When director Isaiah Saxon began his search for the voice of Ochi, the titular creature in his new film, The Legend of Ochi, he didn’t look to established actors, but YouTube. “I typed in ‘throat whistling,’ and I found this guy with one video on his account where he’s in his basement in sweatpants, and he’s like, ‘Hey guys, I figured out this thing I can do in the back of my throat,’” Saxon says. “And he opens his mouth, and the sound of the Ochi comes right out.”
Paul Manalatos, a.k.a. the self-described Bird Man, almost deleted Saxon’s email when the director reached out in 2021. At that point, Manalatos’ closest brush with the entertainment industry had been performing bird noises on street corners and shoveling elephant dung at the Hanneford Royal Circus in Fort Lauderdale. “I was shaking when they recorded my vocals,” Manalatos says. “I’m a big chicken, but I finally relaxed — and I got chills in the theater when it was done.”
The Legend of Ochi (out now from A24) tells the tale of a young girl named Yuri (Helena Zengal), who lives on a farm with her father (Willem Dafoe) and a pack of boys (including one played by Finn Wolfhard), all of whom exist in fear of the mysterious Ochi, a gorilla-like creature that comes out at night. When Yuri discovers an injured baby Ochi, though, she sets out to return it to its family — dealing with the acrimonious split between her parents in the process when she comes across her long-lost mom (Emily Watson) during her journey.
In a world full of Chicken Jockeys and movies inspired by toys, the film is a bright blast of originality — not in the least because of its furry star. A silicone puppet that will give even the most jaded of hearts serious cute aggression, baby Ochi is an ode to the DIY nature of old-school kids’ movies. From its facial expressions to its distinctive chirp, the creature is wreathed in a kind of nostalgia that Eighties kids will remember from those early days trolling the VHS rack at their local Blockbuster.
Seven puppeteers brought Ochi to life with silicone and animatronics. Alexandru Ionita/A24
“I started my career as a little kid just drawing, and I went from drawing to building, sculpting, and then figuring out how to shoot the things I was building and sculpting,” says Saxon, who has directed music videos for the likes of Bjork and Grizzly Bear and is making his feature debut with Ochi. “This is a live-action movie, and so I want real creatures to share the world with my actors. I never considered making it a fully CG creature, and it would really be impossible if I had wanted to at this budget.”
Saxon, 42, was inspired by a trio of films from his youth: Paris, Texas and E.T., both of which he saw for the first time when he was 25, and the 1990 movie The Witches. “I didn’t look at E.T. like, ‘Oh, nostalgia of my childhood,’” he says. “It was just like, ‘That’s high art. I want to make that.’ And Paris, Texas is also pursuing the same feelings of a kid’s experience of a divorce in this really patient, artistic, poetic way.”
He saw The Witches when he was in fifth grade (“the substitute teacher for the day rolled out the VHS cart”) and was taken by how faithful the movie is to Roald Dahl’s book: “The moral superiority of children, looking at adults under a black light and really grounding you in the perspective of how weird the world is when you’re a kid, how psychedelic it is.”
That child’s perspective tied in with his central inspiration for the Ochi story. “I had an idea for a film about a girl and her connection with an animal and how an animal like that could affect a girl who’s shut down and kind of stifled,” Saxon says. “And as I explored the shape and type of animal, I realized it needed to be a primate. My approach to designing the creatures was really to make them feel like a real animal species. Like maybe they haven’t been discovered yet.”
Under Saxon’s direction, lead puppeteer Robert Tygner (who worked on The Witches, as well as Little Shop of Horrors and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among other films) and a team of six other puppeteers brought baby Ochi to life with silicone and animatronics. There was one hero puppet, one head that was made to shoot hissing and shrieking scenes, and one puppet made to ride in Yuri’s backpack as she looks for the creature’s mother. “What’s remarkable about the whole process — and it always makes me smile — is that we can actually improvise,” Tygner says. “We rehearsed very little with Helena, so most of what you see when they’re together is totally improvised.” Primate choreographer Peter Elliott (Gorillas in the Mist) came on board to help keep the movements in line with that of the Golden Monkey, who inspired the physicality of the creature.
Zengal as Yuri, with her baby Ochi companion. Alexandru Ionita/A24
As for Manalatos, the voice of the Ochi, he’s been honing those chirps and trills since he was a runaway kid. He lived on the streets from 18 on, doing backflips off of Coke machines and bird impressions for spare change. “A car alarm went off one morning and it startled me, so I childishly went to go mimic it,” he says. He uploaded the impression to YouTube at the urging of a friend he’d met doing security at a church; the other man had heard him whistling. When Saxon reached out with his script due to that video, Manalatos fell in love with the story, which seemed to mirror his own experience. “I ran away a lot when I was in my youth,” he says. “Yuri was a character that emulated some of my life.”
The whole team hopes that audiences connect in the same way, whether they’re dealing with a splintered family or not. And, luckily, it seems Ochi will be around for future generations in the same way the icons of millennial and Gen X culture have endured — at least physically.
“Silicone preserves pretty well,” Saxon says. “All the old latex puppets, you know, if you look at E.T. now, he’s just been fully desiccated. But silicone sticks around. I think Ochi will outlive me.”
From Rolling Stone US
