Editorials
5 Classic Thrillers that Influenced ‘Jessabelle’
Opening in limited theaters and on VOD platforms this Friday is Jessabelle, Lionsgate’s new haunter from Saw VI director Kevin Greutert.
In the film starring Sarah Snook, Mark Webber, Joelle Carter and Ana De La Reguera, “Returning to her childhood home in Louisiana to recuperate from a horrific car accident, Jessabelle (Sarah Snook) comes face to face with a long-tormented spirit that has been seeking her return — and has no intention of letting her escape.”
Bloody Disgusting checked in with Greutert to talk about the many films that influenced his latest genre offering. Here’s what he had to share:
“Every director wants his or her film to be unique. I’m no exception. But in the course of dreaming up a movie and guiding the crew and cast through the process of realizing that dream, it’s often necessary to find references in art and the world to help give the team a sense of how the finished movie should look and sound.
And naturally directors often turn for these references to the things they know best: other films. After all, there are thousands of decisions, large and small, that go into making a movie, and only so much time. When you’re under the gun and you need to quickly convey to a team of people how you want a scene to play, sometimes your best tool is to say something like, “Have a look at how they did it in The Ring. Let’s try to top that.” In the end you create something unique, but still part of a long tradition.
This process of guiding the team starts at the script stage. In the case of Jessabelle, I asked the writer, Ben Garant, to craft the story so that the audience experiences the whole movie from the perspective of the main character. This is the approach you see in films like Fight Club, and it has the uncanny effect of leaving the audience wondering if the reality you’re experiencing on screen can be trusted. Cinematographer Michael Fimognari and I talked at great length about techniques for amplifying this effect in the way the movie is lit and photographed, which led us back to films like Jacob’s Ladder and the ones listed below.
Jessabelle came into my life as a beautifully written script about a young woman who is forced to return to her childhood home in Louisiana, and must contend with a jealous spirit who now inhabits the house. The sumptuous visuals and creepy sound elements already existed on the page, and it was up to me to bring them to life on the screen.
So here are Five Classic Thrillers that I asked members of the cast and crew to watch before we filmed Jessabelle — for inspiration, techniques, and just to have a good time.
The Last Wave (Peter Weir, 1977)
I first saw this film at revival theaters when I was a teenager, and watched it again and again every time it came to town. Richard Chamberlain plays an attorney in Sydney, Australia, who is asked to defend an aboriginal man accused of a tribal murder, which leads him into a world of terrifying visions. In the course of this quiet but disturbing film, Chamberlain learns that there is a greater reality in the aboriginal Dream Time than in his own modern world view. I’ve always been a sucker for the idea that by civilizing, humanity has left behind long-forgotten feelings, powers and sensitivities that may still be perceived in some cultures, and I think The Last Wave got me started on this way of thinking.
I love this movie because of the way it conveys dreaming. Every scene in the film is infused with images of water — rain on windows, overflowing bathtubs, and of course the eponymous Wave that reveals in the end what is really happening. Each night, Chamberlain awakens in a storm to a strange sound off in the distance, a sound that has been seared into my mind for decades: an inhuman, lilting, rhythmic whine, like the bleating of a dying sheep, that gets closer and closer to the house, until we see an impossible silhouette outside the window. I asked my sound designer, Greg Hedgepath, to watch this film so we could try to understand just what qualities made this sound element so haunting and other-worldly. Ample use of the didjeridoo in the music score goes a long way to enhance the exotic atmosphere.
Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)
I hadn’t actually seen much of the Twin Peaks TV show when I saw this spinoff film late at night on opening weekend. It’s tonally very jarring, with insanely silly cop goofiness intercut with bleak implications of father/daughter incest. The story is nonlinear, and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, at least not to someone unfamiliar with the show (I boycotted my television for many years around that time). But it’s not the plot that counts here.
When I walked out of that theater, I was genuinely disturbed, and didn’t want to go to sleep alone (something else I did a lot of back then…) Just as Lynch intended, this movie gets under the skin and quietly seethes.
And again, Fire Walk is at its most powerful when it is depicting dreams and the subconscious. I would go so far as to say that David Lynch has brought the cinema language of dreaming to its highest point, and has been imitated but never bested. There’s a sequence that lived on my laptop during the shooting of Jessabelle that I shared as often as there was someone willing to watch it. Laura Palmer hangs an eerie framed photo on her bedroom walls. It depicts a doorway into a dark, featureless room. In her dream, she enters this room. The sound turns to reverberant sludge. Lin Shaye waves Laura down a dark passage, toward encounters with a backward-talking dwarf (of course…), Special Agent Cooper, and a signet ring. Then Laura opens another door — and is looking into her own room, at the same picture hanging on the far wall, but now she’s in the photo, looking back at herself. What does it all mean? You could conjecture all night. It’s more than the sum of its parts, and as a visual poem, it deftly indicates a reality that cannot be directly perceived or described.
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
The four segments of this Japanese ghost anthology are very different from one to the next, but all beautifully crafted. It’s the first section that I have pointed out as a reference for Jessabelle as well as my current project, Visions. In The Black Hair, a man abandons his faithful wife for a wealthy woman, and returns home to spend a night of reconciliation with his wife, only to awaken and realize what is actually in his bed.
This film opens with a classic title sequence created by filming ink dripped into a tank of clear liquid, and letting the abstract patterns slowly fill the screen. But it’s the brilliant, subtle sound design that really stands out for me. There are very few films that ever are allowed to get truly silent, and Kwaidan is a pioneer in this regard. The icy-quiet encounters with the ghost feel like death itself, with just a few accents from Toru Takemitsu’s abstract music score to let you know from time to time that there’s nothing wrong with your sound system. More recently, this technique was used to excellent effect in Under the Skin; I don’t want to spoil for you one of the greatest scenes of the year if you haven’t seen it, but it’s a great example of using silence to cinematically convey the state of death.
Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)
In its depiction of Louisiana as a hellish underworld of death and decay, this movie is a visual treat, and in some ways could be a one-stop reference for just about any Southern Gothic horror story since then. Mickey Rourke is private detective Harry Angel, hired on a gig that takes him to the darkest corners of New Orleans and beyond.
Angel Heart takes place in the world of the main character’s mind. Secrets and corruption and sensuality all sumptuously fill every nook, creepily photographed by Michael Seresin. In such crafty hands, Louisiana looks like a different country, maybe even a different world, and the production design is meticulous and beautiful.
And of course Lisa Bonet does a naked voodoo dance with a chicken. Let’s be honest: that’s the real reason we all watched this movie so many times. Jessabelle also has an amazing voodoo dance ritual, but we could only dream of the R-rated glories of Angel Heart. Still, I think we did a fine job in our own effort.
The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)
My favorite ghost story of all time, this film was made by editor-turned-director Robert Wise long before he shot The Sound of Music to much different effect. Based on a Shirley Jackson story, it’s a classic tale of a group of people who spend the night in an enormous Rococo mansion, and must face their demons. This movie scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, particularly the scene in which the nightmare force bends the ornate wooden door from behind. It’s still effective today.
What’s so amazing about this movie is that you never actually see a ghost. Its presence is brilliantly suggested through actor performance and sound design. David Boulton’s richly dark black-&-white photography is also a key player.
The most effective scary movies will always be the ones that draw the viewer’s own imagination into the game, because then it gets personal. We each have our own secrets, traumas, and phobias, as well as dreams and desires that can’t easily be put into words and images. As soon as the monster gets articulated on screen, it becomes something that doesn’t feel as true to our real lives, and isn’t so scary anymore. But a film that looks us in the eye and seems to know the unique demons we all harbor — that’s truly disturbing.” -Kevin Greutert
Can you believe it’s already been fifteen years since 2009? I feel older than Jason’s mother’s head. But never mind all that. We’re going to look into the past in celebratory fashion today and take a month-to-month look at what the world of horror looked like back in 2009.
The dreaded month of January kicked things off in usual January fashion with a forgettable title, The Unborn. A David S. Goyer picture that’s not very memorable but managed to be the sixth most successful horror film of 2009 domestically, raking in over $42 million at the box office.
Right behind it on the calendar was Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine 3D starring “Supernatural” actor Jensen Ackles. This slasher remake took the idea of January horror and embraced it, making a silly and gory slasher that was the world’s first R-rated film to ever use Real3D technology. Anyone looking for legitimate scares was probably pissed (the film has a 44% Rotten “Audience” rating) but genre fans had fun with it to the tune of over $51 million at the box office (on a $14 million budget).
Next up, releasing on January 30 was the sleepy PG-13 horror flick The Uninvited. For the life of me, I’ll never understand the choice to release a movie called The Uninvited two weeks after a movie called The Unborn; to be fair, most of us are unable to remember much about either of them.
The reboot of Friday the 13th was served up to us for Valentine’s Day Weekend 2009. A slasher movie that made a ton of money and had fans begging for a sequel… that never came. The Platinum Dunes reboot may not be universally beloved, but I know a fair share of fans (myself included) who thought the new Jason, Derek Mears, and team made a film that was both fun and brutal. And it was juicy enough to come in as the number three most successful domestic horror film in 2009 to the tune of over $65 million. Friday the 13th ’09 was nowhere near perfect but it was a damn fun time with some underrated Jason Voorhees moments and a sleek plan to tell Jason’s origin story quickly via flashbacks that some superhero franchises could learn from. Oh yeah, and it starred the other “Supernatural” bro, Jared Padalecki. I’m sensing a pattern here.
‘Last House on the Left’
Next up, yet another remake of a classic horror film: The Last House on the Left. Wes Craven wanted to see what his low-budget horror film would look like with a little walking around money and the results were that we, the audience, got to see a dude get his head microwaved. The critics weren’t huge fans but let’s be honest, it could have been a lot worse given the subject matter and lack of nuance in the 2000s. Last House went on to land itself in the top ten horror box office returns of the year.
March would also feature one of the many notches in Kyle Gallner’s horror belt, The Haunting in Connecticut, a movie with maybe too many generic possession genre moments to make a major dent in the status quo but enough to make it memorable. I’d take it over many of The Conjuring franchise spinoffs of today, personally. Though, they’re all very much alike.
April Horror would conjure nothing for audiences but Sam Raimi would bring the loud, scary, and funny back to the genre with Drag Me to Hell on May 29. This film that was somehow still PG-13 even with a cat murder, flying old lady eyeball, and mouth-to-mouth puke action was a blast to experience in the theater. Audiences agreed as the film ranked #7 on the horror box office of the year, cashing out at $42 million thanks to a loveable lead in Alison Lohman, the forever horror victim Justin Long, and some good old-fashioned, Evil Dead II-type fun.
‘Drag Me to Hell’
July would shock horror fans in a completely different way with adoption horror flick Orphan. The ending may have had all of us feeling super uncomfortable and shocked but the movie itself had adoption groups majorly upset at how the film depicted the dangers of adoption. So much so that the studio had to add a pro-adoption message to the film’s DVD. No matter, the performance of Isabelle Fuhrman would carry the film to a $41 million box office run and later spawn a decent prequel in 2022.
Speaking of collecting, The Collector was also released in July 2009 and was a pleasant surprise featuring a shitload of originality and some scares to boot. Yet another horror success that would make $10 million on a $3 million budget and spawn a sequel. We’re still waiting on third installment, which abruptly stopped shooting several years back under strange circumstances.
The fourth Final Destination film graced us with its predestined presence in 2009 as well with The Final Destination; the 3D one with the race car track opening. The film was (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a financial success, raking in over $186 million (worldwide) on a $40 million budget.
Rob Zombie went Rob Zombie’ing as hard as he’s ever Rob Zombie’d with Halloween II later that month. He’d Rob Zombie so hard that we wouldn’t see Halloween on the big screen again until almost ten years later with Halloween 2018. And nothing controversial ever happened in the franchise again. *Shuts book* Stop trying to open it! NO! NOOOOOOOO!
‘Halloween II’
Another remake in Sorority Row was the first film to follow Rob Zombie’s divisive stab-a-thon with a schlocky Scream-esque slasher flick that had a good enough time and even boasted a few neat kills. Critics weren’t fans of this one but if you were? You’ll be happy to hear that writer Josh Stolberg just announced he’s working on the follow-up!
Sexy Horror September continued a week later with Jennifer’s Body and an all-new, emo kind of Kyle Gallner. Jennifer’s Body didn’t exactly crush it for the critics or the box office but has success in its own right and is considered somewhat of a cult classic thanks to some hilarious writing and leading performances from Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. Also, shout out to Adam Brody’s band Low Shoulder. Machine Gun Kelly could never.
Part of the low box office for Jennifer’s Body could have had something to do with what came next as Paranormal Activity would rock the horror world a week later. The genius marketing of the low-budget film would feature clips of audiences on night vision cameras losing their minds. Whether it scared you to death or you found the entire concept ridiculous, you had to see it for yourself. Paranormal Activity would bring in almost $200 million worldwide on a 15 THOUSAND dollar budget. I’m no mathematician but I’m pretty sure that’s good. The horror game changer may just be the most remembered of all the 2009 films and it’s one every studio in the world wanted to replicate.
‘Paranormal Activity’
One film’s game changer is another film’s flop as Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster’s space horror Pandorum had the unfortunate scheduling of lining up against Paranormal Activity on that fateful day and in turn, being mostly forgotten.
Spooky Season 2009 kicked off with the beloved horror-comedy Zombieland in October, complete with Jesse Eisenberg’s meta-rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, Bill Murray, and Woody Harrelson who just wanted a fuckin’ Twinkie. There’s nothing like a good horror comedy and Zombieland proved that all the way to the bank, making $74 million domestically en route to a second film that brought back the entire cast.
It’s only been twelve seconds since I said the word remake, so let’s fix that. The Stepfather remake would follow a week later and be met by an audience getting a little sick of them. Unlike some of the other spirited remakes that surrounded this era in horror (not that they ever stopped), The Stepfather felt like an uninspired retread of the understated but completely messed up 1987 Terry O’Quinn horror cult classic. It’s largely been forgotten over the years.
“Who am I here?” Oh yeah, it’s October in the 2000, there’s bound to be a Saw movie around here somewhere. Saw VI would be released on the 23rd of October and continue the story of Detective Hoffman while adjusting the rates of some shady insurance adjustors. Saw VI would also fall victim to a little bit of Paranormal Activity mania with the film being bested by the continued rollout of its predecessor. Things were looking a little bleak for the franchise at this point. Probably none of us would have imagined that fifteen years later we’d be talking about the same director (Kevin Greutert) returning for the eleventh movie in the franchise.
‘The House of the Devil’
After all these humongous box office successes, sequels, and remakes it would be three memorable indie flicks that would round out October of 2009; the ultra fucked up Willem Dafoe, Lars von Trier sex/horror flick Antichrist, followed by Ti West’s ’70s haunter The House of the Devil and rounded out with some Australian torture horror in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones. All three movies each make their mark in their own special ways. What a way to end October.
But it was November that would bring the movie that scared me more than any other on this list: The Fourth Kind. A lot of you are assuredly rolling your eyes right now but this one messed me up on a cellular level despite it being a complete and total fake. The Fourth Kind decided to meld a traditional horror film with the stylings of The Blair Witch Project in an opening designed to make you believe it was based on a true story. An embarrassing attempt but the film itself had me afraid to sleep near windows at night after seeing those found footage abductions. It still messes with me, to be honest. WHY ARE THEIR MOUTHS STRETCHING SO MUCH?!?!
December was too busy doing Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks-type family affairs for any horror movies but even without it, 2009 was quite a year for horror. I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some other memorable films that were released either straight to video, limited or overseas that year including Case 39 (that oven opening!), Exam, Daybreakers, Splice, Dead Snow, The Hills Run Red, The Descent 2, Blood Creek, Cabin Fever 2 and [REC] 2.
What were your horror favorites from 2009? Comment below and let us know!
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