He continues: “Doug is completely changed by what happens on this night. In a matter of minutes, everything he thought he knew and understood about his universe is ripped open and turned upside down – and he realizes he’s living in a kind of hell and he’s going to have to rise to the occasion. He becomes a kind of reluctant hero, but it’s really thrust upon him, and in a way he discovers the savage side himself. One of the things Alex and I talked about is that, in the end, Doug isn’t all that distinguishable from the hill people in what he has to do to survive.”
Stanford’s intensity for the role was sparked even more by the enthusiasm of Aja and Levasseur on the set. “They were like kids in a candy store – just having such a great time and so invested and so passionate,” he recalls. “When people care that much about what they’re doing you just have a lot of confidence that it’s going to turn out to be very exciting.”
Finally, when it came to battling the mutants of the atomic test site, Stanford asked that he not see the mutant’s final makeup until they were actually shooting the scene. This way, real abject terror came rushing to the fore. “When I finally saw the mutants and their incredible makeup, with their Toxic Avenger faces, it was pretty easy to reveal Doug’s fear because it was truly frightening!” he says.
Playing Doug’s more even-tempered wife Lynn is Vinessa Shaw, a young actress whom Aja had wanted to work with ever since seeing her in Stanley Kubrick’s final film, EYES WIDE SHUT.
Initially, however, Shaw was hesitant about participating in the film – if only because she has always avoided the anxiety of horror films.
To see what she was getting into, she watched HIGH TENSION. “I’m usually totally afraid of watching horror films but when I saw HIGH TENSION, there was such an odd combination of beauty and terror, it felt almost like an art film. So, after meeting with Alex and Greg, I decided to do it,” she says. “What I came to feel is really interesting about this story is that it seems to mirror the American consciousness at the moment, with so much fear of the unseen and unknown among us.”
Shaw’s character Lynn serves in the first part of the film as family peacemaker, always busy tending her infant Catherine and running interference between her husband and her often overbearing father. “My character is the one who always wants to make amends and create harmony within the family,” explains Shaw. “Lynn’s sort of this mediator but then she has to fight for her baby and that brings out an incredible strength in her.”
Lynn’s sister Brenda also finds an unsuspected strength in the course of her wild journey into fear – even though she begins the film wishing she were in Cancun partying with her friends instead of trying to bond with her annoying family. For Brenda, the filmmakers tried to seek out a promising young actress without a lot of exposure but with plenty of naturally youthful charm and charisma – which they found in Emilie de Ravin who has recently come to the fore in the hit television series, “Lost.” During de Ravin’s audition, Aja was thunderstruck at the young actress’ beauty and talent. “Emilie came in looking so gorgeous and hit all the emotions I was looking for in the two-minute scene dead on. We knew we had to cast her,” he recalls.
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