Posted in: Interview, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: A Breed Apart

A Breed Apart: The Fursts on Dog-Themed Horror, 'Fall' Reunion & More

Writer-directors Griff and Nathan Furst spoke to Bleeding Cool about their latest Lionsgate horror film A Breed Apart, 'Fall' Reunion & more.

Griff and Nathan Furst are versatile talents who not only have their individual work to stand on with Griff's acting and Nathan's composing. The two decided to collaborate in writing and directing in a few horror projects, starting with 2017's Trailer Park Shark with Nathan joining Griff in the director's chair on their follow-up 2018 film, Nightmare Shark. Their latest is the Lionsgate's A Breed Apart, a remake of the 2006's The Breed, which follows Violet (Grace Caroline Currey), who accepts an invitation to a private island with some of the world's most famous social influencers, she expects a weekend of unrivaled viral opportunity. She soon becomes part of her own horrific reality show when the guests are pitted against each other to capture the island's legendary man-eating dogs before they become victims of the monstrous canines. The writer-director duo spoke to Bleeding Cool about how they updated the Nicholas Mastandrea film, having Fall (2022) stars Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner reunite for the film, comedy, mixing practical and CG effects, and making the most of Hayden Panettiere's role on the film.

A Breed Apart: The Furst Brothers on Updating 'The Breed', 'Fall' Reunion & More

Bleeding Cool: What inspired you to remake 'The Breed' into 'A Breed Apart' and how did you want to set yourself apart from the original film?

Nathan Furst: We're inspired by being asked to do it, right?

Griff Furst: Mm-hmm.

Nathan: We're inspired by being asked to do it, and we were intrigued by the idea of rebooting a movie we were never aware of before this. We watched it and thought the most interesting thing was to explore and expand upon what Taryn Manning's character (Sara) was doing, where she was starting to turn, and what that might look like if it goes a little further. For this re-imagining, we decided to come up with this fun meta idea that ends up exploring that and updates the whole franchise for a 2025 vibe.

When writing the characters, how did the casting come about, and was it always intended for Hayden [Panettiere] to book-end the film?

Nathan: It was not originally intended for Hayden to book in the film; it was a previous actress who would have been an interesting callback to the original. That did not work out, and so we found our way to Hayden, which was a fun find for us. That came about fairly last minute, honestly, but the rest of the cast, who we love and are super excited about as well with Grace Caroline Currey, and Ginny Gardner are both stars and amazing in their chemistry. They continued when they established that initially, when they did 'Fall' (2022) together, a few years ago. They came on and generously lent us their chemistry for this amazing experience, and we were just so lucky to get the other actors, Page Kennedy, Troy Gentile, and Zak Steiner. They all make this beautiful ensemble that gives off this great 'Scooby-Doo' energy for this island.

The cast plays influencers, are they based on any real-life personalities?

Nathan: We plead the fifth one if they're based on anybody?

Griff: No events are based on actual people.

Nathan: They're entirely fictional and in no way shape or form a reference to any real influencers, real or imagined, past or present. How's that for our future? How's that for coverage?

Griff: Sounds legal enough.

Nathan: All right, that's good.

How'd you plan out Joey's character (Vince Ventura), what was the inspiration, and how did that turn out?

Nathan: He was an awesome find and I'm upset that some of the funniest lines in this damn movie came from Joey, which is his improv-ing. He took on the character that we wrote, and then we also ran the camera and just let him. Let Joey be Joey and inflect that into the character of Vince Ventura.

How did you balance the use of practical effects with CG for the dogs for their sequences?

Nathan: Carefully. We use real dogs when we can; we had ten and a half dogs. The "half" was a puppy, and we did everything we could with real dogs. Of course, we're not going to try to put actors or dogs in danger. A lot of it ends up being CG and different VFX. We do what we can, merge them, and find a way, and we accidentally found our way to have the record for the most visual effects for an independent film with over 1,500 visual effects. The balance finds itself is what I think happens.

What sequence stood out to you the most, and what was the most difficult part of getting it done?

Griff: The boat? No, I'd say the middle of the movie with the cell tower. A lot is going on there. I think at all stages, from photographing and building that thing, and editing that sequence. There was so much going on that's intercut, it took a lot of passes to make it fluid, and make it feel like it finally does. As we were working on it, it felt like the bane of everybody's existence.

Nathan: That's true, our amazing crew stuck through it, and they actually built this cell tower that could be dropped, then rigged back up, and then dropped again. They worked hard to create this amazing set for us.

Did you find any difficulty with the tropical setting? When I spoke to Page, he told me you guys had to deal with some food poisoning.

Nathan: There was 85 percent humidity. You have a bunch of equipment and cameras, and we're trekking them ourselves onto boats across the remote lake in a legit tropical jungle. The bugs were also the size of cars, flying into you and crowding up the lens—all those things.

Griff: Everything you think you've experienced. I'm trying to shoot a movie in an underdeveloped country, which is true. Very true.

Nathan: It's all very true. Then somebody hands you a cup of water, and your day changes by accident. Do you know what I'm saying?

Were there any scenes you had to reluctantly cut?

Nathan: Not at the last minute, but we had lots of ideas that we started going sort of down the road, then ended up nixing that idea, and trying something cooler.

Griff: Yeah, that's real. We cut quite a few scenes. We didn't cut some massive set pieces?

Nathan: No, not set pieces, but we cut like a lot of shoe leather, them finding the golf cart. There was another scene with Hayden that we cut.

Griff: That's right.

Nathan: There was a lot of that backlot set that we'd cut just for running time, because the original cut of the movie was over two hours.

Griff: We had this stuff with Hayden in what we would call "shoe leather" of them that involves a hidden discovery of exactly where the main characters are. We did a lot of stuff that was shorthanded for time.

A Breed Apart, which also stars Riele Downs, is available in theaters, digital, and on-demand.

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