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Vincent D’Onofrio’s first film, ‘Don’t Go in the Woods,’ mashes slasher horror and movie musical
Publié par Joyce Chen dans TV Line le 19/01/12. |
The synopsis for actor Vincent D’Onofrio’s debut film, “Don’t Go in the Woods,” is simple, even though it crosses two mismatched genres: Slasher horror and movie musical.
“The idea was to make this kind of absurd story where everybody sings and everybody dies,” the “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” star says of his song-filled scarefest.
“Woods” follows an aspiring Brooklyn band — hipsters with keyboards and guitars, and a lead singer who’s blind — who escape into the woods of upstate New York in order to refocus on their music.
What they cannot escape, though, is a mysterious killer who comes out of nowhere to interrupt all the songs with some classic schlock-movie bloodletting.
Newcomers fill the cast, except for actor and playwright Eric Bogosian, who has one scene as a slimy music agent.
In order to maintain the unusual tone, D’Onofrio — who first came to attention in 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket” before going on to “Household Saints,” “The Player,” “Men in Black,” and other films — often had to remind the cast to approach the script with a “fresh-yet-flat” outlook.
And that means...?
“Sometimes I would read the lyrics to a song in a very flat tone with no acting in it, and I wanted them to all understand that that’s what the tone was going to be,” he explains.
“Their acting was to be, not exactly bad acting, but it should have an early Kevin Smith film, a slacker-ish feel.
I knew doing that, and contrasting it to the upbeat music, would create this odd feeling, like, ‘Wait a second ... what’s going on here?’”
The Brooklyn-born D’Onofrio, 52, says he came up with the concept while driving back to the city from his house in upstate New York and imagining what it would be like to film a slasher musical around his own estate.
After rounding up some friends — and a few women who worked in a coffee shop around the corner from his place — D'Onofrio set out to make the low-budget flick in a little over a month.
“I approached it like I approach my acting,” D'Onofrio says. “Some people hate my performances, some people love them, but I really just do what I think is best and I don't like to do anything that’s cookie cutter.”
jchen@nydailynews.com |
Article issu de TV Line et
initialement publié le 19/01/12.
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