SIGHT FOR SAW EYES
Saw veteran Kevin Greutert on his spooky new supernatural chiller Visions
“Producers and studios they really value the jump scare,” says Visions director Kevin Greutert, talking exclusively to Red Alert. “However a horror film only works for me if there’s a deep and abiding sense of dread that you start to experience early on.” Greutert knows a thing or two about shocks and scares – having worked as an editor on the first five Saw films as well as home-invasion horror The Strangers, Greutert made his directorial debut with Saw VI. But now with his new twisty haunted house movie starring Isla Fisher as a pregnant woman, he’s venturing into different territory.
“I never want to say that the Saw movies were easy, because they weren’t, they were very technically difficult. But they’re not studies in character or even studies in creepiness per se, they’re more like action horror. In a haunted house film it can only work if the audience embraces the characters and it can only be scary if it’s quiet.”
Greutert came across the script back in 2008, yet it wasn’t until years later when he was working with Jason Blum that he finally had the chance to realise the project, assembling a supporting cast which includes Eva Longoria and Community’s Gillian Jacobs. And then there’s The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, who plays Fisher’s character’s doctor.
“Jim Parsons as a gynaecologist is a little bit strange,” he smiles. “For me he did a really good job of bringing that creepiness to it.”
Next up Greutert’s got cult-reprogramming horror Jackals, though he says he is interested in other genres. “In the meantime I have a career and I don’t want to jeopardise that by doing a musical.”
Visions is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.