A Twitter DM From Travis Stevens Got Josh Ruben Involved In A Wounded Fawn

Shudder just dropped a December treat in the form of Travis Stevens' new surrealist cat-and-mouse horror film "A Wounded Fawn," starring Sarah Lind and Josh Ruben. After a successful run as a producer on genre documentaries such as "Jodorowsky's Dune" and memorable features like "Cheap Thrills" and "We Are Still Here," Stevens moved into the director's chair with the housebound thriller "Girl on the Third Floor" and the delightful vampire comedy "Jakob's Wife." For multiple reasons, "A Wounded Fawn" may be the most personal film Stevens has made to date, showcasing his passion for subversive art and mythology inside a classically structured story updated for modern horror audiences. Using the ancient Greek female archetypes of the Furies as a jumping-off point, "A Wounded Fawn" follows a sheltered museum curator (Lind) who finds her inner strength after doing battle with a charming art collector (Ruben) who turns out to be a serial killer. 

Ruben has quickly become a reliable director as well, having recently helmed the video game adaptation "Werewolves Within" and "Scare Me." It already feels like Ruben has been running around in the same circles as Stevens and his usual troupe of players, but it turns out that a DM sent on Twitter ended up being the main catalyst for both filmmakers to finally work together. In an entertaining and informative interview on The Hollywood News YouTube channel, Ruben talked about the social media exchange and how "cuckoo banana-birds bonkers" he thought the script was the first time he read it.  

Sebastian Stan's secret body parts business in Hulu's "Fresh" and Penn Badgley's stalker tendencies in the Netflix series "You" go a long way to show the horrors of dating. But Josh Ruben in "A Wounded Fawn" takes things to an entirely new level. Ruben goes from a confident killer to a charismatic leading man with ease, then moves into a slow descent into madness. Playing multiple facets of a twisted soul, Ruben felt like he had no choice but to jump in with both feet. "I told Travis about 25 minutes after he DM'd me on Twitter asking if I was crazy enough to do this script that I had to do it, it was genius," Ruben told THN. "It is so wholly singular, it truly is."

The initial kernel of the idea for "A Wounded Fawn" seems simple enough, but the inclusion of ancient Greek sculpture, Halloween-costumed deities, and pro-feminist principles elevate the material. Ruben knew there was a lot more lurking under the surface, saying:

"I think that, you know, the fact that it is some version of pitchable as 'Patrick Bateman in the Evil Dead Cabin,' but that barely scratches the surface. It just is so exciting, you know, in a world where we see so much derivative stuff, this is, it's so original. And so I just had to be, had to be a part of it. I emailed them and said, 'This is genius, I have to do it.'"

That elevator pitch would sell me on the movie right from the get-go, honestly. Thankfully, director Travis Stevens knew Ruben would be perfect for the role and risked being rejected on social media to offer him the part. "You slip into somebody's DMs and you're like, 'Hey, I think you'd be good for this,' like, oh my god it would have been, I would have probably abandoned Twitter if you came back and was like, 'Please unfollow me.'"

"A Wounded Fawn" is now streaming on Shudder.