For a film that revels in its gore and satanic rituals, Son is incredibly heartfelt. Directed and written by Ivan Kavanagh, the 98-minute thriller balances a road trip, a demonic-themed mystery and its lead’s cultish past while keeping its mother-son story front and center.
The 2021 Shudder Original film follows Laura, a former cult member who escaped her harsh circumstances to start life anew with her newborn son, David. However, when David is eight years old, Laura senses the cult returning to claim him. Additionally, her son has developed a strange illness that can only be kept at bay by eating human flesh. In an exclusive interview with CBR, Kavanagh shared the heartfelt origin story behind the bloody film, what it was like centering so much gore on a young actor and how the film approached gaslighting Laura.
CBR: Son, at its heart, is really about two things: How far a mother’s love can go? And will people understand the lengths of that love? What inspired you to write this kind of story?
Ivan Kavanagh: Well, most of my films start from a very personal place. When my first son Shawn was born five years ago, he had a very difficult birth. Me and my wife were very worried about him for the first few months of his life, but during that time, I could see how close he and my wife were becoming. That mother and son bond is very, very special and strong. It’s different from a relationship between a father and a son — that’s still strong, but it’s different. It’s more primal… There’s something about it.
And then that began my thought process, “How far would a mother go to protect her son to make ’em better if he was ill?” Also, it came from my personal feelings at the time — you feel helpless, that you can’t help a child, that they’re ill and you’re worried all the time. You can’t sleep. So out of the anxiety and worry came the idea for Son.
Before that, I met this guy at a film festival, a few years before. He didn’t make films. He was actually a prison guard, in a prison for criminals who had done the worst possible things like murder and things like that — a maximum security prison. And he was saying, in almost all of the cases, the mothers of these people came to visit them, but never the fathers. I thought that was interesting, that the mother seemed always more forgiving of their sons, no matter what the horror is that they had committed. And I’d always remembered that. That kind of haunted me. So that was that: It all was a mishmash of all those thoughts going around in my head.
Speaking of the mother and son in this film, the chemistry between Luke David Blumm as David and Andi Matichak as Laura is so endearing and really grounds the film. What about their dynamic really worked for you?
It was all down to the casting, really. I don’t really audition actors in a traditional sense. But I knew I had to do some sort of audition to cast the boy. We auditioned about 525 kids, mostly from Los Angeles or New York. I wanted a really naturalistic kid who wasn’t a movie-acting kid. I wanted a kid who was the same off camera and on camera, and he was instantly likable. I didn’t want the kid to be Damien from The Omen. I didn’t want that cliche. I wanted a nice kid who can’t help what he is, and also whose half of his mother, who’s a really good person.
It was about two weeks from shooting, when this tape came in from Atlanta — Luke’s. And I knew the moment I saw this tape. It was him. So, I drove down to Atlanta the next day from Mississippi. I met him and his father and we did some improv, and he’s just an amazing kid. The next step was to get him and Andi into a room to do some improv together and do some scenes and they had instant chemistry. It was like they had known each other all their lives. It was a process getting there, but once I saw Luke’s tape, I knew it had to be him.
As the writer and director of Son, what’s something that changed from the script during shooting that worked for the better?
Well, this film was constantly changing. It felt like it was cursed, to be honest. We had two tornadoes during the shoot. There’s a scene where [Laura] visits Mrs. Naegle and it’s supposed to be in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. And the night before we were about to shoot there, a tornado came through that area and lifted a huge tree out of the ground and slammed it down into our set, and into the house. I got a call from the frantic production designer, saying, “What are we gonna do?” I had to go down and take a look at it, but I used it. I thought it was amazing for the film.
Those little things, I always embrace. I started off making films where I funded them myself. I had no money. I learned to go with whatever is thrown at you. No matter what the weather is, you shoot. So I adapted that way and had to for this film as well. It went from suddenly [being] a nonunion film — we got flipped — to a union film, so I lost about a third of my budget. I had to rethink a lot of the set pieces. I had to condense things. I can’t point to one particular aspect of it. It was just constantly changing as we go along.
I remember rewriting scenes on the way to the set, just to try to make our day work within our new budget. But it all worked out for the best. Every film, I feel when you’re shooting it, it feels like the film is trying to tell you what it wants to be. And if you just follow your instincts, and follow all these happy accidents that happen to you, you reach a good place with the film. I’m very happy to where it turned out, despite all the hardships that we had to endure.
In this film, there’s a subplot around Laura’s psychosis. It’s a really tricky balance to put that into a film because at its best, it’s a great metaphor for gaslighting. At its worst, it can victimize the woman’s character and make her seem “crazy” for the sake of the plot. What was one thing that you wanted to make sure came across while bringing her psychosis into the storyline?
Once I cast it, it was easy, because [Andi’s] such a strong person. [Laura] comes across as strong, despite what all these men [say]. I purposely cast men in all these roles, so it would get a feeling like they were trying to gaslight her, but she’s not having any of that. She’s so strong. She believes what she believes. She knows the truth about what happened. And [Laura] just keeps forging forward all the time. I knew we didn’t have to worry about that aspect of it because Andi’s a strong actor and a strong person in real life and that came across on screen.
There’s plenty of gore around David. What was the most challenging aspect of centering a child around all that while keeping the film’s tone intact?
I’ve worked with kids on my last two films as well. So I knew how to handle those scarier scenes with kids. The key to it is just to keep it like a game. Luke is old enough to know what a horror film is and he’s seen a few, of course. I was very careful to show him the artifice of how everything was made, so I introduced ’em early to the [SFX] guys. They showed ’em this is how we mix the blood. This is how we apply the latex; so, to him, it was just broken down into the mechanics of it. So it was never scary for him.
And also, Luke has a great father. His father is an actor as well named Matthew [Sean Blumm], who’s also an acting coach. So I was able to tell Matthew, “You, not Luke, should watch Cries and Whispers.” That’s just an example of one thing I asked him to look at, watch how the woman is writhing in pain and if you can convey that to Luke without letting him see the film, of course, that’d be great. And he did that. He coached Luke, so I only had to bring him back or push him a bit further, but Luke didn’t want to leave the set. He had such a great time. He was so close to all the crew and everyone loved him, so there wasn’t a time where he was scared. Not for a moment. It was just all a fun game for him.
I feel like that works to the film’s benefit too. Luke’s character David, at times, is just gleefully playing in blood. [laughs]
[laughs] You should see the outtakes. He kept laughing and I was always like you can’t laugh there and saying, “Can we do that take again?” It was so fun.
I described this movie to friends as a lovely mix of We Are What We Are and Let The Right One In. If you had to name some inspirations behind this film, what would yours be?
I’m sure it had 10,000 influences from over the years. I grew up watching and was drawn to horror films and films in general. I wrote it during the birth of my son, so to tell you the truth, I wasn’t watching any movies during the time. When you have a kid, it’s like, you start a movie, and they cry, and you have to stop it, and you just give up halfway through and you can’t enjoy anything — for the first few months, at least.
In the press notes put down Rosemary’s Baby. And I can see that, and people have said it’s like a sequel to Rosemary’s Baby. What would Rosemary have done with the baby? I never thought it, to be honest, but I see what they mean. I see people have compared it to The Omen as well, and The Omen certainly was a film that made impression on me; but, I wanted to go in the opposite [direction] of that. As I said, I didn’t want Luke to be bad or malevolent, just a kid who can’t help what he is. In the lead-up to it, I did watch David Cronenberg’s The Brood, and I liked the way he mixed real trauma, and the child, and the breakup of him and his wife. That was a kind of influence, I suppose — its mood was. I can’t pinpoint one film.
Overall, what do you hope audiences take away from watching Son?
Well, I’ve been looking at the reactions on them and their great reactions. Everyone seems to see the film differently. I always saw it as a dream. For me, it was more about mood and feeling. It had the logic of a dream. And if you could just let the film wash over you. It was about the feelings between her and her son. It was about the mood of motels that they’re in. So I don’t know, just something positive. Even if it’s one image that they can’t shake from her head from their heads, that’s enough for me.
I noticed for people who hated it had really strong hate, which is kind of good as well. It’s a strong reaction. But the people who love it, they really love it. And for me, my favorite films are always those films that divide an audience. All my films have gotten that [divided] reaction, and I think I’d be very, very worried if I made a film that everybody liked.
Son is streaming exclusively on Shudder.
About The Author
