Comedies about savage times in high school and college have long scattered the movie landscape like red cups on the porch of a college dorm. The antics of “Animal House” in the late 1970s gave way to a series of crazy ’80s movies, such as “Porky’s”, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Revenge of the Nerds”. The 90s brought with them “American Pie” and “Can’t Hardly Wait”. But historically, the often missing, sidelined or punch line in these movies were characters of color.
Spike Lee’s “School Daze” (1988) was a rare exception to one that focused on a non-white cast. But the college comedy “Emergency” (streaming on Amazon) hopes to add something new to the genre, making race and the perceptions emanating from a person of color in certain environments a central plot point. The main characters have a wild night, but not in the way they had hoped.
In the film, Donald Elise Watkins and RJ Cyler play as two buddies who aspire to become the first black men on their campus to complete a college party circuit, the legendary tour. But plans go awry when they find a young white woman in their home who faints. They and their other roommate (Sebastian Chacon) have to figure out what to do, because calling the police in this situation is a risky option for three men of color.
The creators of “Emergency” understand this tricky calculus. The film is written by KD Dávila, who is Mexican-American, and directed by Carey Williams, who is black. Their feature film grew out of their 2018 short film, which won awards at the South by Southwest and Sundance film festivals. In a video interview, the two discussed building humor out of an intense situation, and how British comedies influenced the film.
Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Were there specific elements of the high school and college comedy genre that you wanted to use for this film?
KD DÁVILA On the writing side, sure. In many ways, it was an opportunity to undermine many of those tropes. I think we all grew up watching things like “Superbad” and “Booksmart” and stuff. But I always thought it was funny how the stakes in those movies are emotional in the first place. They are never very high. And so this movie was an opportunity to take a lot of things very seriously.
Our characters wish they were in one of those party comedies, like they wish they were in “Superbad” or something, but instead they ended up in some sort of thriller.
What do you think is the core of the film?
DEVILA We wanted to make a film that was about perception and the burden that people of color have to anticipate how you are perceived at all times. And that’s where a lot of the humor and drama comes from in the movie: that they have to keep anticipating how they’ll be perceived at any given moment.
How did you work on finding that tonal balance between comedy and drama here?
CAREY WILLIAMS For me, the movie has always been a love story about these two guys and their friendship. And so that was the starting point for balancing the tone of this movie over the course of the evening. Focusing on this friendship, the humor would come from how they interacted with each other, from their different worldviews of how to handle the situation.
Did you have movie references in mind when you were making this?
WILLIAMS I purposely tried not to watch anything that I thought would be in conversation with this movie because I didn’t want to be influenced that way. I felt the essence of Spike Lee’s work in my head when I made this. But I didn’t want it to feel like a college comedy. I wanted it to feel cinematically very written. Movies featuring young black people don’t get that cinematic treatment as much as they should in this world, especially college comedy. But you know, it’s funny because after I make the movie, I keep thinking of “Y Tu Mamá También” as something that this movie has synergy with. But I don’t think I thought of that when I was making the movie.
DEVILA When I went to university, I started watching a lot of British comedies. And I think British comedies work almost like horror thrillers. Like it’s the horror of being ashamed or something. And you always think about how this looks like† And so I think watching so many British comedies has had a lot of influence on this film, which probably sounds very strange given the subject of the film and what it ended up being.
What is your favorite high school or college comedy?
WILLIAMS “Weird science.” That movie is ridiculous, but I’ve seen it so many times.
DEVILA This isn’t a high school or college comedy, but it’s definitely a late-blooming coming-of-age story: “Shaun of the Dead.” I love it so much. It works on so many levels.
