A man sits on his bed in the half-light, shirtless. On his back is a series of little bumps, perhaps scars, possibly cigarette burns, or buckshot wounds? His co-workers at the fish hatchery take secret bets as to their origin. But for Son Hayes (Michael Shannon), they are part of a hurtful past, one that he is forever trying to get beyond. Son's name, as well as those of his brothers, Kid (Barlow Jacobs) and Boy (Douglas Ligon), no doubt came from their awful father, a kind of branding that they can never escape. We never meet this father. He dies at the beginning of Shotgun Stories. Son, Kid and Boy attend his funeral, and that's when the trouble starts. If not for that, life in this Arkansas small town probably would have gone on as always, with Kid sleeping in a tent in Son's backyard, with Boy living out of his van, and with the three of them getting together for beers. (There is a lot of beer drinking in this movie.)

"Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton/Old times there are not forgotten." -- "Dixie Land"

And that can cut both ways; writer-director Jeff Nichols's Shotgun Stories is a tale of the South -- the flat fields and summer heat of Arkansas, where people struggle with the past every day. We first meet Son Hayes (Michael Shannon) as he struggles out of bed, his back marked by scars; years ago, Son took a shotgun blast, lived, lived with it. Son's brother Kid (Barlow Jacobs) lives in a tent in Son's yard; their other brother Boy (Douglas Ligon) lives out of his van. They get by, working at the fish farm or coaching high school basketball. And then they're told their father has died. Years ago, their father quit drinking, found Jesus, put his life right -- but not for them. He has a whole separate family, one that knew the man he became; for Son, Kid and Boy, reconciling that fact with the man they knew is a hard thing to do. And maybe they don't want to, when it comes down to it.

Produced by David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, Snow Angels) Shotgun Stories is another piece of a distinct thread of storytelling that's been running through American independent film for several years now (one which, not coincidentally, Green's also explored in his work). Shotgun Stories is a piece of hardscrabble Southern minimalism, one that wrenches strong drama out of the everyday, set in places where the landscapes are wide open but people's feelings are tightly closed. Son, Kid and Boy go to the funeral to have their say, not to praise their father but to bury him, and their insistence that their pain be remembered part and parcel with his new family's pain at his loss spirals into anger and then into violence.

The cast and director of Bug recently assembled at a Manhattan hotel to answer some questions about the new horror-drama, which I saw and praised on this site. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon star as two small-town Midwestern people whose lives intersect one night at her trailer-park home and the match-up creates a sort of perfect storm of paranoia, discomfort, and ultimately, terror. She fuels his pre-existing fears about being followed by a shadowy government agency, while he perversely fills for her a deep-seated need to be taken seriously and to be listened to. It's hard to explain the movie any more specifically than that -- you have to see it. William Friedkin had the press eating out of his hand, photographers wasted everyone's time by insisting on, like, ten minutes of posed photos, and Judd talked a lot about her process of mental preparation. Here is a sampling of the various questions and answers asked by all the assembled journalists -- enjoy.

Ashley Judd

Was it an easy decision, for you to sign on for this one?

AJ: It was very easy for me to decide to do Bug. Billy had been good enough to send the script to my agent. Bug also had in common a producer who was producing Come Early Morning, which was the film I shot right before Bug. So there was a streamline simplicity to the process. Of course, Billy's wife was my mentor early in my career, provided my big break in Hollywood, so it seemed like there were a lot of auspicious things that were coming together around the script.

I really loved Billy's response to Michael. He was very clear and impassioned and firm that Michael was the actor for the film, as he had been unabashedly the actor for the play. I was really impressed with how Billy was just not willing to negotiate around that, and helped me be very comfortable talking with the financier of the film about how Michael was also who I would want to play with in the movie, so there was a lot that I really liked. There was a good backbone and positive energy surrounding the project, and my agent, when she sent the script to me to read, she said 'you might not want to go there' and immediately that intrigued me. I don't think she was intentionally using reverse psychology, but that's the affect it had and I think I became willing to take the part on before I had in fact read it. There's a part of me that gets really competitive with my own creativity, like 'Oh, you think I can't do that? Really ... '

Did you feel you were coming to the part at a disadvantage, with your co-star having done the play?

AJ: I felt I was at a real advantage, because Michael clearly knew the material inside and out, had a very well-developed and evolved relationship with the material. Billy had seen it, he responded so passionately, and we began acquiring the rights, and there was a tremendous and respect there, and I felt I was able to just slipstream in there.

"I am the super mother bug!" -- Bug


In many ways, Bug may represent the apex of Ashley Judd's curious career. She's always been something of a green-screen actress without the green-screen, relying on some kind of method to dig deep and come up with seemingly heartfelt, emotive performances in routine thrillers where the surroundings don't warrant that kind of effort. (I'm looking at you, Kiss the Girls.) Judd's motivation is always in her head, which makes her naturally primed to take on a character like Bug's Agnes White, a lonely, small-town waitress who was frozen inside her own emotional headspace years ago, when her young son disappeared out of a grocery cart. She now spends her days being lusted after by the lesbians at a honky-tonk dive where she works, doing drugs, counting up crumpled dollar bills and bracing herself for the unwanted return of her ex-con ex, who has more than one screw loose. "You tried to kill me," she reminds him when he finally washes up on her doorstep. "That was a rough one, yeah," he replies, without trying to be funny.

I've seen the same marketing you have, and I'm not going to comment on whether, at some point during the film, a swarm of giant bugs may come to attack poor Agnes. I will suggest, however, that deserved Oscar nominations for Judd and director William Friedkin may be thwarted by an attempt to make this film sound like it belongs on the same shelf as Blade: Trinity and Silent Hill. Bug is a horror film, for sure -- one that will leave you bug-eyed -- but not one that pins its hopes on special effects. Instead, it uses a horrific set-up to explore some nimble issues, like how emotional vulnerability can weaken you, impair your judgment and make you not only accept the poor logic of others, but actually become a participant in their delusions. If you have nothing in your life, will you grab onto anything? Sociologists have been asking a variant of that question forever, and it's refreshing to see a movie taking a whack at it, with some success.

Ah, there is nothing in the world like a nice, close-up poster of a naked, hairy man's chest sliced up a little bit with embossed lettering. That alone is enough to make me curious about Bug, Ashley Judd's latest film. Last September, Jette reviewed it from Fantastic Fest. To recap -- it's a juicy piece of suspense, even if some parts fell flat and others evoked laughter without meaning to. Then in November, Lionsgate pushed back the release date to some time in 2007. The date has now been set -- May 25 -- and we've got a new, full-length trailer to see what all the buggy fuss is about.

Having Harry Connick Jr. in a creepy thriller is intriguing. Ashley Judd, well, it isn't surprising, but isn't bad either. Then to have Petie in a headlining role -- that's just tasty! Or, so I'd think. This is where I get confused. Check the trailer out. How much can we expect from a thriller when we have one of those "Larger. Than. Life. Disembodied. Voices." saying "They live in your blood" and "They feed on your brain"? Watching the trailer, all I can think of is that bit from My Date with Drew where they get the voice-over guy, George DelHoyo, involved. Coming from the director of The Exorcist, William Friedkin, I'd expect a trailer that pushes the buttons of anxiety and creepiness. Not one that keeps making me giggle. If you turn off the sound, it looks all sorts of creepy. However, if you're ready for a laugh, crank that sucker up and delight in the blood and brains.

Aside from The Exorcist and The French Connection, name your three favorite William Friedkin movies. I'll wait.

OK, I'm sure that lots of you came up with three more good ones ... but it probably took you a few minutes. (Mine would be Sorcerer, To Live and Die in L.A. and The Brink's Job.) Putting aside the filmmaker's two true classics, you're looking at a filmography that includes stuff like Cruising, Deal of the Century, The Guardian, Blue Chips, Jade and Rules of Engagement. (Oh, three more not-bad ones: The Boys in the Band, Rampage and The Hunted.) So I guess my point is that for such a long-lasting and well-respected veteran director, Friedkin's career has been more than a little inconsistent. And still, I really like the guy. Funny how a couple great films can buy you a lifetime of good will, eh?

Anyway (damn do I ramble), Mr. Friedkin has a new film on the way, and dare I opine that it looks pretty darn intense. The psychological thriller horror movie Bug stars Michael Shannon, Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr., and seems to center on one semi-insane soldier who insists he has bugs festering beneath his skin. Neat! Grab an invisible can of Raid and check out the buggy new trailer; Lionsgate unleashes the film in December. (By the way, Michael Shannon was, far and away, the best thing in World Trade Center, if it's me you're asking.)

(Friedkin's Bug bears no relation to the 1975 film of the same name, which was directed by the man who'd go on to helm Jaws 2, Supergirl and Santa Claus: The Movie. What? There was a sale on pointless trivia down at the dollar store.)