Stephen Cognetti’s newest film is a hard pivot from the franchise that made him a household name in horror.
Cognetti, who wrote and directed all five chapters in the found footage “Hell House LLC” franchise, just finished filming his latest feature, “A Body in the Woods.” It stars Emma Roberts as Alice Lincoln, a turn-of-the-century woman who lives in a remote cabin in an area of the woods that might be haunted by a witch.
Manifest Pictures is launching international sales for the film at AFM. Cognetti spoke with Variety about his dark new vision, his influences and the future of “Hell House LLC.”
How did you come up with the idea for this new film?
I actually wrote this right after the fourth “Hell House” movie. I felt like I was in a very good state of mind, scare-wise. It was the quickest first draft of a script I’ve ever written. I got the idea, and it just flowed.
What did Emma’s performance bring to the film?
She’s not only a wonderful actress, but she’s just so creatively intelligent. She has all of these good instincts. She just gets things better than anyone I’ve ever worked with on screen. Every discussion with her is on another level because she understood everything. From what we were doing behind the camera to what she was doing on screen, she just has a great understanding.
Were there any movies you were inspired by for the look of “A Body in the Woods?”
There were two films that really inspired me. The first is not horror at all, but it’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” When I was writing this, I was not only always thinking about the visuals; I was also listening to the soundtrack the entire time. “Assassination” was always in my head. Also, Robert Eggers’ “The Witch” is a film that I just adore. I love everything he did with the camera. It is a very deliberate movement, slow movement, and the camera takes its time. We take our time story-wise; we take our time with the scares, the story. I wouldn’t call this a slow burn at all, but I just love the style of a well-paced, slower horror film, rather than something like I’m used to in the found footage world, which is very jumpy and we’re hopping around quickly, getting to scare after scare. Here we’re just building a world and building a character who’s mostly isolated.
How are you a different director from when you first began?
You’ve got to learn to pivot quickly. It has gotten a lot easier with every subsequent film, just because I’ve learned how to strategize better and how to put together a game plan for every day. When something’s not working, that experience helps a lot.
Will there eventually be another “Hell House LLC” movie?
There is a future story. The fifth one, for better or for worse, ended on a cliffhanger, and that was always the intention. But making those films is impossible for where I’m at right now, for a lot of behind-the-scenes reasons. But I would always love to tell more of the story. I just don’t know how it would ever be able to happen. It might come in other forms. I’ve always said that there might be a novel, a graphic novel, to not only tell the final chapter, but also flesh out more of the story that we’ve seen. In terms of a movie, there’s nothing on the horizon yet, but I would never say never.
