there are some things that make me laugh, I don't know. (Laughs again)
Adam: Well, yes! But I was so terrified that I literally had nightmares for two years. I remember my brother saying to me, "I promise, when you get older you''ll be able to laugh at it, distance yourself from it." And, I was, finally.
Rob: Awesome answer. How did the story of "A Haunting In Connecticut" come to your table, and what type of research did you do on the subject matter?
Adam: Well, that was an interesting one. On and off through the last twenty years of my career, I met up with another wonderful writer named Tim Metcalf who had written a script at the time I was asked by Universal, well, I had just finished my Corman movies and they wanted me to direct this one film, and they sent me the script and I just went nuts for it! It was dropped at first, but it was a script for a movie called "Kalifornia". And as you probably know, it resurfaced about ten years later and starred a young Brad Pitt. The script was both scary and hilarious, and Tim and myself became instant friends, and we started writing a lot together. But "Haunting" ended up in Tim's hands after a Producer had approached him about it, the true story of it, and ironically they had tried to set it up as a TV movie, so he brought it to me, and I began watching a documentary about the case. And as I watching it, I thought to myself, "This doesn't play like a movie for television, this is just a great story." I kind of went back to the roots of what had happened in the case, and really combined it with a lot of interest I had in turn of the century kind of spiritualism and seances, all of these realms which people were trying to imply those crazy types of thinking. You know, electricity, electromagnetism and hypnotism, all kinds of shit. I really started to delve into the very real details of what happened to this family. I had begun talking to some of the family members, and that really turned it into a verbal pitch, and that really started to commission that idea, and LionsGate really loved the script. But it turned out pretty good...not a bad one.
Rob: I think it was quite important. It had correlations with films like "The Amityville
Horror", you know, and I think it really helped make it possible to put out that type of fare again, films like "The Conjuring" and "Insidious".
Adam: Well, it did. We gave a lot of re-emphasis to films that were not really high budget, but not
really low budget. "Based on a true story" kind of horror films, and it costs under eight million dollars. And there are many that were being made for gazillions compared to that. And, you're right, it did help reinvigorate a little love for these things, and it really feels like we have really taken a bigger step away from that now, these really super, super low budget horror movies. But, "Haunting" also didn't have a known cast. You know, most of our actors were coming from serious independent films, and you had Virginia Madsen who had an Oscar, and it felt true. It didn't have the more "in your face", "tongue-in-cheek" way that horror movies now have. It just, as I said, felt real.
Rob: It definitely does. And it even echoed a film like "Poltergeist", because at that time, we didn't know who Craig T. Nelson was, or Jo Beth Williams, and that is why it worked so well, because they were all basically fresh to the scene. They actually looked like a family, and I think that is why "A Haunting In Connecticut" worked so well.
Adam: No, well, thank you. And it was funny that people responded so viscerally to that movie, you know, people really loved it. And even with the love from the audience, critics were saying, "Oh, it has the same beats of a haunted house movie", and I used to think about that, getting frustrated, and kind of say to myself, "You don't get it AT ALL." This is both a phenomena and a piece of our folklore that YES, there are certain motifs that always happen in these situations. But equally, as a viewer, that's what makes the genre a genre. you don't hear a great blues song and go, "Oh. There is that same blues progression again!" No dude, THAT'S the blues! But with movies, certain scenes are akin to these core progressions, you want to find a new way of hitting them. You want to say something different, but core progressions are pretty much what they are.
Rob: Yes! Definitely agree. And, let's be fair, most critics don't have any idea what they are talking about, so, there is that.
Adam: Especially when it comes to horror. (Laughs)
Rob: So personally, I enjoyed the hell out of "Bones", which was in my opinion a fun love letter to "Blaxploitation" horror like "Blacula", but with an edge. How did that story come to be?