Henry Jacobson’s serial killer thriller has just had its premiere at Arrow Video Frightfest. The film, the latest from Blumhouse, stars Seann William Scott as Evan, a new father whom is hiding a dark secret. By day he’s a mild-mannered friendly social worker, but by night he stalks his way through the people terrorising the kids in his care. It’s a big departure from the norm for the actor who is most well known as playing Steve Stifler in the American Pie series.
Jacobson himself flew oven to the festival to share it with audiences and we took the chance to pick his brain about the project. We talked about turning Seann William Scott to the dark side, the history of serial killers, and the trauma of becoming a new parent.
How did you come up with the idea for the film?
I actually didn’t. There was a script that Blumhouse already had which was called Bloodline. That had the premise of ‘serial killer has a baby’, which I really liked. The script went in a different direction, it went in the more traditional serial killer direction, but that idea stuck in my head – serial killer has a baby. Avra Fox-Lerner and I started talking about it and really decided it was much more interesting as a film that really centred around the family. We also didn’t want to do another serial killer who kills women and collects trophies or whatever. Particularly at this moment, it’s just been done so many times.
We then pitched Blumhouse, and Seann [William Scott] was already attached, so Seann had final say over who the director was. I think they’d already been through one or two others and they liked our idea. They said great, and so we went through a couple of drafts and then we shot.
You said Seann was already attached, so was he happy with the changes you made?
He thought that the script needed work too. They were talking to different directors who had pitched different takes on it that I think he wasn’t keen on. But he loved what we did. Seann is a secret horror fan, like a super horror geek. I was talking about movies for him to look at and he was, ‘have you seen this, and this?’, and I thought, ‘oh my God awesome’. I’d be like, ‘okay, this is really dark, but I’m gonna pitch you this’ and he was, ‘darker, let’s go darker’. So he was great; he was a treat.
From the films I’ve seen at least, it’s a departure for what he’s more well known for. Even his role in Final Destination is the comedy character. I’m guessing for him it was really important to be able to show this other side, and how much fun did you guys have working on bringing the unfunny Sean out?
A lot of fun. It’s interesting when we started writing it, knowing it was going to be Sean, we really wanted to capitalise on Seann’s likeability and the expectations that the audience would have coming in to see a Seann William Scott movie. I think it helps us create the sympathetic serial killer who has this sort of moral compass. Then when we make that turn with the last victim, whose not as much of a bad guy as the others are, the idea was to make the audience reconsider their allegiance that far into the film. It’s that almost classic Paul Schrader third act shift, where you realise your hero is a monster. We thought that his general persona would help that.
In terms of working with Seann, we did so much talking and read a lot about psychopaths and serial killers. As much of that as possible was true to the research. At least one percent of the population are psychopaths, but obviously not all of them become serial killers. It’s that psychopathy that is assumed right now to be genetic, then trauma, which is what tips people over the edge into criminality of any kind. We really got deep into that, read various biographies and he was on board with all of that. He was into it being dark and also having sort of the nod and the wink – there is humour in it. Even though he’s not like setting up punchlines, but there he does bring a comic timing to it.
Blue Finch Films
The characters in Bloodline feel very real, and it’s this horrible trauma in childhood, to which some people can relate, that sets off a chain of events. Did you do much research into that aspect?
That’s something that is pretty consistent among serial killers. One of the killers I researched a lot was Gacy. He was really psychologically abused and physically abused, but mainly psychologically abused by his father. He called him ‘pansy’, ‘faggot’, because he was gay, and was just brutal to him his whole childhood. He then sort of transformed that into these very intimate attachments. He would be a sort of father figure to these teenage boys and then when they would turn on him, or reject him in anyway, that’s usually when he killed them. We were trying to mirror that idea, that there’s this childhood moment that defines what then becomes a ritual. The moral universe that he creates in a lot of ways I think is to justify the ritual that he needs.
Related: Bloodline review
When I watched the film there was one scene that really disturbed me, and that was the birth scene. The imagery is seared into my retinas.
When I first got the original script, my wife was maybe two months pregnant. Throughout the writing of it she was pregnant and when we finished, when we got the green-light for the script, our son was maybe two months old. A lot is taken from experience, there are a lot of things that you can’t un-see. We wanted it to be really visceral. I think it’s a classic human theme of birth and death. These are the great demons of humanity so we’re definitely playing with that, but also Avra’s a parent, I’m a parent. We didn’t want to…early parenthood is often portrayed as this beautiful magical moment of childbirth. Actually it’s fucking terrifying. You don’t know what you’re doing, especially when it’s your first. As a mother, you’re not sleeping. There are studies on sleep deprivation that show at seventy-two hours you have symptoms analogous to schizophrenia. I mean it really does make you fucking crazy. I think the dark side, whether its post-partum depression or something else, I think it’s much more common than is represented on film. We wanted to be truthful about that. It also works to create the tension that he’s, in our idea of the character, he’s trying to create this normal life, but the stresses kept piling up and piling up through parenthood, which is a real thing. I took a lot of that stuff from my life and Avra from her parenthood. The nurse and that relationship was almost word for word something that happened with our baby. It was important for us to be truthful about that but also worked really well as a driver of tension that ultimately is released through the murders.
You have a background in documentary and cinematography, how did that help when switching from fact to fiction?
When I started working in film I was coming from a photographer and cinematography background, although I actually had done drama at school. I went to the Oxford school of Drama here. I had done theatre for a couple of years before shooting. Obviously first and foremost I approach storytelling from a very visual perspective. It’s one of the things I love most about film. I had always studied films both critically and production in high school and college, so the technical side of it I can do.
I can work very closely with my DP Isaac Bauman, who is also amazing. We had a fantastic relationship and worked together really well. We were constantly bouncing ideas off of each other, it was a really wonderful collaboration. Then I think in terms of the documentary background for a first time filmmaker, on a low budget film, being confident that you can figure it out on the fly was very, very useful, and very similar. You do draft after draft of shot list, but you get on set and two scenes take longer than you thought they would, and all of a sudden the scene you listed for fifteen shots you now have to get in two. It’s just how you improvise. That’s both terrifying and joyful. It’s where a lot of your best ideas come from and that’s absolutely the case in documentary, especially for most of the docs I worked on. I tended to be more verite, following a story rather than a lot of talking heads. Telling the story I wanted to tell. I always thought that was more interesting to follow, what was happening and then put the story together from that. You do have to really be light on you feet in those situations so I think that was helpful.
I think your background really shows through, the day scenes are more documentary in style, and then at night as he goes to get a victim, there’s suddenly much more vibrant colours etc.
That was something that Avra and I talked about early on, using colour and perspective. As we enter into his mind, as we get into that early parenthood sequence where the stresses and tension mounts and mounts, we get closer and closer to his POV. Once inside that, it’s this very heightened, much more stylised visual narrative.
What’s the reaction been to previous screenings?
It’s been mostly very positive. I think it’s a fans movie. We’re both horror and thriller geeks, there are lots of cinematic references. If you’re a fan of the genre, it’s a fun thing. I think it’s fun. We’re dealing with serious issues, but it’s not an overly earnest film. It is meant to be a fun ride.
What are the plans for release?
There’s going to be a limited theatrical release day, and date release with VOD in the US on the 20th September. Blue Finch picked it up here, I think just for VOD, which I think will be early October.
Are you working on your follow up?
Avra and I just wrote a new script. It’s an adaptation of a short story by a writer called Tara Isabella Burton. It’s another family story. It’s not a straight horror movie, but it definitely is dark, dark, dark. It’s about a nanny that comes to work for a very wealthy upper East side family who has a disturbed child.
