Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. Last year’s SUMMER OF BLOOD is where I took notice of Onur Tukel, though he has been making offbeat films for years. Tukel is a sort of jack of all trades; writing, directing, acting in his films. His newest is APPLESAUCE, a true oddity of a movie, not exactly horror, but still possessing a pitch black sense of humor. I review the film which is now available on BluRay at the end of this article, but first, here’s what Tukel had to say about the film, his inspiration, and his own unique way of looking at the world.
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Congratulations on yet another unique and amazing film. APPLESAUCE is kind of a difficult movie to describe. How would you describe the film to the AICN readers?ONUR TUKEL (OT): I have difficulty describing it, as well. It's a dark comedy with elements of noir, horror, mystery, and melodrama. The basic story invokes two couples whose lives unravel after one of the them reveals the worst thing he's ever done. Throw in some body parts, paranoia, and a bunch of other weird stuff, and hopefully you've got an entertaining 90 minutes on your hands.
BUG: Why call the movie APPLESAUCE?
OT: The "apple" stands for the Big Apple, since it takes place in New York. It could also represent the fruit that Eve takes from the tree of knowledge; she bites the apple and Eden crumbles. When the characters of APPLESAUCE gain the knowledge of "the worst things they've done," it taints their relationships and disrupts their lives and minds. This idea was suggested by an English teacher during a Q&A. "Wow," I thought, "She gets it." I write unconsciously, so I'm not always aware of what I'm conjuring up, but I've always loved this take on the title. The "sauce" is the mixture of different genres, comedy, mystery, noir, etc.
APPLESAUCE is also an idiom from the early 20th century. It's like saying, “Oh shit" when you make a mistake. The characters make a lot of mistakes in APPLESAUCE, so that makes sense to me. There's also a jazz component to the movie, and I thought APPLESAUCE would make for a great jazz song, like "Salt Peanuts" or "Cheesecake." A lot of people wonder, “What's the deal with the title?" BUG: How did you go about gathering the very talented and naturalistic cast for this film?OT: This was the first time I used a casting agent and I got really lucky to connect with the great Stephanie Holbrook. She got the script to Dylan Baker and Max Casella. They liked it and were available, so that was lucky, too. I wrote the other two lead roles specifically for Jennifer Prediger and Trieste Kelly Dunn. Prediger and I had worked on a few movies together before (RICHARD’S WEDDING and RED FLAG), so I knew she'd be great. I'd known Trieste for a couple of years and really loved her in Zach Clark's VACATION and Aaron Katz's COLD WEATHER. So it all came together, but I still got really nervous going into this. Dylan Baker's a legend and Max Casella has had such a solid career spanning 25 years, but they were both so incredibly sweet. Again, I feel lucky. When you have a talented cast, the hope is to just get out of the actor's way and not do too much directing. That was the case here.
BUG: Though it's not necessarily horror, there's definitely some horrific elements to APPLESAUCE. After SUMMER OF BLOOD, were you pressured in any way to make another horror film?OT: Pressured? No. I'm an unknown writer/director making movies with tiny budgets. There's not a whole lot on the line. I can make whatever I want. There's always a bit of pressure to recoup investors' money and making low-budget genre films increases the odds, I suppose. There' a built-in fan base for this kind of movie. But I am nervous diehard horror fans might be disappointed by the lack of gore in APPLESAUCE. It's definitely twisted and horrible things happen, but it's not exactly DEAD ALIVE.
BUG: How different are you from Ron in APPLESAUCE and Erik in SUMMER OF BLOOD?
OT: Well, Erik is terrified of marriage and commitment and so am I. Ron has very pacifist views on war yet is a paranoid, reactionary asshole at times, and I can definitely be that way. I write from my own wheelhouse of emotions, so the traits of the characters in my films are my own. I try my best to be a nice guy. I try to be empathetic. Ron is the same way. He wants to be good, but it's tough for him like it's tough for me. When I'm afraid, paranoid, and troubled, I lose awareness and become a nasty, self-absorbed prick. I'm the youngest of three brothers. I think I might be spoiled to the point where I'm not capable of changing. I blame my parents. That's a joke.
BUG: In APPLESAUCE, you play a teacher desperately trying to connect with his class. Personally, I work as a therapist with troubled youth and face the same type of apathy and distance in my day to day work. While SUMMER OF BLOOD seems to be a story of an apathetic man gaining purpose, APPLESAUCE seems like a man with a heavy purpose and how that leads to apathy. In my career I've felt that cyclical push and pull with the real world between caring and just not giving a fuck. How do you manage to juggle aloofness and purpose and how do you think your work represents that?OT: Great question, Mark. My character does care deeply at the beginning of the movie. His life is somewhat idyllic. He loves his wife madly and he's passionate about teaching. He does think he's making a difference, and maybe he is. But when you're dealing with a personal crisis, the altruistic life becomes harder. It's easy to be a hero when things are going well. The real hero maintains his ideals in the face of crisis, but Ron can't do that. By the end, he's given up on his ideals because of his personal woes. He's a coward.
I think maintaining some sense of passion for anything is difficult. When you have a room of 30 students with 10 who really want to learn and 20 who don't, you start to forget about the 10 who do. I do believe in that cliché that one person can make a difference. If you can inspire one student to do great things, that student might might go and inspire a thousand just because you took the time to relate to him. Thinking about those kinds of things helps me stay positive.
At film festivals, sometimes I do Q&As with 150 people and other times there are four people in the audience. I always try to be as passionate about the Q&A regardless of the size. One of those four people could be looking for inspiration. They're probably just hanging out because they feel sorry for me. Still, you never know. If I inspire that one person, he might go make a great movie one day. I'm not trying to compare this to teaching. It's not the same as teaching, not by a long shot.But I'm constantly rationalizing the meaning of the space that I'm in. How can I feel something? How can I avoid becoming one of those cynics who feels like life has no purpose? I tell you, it's tough sometimes. When you consider that man made the atom bomb and then went and made thousands more. Someone thought this was a good idea. I was talking to an author writing a book on the subject. He said it would take about 100 nuclear bombs to destroy the world. When you think about shit like that, what can you do but shrug and say, "Okay, well...what's the point? We're all doomed." But it's important to resist this thinking. Passion rules. I think that's why AICN is important. You've built a forum here for people passionate about movies, books, and popular culture.
BUG: I've read numerous reviews comparing your style to Larry David and Louis CK. In APPLESAUCE, I definitely see more of a darker Woody Allan vibe. Do you get sick of comparisons like those?
OT: No way. I moved to New York about five years ago from my home state of North Carolina. I never dreamed I'd be living in Brooklyn in my 40s, making indie movies and getting comparisons like this. Larry David, Louis CK, Woody Allen, what a trio of brilliant, lovable assholes. If you haven't seen DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, watch it. It’s one of my favorite Woody Allen movies. It's probably his most cheerfully misanthropic. I don't know what he was going through at the time, but I wish he'd revisit that state of mind. He must have been going through hell. We even get to visit hell in the movie.What I love about Louis CK's show is that he's not desperate for the laugh. You can watch an entire episode and not laugh once, but it's almost always compelling. While watching CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, I've never once lost interest and turned off an episode. I can't say that about many shows. He's amazing.
BUG: What are some writer/director/actors who inspire you to do what you do?
OT: I'm very inspired by the filmmakers and actors that I know personally: Todd Rohal, Mike Tully, Berndt Mader, David and Nathan Zellner, Josephine Decker, Jason Banker, Jorge Torres-Torres, Joel Potrykus, Patrick Bryce, Bob Byington, Kentucker Audley, Mike Ott, Nathan Silver, Brandon Harris, Alex Karpovsky, Jennifer Prediger, Linas Phillips, Drew Tobia, Rob Hill, Zach Clark, Dustin Guy Defa, Lindsay Burge, Ariel Kavoussi, Craig Zobel, David Gordon Green. Shit, there are so many. When they make work that I love, it inspires me even more. It makes me want to make better work. They're all working on another level; I'm just happy I know them.
The writer Daniel Kraus inspires the hell out of me. He's a talented documentary filmmaker who took a break to write novels. Now, he's knocking it out of the park writing one great YA horror story after the next. When you see your friends making shit happen, it puts a fire under your ass to get to work. Books inspire me, in general. Charles Bukowski lifts me up when I'm down, inspires me to stay busy, survive, live with passion and fire, to not take myself too seriously. He also reminds me that sometimes it's important to drink and laugh, scream and cry, then shrug it off.Comics are inspiring. Charles Schulz, Jules Feiffer. Dave Cooper'sRipple is perfection. Peter Kuper's great. Craig Thompson's work is stunning. Will Eisner is still the best. I love the raw, sloppy work of Julie Doucet. The graphic novel is the marriage of literature and film. I bow down to those with the discipline and talent to pull it off successfully. Just looking at the juxtaposition of panels inspires me. German expressionism thrills me. Strong, unpretentious prose holds my attention; makes me feel like I have a soul. I read a wonderful novel a few years back called The Carriage House by Louisa Hall. It's a beautifully written story about a trio of sisters wrestling with life's disappointments. I can always relate to works about disappointment.
Non-fiction essays jostle my head and really get the ideas flowing. I recently read Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things To Me and it blew my mind. Also had my mind blown this year by Eric G. Wilson's Keep it Fake and Christy Wampole's The Other Serious. Listening to old school AC/DC always inspires me. Scarlatti. Rock n' roll bands with a female singing vocals. The Duke Spirit. The Fiery Furnaces. The Muffs. 80's horror films. Living in New York and traveling to festivals allowed me to meet so many great filmmakers that inspired me over the years: Hal Hartley, Whit Stillman and Neil Labute. Labute's book of short stories Seconds of Pleasure was so pleasurable, I read it twice.,br>
In college, of course, I learned more from watching Woody Allen movies than I did from my professors. His work ethic continues to inspire me. How's does someone direct films is their 70s? What keeps them going? I can't even see myself directing movie five years from now. It's exhausting. Artists like that are my heroes.BUG: You've acted in a few films outside of your own. SEPTIEN, by the way, was amazing. What does it take for you to decide whether or not to act in a film you didn't writer/direct yourself?
OT: Thanks, Mark. I still can't believe I'm in that brilliantly insane movie. I've been lucky that I've gotten to act in three wonderful movies that I did not write or direct - SEPTIEN by Michael Tully, RED FLAG by Alex Karpvosky, and BOOGER RED by Berndt Mader. All three directors are sweet, passionate gentlemen, incredibly intelligent, and brilliant in their willingness to take chances. Maybe a little reckless too, which I like. If you get a chance to work with people like that, you don't pass it up.
BUG: In what order do you consider yourself; actor/director/writer? Director/writer/actor? Or some other variation?
OT: Writer first. Director second. I don't really consider myself an actor. I recently held auditions in New York for a new movie and the caliber of talent that walked in that door blew me away. It humbled me. I'll never ever call myself an actor after that. After working with Max Casella, it was the same way. I don't have a skill set. You hire me as an actor you're getting a limited range of emotions. I can be happy, angry, and maybe a little smug, if that's even an emotion. If you tell me to cry, you'd have to cut an onion and shove it up my nose and I'd still suck. I can perform my own personality fairly decently if I wrote the dialogue, and I'm pretty good at improvisation. I do fancy myself a painter, though.And, man, I used to love playing guitar and writing songs. I'd love to get back to that if/when I put these filmmaking dreams to bed. Every movie I make is taxing - physically and mentally. I tell myself, “Fuck this. It's too hard. No more after this." But then the moment it's finished, I think about how I can get another one off the ground. It's addictive as hell.
BUG: What do you think of the term "mumblecore" and do you think your films fit into that subgenre?
OT: Do mumblecore filmmakers write scripts? Don't they improvise everything? If that's the case, I'm not mumblecore. Perhaps the acting in my films feel improvisational, but it's really not. Almost every word is scripted, but I give the actors license to change their dialogue to sound more natural. Mumblecore might imply a no-budget DIY aesthetic. If that's the case, then my movies RICHARD’S WEDDING and SUMMER OF BLOOD are mumblecore. In my mind, however, having a full script exempts me from the mumblecore label. Maybe I'm wrong. I do have a joke. How does a mumblecore director write an email? He doesn't. He has an actor call the person he wants to contact to say what's on his mind. I joke because I have a ton of love and respect for mumblecore. It's influenced a new generation of filmmakers. It influenced me and gave me permission to make my scrappy no-budget movies.BUG: You mention being a Turkish man numerous times in this film and while this film is not necessarily about that, it definitely comes up a few times. How does being a Turkish man influence you as a filmmaker and writer and how did it specifically factor in to the making of APPLESAUCE?
OT: It has to do with the paranoia of being of Arab decent, particularly after 9/11. I'm American, but both of my parents are Turkish, so Arab blood runs through my veins. I'm not religious, but I’m spiritual to a point because I’m an artist, but most of my friends and family in Turkey are Muslims. They're open-minded, progressive, loving and generous in spirit. I've heard my cousins talk about Jesus Christ being a worthy prophet of God and how Mohammed emulated him. Go into a shop in Turkey and you'll be greeted with a smile and a glass of hot tea, whether you're a Christian, Buddist or a member of the Bill Maher fan club.
Turkish television is littered with lame sitcoms, dramas and variety shows, just like we have here. When my character in APPLESAUCE proclaims that he's Turkish, it's a statement of protest, I suppose: a way of owning my Arab roots. I got pretty angry during the war in Iraq. I remember watching Iraq being blown apart on television years ago with the genius Jock Brandis. We watched bombs rain down on the ancient city of Badhad during the "shock and awe" mission. This was our reaction after 9/11: bombing a country that had nothing to do with it. It takes very little for a super power to invade a Middle Eastern country. It's understandable why Iran would want a nuclear weapon: to protect itself.Now, I grew up in a small Baptist town in North Carolina. I can say the same thing about my Christian friends there as my Muslism family and friends. They're loving and generous. You put the Christians and the Muslims in a room together, sharing fried chicken, borek, mashed potatoes and they're going to get along swimmingly.
BUG: New York is a prominent feature in your films. What about the city inspires you and what about it drives you nuts?
OT: There's a scene in SUMMER OF BLOOD, where my character Erik talks about being on the subway. He looks at the downtrodden faces of those riding the subway. They're crammed into the cars like cattle. He talks about touching the legs of the people sitting next to him as a gesture of solidarity, as if to say, "Hey, we're all in this together." The city is full of sadness and there's something beautiful about that. You lose your ego when you're sitting on that subway. You're part of a community of somewhat tortured souls. But in those same subways, there’s magic. Some guy is playing guitar and singing a song while you're waiting for the G train at midnight. He stops playing and the people waiting applaud. It's beautiful.
Walking on the streets at night, the city can be alive like no other place on earth. You're walking, you hold up your hand to a stranger to see if he'll slap you high-five. He does. You keep walking, pleased that someone saw you and acknowledged that you made a choice to live in this crazy city. I've done this numerous times. Sometimes you get the high-five, sometimes you don't. When you do, the heart expands.I recently shot a promotional video for APPLESAUCE. I walked around the East Village and I asked random people the question from the movie, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" I got a multitude of answers from the most diverse lot you can imagine. One guy answered, "The worst thing I ever did was give up my dreams of being a rock star." I questioned him a little bit about this and discovered, incredibly, that he was a singer that I was quite familiar with - Jeffrey Gaines. I listened to his first album over and over again in college in North Carolina 20 years ago. To this day, "Hero In Me" is still a beautiful, inspiring song. I freaked out in the middle of the interview. I couldn't believe I was talking to someone who had meant so much to me in my younger years.
That's what's so beautiful about New York. It enlivens you. Wakes you up. There are brilliant artists everywhere: Durham, Austin, Izmir, Tel Aviv. But there's something about New York that's so romantic to me.
BUG: What do you have coming up next?
OT: Next up, I’m working on a movie called CATFIGHT, starring Sandra Oh, Anne Heche and Alicia Silverstone. The script is solid. The crew is talented. The cast is off the hook. If I don't screw it up, it could be pretty cool!BUG: Last chance, is there anything else you want to tell AICN readers about APPLESAUCE?
OT: It's a timely, funny movie. Regardless of what people think of me, it's worth seeing for the performances of Trieste Kelly Dunn, Jennifer Prediger, Max Casella and Dylan Baker.
BUG: Thanks so much and congrats again for making a fantastic film.
OT: Mark, thanks for the great questions. I'm so honored to be included on AICN.
New this week on BluRay/DVD from Dark Sky Films (also available on iTunes)!APPLESAUCE (2015)
Directed by Onur TukelWritten by Onur Tukel
Starring Onur Tukel, Max Casella, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Jennifer Prediger, Dylan Baker, Karl Jacob, Kevin Scanlon, Ariel Kavoussi, Kimber Monroe, Jahmani Perry, Lisa Tharps, Bill Weeden, Zazie Beetz, Theodore Bouloukos, Emmy Harrington, Dolores McDougal, Zuri Reed, Darrill Rosen, Rachel McKay Steele
Find out more about this film here and on Facebook here
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
The cracked genius behind the mumblecore vampire masterpiece SUMMER OF BLOOD is at it again with APPLESAUCE, Onur Tukel’s entrancing blend of jet black humor and twisted life perspective. Why call this film APPLESAUCE? Why not? It’s as good a name as any and that’s the sort of apathetic, yet true to life attitude this film is steeped with.
APPLESAUCE opens with Tukel’s character Ron calling into a radio show hosted by Stevie Bricks (Dylan Baker) and getting ready to tell him what the worst thing he has ever done. Interrupted by his wife Niki (Trieste Kelly Dunn), Ron ends up talking about the subject with another couple (Les and Kate, DOOGIE HOWSER M.D.’s Max Casella and Jennifer Prediger, respectively) over dinner. This tale of shame proves to be the undoing of Ron’s carefully constructed life as once the secret is out of the box, it prompts the others in the quartet to reveal their worst secrets. With all of this dirty laundry being aired, it soon gets pretty stinky with each of them at each other’s throats and Ron starts getting body parts sent to him in the mail, buried in his takeout, and showing up in his laundry at the Laundromat.This is a film about genies that can’t be put back into a bottle once let loose. There is part of this film that is a mystery, though anyone should be able to figure out who the body part sending culprit is, but the central mystery isn’t really the focus of APPLESAUCE. It’s a story about relationships and how fragile they can be. All it takes is one misspoken word or in this case, one secret revealed, to put the whole thing into a new light. And while thematically complex, Tukel doesn’t really provide us with any easy answers. This is about the experience of seeing four fucked up people. It’s not a story steeped in fantasy or horror like Tukel’s SUMMER OF BLOOD. It’s a story steeped in reality, yet still pretty horrific. In many ways, this film reminds me of LaBute’s YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS because the four characters you are watching are pretty horrible, yet I couldn’t look away.
And the strong cast is what makes it that way. Tukel’s script is completely unpredictable. Anything can happen to these characters. They could kill. They could die. They could do warm and shockingly cold things. Every step of the way, this cast is so engrossing that you simply can’t look away from the mayhem one secret can cause. The domino effect that occurs after one dinner goes to absurd levels, but the cast delivers such great performances that I believed it all the way through.Tukel again plays the lackadaisical everyman who says what’s on his mind in a world where no one does so. This makes him somewhat of the evil villain of this story in that he is the one who tips the first domino, but still, there’s something ultimately likable about him. Like Louis CK and Larry David, he’s not afraid to get into uncomfortable and awkward arguments with complete strangers, so if CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM or LOUIS is not your cup of tea, then you probably should give this film a pass. But between SUMMER OF BLOOD and APPLESAUCE, Tukel seems to have evolved into something more akin with Woody Allen, dissecting relationships in a frank and sometimes dangerous way. APPLESAUCE will make you squirm, not because of the gore, but because of the brave truths it deals with. It will also make you laugh hysterically as Tukel and his cast are on point with quick barbs to one another and the world around them. APPLESAUSE is not a horror film, but it does deal with some very horrific things that some might not be ready to deal with, while others like me, will wallow around in the angst, apathy, and broken dreams that this film leaves in its wake. Highly recommended.
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/writer of wrongs/reviewer/interviewer/editor of AICN COMICS for over 13 years & AICN HORROR for 4. Follow Ambush Bug on the Twitters @Mark_L_Miller.
Look for our bi-weekly rambling about random horror films on Poptards and Ain’t It Cool on AICN HORROR’s CANNIBAL HORRORCAST Podcast every other Thursday!
