[Special Report] ‘The Caller’ Premiere in Puerto Rico: Lights! Camera! Hurricane!

Movies
Posted by EvanDickson on August 25, 2011 @ 9:08pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Samuel Goldwyn Films’ suspense thriller The Caller is headed to select cities this Friday, August 26th. Directed by Matthew Parkhill from a script by Sergio Casci and starring Rachelle Lefevre (Twilight, New Moon), Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”, Quills), Ed Quinn (“True Blood”, “Eureka”) Luis Guzman (Boogie Nights) and Lorna Raver (Drag Me To Hell), the film centers around a recent divorcee who starts receiving some seriously needy and deranged phone calls on the old-timey landline in her new apartment.

Originally set to film in New York, the movie instead set up shop in Puerto Rico to take advantage of the territory’s tax incentives and the assistance of the local film commission. The subsequent plan was to shoot San Juan and pass it off as New York, but the filmmakers wisely decided to take full advantage of the exotic local flavor (and avoid the insurmountable task of finding more than two square feet of the Caribbean island that could pass for the Big Apple) and adapted the story to take place in the Puerto Rican capital instead.

Earlier this week I flew out to the island – which was literally enveloped by Hurricane Irene at the time – to attend the premiere, get a feel for the vibes of San Juan (the city is something of a character in the movie) and with speak with some of the film’s cast and crew about their soon to be notoriously difficult 23 day shoot. A shoot most of the people I spoke to felt was appropriately mirrored by the many, many difficulties that beset the premiere and, well… everything that went down over the past few days.

Check it out after the jump.