Interview with Francis Galluppi

Last week, I covered The Last Stop in Yuma County here on Blueprint: Review. I absolutely loved it and it immediately had me excited to sit down and chat to the film’s writer-editor-director Francis Galluppi. In our conversation, we chatted about the production of the film, physical media releases and what to look forward to in the future from him. Below is a condensed transcript of the interview, along with a raw video interview linked at the end for those interested. The video quality isn’t the best, but for those who’d prefer to see that, I’ll leave it there as an option.

Congratulations on Yuma County. I loved it, I thought it was absolutely brilliant and I actually ended up watching it twice last week, with friends. I wanted to see their reaction to specific sequences and reveals in the film as there’s some pretty ‘holy shit!’ moments. Was it your intention to create a film that could be viewed multiple times, where each time you could notice additional details that enhance rewatches? 

Yeah, I tend to run into this problem where I’m like, I trust the audience so let’s make it subtle, let’s not spoon feed it. So it’s somewhat intentional when the second time they’re watching it, it’ll make sense or they’ll clock things. One specifically was the fuel truck at the beginning. The intent there was to always be like, it’s the bomb under the table. We want to show the audience something that the characters don’t know. The fuel truck is never coming and it’s really fun. I’ve watched the film with some people and they go “Oh, shit, that’s the fuel truck. It’s not coming!” They know the entire time, and most times, when it’s revealed at the end, they clock the beginning and they’re like “Oh, that was the fuel truck in the beginning” so those kind of things are fun.

I can say from a viewer’s perspective, both times I watched it with friends, they clocked it in the last five to ten minutes and went “oh!” It didn’t fully click for me on my first watch and I thought “Wow, these are some gorgeous opening credits” but on the second time, you’re like “It’s doomed, nothing’s going to go right here. Everybody’s waiting for something that’s never going to come” and I think it really transformed the film on a rewatch for me.

Thanks, man! I always have Hitchcock’s bomb under the table theory in the back of my head. The theory is, if you’re watching two characters sit across from each other at a table and a bomb goes off, where’s the tension there? But if you show the audience the bomb under the table, then all of a sudden, the scene is recontextualized. 

Absolutely! What were some of the directors that influenced the film? I could feel a lot of Hitchcock, particularly Rope. 

Rope is so intentional. Charlie and Gavin, their nametags are the last names of the characters in Rope. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually said that but I fucking love Rope. And it’s so weird, because he doesn’t love that movie. He always said he fucked up by trying to make it a big oner, like the power of the edit is so important and I’m like “No, it works so well, man!”

It was one of the first films I watched during the pandemic and it’ll always have a strong memory for me. I don’t think I watched anything else that lived up to the high of Rope! What other films and directors would you say influenced Yuma County?

Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegal, a lot of those gritty crime thrillers. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Charlie Varrick was a big one. Definitely stuff like that. When I first was like “I want to be a filmmaker!” I watched all of Hitchcock’s movies and studied them. I think his approach is always in the back of my head, how to create tension and suspense. So, always Hitchcock.

That’s the best answer anybody could hope for. He’s the master for a reason, I can’t describe the amount of times I’ve watched Psycho. 

Dude, I’m seeing Vertigo tonight in 70mm for the thousandth time! 

That sounds amazing. I caught Brief Encounter on the big screen for the first time yesterday and fell in love with it. I always love catching classics on the big screen if I can. 

That one’s a masterpiece, for sure. 

Before you were a filmmaker, you were in a series of punk bands. What was the process like transitioning from music to filmmaking?

I was always more obsessed with movies than I was with music. Even when I was in bands, touring, that’s all I talked about. I was always in the van with headphones on, watching movies. It wasn’t until I broke my wrists and I couldn’t play drums for six months that I picked up a camera, made a short film around the house with just my wife and I. Didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, on the weekends, I’d be like “Hey, Rach, can you stand over here?” I put this thing together and finished it, and it was bad but I was like, I really love this. I made it a goal that I was going to watch three movies a day, study movies and I watched all of these how-to’s on YouTube like FilmRiot and stuff like that, just learning little tricks and shit. Also, saying yes to every opportunity like “I’ll do sound! I’ll be a gaffer, I’ll be a grip, I’ll be an AC!” I was writing short films based on locations that I had access to. I wrote a short film called High Desert Hell that I wrote based on my friend Scott’s grandparent’s desert house. I went there, took pictures and got my bandmates and friends together and was like “You’re going to be a grip! You’re going to be an AC!” We all went there, showed up and figured it out. You learn so much spending three days on set, I think so much more than film school. When you go out and actually fucking do it. Having to actually learn everything yourself in post because we had $200 to do it. I had to learn how to edit, do VFX, sound design, ADR and all this stuff. For me, it was really just getting up there and doing it. I think it’s really important to watch movies. Watch all movies. Don’t just be like “I like horror”, watch fucking everything. 

That’s the best way to approach it, finding out what works and what doesn’t. So many things can end up influencing you, you can discover so many incredible filmmakers from popping a film on one day that you might not have even had knowledge about beforehand.

100%. Some movies, some moments, some scenes will go into your subconscious and live there and you don’t even know what you’re pulling from when you’re writing. You create this memory bank of scenes and moments. You’re like “Why do I feel a certain way when you’re watching Brief Encounter?” and you go back and rewatch that scene and you’re like “Okay, this is what the camera is doing and you can break that down. There’s no rules, who’s to say “if you want to establish power, you do a low angle shot” like, sometimes, you can break that rule and it works. The more movies you watch, the more those ideas shine through and you have this memory bank of movies and moments!

I checked out the Arrow Video Blu-ray release for Last Stop in Yuma County. On your interview, you mentioned that you considered a film school in itself is home media releases, DVD, Blu-ray, etc. What are some of your holy grails? 

That is a tough question, man, because I have so many fucking Blu-rays. 

Me too, I can’t stop collecting!

I’m trying to think of some of my favourite sets and it’s so tough right now. Just recently, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, I was really excited for that release from Criterion. It had the 50th anniversary cut on there. I was stoked on Peeping Tom. Bound, I really, really love Bound. Really glad that it got a Criterion release. I was so happy with what Arrow did, they were fucking incredible. I got to be so hands on with that release. I pitched the idea of the booklet looking like an old pulp novel and they did it, it was really cool. We got to utilize Nicholas Moegly’s art and Eric Adrian Lee’s, all my favourite key art for the movie. They’re awesome!

I’m glad to hear you’re such a supporter of physical media. These days, so many films can go straight to streaming and it’s so nice to have a physical copy with audio commentaries, interviews, preserving the film forever.

For sure. Every time I watch a film that’s streaming, like Rebel Ridge, one of my favourite movies last year, I wanted more, you know? I’d go to YouTube, like “Is there any BTS? Any interviews?” When I love a movie, I want to own it. 

Thank you for supporting physical media, as a film fan! 

Of course, man, I love it. I have four physical copies of Last Stop now and it makes me so happy. We have a German release, an Australian release from Umbrella, the US release and the Arrow release. It’s all so cool to hold and be like “Oh my God”

How does it feel to have a film out there? You’ve got a feature film out there that thousands of people have seen. 

It’s pretty surreal, man. It was so many years of my life trying to get this film made and off the ground. For me, I wasn’t thinking about this side of it. I wanted to go out and make a movie with my friends, this thing in my mind that I’ve said “I am going to make” and I was ready to die on a hill to fucking make it. There’s always a world where even if you make something good, nobody gives a shit. I’ve been doing art my whole life and I knew that and was prepared for that. There was a point, with this movie, where I had a cut and it wasn’t getting into festivals and I was like “Shit. I don’t know what to do.” To see the audience that was receptive to it, it’s incredible, man. I would have never imagined that Last Stop would have got me where I’m at today, or had a physical media release, that stuff is so fucking cool, man. I constantly have to remind myself of that, it’s pretty surreal. 

I’m really glad that Arrow brought it over here to the UK with this release. I’m so happy everyone over here is finally going to discover it. I’m recommending to everybody I possibly can. 

Thank you, man. 

Of course, it means I get to rewatch the film with more people!

Now I need to go to the UK and do a Q&A there. I heard it played at the Prince Charles Cinema.

I’ve never been but I’ve had friends who have and they’ve said it’s the pinnacle of UK cinemas so it played at the prestigious UK cinema.

That’s so weird and cool!

What was your reaction to landing so many amazing character actors for the film? When I first heard about Last Stop, the thing that sold me was ‘Jim Cummings is in this!’ I’m a huge fan of Thunder Road, Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Beta Test and that casting was all I knew going in. When I finally sat down to watch, I was like “Holy shit, Richard Brake’s in this?”

I had all of these people in mind when I was writing the script. I was obviously a huge fan of Jim, a huge fan of Rich. I saw Sierra (McCormick) in The Vast of Night and Nick in I Care a Lot. I saw Jocelin (Donahue) in House of the Devil. This was my dream cast. Not to get too deep into it, but there was a version of this movie in 2020. Rich was the first person I sent it to, because we had a loose connection and he read it, called me and was like “I’m down to do it.” This version of the movie was $50,000 to $100,000. Micro, micro budget but he was still fucking down. He’s the loveliest dude ever. He just wanted to do it because he liked the script. Then there was a whole thing where I was dumb and auctioned the script to a company and they were like “We’re going to make this movie for $6 million!” They tried to get all of these big names and it wasn’t happening. Names that I didn’t even see fit for the movie but I had my hands tied, so as soon as the option expired, I pulled it. My casting director, I wrote all these letters and asked him, do whatever you need to do to get these letters to all of these people and he did. It was really insane how it all happened so fast. It was two years of “no, no, no, no”, a million no’s and then once I went to the cast that I wanted, these character actors, these indie darlings that I had in mind when I wrote the script, we got really lucky. Everybody said yes and it was fucking nuts. Rich was the first and then Jim, Jocelin, Sierra. This is literally my dream cast. I’m such a fan of all these actors and we’ve all stayed very close. It’s so cool, man. I mean, years before this, I was standing in line to get Joselyn’s autograph at a House of the Devil screening. It’s pretty surreal. 

Congratulations on landing everyone. I couldn’t imagine this film with anybody else in it. Everybody embodies the character they’re playing. When I was watching the film with an American friend over call, he mentioned how you nailed the ‘diner in the middle of nowhere’ atmosphere. How did the concept for setting the film in a diner arise? 

I wrote the script based on the location, so I was scouting around and found Four Aces. I thought “this place is really cool” and took a bunch of pictures and started writing the script specifically for that location. In hindsight, I think it was from touring in bands and popping by these roadside diners. There was always that sense of walking into a diner when you’re in a punk band, and there’s all these locals, you’re like “What am I walking into here?” I’m so neurotic, you know? I’m like “What does everybody else know that I don’t know?” Part of me thinks it stems from situations like that but really, it was the location. 

I understand it’s still early days yet and if you can’t say anything, I understand but Evil Dead! How’s that looking so far? Will that be your next feature or do you have something else coming beforehand?

So Evil Dead’s definitely the next thing and then I’m doing a western that I wrote with this company Bosque Ranch, Taylor Sheridan’s company. So we’re doing that after Evil Dead. I’m sorry, I wish we could talk about Evil Dead but there’s nothing yet. All I can say is that it was the movie that inspired me to go out into the middle of nowhere and make stuff with my friends. Making High Desert Hell, my first short which I don’t recommend watching, we took a picture. Me, my friends Matt and Scott, and we tried to replicate this old photo of Bruce (Campbell), Sam (Raimi) and Rob (Tapert). It was such a huge influence on me. 

I can’t wait to see your next film, or next films, I should say! I’m a fan so I can’t wait to see whatever you do next. 

Thank you, dude! 

The Last Stop in Yuma County is available on Limited Edition Blu-ray via Arrow Video, as well as all digital storefronts.

Where to watch The Last Stop in Yuma County