HAUNTER PRESS KIT
SYNOPSIS
In this reverse ghost story, teenage Lisa Johnson (Breslin) and her family died in 1986
under sinister circumstances but remain trapped in their house, unable to move on.
Over a period of six “days”, Lisa must reach out from beyond the grave to help her
present-day, living counterpart, Olivia, avoid the same fate Lisa and her family suffered.
PRODUCTION NOTES
Haunter is Vincenzo Natali's (Splice, Cube) new feature from Copperheart
Entertainment, starring Abigail Breslin (Zombieland, Rango, Little Miss Sunshine),
Stephen McHattie (300, Watchmen, Immortals), Peter Outerbridge (Silent Hill:
Revelation, Lucky Number Slevin), Michelle Nolden (Red, Time Traveler's Wife) and
David Hewlett (Rise of the Planet of the Apes).
Haunter, directed by Vincenzo Natali from a screenplay written by Brian King (Cypher,
Night Train), is produced by Steven Hoban (Splice, Ryan, The Ginger Snaps trilogy), and
co-produced by Mark Smith (388 Arletta Avenue, The Spine).
Cinematography by Jon Joffin (Daydream Nation, Alice, The Andromeda Strain) with
production design by Peter Cosco (388 Arletta Avenue, Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl,
Nothing), costume design by Patrick Antosh (388 Arletta Avenue, American Psycho) and
editing by Michael Doherty (Survival of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Land of the Dead).
Haunter is distributed in Canada by Entertainment One and in the UK by STUDIOCANAL.
US sales are handled by CAA.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
The haunted house genre of horror stands as an enduring, undaunted classic. Remote
landscapes, gloomy domiciles, the inevitable gothic trimmings, strange noises and
unexplained events are the time-honoured tropes of movie history. The subgenre is
suburban terror. The more benign and innocuous the setting - the more incongruous the
haunting. Regardless of environment, ghost stories rely less upon extravagant special
effects and far more on character.
Existential Horror
More than a decade ago, screenwriter Brian King became friends with director Vincenzo
Natali, a collaboration that led to the award-winning film, Cypher, which King wrote and
Natali directed. So when the screenplay for Haunter was in its early stages, King shared
it with his friend. Because the story takes place entirely in a single location, a house, and
as a result of the enormous success of Cube, the film described by David Cronenberg as
having “the elegance of a mathematical theorem”, King knew Natali was at ease with
that sort of confined dynamic and could stretch as a director. “Vincenzo is very good at
making contained sets visually dynamic. What also interested him was that Haunter was
a very different kind of story than what either of us had done before and we’re both
drawn to different themes.”
The point of departure is that Haunter is a haunted house story told in reverse from the
point of view of the ghosts, specifically, 16 year old Lisa Johnson. She and her family are
dead, something the audience becomes aware of within the first ten minutes of the
film. The narrative twist is that only Lisa is aware of this state while her family, oblivious
to their condition, continues playing out the numbing domesticity of the last day of their
lives. In spite of her efforts to wake her family up, she is helpless. Lisa is, however,
strangely connected to a very frightened Olivia, the living teenage daughter whose
family has moved into this house where the Johnson family died. Olivia senses danger
from her father, David, who is acting irrationally, seemingly possessed. It is this
connection that slowly reveals the history of the house and the evil presence haunting
it.
"Haunter vividly demonstrates that even ghosts have a lot to be afraid of. Brian King's
script constructs a Borgian Labyrinth out of the most mundane settings and shows us
how, even in our everyday lives, we are spirits living in the material world," says Natali.
“The aspects of Brian’s script I really responded to were not necessarily the haunted
house parts of the story, but rather the more metaphysical side of it. Specifically, it was
the fact that this is about a girl trapped in an eternal time loop with her family in 1986.
The family thinks this day they keep repeating is a perfect normal Sunday, but Lisa
knows something is deeply wrong. The power of the story is how the normal, everyday
suburban home could be disguising something that it is truly terrifying and malevolent.”
On one hand, Haunter is the screenwriter’s reaction against the visceral trend in horror,
“When I starting writing the script, the en vogue horror movie was “torture porn”.
That’s a very violent, ‘in your face’ kind of horror, which I don’t condemn, but for me,
it’s not very scary. It’s an unpleasant experience, but it’s not frightening,” noted King.
On the other hand, Haunter is King’s excursion into a mind-bending, philosophical brand
of horror, one infused with the existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre’s investigation of
consciousness and then further complemented by M.C. Escher’s fascination with
recursion, intersecting planes of infinity and the dimensions of mathematics.
“The Johnson house is like Escher’s lithographs of infinite staircases and paradoxical
settings that exist in several layers and times,” King pointed out. “Vincenzo and I also
discussed Sartre’s play, NO EXIT in which Hell, traditionally depicted with fire and
brimstone, demons and devils, is minimized to little more than a room populated by
characters who create their own purgatory. We agreed to avoid the fantastical or the
supernatural and keep everything very real and organic. The setting for Haunter is
simply an ordinary house where an ordinary family lives in, and at the same time it is a
limbo-like world in which the characters are trapped.”
Immersing the Audience in Horror
Not only does Lisa have difficulty knowing what is real, but audiences will also have the
same experience because Natali has imbedded subliminal images in the actual film to
tell the story at several levels. “It’s important to know that all my films are experiments.
I first did this in the last sequence of my short film, Elevated. I buried devil imagery and
shots of raw meat in the murder scene. To date, no one has mentioned that they’ve
seen this, but then again, it affects audiences subconsciously and you have to be looking
for it. In this age of Quicktime and DVDs, the curious will absolutely be able to source
those images.” For Haunter, a film about people trapped in a dream-like state, Natali
wanted the subliminals to be a frame-sized glimpse into another truer reality. “I think
audiences will sense something is at work beneath the surface of the film, but won't be
able to decipher precisely what it is. We used a variety of techniques: the Pale Man's
eye appears in various environments, phantasmal images appear near Lisa, the faces of
her family transform into split-second grotesqueries, and we also toyed within the
sound design. I think it is the duty of the director of a horror film to be manipulative. As
an audience of a horror film, we want to be manipulated. So this is just one more device
in my toolbox of manipulative techniques.”
A Disconcerting View of Life After Death
King and Natali conspired to sublimate fear by making it more subtle, not less. “Haunter
is a temporal kind of game that is being played as Lisa travels through different periods
of time which co-exist, passing through each level until she reaches the present day
where another girl, a living girl, Olivia, is about to succumb to the same fate as Lisa and
her family. Brian was very clever about turning the traditional ghost story on its head.
Unlike classic ghost stories, there is something very pointed about the fact that this
dead girl is desperately trying to save the life of the living. The two girls make a special
connection,” Natali said.
Natali felt that King’s script presented the disturbing paradox of the perfect, happy
suburban family and a deeply disturbing story about familicide that makes the Johnson’s
reality a virtual reality. “In a way, Haunter is more science fiction than traditional horror
because it is dealing with the nature of reality, continually peeling back layers of reality
and time. For me, those are the hallmarks of good science fiction, which tends to
examine the state of our reality and where it’s headed, whereas horror tends to be
more an internal kind of reality. Perhaps, in the end, Haunter is a meeting point
between the two.”
The efforts of the writer and director were rewarded when producer Steve Hoban of
Copperheart Entertainment first read Haunter and found it to be a unique combination
of genres: a traditional ghost story told in an untraditional, high concept way. “It’s an
exciting script with the potential to be an unusual movie and that was important
because ghost stories aren’t done often because they’re hard to do. Ghost stories on
film have been made for a hundred years and audiences now expect visceral imagery. A
good ghost story demands sophistication and subtlety to deliver the impact that
audiences look for in a genre movie. What sets Haunter apart from the rest is that not
only are the characters dead, but it’s the kind of mystery that Lisa, played by Abigail
Breslin, has to solve.”
The Perfect Family Unit- Including the Rebellious Teenage Daughter
Haunter reads like a metaphor, something Natali enjoys layering into his films. “Like
many teenagers, Lisa think she knows what is going on in the world, better than her
parents do. No matter what she does to convince them of the truth, they won’t listen.
But what Lisa sees is more terrifying than what the normal teenager girl will ever have
to encounter.”
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region
of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a
decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious
adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The intricacy of this role lies in the Groundhog Day nature of the story which leads
deeper into the mystery with every new day. The repetitive component that made the
performance demanding for Abigail Breslin also made this film a signature piece for
Natali. “Haunter definitely resonated with Vincenzo’s work and, in particular, with Brian
King’s writing. His stories are always complex, with many different, moving pieces.
Cypher was also very much like this. For Abigail, it was challenging for her to know
where her character was on any given day because we were on Day 3, Day 1 and Day 6,
sometimes all in one morning of filming. But she is one of the best actors of her
generation so anything she was going to do was going to be interesting. She is such a
technically proficient actor as well as being creatively strong that she pulled it off
amazingly well,” said Producer Steve Hoban.
There’s an engaging David vs. Goliath sensibility to Haunter. This Sioux and the
Banshees t-shirt-wearing girl takes on the Pale Man not with brute force, but with
burgeoning intelligence. It’s a dangerous game she plays because it’s his game, on his
turf and with his rules, which she has to learn quickly.
LISA (speaking to the Pale Man)
(getting angry)
Why? What can you do to me? I'm already dead.
“One of the things I like about Brian’s script is that Lisa starts as a typical, moody
teenager girl. And by the end of the film, she is a hero in the most ‘Campbellian’ sense
of the word. There is nothing sentimental about the way she reaches that point, but
what really makes everything work is Abigail because there’s tremendous sincerity in
her performance. I believe she is incapable of giving a dishonest performance and she is
technically perfect. It’s one of those curious paradoxes to have someone who is so
honest on screen, and at the same time, so technically accurate in the way they perform
for the camera. Because of the complicated nature of the story, I needed both in a very
young actress. So, I was very fortunate to get her. On top of all that, Abigail is just lovely
to work with,” said Natali.
Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin has been a horror-film junkie since she was 10 years
old. Natali’s Splice ranks among her favourites (“It’s good, weird and amazing!). Doing a
horror movie has been her goal for a long time and while Zombieland was fun to make,
in Breslin’s mind, it was more of a comedy. The pleasure of making Haunter was that it
qualified as scary, even when she was reading the script for the first time, certainly
when she was filming, and sometimes even when she went home at the end of the day.
“Usually I’d be okay on set, but every once in a while, I’d find myself jumping a little bit.
There’s a scene in the kitchen with decaying bodies that were really creepy to look at,
and they smelled horrible. Another scene in a tunnel under the house was also cool, but
frightening to shoot. There was a long lighting set up, even though it was almost pitch
black. I’d totally forgotten Steve McHattie was there because he’s always so quiet on
set. I had just turned on my flashlight and saw him with his Pale Man makeup and I was
like ‘Ahhhh!’” she recalled with amused alarm. “I felt bad because I almost screamed in
his face, but I was terrified.” On occasion, she took this fear home. “I’d gone to work out
after filming. It was 10 PM and I was alone in the gym when I thought about a really
scary scene I’d just done and suddenly had to call a friend. I was too terrified to be
alone.”
When reading the script, what first came to Breslin’s mind was the Groundhog Day
dynamic, followed by the haunted house theme, and finally she fixed on the twist of Lisa
and her family being dead. She spoke with Natali about “… the family walking a tight
rope between denial and amnesia and Lisa wondering if she was crazy, is this even
happening or if she was even alive still. Along with being contacted by a girl who is alive,
living in the same house, but in the present day, it freaks her out when she realizes she’s
been repeating the same day since 1986. Her curiosity gets the better of her as she tries
to figure out what’s going on and why is this girl making contact.” Breslin continued,
“For a dead girl, Lisa certainly evolves. By the end of the movie, I don’t think she cares
about not turning 16. She’s like an 80-year old in her little 15-year old body. She
matures throughout the film. There’s a progression of her inner Lisa.”
What goads Lisa out of her funk about not being understood by her family is the
introduction of the Pale Man, played by Stephen McHattie. “I’ve watched a ton of
horror movies and in my opinion, the Pale Man is one of the scariest villains,” Breslin
asserted. “Except for the fact that he’s extremely sun-deprived, he doesn’t have any
visual deformities. The typical villain is an ominous figure in the background, not saying
much, just terrorizing or killing the main characters - and there always a lot of
screaming. But the Pale Man is different. He talks a lot and I find that rare in this kind of
story. There’s no blood or gore in this and not that much screaming, but there is
something really disturbing about the Pale Man that puts you so on edge, particularly
when Lisa realizes he lived in Lisa’s family house back in the 1920s and killed his own
parents. Even worse is that his “child self”, Edgar, is actually the imaginary friend of
Robbie, Lisa’s little brother.”
Knowing the difficulty of the role that was coming up for Breslin, Natali specifically
requested that, even during pre-production, she keep some distance from McHattie.
Because she enjoyed working with Natali, (“He’s an amazing director, but also the nicest
guy.”), she felt an obligation to honour this request. “On the day of the camera test,
Steve Mchattie came up and introduced himself. I was so terrified that he didn’t get that
memo that we weren’t supposed to be chatting a lot. But he did an amazing job making
the Pale Man so creepy without any extra flash. He’d be doing scenes with me, grabbing
me and pulling my hair and in between every take he is “Are you ok? Is everything OK?”
It’s interesting to see him being so mean to be on camera and then so nice off. “
The Pale Man
The core of the horror in Haunter is not a creature. There is no gore. There is one man.
He is not a child nor is he a puppet. He doesn’t wear a mask. He doesn’t dine on human
flesh, isn’t sporting talons, and bears no evidence of torture, failed experiments. He
doesn’t even have bad teeth.
What Haunter offers up is the Pale Man, an enigma of evil. Born Edgar Mullen, he lived
in the same house where he killed his parents in the 1920s. In the 1950s, he began to
target young girls until his death in 1983. After death, he remained in the house,
possessing the families who moved in. “It’s actually a very neat and original idea that
Brian came up with,” observed Natali. “I don’t think there’s ever been anything quite
like our villain who transcends death, continues to kill beyond the grave and keeps the
souls trapped in the house much as someone might keep a butterfly collection. These
souls are doomed to perpetually relive the day they die, over and over.”
For screenwriter, Brian King, this is atmospheric horror. “You’re watching it, and you
know something is wrong. The mood, the lighting, and the tone draws you in and scares
you at a deeper level. I contrast that with coming down in a hallway and…boo! someone
jumps out. We have that in Haunter, but we also have more. I prefer to scare audiences
not by making them shut their eyes, but by forcing them to keep them open, wide open,
mesmerized.”
King’s favourite moment in the film is a simple one that happens early on. “We’ve been
with the family in this house long enough to see the rhythm of their day. We know the
house is isolated, surrounded by fog, and they are alone. We know they are dead. The
doorbell rings. It breaks the pattern. The door is opened and the person standing there
seems benign, but lives up to your worse nightmares. I have been inspired by different
ideas about what that could be, but I have to say that Steve McHattie exceeds all
expectations. He has a presence. He scares you without opening his mouth, without
having to speak. I said to Vincenzo early on that the Pale Man should just be able to
smile at you and you are terrified. That’s it. And he does that very well; he is a very good
actor.”
“Stephen McHattie is so utterly chilling and in such subtle ways,” proclaimed Steve
Hoban. “The touchstone for this character is the chauffeur in the 1976 classic, Burnt
Offerings, played by Anthony James, an actor with a very angular face and a particular
kind of smile. That was easily the scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life. I was very
young when I saw it and it had a big impact for many years. When I read this script,
that’s exactly what I had in mind. And McHattie, who has a very cinematic face,
delivered that smile.”
Natali happily conceded that this is unquestionably McHattie’s Pale Man, a character
written with nothing overtly terrifying to it, but with evil coming right from the core. It
was strategically important to balance Lisa’s budding autonomy with a foe who didn’t
come out of the gate full force and at high speed. To enhance the delicacy of the
counterpoint, Natali added the music from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf which Lisa
plays on her clarinet. The Pale Man is the predacious wolf to Lisa’s naïve, yet clever
Peter. “Stephen defined this role completely; he owned it. When he walked on the set
on the first day, which happened to be his character’s introductory scene, it was like he
stepped off the page. He brought a quiet malevolence that was utterly shocking and
unnerving because he didn’t overplay the part.”
Stephen McHattie is a relaxed man who actually does smile a lot in real life. He’s also a
master of understatement, which informed his Pale Man. “He’s the guy who arrives to
fix the furnace and you let him into your house without thinking twice. There’s always
that weird, little “what if…” moment. We were aiming for the mundane, the routine.
The things that are scary are the ordinary things. Pale Man talks, hums, and he gives
instructions. This Pale Man is stuck in time like in a Vonnegut novel and I’m enjoying him
immensely. He’s playful, devilish and deadly. It’s a good combination.”
The ironic aspect about the Pale Man is that he invokes the comforting nostalgia found
in the pages of a 1940s LIFE magazine or a character out of a Norman Rockwell painting
for the Saturday Evening Post. He was a pharmacist back when men in that profession
were known in small communities for dispensing wisdom as well as remedies. That he
sets his sights first on young girls and then happy families, working through the fathers,
is a cruel assault on innocence.
The Father Figures
Haunter, being a story about family, features teenage girls who are at an age where the
idealized image of ‘father as protector’ begins to fragment. “The father figure in
Haunter is pictured in two ways: loving and homicidal: the homicidal part is embodied
by the Pale Man; the loving part is embodied by Bruce. But they are two parts of a
whole. In the end, the Pale Man is unmasked as the true source of evil, but I don't think
it's possible to ever fully erase the image of the father as both protector and destroyer
of his own family,” said Natali.
Lisa’s Father, Bruce
Peter Outerbridge plays Lisa’s father, along with Michelle Nolden as her mother. This
family’s fate is to relive their last day repeatedly. It’s a sweet last day what with the
domestic bliss of preparing for Lisa’s 16th birthday. Content in their happiness, only the
Pale Man knows what will happen to this family and he takes a perverse pleasure in that
knowledge.
“There is nothing particularly high stakes on the way the scenes are portrayed,”
observed Outerbridge, “and that cuts against the drama of the demonic possession. It
also sets a natural tone to the whole film. Only Lisa has woken up to the awareness of
the family’s condition, although she doesn’t realize what caused it. Her dilemma is that
there’s nothing she can do about it. She knows she’s dead and she’s painfully aware
that this seems to be her existence for the rest of eternity. On a subtle level, Haunter
becomes a statement on teenage angst and rebellion, rallying everyone to wake up,
saying, ‘We are dying out here in the suburbs - there is nothing to do. Your whole life
has basically stopped: you get up, you go to work, you come home and that’s it. And I
don’t want that.’”
The pairing of Outerbridge and Nolden brought its own comfort to the family setting,
given the two actors have known each other since 1995. They’ve even worked on other
horror films together, ones where the level of gore was quite different. “We’d be doing
scenes where they were just keep saying “More blood, more blood!”” until there was
more blood over the stage than actually exists in a human being,” he recalled. “I think
the true horror in Haunter is these dead souls are being controlled by someone else,
and that’s chilling.”
Olivia’s Father, David
Vincenzo Natali met actor David Hewlett and made his first film with him at age 15. This
is a long-term friendship that has spanned at least seven films. “I’m his muse,” Hewlett
joked. “But I know what to expect and that’s horror.” Now that both men have started
their own families, there is a delicious parallel between the films they do together and
their real life experiences. “Playing the part of Olivia’s dad, I’m recognizing these things
that you’d ordinarily say to your kids, like ‘Do you understand?” but they all have much
darker undertones in Haunter. You can enjoy horror when you are a kid, but as a parent
suddenly there’s a weight to people’s misery. Somehow it affects you more.”
“Splice (which Hewlett was also in) was the ultimate family film about two people who
couldn’t decide whether to have a kid or not – so they make one, but they don’t make it
the way most people make one. Haunter is about finishing off a family,” he noted with a
chuckle. “In Vincenzo’s films, there’s always a 70s paranoia of being controlled by
powers greater than ourselves or being led to do things that you don’t want to do. It
seems to be Vincenzo’s phobia. The 70s was the end of our belief that the government
was looking out for our good, and instead they were working against us. It was the
beginning of distrust of authority. Vincenzo’s films always seem to deal with questioning
who we are and are we really who we think we are.”
In Haunter, Hewlett plays David, Olivia’s father, one of the few living characters. He and
his family become the battleground for Lisa’s stand against the Pale Man. “I live in the
present, but the true creepiness about this movie is that you can be having a
conversation with somebody and when they turn around, you never know who they are
going to be or from what time period. What is clear is that if this horror doesn’t stop
with this family, it’s going to continue destroying every family who moves into this
house.”
*
*
*
ABOUT THE CAST
ABIGAIL BRESLIN (Lisa) Abigail Breslin is one of the most versatile, charismatic and
sought-after actors of her young generation. As a talented and engaging performer, she
had the amazing opportunity to play the leading lady to Mel Gibson – at the age of five –
in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 film Signs. Abigail has been able to use her unique talents
to do, comedy and drama as well as quirky and unusual roles. Recently, Abigail finished
filming the highly anticipated Summit film Ender’s Game opposite Asa Butterfield,
Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and Hailee Steinfeld. The film is about an unusually gifted
child, Ender (Butterfield), who is sent to an advanced military school in space to prepare
for a future invasion 70 years after a horrific alien war. Abigail will star as Ender’s sister
‘Valentine’ who is also exceptionally gifted. This fall, Abigail finished filming the indie
film The Class Project directed by Stan Brooks. The story follows two sisters who are
tired of their mother's alcoholism and her abusive boyfriends who take matters into
their own hands and plot to kill her. Abigail will star as the lead in the film as ‘Sandra’
and Mira Sorvino will play her mother.
Most memorable is her role in the critically acclaimed Little Miss Sunshine, the
irreverent, antic comedy which created a sensation at the 2006 Sundance Film
Festival. Abigail played ‘Olive,’ an ambitious young girl who is obsessed with winning a
beauty pageant, who possesses guileless wisdom combined with a klutziness edged with
grace. For her performance, Abigail received a Best Actress Award from the Tokyo
International Film Festival and was nominated for Academy Award, SAG and BAFTA Best
Supporting Actress honors. In Addition, Abigail was honored as ShoWest’s “Female Star
of Tomorrow” in 2008. Abigail’s other film credits include Janie Jones, Zombieland, My
Sister’s Keeper, New Year’s Eve, Raising Helen, The Ultimate Gift, The Santa Claus 3, No
Reservations, Definitely Maybe, Nim’s Island, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.
On television, Abigail has had guest roles on “Law And Order: Special Victims Unit,”
“Navy N.C.I.S.,” “What I Like About You” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
In the spring of 2010, Abigail graced the stage staring as ‘Helen Keller’ in the first
Broadway revival of The Miracle Worker co-starring Allison Pill. Breslin and her best
friend Cassidy Reiff have also formed a band called CABB where they write and produce
their own music. They recently released their first single “Well Wishes” and have
completed their first album which will be released in the spring of 2012. Their official
twitter page is @CABBtheBAND - they have over 2,000 followers.
MICHELLE NOLDEN (Carol) Michelle Nolden’s resume boasts blockbuster and
independent features as well as critically acclaimed television projects, all of which have
earned her an international reputation. She currently has a regular role in the new
CTV/NBC series “Saving Hope”. Her feature film credits include Red starring Bruce Willis
and Morgan Freeman, the Canadian Indie comedy St. Roz as well as The Time Travelers
Wife with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. She garnered great reviews as the lead in the
HBO Canada/Movie Network series "Zone of Separation" playing a tough edged United
Nations Peacekeeper. A regular on the second season of “The Republic of Doyle”, she
can also be seen in the recent CBC movie entitled "John A. The Making of A
Country". Nolden has just finished five seasons in the recurring role of U.S. attorney
‘Robin Brooks’ on the Primetime CBS show “Num3ers.” Recent guest roles include “The
Listener”, "The Murdoch Mysteries", ABC's "Rookie Blue" for which she was nominated
for a Gemini Award in 2011, and the Showcase Original "Crash and Burn". Nolden also
starred in Sean Garrity’s feature film Lucid as well as the Canadian Film Center Feature
Show Me. For her work in Men with Brooms, in which she co-stars with Paul Gross,
Leslie Nielson and Molly Parker, Nolden received an ACTRA nomination for Best Actress.
Additional film credits include Deceived where she stars with Lou Gossett Jr. and Judd
Nelson; Cybermutt where she again shares the screen with Nelson, Alter where she
plays a woman suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and David Weaver’s feature
debut Century Hotel. Short films include Moon Palace which was showcased at MOMA’s
night of exceptional film, Cursing Hanley and Congratulations Daisy Graham, both of
which premiered at the 2007 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.
For two seasons, Nolden was a series regular in the critically acclaimed Showtime series
“Street Time,” with Rob Morrow and Terrence Howard. She has had recurring roles on
“Everwood”,” Crossing Jordan” and Gene Rodenberry’s “Earth Final Conflict” which
earned her an international fan club and is currently shooting “Nikita” for The CW. She
has guest starred on “Ghost Whisperer”, “C.S.I. Miami,” “Would Be Kings”, “Rent-a
Goalie”, “The Eleventh Hour”, “The Shield’s Stories”, “Kevin Hill”, “Regenesis” and
“Betting on Love”. Nolden played ‘Christyne Lategano’ opposite James Wood’s Emmy
performance of Rudy Guliani in the USA Network MOW “Rudy: The Rudy Guliani Story”;
co-starred along Cybil Sheppard in the Martha Stewart Biopic, “Martha Inc.”, and costarred in the Canadian Mini-series “Hemingway vs Callaghan” for which she garnered a
Gemini nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also portrayed a young war bride in
the CBC National Special “We Will Not Forget” which earned the Governor General’s
Award of Appreciation.
Nolden recently made her writing and directing debut with the short film Loonie which
has been selected to screen at the Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Atlantic Film Festivals
among others. Both lead actors were nominated for 2008 Actra Awards, as well as
winning best short film for the NSI Online Film Festival. She co-created the comedy
series "Slacker Moms" which was in development with CBC and is now being shopped in
the United States. She is story consultant on the drama series “St. Bat’s” currently in
development with Shaw Media and has just finished writing and directing her second
short film for Bravofact, “A Man’s World”. Nolden is the Artistic Director and cofounder of the Lakeshorts International Short Film Festival.
PETER OUTERBRIDGE (Bruce) was born and raised in Toronto. He studied Theatre at the
University of Victoria, receiving his BFA in 1988. He then co-founded the "fringe" theatre
company, Way Off Broadway, and toured the various festivals across Canada for several
years before crossing over to film and television. His credits include starring roles in the
Showcase Lifetime movie “My Name is Sarah”, the drama series “Whistler”; and the
feature film Burning Mussolini. Other film credits include The Bay of Love and Sorrows,
based on the novel by Giller Prize winner David Adams Richards; Men with Brooms,
starring Paul Gross and Leslie Nielson; Marine Life, starring Cybil Shepherd; and Better
than Chocolate with Wendy Crewson. Early feature films include Paris, France and
Kissed with Molly Parker, which earned his first Genie nomination. His television credits
include: the lead role in three “Detective Murdoch Mysteries”, two “Chasing Cain”
movies, the mini-series “Trudeau”, and Sturla Gunnerson’s “100 Days in the
Jungle”. Outerbridge also appeared in “10:5 Apocalypse”, “Sanctuary”, “Heartland”,
and the ABC series “Happy Town”. Outerbridge portrayed George Brown in CBC’s “The
Rivals”, and was seen on “The Listener”, as well as the popular Global miniseries “Bomb
Girls”. Outerbridge also has as a recurring role on CW’s smash hit “Nikita”. He will next
be seen in the pilot “Beauty & The Beast” also for the CW. Some of his other television
guest appearances include the critically-acclaimed series “24”, ABC’s drama series “The
D.A.”, “The Outer Limits”, and “Road to Avonlea”. Outerbridge has received four Gemini
nominations for his portrayal of ‘David Sandström’ in “ReGenesis”, and a nomination for
his role as ‘Detective Murdoch’ in “Murder 19C: Detective Murdoch Mysteries”.
PETER DACUNHA (Robbie) was born April 12, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario. His interest in
the film industry started at an early age. He has always been fascinated with movies and
how they are made. Peter started his acting career in commercials. His first projects
included Kellogg's Froot Loops, Tim Hortons and Catelli Pasta and then moved onto
television with a role on “Rookie Blue”. Shari Quallenberg with AMI Artist Management
began representing him in early 2011 and his young career took off. His first TV movie
was “Frenemies” (Disney) as ‘George’, the annoying little brother to ‘Savannah’ played
by Mary Mouser. He then appeared in a short film and a Hallmark Christmas movie
called "Mistletoe Over Manhattan." His guest appearances on television series include
“Life With Boys”, “Alphas”, “Against The Wall” and more recently “The Listener” and the
first episode of the final season of “Flashpoint”. Peter's first feature film was a starring
role in The Barrens which also stars Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”), Mia Kirshner
(“Vampire Diaries”) and Allie MacDonald (“House at The End of The Street”) Directed by
Darren Lynn Bousman. While filming The Barrens, he met with Damian Lee who cast him
for the role of ‘Jason Begosian’ in The Truth, Andy Garcia stars as his father ‘Jack
Begosian’ and Lara Daans as his Mother ‘Karen Begosian’. The experience was amazing
for a young actor to work with such a wonderful cast and crew. Peter recently filmed
Home Alone 5 as the role of ‘Mason’, the next door neighbour of the lead boy, Christian
Martyn. Peter Hewitt directed the ABC movie which will be on television during the
holiday season 2012.
STEPHEN McHATTIE (Pale Man) recently completed shooting Wolves for Copperheart
Entertainment, directed by David Hayter. He has recently been seen in The Watchmen
for Warner Brothers, which reunited him with Zach Snyder who directed him in the
international blockbuster 300. He had a significant presence in 2012 directed by Roland
Emmerich. McHattie’s latest film project is Immortals directed by Tarsem Singh. His film
Score: The Musical opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. Other films
credits include Poor Boy’s Game with Danny Glover (dir. Clement Virgo), and The Time
Keeper opposite Roy Dupuis, for which McHattie received a Jutra nomination. He starred
with Dupuis as the legendary hockey coach ‘Dick Irvin’ in The Rocket: The Maurice
Richard Story, a performance for which he earned Canada’s 2007 Genie Award for his
outstanding performance. A veteran of over 50 films and over 100 television projects,
McHattie’s feature performances include the inquisitor in Darren Aronofsky’s The
Fountain; A History of Violence opposite Viggo Mortensen, directed by David
Cronenberg; The Lazarus Child, with Andy Garcia; Secretary opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal,
dir. Steven Shainberg. Other memorable turns include Twist, Geronimo (dir. Walter Hill),
Belizaire the Cajun, Gray Lady Down, Beverly Hills Cop III, and The Dark. McHattie stars
in Pontypool, a feature directed by Bruce MacDonald, which premiered at the Toronto
International Film Festival September 2008 and earned him a Genie award nomination
for Best Lead Actor.
McHattie’s latest television ventures include a recurring role on the series “Haven” for
Syfy and “Happy Town” for ABC. He has five major mini series: “Moby Dick” opposite
William Hurt and “Diamonds” with James Purefoy. He also stars in “The Summit”, an
international thriller with Christopher Plummer, and Bruce Greenwood; “XIII”, for NBC
with Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer and “Guns” for CBC with Elisha Cuthbert and Colm
Feore. His other major credits include “Killer Wave”, “Would Be Kings”, “The Trojan
Horse”, four Jesse Stone telefilms for CBS with Tom Selleck and “Absolution”. McHattie
received the 1995 Gemini Award for Best Actor in a telefilm “Life with Billy” (CBC). He
was a series regular on “Cold Squad”, “Emily of New Moon” (CBC), “Beauty and the
Beast”, and “Scene of the Crime” (CBS). Other memorable television performances
include “Fringe”, “X-Files”, “Seinfeld”, “Law and Order”, as well as telefilms “Centennial”
and the title role in NBC's “James Dean”. He was nominated for a Gemini for a starring
role on the television series “Murdoch Mysteries”.
McHattie made his Broadway debut in The American Dream in 1968 and was a member
of the legendary Phoenix Theater as well as the famous Circle in the Square repertory.
He received an Obie Award for Mensch Meier and Drama and the Drama Desk
nomination for Ghetto at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
ELEANOR ZICHY (Olivia) is an ambitious, young actor. In addition to numerous
commercials, her feature film debut is Haunter and she made her television debut on
MTV/E1’s hit “Skins” as the series regular ‘Eura’. Eleanor has had the opportunity to act
in several school plays and her training includes the Lewis Baumander Acting Studio, The
Armstrong Acting Studios and she is currently enrolled at the Etobicoke School for the
Arts.
DAVID HEWLETT (Olivia’s Father) David’s film and television career began in his early
teens, when he took a break from playing Dungeons & Dragons to hook up with a few
schoolmates and work on their early film endeavors. He continues to collaborate with
these filmmakers on features like Cube, Treed Murray, Cypher, Foolproof, Nothing and
Splice – produced by Guillermo Del Toro.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
STEVE HOBAN (Producer) is currently in production on the film Wolves written and
directed by David Hayter. Recent features include Splice starring Adrien Brody and Sarah
Polley, the adult comedy Young People Fucking directed by Martin Gero
(Stargate:Atlantis) and the remake of the 70s horror classic Black Christmas directed by
Glen Morgan (X-Files, Final Destination) released by Dimension in December ’06. Other
films include the 2005 Academy Award-winning short animated film Ryan, directed by
Chris Landreth; the feature film Nothing, directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube); and, the
final installment of his independent hit trilogy Ginger Snaps.
VINCENZO NATALI (Director) The Canadian-born fantasist director Vincenzo Natali is no
stranger to dystopia. Natali burst onto the scene in 1997 with his surreal, low budget
sci-fi thriller Cube. The film impressed viewers and critics alike with Natali’s ability to
stretch cinematic boundaries on a shoestring budget; it also received multiple Genie
nominations for art direction, sound, and an original score, and in time became
something of a cult favorite. With his follow up film, Cypher, starring Jeremy Northam,
Lucy Liu and David Hewlett, Natali kept his feet planted firmly in the postmodern realm.
Cypher is the tale of a man who assumes a new identity in preparation for an espionage
career, but instead gets systematically brainwashed and finds himself engulfed in a
shaky, paranoid reality. Natali’s third feature, Nothing, is described by the
writer/director as "a buddy comedy set in a void." The film again garnered worldwide
critical kudos. Two years later, Natali directed Getting Gilliam, the documentary on
Terry Gilliam’s production of the 2005 feature Tideland, which premiered concurrently
with the feature. Natali then contributed a segment to the 2006 film-à-sketch Paris, Je
t’aime. Natalia los co-wrote and directed the highly acclaimed feature, Splice starring
Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley which had its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film
Festival and went on to receive various nominations from Directors Guild of Canada,
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA, Fangoria Chainsaw Awards,
Genie Awards, Sitges, Teen Choice Awards, winning Best Special Effects at Sitges, Best
Supporting Actress from Vancouver Film Festival.
JON JOFFIN (Director of Photography) is an artistically inspired and hardworking
cinematographer whose intriguing visual ideas have graced some of the most innovative
independent films and leading TV genre series, including “The X-Files” and “Masters of
Horror.” His last feature, Daydream Nation, is noted for its stunning magic realist
imagery. The Kat Dennings-starring Canadian coming-of-age story is praised for “Joffin's
moodily evocative lensing … Pic's final image is nothing short of wrenchingly beautiful,”
(Variety) and “Joffin’s stunning cinematography” (Vancouver Observer). Joffin received
a Best Achievement in Cinematography Genie Award nomination for his work on the
film.
Prior to this Joffin shot “Alice”, a very dark, quirky and visually remarkable retelling of
ALICE IN WONDERLAND, directed by Nick Willing, with performances from Kathy Bates
and Tim Curry. The SyFy channel production earned him an ASC nomination and a Leo
Best Cinematography award. In 2008, Joffin’s astonishing depiction of the country in
turmoil for TV miniseries “The Andromeda Strain” earned him Emmy and ASC Award
nominations for Outstanding Cinematography. He received a Best Photography Gemini
Award nomination for “Crusoe’s” 2009 season. In 2003 he lensed Hallmark’s TV movie
“DreamKeeper” with director Steve Barron, which remains a magnificently affirming
movie for Native American identity. Variety’s Brian Lowry called it “lyrical, visually
splendid and lavishly produced.”
Joffin has worked with directorial icons in science fiction and horror filmmaking
including John Landis, Tobe Hooper, Mick Garris, Ernest Dickerson and Mikael Salomon.
Influences on Joffin’s style include photographers Julia Margaret Cameron and Sarah
Moon, painters Rembrandt and Renoir as well as cinematographers Caleb Deschanel
and Robert Richardson. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Joffin’s earliest experiences
in the craft were with 16mm films and his father’s photography books; the family had
no television. While young, he travelled the Middle East and Mauritius. He later studied
at Toronto York University before embarking on a career in the film industry.
MICHAEL DOHERTY (Editor) After graduating from the film program at Simon Fraser
University, Michael spent the next few years producing, directing and editing dance and
educational videos in Vancouver. He began editing feature films in 1995 after a move to
Toronto. Over the last 14 years, he has edited 17 feature length films, including three
films for George A. Romero: Land of the Dead, for which he received a Directors Guild of
Canada nomination for Best Editor, Diary of the Dead, which screened at the Toronto
International Film Festival and at Sundance, and Survival of the Dead, which screened in
competition at the Venice Film Festival. In between the Romero projects, Michael
edited Alan Moyle’s Weirdsville, for which he received his second Directors Guild
nomination, Robert Townsend’s Phantom Punch, and the teen comedy Wild Cherry, as
well as a segment for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”. He has also worked on the
television series “Unnatural History”, for the Cartoon Network in the US and “The
Listener”, for CTV in Canada. During his spare time he edits movie trailers for
companies in Canada, the US, Australia, Germany and China.
BRIAN KING (Writer) grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to Los Angeles where
he graduated from University High School. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a
BA in Political Science. Brian attended the Professional Screenwriting Program through
UCLA while working as a script reader for New Line Cinema. Through the UCLA Short
Film Program, Brian wrote and directed an award-winning short film, This Is Harry
Legman. Brian’s first writing sale was a teleplay for an HBO project, “Whispers”.
Although the television show was never produced, the sale allowed Brian to become a
full time writer and to enter the Writers Guild Of America, West. Brian continued
working as a full time writer by selling two feature length screenplays, Breakdown In
Evandale, and Alison, both of them psychological thrillers. Brian’s third screenplay,
Cypher, was produced, and was a critically acclaimed science fiction thriller about a
near-future world of corporate espionage. It starred Lucy Liu and Jeremy Northam, and
was directed by Vincenzo Natali. Brian’s next produced screenplay, Night Train, was a
film Brian also directed. A well-received Hitchcockian thriller set entirely on a train, the
film starred Danny Glover, LeeLee Sobieski, and Steve Zahn. Brian has also written a host
of other screenplays that are in various stages of development and pre-production.
These projects include Permission, Wireless, Run, In-Vitro, Face-Blind, Reborn, and
Surge, as well as a television project “Convergence”.
PETER COSCO (Production Designer) has worked as a production designer for film and
television since 1997. Peter's feature film design credits include Victoria Day, Kit
Kittredge: An American Girl, 388 Arletta Ave., Collaborator, Nothing, Nemesis Game, and
Perfect Pie. His work for television series includes episodes of HBO’s “Tell Me You Love
Me”, the final season of CBC’s “Being Erica”, “Beautiful People” for ABC Family, and
“Total Recall 2070”, as well as the telefilms “Widow on the Hill”, “Diverted”, “Naughty
or Nice”, “Gracie’s Choice”, “Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Alan Freed Story”, “Vacation with
Derek” and “Time Shifters”. Variety magazine praised Peter's strong contribution of
"down-to-the-last-1930s-detail" production design in Patricia Rozema's Kit Kittredge: An
American Girl, and received a nomination from The Director’s Guild of Canada Award for
his work on that film and another nomination for his work on Vincenzo Natali’s Nothing.
Peter’s work on The Nemesis Game won the New Zealand Film Award for Best Design.
Peter studied sculpture and film at the Ontario College of Art Toronto as well as a year
in Florence, Italy. Peter is passionate and knowledgeable about all genres of film and has
worked on productions in cities across Canada, the US, and the Bahamas. Peter works
closely with directors and directors of photography to develop the visual language
required to realize the unique story and sensibilities each project demands.
PATRICK ANTOSH (Costume Designer) started his film career in wardrobe on the set of
Johnny Mnemonic as a wardrobe assistant to the award-winning designer Olga Dimitrov.
After several projects he branched out on his own as a costume designer on such
diverse projects as Showtime’s “Queer as Folk”, a slew of Disney Channel movies and
most recently, independent features such as Score!: A Hockey Musical, The Samaritan
and Antiviral. A regular on “Fashion Television” as well as a judge on “Making It Big”,
Patrick has also been a personal stylist to celebrities such as Cyndi Lauper and Olivia
Newton John. He is also V.P. of Wardrobe for Nabet700 and a voting member of the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the Emmy’s). Haunter is one of four
collaborations with Copperheart Entertainment and with Vincenzo Natali, one of his
most fulfilling director/designer relationships to date.