Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Lone Samurai, Well Go USA Entertainment

Lone Samurai Director Josh Waller on Inspirations, Ambitions & More

Director Josh C. Waller (Camino) spoke to us about the filmmakers that inspired him, and making the films like Lone Samurai he wants to see.

Josh C. Waller is a man of many tastes, but he never wants to get pigeonholed into one particular genre. Known for his work on directing action horror Raze (2013), crime drama McCanick (2013), the thriller adventure Camino (2015), and producing the Nicolas Cage-starred horror cult favorites like Mandy (2018) and Color Out of Space (2019), his latest is the Well Go USA period drama Lone Samurai. The film follows a 13th-century samurai (Shogen), who finds himself shipwrecked on an island he believes to be deserted. As he contemplates his existence, it seems like a dignified death at his own hands might be his best solution. However, when he is captured by the murderous cannibal tribe that calls this island home, his survival instinct kicks in. Waller spoke to Bleeding Cool about how it's obsession, not inspiration, that drives him in his filmmaking, and the films that resonated with him the most.

Lone Samurai Writer-Directors Josh C. Waller on Bringing Well Go Samurai Epic to Life

You've been involved with several different genres. A samurai epic is certainly one of those things that I feel is a bit trickier to master. What are your biggest influences as far as filmmakers or films that might have influenced your vision for Lone Samurai?

The funny thing is, like I was saying, I was really focused on trying to check a few boxes for myself as a viewer and writer, and then I realized that with each film that you do, if you're trying, you can look at the film that you did and try to figure out, like, why you did it. There's a certain amount of psychosis or obsession that comes with wanting to make movies, because it's not easy, right? I can look at the last films I've made and go, "That's why I've done this one with this one." Something in me realized my inspirations, like the reasons why I got into film…I mean, I'm not married to genre. I'm married to just like good films, things that stick with me.

Some of those things might be little moments in some obscure little movie, or some of it might be something like a Disney film. I'm pulling from John Boorman, like I loved Hell in the Pacific, which is a beautiful movie that I'm obsessed with. It's a shipwrecked silent film. I'm also obsessed with The Black Stallion, which was like my favorite movie as a kid, and that film is broken up into two halves. There's the silent part on the island, and then the second part, which is a racehorse movie.

There are things like that. I even realize that a lot of people will go like, "This has got whatever reference and then they reference Bone Tomahawk, because there are cannibals in a Western setting, and we haven't seen that before." People are going, "Oh, this meets Bone Tomahawk, but I didn't pull any personal inspiration from Bone Tomahawk." If anything, if people call it a "samurai versus cannibals" film, which is fine, it's the least cannibalistic film ever made. You never see a blade or anything entering any flesh. You never see anyone eating flesh.

I pull my references from like everywhere, like, if I'm looking at samurai films, I'm pulling from The Sword of Doom, I'm pulling from Harakiri, more modern stuff, if I'm lucky, I'm pulling from 13 Assassins. There are some specific scenes I love, and I also like not living within a specific genre, because my imagination doesn't live within a specific genre.

I mean, I'm throwing it out there. I don't think most people even realize The Magnificent Seven is Seven Samurai.

Of course. Dude, we joked on set, like the cinematographer, Noah (Greenberg) and I, our mantra while we were shooting is, "It's not a Western, it is an Eastern," but I wanted to have the same approach. I've seen samurai fighting lots of samurai before. I haven't seen a samurai face a group of cannibals, and I was like, "I'd be interested in seeing that on film." If someone else isn't going to do it, I'm sure as shit better jump on it. I feel so many things have been done, right, so you're like, "How can I put my…I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just ow can I do something that only Josh Waller would think of?

Lone Samurai is available in theaters and on digital.

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