In 1997 Maryland, a mysterious girl infiltrates a Vietnamese American family, coveting their daughter's life as her own body disappears. That's the engine of Easy Going, the first horror/thriller from married co-writers Van Tran Nguyen and Alex Derwick, who have already made a feature (The Motherload) and two shorts (Erie County Smile, Mama Means Business 2) together. The script is currently making the rounds, and FilmQuest marks its arrival in front of a horror audience.
What makes Easy Going unusual isn't only its setting — crowded multigenerational homes, storage rooms doubling as break rooms, a family gift shop called Sunbelievable — but its ambition at the level of myth. Dracula has his Christian iconography; the Invisible Man has his modern science. Nguyen and Derwick want The Nivanas to have Buddhism and Vietnamese folklore, and to use that creature to talk about immigration in a register the genre hasn't tried.
Key Takeaways
- Easy Going is a 1997-set horror/thriller about a vanishing girl who covets the life of a Vietnamese American family's daughter.
- The film's creature, The Nivanas, is conceived as an addition to the Universal Monsters canon, rooted in Buddhism and Vietnamese folklore rather than Western iconography.
- Nguyen and Derwick write and direct as a married team, treating each other's strangest instincts as material to sharpen rather than smooth out.
The co-writers spoke about growing up behind the counter, building a monster from scratch, and the particular logistics of collaborating with your spouse.
Interview
What drew you to make this film, and why this story, why now?
There are too few representations of the America I grew up in. Crowded multigenerational homes and storage rooms that double for break rooms. The muses of Easy Going are my own misfit family and the families that are too unruly to be simplified.
Getting this right means conversations with beloved community members — to reflect upon their personal archives of photos, home videos and oral histories. It means calling aunties who forgive but don't forget. Representing them accurately, warts and all, is paramount to our vision.
Through this deeply personal work, I reveal that this is what the model minority myth flattens. It flattens time, demanding instant maturation without any care for the tiny, awkward outcast who (very badly) wants to be anywhere else but behind the counter. It flattens a full diasporic life to a dataset or a stereotype. The stakes are real, for me, and many people like me.
— Van Tran Nguyen
What moment in the film feels most like you, or like something only you could have made?
Much like the character of Summer, who works at her parents' gift shop, Sunbelievable, I grew up in a nail salon called Classy Nails. Many dear people in my life had similar experiences: Alex licked envelopes at Fox Financial, Neil Chan grew up in China Wok (a Szechuan takeout restaurant) and Leeann Le shelved rubber gloves at Tammy's Nail Supply Surplus Store. All run by their parents. We share the experience of having to grow up quickly, with the added pressure to be effective family members, and ostensibly, employees.
We were raised by our families to be scrappy and tough as nails to survive. However, they made their own trouble; my mom is a gossip and my dad is a self-identified rascal. The specifics of their imperfection is where universal truths live.
— Van Tran Nguyen
What surprised you most about the process, creatively or logistically?
We are still in the pre-production phase of making this movie. The script is in a great place, has received great feedback from fellow filmmakers, and we're shopping it around. We've already co-written and co-directed one feature (The Motherload) and two shorts (Erie County Smile, Mama Means Business 2), so our main focus is honing our shared voice.
The challenge is not to dull each other's voices in the process, but to sharpen them. If Van writes something that seems odd to me, instead of editing it out of the script, I interrogate that thought and emphasize it with visuals or subtle dialogue, and vice versa. We're married, so many of these conversations end before we close our eyes and begin again the second we wake. That's a logistical web we only share with our therapist.
— Alex Derwick
What was the hardest creative decision you made while making the film?
Again, since we're still in the writing and pre-production phase, the hardest part of making this film is getting it in front of the right collaborators at the right time. We have an amazing team of artists, friends, and producers who have all pitched in to help with our first feature and short films, but Easy Going is a brand new beast.
It is our first time writing a horror/thriller movie. In the writing process, balancing humor with spine-tingling thrills was tough at times. Luckily, we had friends read the script and gave amazing feedback on how to up the tension and "breadcrumb" the stakes throughout.
— Alex Derwick
How does your film fit within, or push the boundaries of, its genre or form?
Easy Going is a hybrid for many reasons. Van is Vietnamese American, immigrated here with her parents at a young age, and she's described it to me as being stuck between two homes. We wanted to create a new creature that fits the "Universal Monsters" canon: Dracula is linked to Christian symbols and the Invisible Man is linked to modern science; we wanted The Nivanas in Easy Going to be linked to Buddhism and Vietnamese folklore. We use these creatures to talk about the immigration process in a way we haven't seen done before. All while sprinkling in jokes with visceral visuals.
— Alex Derwick
What do you hope audiences take away from this film?
We want them to see a new side of the immigrant and specifically, Vietnamese American experience through a fun, weird, new lens.
— Van Tran Nguyen
What does it mean to have your film selected for FilmQuest, and where do you see it going next?
We're very excited to reach a new audience and interact with more filmmakers in the horror genre. We've always been big fans and are super excited to add a new character and creature to the genre. Tackling the horror/thriller genre made us excited to dive into other genres we love but haven't tried our hand in yet. At the core of all our work is a desire to learn from other artists and befriend those we admire.
Next? Into production, baby.
— Alex Derwick
Main Cast & Crew
- Van Tran Nguyen — co-writer
- Alex Derwick — co-writer
Filmmaker Opportunities
💛 Fund your next project with fiscal sponsorship
Have a project in the works? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Cinematography for Actors Institute can accept tax-deductible donations on your film's behalf — a door-opener for grants, foundations, and supporters who want to back your work. We've serviced over 100 projects to date and helped route over $800,000 in funding to filmmakers. Explore fiscal sponsorship →
📬 Grant deadlines and festival opportunities, straight to your inbox
The CFA newsletter rounds up grants, festival calls, and community news for independent filmmakers — the kind of opportunities that are easy to miss and painful to miss. Join the newsletter →
🎬 Focus on the creative — we'll help with the logistics
Production Management, CFA's newest member program, launches this November: production insurance and workers' comp, payroll, film permits, gear rental coordination, SAG-AFTRA compliance, contract drafting, production consulting, and crew recommendations — handled by a team of working filmmakers, à la carte or all in, in partnership with Creative Access Group. It's waitlist-only until launch. Join the waitlist →
League of Filmmakers is published by our parent organization, the Cinematography for Actors Institute — a 501(c)(3) dedicated to education, community, and capital for underrepresented filmmakers and actors. Learn more about CFA →
