Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies, Shudder | Tagged: Night Patrol, RLJE, shudder

Night Patrol Director on Blending Crime Drama & Supernatural Elements

Writer-director Ryan Prows (Lowlife) spoke to us about his latest supernatural vampire crime drama in RLJE/Shudder's Night Patrol.

Sometimes in Hollywood, things have a funny way of working things out, as writer-director Ryan Prows (V/H/S/94) can attest with RLJE Films & Shudder's Night Patrol, which blends the social commentary of the crime dramas he grew up with and his passion for horror. The film follows an LAPD officer (Jermaine Fowler), who must put aside his differences with the area's street gangs when he discovers a local police task force is harboring a horrific secret that endangers the residents of the housing projects he grew up in. Prows spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with his frequent collaborators Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, and Shaye Ogbonna, landing his ensemble cast, and the films that inspired the supernatural thriller, from 90s hood dramas to vampire classics.

Night Patrol Director Ryan Prows Breaks Down Vampire Crime Drama

What's the inspiration behind Night Patrol?

The writers, myself included, worked on a film before this called Lowlife (2017), and as we were making the festival rounds, we started kicking around ideas on what the scariest monster we could come up with for our next movie would be, and ended up being the LAPD, so here we are.

What was that like developing that process with Tim, Shaye, and Jake?

It felt like an old hat at this point. We all went to school together, so we've known each other for a while now, and share similar sensibilities. We also brought our own stuff into it, which is fun. We always treat it like a TV writer's room where we all break story together, go off and write our own stuff. That keeps it fresh, and when we come back together and work on the passes for the final script, we've brought new fun stuff to surprise each other and one-up each other per segment or section of the script. It's a super fun process. We all write separate stuff as well, but it seems to work really well with us all kicking in on something together.

Did you have anyone in mind when you guys started casting for this?

I feel lucky we got the cast of the century, always pinching myself on it. I did not think we would have the cast that we ended up with, so it was so cool. We wrote Nicki Micheaux's character, Ayanda, the mother character. We wrote that for her because I've worked with her a couple of times. Jon Oswald was also in Lowlife, and he's like a childhood friend of Jake, one of the writers as well. Beyond that, it was ups and downs when we had folks, then they fell out, and we had the movie almost going, then it fell apart.

When we were getting one after another, like we got Justin Long on board, and it was so cool to see, like I knew he would want to do something different than how you've normally seen him. I knew he would be able to deliver on that, and he did in spades. I'd been working with Jermaine Fowler on another couple of projects, but I knew he would be great as a leading man, and he came in and crushed it!

R.J. Cyler was the last guy we brought in, probably a couple of weeks before we shot. Once we had him, I knew the movie was going to work because so much of it rests on his shoulders. We were just lucky to be able to get CM Punk, Freddie Gibbs, YG, and get these guys involved in it. They're all so game to come get wild with this.

There's so much to this ensemble piece. How did you balance out the narratives with the leads from the supernatural element, with the vampires, and the reality of the narratives addressing social issues? Was there concern about maybe emphasizing one over the other too much, because I know with the ending, the climactic part was about the payoff and showing that final standoff? Was there a concern that maybe you might be underselling one element or the other?

We wanted to take the time, and it was cool that it seemed like everyone was on the same page and ready to do it. You take the time to set up these worlds, build the foundation of making it feel super authentic to the LAPD world and the gang world. We knew once we had that, and that was an interest of mine in general, of living with these characters, living with people, and then living in these spaces and letting that breathe. I thought then that would give us a cool opportunity to make something that feels grounded, scary, and real once the supernatural stuff pops off.

What was the most difficult part about putting that final sequence together?
We didn't have a lot of time to shoot it, so that was a challenge, but it earned everything, making sure everybody felt like all characters and all story points were headed to that climax. That was the balancing act within the script, but also, as we were shooting and taking advantage of any opportunities that came up as we were shooting, I would say that was probably the biggest challenge or balance that I was always up against. To your point, it's like making it feel like every story is served by the end, which was like a big, important piece to it.

What are your biggest influences as a filmmaker?

For my own personal style, I would not say I'm at this level, but I'm always reaching for, like, if you can mix a Paul Verhoeven and a Nick Cassavetes, where it feels real and lived in, but also absurd, satirical, and the farthest version of reality. Playing with that balance is something I'm also looking for in my own stuff. Touchstones for the film were so many LAPD movies, and a lot of eighties vampire stuff specifically.

We looked at films like Near Dark (1987) or The Lost Boys (1987) that are pulpy and fun, but also feel vicious and visceral. There's also Menace to Society (1993), or like those 90s hood movies, if you could mix all of those together, it feels like that would be this movie. It felt like that would make something fresh, where it's a cop procedural that turns into an episode of The Wire or whatever, that turns them to Near Dark was the plan.

I thought that the ending also felt a little bit like 30 Days of Night (2007).

Yeah, I love that [movie] and the (Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith) comic, too. The vampires in that were really cool.

Night Patrol, which also stars Flying Lotus and Dermot Mulroney, is in theaters.

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