INTERVIEW: Travel to the 1980s with ‘Roswell Delirium’
Photo: Roswell Delirium stars Anthony Michael Hall. Photo courtesy of Lightforce Pictures / Provided by Garnier PR with permission.
When writer-director-producer Richard Bakewell started to put pen to paper and create what would become Roswell Delirium, he had it in his mind to lean into the nostalgia for the 1980s, a highly influential decade that continues to fascinate generations of people, even those who never lived during the time period. What he might not have imagined is how his finished film would also rely on some heavy hitters from the ’80s to help him with that nostalgic feel. Roswell Delirium features everyone from Anthony Michael Hall to Sam Jones to Dee Wallace.
“We go as far back as 2020,” Bakewell said in a Zoom interview. “It was supposed to be a short film, and then the pandemic happened. We were geared to go and had already cast an eight-page script, and then all of a sudden I had to put pause on the production and then see if I could film it later on in the summer. And things just kept getting delayed because you couldn’t get a permit. You couldn’t do anything, so then I decided to spend some time and turn it into a feature film.”
In that time, when he couldn’t make his sci-fi thriller a reality, he began traveling around California and scouting out locations. The Salton Sea, for example, was one inspiration, and with each new visit, he kept adding pages to the script. Eventually he grew the piece into a feature-length by building a story involving a mother and daughter trying to survive after a nuclear war in the 1980s; one’s belief in UFOs and the Roswell incident also factor into the plot. So it’s a callback to that beloved decade, but it’s also an alternate take, envisioning what might have been.
“It basically became a full-length feature after 15 drafts two years later,” he said.
Bakewell and his team cast many of the younger actors first, including Ashton Solecki, Kayden Tokarski, Georgia MacPhail and Romyn Smith. After that, he started filling in the ensemble with some beloved actors who should be well known to genre fans and TV lovers, including Reginald VelJohnson, Lisa Whelchel, Jones and Wallace.
“That’s when we reached out to Anthony Michael Hall’s manager and brought him on to talk about being in the film, and then we had lunch at the Smokehouse in Burbank,” the director said. “We talked for a couple of hours. He was into the script and the story and the idea of UFOs being real or not and how it all kind of played out in the film, and so then he basically came on at the end and kind of joined forces to help the film come together.”
In the movie, which is now available to enjoy on digital platforms, there are flashback scenes that lean into that ’80s aesthetic.
“I just wanted people to feel that way when they’re watching the film,” he said. “Having that many familiar faces of that generation kind of brings you back, and I think that’s a very happy time for people. They felt like things were better. There’s no social media. There’s no toxic news. Everything’s just more contained, and I feel like having that really makes you feel like you’re back in that world all over again. That was very, very intentional. I needed to have all these faces to help the new cast come along. I took the format of The Force Awakens where they had all these new actors come in, and then here comes legacy characters like Han Solo and Luke and everyone later on in the film, but have these new characters lead the way.”
For the record, Bakewell counts himself a believer in UFOs. He believes it’s too close-minded to think that humans and animals on planet Earth are the only living beings in the universe.
“There are so many galaxies that have never been discovered,” said Bakewell, who is also known for the documentary Life After the Goonies.” I feel like there’s definitely something else out there. Whatever that is I don’t know. I’m not sure if we’ll ever know, but I feel like it’s something that’s kind of looming. Everybody wants to know, but I think if people do and they thought aliens might come here, I think it would cause mass chaos. And people would start losing their minds.”
He added: “For me, it’s something that I’ve always thought about. I feel like maybe one day in a 100 years from now they’ll probably say, ‘Guess what, there were aliens here in the ‘50s, and we just didn’t want to tell people.’ I’m sure there’s more out there than we think.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Roswell Delirium, written, directed and produced by Richard Bakewell, is now available on digital platforms. Click here for more information.
