Grant De Sousa on His Zombie Rom Com That’s Wowing the Festival Circuit

Boy meets girl, boy’s best friend becomes convinced that girl is an undead abomination. For those of us who’ve seen friends sleepwalk into terrible relationships, Grant De Sousa’s horror comedy short It’s Complicated is all too real.

It tells the tale of shlubby Nigel (Paul Snodgrass), whose comfortable life is upended when his meek but uptight flatmate Andy (Johann Vermaak) has a date with a disconcerting woman (Lise Slabber) who may or may not be of the living dead.

The lovingly crafted short is proving a hit with festival juries – it took Best Comedy at the LA Shorts Film Festival in August and earned South African director Grant De Sousa a veritable school of Shark Awards at this year’s Kinsale music video and short film ceremony (including Best Performance, Best Editing and Best Direction). It’s also won at Shnit Worldwide Short Film Festival and it’s been accepted to the Oscar qualifying Leeds International Film Festival. 

But while the film is now riding high, its origins are as interesting as the film itself. For one thing, the story is a collaboration between two men who’ve never actually met. Back in 2015, Canadian Kelvin Wong was Googling for writing opportunities when he came across a Facebook post from Grant, who was looking for potential scripts to film. He sent Grant the script and the two embarked on a timezone-hopping back-and-forth, refining and developing the script and story.

“There was something about the undead rocking up to your door that really appealed to me. I loved the idea of the metaphor,” says Grant. 

Grant, an established commercials director, had completed a course with Werner Herzog and had been inspired by the auteur’s message of ‘no compromise’. He realised that to make something of his own fuelled by uncompromising creativity, he’d need to look beyond advertising. 

“I realised that far too often in advertising we compromise – and I’ve compromised. Too many layers, too many filters, over-complicating a simple process. I thought 'wouldn’t it be great to have a project where I never compromise',” he says. “The process also stops you. People don’t want to not do great work, especially creatives. They want to do great work. They want to be at the award ceremony and they want it on their CV.”

And so, with a great story in hand, Grant brought executive producer Alan Lawson of Bird Film on board and Justin Cohen and Tyrone Rubin of Picturescope. “Alan was the first person to pick it up. We’ve had a relationship for a while now. He always had this thing where he wanted to do long form, so did I. When the script came along, it’s ironic because I didn’t approach him first, which I should have, which is so stupid. He still gives me a hard time about that to this day! He automatically jumped on it and said ‘let’s get this made’ and he funded that part of the production.” 

The next step was getting the cast in place – the performances from the three principal actors are what really make the film. First to cast was Andy – Grant had worked with Johann Vermaak before and new he could capture the character of someone who’s both subservient but can put his foot down when push comes to shove. Paul Snodgrass – who plays Nigel with a deceptive vulnerability – was also someone Grant had known for some time. It was Paul who pointed out Lise Slabber, known for her role in the TV series Black Sails, as a potentially great fit for the ghoulish leading lady. 

“She came to a workshop we did and blew it out the water,” recalls Grant. “A lot of the time in the film she’s like wallpaper, you almost don’t notice her but she’s so vital. Without her the film would have fallen flat. I chose not to show her face a lot of the time because her body language was so intricate , the way she moved around the set, she created that whole atmosphere on her own.”

In the spirit of uncompromising creativity, Grant workshopped with the cast extensively to nail naturalistic, believable dialogue.

Eagle-eyed film buffs may also spot the references to classic horror films sprinkled throughout. But then Grant has been devouring movies since his childhood. When Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out, he would compulsively watch the ‘Making Of’ with John Landis every single morning. It might have irritated his family at the time, but it’s clearly paid off. 

One of the big challenges was striking the balance between the humanity of a relationship-based comedy and the supernatural horror. “This was the question I asked myself when I was writing and developing the script: is this a story that can be told if you took the supernatural element out, and the answer is yes. What the supernatural element does is enhance the metaphor and creates it as a generalisation rather than a specific story about a specific someone. I like stories that put the viewer in a situation a relatable situation that they understand,” says Grant. 

Now the film is on the festival circuit and Grant has even been approached about monetising the film – a sign of the appetite for quality online film content.

Looking forward, while Grant’s not sure about the prospect of turning It’s Complicated into a feature – he thinks it works pretty well as a short story – he does like the idea of bringing the cast back together for a different project. And in the age of Black Mirror, where anthology series of standalone episodes are being embraced, one can certainly see the scope for that.