by RICKY J. DUARTE
For all its wonders, The City That Never Sleeps can certainly deliver its fair share of nightmares. New Yorkers – tough, proud, brave – are constantly faced with a daily deluge of unimaginable horrors and atrocities — perhaps the most frightening of which is the hellish reality of Manhattan real estate. It’s one of those terrible truths you almost have to laugh about… almost.
Enter eVil SUBLET. (“East Village sublet”… get it?) Written, directed, shot, and edited by Allan Piper, this horror comedy stars Jennifer Leigh Houston (who also produces) and the legendary Sally Struthers (All in the Family) along with Charlie Tucker, Pat Dwyer, Stephen Mosher, Leanne Borghesi, Patrick Wang, and Ashley Bufkin. The film tells the story of a Manhattan couple willing to overlook some particularly questionable shortcomings of their dream apartment, all in the name of affordable rent. Sure, those shortcomings include a lineage of murderous tenants and more ghosts than you can fit into a Junior 4, but hey, it has an eat-in kitchen! After a well-received festival run, during which it picked up twelve awards, the film is now available to stream.
RUE MORGUE caught up with Piper, Houston, and Struthers to discuss their film, what it was like shooting in New York City during COVID-19 and why comedy and horror blend so well.
The idea for eVil SUBLET sprung up years ago with Piper’s writing partner, Chris Pearson (the film’s co-producer). “We began thinking about the fact that New Yorkers will put up with almost anything to get an affordable apartment, and we thought, ‘What about a haunted apartment story?’ On top of that, years later, when I moved in with Jen into the apartment we shared for many years, actual strange things happened all the time. So this movie grew into a reflection of a lot of the real-life strange occurrences that happened in that apartment – exaggerated to a life-threatening scale for the purposes of our movie,” Piper explains.
Filming began on March 7, 2020, which also happened to be the very day the United States declared a state of emergency for the pandemic. While this slowed down a chunk of the production, in some ways, it allowed Piper and Houston (espoused) to take full advantage of the primary setting for the film as the eclectic and ornately decorated evil sublet in question was, in fact, their home at the time, and also verifiably haunted.
“There were certain scenes that SAG allowed us to film during lockdown – scenes of just Jen because I told them, “Look, Jen and I live on the set. If it’s just the two of us, it’s no new exposures.” And so we got permission.” Piper says, “There were some scenes where we filmed Jen’s side of the conversation and then filmed on the other side of the conversation six months later.”
Piper wrote the script in secrecy, with Houston in mind to portray its lead, Alex. Upon receiving the script, Houston remarks, “I was completely blown away. First of all, I live with this man, and I had no idea he was even writing anything, let alone something for me. And then, of course, I’m reading it, and I’m laughing, and I’m crying, and I can’t believe anybody has written anything for me in this late stage of my life.” Being granted the opportunity to showcase her wide range of talents was an unexpected gift for the versatile performer. “I’ve been kickin’ around this town for the last 33 years; I’ve been on the stage since I was four; I’ve had a million near hits and more misses and many incarnations of my life and careers – plural – so this idea that we were gonna make a full-fledged thing together – not a short, not a music video – that we were really gonna do it this time… I was absolutely gobsmacked. I just thought [the script] was so funny and so scary. I was just completely blown away.”
“This character goes through everything,” Piper adds. “We get to see Alex be funny. We get to see Alex be terrified. We get to see Alex be – without giving too much away – terrifying at a few moments. We see her enraged, grief-stricken. She runs the gamut. And that was part of why I wanted to create this role. Historically, roles for women usually only want one thing from them. They tend to be far too one-dimensional, and I wanted Jen to have a role where she got to do everything. And so, that is what Alex is.”
“I think just the fact he believed in me enough to bank everything – every goddamn thing in the movie – hinges, basically, on my capability or incapability. And that he trusted me, entrusted me with this script. It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” Houston shares.
Allan observes, “I do like to think that horror and sci-fi are areas that have traditionally been very groundbreaking, and they’ve been areas where often women get to be the heroes to a greater degree than they are in non-genre film. And so, I’m proud for eVil SUBLET to be part of that tradition.”
“As I was reading [the script], I kind of heard Sally Struthers’ voice in this one character, and I said, in tears, ‘Thank you I can’t believe you wrote this for me, but please tell me you didn’t write that Reena part for Sally Struthers!’ ” Houston says, The couple met Struthers through mutual friends Pat Dwyer and Stephen Mosher, another real-life couple who appear in the film, playing the endearing clairvoyant Ned and his doting partner, Lorne.
“I had already gotten my hopes up that she would do it, and then, of course, knew she wouldn’t. Why would Sally Struthers wanna be in this little indie horror project? But as you see, she did,” Houston adds.
Struthers, best known for her role as Archie and Edith Bunker’s daughter, Gloria, on the culturally iconic sitcom All in the Family, has maintained a continuous and bountiful career filled with stage and screen roles. Currently, she’s starring in a brand new play penned specifically for her by Tony Award-winning writer Joe DiPietro at The New Theatre in Kansas City. However, there was one particular piece missing from her resume. “No one has ever asked me to be in a horror film,” says Struthers, “and I always wanted that to be on my resume because I felt like it was something I hadn’t done. And who doesn’t love Jamie Lee Curtis and all the gals, you know, who become part of American cinema for their takes in certain horror films?”
Struthers was drawn to the quick-witted yet deeply frightening script. “I’m so glad [Allan and Jen] made it a comedic horror film because it takes some of the onus off of being aghast and scared,” She states. “I never knew what kind of horror film I wanted to be in because they’re really very frightening, and I’m very fragile, and things can throw me for a loop that lasts a lifetime. So I knew I couldn’t be in something extremely hopeless. This is different. This is unique. This is Allan Piper at his finest. I didn’t know Allan and Jen would come along and put me in a cute little part in their film [and] also become my dear friends. How did I luck out there?”
“In terms of Sally’s first performance in a horror film, she insisted on doing her own screams,” Piper explains. “Often, you might expect that a famous actor would not want to strain their voice, and I said, ‘We’ll dub in a scream later.’ And she insisted. Both Jen and Sally did all their own screams in the movie.”
Struthers adds, “But I’ve got this scratchy voice, so I’ll scream until the cows come home because that’s not going to make my voice any different.”
The film makes impressive use of New York City as its setting. For a movie shot during the pandemic, such a location-heavy story genuinely benefits from capturing the authentic look and feel of New York. It’s a rare case of an accurate, tangible representation of what life in The Big Apple is all about, oddities and all.
“Horror tends to be very rural for some reason,” muses Piper. “You’ve got your cabins in the woods, you’ve got your chainsaw massacres in Texas; It’s not an urban thing so much. And when it is urban, it’s something like Jason Takes Manhattan, where most of the movie doesn’t take place in Manhattan. Scream 6 was shot in Montreal, which is not a criticism. I enjoy both films, but we wanted something that really captured New York … New York had gone through its own actual horror story. We had been, for a long period of time, the epicenter of COVID, and a lot of people had fled the city,” Piper says. “A lot of the conventional wisdom was that New York was dead and would never come back. The president in 2020 was insisting that New York was a hellhole, and we wanted to celebrate our city.”
Part of that meant celebrating another iconic New York location – Coney Island. Piper and Houston have a friendship with the Vourderis Family who run the location’s iconic amusement park, Wonder Wheel Park. Along with the cooperation of the folks at Coney Island, USA, Piper and company were allowed to film inside the park, on the Wonder Wheel and inside the Spook-a-Rama, one of the oldest operating dark rides in America. “We got to turn the lights on and set up our own lights and film inside of it. How crazy is that?” says Piper.
The film also utilizes the park’s garishly grinning mascot, the Face of Steeplechase, in some very effectively creepy ways. “We featured members of Coney Island, USA. Patrick Wall, the general manager, plays our break-out villain, the smiley-faced figure. Adam Realman performs a sword-swallowing act gone wrong in our movie and there are also numerous scenes filmed in the Coney Island Museum.”
In an age of crowdfunding projects, eVil SUBLET took a clever and supremely spooky approach. Piper explains, “The movie’s supporters’ faces appear as ghosts hidden in the shadows of the haunted apartment. There are over 200 ‘ghostified’ faces all throughout the movie. And there are a couple of things that I love about this. I love that it helped us fund the movie. I love that it meant that our supporters — you know, you tell your supporters, ‘You’re really a part of this process.’ No. You’re really a part of this movie.”
This clever detail only adds to the charm of this one-of-a-kind flick. Not just any writer, director or actor can seamlessly blend horror and comedy with such finesse. The nonstop laughs pave the way for some genuinely terrifying moments, yet before the audience can catch its breath, they’re busting a gut again.
The film has garnered twelve awards at festivals across the world, including nods for best actor for Struthers and Houston and Best Director for Piper – not to mention numerous best feature category wins.
The team behind the film is incredibly proud of their accomplishment, as well they should be. Struthers even brought her award with her to Kansas City. “I travel with it. I put it on my dressing table in the theater.” Jokingly, yet affectionately, to Piper and Houston, she quips, “You’ve won so many awards now. I’m surprised you’re even speaking to me!”
eVil SUBLET is currently available to stream on Amazon, Fandango and inDemand.
