“Casting a role is like casting a spell” – Jennifer Venditti
What is it about ordinary faces in a crowd, where some are relegated to be forgotten forever, but others possess a supernatural quality that captures the imagination? Jennifer Venditti – now famous for her street casting approach to films like Euphoria, American Honey, and Uncut Gems – poses this deceptively simple question in her book Can I Ask You a Question? What is this ineffable quality that makes plucking edgy offbeat newcomers off the street – like Angus Cloud, Taliah Webster, or Hunter Schafer – a good fit for a part? Is it a ghost living inside them that entrances audiences’ attention, or is the ghost haunting the filmmaker’s mind, pleading to be summoned into the physical world?
For first-time writer/director Timothy Shea, the process of producing his bewildering debut feature film Pieces of Amywasn’t just about casting. The hunt for something intangible extended to every dimension of the film. He recalled reading over 60 actors before finding his lead, and likened it to his experience scouring junkyards for scrapped police cars, snaking through crawlspaces in abandoned buildings, and even living “undercover” in a trailer park to decode his antagonist’s descent into anonymity.
He described the process like chasing ghosts.
“Half of making an indie film is wandering around in the woods wondering what the hell your movie is about. The other half is just near death experiences, one after the other. Your friends have no idea why you’re torturing yourself, they don’t understand the script, so it’s just you out there shaking hands with auto mechanics and bartenders. I’m pretty sure I looked at every abandoned building in Kern County. I had to bleach all the mouse droppings and black widow nests out of my locations myself. Probably 20 people backed out and had to be replaced. So even as a first time director, when it came time to yell ‘action’ I was like, I’m pretty confident how I’m going to shoot this scene.”
The final product – a slow-burn, character-driven psychological horror about a young oxycontin addict who becomes possessed by her own demons – wavers between heartfelt, nerve- shredding, and totally mind-bending. Pieces of Amymasquerades as a crime thriller about two siblings frantically trying to score 30 grand to save their kidnapped mother from a gang of drug dealers. But the thriller just serves to distract Amy from the suspicion that she’s being followed by a vapourous demon that’s dragging her into an infinite dream-within-a-dream.
That the film is intended as a critique of society’s failure to rescue a generation of opioid addicts from themselves isn’t made apparent until the final jaw-dropping scene. For those juggling drug addiction, homelessness, and psychosis, their horror is literal. The ghost is their reality.
The quest to give Pieces of Amy’s ghost definition was a long road. The casting was only one hurdle. In the end, the film stands on the shoulders of its cast’s performances – Shelby Parks (Lincoln Lawyer), K.C. Wolf (Yesterday), Katherine Smith-Rodden (The Art of Self Defense), Stephon Mitchell (BMF), Gabby Thomas (Sabotaging the Squad) – who keep the audience hooked while the often frustrating and elliptical story unfolds.
The locations, beset by snowstorms before and during production, feel like characters in the film. Pine Mountain Club – as the high desert mountain hideaway – and Bodie – as the ghost town from 100 years ago, serve as unnerving liminal spaces for the cast to play in.
The actual ghost in the film – shown only in glimpses as a drifting black haze, and constructed almost entirely in post production – becomes fully realized through the sound team’s meticulous design, score, and soundtrack.
“I was lucky enough to know the Squeak E Clean sound team from a previous life. I showed them the script, I gave them some references, and then they just blew the doors off. I told them I was listening to albums like Tim Hecker’s Ravedeth, 1972 and Circuit Rider’s Photograph Attached to keep my head on straight when I was writing. And they were just like, ‘Yes!’”
“I wore the tire treads off those albums trying to understand my characters. On one hand I had this Angelo character, kind of a Vincent Gallo in Trouble Every Day, trapped in this violent 100 year possession. I was struggling with how to get into this vast, lonely headspace of someone who needs to disappear over and over. And also who are these barflies and drifters he’s forced to associate with during each transition? The music was key to striking the right tone for everything.”
The film’s tone is unapologetically dark, and although the script can be at times fun, comedic, and thrilling – it leads us to some bleak places.
“Part of the process is discovering the limits of what you’re trying to do. I’m wandering around these really desperate neighborhoods trying to ‘fit in’ and I stumbled onto this Narcotics Anonymous meeting, one of those support groups with ‘happy hour’ in the title. I’m standing in this church parking lot in the middle of nowhere, pacing back and forth. But I couldn’t get the courage to go inside. It was a line I couldn’t cross. I remember the pitbulls barking in the distance and I was like, I gotta get the hell out of here, this isn’t a thought experiment for these people. I can go back to my real life, but they can’t.”
Viewers of Pieces of Amy are likely to feel the same sense of voyeuristic dread long after the credits roll. This horrifying thrill ride they’ve been on for 100 minutes is a stark reality for many opioid addicts living on the margins of schizophrenia. Where much genre fare will gladly lean on madness or possession as a trope, something that dissipates when the lights click on, Amy is intended to scare audiences with a wake up call.
Director: Timothy Shea
Writer: Timothy Shea
Starring: Shelby Parks, K.C. Wolf, Stephon Mitchell, Gabby Thomas, Katherine Smith-Rodden
Press Kit: https://www.ninesevenentertainment.com/pieces-of-amy-feature-film-publicity