UNIVERSAL PICTURES
and
GOLD CIRCLE FILMS Present
AN H2F ENTERTAINMENT/DEACON PICTURES Production
HELLION
EL ÁNGEL CAÍDO
JOSH HOLLOWAY
SARAH WAYNE CALLIES
BLAKE WOODRUFF
JOEL EDGERTON
JOHN KAPELOS
TERYL ROTHERY
with
DULÉ HILL
and
MICHAEL ROOKER
Executive Producers
SCOTT NIEMEYER NORM WAITT and CHRIS FENTON
Produced by
PAUL BROOKS
DAMON LEE and WALTER HAMADA
Written by
CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI
Directed by
STEWART HENDLER
THE CAST
MAX…....…………………………………………………………….JOSH HOLLOWAY
ROXANNE………………………………………………….SARAH WAYNE CALLIES
DAVID SANDBORN..…………………………………………….BLAKE WOODRUFF
VINCE.………………………………………………………………..JOEL EDGERTON
DETECTIVE WHITLEY…………………………………...…………..JOHN KAPELOS
MS. SANDBORN.……………………………………………………TERYL ROTHERY
DETECTIVE MILES…………………………………………………………DULÉHILL
SIDNEY.……………………………………………………………MICHAEL ROOKER
THE FILMMAKERS
DIRECTED BY…………………………………………………...Stewart Hendler
WRITTEN BY……………………………………………...Christopher Borrelli
PRODUCED BY…………………………………………………………Paul Brooks
Damon Lee
Walter Hamada
EXECUTIVEPRODUCERS………………………………………..Scott Niemeyer
Norm Waitt
Chris Fenton
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY………………………..Dean Cundey, ASC, CSC
EDITOR…………………………………………………………….Armen Minasian
PRODUCTION DESIGNER……………………………………………..Michael Joy
COSTUME DESIGNER……………………………………………………Maya Mani
CO-PRODUCERS………………………………………………………….JEFF LEVINE
ZAK KADISON
LINE PRODUCER……………………………………………...shawn williamson
MUSIC BY…………………………………………………………………...JEFF RONA
CASTING DIRECTOR…………………………………………EDYE BELASCO, CSA
SYNOPSIS
A petty criminal and ex-felon named Max (JOSH HOLLOWAY, star of TV's Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning hit Lost) struggles to walk the straight and narrow after a lifetime of living on the wrong side of the law. But Max’s best intentions get sidelined when, after a failed attempt to apply for a bank loan to start a new life with his fiancée Roxanne (SARAH WAYNE CALLIES), he gets a call from his old friend Sidney (MICHAEL ROOKER), an ex-con who’s got one last job for Max. A simple kidnapping-for-ransom job, says Sidney, no big deal at all. Max is tempted by the quick, easy money and the opportunity it presents to fulfill his lifelong dream of opening a restaurant. It’s risky but the job will give him enough cash to make a clean break as well as put his checkered past behind him once and for all. And besides, how much trouble can a ten-year-old boy be?
David Sandborn (BLAKE WOODRUFF), the only son of a wealthy Vermont socialite, is a seemingly innocent child, living a quiet life of comfort and privilege until the day of his 10th birthday, when a man dressed up as Santa knocks on the front door. Max, posing as the entertainment for David’s party, distracts the other children and their parents with a huge sack of toys, then quickly spirits David out of the house unnoticed. Max delivers David over to Sidney and one of his goons, Vince (JOEL EDGERTON). The criminals – along with the faithful Roxanne – flee with David to an eerie, deserted cabin deep in the woods. Roxanne is adamantly against the kidnapping but since she is concerned for the welfare of the young kidnap victim, she decides to look after David while he’s in their “care.”
As they await payment of the ransom, the group begins to turn on each other as past suspicions, betrayals and secrets inexplicably surface. The tension builds and a series of unexplained and frightening occurrences befall the isolated conspirators as howling wolves seemingly close in around the cabin. Strangest of all, David seems to preternaturally know the chilling fate of each of the criminals and turns the table on the captives as they become his prisoners in the cabin. Unaware of David’s powers, the kidnappers controlled by the mysterious Hellions are succumbing to David’s demonic visions.
David illustrates his visions of the vivid blood-chilling fate that awaits each ex-con. The grisly images predict one by one how each kidnapper will meet a gruesome end, but only David knows how or when. As the horrific images come to pass, Max realizes David is not the innocent boy he first appeared to be.
Meanwhile, a couple of savvy detectives trace the boy to the remote cabin in the woods and they race against time to free him. But whose life really hangs in the balance? The detectives have no idea that something or someone has taken over the cabin and supernatural forces are at work.
Max clamors out onto the ice-covered cabin roof, knowing he must face David and his supernatural forces of evil. As the cold wind chills Max, David beckons him, for the final reckoning. Max’s only chance for survival depends upon unveiling the secrets of the Hellions.
About the Production
Hollywood has been in the midst of a horror renaissance, much to both audience and filmmaker glee. “I keep coming back to the horror genre but I like to try to keep it fresh,” says PAUL BROOKS of Gold Circle Films, perhaps best known for their mega hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, one of the highest grossing independent films ever made, though this company is no stranger to terror. They produced supernatural thriller and box-office hit White Noise, and a sequel has just been completed.
Their latest film is Hellion, a supernatural thriller that offers a tweak on a classic horror concept. “It’s Ransom meets The Omen,” says Brooks, who serves as one of the producers. “It’s a throwback to directors like Richard Donner (The Omen) and Mervyn LeRoy (The Bad Seed) but with a modern twist. It’s about what happens when people become trapped by their own actions.”
The gripping story about a kidnapping gone bad didn’t just catch the eye of the producers; it also resonated with a young, up-and-coming director, STEWART HENDLER. Hendler was already set to direct another Gold Circle film when he stumbled upon the screenplay that already had a director attached. It kept him up reading until 3:00 AM. “After I read it, I remember thinking, Oh my God, this is the film I want to direct,” he says. What really caught his eye was a horror movie where the “monster” is locked inside rather than outside of house. Already committed to direct that other film, Hendler was unable to act on his passion for the script – until that film hit some snags. At the same time, by a twist of fate, Hellionbecame available, as the initial director dropped out. Hendler wasted no time when he heard the news. “When my other project didn’t look like it was going to happen, I immediately called my agent who called Gold Circle Films. I said to them: what do I have to do to direct this film, because I will do anything to get a shot at this,” Hendler recalls. His enthusiasm and determination paid off when Gold Circle Films agreed to hear his pitch on his ‘take’ of the film.
Producer DAMON LEE was convinced that Hendler had the vision Universal Pictures and Gold Circle Films’ executive team was looking for. He dazzled them with his presentation. “He had it right—the film was about the boy. He knew that in order to make his version of the film stand out, it had to be built on characters that people can relate to and that are smart,” says Lee. It wasn’t just the overall tone that won the executives over. Hendler knew that he had stiff competition. In order for them to give him a shot, he had to take it a few steps further.
“This being my first feature, I knew I had to really know my stuff when I took that meeting,” states Hendler. This same focused, determined approach helped him launch his career back when he was a film school student at USC.
“In film school, we were not really encouraged to just go out there and start working. It was more about intellectualizing film rather than working on a set, but I wanted to get that hands-on experience. I knew I would learn so much more on a set than I would just sitting in a classroom. All my friends thought I was crazy when I told them I wanted to start as a PA because it was assumed you would bypass this after graduation. I decided the only way, without any real connections, was to crash a film set, and I found one. It was an independent film shooting in Los Angeles and it was a bit disorganized, so it was easy to sneak on. I found the producer in charge and went right up to him and said, I’ll do whatever you need me to do and for free. Right then and there I was a working PA. That’s when things really began for me,” Hendler explains.
Now, at age 26, Hendler has made his first feature film while his peers are just starting out as PA’s. Hendler applied this same tenacity and bold approach to his meeting with the executives of Hellion.
“I pitched the movie as A Simple Plan meets The Omen. The Omen obviously being sort of a hallmark evil child movie, and A Simple Plan being a great psychological thriller, which is all about people making terrible decisions for the right reasons. I didn’t want to forget that there is this lineage of old movies about devil children that people remember instantly, and I wanted to acknowledge what was great about them. At the same time, I did not want to mimic those films. This one had to be different and interesting. I even stayed up half the night constructing how I saw the trailer for the movie,” remembers Hendler. The inventive approach to the film’s material and the imaginative trailer he put together won them over.
The casting of the film presented a couple of considerable challenges: how to find both a sympathetic yet crooked kidnapper and a compelling and dynamic eight-year-old boy. The casting of Josh Holloway for the character of Max would be the first choice they made and much easier than casting for the part of the boy. “Josh was actually the easiest to cast,” says Hendler. “We all sort of met him during the first season of Lost and his career was just beginning to skyrocket. His character on the show, Sawyer, is a bad guy, but is incredibly likable. He has this sort of built-in humanity to him that you watch and no matter what he does, you still feel for him and root for him.”
Holloway’s casting may have been easy for the filmmakers but it was decidedly more difficult for the actor himself. “It’s my first film and they were very adamant about booking the Max character first,” Holloway recalls. “When I met with Universal and the Gold Circle Films team, I told them I wanted to know who’s in it first, but that wasn’t an option. I was the first one on board. It was quite a scary move for me to go ahead and say, all right, I trust you guys. I’m gonna go for it.”
He also wasn’t sure he wanted to play a character that might be too similar to the one he plays on TV. He later realized there were fundamental differences between the two characters. “There’s no cockiness in Max. There’s no attitude. Max is more coming from a place of love, where as Sawyer’s coming from a place of anger and shame,” Holloway declares. Max’s straight shooter approach and heart are what convinced Holloway that the challenge would be finding that vulnerability in the character.
Brooks likens Holloway to the all-American movie star of the 70s’. “He’s got that special thing that I think stars have; he has gravitas. He’s part Kris Kristofferson and part Clint Eastwood bundled into one. He emanates that classic American charm, complete with the drawl!,” says Brooks.
Holloway’s good looks and Southern allure did not always open doors for him in the past as it did for this role. “For eight years, I’ve been pounding against a wall. No one would let me in the door and when I did get in they hated my accent,” he says. “I paid good money to get rid of it. Now I go on auditions and the first thing they ask is, where is the accent?”
The casting of the eight-year-old, on the other hand, was the hardest thing the filmmakers had to do as the movie hinged on the casting of this crucial role of the child. They had hundreds of auditions and saw kids across the U.S. and Canada. They needed an actor that could show the duality of the character. It was important that he could flip his persona quickly and effectively.
Hendler recalls the difficulty of casting David. “It took us so long to find BLAKE [WOODRUFF], he admits. “When we launched into the movie, our first question was how the heck are we going to find a kid that can pull this off? It’s a nearly impossible role to play. One of our ideas was to even rewrite the role for Dakota Fanning!” Then, the audition tape showed up. “His tape was amazing. But his first in-room audition blew us away,” the director says.
Woodruff nailed the audition and impressed the team. “I think he’s really got something special,” says Brooks. “He consumes the screen and in such a tiny way and I don’t mean literally, I mean in the way he performs. He knows his character intimately.”
For Woodruff, acting is just about having a good time on set and not over preparing for the role. “I don’t do too many preparations. I act around stuff that I goof up on. And just when it’s time to go I just turn around and hopefully I do a good job,” Woodruff says with confidence. It doesn’t hurt that at a young age he already has a big feature film to his credit. Coming off of the set Cheaper by the Dozen to Hellionis quite a change of character. To prepare for the role in this film, he worked with his acting coach and watched some old movies. “I watched this very old movie called The Bad Seed and watched how the little girl flipped from nice to scary. I wanted to be able to do that as well so I talked with my acting coach Jackie, and we worked on my character based on that idea.”
Woodruff does more than rehearse with his acting coach. He also has a habit of sitting back and absorbing what the other actors are doing while on set. He takes a little bit from each of them. Lee recalls how cast mate DULÉ HILL (West Wing) made an indelible impression on the young actor. “Dulé was the tap dance kid on Broadway and to get ready before a scene he does a little tap dance to get himself going. And I noticed that pretty soon Blake was doing the same thing. He really learns from others on the set.”
Hill taught Woodruff how to do a simple tap dancing step called a cramp roll. “It helps me clear my mind. I saw that Blake was interested so I taught him a few things,” notes Hill.
“A cramp roll is really cool. It helped kill the time while waiting to do a scene. I can tap dance. It’s fun,” say Woodruff.
There’s another role that played a crucial part in casting, and that was the part of David’s minions - the wolves. Wolves have been a symbol of malevolence in western culture for centuries and for writer CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI, that’s exactly what he wanted to evoke in his script. “The wolf is a singularly sinister creature - one associated with mystery, power, danger and sheer evil. It was a natural fit that I would write them into the script to serve David and be a part of his ‘flock, ’” says Borrelli.
Working with the “sinister” creatures was a completely surprising and pleasant experience for the director. “I couldn’t believe how the animal trainers could cue the wolves up to snarl, howl or run in an instant. One minute they would be growling and spitting in the actors face, and then the animal trainers yells “alright” and they are wagging their tails looking for affection,” says Hendler.
A group of trainers handled all the wolves on set and made sure everyone was comfortable working with them. “The biggest misconception about wolves is that they are aggressive animals prone to attack. They are actually very cautious around people, so we gradually and gently introduce them to ensure a positive experience,” states one of the wolf trainers Dana Dubé of Animal Insight. “They are highly intelligent and extremely affectionate once they get to know people,” Dubé says. Putting the wolves in the snowy setting made the film look all that more real and frightening.
There couldn’t be a better setting than the Yukon and locations around Vancouver to recreate the isolated, woodsy feel of the New England countryside, though renowned Director of Photography DEAN CUNDEY, ASC, CSC, a master in the horror genre, finds re-enacting winter throughout the film challenging. “One of the greatest challenges is certainly to recreate winter for the main exterior sequences throughout. We picked the Yukon in spring because it’s surrounded by lush trees and lots of snow. Back in Vancouver Cundey was able to reconstruct the cold bone-chilling effect of an isolated cabin in a rural part of Maine. He worked closely with Special Effects Coordinator Jak Osmond and Production Designer MICHAEL JOY whose job it was to make sure the snow looked real.