This week Matt Ogens released his new film Go North in ten cites nationwide, on VOD, iTunes, and GooglePlay. The new film from the veteran documentarian tells the fictional tale of a young man, Josh, who is living in the oppressive safety of a compound run by teenagers after a vague, post-apocalyptic event. Inspired by the vast abandoned spaces in the once bustling city of Detroit, Ogens was inspired to creative a narrative that skewed genre expectations and delivered a sort of Lord of The Flies meets John Hughes drama for our generation. HorrorBuzz had a chance to speak with Ogens about not only his new film, but what inspires him as a filmmaker and how he started his first fictional narrative movie.
You can read the review of Go North here.
Fair warning, if you are sensitive to minor spoilers we go into key plot points in the film. We have noted the section that gets a little spoilery so you can skip over if you don’t want to read that.
HorrorBuzz: what made you transition from doing documentaries to doing a post-apocalyptic horror film?
Matt Ogens: You know, I‘m a filmmaker and I like to tell a story. So whatever the medium is, either documentary, narrative, commercials, I direct a lot of commercials and VR as well, it’s all about the story and characters for me. I was in Detroit a few years before filming something else and was just fascinated, like a curious kid, with all the abandoned spaces that exist in America and I wanted to tell a story there and use location as a character as well and I saw the city of Detroit as a character. You know, I immediately thought of books from my childhood like Fahrenheit 451 and Lord of the Flies, those kinds of things and I thought about crafting a story with a dystopian backdrop. But I think really it’s a coming of age drama set in a dystopian backdrop rather than it being a post-apocalyptic film.
HB: Why did you decide to make it about younger people?
MO: When I was there I kind of felt like this child that was curious, wanting to explore all of the abandoned buildings and factories and it made me feel like a teenager just being there. So the stories from my childhood just kind of felt right.
HB: So you filmed in Detroit.
MO: Yeah, we filmed in Detroit but that’s not necessarily where the story is set. It could be anywhere sometime in the future. It’s really an amazing city, just the history of it. The center of the Auto Industry, and that changed and factories closed, and it’s just blocks and blocks and miles and miles of abandoned spaces, historical places that have been abandoned. But there is rebuilding going on there and and I think it has some metaphorical themes in the film of man’s search for meaning and looking for something better and for hope, that I think the city has as well.
HB: You were able to pull some genuine moments from the younger actors. How did you do that?
MO: I did a lot of homework. I had never done a narrative before so I worked with a woman named Judith Westin who wrote a book called Directing Actors, pretty well known directing coach and all she works on is character and performance. I spent a lot of time with her in the weeks before the filming, going through the script, line by line, getting her help. So when we began filming, it wasn’t just intuition, I had a plan, and a plan B, and a plan C, and it’s also about casting. I got great actors. So some of the work was already done by who we cast.
HB: Were there many versions of what brought about “The End” or was there a specific theory?
MO: When we went in, you know, we have seen zombie films and virus films, and we went in specifically not wanting to reveal that. We wanted change the genre a little bit and make it more about the characters and their journey. The dystopian backdrop was really just a thing, this could happen anywhere at any high school so it was really just about wanting to make the focus the characters. Also, when you are a kid, if there’s no news or adults to tell you what happened, then you may not know what happened. Like Jacob Lofland, in his first voiceover line, he says “Don’t ask me what happened because I don’t remember” so right off the bat, he’s saying “I don’t know so don’t ask me” So if he doesn’t know then the audience doesn’t know because he’s the character that we are sort of rooting for and along for the ride with.
HB: There seems to be a commentary on religion and control in the movie. Why do you think that type of control is exerted and why was that something you wanted to explore?
MO: Well it’s kind of going back to Lord of the Flies or the Stanford Prison Experiment. You know, “What happens if there are no laws?” and what happens when there are no adults in the room? Who rises ? Who’s a sheep and who’s the wolf and what is the power structure, the hierarchy, and do you sort of get drunk with power? I mean religion is one aspect of it but it’s more about getting drunk with power not having anyone to sort of govern that has life experience and perspective.
HB: So it’s more of a tool or a use for power?
MO: No I mean I don’t want to condemn religion
HB: From what you are saying it could have been anything, it could have been food or…
MO: Yeah it’s like in that first scene when the Principal says “This bible doesn’t belong here” they are saying “Hey God or a higher power wasn’t there for us when we needed him so we are turning our back on him.” It’s not necessarily how I feel but it’s how those kids feel.
SPOILER ALERT
HB: What ended up happening to Josh and Jessie? The film ends on a pretty ambiguous note.
MO: The idea is that this cabin that they are going to, it’s a symbol for them. Yes in his deepest darkest places he wants his parents to be there but does he really believe they’re there? That cabin represents something more. It represents family, it represents love, home, it represents a safe place. And when the movie ends, the light turns on and is it friend or is it foe? You don’t know yet.
I like movies that aren’t wrapped up in a pretty bow. They may be ambiguous or conflicting or complex because life’s not wrapped up in a pretty bow. So I like leaving the movie on that note. However, emotionally, I think there is a wrap up in that Josh has hope. He believes in something better. He’s willing to take a chance on the hope of something better. The ending is supposed to feel good, at least for Josh.
SPOILER ALERT OVER
HB: As a filmmaker what influences you and what are you striving for?
MO: If I see a story I want to tell I want to tell it in the medium best suited for it. Now, I’m pretty involved with working with the Director of Photography and working on the look and feel of something. You know, going back to documentaries there are a lot of them that have great content and story but they don’t look good and I’ve never understood that. It’s still a movie. So I have always tried to make my documentaries a little bit more cinematic, a little bit more elevated and I tried to take that into this narrative as well. So I think that character and story rule the day, but I like to compliment the with a look and feel that is a little bit elevated and cinematic.
HB: You cling to identity and belonging in your work and what a name means, with Meet the Hitlers, and Confessions of a Superhero, and with Go North.
MO: Absolutely, absolutely. With Josh, the main character, he’s a kid that many of us can identify with. He just wants connection and I think that’s true in Meet the Hitlers and Confessions of a Superhero, where they all want connection and belonging, to be understood and heard.
HB: So what’s next for you?
MO: Go North just came out theatrically in ten cities and is available on VOD iTunes, Google play. We also have a companion Virtual Reality film that is almost like a prequel that we are gonna launch this week. I have a new doc series that I am executive producing and directing that’s called Why We Fight that’s sort of like chef’s table except going around the world in different cultures and different fighting styles and I have a new feature documentary that I am about to do. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it involves a high school on the border of the US and Mexico.
HB: What are some docs you really dug?
MO: I go back to some of the classics like what the Maysles brothers did like Gimmie Shelter, um Grey Gardens. Salesman. A lot of people haven’t heard of that one, total verite. And there is just good stuff like King of Kong. I like uncovering something. It could be about politics, it could be about something going on in the world.
We’d like to thank Matt for taking the time to talk to us. You can visit the movie website to further explore the film and experience the VR content he spoke about.
| Go North | ||
| RATING: | UR |  |
| Runtime: | 1hr. 45Mins. | |
| Directed By: | ||
| Written By: | ||
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