The Curse of Bridge Hollow: Interview with Director Jeff Wadlow
The Curse of Bridge Hollow is a family friendly horror coming to Netflix just in time for Hallwoeen season!
Directed by Kick-Ass 2's Jeff Wadlow the film follows Sydney (Priah Ferguson, Stranger Things) a teenage girl who accidentally releases an ancient and mischievous spirit on Halloween in the town of Bridge Hollow which causes decorations to come alive and wreak havoc. She must team up with the last person she'd want to in order to save their town - her father (Marlon Wayans, Scary Movie, A Haunted House).
Lucy: So, The Curse of Bridge Hollow is a family fright fest where the Halloween decorations come to life! It’s a really interesting premise, how did the story for the film come about?
Jeff: Yeah you know I’m a writer and director so I write most of my own projects with other writers often as collaborators. But this is a rare instance where a script was sent to me and it was in great shape, you know they had been developing it for years. Marlon is on the movie as a producer and his producing partner Rick Alvarez and another producer that they had worked with before Nathan Reimann had been working on it for a long time with my partners at Netflix.
The script needed a little work but not a ton, and so I worked with the writer, brought in another writer and we were shooting really quickly and it was one of those rare moments, where the ideas was there, the movie was there and I got involved.
Lucy: Yeah I read the shooting process was really quick! What was the atmosphere like on set?
Jeff: You know it’s a pretty big movie, it’s not like Avengers by any stretch! But it's the biggest movie I’ve made so far and one of the bigger ones Marlon has made in a long time. We shot for you know well over 2 months in Atlanta. Prep was actually quite intense because we had to design all the monsters and all the creatures. I mean that was a lot of work, normally on a movie you hire one practical feature house to do your monsters but we had so many in this film it was too much work. So when I started interviewing different houses I kinda decided to embrace this collaborative approach where we would hire multiple houses and assign them different creatures but we would have weekly design meetings and I had my own personal concept artist who’s really talented named Greg Semkow who’s worked on all my stuff.
Lucy: It’s really interesting you mention the monsters because there's obviously lots of different monsters in Bridge Hollow like the killer clowns and skeletons to name just a few and you obviously have the special effects and costuming. Was there any specific horror film or other movie monsters that inspired you?
Jeff: Well every sequence, every monster kinda has its own inspiration but from a macro standpoint I would say the movie was most influenced by the Amblin films of the 80’s and early 90’s. The tone of those movies Goonies, Arachnophobia, Gremlins, were always about towns or something special was happening, a sense of wonder and fear, a little bit of comedy peppered in. You always believed in the world but there was always this kind of whimsy to them too. They were movies families could watch together, everyone could enjoy and that was our primary goal.
Lucy: I was gonna ask you that actually because I know you really wanted to give an 80’s Amblin feel to the film and I definitely got that. Do you have a favorite 80’s horror movie?
Jeff: When I think of 80’s horror I think of Nightmare on Elm Street, I think of you know all the slasher sequels they were doing, Hellraiser was a movie I loved as a kid, Even the Alien franchise is technically, I think a horror franchise. So those are some of the fantastical horrors I loved from that time period.
Lucy: You're spoken my language there, Alien is definitely a horror franchise and I will die on that hill! I have a Ripley tattoo and it’s one of my favorite franchises.
Jeff: Well I’ve seen Aliens easily 30 times!
*Cue geeky horror sci fi chat for about 5 minutes from Jeff and Lucy!
Lucy: So in terms of casting The Curse of Bridge Hollow has a really stellar cast with so many household names, family friendly horror legends. We have our family unit casted by Priah Ferguson, Kelly Rowland and Marlon Wayans. What was the chemistry like between the trio?
Jeff: Well they have incredible chemistry. I just bought them as a family, we were really lucky in that sense because you just never know You can cast great actors but they might not click. I mean Marlon could have chemistry with a phonebook, fortunately Priah and Kelly are far more talented than a phonebook!
Priah was popping in a big way from Stranger Things, we did a chemistry read on Zoom which is really hard to do but with Priah and Marlon they had it. When it came time to find Emily the matriarch of the Gordon family a bunch of different people came up, when Kelly’s name came up I said “do we have a shot in hell of getting her because I’m a huge fan” and we did and she brought so much warmth and humor to the role.
You know there's a little bit of conflict on the page in the family but what I admired so much about what Marlon and Kelly did with their two roles was they just built this incredible sense of a foundation of love. You really believe these two people are in love and despite whatever issues are going on in the family dynamics despite this it was coming from a place of love. That was not only just a pleasure to be around on set and to craft scenes with that dynamic but I thought it was just really wonderful for the film, because often when you’re telling stories you're telling a story of a crisis and it was nice to see a husband and wife who weren’t in a crisis.
Lucy: Yeah definitely, I think you know we have seen some really positive family units in horor I always think of the Addams Family because they support their kids, even in Poltergeist too. So obviously you’re no stranger to horor! You’ve worked on the likes of Truth or Dare and Bates Motel, what drew you to the family friendly horror genre?
Jeff: Well I’ve kind of always worked cross genre, I think all my projects are sort of genre mashups, I mean Kick Ass 2 was action comedy, True Memoirs was action comedy. Truth or Dare you know it’s a Blumhouse movie but it’s really more kind of like a supernatural thriller. Fantasy Island was just so many genres people didn’t know what to think of it!
So I like working in genre mashups and I think Bridge Hollow is a perfect example of that. You have all this horor imagery because it’s a Halloween movie, you have comedy because it’s Marlon Wayans but you also have real emotions because you're telling a father and daughter story. What drew me to this sub-genre is that I'm always working in different genre hybrids and I thought this would be exciting to take a crack at.
Lucy: You mentioned Blumhouse and I think it’s no secret horror has really had a light shined on it in recent years, it has to be said Netflix is definitely making their mark in horror with films like Fear Street and anthology series from the likes of Mike Flanagan. Where do you see the future of horror and streaming?
Jeff: I mean, it's tough. You know I love seeing a horror movie in a theater, that communal experience is so much fun but there is also something really powerful about watching a scary movie at home alone right? That's a lot of fun and I love the idea of making people have to turn all the lights on in their house from a movie I’ve worked on.
If you look back at the history of cinema and horror, where it’s gotten stale is when people start repeating the same ideas over and over again trying to make a quick buck. I think as long as you have producers like Jason Blum who I think the world of who are encouraging filmmakers to tell new and interesting stories and develop new takes on the genre we’re gonna get exciting movies.
Lucy: Giving people the freedom to be creative and do something a little bit different is so important. Now, a basic question but one I always love to ask! What is your favorite horror movie?
Jeff: That is tough! I would have to say and it’s probably gonna change day to day depending on how I’m feeling but my three favorites, I can't pick just one are Jaws. Seven and Aliens.
The Curse of Bridge Hollow hits Netflix on October 14th.