Miscasting Adam Hann-Byrd in Halloween H20

It's been said that "90% of directing is casting."

Every actor has a specific persona. A certain "look," presence, and degree of charisma. Not every actor is right for every role. An actor's talent and training can sometimes overcome his being miscast, and sometimes even create a more interesting film because of it. But more often not.

Cast the right actor and he'll fit right into the film's story with little work on the director's part. Miscast an actor, and you're squeezing a square peg into a round hole. Not only will the director have a harder time making the film "work," but audiences will have a harder time suspending their disbelief. Poor casting can make audiences roll their eyes.

My eyes roll every time I see Charlie (Adam Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) in Halloween H20. As sex-crazed teenage lovers, they are woefully mismatched.

Sarah is a tall woman with classic, fashion model looks. Charlie is a short geeky guy. The IMDB says that O'Keefe is 5'9" and that Hann-Byrd is 5'10" but I don't believe it. On screen she is often taller than him.

 

  

Additionally, the IMDB states that O'Keefe was born in 1978, Hann-Byrd in 1982. Halloween H20 was released in 1998, but films are often shot the year before release. Assuming their IMDB listed birthdays are accurate, the statuesque O'Keefe was 19 or 20 during the shoot, whereas the diminutive Hann-Byrd was 15 or 16.

(The characters are supposed to be 17, so kudos for not casting thirtysomething actors to play teenagers.)

 

What makes this miscasting so glaring, at least for me, is that Sarah is written as always lusting for Charlie's body. At one point, Charlie pulls Sarah down (he can't actually lift her) and exclaims, "We can have a roving orgy!"

Sarah responds, "I love the way this man thinks!"

That scene is just cringe.

Especially now that I know the taller O'Keefe was an adult, whereas Hann-Byrd was still a minor, when I hear her calling him "this man" ... cringe.

Their scenes together are few and brief (about three), but in all of them, Sarah openly lusts for Charlie (and he for her). That's how the scenes are written. But the casting doesn't support it. The casting induces eye rolls. Suspension of disbelief is strained.

Yes, tall beautiful woman do date and marry short, even unattractive men. But usually those men have money, fame or status. That's not the case in Halloween H20. Charlie isn't even a particularly nice guy. He shoplifts alcohol. He lies. He steals food.

Hann-Byrd might be a great guy and a talented actor. But he's simply miscast in this film.

Night of the Demons (2009) displays similarly incongruent casting. A beautiful woman dates a dorky drug dealer. But that drug dealer, as written, has a more "fleshed out" personality. His character is flawed, yet engaging and sympathetic. It's less of a stretch to think that a beautiful woman might be interested in him.

By contrast, Charlie, as written, is one-dimensional; he is an unscrupulous horn dog. Nothing more. All he has to offer Sarah is his physical body. In which case, the producers should have cast a body that would believably appeal to a one-dimensional campus beauty.

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For more information on working with actors, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.

Night of the Demons (2009): Colored Lights Enhance Low-Budget Horror

The past decade's proliferation of inexpensive, high-quality video cameras has yielded hundreds (maybe thousands) of low-budget horror films. Alas, many of these films suffer from that cheap "home video" look and sound -- and in a way that does not aesthetically support the characters, story, or themes.

The lighting is flat and boring. The filmmaker was satisfied with whatever light was available on set, or brought just enough additional lighting gear to capture an image.

The sound is harsh and hollow. The filmmaker shot in his own apartment (rather than on a sound stage), and the actors' voices reverberated off of the hard walls and hardwood floor. Which would not have been a problem had the filmmaker used rugs, sound blankets, or other sound dampening tools.

Colored lights are an inexpensive way to help overcome the "cheap, boring" lighting problem. Colored lights will work for any film, but are especially likely to enhance films of the fantastique (such as a supernatural horror film).

I don't normally like horror film remakes, but 2009's Night of the Demons is a fairly good one, largely (though not exclusively) due to its use of diegetic colored lights.

Lights can be either diegetic or nondiegetic. Diegetic lights have their source within the story (e.g., a table lamp, car headlights). Nondiegetic lights have no logical source within the story. Dario Argento's Suspiria and Norman J. Warren's British tale of witchcraft, Terror, are examples of horror films that make extensive use of nondiegetic colored lights.

Many scenes in Night of the Demons are enhanced with diegetic colored lights. Consider this early scene of three girls riding in a car. The middle girl is lit purplish blue. The other two girls are lit red.

Why? From where do these colored lights originate? It's never explained. The red lights flash, depart, and return throughout their trip. Maybe they're driving past stores with bright red neon signs, or emergency vehicles flashing their lights? (Yet we hear no sirens.)

Whatever these lights' sources, they enhance the scene. They contribute to a supernatural mood, preparing us for the dramatic events to come.

The girls' destination is a Halloween party at a reputedly haunted house. As they enter, we see that the house's interior is brightly lit with primary colors (similar to Suspiria's color palette).

The colors are bolder and more prominent than in the car, and once again support an ethereal, supernatural ambiance. Plus, they're beautiful to behold -- there's no reason a horror film can't delight an audience with its beauty even as it scares.

The police raid the party and evict most of the partygoers. That leaves seven young people. We see them in a dark living room (two photos, below).

Rather than boring white or yellow table lamps, colored and decorative lights are the primary visible light sources. If any stage lights are used, they're only bright enough to illuminate the characters, but not so bright as to overwhelm the on-set colored lights or destroy the mood they've created.

Consider how relatively inexpensive it was to create this beautiful and mood-enhancing scene (above). A mood that aesthetically support's the films' supernatural conceit.

Here in this other room (below), bright lights adorn the wall. Sometimes these lights appear white against a blue background. Other times they glow blue.

These lights hanging on the wall don't look expensive, yet consider how far they go in creating a supernatural ambiance. An ambiance that supports the upcoming dramatic event -- the two women (one of them possessed by a demon) floating off the ground.

Bright primary colors aren't appropriate for every horror film. Some horror stories work better with grim, gritty, desaturated colors. And most horror films work with far less money than Night of the Demons's reported $10 million production budget.

But colored lights (whether decorative diegetic lights or nondiegetic stage lighting) are relatively inexpensive. When used appropriately, they can go far in creating mood and making a film look less "cheap."

Sometime to consider if you're you're shooting a horror film on a low-budget.

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For more about how to effectively light a horror film, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.