INTERVIEW: Can you survive overnight in a Spirit Halloween store?
Photo: Spirit Halloween follows a group of friends as they try to stay overnight in the famous Halloween costume store. Photo courtesy of Strike Back Studios / Provided by MPRM with permission.
Halloween season is not official until Spirit Halloween has set up shop in a number of open (even abandoned) locations around the United States. They are one of the leaders when it comes to costumes, decorations and all things spooky. Now the franchise has expanded to include a new family-friendly horror movie, appropriately titled Spirit Halloween: The Movie, directed by David Poag and starring Christopher Lloyd, Rachel Leigh Cook, Jaiden J. Smith and Donovan Colan.
Here’s the premise for the VOD release: A Spirit Halloween store has opened in a far-off location away from any signs of life. A group of friends decide that trick-or-treating is not for them anymore, but they still like the Halloween season enough that they dare one another to break into the Spirit Halloween and stay the night. What transpires is ghostly, scary and loads of fun.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Smith, Colan and Poag about their new movie. Here’s what they had to say…
On how familiar they were with Spirit Halloween stores before joining the project …
COLAN: I used to live in New Jersey, and we’d go there every year at Halloween. That’s where we got our stuff to decorate the house, but then I moved to Canada. And I hadn’t really gone there since then. I hadn’t gone there since I was a little kid, but it was definitely really cool to film there.
SMITH: I’ve always been a fan of Halloween, and even though I already had my costume most of the time, I still every time we go grocery shopping, there’d be a Spirit Halloween store right there. And we always go because I want to see the new costumes and new props and monsters that are there. I was a big fan of the store before the movie.
POAG: I was aware of the store. I had seen them around, but what I wasn’t fully aware is how fanatical their fanbase is. They have a really strong fanbase, and it was fun jumping into that and a little intimidating just knowing that there would be a lot of people really excited to see what we were doing.
On working with these actors …
POAG: These guys were great. I got very lucky. We cast a pretty wide net. It was very quick. The project got officially approved pretty late in the season, and prep was tight. I think all of the casting was maybe two-and-a-half or three weeks. I was watching auditions from all over the country, and these guys were all my first picks. I was able to get everybody involved with my first picks, so I felt very lucky with that. These guys showed up every day, knowing their stuff and ready to go. It was a challenging production just because I think all independent movies were. We had a limited budget. We were trying to do a lot. We had a limited amount of shooting days, so every day was pretty fast-paced and intense. But everyone was a real pro. The hardest thing for us on the production level was the actors of this age have very limited hours they can work just by union rules, so that’s kind of a puzzle. Mixing in their school hours and their work hours each day is a production challenge. … I want to say these guys had a lot of fun. The subject matter is so fun that I feel like the cast and all of the crew involved were all on the same page in the kind of movie we were trying to make. That was a guilty pleasure for a lot of people who were making a fun throwback, adventure Halloween movie. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about that experience.
On what it was like working with David Poag as director …
SMITH: David was actually a great director. I felt that he would explain what he wanted to do in a perfect sense. If I had any questions I could always come to him, and he would always ask me if certain things were OK. That’s what I love about his style of directing.
COLAN: For me, I felt like it was really great because I felt like I could actually go to you and ask you questions, and then you would give me perfect answers. I would understand them. I’ve worked with directors before, and it’s a little bit difficult to understand what they actually want me to do. But it wasn’t really a problem for you.
On how much these actors brought themselves to their individual roles …
COLAN: I feel like when I got the audition for this, I felt like this is so much like me and the characters I normally play. It was really helpful for me … because I could just be myself and play what I felt like Jake the character would have done.
SMITH: For me, when I first read the character of Bo, in the beginning I knew this wasn’t as much like me, but as we got on set and I was actually acting as him, I put in my own personal elements into it because he’s a very cool character. That’s what I like about him, but I added my own elements to it. The fact that I was able to do that was pretty good.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Spirit Halloween: The Movie, directed by David Poag and starring Jaiden J. Smith and Donovan Colan, is now available on demand. Click here for more information.
