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Interview med Drew Goddard – manden bag ‘Bad Times at The El Royale’

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INTERVIEW: Thrilleren ‘Bad Times at The El Royale’ udkommer nu på både dvd, Blu-ray og 4K her i landet den 14. marts. I den forbindelse bringer vi et interview med filmens instruktør, Drew Goddard.

Why choose to set this film in a location that straddles two places?

It all came out from writing. The movie started with characters, I knew I wanted a hotel but I didn’t have this idea that it would be a bi-state hotel until I started getting into the script. At the beginning the core idea was to show 7 people, from very different backgrounds, arriving to one hotel and probably trying to kill each other. The hotel happened organically. When I was thinking how I wanted to design the film and what were the emotions of the characters, there the theme of duality kept coming up, and very organically arrived the idea of the hotel reflecting that duality.

How important is the era in which this film is set?

I very much wanted to set this film in 1969 for a reason. The 60s were very much a time for turmoil and in rapid success, in just a five year period, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Then Nixon signed in. So this movie takes place at the dawn of the Nixon years because I wanted to show the time when the great darkness started to descend after a time of great hope. I wanted to deal with that specific place and time.

We know that there was a certain mood in the 60s in California, but what was the mood in Nevada?

In a weird way those states were the opposite of what they are right now. Nevada in the 60s was very much about hope and opportunity: the idea that you can roll the dices and change your life. There was a swingin vibe, it was the era of the Rat Pack and Frank Sinatra. Whereas California was different. California was a darker place. You had the cults like the Charles Manson’s one coming out in the 60s, you had politicians like Richard Nixon coming out from California. There was a golden seduction of California that is very different from the California of today.

What do you feel audiences at home will take away from this film?

The film is designed to warrant close details. The thing I like when I watch a movie at home is that I can really study the movie, you can really get into the details and the meanings and the nuances by watching the movie in the intimacy of your home. I’m not a purist I love both the theatre and the home experience and I hope the movie does play well in both.

You directed Chris Hemsworth in his first non-heroic role. What was it about him that made him perfect for this role?

That’s good to hear. Yes, I hope that’s true! I’ve known Chris now for like a decade, when we worked on ‘Cabin In The Woods’ it was before he got the role on ‘Thor’, so I’ve seen him evolve as a performer and I know how talented he is and how much range he has. He doesn’t get the chance to do that all the time. Because he’s so busy saving the world you know…

What was the process of creating that long scene of Jon Hamm discovering the secret passage and looking at every guest behind glass? What steps did you take and what were the challenges of that shot?

That shot was the most complicated shot I’ve ever tackled in my career. It took us 8 months of planning, because we had to build the entire set around the shot. Everything that you see happening in that shot is in the set.. You even see outdoors, you see into the parking lot, so we had to build all that as well. We did not use visual effects for all the things you’re seeing, the only visual effects is the wall behind Jon Hamm because that’s where the camera track goes. And we had to hide it. Other than that we’re just doing everything for real, because we wanted the audience to feel that they’re in that moment with Jon Hamm, experiencing the movie.  

With every twist and turn of the film, viewers learn more and more about each character. What was your process in creating characters with such depth and history?

All the story starts from the Jeff Bridges’ priest. He was the first character I thought of, there was something about the idea of a priest who is lying that was sitting right with the drama for me. And so he was the first piece to fall into place, the second was the singer. The movie is much about the two of them: the false spirituality of the priest and the false spirituality of the artist.

‘Bad Times at The El Royale’ udkommer på dvd, Blu-ray og 4K d. 14/3.

En blodig kolbøtte af en skrækfilm

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Der spyttes den ene klichéfyldte skrækfilm ud efter den anden, for slet ikke at tale om de mange idéforladte remakes, prequels og sequels. Det er bl.a. derfor en fornøjelse at se The Cabin in the Woods, som er en både opfindsom og sprælsk sag, der oplagt og med en ivrig kærlighed til genren vender horror-klichéerne på hovedet.

For hvad der til at starte med ligner en gængs omgang metervaregys med blonde duller og mørke kældre, ruller sig snart uventet om på maven for at lege tagfat med et genrebevidst publikums forventninger. Regelbogen for gys følges dog indledningsvis til punkt og prikke, hvor man følger fem friske unge, der tager ud i en hytte for at feste løs. Snart begynder overraskelserne dog at poppe blodigt op…

Så har jeg vist også sagt nok om plottet, for jo mindre man ved, desto bedre. Men lad mig blot igen slå fast, at her er tale om en dybt underholdende omgang gru, der ikke er, hvad den først giver sig ud for at være. Det er måske ikke en specielt uhyggelig sag, men snarere en medrivende rutsjebanetur ind i genrens velkendte ritualer, hvor der dog også leveres et par vellykkede jump scares undervejs.

Men udover, at det bl.a. er sjovt at spotte referencer til horrorklassikere, er her ganske enkelt også tale om en solid omgang underholdning med gode idéer og en fint afstemt sort humor. Man kan desuden midt i de grumme løjer også spotte det drilske spørgsmål om, hvorfor vi overhovedet ser de her blodige film og har denne voyeuristiske trang til at se folk blive pint og plaget. Nej, titelskiltets knaldrøde reference til Michael Hanekes Funny Games er ikke tilfældig.

Filmen er skrevet og instrueret af Drew Goddard, mens Joss Whedon har været medforfatter. Whedon var senest aktuel med den kulørte The Avengers og er bl.a. også manden bag tv-serierne Buffy the Vampire Slayer og Firefly, mens Goddard bl.a. har været med til at skrive tv-serien Lost og monsterfilmen Cloverfield. Altså to gutter, der elsker genren, hvilket bestemt skinner igennem i filmen.

Nå ja, de fem unge i kødgryden udfylder fint deres respektive roller som karakter-klichéer med et twist. Bl.a. Chris Hemsworth som sportsfan, Kristen Connolly som læsehest og Fran Kranz som det skæve bonghoved. The Cabin in the Woods vil uden tvivl overraske og underholde hele vejen, hvor ikke mindst skrækfilmsfans med kendskab til genrens konventioner vil blive rigeligt belønnet. Se den!

Billede, lyd og ekstramateriale:
Filmen gør sig yderst indtagende på Blu-ray. Billedet står veldefineret og med en flot og farvemættet farvepalet samt en indtagende detaljegrad. Lydsporet er ligeledes en fornøjelse og buldrer medrivende afsted med gode panoreringer og solid bund i grusomhederne. Desuden medfølger en omgang lækkert ekstramateriale.

Her får man en fin ’The Making of’, hvor bl.a. Goddard og Whedon snakker om deres årelange samarbejde og filmens tilblivelse samt deres kærlighed til genren (26 min.). Herudover er der to interessante features om filmens effekter – både de flotte, praktiske samt de computerskabte (i alt 24 min.). Videre er der en to korte features, hvor Kranz bl.a. taler om sin rolle, mens Whedon giver en kort tur rundt på settet (i alt 13 min.).  Slutteligt får man en mere dybdegående Q&A samt et både morsomt og informativt kommentarspor med Goddard og Whedon. Alt i alt en både kvalitativ og spændende omgang ekstramateriale. En fornøjelse.

Originaltitel: The Cabin in the Woods, USA, 2011
Instruktion: Drew Goddard
Medvirkende: Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford m.fl.
Spilletid: 95 min.
Udgiver: Midget Entertainment