William Bibbiani interviews the director and stars of House of the Devil!

Halloween weekend marks the theatrical release of House of the Devil, a sincere – and sincerely creepy – horror film from up-and-coming writer/director Ti West. West has several indie films under his belt already, but is probably most famous for directing Cabin Fever 2… which hasn’t even been released yet. That’s how up-and-coming he is! We’ll have our review up tomorrow (here’s a preview: See it in theaters, because it’s great), but for now here’s Ti West with his stars Jocelin Donahue (He’s Just Not That Into You) and AJ Bowen (The Signal) talking to Geekscape about making an 1980’s horror movie in the 21st century… without the irony.

So where did you come up with this rather brilliant idea?

Ti West: I always had a fascination with Satanic Cults, and the 80’s “Satanic Panic,” and this weird cultural phenomenon that happened in the United States. I just remember growing up and there were always places like, “At the end of that road there is a Satanic Church, and you have to go to the back of the woods to find it. And someone in the town had seen it, but not everybody.”

And this was a real story?

Ti West: Yes it was… In Pennsylvania it’s called “Satan Road,” where all the trees bend away from the road? And there were babies apparently sacrificed there, and at the back of the woods a Satanic Church: Not actually true, because I’ve been there. Trees actually do bend away, but it’s because of the sun. But at the end of the road somebody spraypainted pentagrams. So that kind of stuff was always really fascinating to me, and the cultural hysteria that got perpetuated by people like Geraldo… it’s always been something that’s been in my head. So I knew I was going to get money to make this horror movie, and I knew I wanted to make a satanic movie, and it just made sense to do that in the 80’s during that time period. And then I also wanted to do a movie about when you get out of college and you’re broke. I lived in New York City and was broke and living on rice and people’s floors. It’s funny, because now there’s this weird, like, “recession-friendliness” to the movie but I wrote the movie so long ago when everyone was doing great, but I was like superbroke. So just kind of combining those two ideas, personally, for me, was interesting.

Did being superbroke influence the style of the film, in terms of minimalism?

Ti West: I think the producers being superbroke had to do with that. (Laughter.) I mean, it was always supposed to be kind of a low-budgety movie, so when I wrote it, it was like, “Oh, the movie takes place in a house, it’ll be about a babysitter.” There might have been a location or two that got cut out to make it a little more [cost-efficient]… The other thing about the movie is I really wanted to make a movie about when you’re in somebody else’s house, left by yourself, and the weird things you find yourself [doing], snooping through the drawers, going “Why am I doing this?” But you for some reason can’t help but do it. That sort of stuff and those weird private moments in a non-familiar environment was really interesting to me.

A lot of 80’s staples, like the titles and dance montage, are on display in House of the Devil. Were you particularly fond of these tropes?

Ti West: Yeah… A lot of people say it’s homage-y, and I don’t think of it as homage-y as much as a period piece, and I wanted to be as accurate as possible. Just like if we made a 50’s movie, I would have tried to make it accurate to the 50’s, but always in the script there was always going to be a dance scene. It was always going to be that song. [“One Thing Leads to Another” by The Fixxx.] If we couldn’t afford it, it would have been “Send Me an Angel,” but we were able to get it. And then I always knew we were going to do a freeze frame opening title thing. I think that element, like I said, I don’t think of the movie as homage, but I can’t be so ignorant not say there are a few “elbow in the rib” moments, that being one of them.

William Bibbiani: Did you have to fight to keep the movie from becoming ironic? A lot of movies that are set in the 80’s, are “Oh, look at the clothes…” and this is just, “Oh, it [just happens to be set in] the 80’s.”

Ti West: No, I’m sort of obsessive-compulsive with details, so I wanted to be really authentic and really specific, and if it had become a tongue-in-cheek thing it would have been a disaster. I remember talking to Jade Healy, the production designer, who was really responsible for a lot of how great the movie looks, and telling her it was not “Video Killed the Radio Star” 80’s, it’s going to be “brown, wood-paneling feathered hair” 80’s. And we went through yearbook photos of people and polaroids of people and things like that, and it was always, like, sweatshirts and buttoned-up plaid shirts and things like that. I really wanted it to be as realistic and authentic as possible, and not in your face.

Jocelin, when you were on set, dealing with dark forces, did you have any concerns about your personal safety? Did you have any protective talismans?

Jocelin Donahue: No, you have to kind of try to stay in the moment but there’s like 40 people from the crew around you and you’re supposed to be alone in the house. [EDITOR’S NOTE: At this point, the recording turns to static for several key seconds, clearly as a result of this question.] …Thank God, we shot sequentially, so as the night goes on the stakes get higher and higher, so you kind of feel that things are starting to go awry. You try to keep it natural, but we did have some weird things happen at the hotel and at the holding area.

Ti West: Also, when we were doing one of the pentagram scenes the tree next to the house got struck by lightning. (Laughter.)

Jocelin Donahue: Next time I’ll bring a talisman, I guess.

How did AJ Bowen and Jocelin Donahue become involved, and what about the script attracted you to it?

Jocelin Donahue: Well, I just came through the normal casting avenues. I knew the casting director, and Ti and I met maybe six times before I actually got the part, just talking about what it was going to be like, the styles, the themes, and what the shoot would be like. Since it’s an indie film it was really intense, we were shooting every night for about fourteen hours a night. And I was just attracted to the character and the normalcy. I felt that she was someone people could relate to. I definitely felt like she was someone that I related to. I had been to school and tried to get away from my roommate and find an apartment and all those everyday kind of things. The naturalism that his filmmaking really succeeds at is something that I like in filmmaking. I like the fly on the wall aspect of a lot of the film, and I also got to do the crazy, violent, psychedelic bloody stuff too, so for me it was really fun to get to do a range of things.

AJ Bowen: I’d had a movie out a year before, and Ti and I had sort of become friendly because we were with the same people traveling with the film festivals. He had Triggerman, I had Signal. And we went out to a bar in L.A. one night, and we were with one of the directors of Signal, and he kind of just got pushed out of the way because Ti and I had started talking about Iron Eagle and Teen Wolf. We kind of fell in love. (Laughs.) And then a little later, he was like, “You know, I have a script for you. It’s this part, I was going to do it, I don’t know if I’m going to do it. It’s like this mean guy. It’s not that cool. But if you want to do it maybe we can get you on camera and see…”

Was that Iron Eagle 1, 2, 3 or 4 you were discussing?

AJ Bowen: There’s only one real Iron Eagle.

You’ve got some iconic names in the cast – Tom Noonan (Manhunter), Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul), Dee Wallace (Cujo) – can you talk about casting them and working with them?

Ti West: Well, Tom I had worked with before on my first film, The Roost, and we had got along very well. Tom actually called me. I was casting only Jocelin’s role at the time. I got a call from Tom saying, “Hey, I heard that you got this script. I think I’d be good for it.” And I was like, “All right. Perfect… You’d be great.” So the fact that he wanted to do it and I wanted to work with him again, and I think he’s really terrific in the movie. He has just the right element of creepiness but he’s not so scary that you would run away from him. He’s just kind of awkward. So that was that.

And then Mary was someone I had been obsessed with for a really long time. I’ve been a huge fan. She doesn’t really act anymore. She’s a painter and a writer, and that’s what she’s been focusing on. And when I did [Cabin Fever 2] I really wanted her to be in that, and I had so many arguments with her agent! “She’s not going to do it!” We just kept fighting and fighting and I ran out of time, and I ended up not getting to use her. So on this movie I called the agent back and she’s just like, “Ugh, you again? Look, here’s Mary’s phone number. Good luck.” So I called her and she invited me over to her house and we hung out and we totally hit it off. We hung out for like three hours, and she was like, “I’d love to do this. I would have loved to do that other movie, had I met you!” And I was like, “ARGH!” You know, it was really great. I got to kind of put her on screen again. I think she has a screen presence kind of not like anyone else’s, and it’s pretty amazing. It’s great because I was a fan and I got to not just meet her as a fan, I got to work with her professionally. And that’s the best thing you can do.

And Dee was a situation where I had always wanted to work with Dee, and I never really had a role for her, and I didn’t really have a role for her in this one either, and we were casting the landlady role and it was kind of “Eh.” I looked up Dee and she was going to be in Baltimore doing a convention, and so I was like, “If she just came here a day earlier, she could do this scene. And she may not want to do it, but let’s call her and see.” And so I called her and said, “Look, I really want you to play this role.” I’d met her once. “And I was like, look, you’re already coming here anyway. So come here one day earlier and we’ll make sure you get to Connecticut and then to Baltimore.” And she was down to do it, and that was great. And she showed up, and we hit it off. It was also good to put Dee in a movie playing… She’s in a horror movie, but she’s not playing anything that has to do with the horror. Because Dee’s been in so many horror movies, I was like, “Look, you don’t have to scream! You don’t have to have blood on you, you’re not killing anyone. You’re not diagnosing anyone with some sort of problem. You’re just going to be a real person.” So that was satisfying because, working with actors it’s fun making horror movies and all that, but it’s far more interesting making the non-horror stuff in the movie with actors, because you don’t want to have actors you really like and then go, “All right, we’re going to squirt blood on you!” That’s not as interesting as doing really dramatic scenes.

And the Jocelin and AJ?

Jocelin Donahue: I mean, what a priviledge to be working with them in my first lead role! [EDITOR’S NOTE: Once again, the demons got into the microphone and prevented poor Jocelin from being recorded for a brief period.] …They also have a great sense of humor, so it was just fun on the set. And yeah I really like the scene where Tom’s convincing me to stay, because he’s gentle and he’s creepy, so she doesn’t seem like a fool for staying. And Mary was just crazy, and cool, and it was just fun.

AJ Bowen: They were kind of like opposites. You know, I didn’t have a lot of down time on the movie, and typically when I was there to do something it was just to hurt a female. (Laughter.) I felt guilty about it.  I was really excited because I was off the first night that Tom was coming on set to check things out, so I went down to the transport van to meet up with him… Tom comes out and sits down in the front seat. I give him shotgun, I thought that was gracious. (Laughter.) And I was like, “Hey, Tom! I’m Aj. It’s really nice to meet you,” and he just looked at me, and straight stonewalled me. (Laughter.) Then he turned and looked away. And then four days later when we were in an interview he finally started talking, but up until that point… By the end, he was like, “Hey AJ, do you have any music on your laptop that I could listen to?” “What are you into, Tom?” “I really like, uh, Motown? And uh, also Huey Lewis and the News: Sports.”

And Mary was the opposite. She was really gregarious. I’ve heard some people get kind of freaked out by her because of how gregarious she is. She’s just super-laid back. She was telling dirty jokes about 10-15 minutes in. It was kind of like hanging out with my Mom. It was really educational for me, both to the watch the other actors but also to watch the way the set was operating because I got to have all this time where I could just smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, and generally be creepy. And when I’m not doing that just sort of watch how they do things, because everybody, all the actors have such a different approach to the way they were executing things. Mary would say she was kind of camp, Tom would say that he does, “I play Tom Noonan in every movie,” and Greta’s got her own thing going on, Jocelin’s got her own thing going on. It was just awesome to kind of watch them do what they do and then kind of hurt the women.

William Bibbiani: Were there any particularly good dirty jokes that Mary told?

Ti West: Tom has a lot. Tom had a never-ending supply of just one-liner old jokes. I can’t remember them. I was in New York with him yesterday, and I couldn’t remember any. Maybe one will come to me… All of a sudden you’d hear in the room, “BECAUSE IT’S A DICK IN YOUR MOUTH!” (Laughter.)

When asked about their beliefs on Satanism…

AJ Bowen: I’ve been waiting my whole life to buy the Satanic Bible, because I knew I was going to go on a “Watch” list the second I bought it, and I figured I already was on one. So when I found out we were doing this, I was like, “Hell yes, I’m going to Amazon.com and I’m going to purchase the Satanic Bible.” So I bought it, and I read it cover to cover, and it really bummed me out because it’s just like reading The Fountainhead. It’s just all about humanism, and I want to talk about summoning a succubus!

Ti West: It’s all about hanging out and being kind of selfish.

AJ Bowen: Yeah. Dungeons & Dragons is way more exciting than the Satanic Bible.

When shooting the dance sequence, were you listening to “One Thing Leads to Another?”

Jocelin Donahue: Oh yeah. Yeah. I listened to that song. I probably couldn’t get it out of my head for six months after we shot it because I was learning the lyrics, which are almost incomprehensible. The song doesn’t really make too much sense. But that was my most fun scene on the set, because most of the time I’m like, bummed or anxious or scared, and that was really my chance to let loose.

AJ Bowen: I have a question for Jocelin. Did you choreograph your own dance sequence?

Jocelin Donahue: (Laughs) – It was freestyle, just in the moment!

Ti West: There were about four takes per room. I remember when we did that, I had this last minute fear, because we rehearsed a lot, talked about the movie a lot, but we were both too embarrassed to talk about that scene. So that was always the one that just never really came up. And then literally like, seconds before we did it, we were setting up the room, and I’m sitting there with Eliot (Rockett) the D.P. and I just had this, like, “Oh no, what if this is stupid?” I had this moment where I was like, “If this is stupid, this is going to be such a bummer.” And I was like, “I don’t know how I’m going to connect the two parts,” and he was just like, “Well, let’s see what just happens.” …And so we first shot when she comes through the door… and then the song starts playing and she came through, she did all her own dance moves, it happened. And when it was over everyone stood up and clapped, and it was like, “Oh, it’s going to be fine.”

When making a horror film, how do you obey the conventions while still putting your own spin on things?

Ti West: For me, I kind of think of it as a personal thing. I’m trying to selfishly accomplish my own interests. That being said, there’s a lot of this movie that I think takes classic horror movie clichés and kind of flips them around a little bit. Certainly pacing-wise, where you’re not used to someone going into a room and something horrific not happening. Like she goes into the room and you’re like, “Something’s going to ha… Oh, it doesn’t.” And you’re like, “Oh, it’s okay. Then something’s going to happen in this room!” And then it doesn’t. By the third time you’re like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in this movie anymore.”

William Bibbiani: Talking about the plot for a second; looking back on it, it seems like the cultist’s plan was perhaps a little overly ornate. I mean, they have her in the house, they could have just hit her on the head and that could be that. At some point in development, did that come up? Or was that intentional, because a lot of films from that era have a kind of unnecessary elaboration…

Ti West: Yeah, I mean I think there was an element that like, yes, I suppose they could have done a lot of things. But they didn’t. I think there’s just an element where there’s some classic storytelling there. I wanted to bring sort of a modern realism to the very classic horror movie structure. So that’s kind of where that came in. But I really wanted the movie to be a mystery movie, and a follow-the-clues movie for a while there, so if she had just showed up at the door and they’d knocked her out it wouldn’t have been that movie. It would been a different movie. It would have been a whole movie in which she’s tied up and tortured, but I’m not interested in that movie. This was more interesting to me. I suppose you could say, “Well, it’s because they had to make sure that she was…” but I don’t know. I don’t know. This is just the movie that I was very interested in making.

Any interest in making a sequel?

Ti West: I don’t know. We’ll see if anyone shows up with money for that… But I like open-ended stuff. I like enigmatic stuff in horror movies. I like when you don’t fully understand when you leave the movie theater, you’re still thinking about it. “What was that? What did that mean?” I think that motivates you to be proactive in your movie-watching. Challenging movies require interaction… It’s not just mindless entertainment. That’s always been interesting to me, so I think that’s where the open-endedness comes from.