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Inside “H.P. LOVECRAFT’S WITCH HOUSE” With Bobby Easley, Portia Chellelynn and J.D. Brenton

Monday, July 18, 2022 | Interviews

By JOSHUA “PROMETHEUS” SCAFIDI

Do you like H.P. Lovecraft? Are you obsessed with haunted houses? Then you are sure to enjoy WITCH HOUSE, the new film from director Bobby Easley, an adaptation of Lovecraft’s 1933 short story “Dreams in the Witch House.” I recently had the chance to chat with Bobby, along with Portia Chellelynn who stars in the film. We were later joined by the film’s cinematographer, J.D. Brenton!

The film takes place in and was filmed in Indianapolis, Indiana’s legendary Hannah House, a very famous and supposedly very haunted house. The production of WITCH HOUSE marks the first time a narrative film has been shot at the legendary location, and you won’t believe some of the stuff that happened! Check it out!

Hi guys! So, let’s talk about WITCH HOUSE, It’s based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, “Dreams in the Witch House?”

Bobby Easley: Yes!

Bobby, you wrote and also directed the film?

BE: Yeah, I co-wrote it with Ben Wallace. We adapted it.

And Portia, you play Alice, the main character in the film.

Portia Chellelynn: I do.

What made you want to adapt the original Lovecraft story?

BE: Well, back in 2016 I was at a film festival in Syracuse, New York, and Brian Yuzna, the producer of Reanimator was there. We started talking about my films and upcoming projects, and he wanted to be involved with me from step one on my next one. I wanted to do something a little more grown-up instead of the American formula for, you know, five people getting killed one by one in a van by a masked killer.

Brian said to look through some of Lovecraft’s work and see if anything works for me. I started going through all of the stories and, man, they are so fantastically described. He’s got ancient alien civilizations and vast cities and massive creatures coming from the oceans; Stuff that our budget really wouldn’t allow. So we got fortunate with one of the stories that takes place in a small town. The rest is history from there.

For those unfamiliar with the story, what can you tell us without spoiling too much?

PC: Alice is in an abusive relationship, and she’s trying to escape it. She finds the Hannah House, and it reminds her of her studies because of all the geometric shapes up in the attic. The house has these things about it, and Alice finds out the hard way. You don’t know if she’s in a dream or if it’s a real moment throughout a lot of the movie. It has to do with the witch and the devil.

BE: The girl seeks refuge in this house, and through her studies, she inadvertently awakens an 18th-century coven of witches, which ends up affecting her in more than one way.

Portia, what attracted you to the role of Alice?

PC: Well, it’s different than pretty much anything else that I’ve done. Plus, it has witches, and that sounded pretty cool!

Bobby, what was it like working with your co-writer, Ken Wallace?

BE: Ken is an amazing guy. His brain is always going. If there’s stuff that I’ve got, he will just take it and run with it. He’ll dream about it; He’ll think about it; He’ll do the research behind stuff. He really helps keep my wild imagination in check and moving forward.

Portia, the film also stars Julie Anne Prescott, Andrea Collins, and Erin Trimble. How was working with them?

PC: They were all great and a lot of fun. I think Julie and I probably had the most interaction. We bounced off of each other really well. We already knew each other, so I think that made it a lot easier. Andrea, she wasn’t on set as much, but I had a lot of fun helping get her contacts in and out. Erin’s awesome. We became like best friends and we’re doing another project together.

BE: I’ve got to say, a lot of these ladies are really great together because we’ve been hitting the convention circuit pretty hard for over a decade together. You kind of become a close-knit family.

The movie takes place in the Hannah House, but it’s also filmed in the real Hannah House. Tell me about that.

BE: It’s a historic mansion in Indianapolis. It was part of the Underground Railroad, so it has all sorts of spirits from the past, 200-plus years. The owner has never let anybody shoot there. The Travel Channel, the Discovery Channel – they both wanted to shoot there. It’s one of the most popular haunted houses in the Midwest.

We had some paranormal activity, for sure. Everybody’s got their own stories. Day one, the batteries were all draining so quickly. It was strange. I guess paranormal energy drains that type of stuff and disturbing a house that’s been kind of quasi-quiet for a long time is going to upset the balance a little bit.

The big event we all experienced [was when] Portia was lying on the floor of this big ballroom, and it’s empty. Our witch, Andrea, is over the top of her, listening for a heartbeat. We kept hearing a baby crying. I went to the sound guy and asked if he was picking anything up. I didn’t say what I heard. He took his headphones off and asked, “a baby crying?” When he said that, the whole room went dead still.

PC: I had Andrea on top of me, so I didn’t hear anything. You guys were all tweaking out, and I’m like, “What? What?”

BE: We didn’t hear any cars, or anyone come in. A baby would not have just been inside of the house crying all by itself. We looked everywhere. It was like, “We all just heard that, right?” Everyone said yes, and we just kept going.

PC: I got locked in the bathroom on the last day of shooting, and there was no lock on the door. It was like it didn’t want us to leave. Luckily there was another door in that bathroom.

BE: The caretaker doesn’t tell you what you should expect to hear because it puts it in your head. If you come up to him and tell him something specific, he’ll tell you what he thinks it was. We told him about the baby crying, and he was like, “Oh, that was baby Elizabeth.”

Wow, that’s crazy!

BE: I have my cinematographer, J.D. Brenton, calling in. Can I merge him in real quick?

Yeah, sure!

BE: Hey, J.D.?

J.D. Brenton: Hi! Sorry about that. I got stuck on a shoot.

I really liked the lighting in the film. Where did you get the inspiration for that, J.D.?

JDB: Well, when Bobby came to me, he talked a lot about Italian horror films. That’s kind of what the inspiration was – a lot of solid color lighting. That was the artistic part.

We were all talking about the film, and Bobby and Portia were telling me that the house was really haunted?

JDB: Yeah, there were some creepy moments. The big one that stuck with all of us was we were shooting a scene in an open room, and our audio guy picked up the sound of a baby crying. We all heard it.

Yeah, they mentioned that. So, it’s corroborated now. This really happened…

BE: Yeah!

JDB: Yeah, all the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

BE: Too bad we didn’t get a video of it. We hadn’t called action yet.

What made you agree to do the film, J.D.?

JDB: I’m a big ’80s movie horror buff. I had never shot a horror film, and it sounded like it would be a great experience.

So how was the experience?

JDB: It was exhausting. [Laughing]

PC: Yeah, that sounds about right.

JDB: It was fun. It was like nothing I had ever done before. We tried to plan as much out as possible because you learn quickly – that’s what’s important. If you don’t have a plan, you’re scattered all over the place. We already knew we were going to have to break the shoots up quite a bit. We all have other jobs. We had to go through and plan out when we were going to be able to do what scenes. Then, you realize you have to do a pick-up scene here or you missed a shot there.

It was a great learning experience for me, working on something like this. I have a whole new respect for independent films altogether just because of all the work and love that goes into them. Even if people don’t like it, or if they do like it, you know what went into it. All the blood, sweat and tears, as they say.

Be sure to check out H.P. LOVECRAFT’s WITCH HOUSE, available now on VOD, Digital, and DVD, from Horror Wasteland Pictures, International.

 

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