Interview With Michael Nader, Writer/Director Of ‘The Toll’

One of my favorite films so far this year is, hands down, The Toll. It really tapped into one of my fears of unknown things in the darkness. I was lucky enough to chat with Michael Nader, who wrote and directed the film. We talked about what inspired the story, why he loves horror, what’s up next, and of course, horror movies.

PopHorror: I watched The Toll and I loved it! It’s so terrifying. I grew up in Small Town Ohio, USA, where country roads and back roads are all over. Pitch blackness with just your headlights is fucking scary. You nailed it.

Michael Nader: Good, I’m glad! Yeah, totally. I love it.

PopHorror: You not only directed, but you also wrote the film. What inspired the story?

Michael Nader: I’ve been interested in the social dynamics of rideshare for a long time. I think it’s such a new thing whereas in society we’re still figuring out kind of what that is. At first, it was sort of this fun, a cool new thing where you’re supposed to become friends with your driver by the end of the ride. And then we all kind of realized that there was a dark side to that, and it wasn’t that simple. Even now still, I feel like there’s that, “Okay. Are you going to talk? Are you not going to talk?” And there’s an inherent kind of tension and uncertainty.

I was on set of another movie that I’d written, and I was in the middle of Joshua Tree at night, and there were the headlights in the mist, dogs barking in the night, and I kind of gave myself a challenge. Could I write an entire movie that’s just about a relationship between a rideshare driver and a passenger? I immediately was excited when I realized you could have a whole extended first sequence, like a one-act play, like a suspense play, that’s just set in the car between these two people. And you see the tension ratcheting up, and you see the awkwardness, and then you would force them to confront a shared threat together. And that kind of led into the idea of The Tollman being a middle agent, sort of Highwayman or a Gentleman of the Road that’s always been the figure of the highway robber, right? So giving a supernatural twist to that, and having that be the world and mythology that they have to come up against.

PopHorror: There were several times that it made me uncomfortable. You are putting your life in their hands when you get into a stranger’s car, especially since they were going a distance. It really made me uncomfortable. I love that so much.

Michael Nader: Good! I’m glad. That definitely is the idea. I wanted it to almost be unbearable. And do you want to ride the line of not being so intense because you don’t want it to be so claustrophobic but you do want it to feel like you were stuck in that car with them? So I’m glad that you’re uncomfortable.

PopHorror: This is your first feature film directorial debut. What made you want to be a filmmaker?

Michael Nader: I had the idea of wanting to be a filmmaker from when I was a small child, actually. I grew up in a family of movie lovers, and I got a DV camera when I was probably nine, and my brother and I just started making movies. I had a lot of anxiety already then in my life. I’ve been sort of scared of the world the whole time. The specifics of what I’m scared of are the only thing that’s changed. But back then, my brother was sort of my terrorizer, so I kind of got revenge on him by putting him in these scary movies. Literally, the first thing that I was doing, in the realm of film, was horror movies. It was these tiny things where it was just figures jumping out of the dark. It was a way of venting my own anxiety and my own fearful energy into a productive thing that gave me a sensation of having control over the things that scared me. And then it kind of carried all the way through. I’m a real cliché at this point, where from middle school I was making movies, and then I was making feature-length stuff in high school. I wanted to go to USC Film School, so I’ve really stayed on the same path the whole way through. I’ve been very boring. I haven’t had any surprise twists in my life’s career path.

PopHorror: Does he hold it against you now for putting him in those situations?

Michael Nader: The two of us were making these movies together. However much I was scaring him, he was scaring me back. I never quite accomplished, I think, scaring him as much as I wanted to. We had a great partnership for a long time when we were making these things together. It was a lot of fun.

PopHorror: That’s good. What is it that draws you to the horror genre?

Michael Nader: I think horror, in general, has so much emotional potential. The name of the genre is an emotion. I love giving audiences an emotional experience, and I think there’s no better way to do that than putting you through something terrifying, and then giving the audience, hopefully, catharsis. I don’t like to make the kind of horror movies that are necessarily abusing the audience. I want to dangle you over the cliff and then pull you back, and give you that kind of relief as well. A greater appreciation for life. I think horror has that potential, and not just in movies but in games, comics, and horror writers. There’s just a wealth of material beyond movies.

PopHorror: I think you’re on the right path here, because you definitely dangled me over the edge, for sure.

Michael Nader: I’m glad to hear it!

PopHorror: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

Michael Nader: That is a good question! So many people… it’s hard to even name anybody. Filmmaker-wise… I still like writing stuff for directors as well. I really love J.A. Bayona. He’s like my cinematic hero. He directed The Impossible, A Monster Calls, The Orphanage. I don’t know about collaboration. I’d love to work with him in some way. 

PopHorror: That works! What do you have coming up next for you?

Michael Nader: I have a bunch of scripts in the pipeline that are all kind of… I want to just expand from a similar place of something that’s scary and has a thriller element. I have a few things. My main goal on one level is I want to bring my experience to the game end of the genre because I feel that it’s untapped. A couple of my current projects—and it’s hard to get them made—but I have a couple that I have written and that I’m going to attempt to get going off the back of the release of The Toll.

PopHorror: Well, I’m really excited to see what you have coming up. What is your favorite scary movie?

Michael Nader My favorite scary movie is Come and See. It’s a movie from the ’80s mid-Soviet Union. I don’t know if it’s technically considered a horror movie, but to me, it’s the scariest movie. It just has this hallucinatory, nightmare-like quality.

Thank you so much, Michael, for taking the time to speak with us. Be sure to catch The Toll, out now in theaters, On Demand, and digital.