Close-Up Film Writer Lorna Allen chats to the star of Dawn of the Dead, Wrong Turn, and the new horror, Cry Wolf
‘I’m a little jumpy and a little squeamish too so I don’t like being scared myself. I much prefer to be the scarer!’
Not words one would expect to hear from a young woman who is rapidly making a name for herself in contemporary horror films! You may recognise Lindy from Zack Snyder’s amped-up remake of the classic zombie bloodfest Dawn of The Dead in which she played the childlike Nicole who risks hers, and everyone else’s neck, by rescuing Chips the dog from Andy’s gun shop. Prior to this she appeared in Wrong Turn, the thinly veiled rip off of The Hills Have Eyes, where she played Francine, one of a group of dim-witted kids who fall foul of a bunch of in-bred cannibals.
Ms. Booth’s latest foray into the world of horror constitutes her first leading role in an American film (she is Canadian) in the psychological thriller Cry Wolf, in which her previous status as fragile, naïve victim is the perfect foil. The film is set in an exclusive boarding school - which bears more than a passing resemblance to the college campus in Urban Legend – which is reeling from the discovery of a murdered teenage girl in the nearby woods. Lindy plays Dodger, the calculating ringleader of a group of rich students who sneak out of their dorms at night and congregate in a deserted chapel to form a clandestine ‘liar’s club’, where they each assume the position of ‘sheep’ or ‘wolf’ and try to hoodwink one another with elaborate lies. The motto of the game is ‘manipulate your friends, eliminate your enemies. Avoid suspicion.’ The winner is the person who can spin the biggest yarn and get away with it. The group ups the stakes when they decide to spread a rumour that the murder is the work of a serial killer but soon the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred when they are each targeted by someone claiming to be the real culprit and become the victims of their own lies.
The film self-consciously plays with the conventions and clichés of the horror genre and is riddled with knowing references to contemporary films ranging from the aforementioned ‘Legend’ series (the eerie Gothic surroundings) through to the Scream trilogy (the rules) and the forebearers of the slasher genre John Carpenter’s Halloween and the Friday the 13th Saga (masked men wielding phallic knives).
So, with three horror films under her belt in as many years and another dark psychological thriller currently on the festival circuit (Lucid) – is Lindy something of a masochist?
‘’It’s actually just kind of a coincidence’’ laughs the petite Canadian ‘’but I really love working in the genre – it’s so much fun. I love being able to play those sort of really heightened emotions. It’s like life and death everyday on the set so as an actor it’s really fun to make those scenarios seem real. You know, I’ve never been chased by zombies but I find it very challenging to imagine what that would be like and to put a real, honest emotion to it. It’s challenging and it’s thoroughly a good laugh. Everyone always seems to be in good spirits on a horror film.’’
Challenging – I would say downright surreal! Which brings me neatly to Dawn of the Dead – a film of which I am huge fan myself. Whoever had the bright idea to speed up those ‘running’ dead was a genius, a belief to which Lindy also subscribes:
‘’Being chased by zombies that run that fast! I swear they hired all track stars. They were fast and they were scary. It wasn’t that difficult for me to fake.’’
Working side by side with zombies for months on end must have been a surreal experience for the entire cast (the shoot lasted a whopping three months). One must wonder if the cast ever tired of seeing such monstrous creations on such a continuous basis.
‘’In the beginning it was very strange and we were all totally fascinated by them and the make up’, concedes Lindy. ‘’Then a couple of weeks go on and you are sitting down at lunch next to a zombie, and across from another zombie and we became really blasé about it after a while.’’
Of Lindy’s latest frightener, what is striking about Cry Wolf is that the title seems to be a knowing wink at the audience, as though the marketing team were doing just that: ‘crying wolf’. Halfway through the film it becomes clear that this is not merely another teenie kill pic like the previews would suggest, but something altogether more complicated. Those expecting a rising body count may indeed be disappointed.
‘’I think for an audience we are so used to the slasher genre right now. I think that’s a real draw for an audience’’ explains Lindy. ‘’I like to think that they will be pleasantly surprised when they realise there’s a whole lot more going on in this movie than just the killing. It’s much more of a suspense scare. I think that the scare builds up over the course of the film because you don’t know who’s telling the truth, you don’t know who is lying, and you don’t know why they are lying. I think all those layers add up and in the bloodbath, which is the final act, you are a lot more ready to jump at that point.’’
The character of Dodger is a somewhat more complex character than is usually portrayed in this genre – and not the sweet innocent victim that we have seen Lindy play in the past. Was this departure from angelic to the monstrous feminine something that Lindy relished?
‘’She was amazingly fun to play. I had so much fun mapping her out. Gosh! I had papers everywhere! I think the girls in horror films tend to get the short end of the stick, so it was a lot of fun to play someone who was so smart and funny, and in control and manipulative and powerful and also vulnerable. She’s hiding a lot. It was a great joy to play. . . I think she does have a lot of classic Hitchcock qualities too. She’s definitely much more of a classic horror film girl than the more recent heroines.’’
Director Jeff Wadlow’s debut feature incorporates a somewhat damming view of modern technology – although I’m sure the guys at AOL are gleefully enjoying the extensive commercial and promotion of their wares. IM, photo messaging and CCTV are all employed to full effect in the narrative but do little to catch the baddie or set things straight. All those expensive developments and still the truth is evasive!
‘’Technology and the web are a scary place. You never know who knows which websites you are on at which time. I think it’s a really scary thing and I think that it’s really interesting that they brought that up in the film. Before we could spread a rumour and I could tell my friends and they could tell theirs and the circle would grow like that but now I have access to millions of people with the touch of a button.’’
Featuring an ensemble cast, many of whom were first timers, led to a very close-knit atmosphere on and off set. Lindy told me that many of the cast still keep in touch, it is even rumoured some are dating. The film and the internet marketing campaign which surrounded it revolved around the lying game that the characters play and this game contributed to the group dynamic and was also the source of much off set entertainment during the shoot. So, did the team inhabit their characters all the time? Apparently so…
‘’You know what? I have never played the game because Dodger has never played the game. And we played at least every night while we were shooting the film and many times since then, and I have never actually been the sheep or the wolf. I am always the moderator. So maybe, there is a little bit of Dodger in me.’’
Another upside for the young cast was learning the ropes alongside eighties rock’s number one pretty boy turned actor, Jon Bon Jovi, who plays a handsome corduroy wearing journalism teacher; ‘’He is cute and he has fabulous hair’’.
Next up for Lindy is another psychological thriller which made a favourable impact with critics at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. Lucid, which she describes as ‘a real mind warp’, should be making it’s way to the UK later this year.
‘’It is an incredible film – I’m so very proud of it. It’s a real psychological thriller about a group of people who meet in a support group for post traumatic stress disorder and the more time they spend together they start to develop each others neurosis. My character Sophie is suicidal and she is a parasomniac.’’
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