The Greasy Strangler Interview: Director Jim Hosking on a ready-made cult classic

The director spills on the Sundance favourite and why The Greasy Stranger is so much more than its gross-out concept

Michael St Michaels (right) and Sky Elobar play an eccentric father and son in Jim Hosking’s film

The peculiar has always found its home at the Sundance Film Festival, a place that's become a sort of safe house for the wilder, unexpected side of cinema.

It's here the usual Hollywood conceits can be challenged from a base of total trust from its audience; where we can become true cinematic explorers, diving into places we never could even have imagined existed.

Sundance is the kind of place where a film like The Greasy Strangler is offered the opportunity to be truly embraced, even with a premise as totally batty as this: father-and-son duo Ronnie (Michael St Michaels) and Brayden (Sky Elobar) run a disco walking tour, where they both meet Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo) and begin competing for her affections.

One problem: Ronnie has a particular affectation for grease, and finds himself drawn to lathering himself up in the stuff and embarking on murderous rampages as the one, and only, Greasy Strangler.

It all sounds a little unbelievable but - in the spirit of Sundance - The Greasy Strangler is so much more than a ludicrous gross-out tale; it's at once an odd, discomforting comedy of familial jealousy with a tinge of vulnerable humanity. It's both utterly surreal in its humour, while still opening up the wounds of human loneliness.

We spoke to The Greasy Strangler's director Jim Hosking on the process behind putting such an ambitious project to screen, and how its grotesque qualities are actually a better reflection of who we are than the curated sheen of social media.

Where did the first inkling you wanted to make The Greasy Strangler come from?

I remember having a vision of a naked man covered in some kind of porridge-like substance standing in a doorway with a leering smile and slender under-muscled arms extended in a prime strangling position.

But, more concretely, beyond that I definitely found myself wanting to write something that was absurdly self-indulgent. I had just finished a couple of more serious rigorously crafted scripts. I needed a break. I had no particular interest in grease or strangling, but I was interested in having totally arbitrary reasons for conceiving something and then writing it. The randomness of it, the experimental nature of it, they really appealed to me.

Was it always going to be focused on a father/son relationship? Was it important to have that kind of emotional anchor to it?

Very quickly it was about a father and son. I have written a few scripts with my friend Toby Harvard about fathers and sons. We wrote a short film for the ABCs Of Death 2 that was about a grandfather and a grandson driving each other to death, ultimately, in a suburban house. The madness is intensified when the emotional stakes become intense. So, yes, fathers and sons. The endless struggle. We’ve all been there. And some of us never escape. When I say we’ve all been here, I realise that this does not apply to mothers or daughters.

What was it like getting the cast onboard with the project and establishing that level of trust?

From the outset I wanted to cast unknowns and underdogs. Only people who you could believe might be in this situation, while also being open to pushing themselves above and beyond the call of duty. One review said that the costume department gradually gave up wardrobing the characters as the film went on. There is significant nudity. There were no trailers or limousines. And most of the cast receive a greasy strangling. So, I had to find a cast who would do this for the love, and who were prepared to put all of themselves out there. I was very open about this.

It's cool to see both Elijah Wood and Ben Wheatley's involvement with their production companies - how did that come about?

I was already working with Andy Starke on developing a couple of projects. Andy produces for Ben Wheatley, they run a film company called Rook Films. Andy read the script, he wanted to make it. He shared it with some other producers, some of who I knew, and they all jumped on it. I think the title may have convinced people to read it. And then you know very quickly if you’re into it or not. I would say within the first paragraph.

What I love about The Greasy Stranger is that - for a movie about such a grotesque subject - the cinematography has such a refined, almost elegant quality to it. What was your thinking behind the look of the film?

I wanted to make a funny, sad and beautiful film. I never thought about anything being grotesque. I saw beauty in bleak locations, characters that normally inhabit the background in life, and I was very inspired by other filmmakers who I suppose have felt the same. I am drawn to films that resonate with me emotionally. That’s true with The Greasy Strangler. I see comedy in it. But also humanity, heart and sadness. I have no interest in simple provocation. I want to create a fusion of familiar sensations that, when combined in specific quantities together, create a heady intoxicating aroma that you cannot help snorting deep within yourself!

It's also a great example of how to navigate that line in B-movie cinema of what's enjoyably bad taste, and what's plain bad. It feels like wizardry to me - what for you makes the difference?

I’m constantly surprised by bad taste in films. I don’t see this film as bad taste. Sincerely I don’t. I think it’s fun, it’s relatable. It’s the opposite of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the curated lifestyle. It’s earthy and smelly. I think that’s why it resonates. I am fascinated by how people try to appear so clean and sophisticated in polite society. But we are all animals. We are all dirty. We have to excrete and reproduce. It’s not elegant.

The Greasy Strangler deals with some truth about how a lot of people look, talk, behave. It holds a mirror up to our base animal side. It’s not bad taste. It’s real. It’s liberating. The dialogue is imaginative, the film is crafted. I’m proud of the good taste I’ve exhibited!

Lastly, I'm fascinated by the variety of all-knitted outfits in this movie. Where did you get the idea for them?

I wanted the film to be fun, innocent in a way, childlike. I wanted the clothes to be rather like children’s clothes I suppose, like uniforms. I was looking at old doll’s clothes, old photographs of Russian men relaxing, we sourced some old fabrics, and we made the clothes especially for the characters. They had to be out of step with the modern world and everybody else. They talk in a special way, they have special hobbies, the clothes had to be special too.

The Greasy Strangler will be in cinemas from 7 October and available to own from 10 October, fresh from a preview at Empire Live with a Q&A with director Jim Hosking.

You can find out about future screenings and Q&As here.