Director Marcus Nispel certainly knows horror – he directed 2003’s stellar remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and was also behind the camera for the imaginative Friday the 13th reboot. His latest offering, Exeter, follows a group of teens that visit an abandoned asylum for a party, unwittingly releasing a malevolent spirit.
While we’re still a few months away from the official release, Exeter made its US debut at the Phoenix Film Festival this past weekend. A few hours before the premiere screening, we caught up with Exeter star Brittany Curran to get the lowdown on her film’s thrills, chills, and laughs. Check it out below.
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So the film screened at the Glasgow Film Festival, but you weren’t there…
I wasn’t there, so it doesn’t count. [laughs]
So this is your first festival with Exeter. Are you excited?
I am excited! It’s more fun to watch it with an audience, because it’s a horror film, but it’s also funny, I hope. I hope people think that.
I was wondering if there was supposed to be a bit of humor there, because in the trailer, some of the characters seem like dicks…
They are! Some of the characters are dicks. [laughs]
So tell me how you got involved with Exeter.
I went in for the casting director and just auditioned, and I remember really liking the script a lot. And then a couple of months went by and I completely forgot about it. I was shooting this other horror film called Captured, and they had me dye my hair jet black, and they put fake tattoos on me, like a full chest piece and both arms. And when I was shooting this film, my agent called and said “Marcus Nispel wants to meet with you.”
So we were trying to sneak in a meeting while I was filming this movie, and the only time we could both do it was at like 10pm. So I got done filming for the day and I went to his house, and I was like “oh my god, I look totally different, I have these tattoos and black hair.” And it turns out, he loved it. We had a great chat, and we talked about the script, and then a couple of days later he had me read this one really pivotal scene. And then a few days after that, he called me and offered me the role.
So now I’m really glad that I dyed my hair black and went through the pain of getting fake tattoos. [laughs] Now I know of want both of those things all the time.
Where did you shoot?
We shot on location in Exeter, Rhode Island, in an abandoned insane asylum. It had been condemned for about 25 years, and there had been all kinds of malpractice there, which was similar to our storyline. A few months after we were done filming, the state actually demolished it. It was that bad, apparently.
But it was cool! There was so much history there. The place was over 100 years old, I think it was originally called Dr. Ladd’s School for the Feeble-Minded or something like that – really politically correct – and craziness happened there. We had a historian come to set and tell us about these really devastating but fascinating stories that happened with these patients. So it definitely helped us get into the mood.
When you’re in a place like that with so much history, where so many things happened, does it freak you out to be there? Can you separate the true stories from the work you’re doing, or does that stuff start to seep in a little bit?
It definitely seeped in, but it was good that it did, I think. Our movie is a little disturbed, and my character is disturbed, so it was good that it seeped in. I tried to separate myself from it, but I think it’s hard when you’re in a place and it already has a creepy vibe and you know the history.
There was this one huge room that we shot in that used to be a communal bathroom, and there were still shower spouts there. And one of the stories was about this little boy who was a patient, and wouldn’t be quiet. So the nurses had another older patient tie him in a burlap sack and hang him from the shower spout, and he suffocated.
So I’m shooting in there, and I’m thinking about that, and you can’t just let that stuff go. The first day I was there, I was so freaked out I didn’t want to touch anything. But by the end of the shoot I was just lying around on the floor in the dirt. Granted, it’s movie dirt, but still…
Are you nervous about the screening?
No, I’m just excited. It’s still one of the first times I’ve seen it with an audience, and it’s really cool to do a film and put so much work into it and get to see people’s reactions. A lot of the reason why you do this is for the audience, and doing this film I found out that one of my favorite things in this world is watching people get freaked out when shit happens to me.
There are just certain things that I’ll be anticipating – and it’s a horror film, so you can use your imagination – and I’ll be sitting there like, “oh my god, everyone is about to lose their shit.” And then they do, and it’s so satisfying.
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Exeter will debut exclusively on DirecTV on July 2 before getting a limited theatrical release in August.