Millennium Entertainment will be giving a limited theatrical release to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s latest film, Intruders. Starring Clive Owen, the story involves a ghostly intruder that follows two separate children throughout the movie.
I recently spoke with director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who told me about his inspiration for the film, working with Clive Owen, and why he prefers to take on both personal and commercial projects:
You’ve been attached to a number of movies in the last year including Bioshock and Highlander. What made you choose Intruders over a more commercial project?
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: This is something that I decided a long time ago as a filmmaker. I wanted to combine commercial movies with personal movies like Intruders, because my intention is to get the best things from both sides.
I like to make commercial movies, but I can apply my experience from them into my personal movies. This allows me to convey a complex and personal thought to the audience.
Intruders feels like it is a very personal film. Where did you draw your inspiration from?
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: It’s a hybrid in the genre, trying to play with the idea that the fear we have as kids comes from another generation. That is a very personal feeling that I have. I remember when I was a kid and lived in my family house, I felt something disturbing and unsettling. It was related to stories that my family didn’t tell me, but they were still connected to me and were affecting my life.
So Intruders shows that emotion when I was a kid, but at the same time it deconstructs the origin of fears and nightmares. I really feel attached to that and it is something I wanted to show to the audience in this genre hybrid movie.
This theme ties into the psychological demands that I am looking for. I try to apply and answer questions about the origin of many things in my movies. In that sense, I feel like a kid always looking for more life answers. So this movie plays around the origin of fear or big monsters we feared when we were kids.
Even though this movie carries an R-rating in the US, I feel that it was designed for all-ages and that you would like children to see it.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: Absolutely. I try to do it in an easy way, because I think it is important to share your movies with all audiences. Despite the fact that it is R-rated, it could be watchable for young audiences as well, because it shows many things that they are probably feeling right now.
This movie is rated “restricted” in the marketing, but I feel so strongly that this is a film for wide audiences and coveys a feeling that everyone has felt at some time.
Did you ever consider making cuts to achieve a PG-13 rating? Were you asked to make cuts by the distributor?
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: From the very beginning, when Millennium was interested in distributing the movie in the US, they were so happy with the movie that they didn’t tell me to reduce the cut or change it to PG-13. I really appreciate that from them, because they were really respectful of the movie that I consider the best cut possible.
The movie is what it is and I think every single sequence is important and shapes the final message and final conclusion, so I think it is important to show the movie to people in that shape. And I am so happy that Millennium understood that from the very beginning.
Clive Owen plays a strong father character in this film and really helps sell the movie to the audience. Was he someone you always imagined in the role?
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: I was so happy when he said yes, because I thought he was the perfect casting for this movie from the very beginning. He represents the heroic and strong figure in the movie business and he also has roles that are full of honesty and intensity.
Clive has that kind of quality that came from actors in the 50’s and 60’s. They were so straight, clear, noble, and heroic like James Stewart or Cary Grant in the Hitchcock movies. They weren’t in total control throughout the plot and then they become a different person when they are in trouble. I think there is something interesting in watching a guy like Clive Owen in big trouble.
From the very beginning, he was completely immersed in the theme, story, and screenplay. He understood it sometimes much better than I did, because he is a father and I am not. It was a fantastic journey to make this movie with him and I learned a lot from him as a father and actor. That is something that I am always trying to do: choose and cast actors that put themselves in everything they make. It was amazing to see how Clive collaborated with Ella Purnell, trying to make her feel comfortable and create a believable relationship. And that is why Clive was the perfect casting in this movie.
I always like to talk about the use of CGI, because everyone has a different stance on the matter. In this case, the use of CGI could actually be explained as helping the audience understand reality from fantasy.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo: This movie has a very important layer of fantasy because there are 2 levels to the story. There is the real layer, which has the psychosocial side. On the other hand, we have the dark fairy tale which is displayed in the movie.
The appearance of the monster has two sides. On the Spanish story, we see a much more ghostly image of the monster, because it is related from dreaming and a spooky feeling from the boy. On the English story, it has much more of a real feel.
The idea of that was to show the audience the progression of the monster throughout the history of the family. The monster is becoming more real and more dangerous. That is why it was important to play the monster as a CGI thing more connected with the fantasy level. In this way, the CGI helped me to tell the story.
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I'd like to thank Juan Carlos Fresnadillo for taking the time to talk with us. Intruders will see a limited theatrical release this weekend and we'll let readers know when a DVD/Blu-ray release is announced. Catch up on our Intruders coverage with the following articles:
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