His first three films have depicted families in crisis – and led to comparisons with Darren Aronofsky. Just don’t ask him to direct a superhero movie
In 2013, the director Trey Edward Shults got a call from a hospital in Missouri; his father was dying of pancreatic cancer. They hadn’t spoken in a decade. His dad was an alcoholic and addict with a history of domestic violence. “I didn’t want to go,” he says. “My dad wasn’t a part of my life. So you care, but you don’t, if you know what I mean? You compartmentalise.”
In the end, his girlfriend persuaded him to drive to Missouri. Shults comforted his regret-filled father as best he could. Two months later, he wrote his second film, the low-fi apocalyptic horror It Comes at Night. In three days he had finished the script, featuring a deathbed scene with the same words he spoke to his father. His new film, Waves, has again recreated the experience. “The movies are me doing therapy with myself,” he says, grinning. His first two films, he says, are “pure exorcism”.