A Conversation with Danny Villanueva Jr., Michael Hargrove, Lisa Wilcox, Sargon Odicho & Asya Meadows (WHAT HAPPENED TO DOROTHY BELL?)

File this one under books that kill [see The Babadook, the tome in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, or certain limited editions of Stephen King’s Firestarter apparently bound in asbestos (went down a rabbit hole this morning)].  Danny Villanueva Jr. explores a generational curse tied to a book in What Happened to Dorothy Bell? Examining the effect her grandmother’s rapid descent into violent madness had on her own mental health, Ozzie Gray (Asya Meadows) returns to the home of her childhood, but, more importantly, to the library where her grandmother worked for decades. What she discovers, an urban legend hidden from her by her parents, only drives her to investigate deeper, and to film everything for posterity.

Also starring Michael Hargrove (Nia DaCosta’s Candyman) and Lisa Wilcox (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5), What Happened to Dorothy Bell?  adds a little found footage to Fantastic Fest in its World Premiere this week. I had a chance to sit down with the team shortly after their premiere at the festival for a conversation about the genre and petrifying pages.

Hammer to Nail: Okay, so let’s start with obvious. Found footage has its baggage that it brings with it and it has its joys. What made you want to make a found footage in this day and era?

Danny Villanueva Jr.: Yeah, I mean-

HtN: In the long shadow of Blair Witch Project, obviously.

DVJ: Yeah, of course. I just have a deep love for it. When I was 10 years old, I did experience The Blair Witch Project in the cinema.

HtN: Did you think it was real?

DVJ.: Absolutely.

HtN: I did too.

DVJ.: And for about a few years after that, I went about my life, like witches live in woods. So that left an impact on me, of course. And then I just love contemporary found footage films. And I think there’s something about the format that can not only be incredibly scarier than traditional narratives, but you can tell such intimate stories because it feels like the screen dissolves and you merge with the character and you’re there. You’re in their world. It’s so immersive.

HtN: How does it change your writing process?

DVJ: Well, you approach it completely different. You have the camera in mind throughout. You have to find ways to have excuses for different devices and cameras, and it all is based on the characters and the setting. What options do I have available for coverage and to be able to keep the image interesting?

HtN: Yeah. What about performing knowing that you’re coming into a found footage and it’s going to be not a traditional kind of set shoot? You have to be on-screen for most of the film.

Asya Meadows, who plays the Ozzie Gray, our primary story-motivator, answers first.

Asya Meadows: I think you really don’t prepare for that. I think he warned me — I really had to be connected with the DP because we were kind of acting together in terms of movement and pacing or breath and stuff like that, and I thought that was a unique experience. I was like, I think we wanted to put it on me at some point, and then I was like, “Oh, no.”

HtN What, the camera strapped to your head or something?

AM: I didn’t want to risk the equipment.  So I became one with the DP and yeah, acted with that. It was different for me.

Next to answer is Sargon Odicho, who plays paranormal blogger Amir.

Sargon Odicho: I thought it was similar to any other acting. I just think eye placement was a little bit difficult. Because I’m not looking at Asya, but I’m looking at the camera really, right above or right below, wherever it was, wherever Asya was holding it. But I think the way we went about the acting was still the same. Just yeah, I guess, movement and physical body.

I turned to Lisa Wilcox (Dr. Robin Connelly) next.

HtN: I was thinking that before the pandemic it would not have been as common to conduct therapy over a laptop. But now that’s the only way most people do it,  so it felt very natural actually for your character.

Lisa Wilcox: It did, but when I read the script, I didn’t realize it was going to be this found footage thing. And I got on set and I’m like, “Well, where’s Asya?” What’s going on here?

Hammer to Nail: “She’s in this box.”

LW: And he [Villanueva]’s like, “No, you’re literally going to be, it’s a Zoom therapy session.”

HtN: Were you in the other room recording at the same time?

AM: We were on Zoom. I was on Zoom.

HtN: You were on Zoom.

AM: In bed, literally.

HtN: Well, that’s very relaxing. That’s an easy day at the office.

AM: Just like I got to be present for Lisa and that was it, that was my job.

Michael Hargrove plays Ozzie’s father Darren in the film

HtN [to Hargrove]: You got to have almost the most traditional acting performance because you’re not necessarily interacting with the camera as much as being… interactive in the story.

Michael Hargrove: Yeah, I wanted to do that too. Why are you going to pick on me? No, actually I was seeing that and noticing that. I was like, “Wow, I’m kind of normal in this.” But overall it was a good experience and just to see the final cut of everything was just, I was amazed by it. No one in the cast had done a found footage film before but Villanueva had shot one.

DVJ: I did a short long ago but I won’t say the name so because —

HtN: Because it’s not on IMDB or anything, right?

DVJ.: No, it’s not actually.

HtN: Oh, it’s not. Okay, then we’ll never know.

LW: We all have one of those.

Sargon Odicho [in his blogger character]: Don’t worry I’ll find it.

HtN: So what are some of the better found footage films of the last couple of years you would recommend to someone.

DVJ: Let’s see. I guess you can consider We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was really inspiring. And I think all the V/H/S anthologies.

HtN: One of my favorite things about horror films is creating the world and the mythology. And I’m curious the whole idea of the book and where that came in the writing process. And how much detail do you know about the way this myth works and how much do you pass on to the audience, to the actors?

DVJ: So the way the film came about was looking at what resources I had available. This a micro-budget film, and I had a local library, which is the place we shot in. So that’s kind of where I built the story around. Because I say, “What can I do with the library?”

HtN: Did you work at the library or did you just have a lot of overdue fines or something?

DVJ.: They were just so welcoming and it’s a beautiful historic building [in Kenosha,WI] I’ve always loved, and they do have ghost tours themselves inside. I took one of the ghost tours, fell in love. But yeah, the book came about by saying, “What elements are in the library? How can I tell a story here?” So obviously I want to tell a ghost story, a ghost librarian, and then what can I do with books? How can I tell a story with books?

HtN: The idea of a book from childhood is interesting because I feel like there’s things that we experience as kids and then set aside and we don’t think about for a while, but they stick with us. I’m just curious, because not that they have to be a horrific memory, but what is the book from your childhood that you remember the most?

DVJ.: There’s a book I remember, it’s called Miss Nelson is Missing, it’s a children’s book about a substitute teacher that comes in and she’s super evil, like.

AM: Goodnight Moon. My grandma used to read it to me, so it’s a very special book to me.

HtN: I actually thought a horror movie based around Goodnight Moon would be kind of cool. There is an old woman in the corner whispering, “Hush.”

AM: Stop, you’ll ruin it for me.

HtN: Right? I mean, to me that’s terrifying. They would never give the rights to that though. Could you imagine you would just destroy that book for children forever, yeah.

MH: For me, I’m sci-fi nut. So… Frankenstein, which I thought was interesting. I kind of branched out from there.I wasn’t very young, but it impressed me overall.

LW: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. During the summer, my mom would always take us to the library and my sister and me get to take out books, and I was always fascinated by ghost stories, scary stories. We’re talking about fourth grade. It was not on the reading list, but I got to explore, and so-

HtN: It’s probably banned at this point.

LA: But I literally read it and I don’t think my mom paid attention what I’d read. I went to school the next day I was reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula under my electric — I’m from St. Louis — The electric blanket light under my blanket reading because I was absolutely obsessed with it.

HtN [to Sargon[: What about a book from your childhood that stuck with you?

SO: The Great Gatsby, just easily just stuck with me. I feel like just the first book I really went into depth with and spoke about with the class I was in at the time, so yeah.

HtN: What’s the horror version of Great Gatsby?

SO: The horror version? Are we only doing horror?

HtN: I don’t know, I’m curious, I just want to pitch. Something like oh, ‘I will never have this woman for myself, so I’m going to cross the lake, stare at her and like…

DVJ.: Wait, I need a movie on that.

HtN: Yeah, I know. That’s in the public domain, so there you go. It’s yours.  So I love that you didn’t shy away from any of the kind of found footage sort of moments. You even have the standing in the corner staring at the wall kind of moment. You’re like, “Look, if we’re going to do found footage, we’re going to do that.”

DVJ: Yeah, so going in I wanted to make a found footage film, so it’s like I was leaning into tropes. I didn’t really have a checklist. It just kind of organically came out, but kind of wanted to have fun with it and then also try to do something different as well in lots of areas. But yeah, it was a challenge going in and knowing that everything has to be diegetic.

HtN Sure. From a technical perspective, despite the acknowledged low budget, you had some realty nice effects. These kind of ghostly, cloudy faces going through the videos.

DVJ: Yeah, so those were VFX elements that were placed and tracked and yeah, it’s really just me basically masking out a photograph and making it transparent, coloring it so it looks ghostly and then blending. It was like mist that we had just kind of building.

HtN: Did you know how to do that before you started this process, or is that something you had to teach yourself?

DVJ: No, I think I did. I do have experience with After Effects doing my previous shorts and stuff, so most of it was easy to kind of figure it out. But I was jumping on YouTube often to figure out other effects and stuff.

HtN: Yeah. Okay, final question. Is there going to be a screening of this film in the library at Kenosha, Wisconsin?

DVJ.: That a great idea.

LW: Great question.

HtN: Like a midnight screening

LW: It goes with the ghost tours.

HtN There you go.

– Bears Rebecca Fonté