Of late, there’s been a well-trodden line of comedic filmmakers turning their hand to horror and proving remarkably good at making audiences squirm. You only need look at the likes of Jordan Peele or Curry Barker: the instincts that make a joke land — impeccable timing, misdirection, and a sharp eye for awkward human behavior — are precisely the same arsenal of tools needed to pull off a great scare or make a conversation feel excruciatingly anxiety-inducing.
Writer-director Alex Goyette is the latest creator to make that leap.
After years of sharpening his skills on online comedy and parodies, Goyette makes his feature film debut with Breeder – a shuddersome satire inspired by a bizarre, real-life interaction that stayed with him long after the fact (something he shares in our video interview below).
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The film chronicles how Russell (Daniel Doheny), a broke and idealistic student desperate to keep his academic research afloat, accepts an invitation to a remote ranch owned by Patti (Dot-Marie Jones), a wealthy, eccentric poodle breeder offering to fund his work. But her cozy rural charm soon curdles into something far more sinister: a creepy, calculated system where human beings are judged, categorized, and kept in line based strictly on their genetic traits.
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To mark the film’s release in theaters today, CinemaChords sat down with Goyette alongside leads Jones and Doheny to dissect the movie’s troublingly timely themes, its swipe at eugenics, and why the horrors of everyday humiliation often cut far deeper than outright visceral violence and gore.