SKATING A LINE BETWEEN HORROR AND ROMANCE
Calgary filmmaker’s latest offering sticks with theme of ‘magical’ rinks
It took an outside observer to point out the thread linking John Kissack's two films.
The Calgary filmmaker admits he never really thought much about a through line between last year's Miracle on Christmas Lake, a warm-hearted yuletide tale, and this year's Everfall, a trippy teen horror film focused on the deteriorating mental state of a disgraced young figure skater.
“I only do movies about magical skating surfaces,” Kissack says with a laugh. “It was funny, someone pointed that out to me when we were pitching the concept of Everfall: ‘What is it with you guys and magic rinks?' I hadn't even realized the association.”
The supernatural forces that may or may not possess the rink in the fictional town of Everfall — ably played by the Medicine Hat Arena — are fairly central to the plot, so we won't give away too many details here. But it's safe to say they are far more malignant than the magical pond that helped restore a teen's Christmas spirit in Kissack's first cinematic outing.
With settings that range from gorgeous mountaintops to the Calgary skyline, to the dark, claustrophobic innards of a possibly haunted, small-town arena, Everfall maintains a sense of menace throughout.
Along the way, the film hits on a number of horror-movie hallmarks: creepy little girls, unhinged locals, vengeful ghosts and a tragic backstory involving the accidental death of teens. But due to the crumbling mental state of our protagonist Eva Saint (played by Vancouver actress Jessica McLeod), the audience is never quite certain what is real and what isn't.
All of which may seem like an unusually dark tale to be set amid the painted-on smiles and sequined short dresses of competitive figure skating.
“Figure skating is a sport where there is a tremendous amount of pressure put on an individual,” Kissack says. “You're out there on the ice. It's you and your partner and one slight misstep and you have a very public and very awkward embarrassment. We were looking for an interesting way to approach the genre and an interesting way to put Eva into an unstable and highly pressurized situation.”
The film introduces us to the youthful romance between Eva and her boyfriend Daniel (Joe Perry), a hopelessly arrogant and self-centred daredevil obsessed with increasing his online following as a video-blogger. Eva is attempting to recover from a mysterious accident that has weakened her confidence and abilities on the ice. Her coach (played with scenery-chewing glee by character actor Colm Feore) sends her to an obscure competition in the small town of Everfall, which has its own tragic backstory. Daniel and Eva set off with filmmaker pal Jordan (Kristian Jackson) for the journey, hoping to patch up their troubled relationship. Just to add more peril, a wildfire is raging ever closer to the town as the competition is set to begin.
Despite all the thrills and chills, as with many horror films, Everfall boils down to a cautionary tale about the human condition.
“Underneath it all, the film is about an imperfect love,” says Kissack. “Love really does take work and it takes sacrifice and if both people aren't investing into it, it can lead down some dangerous roads. We live in this world that is dominated by ego-driven socialmedia posting and a detachment from the real relationships that sit in front of you at all times. I think people are drawing away from that and becoming obsessed with the thrill they find in online acceptance and Daniel is very much an exaggerated version of that idea.”
As with Miracle on Christmas Lake, Everfall will get its world première at the Calgary International Film Festival. Due to the success of his first film — Miracle was picked up for DVD distribution by Sony Home Pictures Entertainment and can still be seen on Movie Central and HBO Canada — Kissack and his team were able to craft a more ambitious film than initially planned, albeit still maintaining a relatively modest budget.
That included shooting a spectacular, drone-enhanced opening sequence on the Montana side of Glacier National Park. Other locations included downtown Calgary, the Max Bell Arena, Hwy. 549 south of the city and the fire station in Redwood Meadows.
Not unlike his first feature, Kissack admits that at least part of the decision-making around genre reflected commercial concerns. The first glimmers of Miracle on Christmas Lake came from the Banff World Media Festival a few years back, where Kissack and producer Jayson Therrien were urged by distributors and sale agents to make a family Christmas movie.
It turns out, teen horror is also an easily marketable sub-genre.
“You have certain genre requirements that you try and weave into the story,” Kissack says. "Fans of the genre will respond to that. For us, it's also about doing something different and something more.
“With Everfall, you have this really tragic teenage romance aspect to it. It's one part working with distribution and sales, trying to balance art and commerce while still making a living out of this, but doing things that we're passionate about, working in those boundaries.”