Meet Ti West, Greta Gerwig, and Tom Noonan. Besides sharing common chills over childhood memories of severe neighborhood nuns, this trio of collaborators also share a taste for shock-tastic movies. Among their favorites? The Shining, Silence of the Lambs, and Eraserhead. The arrestingly creepy work of Nicholson, Hopkins, and Lynch’s direction takes fright to another level with an element of atmosphere that can’t be overlooked, uniting all three films. Aptly, one thing The House of the Devil is not short on is atmosphere. This sublimely retro, soon-to-be horror cult-classic, serves-up a haunting domestic fright-fest, under the direction of a visionary on-the-rise, Ti West.

Donning the straightforward tagline, “Talk on the Phone. Finish Your Homework. Watch TV. Die", this stunning nod to early ‘80s cult horror classics loads on the atmosphere, and then some. Yet, it does so void of wink-wink irony or stagey kitsch, as it’s committed to doing what it intends to do – bring you back to the late 1970s/early 1980s, when our national obsession with devil cult worship seeped into the media and produced a flurry of iconic work. In The House of the Devil, Sam (Jocelin Donahue), a cute college sophomore, short on cash, accepts a babysitting job, in an alarmingly sinister Victorian mansion – and drags her game best friend, Megan (Greta Gerwig), into the mix. However, some childcare jobs are best left alone; especially when there’s no baby to ‘sit’.

During this season of fright, V caught up with the film’s director, Ti West, relative newbie actress Greta Gerwing (Hannah Takes the Stairs), and cult actor Tom Noonan (Manhunter). Undoubtedly, these Catholic-raised collaborators, who were brought up around complicated notions of Satan, know how to bring a scare in classic ‘80s form. L.A. Collins

L.A. COLLINS Ti, before The House of the Devil starts, there are jarring title card statistics shown, quoting our mass belief in cult worship during the 1980s. Are those true? And was this story based on true events?
TI WEST The actual statistic is accurate. The 70% of Americans believing in that stuff—that’s true. The claim that this incident actually existed is bullshit. Even though people believed in it, it wasn’t true. It was perpetuated by, you know Geraldo [Rivera], Phil Donahue, and all the talk shows sort of got obsessed with it. Ever since there was this McMartin [Day Care] case in San Diego, where there were these underground tunnels and supposed devil worship. And no one ever really knew quite what happened there; if the kids were making it up. That just sparked this whole cultural phenomenon; people became obsessed—I remember growing up and it being like, you can’t go play by yourself because a van with no windows would come by and kidnap you; and sacrifice you to the devil! That doesn’t exist anymore. No one’s worried about the devil anymore; there’s plenty of other stuff to worry about.

LC Tom, do you sort of remember statistics like this?
TOM NOONAN I remember there was mass hysteria in the '70s and '80s. I think in the '50s all those Alien movies and Body Snatcher movies, said something. [And in the ‘80s] With Reagan, there was also an emergence of people talking about sex abuse for the first time ever. I worked at one point at the medical examiner’s in the late '70s – children would come in a couple times a week who’d been beaten to death; the parents would come in and identify the body and no one would do anything. And then in 1981, all of a sudden something happened. I remember suddenly this consciousness and all these things were happening. I think there was a real awakening of people’s memory of all this abuse they’d been thru and it probably sort of overwhelmed the culture.
TW I think that there’s something similar there—in the '50s there was all sorts of stuff going on, but it was all covered up in this sort of shade of utopia. And the '80s had a weird '50s vibe where it was like with Reagan and commercialism and everything; it was like this kind of yuppie culture and everything was going in that direction, and then kind of the seedy underbelly came out again.
TN There was also a weird resurgence, reemergence of serial killers in the ‘70s and ‘80s that has sort of disappeared again too.
LC Some folks simply love the scare factor – but, given all of your smart work on this movie – can you explain your own interest in the cult?
TW  From my own personal interest, it’s just from growing up and remembering things, like, “Don’t take candy from strangers ‘cause that’s what happens to you.” And that [devil worship] cultural phenomenon that we discussed, just sort of fascinated me.
TN Yeah, and I’m a Roman Catholic, so that’s sort of part of our culture – devil worship and stuff.
GRETA GERWIG I went to a Catholic girls’ school too. That’s very special. So there’s a lot of horrific things. And I feel like there’s a very close tie between – well, magic seems to fall somewhere between the devil and religion. It’s the occult that seems to walk some sort of line that’s always very interesting; and voodoo dolls – and the sort of taking of these rituals to then do something evil.
TW There’s something about anything that you can’t fully understand that is scary – and not just the mind of a serial killer.
LC Given that your movie will inspire quite a few nightmares out there, what’s the scariest movie made in your opinion?
TW The Shining
GG Silence of the Lambs
TN Eraserhead
TW The Shining – ultimately for me, just because Kubrick has such like an intense auteur-ish style. [Watching it is] Like you’re really hanging with someone and you have no idea what’s happening. And it’s like a crazy person made that movie. So it’s really uncomfortable; and I think for everybody, those two little girls [in the haunted hallway] just traumatized our lives. That and room 237 [“Redrum”] just did a number on me.

GG I don’t even know that I remember the whole [Silence] movie accurately. It’s just the interviews with Clarice (Jodie Foster) and Anthony Hopkins (as Hannibal Lecter); he just knows more than her at all times. It’s just that horror of someone knowing more than you the whole time.
TN It [Eraserhead] sort of reminded me what it was like growing up in my family and I didn’t want to go through that experience again. So that stuck out in my head, but [watching it] I was on a date, so I couldn’t leave.
LC Quite the haunted house, tell us about finding that special spot.
TW The location is mainly a testament to Jade Healy, the production designer. The house is not actually secluded at all. And the interior – it doesn’t look anything like it did in the movie. The reason it took so long to pick that was that I was like: the outside’s cool, but it’s not secluded; and the inside is a super-bummer. It was so much work to re-do it, but with everything you always choose the hardest battles. Jade is terrific. When you watch the movie, the interior feels like you just walked in there and started shooting – and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
LC Styling makes the story more “horrific” in that so much feels relatable. For example, your female lead wears typical jeans, sneakers – unlike today’s horror flicks where everyone is hyper-styled with heels and tons of ‘pro’ make-up.  How important was styling to you?
TW For the most part, I just wanted it to be a very accurate early 1980s period piece. The same way if I made a ‘50s piece I’d make it accurate to that period. That’s the style that I remember as clear as possible. And even when casting Jocelin [as “Sam”] – tons of like “babes” came in and auditioned. But they didn’t like get the movie. They came in with tank tops; but it was like, this is a different movie. And this isn’t about a particular statement on sexuality. So that shouldn’t be on display. And even like Jocelin was always like, “That’s cool that I don’t even have a love interest in the movie.” And I was like, I didn’t even think of that! She just had an old-fashioned, kind of classic beauty appeal, which is more attractive and more alluring than say the babe with the tank top.

LC And how about you, Greta, how did it feel playing that type of normal college sophomore, rather than sporting the tank top look?
GG Yeah, I don’t think – it would not have worked if you had me in heels and running around like that. Yeah, it was really fun. I think that was the first thing we did. We sat down and they feathered my hair. And I knew it was gonna be great.
LC Greta’s character, Megan, confronts a “rough moment” in silence. Can you guys discuss the importance of silence and/or sound in this film, as it relates to suspense and the scenes?
TW Sound, in general, is a HUGE part of my filmmaking process. It’s not just in addition to the storytelling; it’s part of the narrative. And it’s something that really expands – there’s just one thing [shown] on screen; but there are 75 things in the soundtrack. And I think that people don’t realize that how important that is; particularly in horror movies – perspective-wise – how you can tell people what’s going on in a different room, when not seeing it is really important. So I work with Graham [Reznick], the sound designer on all my movies, and we’re really anal, and specific about it. And we sit in a basement and argue and push ourselves. This movie is stacked with constant sound design. What happens to Greta [watch to find out!] is awkward. And you know, I was saying to someone, when you see horrific stuff like that on the news – it’s clumsy and it’s awkward. And It’s like that’s what sticks with you. That’s kind of where a lot of that stuff in the movie came from. That [terror] just comes out of nowhere, and then mid-sentence – it’s very like that! It’s over, and it’s anti-climatic.
LC You didn’t even get a chance to give a good yell!
GG No, I know! I didn’t even know that I was in a horror movie [in that scene]. I didn’t even know that I was there.
LC Tom, rather than being loud, what makes your character, Mr. Ulman, eerie is that you’re quiet.
TN The dangerous people are the people that are very quiet. You know if you’re in a bar, and someone walks over and speaks really quietly to you in a threatening way, it’s much more scarier than if someone starts yelling and moving their arms at you. You know something’s gonna happen, because they’ve got all this energy they’re not wasting on their voice.
LC Thinking of sound, what a hot, retro, horror soundtrack!
TW I think part of it’s my taste and part of it is appropriate because of the time period of the movie. Graham, the sound designer, does all the music as well. And Jeff Grace, the composer, does all of the really big stuff; he wrote the piano theme. We’ve worked together for a very long time – have very similar sensibilities. I think we help bring out the best in each other. And so I wanted this mixture of this kind of TV movie, old fashioned piano theme, and some sort of Changeling (1980) with George C. Scott, which is a favorite movie of mine – since the early ‘80s. I also wanted it to be representative of that period, which is where that kind of ‘synth’ [synthesizer] stuff comes in; then I also wanted it to be a big movie, and that’s where the strings, with percussion and all that stuff come in. And everything in between is just Graham and I filling in the cracks.

LC What was your most scary or most impressionable Halloween-connected memory as a kid?
TN Halloween was the greatest day of the year for me when I was young because it’s the one day you get to stay out with your friends and do crazy shit. I grew up in Greenwich [Connecticut], which is sort of a fancy town. And there was this house where this guy actually hired a woman to dress-up like a Playboy bunny. And you came to the door; and the “trick or treat” was that you get to kiss this girl – and we were, like, 11 [years old]. It was SO scary, the idea of – hey, I was tall, but – kissing somebody?? It was crazy! She’d come to the door, and you’d run away screaming.
TW Yeah, I looked at Halloween the same way. Not a scary time as much as like a time to act out and have good fun. I grew up a lot of my life in Delaware at the beach and in Ocean City Maryland; and there used to be a house that burned down and it was a walk through haunted house. It was three floors and it took, like, 25 minutes to get through. And it was run by the degenerates of the boardwalk. So like they made it like really, really, really scary. It was like, if they could make you cry, it was a good day for them. Someone would jump out at you like three four times in the 25 minutes, so you never know where it was coming from. And it was so dark that people had to get lighters to get through.
GG I just really remember the razorblade in apples or candy bars – and the warning about that. It wasn’t that anything was specifically scary; I grew up in a very “neighborhood” neighborhood. It was very middle-class and was built just after World War II so all the houses look the same, sort of, not the way suburbia looks now – it was ‘50s suburbia in California. And I think the scariest thing were the houses that were dark. And you’d walk up and ring the doorbell and you’d wait for a little bit [hear nothing]; and then you’d just have this [anxious feeling], “We better go to the next house, right now!”
LC Was there a house in your neighborhood that you thought of as haunted?
TN We did when I grew up. Pretty weird; it was an old convent. It was thought of as this weird phantom house.
TW I actually grew up like a block from a convent that was super creepy and the nuns freaked me out. ‘Cause they were like – I mean nuns have ‘lightened up” a little bit now – but nuns from like the early eighties were still like nuns with like the [make whipping noise] wppshhhew-nuns. And that was just the vibe that they had standing outside in their habits. And I don’t know, it was just creepy.
GG I remember we would go to the Winchester Mansion [in California]. And that is marketed to be as such [a haunted house]. But I still have nightmares abut it. I think there’s something inherently terrifying about a staircase that leads to nowhere. I was gonna say, just in terms of movies and satanic [themes], The Craft was a really HUGE sleepover movie when I was about that age – and I’ve watched it probably 50 times.
LC After House of the Devil, what’s up next, for each of you?
TW For me, there’s a web series for IFC. It starts airing on the 26th of October called Dead & Lonely. And it’s this very short kind of like five 5-minute episodes about a vampire who finds is victims on an online dating site.
TN I’m a regular again on Damages with Glenn Close. And I have a movie that I’m directing next summer. It’s actually sort of scary, which I’ve never done.
GG I wrapped Noah Baumbach’s next movie, Greenberg. And it should be out sometime next year. And it [the momentum] should probably start happening in January for real. 

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