[Editorial] Interview with Slash/Back (2022) Director Nyla Innuksuk

Horror films set in or near the arctic are rare. We have The Thing (1982), 30 Days of Night (2007), a handful of others… and now Slash/Back (2022), set and shot in Pangnirtung, Nunavut; and if you’re not familiar with geography, that’s the Canadian territory that’s basically next door to Greenland. Slash/Back is essentially an alien invasion story in which the resistance is carried out by Innuit girls in their early and mid-teens, and the film was written and directed by Nyla Innuksuk who hailed from that same heritage herself.

Nyla shared some of her time with me recently to talk about Slash/Back and I asked her about the pros and cons of making a film in an indigenous setting that’s so meaningful to her. “It was so wonderful to be able to go to Nunavut,” she said, “and make a movie in my home territory. And definitely, there were some logistical challenges! There’s a reason why a movie hasn’t been made in Pang before, and a big part of it is the logistics. But it’s such a stunning and beautiful place; I kept telling people ‘you have to make a movie here!’. Once we’d got the support, it was great to figure out a way to make it happen, and it was so special for me. My nephews are from the community in Pang, and it’s a place I love, so to be able to make a movie that feels like one of the movies I grew up watching, or something my nephews love that’s actually set in their hometown was a lot of fun.”

It was good to hear that Nyla didn’t cite strength of sentiment being a problem, as I’ve seen with other films made in the director’s hometown. “I’m going to be bringing the movie to my home community next month, and it’s a little bit different watching it with family and people I grew up with. We’ve shown it to the Pang community, of course, where we made the movie; but bringing it to my home will be kind of unique, as there is some personal stuff included in the movie. But I think when we showed it in Pang, that’s when we were so nervous and excited; more excited to show the community of Pang than anywhere else, but also nervous, so it was such a relief when people in town responded well.”

I hope the kids involved were proud of the output too, they were so terrific. I had a feeling that one or two of the characters might have been somewhat autobiographical. “Some of them I wrote as proof of concepts first,” Nyla said, “and then they were shared with the young actors; so I knew the actors as we developed the script, and some of the dynamics of the friendships and things they went through were definitely put inside the characters by them. And I drew from my own experience as an indigenous teenager, figuring out where all that fitted in; and isn’t it such a special time, figuring out who you are? Some of the girls are really like their characters. Tasiana Shirley, who plays Maika, she originally was going to play the character of Uki until about a week or so before shooting, but we shifted her over; and Nalajoss Ellsworth [who played Uki] originally played in the proof of concept as the younger sister who gets taken, but she aged out of that role. And Tasiana was the sweetest kid ever, though Maika has a bit of a temper, so it’s interesting having people go ‘oh she’s nothing like her character,’ and I have to say ‘yeah, she’s acting!’. So though there are some autobiographical elements for me, there are some parts that are inspired by the girls’ lives and their own situations; they all seep through for sure.”

I was curious about where the plot idea originally came from, and asked Nyla whether it was inspired by the folklore, the sci-fi aspect, or perhaps the familiar community. “I just like the idea of teenage girls fighting aliens,” Nyla said plainly. “I’m not sure where that idea came from, but perhaps it was just my love of movies. I grew up loving Spielberg, The Goonies, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and so on; ideas of fantasy and adventure, action, coming of age all played a part in the concept. For me, I just have this love of horror and when I was a teenager, horror movies were a big part of figuring out who I was. I made scary movies with my cousins and that sort of thing, and so I was always drawn to that kind of thing.”

I loved the creature effects, which kind of reminded me of An Ideal Host, as well as (of course) The Thing, and I asked Nyla about her inspiration. “The Thing was definitely an inspiration, and I really love practical effects,” she said. “And I also just love classic horror movies. So being able to draw from that was really fun, and being able to create those creatures… and work with Troy James, the amazing contortionist, who could do the craziest things with his body! We’d build him these prosthetic suits to wear and just enhance those with CGI. Part of that was from wanting a certain aesthetic, but also the limitations of being this indie Canadian movie.”

I asked Nyla whether she gave the effects team a detailed brief or just a rough description before leaving them to it. “We had lots and lots of conversations,” Nyla said, “and then when we were building the suits, that was kind of a fun process: you’d have these pre-visualisations and choose how much sagging [to the face] you want and go through all aspects of it in a conversation; then the skin suits are made. And when it comes to CG and that sort of thing, it’s important, but you have to be super-specific. You can’t just say ‘we want a spaceship explosion,’ you have to say things like ‘there’s a burst of light that happens here at this time, and then it travels from here to here, and so on,’ But it’s fun, and nerdy, with really cool people.”

Slash/Back is Nyla’s first feature film. I asked (of course) what she is working on next. “Definitely more genre,” she said. “I’d love to film in Pang again. I have a project that I’m kind of developing that’s set back in Pang, another modern horror story. My next thing is going to be a psychological thriller set in a city with indigenous characters.”

Slash/Back has recently been released in North America and will be coming to the UK in November, courtesy of Soho Horror Film Festival.

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