Tag: Haunted House Movies

825 Forest Road Production Still

Hell House Creator Stephen Cognetti Dishes on His New FIlm 825 Forest Road

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For HorrorBuz.com, I recently interviewed Hell House LLC series creator Stephen Cognetti about his latest film, 825 Forest Road, debuting on Shudder this Friday. We chatted about the film’s more traditional narrative storytelling, haunted histories, small town America, and the fact he filmed in the Victorian-looking town of Jim Thorpe, PA, localish to me.

You can read the full interview here. I also included some of it below.

825 Forest Road stars Joe Falcone as Chuck Wilson, who, after a family tragedy, moves to the sleepy town of Ashland Falls with his little sister, Isabelle (Kathryn Miller), and his wife, Maria (Elizabeth Vermilyea). Yet, as the family soon finds out, the town harbors a dark secret.

What was your experience like transitioning from the found footage genre to more traditional narrative storytelling?

Stephen Cognetti: It was a great transition for me to leave found footage behind. I shot this right after Hell House 3. It was in between Hell House 3 and Hell House: Origins, so this happened between two found footage films. It was great to step away from found footage and do a traditional narrative. That’s the style of filmmaking I like doing in production, but I also love found footage horror, as a consumer of it and making it as well. I had fun making the Hell House movies, and I have fun watching found footage movies myself. But I had already done three found footage movies and I wanted to do something else. It’s a specific kind of filmmaking. It’s fun to do, but it’s not a kind of filmmaking to always live in. It’s good to try other styles of filmmaking.

How did you come up with the mythos surrounding Helen Foster and her ghost? Is she based on any specific local folklore?

 Stephen Cognetti: She, specifically, is not based on any folklore. The whole story is based on any small town America folklore. I left New York City and moved to a small town in the Scranton [Pennsylvania] area. This town has its history. Everyone I met always had a story to tell about the town’s history. I imagined, what if one of these stories is about a ghost? I wanted to create my own fictional small town folklore and small town legend. What if it wasn’t a legend but something still affecting the town to this day? If you talked about it, you’d talk about it while looking over your shoulder because you don’t want to bring too much attention to yourself by talking too much about it. If you talk about it to a newbie, it’s a secret warning.

The truth of it came from my own move from New York City to small town Pennsylvania and learning about the history. It didn’t have any ghosts in it, so I created my own.

The idea of locations with haunted histories factors heavily in this film and even the Hell House series. Can you comment on that aspect of your work?

Stephen Cognetti: I can’t actually answer that because I think it’s organic and comes with each story. I’m a history guy. I love history. I was a film major and history minor in college. I took every history class that I could. I love history as a story. There might be, in the back of my head, a story that derives from some place. I think that goes to Hell House and 825 as well, along with films coming up in the pipeline that haven’t been announced yet. It’s always been of interest to me. I don’t know why that is, other than I have a love of history itself.

Speaking of small towns, you filmed this in Jim Thorpe, PA. For anyone who’s never been there, it looks like a Victorian town. What factored into your decision to film there?

Stephen Cognetti: I started exploring towns all around Northeastern Pennsylvania, Southeastern Pennsylvania, Central Pennsylvania, and everywhere. I drove into New York, too. I spent a lot of time driving. Jim Thorpe had a bit of everything. It already had that whole look, that look like it has history. Every building looks like that. The town is cool. The people are great, and it’s a good town to shoot in. It was accessible for me and everyone working on the film coming in from New York. It fit the accessibility, and it had the look.

825 Forest Road is also about loss and family dynamics. Can you touch upon the relationships in this film, especially between Chuck and his sister Isabelle?

Stephen Cognetti: I think Chuck starts out as a sympathetic character and a central character in the film. That’s how the first act is presented to us. As the film goes on, especially as we see Isabelle and Maria’s stories, Chuck can be considered an antagonist in this. He’s not actually any hero at all. I love that development of him and when you see him from a different perspective than his own. When you see him from a different perspective, he’s aloof and has a poor way of dealing with people going through something. I think everyone knows a person like that. Chuck is the kind of person that’s only there to lend very broad support but doesn’t understand it. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t really understand it. Therefore, he can’t really offer any help. He thinks he knows everything. When you see Chuck in other perspectives, you see he’s not the guy presented in the first act. His personality has a lot of flaws

825 Forest Road haunts Shudder beginning Friday, April 4 as part of their Halfway to Halloween celebration.

Good Boy Production Still

Good Boy and a New Type of Haunted House Film

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There’s been a trend this year within the horror genre: haunted house films told from unique perspectives. At the start of the year, we had Presence, directed by Steven Soderbergh. In this particular slow-burn feature, the film is largely shot from the POV of poltergeist(s). The spook(s) torment a grief-stricken family, especially the daughter. Though the film is pretty light on scares, it’s an interesting take on a familiar subgenre. Instead of following a family moving into a home that’s haunted, we largely see the world through the eyes of the supernatural presence.

Now along comes Good Boy, which just debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival. In this film, we see everything through the perspective of Indy, an adorable dog who’ll do whatever it takes to protect his owner from a frightening entity. Unlike Presence, Good Boy has some really solid scares. So far, it’s my favorite horror film of the year. Here’s my review of the film, which was initially published at HorrorBuzz.

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It’s been quite the year for animals in film. Flow, a wordless film from a cat’s perspective, won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Flow has plenty of endearing moments, but it’s also a nerve-rattling viewing experience because the cat must survive mass flooding and life-ending climate disasters. Now along comes Good Boy. Here, we have a haunted house movie, and really a meditation on death, told totally from a dog named Indy’s perspective. Like Flow, it’s one harrowing watch.

Directed by Ben Leonberg, the film stars Shane Jensen alongside Indy. Jensen plays Todd. In the opening minutes, we see Indy at his owner’s feet. Suddenly, Todd coughs blood, just as his sister enters the apartment in time. This opening gives away quite a bit, and Todd’s condition and what’s really going on with this film become much clearer as early as the halfway point. After the foreboding start, the film cuts to various home videos of Todd and Indy, and yes, the two are adorable together, especially the grainy footage of Indy as a puppy in Todd’s arms.

Before the film meets its conclusion, there’s a creeping sense of dread and some solidly scary scenes. Indy fears the rural house that Todd lives in. It’s a long-standing family home, but hardly anyone lasted more than a few weeks in it, including Todd’s grandfather. This is where the film flirts a lot with experimentation. Instead of the typical family haunting, here we have a haunted house movie from the dog’s point of view. We see shadows in the corner through Indy’s perspective. We hear loud thumps at night and then watch Indy’s ears perk up as he whimpers and knows that whatever’s haunting the house is inching closer and closer to his owner, no matter how badly Indy wants to keep the presence at bay.

Some of the camera shots, which sometimes focus on a snowy TV or the staircase, resemble Skinamarink. This is also why I know this film won’t be for everyone. That other film has its lovers and haters. This feature risks the same thing with some of its focused shots and emphasis on the mundane within a house. Yet, like Skinamarink, Good Boy, at some of its most frightening moments, makes familiar objects really, really creepy, creating a sense of the uncanny. Suddenly, the static noise from the TV, and other familiar sounds and images, provoke a sense of dread. There are unsettling moments in this film, especially when the scares are juxtaposed with the prolonged sound of Todd wheezing and coughing. The sicker he becomes, the more his relationship with Indy changes. The word “stay” takes on new meaning here.

This has been an interesting year for both animals in film and the haunted house movie. At the beginning of the year, Steven Soderberg’s Presence showed us the point of view of a poltergeist tormenting a family, especially the grief-stricken daughter. Now, we see everything creepy in a rural spook house from a dog’s point of view. Yet, no matter how much Indy wants to protect his owner, he can’t prevent the inevitable. Though Good Boy’s experimentation may turn off some viewers, this lean feature gets right to it and has some genuine frights. Two paws up for this chilling tale.

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I can’t say what’s causing this new wave of haunted house films, told from creative and clever POVs, but I’m all for it. The horror genre continually finds a way to reinvent itself, while tapping into our collective anxieties and fears. Presence and Good Boy make a familiar subgenre feel new again, and Indy gives one of this year’s best performances so far!