iHorror Interview With Andrew C. Erin – Writer / Director

 

Ryan T. Cusick: Hey Andrew how you doin?

Andrew C. Erin: Hey Ryan, I’m good man how are you doing?

RTC: Really good, really good. And you also wrote part of this right?

ACE: I did, I co-wrote it with Daniel Ferrands.

RTC: You know, I just finished it this morning. {Both Laugh}

ACE: Well I hope you liked it.

RTC: It was better than I thought it was going to be, to be honest with you.

ACE: Good, that is what I like to hear.

RTC: It, uhh, yeah I am not gonna lie it actually did scare me a little, and I am not that easy to scare.{Both Laugh} Kind of more uneasy I really didn’t know what to expect. The film seemed really rich to me. Just with your sets, the coloring, overall cinematography, even the soundtrack, just really went along well with it.

ACE: Well, thanks.

RTC: Yeah it was great. Having Danielle Harris real quick, even though it was real quick was a real treat. I am sure a lot of people will be disappointed because she was gone so quick but I wasn’t, it was real nice to see her again.
 
ACE: We have got some slack for killing her off so early because people are such fans, you know. Right off the bat we even called the character on the script Daniel because Dan Ferrands, the writer also knows Daniel, he was like “You know it would be great if we could get her and kill her off in the beginning,” and people would be like what the…? So we did.

RTC: It may have made for a better movie. It just felt right, if that makes any sense. Having her run around and scream was really a throwback to her Halloween 4 & Halloween 5 days when she was a lot younger. I really got that, my Halloween fix right there. It was great!

ACE: She is, Fantastic! She is so easy, and she knows exactly what to do.

RTC: I bet!

RTC: First, I am going to go ahead and start off with, Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your work in film?

ACE: Sure. I started, oh God along time ago, just writing and producing stuff and directing short films up in Canada and Toronto. My first feature was Sam’s Lake which is based on a true story of a cottage that I used to go to, and I did a short film of that back in 2002, and it got some hype down in LA. I ended up in Los Angeles, and within a year I had the feature setup, and we were shooting it on Vancouver Island, and that made it into the Tribeca Film Festival, and that is what kicked off my career. Since then I have been in LA doing a variety of things. Writing, Directing, and now producing, and that was a thriller horror, I have a passion for the genre, whenever I can try to really bring something that I am passionate and then get it setup.

RTC: That is awesome, how did you start writing this one [Havenhurst], how did that come about?

ACE: Well its funny, years ago Dan and I met through a producer friend who put us both in a room and said, “you guys are both genre guys, come up with an awesome concept that could be franchise worthy,” so Dan and I spent the day figuring it out and we ended up with Havenhurst. From there we ended up not working with that producer, but we took the concept, and we evolved it, and we set it up at Lionsgate for a TV series, at one point, with Twisted Pictures and then went back to a feature, and it got made.

RTC: Where was the on-location filming at?
 
ACE: We shot in Los Angeles. All of the stuff inside the building is a build, so we did it on stages. We built all of the hallways, all the apartments, the laundry room, everything is a build. We used the Herald-Examiner building for the basement stuff and stuff downtown. And then we did a two or three day unit in New York to get the exterior of Havenhurst and Julia walking around the city.

RTC: Yeah, that exterior was beautiful – really Gothic looking.
 
ACE: We had that in our minds, literally from day one. When we actually found this building in New York we were like, “That’s it!”

RTC: That is just so awesome. Was the script revised too much or was it your original concept?

ACE: Uhh, yeah it was most the original concept, when we brought Mark Burg [Executive Producer] on board, you know we got the script to a place where we felt confident in trying to get someone sort of like a Mark or a Jason Blum on board who had a brand that would sort of anointing it if you will and Mark Burg’s company they had already their name on it with Twisted Pictures when we had it as a TV series so we went to him first and he liked the concept in it and we went into notes with him for a couple of months. And once we finished that we just shot that script.

RTC: What really hit home for me was the whole addiction, with the main character going through addiction with alcohol and the traumatic past with her daughter, you really captured it. When she walked by the counter with all the booze, she was really contemplating, and then she finally gave in. It was really depicted well.

ACE: Yeah, I am not a stranger to it I’ve got a lot of people in my life plagued by it. We sort of wanted to create as much as we could inside these movies like Saw, for instance, it is kind of a morality tale. So this is kind of approached from that same angle, so that is why I think Twisted Pictures liked it so much. They’re hurting themselves, they’re hurting the people around them, which is often the case with it, but obviously we take it to crazy extremes.

RTC: Yeah

ACE: We married the struggle that people go through with addiction with HH Homes. [Both Laugh]

RTC: It was a good concept. It really drew me in, it really did. Another fun thing about this film, at least for me it was, I could not figure out is this supernatural stuff going on or this an actual person. I couldn’t put my finger on it until the end.

ACE: We were hoping, that was the intent. Which is why you hardly ever see Jed, the guy in the walls until later on in the movie. We were hoping, especially with that opening. We were hoping people will think, “Oh this is a haunted building…and we slowly reveal. Like we show the picture of H.H. Holmes in the lobby. We start to lay that in more and more and people are like, “Wait, that’s not a ghost, someone is actually moving through the walls.”

RTC: Yeah, and I think that is just as scary. [Laughs] Someone in the walls.

ACE: Oh yeah, definitely.

RTC: For me, it was a throwback to Wes Craven’s The People Under The Stairs, the fact that people were going through the walls to get around in this building, that was really cool. Do you have any funny stories that happened on the set, with Danielle or anything?

ACE: Umm, not really. The blessing and the curse of this movie was that we had it on a relatively short schedule and we were trying to, with the building and all the technical stuff, the action, and making people disappear, it was such a challenge every day, umm we didn’t have a lot of time for gags and what not. We were all just so focused on trying to make it work. The actors were so into the roles, showed up, were quiet and focused. I mean, honestly, it was like living in a horror movie the whole time, because we had to stage where everything was lit really really well. In the morning they would spend an hour fogging out the whole thing. So when you walked onto the set, you were already living in this sort of dreary, scary atmosphere and it helps people get into the mood. So we just stayed very focused and tried to stay quiet and keep everything moving. The funniest for us I think was the scene in the movie where Julie Benz is running from Jed and she hits the steel door and turns around then the floor comes up from under her. She was terrified to do that. But I mean she is a trooper she did most of her stunts up until the point we were throwing people through walls.

RTC: Yeah there were a lot of stunts. People were getting thrown around. I felt it; it was hard.

ACE: Yeah, the actual stunt where we throw the prostitute across the room, there were literally no cables there, and it was like an eighteen-foot launch, the whole room shook.

RTC: I can imagine, it was brutal, and it worked very well. How was it working with, gosh I can’t pronounce her name, so I will use her character name, Eleanor.

ACE: Yeah, it was a treat. Here is the thing, I had been a fan of Julie Benz for so long on all of her stuff that she has done And with Fionnula Flanagan [Eleanor]. If you love The Others, she is unforgettable in that. When she agreed to do the project, I was over the moon, and she was just a sweet and professional woman. She would show up, and she would just turn into Eleanor in front of you, it was awesome. I hardly had to give her any notes. That is what you want as a director, these actors show up, and they just give you tons and tons of stuff. She is one of those actors; it was a lot of fun.

RTC: She played it good, I really liked that character. The scene where the detective came in and started to drill her a little bit, and she was like, “well I hope you have a warrant,” she didn’t care, she was really..

ACE: Confident.

RTC: Oh yeah, very confident. And then Julie Benz she was great.

ACE: Well that’s the thing. You get someone like Julie Benz, and as a director, it can go either way, but I got to say she was just such a pro, she would show up focused everyday, she was into the character, she was really into the movie, it was a lot of fun to work with her. She delivered a really understated powerful performance; she really nailed Jackie. So you really believe the struggle that she went through.

RTC: Yeah, the struggle was definitely there. Like I said, it felt very real. Going into it like I said, I was really like, “I wonder how this is going to be?” After I had watched it, I said out loud, “Oh Crap! I should have watched this thing a week ago when I got it, why did I wait so long?” I commend you for that, because I know it is so hard now making these movies, there is just so much out there. This film comes with the highest of recommends from me; I just cannot wait for it to come out so I can start sharing it with people.

ACE: Great, yeah that is what we want.

RTC: I know that it is so hard to get your stuff out there, we just don’t want it to fall between the cracks.

ACE: I appreciate that, yeah we worked pretty hard on it. From the production design, to the acting, we put a lot of effort into it.

RTC: Yeah, you can tell. And it turned out well. Do you plan on making a sequel?

ACE: I would love to, I mean we are kind of setup for that and people are going to complain “well the ending is not like an ending it is like a beginning.” Yeah, definitely, we have a storyline. It would be great, well know it depends on how successful it will be whether or not someone wants to put more money into it.
 
RTC: Well hopefully this one does well because it would be a treat to have a second one. I was very pleased with the ending; I know some people get really ticked off at stuff like that. It was great; I didn’t want it to be closed I wanted it to be left open. As a viewer it allows my imagination to start playing it out, “what’s gonna happen next?” And I like that.
Are you working on anything else right now?

ACE: I am up in Canada actually now, I got a production company, and we are producing a handful of films. But yeah I am developing a couple of different horror films. One based on a true story on the jail up here. Once I get closer to have those things ready to go, I’ll let people know. But, yeah nothing, in particular, all sorts of things, but nothing in particular.

RTC: Well that’s good. Will that be filmed in Canada or do you think you will come out here, out to the states?

ACE: Uh, I don’t know. I do everything in stages. We develop the story, get it to a great place and then decide where it is best to make it.

RTC: How was it writing with Daniel Ferrands? I think that he produced The ID.

ACE: He did. Daniel is awesome, I have known him now for like seven or eight years. He is a sweetheart; he is a horror buff. This is the thing, this is a passion for him, but it is also his life. He knew the Lutz’s; he personally knows all of these people which he produced Amityville: The Awakening & Haunting In Connecticut, he is really connected to the horror world. He is just a great guy.

RTC: That is awesome. Yeah, I know Amityville keeps getting changed so hopefully, that will be out soon. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. I hope that I can get to talk to you again soon

ACE: Yeah definitely, thanks, Ryan I appreciate it.

 

https://youtu.be/ITA5xHKjlQE

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