Missionary Zeal

From the surprise hit Weapons to the latest entry in The Conjuring Universe that hits theaters next week, American horror movies have, as of late, remained in thrall of the devil. While The Pamphleteer has discussed how this recent religious turn has reinvigorated the genre, we can say that even the cream of the crop stay mired in the Heaven/Hell dichotomy. But Antonio Negret wanted to explore a more nuanced religious world in his most recent film, Shaman. 

Shot on location in an Ecuadarian village at the foot of a volcano, the film follows a family of missionaries as they negotiate remaining deferential to village customs while providing humanitarian and spiritual support. But when their preteen son (Jett Klyne) becomes one with an ancient entity, parents Candace (Sara Canning) and Joel (Daniel Gillies) must overcome their spiritual and personal shortcomings to preserve all they hold dear. 

Though Shaman boasts confident effects and unrelenting dread, its greatest triumph is navigating a story about conversion and cross-cultural exchange while staying off of any soapbox. 

Negret sat down with The Pamphleteer to discuss managing audience expectations, directing native first-time actors, and crafting faith-adjacent horror that connects universally.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

#### Shaman is a movie about the conflicts that occur as a result of contact between cultures, but it doesn’t take sides. How did you maintain such three-dimensional characters when this could have easily devolved into something much simpler?

The danger comes when you’re so certain that you have all the answers, and suddenly you encounter something older than your own beliefs. That was the whole point of making this film. I wanted to make a cool, scary exorcism movie, but from multiple points of view–not only an Andean shaman. It’s about what happens when faiths clash to try and save a life.

How did the choice to cast native first-time actors affect your approach to directing?

It was really, really important to me that the film feel authentic. Obviously I’m not indigenous, but I did grow up in Ecuador. I wanted to go back to my roots and shoot in a country where I lived for all of my teenage years. 

But in order to capture the indigenous side of the film, we actually had to ask permission of more than 80 indigenous families from the Chimborazo community–not only to let us shoot on their land, but also to participate in the film. So, we invited them to be both behind and in front of the camera.

In doing that, I wanted to cast actors that really knew those customs and those beliefs. And so Humberto Morales, who plays the shaman, has an uncle who is actually a real shaman in his community. As a kid, he grew up helping him in some of these limpias, which are these kind of cleanses that he did. 

Likewise, Segundo Fuérez, who plays his right hand man, Anton, was also a consultant. He was very specific not only with the Kichwa language, but with the type of rituals and songs and dialects that were used in the film. So they brought that to the script and really helped us make sure that it felt very authentic.

It was such a cool mix because we had a lot of actors from the community that had never even been in front of a camera before, and that was really amazing. On one hand, it was kind of terrifying for both them and me, and on the other it was liberating, because they didn’t have any of the typical baggage that an actor might bring to a role. And then we surrounded them with an amazing mixture of Ecuadorian actors like Alejandro Fajardo, who plays the priest, and then American and Canadian actors who brought their history to the film as well.

When you’re working in that North and South American milieu, what does that look like for you as a director? You have to wear a lot of different hats whenever you’re trying to get the performance for an actor that's used to their own industry or has no industry experience anywhere. 

With each actor, it was a different approach. I sensed that some of them wanted space, and then I would go in and work with them, and some of them wanted me to help them get going and then move away. I certainly got to have fun with all of them, and they all did an incredible job. It was a real pleasure as a director to see the different approaches all come together in one story.

We're so used to horror movies being dark and dank, with the exception of a few films like Midsommar. What I really appreciated about your film is that you have those scenes when things get very dreary, but also these gorgeous daytime landscapes. It reminded me of a Western. How did you develop the visual language?

This is a story about characters building a wooden church when behind them there’s this active volcano. And so for me, it was really important from the get go to have this place be a character, and to capture the volcano and the cave and the wind moving through the grass, and the trees swaying by the river. It was all part of the language of the film. This place is kind of the fine line between heaven and hell. On one hand, it's a paradise, but if you walk into the wrong cave, it can turn into a hell.

Can you talk a little bit about the theme of family, both the literal definition of the term and the larger spiritual definition that the movie plays around with?

The movie is about religions and belief, but it’s also just a movie about how far a mother will go to save her son. What is she willing to sacrifice? I think family is the bar for which we would go across all lines–law and religion and history if it means you have to save someone that you love. Likewise, being betrayed by your family is perhaps the most painful of all things. There’s a little bit of that in the film as well. 

Shaman is now available for rental or purchase on all premium streaming services.