To Hell and Gone

"To Hell and Gone" didn't start life as a passion project; it wasn't a story I had been mulling over for years and years and now it was finally ready. It was born out of a simple desire to create something based on what I had available - a process I call "reverse-producing".

It's when you know you've got access to a bunch of cool locations so you write the perfect story to use all of them. You see a cool sewer pipe or rusty car in the forest preserve, and the inspirado hits without you even asking for it. This is exactly how I had made all of my earlier work, from shorts to features, and this is exactly how "To Hell and Gone" went down.

In June of 2015 I was on vacation with my best pal/future producing partner Carr Cavender. We were in northern Michigan, where his family has a lovely cottage and a sailboat called the "Crackerjack". All the while I couldn't help but detect something I hadn't felt in the seven years since I last made a feature film: creative juice. The old reverse-producing bug had bitten again. I told Carr we should write a feature for all these cool Michigan locations. He agreed, so I developed an idea for a kidnap thriller set aboard a sailboat - a la George Miller's "Dead Calm" - and showed it to him. He said, "You know, my parents also have a ranch and some property in the middle of nowhere Arizona. Go check that out instead. We could do whatever we want". After the initial sting of abandoning an otherwise solid concept passed, I flew out and saw what he meant: it was the largest playground imaginable upon which to create a story. There were mountains, mines and canyons, cattle and horses, beautifully aged old ranch houses and trailers, and a reflective chrome Cessna 182 plane.

Naturally it should be a western of some sort, but what kind of western? And most importantly what would the story be?

This was the fun part - when personal taste and artistic vision were all that mattered and all that could limit you. I've long believed a film doesn't need to be "deep" or filled with backstory in order to work... all you need is an engaging story. So right off the bat I knew it was going to be a genre film, something fun and nimble. I’ve always been inspired by the films and filmmakers of the 1970s, so I knew I wanted it to feel throwback and retro - no cell phones in this movie! Real-time films such as “Children of Men” or “Apocalypto” have always intrigued me, so I knew a good starting point was to have it take place in only a few hours. The last ingredient of “To Hell and Gone” DNA actually came from a childhood game I would play - I’d hide in the closet and just LISTEN to my family in the house, pretending I was an interloper who wasn’t supposed to be there. What would they do if they found me? This imaginary game informed the way “To Hell and Gone” would be shot, and what was special about the protagonist of our movie.

So I set out to make a fun, engaging, rollercoaster ride of a popcorn flick that contains the elements of spaghetti westerns that people have enjoyed for decades.