By Eric Ortiz (@EricOrtizG)
The setting of the crime thriller The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023) is the last stop for 100 miles on a road. There’s a diner, a motel and a gas station on site. A knife salesman (Jim Cummings) stops to get gas, but the manager (Faizon Love) informs him that the truck that supplies the station hasn’t arrived. Then a couple of criminals (Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan), who are on the run after robbing a bank, also arrive looking for gasoline, to no avail.
The diner, where the local sheriff’s wife (Jocelin Donahue) works as a waitress, becomes the waiting place and the main location for the development of director Francis Galluppi’s debut feature film. With more characters entering the frame – other travelers and some local people – the tension linked to the criminals increases, leading to an explosion of violence.
Before its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, I interviewed Galluppi for the Fantastic Pavilion. The writer-director shared his process for building a thriller in a restrained space, his influences, and more.
Eric Ortiz (EO): How did you decide to make a movie in that last rest stop setting?
Francis Galluppi (FG): I did my first short films for little to no money, I just found locations that I had access to, like my friend’s desert house or my friend’s cabin.
When it came to the feature I took that same approach. I looked around and found that diner, not really knowing that it’s a sort of overused set. I went there, we took a lot of pictures and I basically crafted the script out of the location, figuring out the blocking of all these characters within the space.
From there the script became about greed and the ramifications of greed.
EO: What were your main influences?
FG: I’m a fan of old film noirs in the desert, I wanted to do something like that.
I was pitching the script as a neo-noir and everybody was like “this is not a neo-noir, this is a total western.” I still think it’s more of a neo-noir, I think it has a lot of the sensibilities of a noir, but with a western aesthetic.
I really love single-location films like Rope (1948), Le silence de la mer (1949) and Dial M for Murder (1954). I wanted to try and tackle something like that in a single room.
EO: The Last Stop in Yuma County relies a lot on its actors. Tell me more about them.
FG: I’ve been a huge fan of this entire cast for a long time. I had most of these actors in mind when I was writing the script. I’ve been a huge fan of Jocelin, huge fan of Jim Cummings not only as an actor but as a filmmaker, in terms of that independent ethos of just going out there and making something with your friends.
I saw Sierra McCormick in The Vast of Night (2019), she was incredible. I saw Nicholas Logan in I Care a Lot (2020).
Richard Brake was the first person to read the script actually. I had Rich in mind when I was writing and thankfully our executive producer James Claeys had a connection with Rich so we sent it to him and he responded right away. It was kind of weird because he agreed to do it years before the movie actually was made. We had this whole rollercoaster of events trying to get the movie off the ground but he was so supportive. When I came back to him years later ready to go, he was in.
Every single cast member is just a huge cinephile, it was really cool to just talk about movies and references.
EO: How was the process to create the increasing tension?
FG: I love Alfred Hitchcock. In all my scripts I’m constantly trying to figure out small moments with big reactions, trying to think of something, a motivation or catalyst, for creating tension and then figuring out blocking, camera and shots, trying to create the most tension I can out of the situation.
It was just about finding enough moments in the story to keep that going. A lot of people that read the script were like “nothing happens, the shootout doesn’t happen until an hour in, you need to add more stuff.” But I knew these little moments that might not have translated on the page as creating tension, the way I was going to shoot it… it was like “no, trust me, it’s going to work, these little moments in the script will be big moments in the movie.”
EO: The movie also has a soundtrack that makes it more stylish.
FG: My background is in music, I spent most of my life playing drums in bands and touring. Music is a huge part of my life.
When I hear a song and images start to come at me, I’ll just add it to a playlist and when I’m writing I go to that playlist. I listen to music and write scenes to certain songs.
I did pick some songs that I wasn’t sure I was going to get the rights to. I actually had the actors sing along and I didn’t do another take so I kind of shot myself in the foot, like “we have to get the rights now because we can’t cut the scene.” And thankfully it worked out.
I grew up listening to “Love is Blue” with my dad, that’s the opening song to the movie. It was all in the script, I had my phone out there playing the songs on set for the actors.
EO: The Last Stop in Yuma County reminded me of Quentin Tarantino, particularly Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Hateful Eight (2015).
FG: I love Tarantino but, honestly, for me it was more about Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah. I was watching Charley Varrick (1973), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), and movies like that. I wanted to create that kind of throwback.