'The Deliverance' Director Lee Daniels On Tackling The Horror Genre

hey there I'm Mary Beth mcandrew from dreed Central how are you hey Miss Mary Beth I'm good how you doing so good so nice to meet you congratulations on the Deliverance your first like fullon horror movie how does it feel to have become a horror film director I don't know is a horror I I don't know I call it my faith-based Thriller okay okay cool I guess there some Horror in it yeah I mean just I mean it's demon so is hard it's hard to categorize the film yeah so as a horror person I just call everything horror but horror is such a cool label like I feel like it's so flexible but let me ask you something when you when people when people say horror do you think they're going to think that with horror I think jump scare jump scare jump scare from the beginning where this was sort of a a drama about this sort of biracial girl with this white mother and these black kids and like the complications of what family is about and then I trick you into the once you're invested into them later on I don't know I don't know but I love that though because I think something that I love about this movie is and I'm sure you know this like possession horror movies like The Exorcist you know everything it's so it's very white it's very much about faith through a very white lens and then having this film dealing with so many different issues but also and I know in the Press know it's talking about actually putting a possession wh in the black church it's really awesome to have a not like very typical perspective we see in that so I wanted to hear more from you about making this movie and addressing the horror of it but also making sure to say something a little bit different than just your typical like scary demon movie right I didn't realize that there weren't any black horror films that's I didn't think that coming going into it I just wanted to tell you know the story of of of possession uh and uh and then I think right before I started shooting I realized that there wasn't anything that I could refer to uh yeah which was really crazy I mean there are a couple of uh black exploitation films in the uh in 70s uh but nothing that's grounded it's nothing that uh that I could take really really serious yeah and so I was um I'm curious about your experience with the genre personally like do you like movies that are scary thrillers horor like is that something that you find yourself ever gravitating to as a viewer uh yes there is a uh film called don't look at it or whatever don't look up don't look now don't look now now okay now to me that's horror that's straight up crazy horror that I'm obsessed with the donaldland movie in Italy say what is the Donald Southerland movie in Italy right no not that one not not that one remember the two the two uh the two brothers from Australia that uh oh don't talk to me don't talk talk is it what it's called yeah talk to me talk to me baby whoa okay to me that's straight up Horror in your face to this is not that I don't think this is this is certainly not that this is you know and this is certainly not um get out where it's more of a you know a statement about you know a commic statement on it on the times that we're living in yeah this is more of a tribute to The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby and The Omen sort of classic old school uh I guess horror but it's not horror it's it's yeah Fai threr hard to put a label on it yeah and um I would also like this is based inspired by a true story can you inspir by not based I know that it was inspired by and I wanted to just hear a little bit more about using that real story as kind of an inspiration and then crafting this out of that like right and trying to be delicate with that well I wanted to tell her story but I I really do feel that if you um if you um that's okay Sor no worries we got to cough um I uh wanted to tell her story but I do believe that if you like my mom didn't want me to tell the story when it came uh when I first got it because she feels that them Spirits she knows I'm an open portal and she knows how I direct and she was afraid that that kind of stuff would hit me and so uh what I did was I um I decided that it was better to sort of tell it as a um tell it as a uh tell it years later but I got it when it was I'm sorry thrown off for a second I got this story when it was um when I did precious they came at me with the story and I was going to tell it but my mom didn't want me to my mom didn't want me to do it uh and um because she felt that I was going to be um that that evil spirits were going to come and so I decided uh that since we're in dark times right now that it was now the time to tell it years later that it was now the time to tell it and um and that we need to find a higher we need to find a higher power well thank you so much for chatting with me about the deliverance and talking about genre and weird labels and all that stff I really appreciate it thank you so much thank you