Filmmaker Bryan Poyser’s up-and-down life

It’s supposed to be the phone call that changes your life.

Your film has been accepted to the Sundance Film Festival and will be playing in the dramatic competition category. Bryan Poyser, writer and director of “Lovers of Hate,” did receive just such a phone call last November, but then one week later he got another phone call that changed his life in a different way: His father had died.

“It’s been a very strange time for me, for sure,” Poyser, 34, said recently on the phone from Austin, Texas. He had been able to tell his father about the acceptance to Sundance, but the subsequent shock of his father’s death has put an unexpected tinge of the bittersweet on what should be the buildup to a career-high moment.

“Lovers of Hate,” which has its first Sundance screening today, starts as seemingly another sad-sack indie comedy, as Rudy (Chris Doubek) is living out of his car after separating from his wife, Diana (Heather Kafka). When his younger brother Paul (Alex Karpovsky), a successful writer of children’s adventure stories, comes to Austin for a reading, all sorts of suppressed feelings come out among all three of them. Rudy then travels to Park City, Utah, to sneak into his brother’s house, but when Paul and Diana also arrive for an impromptu romantic weekend unaware of Rudy’s presence, things turn weird. As Rudy stalks and sulks in secret, he begins messing with the new lovers, moving and hiding things.

In its mix of relationship dynamics and a certain wayward creepiness, “Lovers of Hate” plays out like “Humpday” meets “Paranormal Activity.” “With pretty much everything I’ve done, I’ve been interested in comedy as a delivery device for drama,” said Poyser of the film’s discomforting brand of humor, which can leave a viewer laughing and cringing in the same moment.

“If you can get people laughing, especially early on, you get them on board,” he continued. “If we have a broad comedic opening to the film, you kind of put the audience on the side of the character. I knew I wanted the movie to be about three characters who do rather awful things to each other, but I never wanted any of them to be the villain of the piece. I knew that once the movie moved into darker territory I wanted the audience to follow.”

Poyser previously wrote and directed the feature “Dear Pillow,” a comedy about loneliness and pornography, which played at Slamdance in 2004, and co-wrote and produced “The Cassidy Kids,” which premiered at the South by Southwest festival in 2006. Poyser has a day job working for the Austin Film Society and is also on the nominating committee for the Someone to Watch prize (for which he was once nominated) at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Most years, the Austin Film Society throws a party in Park City to celebrate Texas filmmakers with movies in Sundance and Slamdance. The 2008 party was held in a four-story, six-bedroom home belonging to a member of the AFS board and Poyser stayed there for one night. The germ of the idea -- and a key location -- for “Lovers of Hate” had been found.

The day after the end of the 2009 edition of Sundance, Poyser, four actors and five crew members moved into that house to shoot what would become the second half of the movie. The first half of the movie was later shot in Austin.

“I think almost one year exactly to the day after we started shooting the movie in Park City in 2009 we’re going to be premiering it at the festival,” Poyser noted.

“Lovers of Hate” is produced by Megan Gilbride, with executive producers Mark and Jay Duplass -- Poyser and Jay Duplass attended film school together at the University of Texas -- and before shooting, Poyser was able to rehearse with his actors a few times a week for a month or so. With access to a vacant office building through AFS connections, Poyser had his cast play hide-and-seek in preparation for the furtive elements of the script. To heighten the strained triangulations of their relationships, Poyser also had the actors develop secret handshakes with one another.

Poyser wrote the part of Rudy specifically for Doubek; the two had worked on a few projects together. “I used aspects of his real personality, his real circumstances to inspire that character,” Poyser said. “He’s got this sympathetic quality even when he’s doing terrible things.”

Doubek, who also works as a substitute teacher in Austin, said it was a bit of a surprise to learn Poyser had written something with him in mind.

“Brian’s the kind of guy [who] won’t tell you he’s writing something that’s based on you,” Doubek said. “I guess he thinks that it’s odd the way I carry on. Do I keep my popcorn bucket or use the same Starbucks cup for six months to get a refill? It’s true about me, but he takes that little reality and builds from it.”

The last few months have been a roller coaster of news, good and bad for Poyser. Given the circumstances with which he is heading to Park City -- and the simple fact of the film being partly set there may skew its reception -- the filmmaker is trying hard to keep his hopes for the festival and beyond in check.

“My expectations have already been met in the sense that I got this kind of reception for a movie that I made with limited resources,” Poyser said. “The competition is so insanely tough for Sundance, certainly I would love for us to sell the movie, but I’m also realistic about the changes that the industry has gone through lately and the majority of films that play at Sundance don’t get sold. But it’s a really exciting thing.”

calendar@latimes.com