Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Anything for Jackson’s Justin G. Dyck and Keith Cooper

We spoke with director Justin G. Dyck and writer Keith Cooper about their must-see new horror film, Anything for Jackson, how this partnership initially formed, and what they hope audiences take away after seeing the film.

PC: The two of you have worked on several projects together in the past. How did this partnership originally form?
Justin: It’s actually really funny. It was through a mutual friend. Keith and I both live in a small town about fifty miles north of Toronto. There isn’t a huge film community up here outside of the city. Everyone works in the city if they’re working in film. A mutual friend said, “You’ve got to check out my buddy. He does comedy sketches on YouTube.” I was like, “Sure…one of those YouTube guys. I’d love to meet him.” [laughs] Sure enough, I looked up Keith’s stuff and he’s an absolute genius. He’s not just making comedy videos, he’s making Funny or Die exclusives with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s company. I looked at that and I was like, “Wow. This guy is the real deal.” I met him and we hit it off right away. We quickly started brainstorming how we could work together.

PC: Tell us about Anything for Jackson and the inspiration behind it.
Keith: It’s a movie about grief, loss, and how far you’re willing to go for your loved ones. It actually started out with a lie like most movies do. [laughs] Justin and I had promised that we had a supernatural movie when we didn’t, so we had about an hour and a half car ride on the way home to come up with an entire movie. I started writing everything down. I was calling Justin every three minutes, saying, “Wait, what did we say happens here?” Then we wrote it so we could send it off and get it started.

PC: Justin, you’ve done a lot of family films and now horror. What has the transition been like going from one genre to the other?
Justin: It’s been great. That’s the first thing Keith and I set out to do together. That’s always been our passion. We love indie and low-budget films in all genres, but horror was the one that we set out to make. But we stumbled into that other world. As we tried to get a horror movie made, we ended up getting a bunch of kids and family projects done and that transitioned into Christmas movies. It certainly made me a better director, but yeah, we always wanted to make horror films. That was our long-term passion. I’m sure it’s the same for any first-time filmmakers. I do feel that despite making thirty-five other movies this is my first film.

PC: The two of you have taken this genre and flipped it on its head. Can you talk a bit about the decision process behind the reverse exorcism and having it be the grandparents instead of the parents?
Keith: It’s exactly like you said: we flipped it on its head. That was really important to Justin and me. We wanted to stand out and challenge ourselves. Does it make the movie better? I love what-ifs. Justin is a master of what-ifs. Whether I come with an idea or Justin comes with an idea, we both challenge it. Not in a rude or arrogant way. We’re looking for other options. Can we come up with something that we haven’t seen before? As a lifelong horror fan, I’ve seen every scare. I always appreciate when there’s something new. That was really important to us. What was our contribution going to be to the genre?

PC: There are so many incredible performances across the board. As you guys were thinking of this story, did you have these actors in mind? What was that casting process like?
Justin: Yes, we did. We got the actors pretty quickly. During the idea phase, I watched a film called Cardinals with Sheila McCarthy. She was the lead. Everyone knows her because she’s one of the greats. She performed at Stratford, which is Canada’s live theater community. I realized how great she was when I saw her in Cardinals. I was like, “Oh my gosh, she would be a great Audrey,” and I sent that off to Keith.

Keith: Yes. I wrote with Sheila in mind. I’ve seen her in a bunch of things. I mentioned that Julian [Richings] would be great with Sheila. We had some mutual friends. As Justin said, we had made all these other movies, and thankfully because of that we had all these contacts.

PC: The film has been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences? What do you hope they take away after seeing it?
Keith: That’s a tough one. Justin and I have talked about it a lot. I just want to make movies that I want to see. This is a love letter to the genre.

Justin: This is a question that Keith has always put to me: “If you want the audience to cry, that’s easy. The puppy has cancer. Boom, everyone’s going to cry. But can you make the kidnapper a sympathetic character?” The answer to that question is hopefully what people will take away from this.

You look at people doing arguably one of the most horrific things you can do—kidnapping a pregnant woman and trying to steal her child. I don’t think there’s a lot of worse stuff out there. But can you look at the people doing it and think, “Oh, wow. Would I [do that]? I don’t know.” That’s what I want people to take away from it. Let’s get real deep here. Maybe this will give you a different kind of understanding of people you wouldn’t always agree with. You might think, “Well, given the right circumstances, perhaps I could think about it differently.”

Make sure to follow Justin (Twitter/Instagram) and Keith (Twitter). Check out Anything for Jackson any where you stream movies.

Anything for Jackson released on VOD, Digital, DVD & Blu-ray on June 15, 2021.