Netflix’s Day Shift director explains why vampires move like this

JJ Perry bet you’ve never seen vampires like this before.

Sure, a lot of vampire movies are out of the haunting, intentional mess of Nosferatu – the blade Vampires for example or the vampires from the Twilight series – but the new film from Netflix day shift takes things to another spooky level, bringing in contortionist work and an unusual camera technique to reinforce the horror element of this action horror comedy.

The film, which stars Jamie Foxx as a vampire hunter trying to regain favor with the vampire hunters’ union and earn money for his estranged family, was released on Netflix Friday and marks the directorial debut of longtime stuntman and action film coordinator JJ Perry .

Perry is productive. The stuntman-turned-coordinator-turned-action director has worked on everything from major franchises (Blade, Avatar, iron manthe Fast and Furious franchise), to Oscar-nominated films (argon, warrior, Django Unchained) as well as many, many other excellent action movies (I’d be remiss not to mention three personal favorites: blood and bones, Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing, and Melissa McCarthy’s vehicle spy).

That background went a long way in preparing him for his directorial debut, Perry told Polygon.

“[As an action coordinator], the technical part of filmmaking is infinitely more difficult and complicated,” says Perry. “And you also have the burden that someone could get killed on your set. So in addition to the limited time, the pressure of danger and all that, you have to be able to handle it all and still come out on top. So it’s a pressure cooker.”

Photo: Andrew Cooper/Netflix

Perry comes from a long line of former stunt performers to have slipped into the director’s chair, and it’s a story he’s intimately familiar with.

“Look at [John Wick directors] Chad [Stahelski] and Dave Leitch, and it started with Hal Needham from the Americans,” he says. “But it really started with Buster Keaton and then went to Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan is the gold standard for me because he was a stuntman who became an actor, a movie star, and then an action director who changed the way we shoot fights.”

The unique version of vampires in day shift jumps from the very first scene as Jamie Foxx’s character cleans out a house full of vampires. One of the vampires, an older woman, packs a nasty punch, and when she and Foxx start fighting, she contorts her body, much like the “crab walk” or “spider walk” of movie monsters like Samara in The ring.

But it’s more than just contortionist – the vampire moves in impossible ways. That’s because Perry ran the film backwards for added effects, an idea he’s had for nearly a decade.

“I’m a bit dyslexic,” Perry told Polygon. “Sometimes when I’m editing something I look forward and then backward. I was in Hungary and I was shooting a film called Spectral in 2014. And I had a very flexible girl who made a reaction. I watched and thought: Wow, it looks better the other way around. That’s how the idea came about. I’ve thrown those reactions at every director I’ve worked for since 2014. And nobody wanted to use them. You are like I do not get it. It makes no sense. When the opportunity arose for me to use it, I thought I got something fresh and new.”

This new technical approach presented unique challenges for Perry and the team.

“There are a lot of tells when shooting backwards,” says Perry. “Hair, clothes, smoke in the background. The R&D for this was very extensive.”

Image: Netflix

Perry hired some of the best contortionists in the business and brought them into the film as vampires, along with mixed gymnasts and rhythmic gymnasts. Add in a pinch of lucha libre and MMA moves, and you have a fresh take on one of the world’s oldest movie monsters.

The older vampire in the opening scene was played by four different actors, Perry shares. In addition to the actor, there was a stunt double who was snapped through glass, a combat double for the melee, and the contortionist for those special moves.

That scene and an old friend helped Perry get the green light for the film.

“Once we got the script where we liked it, I used that pre-viz to help me get the film greenlit.” says Perry. “We took [the script] to [John Wick series helmer] Chad [Stahelski], got him excited. He went straight to Netflix and got the green light and Bubba, here we are!”

In addition to contortionism day shift brings a series of MMA-style fighting moves to his vampires. It’s a change that Perry introduced previously Undisputed 2taking a series previously focused on boxing and shifting it to the then burgeoning world of MMA.

“MMA changed everything because of expectations,” says Perry. “You’re watching MMA and you see people really hitting each other, then you turn on a movie and all of a sudden the punches are stacked up in a weird way. So you always have to be creative. How many times have you seen a right cross in the history of filmmaking? How do we make this cooler and different? It depends on how you capture it, how you fit it into the choreography. The search for the next is always what we are looking for.”

That sense of freshness in the choreography is critical to Perry, something he instilled in the rest of his team.

“I basically just said it to my team […] If we’ve done it before, we won’t do it again‘ Perri says. “There will be things that we have to do just because we have to do them, but let’s never say, ‘Well, let’s just do the old thing..’ I said if we say that, we’ll die a little death.”

Photo: Parrish Lewis/Netflix

Perry’s vision was aided by a more than capable movie star who leads the way in Jamie Foxx, as Perry will tell you himself.

“Getting the opportunity was the big win,” says Perry. “But getting Jamie Foxx was like winning the lottery.”

Perry and Foxx worked together on Django Unchained, with Perry as the stuntman. The couple are both from Texas and graduated from high school in the same year. Perry couldn’t help but gush over his star’s performance and says with the exception of a few dangerous wire gags and wrecks, Foxx did all of his stunts in the film himself.

“I want to be Jamie Foxx so bad my friggin’ teeth hurt,” says Perry. “Working with him is a pleasure and an honor. He is a true master of his craft. He’s good at everything he does. He is generous. He is nice. He’s a physical genius. What a master.”

Perry has worked with many physically gifted stars and has credited his work with Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton warriorDwayne Johnson on The Rundownand Keanu Reeves in the John Wick films.

“The best way to pretend to be a badass is to just turn her into a badass,” says Perry. “Make her a character.”

day shift now streaming on Netflix.