Warning: The interview below contains spoilers for Student Body.
Student Body blends slasher tropes with a modern aesthetic, bringing the beloved horror genre to life with a stylish and new coat of paint. The 2022 horror film follows a group of teens who inadvertently set themselves up to be targeted by a murderous intruder at school. Student Body spends a lot of its time establishing the young characters at the heart of the film -- even before any blood spills. During an exclusive interview with CBR, Student Body writer and director Lee Ann Kurr discussed why this choice was so important to her slasher film.
Ahead of Student Body's digital premiere on Feb. 8, Kurr dove into the necessity of spending a massive amount of time on character development in modern slashers, how to land the right level of relatability to a villain, and what Student Body adds to the legacy of slashers.
CBR: What is it about this style of horror film that made you want to bring it to the modern era?
Lee Ann Kurr: I think I was really inspired by films like, of course, Heathers, but also films like Alien, where you have this enclosed area and alien and a very colorful group of characters. They're stuck in this place and they have interesting relationships and antagonisms between each other, and then there's this genre element, in that case, the Xenomorph, which is wreaking havoc. Also, to just have the structure and feel of a film like Psycho, where you have this long build, where the relationship with Marion Crane and her lover takes half the film -- then she dies midway through and then the rest is the untangling of that.
We all think of the shower scene from Psycho, but that takes forty-five minutes to get there. So I love having these relationships and these kids in this ensemble in a very John Hughes way become very lived in and become, hopefully, beloved by the audience -- and then letting the genre elements kind of come to play and having that chest-burster moment to jettison us off to the more genre part of the film. Letting the characters and the relationships be our entry point and then also be the reason that we care that anything is happening to them in the second half.
Because you got the time to dive into these characters, was there anything about any of the cast that really surprised you during the writing process?
Oh, that's a great question. I think throughout the filmmaking process, I always wanted to make sure that Merritt isn't just a straight-up jerk. I wanted to make sure that, yes, she has that Regina George quality to her and we're going to make that connection, but that she was always coming from a place that perhaps we could understand a little bit as we learn more about her. Perhaps not in the writing process, but by the end of making the film. I think when Merritt reaches a crisis point in the film, I'm surprised by how much it touches me.
I know she's done some horrible things and treated Jane horribly... But she's also done some things to be bold and to not let people tell her what to do. I don't want to paint her in a single light until then, but I just think that hopefully, audiences will also feel that, even at this crisis point of this would-be villain mean girl, that it's coming from a place of pain, and it's coming from a place of insecurity in the same way that insecurity is there for Jane. Hopefully, we never lose the humanity of any of the characters, even when they're being really difficult little jerks.
Christian Camargo does so much with the role of Mr. Aunspach in the film -- genuinely juggling a sense of malice with a surprising amount of genuine motivation. What are the ingredients that make a really compelling horror villain? And how did you try to kind of bring that to the forefront with Mr. Aunspach?
I appreciate that because I love what Christian did with the role. I think for me, a compelling villain... Let's use Aliens again because it's always on the tip of my tongue. Burke in Aliens is frightening. It's like if things were a little different in how my brain worked, maybe he would have a point, which is why I think Burke is such a great villain in that film. Where you're like, "Oh, maybe if I was a bit more heartless and sociopathic... yeah, that makes sense. I agree with you." So I think for a horror villain, for me, it can't be so far-flung that there's no universe in which I couldn't possibly understand. I like to think that in another multiverse, I could maybe be on your side.
So with Aunspach, I think he does interesting things. I wanted it to be freaky in the sense that he really does want Jane to do her best. He's actually kind of right that Jane isn't doing her best because she's afraid of peer pressure and other people thinking she's a nerd. So I kind of wanted that moment for the audience where he's kind of a little right. She needs to let that go because she's obviously super talented. But the way he goes about it and the tactics he uses, that's what makes us so uncomfortable and that's not appropriate. So for me, it has to be both. It has to be uncomfortable and not good and skeezy and weird, but also I want that grain of truth there. I want him to have a point. And if he doesn't have a point, then what am I watching this for? He's just a maniac. So for me, that's important.
Was there ever any push and pull while you were making the film of how much you wanted to play up these character conflicts versus the actual horror aspect of the film? How did you find the balance between the character drama and the horror elements of Student Body?
It's an important balance that definitely was a push and pull. Very early on in the process, whenever we got a note of like, "Oh, why don't you have a kill at the very beginning? Why don't you have more violence at the beginning..." But I think for me, I wanted to trust the audience that the relationships and the dynamic with these characters would be compelling enough to keep them in their seats and then let those fears and anxieties that naturally come out of those relationships be your catapult into the genre hyperbole of it all.
I think, especially after a film like Parasite, which we shot before Parasite came out... That film, I think, really gave audiences permission to let a film take a journey and not necessarily, from mark one, be what it is at the end. I think that also has a similar trajectory where, midway through, it goes through a very dramatic transformation. I think Bong Joon-ho is very, very malleable with genre. Genre isn't a fixed lintel. It's this very fluid thing with his films. I thought with Student Body, I wanted to have that freedom to have the fear and anxiety be more grounded in relationships and then to let that take us to this more heightened, extreme place where we could let the genre elements be a natural extension of those more grounded elements.
As a creator behind the film, what are you hoping that younger audiences who maybe don't have as much experience with the genre take away from it? Ahat are you hoping that older audiences who can kind of see the tropes take away from it?
That's a great question. I think for younger audiences, it was very important to diverge from what John Hughes was doing and show that these stories are for everyone. It's not just for someone who looks like me or is a white person. I really wanted it to feel inclusive and moving on from sort of the things that got stuck in [precious decades]. I wanted it to feel inclusive in that way.
And then I also hope that with older audiences... There are familiar tropes and [Student Body] isn't striving to reinvent the wheel in terms of those tropes. We wanted to take a very human look at a more modern take on young people. These teens are just dealing with the same insecurities and fears that we all dealt with at one point in our lives. So yes, they have smartphones, and yes, they're worried about their video on TikTok, but it's all about the same issues that we all had. Hopefully, it bridges that kind of nostalgia with this newer, fresher look with a more inclusive view, and we'll be able to engage both younger and older audiences.
Student Body premieres on Digital and on-demand platforms on Feb. 8
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