By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Horror tends to be better the messier it gets. Though that can be literal when it comes to guts, goop, and ghouls, this can also refer to metaphorical messes that come in the form of motivations and emotions from multifaceted characters. One such new genre character on the scene is played by Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) in Bruce Goodison’s BLACK CAB.
The film allows Frost to flex his bad-guy muscles for a change in a departure from the often jovial comedic characters he’s known for in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy.” As with most interesting villain roles, Frost’s portrayal of an unhinged cabbie is drawn in shades of gray that upend a mere “good-bad” binary.
Along with Frost taking a rare sinister turn, shooting much of the film inside a famous English black car-for-hire also posed unique challenges for Goodison. Recently, Frost and Goodison sat down with RUE MORGUE to discuss the joy of juicy characters and what it is like for a seasoned director to dip his toe into the world of cinematic horror for the first time.
At what point in production did each of you get involved with BLACK CAB?
Bruce Goodison: I [came in] later than Nick. [It was] Nick’s company that made it – and the producer, who we both know, Lucy [Robinson]. It came out of a want, or if you like, a need, to see what it might be like to put Nick Frost in a cab doing some horrible things to some people along the way. It then grew into this rather wonderful psychological drama.
As you may know, I’ve never really done a genre film like this before, and that was attractive. The script was so wonderful. In the first 20 pages, this rather brilliant cab driver is protecting this woman from a really coercively controlling near-husband experience. And then, to go from that to this man doing some really horrific things in order to somehow gain his moral compass back because he’s done some horrible things, both to his wife and his child and is creating these demons that come out as ghosts. I thought this was fantastic. To do it all in the very contained space of a black cab – which are horribly spooky things anyway, particularly the old ’80s versions. We used those kind of steamy cobblestone streets that you find in the north of England still. It was just like, “Well, here’s a bit of a gift, a cinematic gift.”
And then, add Nick Frost’s more demonic side [and] more serious notes as well. Here is a really juicy character that is not always bad, but not always good. And I liked that about a character – that you can have good people who do bad things and bad people who do good things. The writers and Nick had already created this by the time I got on board.
Nick, was the juiciness the same thing for you?
Nick Frost: I love the juiciness. Yeah. I’ve done a lot of comedy, but the comedy we’ve done with Simon [Pegg] and Edgar [Wright]. I talked a bit earlier about when we shot Shaun of the Dead and when we ended up killing Shaun’s mom. We killed our best friend’s mother for God’s sake! It wasn’t comedy. I think that’s the joy in these kind of characters. Yes, he can be funny, but he’s also a very troubled man. I love the fact that in my job, you get a chance to try and portray other human beings. I think part of that joy, for me, is you can be nice and you can be funny, but also, you can be very fucking dark and alone and afraid. I think if you can bring both of those things – or all of those things – to a character, then audiences will just buy into it a lot more than if this person’s just a funny idiot. This person’s a fucking lunatic. I mean, all of us have the capability of being everything. I think.,
One definition of horror characterizes the genre as “extreme empathy.” It doesn’t work unless you feel… Bruce, are you writing that down?
NF: He’s writing that down.
BG: I’m writing it down because the previous person said “horror with a heart.” And I love that. This is a whole new world it’s opening up to. Oh yeah. So, okay, this is great! Extreme empathy.
NF: That also is partly what I did on the script as a writer. Anything I write, I always say it out loud – lots and lots and lots – and let people listen to it. And are these lines, lines written by someone and that an actor is saying, or are we watching these people say this dialogue, potentially, for the first time ever? So, that’s what I was really excited about. Let’s make it human, and let’s put bits of comedy in. … You know what cab drivers are like; They’re always quick. They’re always either moody, or they’re funny, or they’re silent, or you can hear their conversations loudly. There are just little things that make a script stand out slightly in terms of these are human beings saying this dialogue.
I’m sure people have asked you about the limitations of shooting in a cab, but one thing that really struck me watching the film was the use of reflections. And you are both wearing glasses, so I’m now seeing reflections in your glasses, too. It’s not just within the cab, it’s as if you’re looking at him looking at you through the mirror. Even in the house, you can see there are certain things that are framed. Where did that visual language come from? Because it is pretty striking how frequently it was used throughout – like Douglas Sirk.
BG: You think a lot when you are given a lot of restrictions. So, when you’re put inside a moving black box without windows – with blacked-out windows – and you are trapping people in it, that has a built-in fear factor. And then, you’ve got the problem of shooting a black cab with blacked-out windows at night without getting bad reflections. There are bad reflections and there are good reflections. I think, for us, one of the critical moments was the garage scene where Nick’s character is waiting for Synnove’s [Karlsen] character to be drugged. And there’s a moment where he does something which is a visual ad-lib. He creates the heart on the window. And the whole time, you see her, but you also see his reflection. So, you see the approaching horror, but you also see her. Often, you don’t get both in the same frame. It was that sort of visual language that we were trying to do all the time.
Equally often, you only get these glasses or Nick’s glasses in the rearview mirror. Although I didn’t do the thing that I think a lot of people might think I did, which was slip his dialogue. I never slipped any of Nick’s dialogue because there’s something about what the eyes do when [the actor is] delivering a line [that’s not there] if it’s been slipped – as in if you’ve added different dialogue than was there in the first place. But we didn’t do it because the eyes do speak. And there was scripted rain. There is something very beautiful about raindrops on the exteriors of black cabs.
All the time, we were looking for that visual language where you could find things. And equally, when we see the ghost, the ghost is always in reflection. It’s interesting to note that when you see the ghost, there’s always a separation. It’s like the ghost has a dual personality, and it is both real and unreal. It’s got something else that’s trying to come out of it. I think each of these characters had something else that was trying to come out of them. There was Synnove’s character, who had grief. There was Nick’s character that also had grief but also was struggling with the fact that he was becoming a demonic character. So, there’s always this kind of wall if you like, and that’s why reflections are quite useful. You can get that tension between what is and what isn’t.
It is certainly effective. I always like to end an interview with the same question: What scares you?
NF: Okay, so I’m 53, and I have young children, the youngest of which is 3. And what scares me is me dying very soon and leaving her as a child.
That’s terrifying.
BG: That is terrifying. It’s interesting. For me, it’s the other way around. I also have kids, and my fear is them disappearing. Nick was talking about a film earlier called The Vanishing. I’ve been in supermarkets and been absolutely horrified when I can’t see or find my daughter, and it could be that I’m going to the end of the aisle, and I’m turning left, and she’s at the other end of the aisle and she’s also turning left, and we never will see each other. And that terrifies the fuck out of me.
My goodness.
NF: I went to Greece a couple of years ago. My son, at the time, was 4, and my wife was in the villa. He was on the beach on a towel under an umbrella, and the way the ocean was where we were, you could walk out literally 500 meters and the water was still really shallow. I turned around and I looked at him, and I was probably 600 or 700 meters away from him, and a man walked down the beach and walked past him. And obviously, my mind being what it was, if that guy took that child, I’m so far out, I could never stop him. There was something about that that was terrifying.
BG: That’s a terrifying scene. That’s terrifying.
NF: Not having any…
BG: Control.
NF: Yeah. You want to protect your children with your life, which is what the BLACK CAB driver wants to do as well.
BG: That’s a really remarkable scene. I’ve logged that one.
NF: But in the film, what would happen is there’d be a wave, and then, when he stands up, the child will be gone and the man’s gone.
You guys are folding this into the film that we’re talking about. Thank you for that.
NF: BLACK CAB sequel. Cool.
It’s also interesting that both of your fears are family-related.
NF: I know how heart-crushingly bad I felt when my own parents passed. So, to love a child more than anything in the world, yet at some point, just by living, you are going to fucking crush them to pieces, that makes me really sad.
BLACK CAB is now streaming on AMC+ and SHUDDER.
