THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FILMWHAT LIES BELOW.
But the filmmaker was optimistic about the horror production making more of a mark after it hitNetflixlast Sunday.
“I had hope because I believe in the film,” says Duemmler.
Credit: MovieClipTrailers/YouTube
“I was hoping to get into the top 10 and just be in the conversation.
That’s all I wanted, just to see people talking about it.”
The director’s hopes were fulfilled, and then some.
MovieClipTrailers/YouTube
“It’s been wild,” says the director, speaking Friday.
“It’s just been non-stop, dealing with all these messages, all this buzz.
I’ve done so many things to keep this alive.
MovieClipTrailers/YouTube
I’ve slept in my car.
To have this film get a buzz, it was so worthwhile, it was an amazing feeling.”
Not that it’s all been good news for the director.
In the very last second of the movie the now completely submerged Liberty breaks into a smile.
“I like the conversation,” he says.
“I enjoy films that make you think.
I really love films where you go back and you see something you didn’t see.
We drop little things throughout the film.
It’s cool to see people put it together.
I saw this Reddit thread of some fan theory that is just the wildest thing I’ve ever read.
He has ideas that I wish I had thought of.”
Below, Duemmler talks more about the film and explains the ending.
I just loved it.
A lot of the crew onWhat Lies Beloware my USC film school friends.
That’s how it all got made.
Is it true that you worked on a film with Ryan Coogler at USC?Yeah.
It was a really awesome experience.
I learned a lot from Ryan as a director.
We found Ema and Trey and Haskiri (Velazquez, who plays Liberty’s friend) through audition tapes.
It’s a very sexual film.It’s funny because there’s no nudity in it, right?
So what’s going on with the end of the film?
So, yes, I would say he is a species from another planet.
I don’t want to unpack it much more than that.
We could get more into the weeds of it, if you want.
So you have the two ending scenes, one in a basement and the one in the diamond-shaped cell.
In the basement, we see several people who look like John digging women out of walls.
What’s going on there?Okay.
I saw it as John is designed by his species.
He is an exoskeleton that has been designed as a Venus flytrap.
Although the exoskeleton is the same, the algorithm changes for each one.
One of them is a scientist and kind of nerdy.
The other one is kind of a hipster.
The other one is kind of rock ‘n’ roll.
They’re collecting specimen.
They all just converge when the cops converge, because they don’t want to leave a footprint.
So is the final scene on a spaceship?Yes, it is.
It is the hull of a spaceship.
And the fact that Liberty smiles at the end?
What is one to make of that?She can breathe underwater and she realizes it.
She’s been brought for further experiments.
The blue light is the apparatus that allows things to breathe underwater.
The aliens are only interested in redheads.
Why?Yeah, it’s like a genetic anomaly.
Why does he do that?His senses are much more advanced than ours.
So, he can smell genes, in a way.
Some people have found the ending confusing.
[Laughs] We were shooting a shoestring movie here.
Have you been chatting with your cast this week?Yeah.
Trey, we’ve been on the phone just laughing about all of this.
He’s enjoying the ride.
I’ve reached out to Mena a few times and she’s doing great.
She has a little one on the way.
(On Friday, it was announced that Suvari had given birth to her first child.)
It’s been a special moment.
I talkedto Haskiri too and she was just so excited about it as well.
She’s doingSaved By the Bellnow.
I also feel like I should mention this because it’s important.
Olan Montgomery, the guy who played the store clerk, he passed away from COVID last March.
I want people to know that’s one of the last images of him in the world.
He had a whole life in front of him and now that’s gone.
I was so sad to hear he had passed away.
Do you have any ideas for a sequel?Yeah.
Also, I think that the mythology could be built out to a TV series.
I have been starting to write, let’s just to say.
Would that be your next project?I have a lot of projects right now.
I’m producing a film calledSuccubuswith Anna Elizabeth James.
She was actually number one on Netflix as well as a couple of weeks ago withDeadly Illusions.
It’s a friend’s film R.J. Daniel Hanna who’s a really super-talented writer-director.
I really love the script and I want to help him get it made.
I am going out to cast this summer with that.
And I have a bunch of other scripts.
All the log-lines are onmy website.
Watch the trailer forWhat Lies Belowabove.
