The story of ‘House at the End of the Street’, in cinemas on September 21, is set in suburban Pennsylvania, but the filmmakers took their production to Ottawa, Ontario, for the 28-day shoot. “I never imagined we’d be shooting this film in Ottawa,” says producer Aaron Ryder. “I’ve shot films in Toronto and Vancouver, but I’d never been to Ottawa. I didn’t quite know what to expect. I didn’t even know if there was going to be a crew base there. But Rob Menzies, our line producer, lured us there. There was a film that was just finishing, a crew that was available, and the incentives attracted us.”

They discovered that Ottawa is a versatile and relatively unknown city that lends itself well to moviemaking. “A place like Albuquerque pretty much looks like Albuquerque,” Ryder says. “You have to go to great lengths to make it look like a different place. Whereas Ottawa is endlessly adaptable. It can double for Chicago or Boston or parts of New York. We found that the city has a lot to offer.”

Menzies, who is also one of the owners of Ottawa-based production company Zed Filmworks, helped Ryder and Mark Tonderai, the director, scout locations and assemble the crew. “The movie is very hip and it’s an exciting story,” he says. “Ottawa was perfect for it from the standpoint of the types of locations we have here. When Mark and Aaron came to do some scouting, they got a real sense of what the crews were going to be like. Ottawa is an undiscovered gem of a town. It’s between two of Canada’s two big production hubs, Toronto and Montreal, so we can pull from those resources and we’ve got locations that have never been on film before. You’ve got a film community that is welcoming production with open arms. There’s a pride in having a film of this caliber shot locally.”

According to Menzies, the crew outperformed even his high expectations. “It was a really great opportunity to showcase the talent of a phenomenal art department. This group worked so hard and they’re so dedicated to their craft. They managed to produce incredible sets without a big budget. They built entire sets, dressed some locations 100 percent, ripped apart people’s houses, made something drastically different, and then put it all back at the end of the day. It stretched us to the max, but I’m so proud of them.”

The filmmakers were extremely happy with the transformations the art department carried out. “Lisa Soper, the production designer, created so many great sets,” says Ryder. “She did an amazing job of turning a very ordinary restaurant into a classic Pennsylvania diner. She turned an ordinary house into a unique one for Ryan’s home. The amount of time she spent on that was impressive.”

Full of hidden corners and unseen dangers, terror conceivably lurks around every corner of the house. “And the unknown is always more frightening,” says Ryder. “It’s that thing that could grab your leg when you’re climbing downstairs in your basement at night. That thing that pops out when you’re walking through the woods at night. It’s not being able to see what’s out there that’s infinitely more frightening.”

The level of detail and imagination that went into creating Ryan’s neglected homestead unnerved even the actors. “That place was really scary,” says Shue. “I couldn’t believe they found a house that creepy. Everyone was scared to be in it. It was very moldy and dark and it even smelled weird. We were always imagining all the scary things that must have gone down in that house for real.”

Tonderai believes that the finished product is much more than simply an effective genre film. “People often dismiss horror films, but the best thrillers or horror say something important,” says Tonderai. “I reworked parts of the script not by saying I need a chase sequence here, but by drawing the reality out of the characters and the situation. We made sure that from the beginning of the film, people identify with characters, so that in any situation the audience goes with them. I call that giving the film a soul. For example, Jen’s character is a bit sloppy and surly, but she’s a teenager. You feel for her. She likes that boy next door and she’s the only one who gives him the time of day. That makes you like her.”

The director’s goal, he says, was to make the audience his partners. “I want to really scare them but not with cheap tricks. I believe that if you treat the audience with real respect and intelligence, they will become your co-conspirators. If you can make people care about the characters, then put them in jeopardy, it builds—first gear, second gear, and on and on. At the end, when you hit that final cut to black, it stays with them.”

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About the author

Claudia Sondergaard
Specialised in American foreign policy media discourse, I have a real passion for media and writing and feel comfortable in subjects such as human rights, politics, environment, social issues, movies, TV and books. Reporting from Denmark. Follow me @swirlgirlversus

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