Oh, it gets dark. This edition of Filmmakers in Focus takes on some of the filmmakers in our Midnighters section. Vincenzo "Cube" Natali is back with Haunter; Calvin Reeder brings us into the mind of The Rambler; and Simon Barrett does double duty as You're Next helmer, and one of the many directors on S/V/H/S.
Click on a title below to read the conversations, then head to the SXSW film schedule to start planning your SXSW. Browse all the Midnighters here.
Vincenzo Natali on Haunter
Image courtesy Copperheart Entertainment Inc.
Tell us a little about your film.
Haunter is a ghost story for people who relate to ghosts more than living human beings.
Why did you start making films? 
Vincenzo Natali, courtesy
Copperheart Entertainment Inc.
Truthfully I had a very boring, uneventful life and growing up making films was (and continues to be) the best way to escape.
Have you been to SXSW before?
This is my first time. I hear great things specifically about the festival and about Austin in general. Exposing a film for the first time is on par with standing naked in front of strangers, so you want the right kind of crowd.
Tell us a random fact (or two!) that would help our attendees get a better idea of who you are.
I have the distinction to be one of the first filmmakers to dissect a human body into self contained cubes on screen.
Calvin Reeder on The Rambler
Image courtesy Juliana Halvorson
Tell us a little about your film.
A man is released from prison and enters the unknown. Not a status quo midnight movie, I like to think that The Rambler operates on it's own logic without worrying too much about traditional narrative structure. I hate the word "structure". Excited SXSW wants to put this movie in front of people.
Why did you start making films? 
Calvin Reeder courtesy
Juliana Halvorson
Banality and doom. Pretty much threw away any hopes of higher education in about grade 10. That landed me a sweet a job as a day laborer in a construction outfit up in Seattle , WA. During that time I decided to start shooting 16mm films, knowing very little about cinema I guess this made me an outsider. Since then I've watched a lot and shot a lot but still have no interest in observing the "rules". I'm shocked and grateful that I've been able to carve out a little audience.
Have you been to SXSW before?
I have been to SXSW. In 2008 the short version of The Rambler played and that same year I had a role in Lynn Shelton's My Effortless Brilliance. The year before that SXSW music festival invited a band I fronted called Steaming Wolf Penis to play a showcase at Beerland. We had a guy in a monster suit known as Jerkbeast on drums, ended up playing for about ten minutes then broke up the band. It really happened.
Looking forward to documentaries and reconnecting with a bunch of Austin buddies. Love Texas.
Tell us a random fact (or two!) that would help our attendees get a better idea of who you are.
Made a feature in 2011 called The Oregonian. It currently has a 1.9 star rating on Netflix. I drive an 86' Toyota Pick up.
Simon Barrett on V/H/S/2 and You're Next
Image from You're Next, courtesy Taylor GlasscockTell us a little about your film.
YOU'RE NEXT was technically my fifth collaboration with director Adam Wingard. He wanted to make a home invasion thriller, since many of our favorite films in recent years fall into that subgenre, and I sat down to try to figure out how to do something original with that story; in other words, I was trying to write something that FUNNY GAMES hadn't already satirized 16 years ago. I ended up looking to locked room mysteries, action films and screwball comedies for inspiration. The result was YOU'RE NEXT, which we can't wait to see with an audience again.
V/H/S/2 (aka S-VHS) came from touring the festival circuit with V/H/S last year and seeing which parts of the film audiences responded to, some of which surprised us. V/H/S was a very small, strange film, but most horror fans seemed to appreciate what we were going for, especially in the more outrageous, fun segments, such as Radio Silence's "10/31/98." That inspired us to make a sequel based on those lessons, using the same basic ingredients but working with another team of filmmakers we admired. V/H/S/2 is a horror anthology that follows the structure and style of V/H/S, but uses that as a starting point to go further. Hopefully the SXSW crowd will enjoy it!
Why did you start making films? 
Simon Barrett, courtesy
Taylor Glascock
I don't have an interesting motive for becoming a filmmaker, I've just loved the medium for literally as long as I can remember, and it essentially fuses every art form I've ever dabbled in. I loved watching movies and writing stories with pictures and music before I could get my hands on any sort of video or film camera, and it was all downhill from there.
Have you been to SXSW before? What are you most looking forward to?
I first attended SXSW just as a film fan when I was 18 years old; I drove straight to Austin with a friend from our hometown of Columbia, MO. It was the first film festival I'd ever been to; this was in 1997, I think, and the films I saw there included CHASING AMY and FULL TILT BOOGIE, to put that in perspective. The next time I attended SXSW was in 2012 with V/H/S, which was a pretty cool experience, returning to the first festival I'd ever experienced with a movie I'd worked on.
Last year I got to see several great films at SXSW: The Imposter, The Cabin in the Woods and Citadel come immediately to mind. My most anticipated films at SXSW this year are Cheap Thrills, Haunter, Plus One and the Evil Dead remake, the first three of which are in the same section as V/H/S/2 and YOU'RE NEXT, so I hope I'll still have the chance to see them. I'm also looking forward to getting some barbecue, obviously.
Tell us a random fact (or two!) that would help our attendees get a better idea of who you are.
I am a licensed private investigator and hold a second degree black belt ranking in Limalama. Those facts are actually just kind of confusing, really, but they are indeed facts.
