Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer Open Their Hearts and Hark About Holidays
If you think about it, as much as everyone harks on about how much fun they have over the holiday periods, the truth of the matter is that pretty much every celebration harbors all the sordid makings of the ultimate horror movie. This is something which was so exquisitely put by John Hegeman, producer and mind behind the latest horror anthology on the block, Holidays (reviews here and here).
“Holidays in general are always a balance of anticipation and dread. I love how the day can really freak people out and things can just spiral into complete chaos.”
That said, if all our anecdotes of celebrations past were as grim as those of the poor souls we’re introduced to in Holidays, we’d be yearning to hear the sweet sound of our Monday morning alarm clocks, eager to head back to the office and put all those sordid celebrations behind us.
With Holidays hitting iTunes, Amazon, and more VOD outlets today, April 15, Dread Central caught up with Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to talk all about the latest anthology and the two segments they were involved in; namely, “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Eve.”
DC: How did you end up getting involved in this project?
Widmyer: Over a year ago we already knew Adam Egypt Mortimer through mutual friends. We didn’t know him personally by that time, but he was already putting the project together with John Hegemen, of Distant Corners, and XYZ Films. He was just a fan of Starry Eyes and really liked what we were doing. We had already met with XYZ a few times and they brought the idea in its very early concept stage. After that, we’d hear updates every now and then, and then suddenly it became real and they were hiring other directors. They hired Sarah Adina Smith, who did The Midnight Swim, which we loved, and then Nicholas McCarthy, who did The Pact. There was no specific deadline and people were going off and doing their thing, so by the time they got to Kevin and I, Sarah Adina Smith and Nicholas McCarthy had already shot theirs and we were the third directors in the line-up to get the green light and we ended up shooting it in February, 2015.
DC: Something that jumped out at me was just how much the leading ladies in Starry Eyes and “Valentine’s Day” had in common. Alex Essoe’s character, Sarah, is very much the outcast and fixated on stardom. Here, Maxine (Madeleine Coughlan) is tormented by her classmates whilst fixated on her diving coach.
Post-production on “Valentine’s Day”
Widmyer: Yeah. they’re both outsiders fixated on one goal. I’d never personally thought of it like that actually.
Kolsch: I guess it’s a case of some residual effects carrying over. Starry Eyes was a personal project to us in that we had done a lot of stuff years before that working together and it had all been DIY stuff; we weren’t ever really getting into this industry and Starry Eyes sort of came out of that frustration. Then, even after Starry Eyes came out, it still was a struggle trying to get our projects off the ground and I guess we still had a little of that feeling within us. I guess it’s all really something that dates back to our own real lives. I wasn’t necessarily like the character of Maxine in high school of course, but I think the fact we’d always wanted to make films and where we grew up on Long Island, we’ve always been a bit different from the norm and the rest of people and we inspired to different goals that were outside of our environment where we grew up, so that’s been a part of us always I guess.
DC: The role of Maxine must have been a tough one to cast. How did you come across Madeleine Coughlan?
Widmyer: We had casting sessions with a casting director and a number of actors coming in and it’s difficult because the role of Maxine, played wonderfully by Madeleine, had no dialogue. I think people just didn’t even realize that. Our Line Producer worked on the entire film, watched it happen through post-production, and then one day when we told him that, it dawned on him. So it was difficult to cast someone like that because when you audition them, you have to be able to see what they can do without relying on dialogue. We finally came up with this really good concept of having the character read what her diary at least would be. We had her come in and read from a fake diary that we wrote which gave a lot more of the backstory of who the character was. It talked about her father, home life, this suicide that she had seen and how she had taken her father’s box-knife with her to school which had his name on it so people thought she was morbid because of that. Giving the actor that background allowed them to come in and audition, and then if they got the role and took it into the actual process of the part, it was very helpful; and that was how we found Madeleine. She was one of the last people we found. It was one of those things where the minute she came walking through the door, we said, “Holy shit. We know that’s the girl.” I know that’s a cliché but you could see a hundred people sometimes and then suddenly as soon as one person comes in you just know that they are it.
Kolsch: I will tell you something too. Maddie came in in a way that you could she was was dressing for this role. She came in, she was great, then she started showing up for the shoot and she looked amazing and looked the part. But then after the film we started following each other on Instagram and I started seeing these pictures pop up of Madeleine and she’s gorgeous and all dressed to the nines.
Widmyer: We were like, “Why did we make her look so drab?”
DC: Your segment touches on an emotional relationship or bond between a student and a teacher. I think you handled the subject very respectfully, but I’m guessing you consciously tackled the subject with a lot of tact because it’s obviously a sore and tricky topic to take on.
More “Valentine’s Day” Post-production
Kolsch: We were a little concerned. We wanted this to feel very sweet for Valentine’s Day. We wanted Maxine, who is delusional, to interpret the teacher’s sweetness in this way; she’s the one that thinks that there’s more to it. But we wanted it to be a nice and sweet gesture from the teacher that had this dark outcome. We really wanted to be careful to make sure that this diving coach we created wasn’t being pervy or anything. It’s certainly something that Rick Peters, the actor, was concerned about and we had a lot of talks about it and we tried to make it as delicate as we could and we told him, “Hey, look. This is a girl that you feel for. You just got off the phone with your wife and now you saw this girl that was getting picked on so you want to be the one person that does something nice for her to let her know that things aren’t always going to be like this.” We really worked hard to make sure that it felt like a sweet gesture that this coach was doing because he was like, “Hey, I know what you’re going through and trust me, there are people there and you’re not alone in all of this,” and it’s Maxine that turns it into this dark thing.
DC: When the trailer came out recently, more than the odd comment said, “Oh no! Not ANOTHER Carrie rip-off.” Can you spread some light on your segment and explain why it isn’t just another Carrie rehash?
Kolsch: The funny thing is, I think what people are actually seeing as a Carrie rip-off were intentional nods to Carrie. You’ll see that one of the side characters in the locker room is actually dressed like P.J. Soles’ character from Carrie. Also, giving her the nickname of MaxiPad, which were the things they were throwing at Carrie; those were all obvious nods. If you think about it, there are tons of stories about outcast kids in high school and they’re not all Carrie; this is very common subject matter that is approached. If you look at what’s actually going on with the crush on the teacher and this competition for his attention with the lead girl on the diving team, that’s not really the same slot or story as Carrie. I guess people see the trailer and they see all these things that are clearly Carrie references and assume it’s another Carrie rip-off but they’re just watching the trailer and seeing the little visual things that we put in as intentional nods but I think that when you watch the movie, the plot of it is very different from Carrie.
DC: Apart from writing and directing the “Valentine’s Day” segment, you also wrote Adam Egypt Mortimer’s “New Year’s Eve” segment. How did you end up writing his short specifically?
Widmyer: What happened was that when we first came on board, we pitched them a Halloween concept. This was before they had all the directors on board and they liked our concept so we went off and wrote it and we were going to make that. But then Kevin Smith came on board and he’s earned this by being Kevin Smith. So he had his own Halloween idea and we were fine with that and we wrote a Christmas script, but the same thing happened again when Scott Stewart came on board. So they said to us, “You know what? We don’t have anyone that’s done Valentine’s Day,” and we’d already written two so they’d already gotten to read two of our screenplays and they realized that they liked our writing. They now had a sample of a Halloween script, a Christmas script, and now a Valentine’s script, so Adam Egypt Mortimer just kind of responded to our writing and said he really liked our voice and asked us to come up with a New Year’s Eve concept. We met with him over coffee and sat down for about three hours and came up with something he really liked so we went off and wrote it, and we were honored to do it. It was fun to be the only participants in the whole thing that were creatively involved in two of the segments. It’s also very cool because we bookend the film.
DC: Dennis, am I right in saying the “New Year’s Eve” segment was inspired by a somewhat disastrous date you once had?
Widmyer: I went on a really, really bad first date on New Year’s Eve; that’s all I’ll say. Never go on an online date as a first date on New Year’s Eve! We both thought we were being risqué and breaking the dating rule book by trying something original and fun, but it just ended up being a nightmare. There was no murder involved but it was not a fun night.
DC: To wrap up, is there anything you can share with readers about your upcoming projects, Exorcism Diaries and Mama 2?
Kolsch: We’re currently rewriting both scripts and we’re set to direct them, depending obviously on how the rewrites go. We’ve got to get the scripts to the right spot first and then the directing will come after that. Obviously Mama 2 is a sequel so she is in the sequel and you know what kind of movie you’re getting there…
DC: I’m honestly really not sure what to expect from Mama 2 as Neil Cross is involved with the script so it could go in any direction with him.
Kolsch: Yes! That’s the thing. We really responded to the fact that Neil Cross is involved in the script. I mean, after Starry Eyes we got offered a lot of things and there were a lot of things that we turned down because they just weren’t right for us. Obviously we have other scripts that we want to make ourselves as our sort of Starry Eyes follow-up but we turned down a lot of jobs that were so off the mark, but these two that we did take definitely have elements in them that are things that we really respond too. With Mama 2, yes, it’s a Mama movie and Mama is in it, but there are things in that movie that Neil Cross put in there that really makes it different and not what you’re probably expecting from a sequel to Mama. It’s pretty cool and we’re really looking forward to that one.
For more information, visit Holidays‘ official website and Facebook page.
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