Chris Messina Compares Making ‘The Boogeyman’ and 2010’s ‘Devil’

I’ll take a Chris Messina efficiency in any style, however as a diehard horror fan, I wouldn’t thoughts seeing him do extra movies in that realm.

Whereas 2020’s She Dies Tomorrow is a genre-bending film with horror touches, there’s a 13-year hole between The Boogeyman and Messina’s final movie that falls squarely within the horror style, 2010’s Satan, the M. Night time Shyamalan-produced film a couple of group of individuals trapped in an elevator. In that one, Messina performs the detective investigating the spooky happenings happening within the elevator, however The Boogeyman has him going head-to-head with the movie’s evil entity himself.

Messina performs Will Harper, a therapist and father of two (Sophie Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair) who lately misplaced his spouse in an accident. Whereas struggling to deal with the loss, Will throws himself again into work. When a brand new affected person (David Dastmalchian) reveals up at his door with out an appointment, Will reluctantly agrees to see him. Sadly, little does Will know, this man has a darkness in tow, a darkness that feeds off of heartbreak and vulnerability making his circle of relatives a chief subsequent goal.

With The Boogeyman now enjoying in theaters nationwide, I obtained the prospect to talk with Messina about his return to horror. What precisely was it about The Boogeyman that made now the appropriate time and this the appropriate mission? Right here’s what Messina mentioned:

“I believe with this was, in the beginning, Stephen King and becoming a member of his pantheon in some kind of means was an actual honor. After which studying this script and speaking to the director, Rob Savage. He is aware of this style so properly, I felt like I used to be in nice palms. And the primary dialog we had, he mentioned, ‘Have you ever seen Bizarre Folks,’ which is one in every of my favourite motion pictures of all time, and so we talked loads about that and loads about grief, and that combo made me wish to do the film.”

Given horror storytelling and style filmmaking methods have developed fairly a bit since 2010, I opted to ask Messina for one thing on the set of The Boogeyman that made him assume, ‘I can’t consider that’s what it takes to make it appear to be that on display.’ Right here’s what he went with:

“I had not completed that a lot inexperienced display stuff, in order that was unbelievable. The mo-cap go well with that the actor had, who was simply improbable chasing us round, and we have been wrestling with him and preventing with him, and that was superb. It made me depart having much more respect for the filmmakers and actors that do this on the common.”

Does constructing much more respect for efficiency seize artists imply Messina himself now has the need to offer the performing format a go?

“You understand, it did! It did as a result of it is such a bodily factor, and after I grew up, I wished to be a dancer, so I did assume at instances, I ponder if I may very well be any good at that. That is the factor, and also you and I’ve talked about this, [the] factor about doing totally different genres [is] you get to be taught from so many actually proficient individuals.”

Somebody he discovered an important deal from on the set of The Boogeyman? Director Rob Savage. Hopes are excessive we’ll see Messina in additional horror movies within the close to future and if that occurs, he credit Savage with giving him a greater understanding of what it takes to construct dread and spark pressure in such movies.

“Rob would do this stuff — it sounds so little, however there is a scene firstly, which is the brief story with David and I, and there is a part the place I am getting scared and amped up and fearful, and I rise up and go for the door, and so each time I’d rise up and go for the door relatively rapidly, it sounds so small, however Rob would say, ‘Slowly rise up and slowly stroll to the door, after which look again at David.’ Once more, it seems like nothing, however you do it, and it creates a lot extra pressure. So it is little issues like that alongside the way in which that Rob sort of directed me to try this I discovered loads from [and] if I do that once more, I hope to hold.”

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Boogeyman.]Earlier than wrapping up our chat, I did get the prospect to throw in a single transient spoiler query. After spending a lot of the movie avoiding discussing his spouse’s passing with Sadie (Thatcher) and refusing to consider Sadie and Sawyer’s (Blair) claims that there’s a monster in the home, Will comes face-to-face with the creature himself, difficult every thing he thought he knew about this life and world. So how may all of that change Will’s strategy to his work as a therapist going ahead? Right here’s Messina’s tackle the matter.

“I’d think about going again to work that he would perhaps tackle totally different philosophies in remedy. Perhaps go even deeper. And I’d think about that he would, hopefully, develop to be a good higher dad. So perhaps the reply to the query is, he may transfer extra away from serving to others and extra in the direction of serving to the individuals he loves most.”

Searching for much more on the making of The Boogeyman? Make sure you take a look at my prolonged dialog with director Rob Savage under: