The Resort will be released by Vertical Entertainment in select theaters and On Demand this Friday, April 30. Written and directed by Taylor Chien (Cornered), it follows four friends who head to Hawaii to investigate reports of a haunting at an abandoned resort in the hopes of finding the infamous Half-Faced Girl. However, when they arrive, they soon learn you should be careful what you wish for!
This fun horror movie stars Bianca Haase, Brock O'Hurn, Michael Vlamis, and Michelle Randolph, and we were lucky enough to catch up with lead actress, Bianca, to discuss her role as Lex. Known for her roles in How I Met Your Mother, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and the upcoming Superficial Intelligence, Bianca's star is on the rise, and she steals the show in this terrifying trip to Hawaii.
Shot in a real abandoned resort, the movie definitely brings some new ideas to the table. Bianca was kind enough to talk us through her experiences on set, overcoming some typical horror movie tropes, why it was important to play a strong female lead, and a whole lot more besides.
Make sure to check back here later this week for Bianca's thoughts on one day playing a superhero!
You shot The Resort in an actual abandoned resort, so can you talk about what that experience was like for you?
It was interesting. I would assume that most people have never been to an abandoned commercial site of that magnitude before, and you think you understand what it’s going to be like to be in a property of that size with no people and no electricity, but it’s so different. We got there and it really was an interesting experience because it felt like we were almost in Jurassic Park! The landscaping had been allowed to overgrow and in Hawaii, most resorts have little Palm Trees, but those were still there and hadn’t been treated in such a long time. All the doors of the rooms had been ripped off, and there’s plastic fluttering in the wind [Laughs]. It was actually very helpful as an actor to be shooting a horror movie on a sight like that, to be honest.
Did you experience anything creepy or paranormal while you were working there?
I had one particular instance that I think most people...it won’t sound that nerve-wracking, but it genuinely was. We were shooting this, and I don’t think I’m going to give away any spoilers, but we were all running. I think that most viewers assume that in a horror movie, at some point, people are going to be running [Laughs]. So, we’re shooting this long running shot and the crew was far away from us because they wanted to get a real wide shot. It was just the four core cast members, and I was in front of everyone else. We’re running past abandoned rooms, obviously, because we’re in an empty resort at night. We ran from one side of the hotel to the other in this interior hallway, and we came upon a door that I was just not going to run in front of. I don’t know how to explain it, but there was...if you’re sensitive to energy, there was something not good in that room. I just stopped. I could feel the momentum of the run confronted by the energy in this room. I just stopped and skidded almost like one of those old Looney Tunes movies! I know that some of the other crew members, when they were exploring other locations for the shots at night, they had some strange encounters. There was a golf ball down in the basement that rolled off on its own, but that room was my personal experience.
The characters are definitely smarter than your average horror movie leads and seem to know what not to do; was it fun, as an actor, to get to play around with those tropes?
Yeah, it really was. It was nice to, as an actress, to be representing something other than what people expect to see in horror movies. Lex makes some poor choices at times, but she’s really going into it with a professional mindset. She has experience with supernatural phenomenon through her work and just knows what she’s dealing with. Like you said, it’s fun not to be...you know, we are in clothes that are meant for Hawaii, but it’s fun not to be the dumb female character that gets everyone into trouble. I think what was also fun is that there are moments in the film where we’re poking fun at those tropes, so it was a nice balance. Sometimes you have to embrace that this is what the genre is, so you do it and make it a lot of fun, but also not rely on those tropes to progress the movie forward.
There was a time when female leads in horror movies were pretty much just love interest or victim; was it important for you to have a strong female character to work with here?
Absolutely. Not to repeat what we’ve touched on, but in horror movies, it does feel like for the most part, the role for women is to just service a male viewer [Laughs]. It’s nice to represent women in a way that shows they can be the leader of a group. They can actually know what they’re talking about and make wise decisions. It was definitely fun and important to me.
Without getting into spoilers, some of your co-stars get to play around with some very gory prosthetics; what was it like working with those, and were you a little jealous you didn’t get to don them?
[Laughs] As you were asking the question, the thought came into my head: I was so jealous! I definitely was. There were some fun moments. The other actors got to have some really creative...new looks, let’s call it. I was envious, just because you want to see what you’d look like in some of these things. I’m sorry I’m being vague, but I was absolutely jealous and wish I’d been a little more...I don’t want to say! I’m going to keep my mouth shut [Laughs].
Finally, what are some of your favourite horror movies and did any of them inspire your work here?
I am the type of person that gets very scared. I completely buy into whatever the story is and I am on board and down for the journey and suspend my disbelief, so I get very scared. I barely watch horror movies by myself so I don’t have a huge Rolodex of horror movies in my mind. That being said, I will watch them if other people want to even if I cover my eyes and ears! I recently watched Hereditary and that was horrifying! I thought it was so terrifying! I think I had my eyes closed every five minutes, but I really enjoyed that. The end...I’m not even sure how to interpret that [Laughs] but I loved it. I watched The Conjuring too...oh my goodness, I loved it. So scary. I was so impressed with everything about that movie. I watched it after we shot The Resort, so I wasn’t able to bring any of that in, but if I had, I absolutely would have stolen something from those actors because they were awesome and it was so good.