think that's a really interesting thing to hear. Some people find themselves rooting for Jeff, because what she's doing seems so over the line, or they feel that Jeff should be punished but so should she.
I'm not going to take a stand that any reading of the film is 'right', but it's always fascinating to me when people have to grapple with those kinds of issues, because that means they're engaging with this story on a rich, deep level, which is what we hoped to achieve.
Has anyone attacked you because the film does present a grey moral area?
Oh absolutely, that's certainly happened, and I'm sorry it has happened. But you know, if you're going to give people the right to respond in any number of ways you can't really be surprised when that happens, and in fact from the very beginning... I write so much that I don't ask my wife to read everything, but when it looked like this film was going to happen I handed the script to her and said, "You'd better read this just so you know what people might say about me."
There hasn't been a whole lot of that but there certainly have been people who feel like, "Well, if you don't present a clear delineation then aren't you being amoral?" And I'm not sure how to respond to that, my feeling I suppose is... "Well, then you're abdicating your duty as an audience to sit and appraise something, if you just want the morality of a situation handed to you..." That's not what this film is for, this film is to provoke questions you have to wrestle with so that the film continues after it's over. And there are some people who are uncomfortable with this because they want the film to be over when it's over; the idea that these issues aren't clearly buttoned and sewn up at the end of the day feels very threatening to them.
I'm sorry to say we've also had a couple of people who think we were being exploitative. I don't believe so, I think we dressed Ellen as androgynously and non-sexually as we could, except for an exceedingly brief sequence where she is using herself as bait, but even that is frankly nothing compared to what you see in any Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera video.
And look at the difference between her in this film and X-Men 3.
Well, absolutely, absolutely. And so we thought we actually went to great pains not to be guilty of the thing we were decrying, and we went to great pains to actually be quite respectful and even prudish compared to what many filmmakers might have done. But regardless, there are some viewers/critics who see a young woman in that situation, and there's no right way to do it, in their minds. So we've gotten a bit of criticism on that front.
But again, I guess my feeling is that's as it should be - if this film were somehow to meet with universal acclaim it would mean that on some level we weren't doing our job. We knew from the very beginning we were working in an area where people should have deeply held hopes and fears and feelings that the film would explore and challenge.
I hear you're working with [director] David Slade again for your next film.
Yes, we're doing a big vampire epic, but we are looking at vampires in a way you are not used to seeing them, and looking at what you're willing to sacrifice when you're up against a threat you cannot stop. It's a movie called 30 Days Of Night, it's adapted from a graphic novel, it's set in Alaska at the time of year when the Sun goes down for a month. So therefore when these vampires attack you won't be able to feel better in the dawn, because the dawn won't be for a month. It's a rather gruelling take-no-prisoners-style story of what it takes to survive.
Hard Candy is out on DVD on 30 October
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