Lisa Johnson is a few days shy of her sweet sixteenth. She loves spending time with her family, she’s big into music (particularly the mopey Goth tones of Siouxsie and the Banshees) and also, she’s dead. Murdered twenty-six years ago, Lisa’s spirit has since been tethered to her family home, reliving the final day of her life in an endless loop. Now, someone is after her; someone who’s taken up residence in the Johnson home, and Lisa is about to find that ghosts aren’t the only thing haunting this house.

This is the premise behind HAUNTER, a new fright feature from CUBE and SPLICE mind expander Vincenzo Natali, currently lensing in Toronto’s lakefront studio district. HAUNTER’s lead is a heavyweight Hollywood talent in a pint-sized package: Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin. While the majority of her young peers are typically all too eager to declare their distaste for genre projects, Breslin is an unabashed horror fangirl, refreshingly enthused to be toplining her first scary venture since 2009’s ZOMBIELAND. She tells FANGORIA that despite appearances, the deceased Lisa isn’t the haunter of the film’s title. “Lisa is stuck in her house, stuck in the year 1986. She’s being haunted by a girl who’s about to turn sixteen in 2012. It’s unique in that it’s a living girl haunting a dead person, rather than the other way around, which is what we’re used to seeing.”

HAUNTER’s writer, Brian King, describes his screenplay as, “a combination of something very classical, like THE HAUNTING or THE INNOCENTS—even THE SHINING, although that’s gorier. A classic haunted house story, but with a storyline that’s a bit more intricate, that has more of a puzzle. The idea was to throw [the viewer] into the world of this dead family and try to have you work your way out of the house and the mystery of what’s going on.”

HAUNTER also marks the anticipated return of director Natali, after he provoked many a raised eyebrow with the disturbing and topical SPLICE. Backing Natali on HAUNTER is a squad of fellow genre veterans: King also scripted Natali’s CYPHER, co-star Stephen McHattie is coming off a bravura star turn in the apocalyptic zombie drama PONTYPOOL, cinematographer Jon Joffin brought a bloody sheen to many of the better MASTERS OF HORROR episodes, and Natali’s longtime producer Steve Hoban was also responsible for ushering the seminal GINGER SNAPS trilogy onto screens.

As with his highly-praised CUBE, HAUNTER gives Natali once again an opportunity to demonstrate his mastery of brewing tension in oppressively tight confines. The action takes place mostly in the Johnson family home as Lisa struggles to free herself, and although the locale remains static, the story shifts through different eras in time as Lisa discovers the truth behind a long legacy of terror wrought by an evil figure known as the Pale Man. Still, HAUNTER’s dark chambers and narrow corridors may have finally driven Natali to crave open air and elbow room. “I’m done with small spaces,” Natali jokes onset as he lines up an especially cramped shot of Breslin inside an ash-caked furnace. “I’m ready to make a desert movie!” 

---

News - Latest