‘Love and Monsters’ Director Says Dylan O’Brien Was Distracted Playing With The Movie’s Dog

Warning: This interview contains Love and Monsters spoilers. Save it until after you watch the film.

Love and Monsters—a new post-apocalyptic adventure film starring Dylan O’Brien which released on demand today—will inevitably get compared to 2009’s Zombieland. That’s hardly a bad thing, considering Zombieland was a huge hit among critics and audiences. But Love and Monsters director Michael Matthews would rather lean away from the comparison.

“Zombieland‘s a bit more punchy,” he told Decider in a virtual interview. “[Love and Monsters] does have humor, but it’s got a bit more heart.” Instead, he cites The Last of Us as a major inspiration. (Those who have played the video game might notice that O’Brien’s character, Joel Dawson, shares a first name with The Last of Us‘s Joel Miller.)

In Love and Monsters—which was written by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, and produced by Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen—Joel is a twenty-something trapped in an underground bunker. The apocalypse came in the form of giant, mutated insects and frogs when he was 16. But Joel’s more concerned with the fact that he’s been separated from his girlfriend (Jessica Henwick) for the last seven years. When he learns she’s at another bunker 80 miles away, he decides to risk the surface to be with her. Along the way, he meets monsters, friends (played by Ariana Greenblatt and Michael Rooker), and the world’s greatest dog. Decider spoke to Matthews about creating the end of the world, trying not to pet the dog, and the possibility of a Love and Monsters sequel.

Decider: Tell me about working with Dylan O’Brien as Joel. He really is in every scene of this film.

Michael Matthews: Dylan carries the whole movie. The first time I met Dylan, the first thing we talked about was trying to find an honesty to the performance and trying to not be restrictive in the way we work together. It was really important for us to just let a bit of space be there so that you could find things in the moment that felt honest and funny. Joel Dawson being in the moment of the scene felt like it was one of the most important things. And we discussed this idea that he’s been stuck in the bunker for seven years, from his late teen years. He’s lost a lot of your crucial growing-up phase. Socially, he’s been stunted. We wanted to have that come across. He’s 24 now, but he’s still kind of 16, in a way. He hasn’t experienced a lot of things. There’s an innocence there, and an awkwardness. A little bit of an underdeveloped thing that was quite charming.

Tell me about working with Boy the dog. I imagine it’s a bit different than working with human actors. 

Working with dogs is really tricky. You either are going to get things on the day or you aren’t going to get them. But schedule is tight, and making a movie is hard. You can’t bank on just this dog being something you can communicate into getting exactly what you need. It was really tricky. At the same time, we got one of the best trainers, and the best dogs we could’ve imagined.

How many dogs played Boy? 

There were only two, actually. There was Hero, and there was Dodge. Dodge was a little bit more docile, and a bit more relaxed. If we had scenes where he just needed to be quiet, or not be overly-excited about things, it was generally Dodge. Also, Dodge preferred going in water. Hero was the one, I think, who was sort of in 80 percent of the movie. He was super smart and super excited about everything. Him and Dylan were best friends throughout the whole process. It was really awesome. We were often struggling to get takes or do things because Dylan just wanted to play with Hero. So did I! I remember the trainer going, “Look, as director, if you start getting too much of a connection with the dog, he’s going to be looking at you while he’s doing scenes. He’s going to run to you afterward and want to play around. You’ve got to choose: Are you going to be friends with the dog, or are you going to have the dog acting in the movie?” I was like, “Aw, shit. Okay, I can’t be the person having fun with Boy.”

[Spoiler alert: Skip this question if you haven’t watched the movie yet!] I was very relieved, and I’m sure others will be too, that the dog does not die in this movie. Was there ever a version where that did happen? Or is it important to you to let the dog live?

No, there wasn’t [a version where he died]. I think it’s important to have a moment where you felt the real risk of that, and the potential of that, and how important that relationship had become to both of them. But yeah, there never was a point. It’s just like… why do that? We care too much about them. It felt like it wouldn’t be the right move. But that said, you’re not allowed to spoil that for people who haven’t watched it yet!

I love those early scenes in the bunker and the feeling of found family that it evoked. How did you design that set?

Well, as a starting point, I worked with someone that I’m a huge fan of and always have been: Dan Hennah, who worked with Peter Jackson on a lot of his films. He also did Thor: Ragnarok. I was just quite a huge fan of him, from watching his behind the scenes on DVDs years ago on Lord of the Rings. He had great insight into the practicalities of building something, and design ideas that really brought it to life. It was really this idea of family being quite an important thing. You’ve got this mismatch of people who have survived and found themselves down there — most of them without their close friends or family. Each one of these people is an individual that’s different from each other, but they’ve had to make the space work, and find a love for each other. That’s another thing that I love about the movie—it’s not dystopic, tonally. It’s not doomed. When most of the people have been whacked out, and everyone’s desperate, and the world has ended—people aren’t trying to take from each other. They almost value society more. Humanity becomes more important because there’s a real value to knowing there are not that many people around. It’s just awesome just to have actual, other people, rather than just being alone.

And the post-apocalyptic world beyond the bunker—how did you build that?

It started with the overall tonal approach to make sure the film felt overgrown and lush. Nature carries on when we disappear. We’re having to live in caves and underground, we’re not as much of an influence on the whole planet, so everything grows. Rather than feeling like an apocalyptic film where it’s become gloomy, or it’s become dry and dusty, or it’s become frosty and icy, I just thought it was cool that the world carries on. It’s more vibrant with life. Finding these locations in Australia was crucial, and we had amazing location scouts. Our line producer, John Starke, helped facilitate in getting the most out of what we had; to make sure we didn’t have to chew too much artificially. That was one of the big things for me: I didn’t want it to end up feeling too glossy, or too artificial. I wanted it to feel like a real journey, and a real adventure. You feel like when he’s in the dirt, he’s in the dirt. As opposed to when you get the sense that it’s a blue screen and a studio.

We didn’t have a massive budget to do any: “What do we want? Let’s do anything.” There was a lot of finding really interesting locations. We would add the vegetation and grow, put vines and trees and things through it so it felt more overgrown. Quite a lot of that stuff is visual effects, for stuff that’s further in the background. The other part for me, which I love, is just this idea that it’s a habitat for these cold-blooded creatures. Insects and things—it’s their world now. Eggs and nests, and the way they’ve changed environments—it reflects a bigger version of insects and amphibians.

I got some Zombieland vibes from this movie, particularly with the characters of Minnow and Clyde. How much was that an inspiration for you?

It wasn’t really, to be honest. Last of Us was actually kind of quite an inspiration for me—the game. The world, and more of that honesty. Although there totally are similarities to Zombieland, I feel like Zombieland’s a bit more punchy, and stronger in its punchiness of humor and gags. For us, it was always trying to make a more classic adventure. It does have humor, but it’s got a bit more heart, and a bit more honesty. It’s a little slower. When people see the movie, I think it’s got a bit more substance and heart to it than they might have expected. There are not many movies where it’s this insecure, ill-equipped guy going to get a girl in a genre movie, so I guess that’s the Zombieland overlap. But I didn’t honestly think about it too much. Like I said, Last of Us, visually and tonally, was a bit more of an inspiration for me. It’s got the look to it. No story ideas or character ideas, but just some of the world. Actually, a little easter egg: Joel’s t-shirt was an homage. He’s just got kind of a sunset shirt, and the main, young girl character in Last of Us has something similar on her shirt.

[Spoiler alert: Skip this question if you haven’t watched the movie yet!] Speaking of the romance, it’s refreshing that it doesn’t turn out quite how Joel expects with Aimee. But then they do kiss! What does that kiss mean?

It’s really just the growing up of the two of them. Joel becoming comfortable and confident enough with himself to know that they’ve been through a lot and that they do care about each other. He has come all this way. You can see at the end, from her point of view, a sense that she’s moving past a block from when he first arrived. I don’t want to give too many answers, because it’s really how the audience feels about it. But it was just to say: It’s not a hard end to their relationship. It’s also not saying, “Now they’re into each other again, and that’s going to carry on.” It’s just a bit more of a mutual growing up. Joel had a romantic-idealistic point of view. He hasn’t even thought about the fact that, in seven years, someone can change. She’s grown up a lot more than he has. It’s almost like he’s still a kid, and she’s still a bit more dealing with the realities. Taking responsibility. That’s quite the wake-up call. And we didn’t want it to be gimmicky, with her just being into some other guy. Things aren’t always an easy, happy ending.

It does feel like there is room for a sequel. Have you been thinking about ideas for Love and Monsters 2? Has there been a serious discussion of that?

There’s been some discussion about it. I’ve got a few interesting ideas. But we did focus on this just being its own movie. It’s not the approach of, “How do we start a franchise?” It was really like, “Let’s make a cool movie! And then let’s see what the response is, how it does, and think about an interesting way of where that world can go.” For me, and for Dylan, that’s been quite a key thing: Not trying to visualize it as this movie that’s a franchise starter. That’s really up to the audience.

Where to watch Love and Monsters