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THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU
... to read this interview with Courtney Solomon, the man behind hot new spook-fest An American Haunting.
Jason Arnopp meets him to discuss Emily Rose, ghostly occurences and the psychology of making people jump...
COURTNEY SOLOMON appears to be a happy man. This is surely not solely because (a) he's about to be interviewed by Slasherama and (b) he's just been out for a long lunch. No, you'd also imagine he's delighted with his new movie An American Haunting, which he wrote, directed, produced and handled catering for (only one of these duties is untrue). Based on a true story of Tennessee possession in the early 19th Century, it's a quality tale with spooky jumps, scares and neck-prickling madness, plus a decidedly dark underbelly, especially come the final reel. One of its many strong points is a rock-solid cast featuring Sissy 'Carrie' Spacek and Donald 'Don't Look Now' Sutherland, plus newcomer Rachel Hurd-Wood as the supernaturally put-upon Betsy.
We settle down in a room in Lions Gate UK's office (formerly home to Redbus Distribution). Good God, this man can talk: you'd never know that the following text was captured in our allotted 15 minutes. Unless, of course, I just told you. Courtney also directed the Dungeons & Dragons movie, but sadly we don't get around to discussing it. So don't get all excited, you at the back in the wizard-cap...
Slasherama: Hello good sir! I saw An American Haunting at 10 o'clock in the morning at San Sebastian's Horror And Fantasy Film Festival, last October.
Courtney Solomon: "Perhaps not the optimum time. I prefer rainy nights, but okay! You can't have everything. Were you even awake? Hopefully we woke you up, 15 minutes into the film. We're not exactly Slasherama - more Beat-erama!"
Slasherama: The film worked great for me, I have to say. It was a genuine pleasure to see a well-executed spook-fest after the sack of shit that was The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.
Courtney (laughing uproariously): "You can write 'laughs out loud' in big capital letters, with exclamation points all the way down the screen."
Slasherama: How aware of Emily Rose were you, while putting An American Haunting together?
Courtney: "Well, actually, we were working before Emily Rose. They're a studio, we're an independent, so it takes us longer. They threw it out there really quickly and put together a clever marketing campaign. I saw the film and I was like, 'Whatever'. There are one or two interesting sequences: I was a little upset to see the blankets coming off Emily there, because I wondered if somebody had taken a piece out of our script and decided to plunk it into Emily Rose. Ours is well-documented, rather than loosely-documented: there are 20 books written about our subject. This is a famous legend in the United States. I've been to the Tennessee town where this took place - I've stood over the Bell family's graves. I've stood where the house was and been to the Bell cave. It all part of my initial research. That's a town of 800 people, right out of Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Let's just say a real Jewish boy like me had no place bein' there, okay?! My name was Smith when I was in that town, and that was all I was saying!"
Slasherama: So An American Haunting is a proper true story?
Courtney: "Well, it's interesting that you brought up Emily Rose. I did a little research after I saw it. Both films have girls with the same kind of hair, plus possession of sorts. All these movies have been coming out, based on true stories, since horror had a resurgence a few years back. But ours really is a true story. I mean, look: I don't know exactly what happened in 1818, because I wasn't there. I'm not gonna sit across from you and say I know for sure, because that would be an out-and-out lie. Although I know a few guys who would do it, if they thought it would sell a movie ticket! Trust me: I live in LA - I see them all the time. They're real upstanding citizens (laughs).
"Anyway, my point is that something really happened in that town. There are books and they actually teach this stuff in Tenneesse text-books as part of history. Over 100,000 people visit that town, in the middle of nowhere, from all over the US, because they've heard this legend like a campfire story. So I came to the conclusion that something happened in that town. Our film was based on Brent Monahan's book The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, which accounts for the ending of it. Because what you see during the course of it is pretty consistent with the 20 books. I've been both hailed and criticised for this, but I purposefully didn't stray from the legend during the movie. I didn't have Betsy's head spinning around a couple of times..."
Slasherama: As tempting as it must have been, right?
Courtney: "It was very tempting. It would have made a cool visual - a great shot for the trailer and TV spot! A lot of people would have liked it - especially if the head finally fell off, then went smashing into a wall and splattered (laughs). But I wanted to stay true to the legend - the innocence and the original haunting. Now, because this is an unsolved mystery, there are different conclusions in many of the 20 books. I believe in ghosts, poltergeists and some kind of supernatural energy. I even believe in a potentially Biblical explanation for ghosts, with people caught in-between, so to speak. Everybody has their own beliefs: I just like the topic, so that's why I wanted to do a movie in this genre. Monahan's ending was valid: I just thought it was the best explanation as to what might have happened, based on how it all played out. Several people have said they thought this was the cause. I obviously won't give away the ending here, but I thought this was credible. I believe that family were attacked. It's not a story of a spirit killing a human being - it's a story of a spirit causing a death, which is a different thing. That's what made me interested."
Slasherama: How cool was directing Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland?
Courtney: "Very cool! Donald was in Don't Look Now! Sissy hadn't done a horror movie since Carrie, since the cameo in Ring 2. Which took her only one day to do - she basically did it as a favour, as I understood it."
Slasherama: Sadly, you couldn't understand what she was saying in Ring 2, half the time...
Courtney: "Well, Sissy tends to speak... very... softly... You don't wanna piss her off, though. I told her not to throw any projectiles at me, or wreck any rooms. Accept those boundaries and we'll have fun!"
Slasherama: When you were directing Rachel Hurd-Wood as Betsy, did you have a flashback to how William Friedkin must have felt directing...
Courtney: "Linda Blair? I don't know if it felt exactly the same way. Look, when I cast Rachel, I was initially looking for someone 20/21 who could play 14. Then I thought that wouldn't be true to the film - innocence you can't act. You either have it or you don't, and once you've lost it, it's just not in you. Besides being an extremely challenging role for a newcomer, Betsy's the focal point. If she doesn't pull off the role, the rest of the movie doesn't even have a chance of working. It's also a really physical role - you've got to be really careful when you're dealing with minors. (Whispers) That's why we went and shot the film in Romania! (Laughs). No, I'm kidding! You have to be careful. All of the stunts, the physical stuff was done by Rachel. There are no stunt people doing any of her scenes. We developed a very close relationship in order to get that performance. She had to feel comfortable and safe. I'm the one pulling her up those stairs. Even though I was directing the film I wanted to do that stuff personally, so she'd know she'd be safe and we got the kind of intensity I was looking for."
Slasherama: Just admit it: you hate kids.
Courtney: "No, I swear to you, I don't! The whole point of the movie is that I don't hate kids (laughs)! I was actually protecting her. The first time we tried to do that stuff, using a stunt crew, she actually banged her hand up a little bit and felt uncomfortable. She asked if I'd mind doing those things with her. I hadn't planned it, but I did it. Obviously, I had to be very careful with the framing of a lot of those fast-moving shots, to make sure I didn't turn up on camera. I didn't have a huge digital budget with which to erase myself!"
Slasherama: It would be nice if M Night Shyamalan started erasing himself from his movies...
Courtney: "Yeah, he always manages to get himself in there, in a Hitchcock way. I guess that's his Hitchcock homage."
Slasherama: I think it's more of a homage to himself.
Courtney: "I wasn't too pleased with The Village, I have to say."
Slasherama: Yes. A terrible business.
Courtney: "It didn't do terrible business! It just wasn't what I expected..."
Slasherama: An American Haunting has some superbly effective jump-scares. State-of-the-art stuff! Did you draw any conclusions as to what makes a quality horror movie jolt?
Courtney: "I think one is music, obviously. That goes without saying in any of these films. Sound effects, too. But it's also about building the tension beforehand, to get the audience off-guard and throw those in at different times. There's a technique I call the double-hit: I hit them and they think, 'Okay, now I can relax because there's not gonna be another one for seven-and-a-half minutes!'. Then you hit them in the next 30 seconds! The first jolt wasn't even the one you were really going for - it's far more satisfying to get them on the second jolt! But cheap scares weren't the goal of this film: it was more about telling the story that happened. I can understand that The Hills Have Eyes is probably higher up on Slasherama's list of movies, and this is not Hills Have Eyes. This is a great alternative to Hills Have Eyes and not nearly as lame as... the movie you mentioned at the beginning of this interview."
Slasherama: Well, here at Slasherama, our watchword is 'intensity' and your film is pretty intense. You fit us like a glove, sir.
Courtney: "Okay, that's great, because I've seen women who can't sit through this movie, because they just get too scared. Before they even know the ending, it's too intense for them. The intention was to build up the intensity and not let it go, because that's what these people lived through. If we were there in 1818, what the hell would we have thought? We've seen all these movies - we know you can call in a poltergeist team or something. We have a certain comfort zone. But those must have been some terrible years in that house, to say the least."
Slasherama: You did a splendid job with the movie, sir. What's next for you?
Courtney: "Well, I have fifty horror scripts on my desk. I don't exaggerate - literally fifty. I have to finish PR for the release of An American Haunting first of all, obviously. I've been working on two projects. One is a smaller film that's really cool and edgy: it's not in the genre, but it's a kind of thriller. A cross between Memento and The Usual Suspects, with a little bit of Death Wish thrown in. There are definitely seven deaths in it, plus a really cool end. I'm also working on a movie based on the story of the porn star Savannah who killed herself when she was 23. I've got some big talent that I've been working on that with. So look out for this stuff!"
An American Haunting floats ethereally into UK cinemas on April 14, 2006. It then hurls things around in US theaters, like some kind of petulant child, from May 5.
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Or the Bell Witch will put a pox on thee.
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