Posted in: Interview, Movies | Tagged: Brett Donahue, Elza Kephart, exclusive, interview, Patricia Gomez, rlje films, Romane Denis, Slaxx

Slaxx Writer Patricia Gomez on Character Inspirations Behind Film

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be a lot of depth to the horror film Slaxx, but for writer Patricia Gomez Zlatar and her friend, director Elza Kephart, the film became so much more not only as social commentary but also a slice-of-life story from previous experiences working in retail. I spoke to Gomez about how the initial idea that started as a joke that snowballed into something so much more, the figures within her own life reimagined for the screen, and what could make it to the final cut of the film. The film follows a possessed pair of jeans, which begins to kill the staff of a trendy clothing store, and it's up to an idealistic young sales clerk to stop its bloody rampage.

"When we first got the inkling of the idea, it was just kind of a silly joke," Gomez said. "Elza and I were on a road trip with another friend, and we were talking about words we hated. Our friend hated the word 'slacks.' Being the obnoxious people that we are, we just started saying 'slacks' over and over, and then we both looked at each other and said, 'Oh, my goodness, it's a pair of killer pants for kind of spawned from that ridiculous moment. Eventually, through the years, it became something a bit more meaningful and serious, but it really did start off as a joke." Slaxx was originally conceived in 2001, and it took 15 years and three drafts to start putting the idea on screen, according to Kephart. It was a matter of finding the perfect angle.

"It was finding that fast fashion angle. I think the first draft took place in a high school," Gomez recalled. "It just didn't make any real sense, and we put it down for a long time. When we picked it up again, we added the element of the store and the whole corporate environment because I used to work at The Gap. We kind of infused it with that, but there was always something missing. Then I also saw a documentary about fast fashion, and that was almost like the missing link. As soon as we put the fast fashion element in with the corporate kind of world that we have created, it's just really like it was a switch, and the script just got written really quickly. So it was really that missing piece of the fast fashion."

While Gomez and Kephart periodically developed Slaxx, the two worked on multiple projects together, including Fox's X-Men cinematic universe. "Elza and I have been friends for a really long time, so we've been friends around 20 years," she said. "We're both nerds, and we both love really weird things. So we just have a sensibility that ties really well, the two of us. We like to be equal parts silly and equal parts serious. We just come together with these kinds of outrageous ideas, and then we flush them out because, on top of being nerds, we're very serious that we should try to be. We kind of make these for ourselves that I think are certainly come from a unique perspective, but I think it's just the friendship that makes it work, and we know each other so well."

As far as the characters from within the film, Gomez admitted conceiving them from her time working in retail. "The main thing was the manager, Craig (played by Brett Donahue)," she said. "He really is an amalgamation of a bunch of managers I used to have at The Gap, so a little bit from this manager and a little bit from that manager. So that's how we created that character. Craig, in some ways, should be a little bit pathetic because I felt when I was working at Gap that the managers, they were just so part of this corporate wheel, but deep down, they were nice people. They just got in this wheel, and they just couldn't get out of it, and they became kind of ridiculous. So that's kind of the inspiration for Craig. There were a couple of coworkers I incorporated as well with just kind of thinking of these personas that we only see in stores, and we get approached by these people. So it's a little mix of a real-life, but also complete fiction too."

If there's one thing Gomez regretted was how certain shots of the killer pants couldn't make the final cut due to limitations from the special effects. "There was some stuff we had to cut out. It just didn't work because obviously, when you're writing, you're not thinking about the idea of animating a pair of jeans. You're just writing away, and it's fantastic. When you get to the production phase, and you start talking to the special effects and the effects people, you start to realize that what you had imagined has to be curbed a little bit, and it has to make sense in terms of being able to actually achieve it."

RLJE Films and Shudder's Slaxx, which also stars Romane Denis, Sehar Bhojani, and Stephen Bogaert, is currently available on VOD, digital, and DVD.

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