Exclusives
[Interview] Max Burkholder On Surviving ‘The Purge’
The Purge, which comes from director James DeMonaco, looks to be a fairly intense piece of work. While I have yet to see the film (something I’m fixing soon), I took the opportunity last week to hop on the phone with Max Burkholder (“Parenthood”), who plays young Charlie Sandin in the film.
In theaters June 7th, the film also stars Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Tony Oller, and Rhys Wakefield.
“In an America wracked by crime, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity—including murder—is legal. The police can’t be called. Hospitals suspend help. It is one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking.”
Check out the interview below!
This appears to take place mostly in one place. “The bulk of the movie takes place inside the family house. It was a house that we found and shot inside. We were there for about four weeks and it was really fun, it was a big house we got to explore and put blood all over the walls.”
You play Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey’s son. Did you guys have time to rehearse to cement that family dynamic? “Yeah, we did. We had a few days before actual shooting to rehearse and we rehearsed the more involved scenes throughout the film. There’s a few scenes in the last week that took a couple days to finish.”
What were some of the more intense things to shoot? “Basically from 15 minutes in until the end it’s just really intense. Non-stop. There were a few really emotional scenes towards the end that were hard to shoot and also a lot of intensely physical scenes with a lot of kicking and screaming, so those were all the harder ones.”
When you’re doing something like this, what’s the role of your parents in the decision making process? “They’re pretty good about that kind of stuff. I think they’d be fine with me doing almost anything on camera because they were actors themselves and they know what would be fine and what wouldn’t. They had no qualms about this at all.”
Exclusives
Katharine Isabelle Battles Cosmic Horror in Exclusive ‘Junction Row’ Teaser Trailer [Fantasia 2026]
Among Fantasia 2026‘s massive final wave of programming this morning is Raven Banner’s Lovecraftian creature feature Junction Row, starring Canadian horror icon Katharine Isabelle, and we’re exclusively unveiling the teaser trailer.
Junction Row will celebrate its World Premiere at Fantasia on July 28.
Watch a housing compound fall under siege from Lovecraftian creatures more dangerous than drug dealers in the trailer below.
Junction Row follows “Juno, a recovering addict who leaves a fringe housing compound for a better life, leaving her beloved Ruby behind. When she learns that Ruby has gone missing, Juno returns, only to find Junction Row has become a hotbed of criminal activity, but she encounters much more than menacing drug dealers on her mission to find Ruby.”
Isabelle stars as Juno, with Natalie Brown (FX’s The Strain) as Ruby.
The creature feature marks the feature debut by director Ashlea Wessel, who has directed festival-favorite shorts like 2018’s “Tick” and 2020’s “Weirdo”.
Wessel co-writes Junction Row with Clown in a Cornfield author Adam Cesare and Matt Serafini.
Katharine Isabelle is coming off a brief appearance in Kane Parsons’ Backrooms, and more recently appeared in holiday horror It’s a Wonderful Knife. The horror icon is arguably best known for her turn as the eponymous werewolf in Ginger Snaps and for her roles in American Mary and Freddy vs Jason.
Fantasia teases that Junction Row tells “a story where the fear of the unknown isn’t confined to what lies above, but what waits beneath.”
Stay tuned for more from Fantasia as the festival gets underway later this month.
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