Director Kevin Lewis made a massive splash with his 2021 film Willy’s Wonderland, starring Nicholas Cage, and he has now taken his work in horror films in a different direction with The Accursed a “love letter” to 1970s movies, starring Mena Suvari, Sarah Grey, Meg Foster and Sarah Dumont.
The Accursed introduces us to Elly (Grey), a nurse who has returned to her mother’s home after her recent death. With the help of her friend Beth (Dumont), Elly had initially planned to leave shortly after getting her mother’s affairs in order, but that doesn’t happen. Elly receives a phone call from someone who knew her mother, Alma (Suvari), who offers her a job taking care of an elderly woman, Ms. Ambrose (Foster), who lives in a remote cabin.
Just as Elly wonders if there’s something about her mother that is essentially trying to trap her in her hometown, at the cabin Elly discovers that a demonic presence in this elderly woman, with a connection to Elly’s mother, is waiting for her.
“I love the theme about the sins of the mothers are revisited on their daughters, and talking about grief and the idea of demons, that we all have demons, and that we have to face them,” Lewis told Yahoo Canada. “The idea of regret and that we all have regrets, and we have to get over that, and things can haunt us from our past that we just need to face.”
Another aspect of the story that excited Lewis is that it links to the horrors of our mind, psychological horror.
“It really was a hark back to the ‘70s horror movies and that’s kind of what they did with Changeling and The Exorcist, you’ve got The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, all those great movies that I loved, and really dealt with the mind,” Lewis said. “For me, as a filmmaker, it’s great to suggest things and let the audience kind of fill it in,…and that really was prevalent in the ‘70s.”
“It’s a drama about these women and kind of a generational trauma theme to it. These sins, if they don’t get rectified and corrected, the new generation is going to continue. I see a lot of that, especially even now with what’s happened with COVID and things like that, it’s like, we’re kind of stuck in a rut and that’s what these characters are… If Elly confronted her demons before and maybe sought help with a psychiatrist,…things maybe wouldn’t have happened the way they did.”
‘It was like a father-daughter relationship’
The force of this women-centric cast can’t be overstated and as the stakes are elevated as the movie progresses, the performances build with that narrative.
“For me, what I loved about the script too,…it just felt real, it felt like that’s what these women are, have gone through,” Kevin Lewis said when asked about working with mostly women in this story. “It’s a good female story but it’s a story about people…and not repeating those sins, those things that happened to generations before us, then paving a new path.”
“Sarah Grey, Elly, it was like a father-daughter relationship. My daughter loved meeting her and seeing her on set and stuff,…she loves The Order.”
Of course, the cast can’t be mentioned without referencing the iconic Meg Foster as Ms. Ambrose, who gives one of the most impactful performances of the whole film.
“She’s a legend and she’s a beautiful person inside and out,” Lewis said. “When I first talked to her, I had like a two-and-a-half hour, almost three hour, FaceTime call, and you could just feel the presence, even on that phone.”
“Having that presence, the air is thick around you, you can just feel it, and she’s just a lovely person. What’s interesting with Meg is she kind of goes there and she goes where she needs to go, but then she forgets it… She’s kind of transfixed, kind of in a zone, and she does it and then she’s done.”
‘In Hollywood, you can get pigeonholed real easy’
Looking back at Kevin Lewis’ body of work, from Malibu Springbreak in 2003, to The Drop in 2006 and Willy’s Wonderland just last year, the director continues to strive to solidify his unique voice in filmmaking, while definitely being open to taking on projects that allow him to explore different tones in his work.
“The Accursed was definitely a departure from Willie’s,…I want to make a distinct, unique voice that when someone sees one of my movies, they’re like, ‘oh he did this,’” Lewis said. “I was really excited about that because in Hollywood, you can get pigeonholed real easy and they go, ‘oh he does this horror-comedy kitsch but he can’t really get down in the weeds.'”
“It’s like, no I want to show a different side and honestly, The Accursed is more kind of me. I’m more of a dark, brooding kind of guy. I love Willie’s, Willie’s will always be to my dear to my heart, and that was a love letter to the ‘80s… With The Accursed, that was a love letter to the ‘70s, it was more…about the movies that really kind of made you think about things, and just kind of give you the unsettling vibe. Yes, it’s horror, but good horror is good drama.”
