[Interview] Daniel Stamm for PREY FOR THE DEVIL

In director Daniel Stamm‘s latest film, PREY FOR THE DEVIL, Sister Ann (Jacqueline Byers) believes she is answering a calling to be the first female exorcist… but who or what called her? In response to a global rise in demonic possessions, Ann seeks out a place at an exorcism school reopened by the Catholic Church. Until now these schools have only trained priests in the Rite of Exorcism – but a professor (Colin Salmon) recognizes Sister Ann’s gifts and agrees to train her.

Thrust onto the spiritual frontline with fellow student Father Dante (Christan Navarro), Sister Ann finds herself in a battle for the soul of a young girl, who Sister Ann believes is possessed by the same demon that tormented her own mother years ago. Determined to root out the evil, Ann soon realizes the Devil has her right where he wants her.

For the release of PREY FOR THE DEVIL, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew chatted with director Daniel Stamm. During their chat, they discussed everything from the director returning to the exorcist sub-genre to the revelation of portraying a female exorcist, and wrapping up with how much Jacqueline Byers brought to the table.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Daniel. You are no stranger to the horror genre having directed such films as Into the Dark: Down, 13 Sins, and The Last Exorcism. With that said, having already done an exorcism movie, why do another one?

Daniel Stamm: That is a good question. I always said after The Last Exorcism, I felt like I’ve put everything I had to say about exorcisms into that movie. My agents wouldn’t even send me exorcism scripts anymore. Then, 12 years later PREY FOR THE DEVIL arrives and I’m like, this must be a mistake, right? This is an exorcism movie. And they said, yeah, but you should read this one. This is different. When I did read it, I could tell why. When you’re a storyteller what you always look for in material is sources of conflict, you know?

What this one does, obviously, is that it puts a female protagonist in there. She is the exorcist. What that does is it suddenly opens up your sources of conflict from one, which is a priest against a demon, into a multitude because now you suddenly have the woman that is challenging the status quo of the patriarchy. She’s more dangerous to the Church than any demon, than any devil. The church would much rather have a lot of demons in the world than one female exorcist. And that was really exciting to me, and it just let me do something completely different.

What’s so different about PREY FOR THE DEVIL as opposed to The Last Exorcism is that in The Last Exorcism the question was is this girl crazy or is she possessed? It takes you 90 minutes to get the answer to that. So we could never do anything that actually was supernatural. We could never have her levitate or do whatever. There was always a limit.

PREY FOR THE DEVIL does the opposite thing, that in minute one they’re saying to the audience, let’s just skip the 45 minutes where you’re supposed to wonder whether this is real possession or not. This is a real possession. Let’s go. That frees up so much more time for great set pieces and you don’t have to sacrifice character development and story for the set pieces. Normally, it’s one or the other in a shorter amount of time, and here we could do both, which I was excited about.

In order for this film to work, we really needed to be invested in our main character, Sister Ann. Luckily, Jacqueline Byers is superb as our protagonist and really carried the film from start to finish. Can you talk about bringing her on for this role?

Daniel Stamm: The lead actor obviously is the biggest ally to any director at any time because it’s such a personal choice. You want to cast your own lead. In this case, I wasn’t the first director who was on the project. I came in to replace a director who quit one week before pre-production started. They sent me Jackie’s casting tape with the line… I’ll never forget, “Here’s an actress. We would love it if you loved her.” [Laughs] But me, with my director ego, I’m like, I haven’t even seen the tape. I already don’t like her. Thank you very much. I will find my own actress [Laughs].

Then I’m pressing play on the tape and she is incredible. She is stunning. She gave me this range that was exactly what you need for the movie, which is so hard, which is a vulnerability and authenticity but also a kickass-ness that she can generate not out of [the idea that] I am brave so I’m not scared and I’m a superhero, but out of I am terrified and I’m doing this anyways. She did that whole thing [on the tape] within two minutes. I had tears running down my face when that was over. I was like, I would have a real ego problem if we went with anyone else just because I need to cast my own actress [Laughs].

I’ve never regretted it for a moment. I could not have asked for a more talented [actor]. She can do anything. And what often comes with that amount of talent is that there is an egolessness to them. The difficult actors are the ones where the range is kind of limited. They know it and they are scared if you are asking something of them that they feel could be outside of their range. Jackie could grow if I asked her to. She would [try to] grow more ears and more noses and do the whole thing upside down in Hebrew, [if asked]. She would find a way to do it and because of that, she is absolutely unafraid.

She exudes a warmth that transforms the entire set. The entire cast suddenly relaxes and goes, ‘Oh, our lead is relaxed and has fun.’ She became this mother figure for Posy Taylor, our nine-year-old actress. Jackie performed more jobs than just being a brilliant lead actress. She is incredible that woman.

Still from PREY FOR THE DEVIL | Lionsgate

On a visual level, I loved the mixture of modern design with the archaic look of the Church. What was the process like in bringing that to life?

Daniel Stamm: Our screenwriter, Robert Zappia, is a practicing Catholic, which was very different for me. In a lot of scripts, there’s not a single believer involved. In The Last Exorcism, there wasn’t a single person who [believed]. So this time, you feel that there is a certain reverence, a certain respect that usually you don’t have. It’s so easy to say, ‘Oh, the Church is stuck in the Middle Ages and that’s it.’ Zappia sat down with a Deacon who put him in touch with an exorcist and they had dinner.

Much of this stuff, everything that’s in the movie is true. All the facts. We live in the high time of exorcism and possession today more than in the Middle Ages. So what we wanted to convey with the visuals and the feeling was that this is a battle that is eternal and has been raging for millennia.

But, at the same time, the Church isn’t stupid. Of course, they’re using technology. It’s a fact that the character that Virginia Madsen is playing, Dr. Peters, the atheist psychologist that the Church employs, that is a real thing. They are checking every potential victim left and right and through all these tests to make sure this is not a mental thing. Only then will they green light an exorcism. They are very much of the now.

Colin Salmon’s character, Father Quinn, was very much supposed to be kind of this character between the two eras. On the one hand, he is representing the old traditional Church and, on the other hand, he understands that a new era has begun and that you probably shouldn’t keep women that are so obviously, in Sister Ann’s case, more attuned to what’s going on, have a personal history with the demon that they’re fighting. That is worth more than having priests scream the same Bible verses at the demon no matter what the demon is. That was important to us, that we have a female protagonist.

That’s such a buzzword, you know, a strong female protagonist/feminist icon blah, blah, blah. So we were like, what does that mean? How do we earn that label? What was important to us is that we didn’t just switch a female protagonist for a male protagonist. Her being female came with a different approach where she said, ‘Okay, you priests, you have loved yourself in the position of being the knight and shining armor and battling the demon. How about we don’t make this about us? We are not the protagonist in this story. How about we make this about the victim battling for their humanity, for their soul? And we are in a kind of almost therapeutic coach position and we try to help them through this, you know? She came in with a whole different approach.

My favorite line in the movie is when Father Quinn says, “The rite has been handed down for millennia as the word of God and you have notes?” Sister Ann’s basically performing a blasphemous act in that she says, ‘I don’t need you, male priest. I won’t even talk to the demon himself, and I don’t need God’s word.’ There’s a shot in there where she keeps the Bible closed because she is, at that moment, confident enough that her own words and her own connection with the female victim will be more effective than holding God’s hand. She’s basically letting go of all the male support figures, which to me makes her such a badass character. It’s so interwoven into the DNA of the movie that you couldn’t tell this movie with a male protagonist.

You’ve kind of touched upon this throughout the whole interview but what do you find most exciting about this film that you think horror fans will love?

Daniel Stamm: It’s the performances. I’m so proud of everybody’s performance. I think Jackie’s performance is a revelation. To the tiniest character, I am so proud of every single frame. I would not change a single frame about any performance in this movie. Hopefully, we didn’t fall into the trap of, oh, the protagonist in a horror movie is the scare. Because it’s not. The scares only work if you care about the characters. So that’s what we were hoping to achieve. And if we did, I’m really proud of it.

PREY FOR THE DEVIL is now in theaters.

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Shannon McGrew

Founder/Co-Owner at Nightmarish Conjurings

Shannon is the Founder of Nightmarish Conjurings and a lover of all things horror and haunt related. When she's not obsessively collecting all things "Trick 'R Treat" related, or trying to convince everyone that "Hereditary" is one of the greatest horror films ever made, you can find her designing interiors for commercial restaurants. An avid haunt fan, Shannon spends the entire year visiting haunts and immersive experiences throughout the Southern California area and hopes to one day design her own haunted attraction.

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