IN DAVID FREYNE’S debut feature film The Cured, we get to see modern-day Dublin – but not as we know it.
It’s a Dublin that’s trying to recover from a period when a disease called The Maze led to people turning into zombies. And though a cure was found, 25% of the zombies were not able to be cured. To complicate matters even further, those who were cured retain all the memories of what occurred while they were a member of the undead.
The Cured picks up when the titular thousands return home, among them Senan (Sam Keeley), whose brother died in less than savoury circumstances.
If that sounds very dark indeed, it turns out it was inspired by a particularly un-cheery event – Ireland’s recession.
The Kildare-raised director, who is a lifelong zombie film fan, tells TheJournal.ie that the idea for The Cured came to him in 2011. It’s not strange to see a zombie film being used to tackle political topics – George A Romero, responsible for much of the zombie genre’s seminal films, used movies like Dawn of the Dead to explore race, consumerism and changes in US society.
“I love genre films in general. I think when they’re done well they’re a great way of reflecting society, and of reflecting something emotional,” says Freyne.
Writing The Cured was a way for him to “exorcise my own anger and demons as to what was happening around me” during the recession. “It felt like a real parallel for what I was seeing around me, and it was my own form of therapy,” he says of that time.
He also used it to explore his feelings around the different political figures that abound these days. One of the characters in the film is a former zombie called Conor, who’s played by Tom Vaughn Lawlor.
“[He] is essentially a populist politician, he is based on figures that we were seeing rise in Europe at that time who are essentially manipulating people’s fear and anger for their own ends,” says Freyne. “And so that was very, very conscious but we did assume the world would be fixed by the time we made it, and it would be all fine and we’d be back in a boom time.”
Life after Trump
Such a character will make people think of the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum too – incidents which were not anticipated by Freyne and team.
“They are a symptom of what was happening then, so in many ways they make sense, as shocking as they were,” he says now. “It’s what’s happens when people let fear and anger rule their politics and rule their lives.”
The day they started rehearsal for The Cured was the day Trump got elected. This was perhaps made even more notable by the fact that LA-based Canadian Ellen Page has one of the lead roles in the film.
“It was such a devastating cloud. Really selfishly it was really good for the performance as she essentially had to play this mother and act like the world was fine while it’s actually crumbling, and that’s kind of what was happening. So yeah, we were all numbed by that,” recalls Freyne.
This is Freyne’s first feature – after years of making shorts, he says the transition was “daunting” – but the film is imbued with a sense of confidence that belies this.
“It’s such a privilege to get to make a film, a feature film, that you kind of have to enjoy it, and just enjoy the process,” says Freyne. “So I went into it with that mindset and attempted to take away a bit of the pressure.”
I had this nightmare of coming away from it going ‘that was horrible’, and I just didn’t want that to happen.
Keeley was brought on board about 18 months before shooting began, just as his own acting career was taking off. The Tullamore-born 27-year-old was initially cautious about the idea of a zombie film, but was won over by Freyne’s script.
Work on the film included trying to decide exactly how the the zombies would be behave. Freyne says they “create our own creature” in The Cured, so he held workshops with the main actors to try and develop the wolflike behaviour and breathing.
“We wanted to make sure that there’s almost a humanity to the creatures, that you don’t necessarily always see in that kind of genre,” says Freyne.
Political echoes
A number of American critics have described parts of the film – where Senan, Sam’s character, joins a group of zombie activists – as having parallels with the Troubles.
But Keeley and Freyne say it’s not directly connected to this period of Irish history.
“You can’t be an Irish filmmaker and not get that comparison,” says Freyne. “It wasn’t the most conscious thing, but Conor, Tom’s character, is very loosely based on Northern Irish politicians who would have a past that’s questionable, and you know they essentially legitimise them. I always had an idea that Conor would be Taoiseach and batting away questions about his terrorist past. The Troubles as such wasn’t the most conscious parallel, because it’s a very obvious one with Irish films.”
Keeley spent time researching topics like PTSD during his preparation for the role. “Me and David talked about guys with PTSD very early on, but then like I looked up a lot of stuff myself in terms of trying to apply it to and ground the fantastical elements in things we can apply socially. Guys who have been institutionalised for various cries – murderers, sex offenders, who do get rehabilitated and then released back and then have you know have a very hard time adjusting and coping.”
Getting an established Hollywood actor like Ellen Page for the film was quite a boon for Freyne, particularly as it was his debut feature. And he certainly was persistent when it came to getting her on board.
“I always wanted her for the role, I thought she’d be wonderful, I hadn’t seen her play a mother and I thought she would bring so much depth and humanity to it,” he says. When repeated emails to her agent didn’t work, they decided to move on to find another actor… but not until they’d emailed her manager.
“I sent a very fawning letter to say how much I love her and why she’d be great for the role,” says Freyne. ”We get a phone call out of the blue saying ‘Ellen would like the script and would love to chat’, which I assumed was a prank. It was just perseverance, it was amazing. we were so fortunate to have her.”
There’s so much ups and downs with the filmmaking process, those kind of moments always seemed to happen when you needed them, when you were at a low ebb and suddenly you’d get a call, to have someone of her calibre say she liked your writing, likes your script is a huge boost. And she’s such a sweetheart, she’s such a nice person.
Is Freyne going to do a Romero and stick with zombies for his next work? That would be a no.
“I’ve written a film called Beards which is a comedy set in Kildare,” he says. “For me, it’s not that big a leap – I have a few different stories all in different genres, so I’m excited to test it, test my funny bone.
This was written when I was in a very angry stage in my life, and I can now see the funny side of the shit, so I’m ready to make you laugh.
The Cured is in cinemas now.
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