“Once We’re On Set, It’s Just Like A Playground” Interview With ALL THE CREATURES WERE STIRRING Co-Director & Co-Writer David Ian McKendry

Just in time for the holidays, All the Creatures Were Stirring is a Christmas horror anthology film from husband and wife directing/writing duo Rebekah and David Ian McKendry. Both are well-established in the world of horror – they previously collaborated on a graphic novel extension of the Hellraiser universe, as well as Rebekah’s long-running hosting duties on Blumhouse’s official podcast Shock Waves.

Their debut feature is the perfect antidote for anybody seeking something new this Christmas to watch alongside the classics, five festive fables about lost souls having their idea of the “the spirit of Christmas” redefined, whether it be through vengeful reindeers, deadly gift swaps or even nostalgic aliens. In my review, I praised its inventive ideas, effective execution and willingness to be original. It’s refreshing to see a new anthology arrive that doesn’t lean on the typical tropes that one expects – there’s not a single Krampus creature, axe-wielding Santa or killer elf in sight!

I had the chance to speak with one half of the McKendry team, co-writer and co-director David Ian McKendry about his new film, experimental theatre, his writing process and why the genres of Christmas and horror work so well together.

Alex Lines for Film Inquiry: Thank you for talking with me today.

David Ian McKendry: Thank you for covering our film.

Yeah of course, I loved it, it’s something I love saying about horror films, and that it’s such a fun watch.

David Ian McKendry: Thank you, we had a great time shooting it.

That’s one of the main terms I’ve noticed with most people’s response to this film, I’m sure you would’ve seen it through the responses at all the festivals it’s played and now the reviews that are coming out, that it’s a fun film and one that’s perfect for this holiday. What do you think the key is in nailing that ratio with fun and horror, because I’m sure you’ve seen over the years with horror comedies, it can be a hard balance.

David Ian McKendry: Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we all had a genuinely good time making this film. The cast gave a good portion of their time to be there, we had a lot of sitcom actors that were shooting their show during the week and then giving up their time on the weekends to come in and shoot, they were so happy to be there. They were happy to work on this interesting material, they brought their fun to it, so we all had a great time and I think translated from the actual shooting.

What was the inception for this film?

David Ian McKendry: My wife and I are huge Christmas fans, we go all out when it comes to the holiday, we get all the tackiest decorations we can, we cover the inside and the outside of the house, we really, really do it up. At the same time, we’re horror fans. We recite horror movies to each other all day, so I think we both see a sinister side of Christmas – something can’t be that sweet without having a little twinge of evil underneath.

I am extremely afraid of claymation Christmas specials, I think they’re the most frightening things ever made, there’s The Island of Misfit Toys, the Bing Crosby Frosty the Snowman things, they’re terrifying to watch. They’re so sugary and creepy, they were kind of the inception for us.

You co-wrote and co-directed this with your wife Rebekah, how did that collaboration work on both a writing and production level?

David Ian McKendry: On a writing level, we have a collaborative process that goes back and forth. We will sit and discuss some things that we want to do, we’ll outline a few things, I might go off and write for a bit and come back with a script, she’ll look at it, she’ll tear it apart and we’ll just go back and forth with that process.

There’ll be a couple of arguments over scenes that we’ll get really heated about it and I think “it’ll work this way” and she’ll wanna do it another way, and we’ll argue our point, and usually what will happen is that we’ll agree that both points are wrong and we’ll have this third magical point that we’ll come up with together. It was just fun working together, fun to set up the themes together, there might’ve been a few moments where we disagreed but for the most part, once we’re on set, it’s just like a playground.

Yeah, because you always hear stories about co-directors, for example like the Coen Brothers, where one person will direct the actors whilst one stays with the camera, what was your dynamic like on set?

David Ian McKendry: We go back and forth on it, there was times were I wanted to concern myself with the way something is shot whilst she might want to work with the actors more, but there’d be other times where I wanted to direct the actors, and she’ll focus more on the camera, but we’re usually both together. It really depends on how we feel at the moment about what we’re shooting.

On a writing level, would you say this was a similar collaboration process for when you two did the Hellraiser Anthology graphic novel together?

David Ian McKendry: Yeah, I’d say they were similar, I mean, we’ve been working together for over 10 years now. We met doing musical theatre together, we were working on 2 plays – one play and one musical actually, one was an experimental production of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, the other one was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…(the musical).

When we were on them, we noticed that we were both into strange and unusual theatre and at the same time we were into musicals. Being lucky enough to find someone who has a similar background to you is so rare and to be able to work together is even rarer, so we embrace that and it’s kind of neat that we’re able to evolve our process as well, because we don’t really have a set process to how we work together, it’s just what happens to be on our plate at that time, it works for us, we’re able to change that way.

Touching on how you and Rebekah met, was it the history with theatre that inspired the film’s linking narrative, having them be a series of interpretative dances?

David Ian McKendry: It did, it definitely did. A program we were in in college leaned heavily on experimental theatre and we’d never been the type to take experimental theatre too seriously, the person who walks out on stage carrying a leaf in their hands and they’ll sit there for an hour, that sort of thing, it’s meant to mean so many things but at the same time it’s so hilarious to watch.

So we never took it seriously, but at the same time, we do enjoy it and enjoy doing it, so that performance that ties everything together is just something that we studied together and it was a unique piece of us that we wanted to put out there.

From your perspective, why do you think the worlds of horror and Christmas work so well together?

David Ian McKendry: I think that for the most part, people don’t suspect bad things to happen on Christmas and when it does, it’s extra shocking. There’s this joyous time of happy and melodic music and then you’ve got a guy dressed as Santa Claus killing people with an axe – it’s just an out of the blue sort of thing, so jarring that you can’t turn away from it and you’re drawn to it.

One of the elements I really appreciated about your film was that I felt that each story/segment was specifically tied to a Christmas tradition/event, it never felt like what I’ve seen in other horror anthologies, which was take a standard horror story but decorate it with Christmas lights to fit a theme.

David Ian McKendry: Yeah, that was the big note to ourselves, that this was going to be Christmas and we’re going to tell Christmas stories. That’s where we started from, we weren’t just going to say, let’s do a story about this and put a present on the table, we wanted to take elements from it, like for example the office Christmas party, last minute shopping etc. they had to have those elements to them before we considered putting them in the film.

That’s what really made the film unique in that regard, is that we didn’t just cobble these stories together under a Christmas theme, we always figured out what we could do to make them frightening or funny or grotesque.

Was the creature in the second segment inspired by any specific folklore you had read? The idea in that segment felt like a really cool setup for its own feature film.

David Ian McKendry: [laughs] Yeah, we thought the same thing, I’ll leave it at that, we’ve had similar thoughts.

What are some of the more obscure or underrated Christmas horror titles that you can recommend?

David Ian McKendry: Oh man, there’s so many classics out there – whenever people ask for titles, my brain goes blank. You automatically go, “Oh my god what is the name of that thing called?”. There’s a lot of Christmas movies that quickly become classics so when you say obscure, it’s very hard to think of what’s obscure, I guess I’d say Black Christmas I think, because being in the horror world you already know all these films, but others might not. Black Christmas is great, there’s some really creepy moments in it that are wonderful.

Elves! If you’ve ever seen the movie Elves starring Dan Haggerty, it’s a trainwreck of a film, he’s just chain-smoking cartons of cigarettes in every scene, it’s like he’s looking for things on the ground to smoke. At the same time, it’s wonderful, it’s fun to watch. I think that’s another thing that Christmas horror films have going for them is that they’re fun to watch, so I’d go with Elves if you haven’t seen that yet.

Why do you think that horror anthologies have started to have a major comeback? Off the top of my head, this year we have your film, Tales from the Hood 2, Ghost Stories, and the announcement of the return of both The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, as well as, to an extent, Black Mirror as well.

David Ian McKendry: I don’t know for sure, but I can only guess that it has something to do with our attention spans. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we enjoy seeing these little quick, bite-sized in-and-out short segments, you don’t have to fully invest in each one and there’s always something that people can pull out of an anthology that they enjoy.

On a production level, would you say that shooting an anthology is harder or easier than a traditional film?

David Ian McKendry: I don’t know if it was harder, I think there was more logistics involved. With a full length feature, you’re still getting locations, albeit not as many, your actors, etc. it’s still kind of the same amount.

I think the difficulty of shooting an anthology lies in the total shift of each segment, visually altering and changing the way you shoot each one can be a little bit of hinderance. We made a conscious effort to make each one look different, which lead to some difficulty, but for the most part, I’d say they’re about neck and neck.

Has this success for this film, especially on its festival run, opened up any doors for you and Rebekah for more features in the future? I know Rebekah just got off shooting her second one already which is crazy.

David Ian McKendry: Yeah, she went right into her movie, we worked on the script together for that one and she’s finished shooting it – she’s editing it right now and that should come out in February. We don’t have anything to announce yet, but we’ve got some things in the works.

Film Inquiry would like to thank David Ian McKendry for speaking with us.

All The Creatures Were Stirring will be available On Demand, DVD, and digital video on December 4th.