Principal photography took place primarily in Bucharest, Romania, at MediaPro Studios, where the village life of 1820s Tennessee was re-created. Additional shooting also took place in Montreal.
It was this sequestering of the cast that added to the atmosphere on the set—in such a place, far removed from America of today, those required to inhabit the lives of the Bells and their acquaintances were aided by the other-worldly feel of the isolated buildings constructed in near unspoiled countryside. And more than one of the cast and crew felt they had been “visited” by something unexplainable…yet luckily, nothing nearly as upsetting as what afflicted young Betsy.
For the young actress asked to go on a very dark journey, Hurd-Wood credits her director with enabling her to forge ahead: “To get to the places that Betsy had been—to get through that myself—I couldn’t have done it without our amazing director, Courtney Solomon.”
Solomon collaborated with director of photography Adrian Biddle, devising inventive camerawork to represent the presence of the entity. Stunt work was also required, not just by those doubling for Hurd-Wood, D’Arcy and Fell during the pulse-quickening carriage summersault and subsequent horseback chase, but also by the actors themselves. All were game for throwing themselves into Solomon’s haunted house of mirrors, physically experiencing the falls, jerks, slaps and accidents heaped upon them by the unseen entity. Thom Fell even got his own chance to “wrestle with the devil,” literally.
Fell relates, “When I found out that I got to have a wolf jump on me and then wrestle with it, I said to Courtney that I definitely, definitely wanted to do it myself. So I spent a week-and-a-half working with the wolf and gaining her trust before we shot the attack in the forest.”
Hurd-Wood also had her own, disorienting experience on the set: “Constantly, I was falling asleep in Betsy’s bed because I couldn’t sleep at night. My bed was so, so comfortable, so at lunchtime, or any break, I’d just fall asleep. Once, I fell asleep during a lighting set-up and without me realizing it, they picked up the bed and moved it off the set…because they needed to move it for lighting or something. And I woke up and I suddenly had no idea where I was, because I thought it was first thing in the morning. And I looked around and saw all these people working—it was crazy, but it was also very funny.”
Even with all of the attention to the spiritual side of the story, the actors were mindful of grounding their character work in reality. Per Donald Sutherland: “Sissy’s terrific to work with. She’s very, very creative and inspirational, dedicated, hardworking. She pursues in the same way that I do—but in a different avenue—the truth of the subject—because that’s the only point in making this film. Courtney was making a film that’ll scare the pants off you, so it has a slightly different take on it, because it is an entertainment film. But one has to approach each character very seriously.”
Movie Database
In Theaters
