Pete's Popcorn Picks: Scary Movies for Halloween, interview with director of THE CANYON

Paranormal Activity is scaring up millions, classic monster movies in classic theaters, and a Q&A with the director of a chilling new indie.

So its Halloween weekend, and I have a vampire dvd double set up at home: Let the Right One In and Near Dark, two of the very best modern vampire myths to come out during my days as a film buff. Can’t wait to revisit them and snack on some candy. This years chocolate of choice will be those Hawaiian Host chocolate covered macadamia nuts that Costco recently started stocking. Hooray!

But hey, if you’re looking for a scare I can tell what to see on the big screen too.

Paranormal Activity. Big props to the filmmakers and cast for creating an incredibly efficient horror trip. With a budget of $15,000 they managed to pull off a remarkably effective supernatural chiller that’s gone from a few midnight screenings to being the number one movie in the US. It’s raking in the —$65 million and counting—and its awesome to see an independently produced capture the cinema zeitgeist. I’m quite sure I’ll include Paranormal Activity on my top 10 at year’s end (possibly tied with District 9, another terrific, creative genre film).

Spooky Classics in Classic Theatres

I just had a chance to revisit the beautifully restored Empress Theatre in downtown Vallejo. For game one of the World Series, North Vallejo Little League hosted an event to cheer on New York Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia. The Vallejo native pitched very well, but gave up two home runs to Phillies second baseman Chase Utley and was outpitched by Cliff Lee, so the crowd was understandably disappointed. But what a fun way to watch a game—and what a gorgeous theater.

It’s a real gem, and when they’re not showing the world series, the Empress schedules a classic film series. Halloween’s selection is the monster classic Creature from the Black Lagoon—presented in its original 3-D format. Tickets are $18, a steep price for a movie but sales support such a worthwhile restoration project that I highly recommend checking it out.

A bit closer (and cheaper) is Friday night’s Paramount Theatre classic, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The gorgeous art deco theater in Oakland charges just $5 for its classic films, and add cartoons and an old-school newsreel. I haven't seen this 1948 classic ince I was a little kid, and that was on TV, so I may have to check this out myself.

Q&A with The Canyon director Richard Harrah

If you want to see something really frightening, in the Into The Wild/Open Water subgenre of actually-could-happen-exposed-to-nature thriller, The Canyon opens today at the Opera Plaza cinemas.

This debut feature by director Richard Harrah tells the story of a honeymoon couple (Eion Bailey, Yvonne Strahovski of NBC's Chuck) who elope to Las Vegas, then try to take a quick honeymoon hiking trip into the Grand Canyon. I’m partial to the Grand Canyon, having worked there for a year in the mid 1990s, and to  Williams, the small town 60 miles from the Grand Canyon. As I watched the honeymoon couple plan their secret honeymoon camping trip in the "world famous" Sultana bar in Williams, I got a little misty, recalling my own trip to Williams with my then-fiance. We found my wedding band in a jewelry shop in Williams, and three months later eloped on our own adventure trip.

The plan doesn’t work so well for the couple in The Canyon. They encounter a lot of bad things—rattlesnakes, wolves, skittish mules—though no creepy subterranean goblins like in that classic horror freak out, The Descent. In The Canyon, it's just some bad luck and then the dread-inducing terror of being lost in the wild. I will say that the film took some unexpected twists, and the performances from Bailey and Strahovski, and Will Patton (No Way Out, Wendy and Lucy) has nice turn as a mountain hermit, the kind of role that Walter Huston would have killed 60 years ago. It also features some spectacular southwestern scenery.

I interviewed the director last week, to chat about the film.

The Southwest setting brought all the great John Ford westerns to mind whle I was watching your film. Did you grow up watching those films?

Yes, I grew up watching those films with my grandfather, who was the Western guy. And as a kid I  always wanted to make movies. At a young age, I liked Lawrence of Arabia, and Star Wars and all those movies that got kids all excited. Before I made The Canyon I made a short film in Monument Valley. Mexican Hat, a 20-minute short I made a few years ago, a cowboy and alien abduction western that I made, I stayed at the Gouldings Lodge—which John Ford had built while he was making those films. That was quite an experience.

How long was your shoot?

26 days. It was a blast, very small cast and crew and budget. The car that’s in the movie is my car. But so worth it—being able to do a film like this in such a beautiful area, I just felt an amazing bond with the region.
 

How much did you actually shoot in the Grand Canyon National Park?
Early in the film, there are some shots in the South Rim—we snuck all those shots in the national park, driving around in a van with a 35 mm camera, we’d open the door and shoot. But most of the film was shot in Moab, Utah,  and Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona.

The film takes some surprising twists. At first I thought the hermit guide was going to turn out to be a demented killer, then I wondered if there were going to be spirits in the Grand Canyon. Instead, you kept things more realistic, but still tense and frightening.

Ultimately, the film is simply about two people who are just about to spend their lives together—and then nature intrudes. You see our place in this pecking order. I was trying to show our place in the universe.

I've been asking this last question to a variety of filmmakers I've interviewed. There's a theater in West LA called the New Beverly Cinema, and they schedule the most interesting double features, often paired thematically. If you could show The Canyon as a double feature with any other movie, what would you choose?

I'd probably go with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Different kind of movie, but it had such a great take on survival in nature. And, it's just such a great film.


 

Posted at 03:32 PM in Pete's Popcorn Picks | Permalink