Tina Kakadelis
Would you rather be stuck at the bottom of a pit of spikes or be on the run from an arrow-wielding villain in a thick forest? Unluckily for the characters of Pitfall, those are the options for this group of friends. Scott (Marshall Williams) and Ashley (Alexandra Essoe) are estranged brother and sister who have gone on a camping trip with their partners and Scott’s longtime friend Lars (Richard Harmon). Ahead of Pitfall’s video-on-demand release, Essoe and Harmon sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to talk about staying alive, the balance of comedy and levity, and, surprisingly, Barbara Stanwyck.
Richard, you came to Pitfall fresh off Final Destination Bloodlines. Both of these films have a survival horror aspect to them, but the fear is slightly different in Pitfall. There’s a tangible person coming after you, whereas Final Destination is about a nebulous idea of Death in pursuit. How do you feel that affects the level of fear your characters face?
Richard Harmon: For Final Destination, my character got to be the doubting Thomas, which is kind of the best way to do it. I don’t have to believe in this cockamamie idea that Death is coming after me. It can get me when it gets me.
When he does understand it, he also thinks he’s safe because he’s not part of the bloodline. When he dies, he’s like, “Shucks, who could have seen this one coming?” That’s different than when an arrow gets shot at your head. That’s a tangible thing. There’s a crazy dude with crazy hair and kind eyes… that’s a little frightening, isn’t it?
The kind eyes…I’m not sure I picked up on that.
RH: Watch it again!
Alexandra, you’ve worked quite a few times with Mike Flanagan. He’s somebody who paces out the jump scares. It’s more of a slow burn. Was it fun to just go pedal-to-the-metal with Pitfall?
Alexandra Essoe: Oh, absolutely. It was so much fun. I mean, that’s one of the things I thought would be fun about the script. Reading it, I was like, oh my God, it’s a horror movie, but it’s also a romp. There’s not just the villain in the woods somewhere stalking us, but there’s also so much drama going on: infighting, scandal, and unrequited feelings. So much to play with.
We’ve been doing survival horror for hundreds of years now. What do you think it is that has continued to keep it scary? What do you feel makes people return to it time and time again?
AE: There’s got to be some insert thing to do with it where people are like, what would I do? I would do this, I would do that. Oh, you idiots, you should have made a weapon out of these things.
Everybody has very clear ideas of what they would do when there aren’t tons of adrenaline coursing through their bodies. When they’re not tense with fear because they think they’re going to die. I love those videos of someone running from a person dressed as Michael Myers, who’s just walking after them. They do drop the keys, they do fuck up, and he does kill them [while] walking at a normal pace.
RH: Like the tortoise and the hare. As long as something is constantly in motion without stopping, it doesn’t matter how fast you run, it will eventually catch you because you will eventually get tired. Something that’s nonstop will eventually get you. It’s like that whole thing about if a snail was chasing you from the other side of the world, it will get you eventually.
AE: It Follows made an entire story around just that one concept.
The nice thing about Pitfall is that your characters don’t make any choices that are infuriating.
AE: You’re absolutely right. That’s another thing I liked about the characters. These people aren’t idiots. They’re not a bunch of teenage coeds. They’re all adults. They make adult decisions. They’re not stupid.
From a production point of view, what was it like spending a ton of time shooting in the woods?
RH: I did a TV show for seven years. All we ever were was in the woods in the middle of the night. If anyone knows how to film in the woods in the middle of the night, it’s me.
AE: Richard was the best at keeping our morale up during three weeks of night shoots, and now I know why.
RH: That was my entire 20s.
What tips and tricks do you have to survive a production in the woods?
RH: Just zingers. Constant zingers. Get the actors mad at me. They can be ticked off universally at me and not at shooting.
AE: He’s being so self-effacing. We loved it.
RH: I’m being self-effacing because I’m sure it comes off as charming, Alex.
AE: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up your spot. I have no media training. I don’t know that I’m supposed to play along.
It was very charming! In the movie, Richard, you get to be the comedic voice of it all. How do you balance that in terms of keeping the comedy alive, but also keeping the genuine fear of arrows flying at you alive?
RH: Well, Tina, I think first… the first and probably only thing is, I try my best. Just try my best. It seems to have done okay. Then, you know, editing is a hell of a fine thing.
I always say editors are the hardest-working people in the business, especially reality TV editors.
AE: They are. Oh, God. Yes. That’s where Flanagan got his start, with editing reality. Talk about the fucking trenches. Oh, my God, that poor guy.
RH: I’ve still never worked with him. Alex, you got to get me in there. He’s never hired me.
AE: He would love you.
RH: I’m sure he would, but even if he doesn’t like me, he can just hire me anyway, and make me hate myself on set. I don’t care. Just hire me.
On the flip side of Richard’s character, Alexandra, your character is holding back a million things and not telling people anything that needs to be told.
RH: The emotional weight of the film.
I’m sitting here with the emotional weight of the film and the comedic weight of the film. How are you balancing that as an actor, Alexandra? How are you making sure that the weight of all these things your character is experiencing feels like it’s not just thrown in during the scenes it needs to be present for, but is a through line?
AE: That’s really the fun part for me. The part of my job that’s fun is building this playground to play on because consistency is important. It really sucks watching something and feeling like the only reason someone does or says something is because the script needs them to right now, and it will be jettisoned thirty seconds from then when it’s no longer required.
I feel gypped as an audience member watching shit like that. I would never forgive myself if I was guilty of it. I really do feel that it’s important for actors to train to learn how to do formal script analysis, to learn how to do formal character development. Not everybody is naturally gifted like Richard. You’ve been able to do it professionally and learn professionally, and that’s the best classroom.
RH: It’s been about twenty-five years.
AE: In lieu of that, you have to train. I mean, I really wish there were set etiquette classes. No one knows how to fucking act.
RH: That’s the only thing I would ever dare teach. I would never want to teach someone how to act, because I still don’t know how to do it myself in a way that’s teachable. Set etiquette classes, I think that’s what people need the most.
AE: I’ve worked with plenty of directors who need to learn set etiquette, too. On the one hand, it’s great that it’s so easy to make your own stuff, but on the other hand, there’s so much you don’t learn, and it’s good to at least be curious about it. It’s not a status thing. It’s not a classist thing. It’s not a superiority thing. You’re robbing yourself of knowledge about who you could be as an artist. You should want to know how to analyze a script.
RH: I’ve never once heard Alex ask a bad question. You know the saying that there’s no bad questions? There are. Especially on a film set, because you’re wasting a lot of people’s time. Especially on an indie film set where you only have six hours a night to do it. Alex never asked a bad question that didn’t need to be answered for us to move our day forward.
AE: Thank you, dude. Thank you very much. Coming from a professional like yourself, that really does mean a lot. Thank you. It’s a skill you can learn, and you must learn. Especially for actors, there are a lot of questions you should have already answered by the time you get to set. A lot of work you should have already done.
RH: The questions you asked couldn’t have been answered by anyone. It’s technical, and it’s set-related. Character and script stuff, you should know. Come prepared.
AE: If you have a moment of revelation, then celebrate the shit out of that. Those are what we’re looking for. Always make a big mistake. The truth is in the mistakes. The minute a director is trying to control what’s happening too much…the way the actor talks, how they look, move. You start trying to control it like that, and all the magic is gone.
RH: Yeah, you’re not Barbara Stanwyck, who’s literally like a composer. I was watching The Lady Eve again yesterday. Watching her cadence is like… no one can go fast and hit every beat quite like she can, then slow it [down] immediately. She literally is like a composer doing a symphony, and she hits every note.
AE: It’s prepared, but I feel like it wasn’t. It just comes off as so natural. That’s the true magic of it. She’s so prepared that she’s able to find freedom in that moment, and it will be whatever it is. Every line that comes out of her sounds like it just occurred to her. It came out of her own brain at that moment.
Sanford Meisner said it takes twenty years to be an actor. I think that’s completely true because you also must have some understanding of living a life, what it means to live a life. Acting is a living art.
RH: Fail in your regular life, it helps. Sorry, this went off the rails.
