Interview With Max Minghella, Director Of ‘Shell’

If you know me, you know that body horror is my jam. I fucking love The Family Cronenberg, The Thing, Society, Slither. Raw… I could go on for hours. I wasn’t sure what to expect with Shell, the new film directed by Max Minghella (Teen Spirit) and written by Jack Stanely (The Passenger) that stars Kate Hudson and Elisabeth Moss, so I was so excited to get a fun and entertaining body horror film that hit all of the right marks for me.

Desperate to reclaim her career, once-beloved actress Samantha Lake is drawn into the glamorous world of wellness mogul Zoe Shannon – only to uncover a monstrous truth beneath its flawless surface.

To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Max about making the movie he wanted, horror movies, and more!

PopHorror: I loved Shell! Body horror is my jam so I’m super excited to talk about it today. What intrigued you about the script and made you want to be a part of the project?

Max Minghella: I first read the script 110 years ago. It was 2018 and I was in post-production on the first film I directed, which was very, very different and it was a quite personal movie, the first one I made and quite introspective. So that movie was quite introspective and I’m quite melancholic so that movie was quite melancholic. I think I was yearning to do something very different. I started reading the script and I fell in love with it quite quickly. I think the thing that I was excited by was it reminded me a lot of Death Becomes Her, which is a movie I love deeply, and on top of that, it felt very perverse. Some things were off about it and it reminded me quite a lot actually of Paul Verhoeven, who is a filmmaker who’s extremely important to me. It sort of felt like if you pitch Death Becomes Her to Paul Verhoeven, like an elevator pitch and what he would do with it. I thought that was a very exciting idea and combination. Then it took a long time to get the movie made but, in that time, we got to really keep pushing it and adding in frankly, more and more things that I love. By the end and by the time we started shooting, the script had sort of almost become a love letter to the films of my childhood.

PopHorror: I’m glad that you said that you were able to add in things that you love because my next question is, was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the film, no matter what?

Max Minghella: Yes, lots of things. The movie was made for no money, and we had no time, so basically, I was just constantly being asked to cut things. There were lots of things I had to fight for. The car chase in the movie was something that I felt was really necessary structurally for the film. I felt, rhythmically, it really needed that sequence so that was something I really fought to keep. And I would say the retro futurism of the movie was also something I was often pressured to remove as an element, and I felt, for whatever reason, it was an important texture to the movie for me and I thought it was inherently quite funny and sort of helps you understand not to take the movie seriously. I think that something that was always on mind was how can I please communicate to the audience very fast that this is a movie they’re supposed to laugh at and with and it’s never taking itself seriously. I don’t think there’s a moment of the movie that you couldn’t giggle at. And also there’s an abstract element to the film – this is getting away from the question – but it’s really supposed to be a movie that was made some time ago in a studio system, and as a result there’s things I tried to earnestly embrace like I wanted it to feel like there’d been studio notes. I wanted it to feel like there’d been reshoots. I wanted it to feel like there’d been some kind of reaction to a hypothetical test screening that had caused execs to panic. There are almost things in it that are like deliberately expositional or mundane to try and earnestly embrace what a movie like that would be like and not just satirize it.

PopHorror: I’m glad that you brought up wanting it to be laughed at and laughed with. I thought it was very witty and was obviously not taking itself seriously. You’ve dabbled in a bit of horror before. What draws you to the genre?

Max Minghella: I was in a Saw movie about five years ago and that really kind of changed things for me. I really enjoyed working with the prosthetics and with the blood elements and the special effects, which I wasn’t anticipating doing, so I really got a kick out of that. I was around for the long process and I got to see audiences watch that movie quite a lot and see how they reacted to it. There were a lot of things we didn’t get right with that film, but it was interesting how much it didn’t really matter. I learned a lot just from how much fun it is to see it with an audience and have them respond to quite extreme things and I think a lot of that seeped into this movie. Now, I’m doing another horror thing. I do think there’s something fun about visceral provocation in a theatrical experience. I’m obsessed with the theatrical experience like most directors and the idea of this energy that’s being shared with a group. It’s really special. I think horror and comedy are uniquely good at that. I wanted to make a very extroverted movie after Teen Spirit and horror and comedy have ways of doing that.

PopHorror: I love that! I love seeing horror movies in the theaters and hearing other people’s reactions. I jump, even if I know it’s coming. I jump every time and it’s so much with other people. I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Max Minghella: The honest answer is not very sexy. The honest answer is Scream. That is just a very important franchise to me. I’m really nerdy about Scream. My dear friend Tim Simons is in Scream 7 and never, ever been jealous of anything. Those are the movies. I was the right age when that came out and it’s hard to top for me. I revisit those movies an awful lot. I think I just rewatched all of them this year. I’m excited for the next one and Kevin Williamson to return. What’s your favorite scary movie?

PopHorror: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the original.

Max Minghella: Masterpiece.

 

Thank you so much to Max for taking the time to chat with us. Shell is now available in select theaters and on Digital!