Kristen Connolly’s Favorite Scream Queens
The Cabin in the Woods star talks awesome horror movie heroines
The Cabin in the Woods star talks awesome horror movie heroines
Photo Courtesy of MGM | Licensed to Alpa Media Group 2012
This week sees the DVD release of Cabin in the Woods, the hilarious and creative scary movie which finally answers the question, “Can my bong be used as a weapon?” We interviewed one of the coeds who makes that ill-advised trip into the wilderness, Kristen Connolly, about her favorite final girls of horror film and more. Since it’s impossible to talk about The Cabin in the Woods without giving a little bit away, read on at your own risk. From here on out, it’s mild spoiler city. (We still can’t believe there was a cabin!)
Sigourney Weaver, Alien
Alien is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen and she was just so badass in it.
The Splunkers, The Descent
I loved the girls in The Descent. So believable and real and God that movie was so scary. Drew [Goddard, the director of Cabin in the Woods] gave it to me to watch, and that movie really frightened me. I was in a hotel room by myself and I think I had the flu, so I was feverish and watching it. It was really scary.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween
In terms of horror movies, I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis is a really good scream queen. She’s amazing.
Photo Courtesy of MGM | Licensed to Alpa Media Group 2012
On the Creepiest Cabin Creatures
That little ballerina, the ballerina dentata. That was horrifying to me, also because she’s a real little girl so I was like, “How can she see?” How is she getting around, to get something to eat at Kraft services? [Laughs] She’s so tiny. It was like, “Is she okay under that thing?” She was my favorite, but everyone seemed to love the merman. The angry molesting tree is also, I think, a classic.
On Her Screen Test Fake-Out
It was kind of crazy. I read a scene with pterodactyls in it and I was like, “What the hell kind of movie is this?” Then when I got there for my test in L.A., we were waiting for Fran [Kranz] to get there — I think he had a problem with his car, so he was running a little bit late — and I was talking to Joss [Whedon, the co-writer] and he was like, “Just so you know, those are all fake.” But they gave me the last scene in the movie to read with Fran and he said, “That one’s real. Don’t tell anyone about that.” [Laughs] It was sorta like, “Oh yeah, I guess that’s why the pterodactyls didn’t make any sense, for a movie called Cabin in the Woods.” I think Anna [Hutchison] had some kind of molesting hot tub scene.
On Publicizing a Movie You Can’t Talk About
I did a lot of the press stuff with Fran and there were days when somebody would ask us a question and we’d just kinda look at each other and start laughing. Because we knew the answer but we couldn’t say anything about it. And then there were ridiculous questions, like “Do you make it to the end?” C’mon! You know I can’t answer that. It was hard to talk about and I think we all just tried to do our best describing how much we loved making the movie and how much we loved the movie without giving anything away. It was the hardest to talk about Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford’s characters. They’re so funny and they’re what makes the movie so amazing and so different but to not be able to talk about them at all was really difficult. It was like, “Um, yeah, so they’re in it and who knows what they’re up to.”
Photo Courtesy of MGM | Licensed to Alpa Media Group 2012
On Horror Movie Tropes
The one that’s probably my favorite is “We should split up.” It just makes no sense at all. Why would you ever split up when there’s something terrifying around and you don’t know what it is and how many of them are out there? Why would you ever split up? So you can “cover more ground”? Cover ground? You’re just trying to stay alive! What are you doing? So when I read that spoofed in the Cabin script, I thought it was hilarious and when I saw it put together in the movie, I was like, “Yep.” It happens all the time, people are always splitting up or they’re running towards something or exploring something, checking out a strange noise. I’m just like, “Don’t check out the strange noise. At all. Go lock yourself in a room.”
The Cabin in the Woods is out on Blu-ray and DVD on September 18!