By Nell Geraets
Steve Boyle has spent more than 30 years bringing all sorts of terrifying monsters to life. Zombies, goblins, ghosts and orcs, to name a few. But his most recent creature horrifies in a way none have before. It’s loosely inspired by his own family complexities.
This monster lies at the heart of The Demon Disorder, a grisly body-horror that marks the special effects expert’s directorial debut. It follows three estranged brothers as they reunite to protect the youngest (Charles Cottier), who has been possessed by their dead father (John Noble). Loss, grief, betrayal and illness are central elements of the film.
Special effects artist Steve Boyle in his workshop in Brisbane.Credit: Glenn Hunt
“Every family has its trauma,” Boyle says. “My father in real life has dementia, so I wanted to make the creature represent that. It’s all about losing yourself to something that you can’t control, and always wondering if it will come back, if you’re ever truly rid of it.”
The 48-year-old Queenslander has been experimenting with plasticine and sculpting tools for as long as he can remember, crafting monsters out of anything within his grasp.
“My sister showed me An American Werewolf in London when I was very young, and my brain just snapped. Suddenly, [special effects] were all I could think about,” he says. “It has always been an irrational passion.”
This passion ultimately led him to Hollywood, where he designed creatures for films such as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, eventually establishing his own company, Formation Effects.
Until now, Boyle has stayed securely in the lane of make-up and special effects, creating monsters based on someone else’s vision. But his own story had long been percolating, and by 2023, he finally felt ready to hop into the driver’s seat.
Pulling inspiration from filmmaking masterminds John Carpenter, David Cronenberg and Wes Craven, The Demon Disorder is filled with gruesome practical effects, including a bloody, almost sentient tongue that slides around a room and a grotesque blinking eye protruding from a man’s chest.
But it’s the main monster – the oozing, groaning, slobbering embodiment of his own family complexities – that sends shivers down the spine. The film wasn’t designed to be a “scary horror”, Boyle notes, rather an extremely dark drama. But every scene still manages to become a different kind of visceral hellscape. It was made by a master of monsters, after all.
The practical elements were always guaranteed to work given Boyle’s three decades in the business. However, having to direct at the same time opened a new can of worms. Though Boyle was blessed with homegrown talent such as Noble (The Lord of the Rings), Dirk Hunter and Christian Willis, all of whom successfully played off each other’s energy and improvised scenes (particularly comedic moments in which the brotherly banter between Hunter and Willis shone), it was the first time he was responsible for wrangling cast and crew.
Steve Boyle (centre, bottom) has brought creatures to life for movies like The Portable Door and Winchester, but now he’s taking up the scariest post of all: directing.
“I felt challenged by different actors who have different styles of working,” Boyle says. “Some need to rehearse and be really regimented. Others need to be chaotic and improvise. How do you direct a scene of those two together?”
However, directing and special effects are more alike than he initially thought. They’re both mechanical processes, Boyle explains, which are then moulded and tinkered with to appear more organic. He says he no longer knows where one process ends and the other begins.
“It’s more natural for me to be a filmmaker-slash-special-effects-artist than it is just to be a special effects artist. I feel like I’d be holding myself back if I just stayed with effects now.”
If The Demon Disorder is received well, Boyle says he’d like to have another go in the director’s chair, and is already equipped with an idea for a similarly grisly sequel.
The Demon Disorder will be screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 21 and 24.
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