I grew up on the tale end of the arcade boom, only encountering them in my travels a few times as a youth (aboard a cruise ship or in an out of the way town still holding onto the past). Much like the pay phone, it’s a rare experience to come across an arcade in the wild – rarer yet to find patrons sinking quarters into the unforgiving machines. There’s a nostalgic feeling to these places but one tainted with a feeling of loss, of time refusing to slow. It’s a feeling captured with love and care in Graham Skipper’s Sequence Break (2017), a techno-body-horror film that’s a love letter to a dying era of video gaming and the pinnacles of body horror such as Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1981) and Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980).
Sequence Break is the story of Oz (Chase Williamson), a reclusive young man that spends his times repairing arcade cabinets in a dying arcade. When the beautiful Tess (Fabianne Therese) comes in looking for a game for her brother, a connection is sparked between the two and we’re treated to one of the most moving relationship dramas in modern horror film. It’s not all intimate moments of human connection, though. A mysterious figure, known as The Man (John Dinan), leaves an envelope at the arcade for Oz to find. Inside is a motherboard that Oz hooks up and tests out. Playing the game unscrews the hinges of reality, leading to moments of impressionistic body horror that could be read as a metaphor for drug addiction – but in an age where MMO addiction has seen children starved through neglect, perhaps the need for metaphor goes right out the window.
To say I found Sequence Break enjoyable would be an understatement. This is a powerful film, one that demonstrates the Skipper’s talent as both director and writer. It is also a startling human film, one that doesn’t lose the emotional core driving the film (something that can’t be said about Videodrome, despite being an all time favorite of mine). Having first discovered Skipper through his acting work in the films of Joe Begos, Almost Human (2013) and The Mind’s Eye (2015), it was an honor to be able to talk shop and get an insight into the writing of Sequence Break.
Graham Skipper grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, and is a self described “theatre kid”: “I performed in regional theatre throughout my childhood – musicals and plays and all that – and also was heavily into improv comedy and, of course, horror movies. I went to college in New York City at Fordham University where I studied theatre, and then went on to live in NYC for many years as one of the writers and performers of an avant-garde, adult sketch comedy troupe called FUCT. It was through my work with the troupe that I met George Wendt, and he was my conduit to Stuart Gordon and Re-Animator The Musical, which is what brought me to LA and introduced me to the horror community out here! I’ve always been deeply inspired by and intrigued with horror, so my career leading me to be in the horror industry is really fortuitous and perfect.”
I had never heard of FUCT, but avant-garde theatre? Color me intrigued. I definitely wanted to hear more about the experience of writing in FUCT, specifically whether there was any crossover between the writing of sketch comedy and Skipper’s later works such as Sequence Break and Space Clown (2016).
“FUCT was a huge part of my life for many years – as a troupe, our mission statement was essentially to push the envelope as far as we could in any way that we could. We had a very punk mentality about it – sometimes that exhibited itself in really vulgar humor. Another aspect of our shows were live physical stunts and other kinds of physical challenges (dancing, juggling, magic, etc), and also just a sense of ‘never let the audience guess what’s going to come out from behind the curtain next.’ Aside from just trying to write things that we thought were funny, I always tried to really explore the limits of what was possible in a comedy show.
“One scene I remember writing was called ‘The Nightmare,’ and it started out with a young girl alone on stage playing with a doll, while the lullaby from Deep Red (1975) played in the background. Slowly, a figure emerges from the shadows holding a knife, approaching her, and fog fills the stage. Strange industrial music starts to play as the lights go to UV, and three blank-faced creatures, on all fours, emerge from backstage and approach the audience. They take three audience members and lead them backstage, where we’d set up a short haunted house – the creatures led the three audience members through the haunted house, while the rest of the audience was just watching a blank fog-filled stage and hearing screams from the backstage. Eventually, the three audience members backstage encountered one of us that was naked except for a pig mask, and revving a chainsaw. The pig man chases the three audience members out of the theatre with the chainsaw, and that’s all that the rest of the seated audience was privy to. The lights change back to “normal” and our little girl is back with her doll, waking from the nightmare – she calls her father, who enters and comforts her, and then pulls out a knife and stabs her. Blackout.”
“Now, the question of course is, ‘is that scene funny?’ And to me, I think its audacity and the visual punchline of a naked man with a chainsaw and a pig mask without any context is pretty hilarious. Beyond that, though, I wanted to challenge the audience to have an experience that was beyond just some jokes or a standard dialogue scene. And I found myself more and more throughout the years trying to create scenes like that. Scenes that challenged what was possible within the medium.”
“What I carried over from that into writing my own films is just that sense of always challenging myself to think outside the box and do something unexpected. Go big or go home, be daring, be bold. In Sequence Break, the one piece of instruction that I drove home to all the departments was ‘make the bolder choice.’ And I think that’s definitely a mentality that I first honed with my years doing FUCT.”
Was it funny? Sounds it to me but it’s not hard to see how it’s pushing the envelope. It reminded me of an early Dan Harmon improv sketch that ended up with Harmon naked and covered in his own blood, the audience (except for Jack Black) all terribly confused. Pushing the envelope… this is a motive I’ve encountered in my own writings and it seems to be a common thread throughout a lot of art; many forget that Hitchcock was constantly looking to push the envelope (a forgetfulness that was partly fueled by the acceptance of films like Psycho (1960) being reclaimed by the academic arena but is startling obvious when looking at 1972’s Frenzy). I wondered if Graham had any thoughts on this desire, either within his own art or that of the wider field in which we play.
“That’s a good question. For me, art has always been at its best when it is somehow transgressive. Confrontational is another word for it, but I think it’s easy to lump that in with ‘aggressive,’ which something doesn’t necessarily need to be in order to confront you about something. Two horror films that jump into my head might be the original Halloween (1978) versus Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007). I think that the original is confrontational and transgressive whereas Zombie’s is more purely aggressive but not really being all that transgressive. Oddly, it plays everything a little safe, in my opinion. Carpenter’s original, however, subverts expectations and really challenges the audience to confront their own fears, their own paranoias, their own deep-seated terrors, without needing to slam you in the face with visceral violence. That’s a clumsy illustration, but I think what I’m getting at is that ‘confrontational’ art can come in many forms. Monty Python is confrontational and transgressive. Pee Wee was transgressive!”
“Why the desire to be confrontational with my art? Because I think that’s how art actually changes the world. You have to challenge expectations and be daring in order to affect real change. Even if that change is on a small scale of just making one person afraid to go in the water again, or to lock that creepy ventriloquist doll in the attic, or to double check that their doors are all locked after watching your movie…that’s change. You’ve affected someone on an intimate level, and that’s powerful.”
Now that right there? That’s getting printed off and added to the board of inspiration. That’s some powerful shit right there. So, with a confrontational lens and the direction to, “Take the bolder choice,” just how was it that this film came to be?
“Sequence Break came about pretty quickly, and serendipitously. I’d had the idea for a movie loosely based around the urban legend of ‘Polybius’ – essentially an arcade game that kills people – for some time. I’d read about it online like 15 years ago back in college and throughout the years had tried writing different drafts based on that concept, but nothing really gelled in the right way. Then a few years back I was revisiting the works of Cronenberg, and at the same time was having a bit of an existential crisis regarding my career and artistry versus my home life and goals for a family, and everything kind of slammed together all at once. I actually had a dream involving a melting technicolor skull and as soon as I woke up I just sort of knew the whole structure of what Sequence Break would end up being. I wrote the script fairly quickly, and in March of 2016 my godparents – Lyle & Audrey – two veteran actors and producers here in LA, who have always been incredibly supportive of my work – came to me and said they wanted to produce an indie horror script, and did I have anything I wanted to make. I sent them the script to Sequence Break. And 6 weeks later, amazingly, we were filming. It was wild, and incredibly lucky. I remain staggeringly grateful to Lyle and Audrey and the whole team, as well as humbled, for how this all came together so quickly and easily.”
Another production story that has the feeling of a magical convergence. I definitely saw references to Videodrome in the pulsating arcade machine, but there are moments in Sequence Break that seem like Cronenberg by way of abstract painting, especially in the third act. Very psychedelic and groovy. Were these elements already present at the script level or did they rise out of the production?
“I’m glad you liked those ‘freak out’ moments! The psychedelic, surreal elements were absolutely present in the script. Pretty much every one of those moments was written out almost exactly compared to what you see on screen. I spent a lot of time describing those in the script, because I had a pretty specific idea in my head as to how I wanted to present those visually. Luckily I had the skills of Josh and Sierra Russell who were able to take what I’d written and really translate those into something tangible for Chase to interact with, and for Brian Sowell to photograph. All of those elements came together beautifully, and ended up being almost exactly what I’d envisioned in my head, and what I’d tried to describe in detail in the script.”
Were there any stories, screenplays or movies that were used as examples to help people understand the tone that Skipper was going for? Videodrome, obviously, but for the most part the psychedelic aspects felt very unique; almost more in line with my spiritual experiences on psychedelic drugs than anything I had seen captured before.
“Videodrome and Altered States were definitely major influences – I also had Chase and Fabi watch Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986), to get a sense of the relationship dynamic I was looking for between Oz & Tess. I think the chemistry between Goldblum and Davis in that movie is one of the best on screen romances ever, in that it happens so quickly and naturally, and although Brundle is totally strange and anti-social, he’s still super captivating. Brian and I watched Punch Drunk Love (2002) for its visual eccentricities and tone, as well as Under The Skin (2013), Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010), and of course Suspiria (1977). I love how each of those movies has such a unique tone to them, and how the filmmakers are unafraid to really go for it in terms of the visual language used – lighting, sound design…all in service of an experiential atmosphere that you have to let wash over you.”
Of course, this is Scriptophobic, so you knew the Scream Writing questions were coming! So I had to know if there was anything that Graham learned while writing Sequence Break? Or were there any screenplays he’s read that were important in screenwriting education? And, most gluttonously of all, does he have any tips or tricks he’s willing to share with us?
“One element of writing Sequence Break that was particularly difficult at first was trying to put on paper the wild visuals that I had in my head. Obviously Sequence Break is a really visual movie, and a goal of mine was to tell the story through images as much as possible, to really use the medium of film the way it’s supposed to be used. I remembered back in college my playwriting professor used to tell us to think of stage directions as poetry, to make them engaging to read and beautifully precise. There’s a common practice in stage plays that the stage directions are sort of the first thing to be ignored by the director, but I remember learning that if you take great care to make the stage directions a part of the art of the thing, that the performers and director will be more inclined to follow them. Like Albee, or Beckett, or Arthur Miller…all experts of crafting beautiful stage images.”
“And so I tried to do that when writing Sequence Break, to tell the story as visually as I could, like poetry but specific enough that my team could really see exactly what I was going for. And I think it worked, because everyone’s vision was really aligned from day one: there wasn’t a big need for clarification on some of the more bonkers moments, but instead we could jump straight to ‘okay how do we achieve this?’”
“In terms of reading scripts, I tend to read a lot of screenplays as an actor, and it’s absolutely helpful. Even if it’s just identifying structure, what works, what doesn’t, how is the story best communicated? This may sound obvious, but also just watching movies is helpful. Rather than reading a lot of screenplays that I wanted to emulate, I watched a lot of films that I wanted to be inspired by, and let those guide my hand while writing. I do think it’s important as a writer to read a lot of scripts, so sites like the Blacklist, or the Bloodlist if you’re really into horror, are great resources to see what’s out there right now. And it’s not hard to find scripts for famous films, and it’s often interesting to see what changes from script to screen, and wondering why that choice would have been made. Just last night I was a live script read of an early draft of Gremlins (1984), and it was fascinating to ponder the evolutionary process that script made from draft 2 to 9, or whatever the final version was.”
“I know this has been a long answer, but I’ll close with this: one thing that I definitely learned is that rewrites are essential. You’re never done after one draft. You’ll feel so accomplished and like this is the most perfect the film will ever be, but you’re not even close to done. Let it rest, don’t look at it for a while, then go back and read it again. Rinse and repeat. I wrote eleven drafts of Sequence Break – others I’ve done 20 drafts of. And sometimes you’ll change something only to go back to how it was before, and that’s okay. You have to let yourself experiment, because the writing period is when you have that luxury. Once it’s on film, it’s forever, so really explore the world and characters deeply while you can. You’ll never make it perfect, but you will make it alive.’”
So, there you have it. Some amazing advice from the creative polymath Graham Skipper. If you haven’t seen Sequence Break, make sure to check out. I’ll let him tell you where to look for him next.
“People can find me mostly on Twitter (@GrahamSkipper) and also my website, www.GrahamSkipper.com. Of course the best way to support any filmmaker is to rent/buy their films, so seek out my stuff on Shudder, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, and on DVD and Blu Ray! We make these movies for the love of it, but the only way to keep being able to make them is by getting some money, so please support as best you can. I have a couple of fun commentaries on the Sequence Break DVD and also available on Shudder that really shed more light into the filmmaking process, so you can do a deeper dive there.”
“As for new things, I just wrapped shooting Joe Begos’ new film, Dragged Into Sunlight, for which I was an actor. So keep on the lookout for that! I’m also working a few other writing projects and trying to get some new directing projects off the ground, but nothing that I can talk about yet – but hopefully we’ll have some news in the new year!”
