Movies
‘Crazy Babysitter Twins’ Return to the Big Screen… Twice!
Last week was the red carpet premiere of The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond, Gabriel Bologna’s horror film scripted by Sean Clark. While the film features Halloween stars Nick Mennell and Danielle Harris, alongside Robert Patrick and James Duval, it also features the mega popular Electra and Elise Avellan, also known as the crazy babysitter twins from Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. We caught up with Electra on the red carpet where she talks about her role in Black Waters and Machete, while also teases that the long-gestured Crazy Babysitter Twins movie might be in the works! Read on for the skinny.
In THE BLACK WATERS OF ECHO’S POND, nine friends take a holiday at a Victorian home on a private island and uncover a game that when played brings out the worst in each of them. Jealously, greed, hatred, lust, all of the things they keep buried deep inside themselves rise to the surface and come to a boil. The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond shows those who look into it what they want to see… but what you want to see isn’t always the truth.
Two of those nine friends are Electra and Elise Avellan, best known as the Babysitter Twins in GRINDHOUSE. We caught up with Electra who talked a bit about how they came to star in BLACK WATERS.
“We play twins and it was an amazing experience. [Writer] Sean Clark called us and is like `I wrote this movie and have these roles of best friends and can make `em twins, you wanna do it?’ We said `Of course we wanna do it!’ The script was brilliant when I read it,” she tells Bloody Disgusting in sheer excitement while adding it won an awards a few weeks back. “I saw it 3 weeks ago in Orlando and we won best picture by audience choice, it was unbelievable…we didn’t even submit the film!” She adds that it was a little scary seeing herself on the big screen (again). “It is nerve racking and I judge myself; I expect more than what I see, but was happy to see I’m not a terrible actress. That’s good enough [for me]!”
In the film the board possesses the players and leads to some horribly bloody deaths. Electra got freaked out seeing herself in the movie.
“I do get possessed in this. It’s really weird to see myself become a demon; it’s not something I ever want to see ever again. I freak myself out; it’s pretty creepy, especially when I see my sister [possessed].”
But here’s the big news, the reason you’re reading this story. Electra hints that THE CRAZY BABYSITTER TWINS movie is already being scripted!
“Well, you know what, it’s such a massive project that I can’t talk about it,” Electra tells Bloody Disgusting when we pushed her for details on what’s next. “It is a horror movie, it’s more action, it’s gonna be pretty big with big stars, and it’s related to GRINDHOUSE.” Related to GRINDHOUSE you say? Electra’s sister Elise wouldn’t happen to be in it would she? “My sister is in it. Sean Clark is writing it right now, we’re writing it together; it’s of course going to be amazing because he’s a great writer.”
There you have it right there for you decide. Is a CRAZY BABYSITTER TWINS movie in development? While that project is in the writing stage, Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE recently wrapped and both Electra and Elise star.
“We just finished shooting MACHETE,” she tells BD adding that Robert De Niro turned her Beatlemania. “Robert De Niro, oh my God I was freaking out every day! Jessica Alba is an amazing actress, amazing person and Lindsey Lohan, probably so far, people will hate for me to admit, an amazing human being. I hate the tabloids talking bad about her. I think she is amazing and it was a pleasure working with her.”
When asked about their roles in the film, Electra reveals that it could be the Babysitter Twins once again only they’ve changed professions.
“My understanding [is that] I think we are the same girls from GRINDHOUSE, but we don’t have the same jobs, we’re nurses basically. ”
“Inspired by the legendary Maxim photo shoot?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Robert saw that shoot a few years ago and was like `oh my God, so f*cking hot, this is awesome!,’ so maybe that’s why he got inspired to write us in?”
We had also heard rumors of a December release, which Electra confirms, “That’s what they’re talking about.”
One of the things that made GRINDHOUSE special is the over-the-top gore. MACHETE will have plenty of that.
“It’s extremely violent, it’s more violent than GRINDHOUSE, [which] was zombie violence so you know zombies aren’t real,” she explains. “This is real, this is people getting killed; it’s so scary to me. I think it’s more graphic than GRINDHOUSE, but I’ll have to see first.”
DECEMBER? That would be cool! Now enjoy the epic nurse photo shoot.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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