In this exclusive interview, MATT GLASS, JORDAN WAYNE LONG, and TARA PERRY talk about filmmaking from the ground up and their collaboration in bringing GHOSTS OF THE OZARKS to life on screen.
Already well familiar with this incredible filmmaking team thanks to their last feature, 12 Hour Shift, directors Matt Glass and Jordan Wayne Long work with a script by Long, Sean Anthony Davis, and Tara Perry and take their 2016 short film and expand it to feature-length for an interesting socio-political character study with a Southern supernatural ghost story bent in a post-Civil War Ozark Mountains community. Calling on his own life experience growing up in the Ozarks, Jordan Wayne Long grew up in a town where a group of vigilante robbers had run rampant in the 1800’s, eventually topping membership of over 5000 people. As a kid, Jordan was haunted by the tales believing the vigilantes to be right outside his door. Now as a filmmaker, he knew this was a story he wanted to draw from and tell it from the perspective of a newcomer who stumbles into a similar town in 1866.
With Thomas Hobson taking the lead as young James “Doc” McCune, we are drawn into this walled community with its own social and political hierarchy where everyone must be purposeful and useful. On questioning the wall with a locked gate and a 24/7 guard, the town leader, James’ Uncle Matthew McCune (deliciously played by Phil Morris), warns that it’s for safety as there is something in the woods that haunts and kills, something shrouded in red smoke, something terrifying that James already experienced. But as we meet the residents of the town, it becomes obvious there is more at play here than a fear of red smoke in the mountains and whatever entity it cloaks.
In addition to Hobson and Morris, GHOSTS OF THE OZARKS boasts a cast that includes Tara Perry, Tim Blake Nelson, David Arquette, Angela Bettis, Joseph Rudd and more. Interesting is that this 1866 story has a Black man as the town’s leader, a Black doctor with James, and a strong-willed survivalist woman named Annie who lives outside the town barriers.
Shot during the pandemic, the script was actually adjusted to accommodate mandatory safety protocols, including masking and social distancing. Production design is exemplary, most notably the construction of the entire town which was built in an old Federal complex in Trumann, Arkansas with every building, the outer wall, walkways, all built by Jordan Long aided in large part by his master carpenter father. Pre-production began more than a year before filming as not only was the town built, but all of the foliage and grasses immediately surrounding it were planted specifically for this film and required certain height and growth for story purposes.
Matt, Jordan, and Tara discuss it all and more as we dig into history and mythology and the making of GHOSTS OF THE OZARKS.
TAKE A LISTEN. . .
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 01/25/2022
