Don’t mind the ghosts and the previous killings. How can you resist the allure of a cheap apartment in East Village (eVil) in New York? Oh, and it comes with a garden. Creepy faces appear behind you, and strange voices can be heard around the apartment in this scary film with a zesty touch of comedy. Allan Piper presents a unique story filmed in the apartment he used to live in, so the set is an actual apartment in New York. The story has the classical elements of horror movies: A pretty good scare with dark humor in the mix.
Alex (Jennifer Leigh Houston) and Ben (Charley Tucker) are looking for an apartment in New York. For $2000, they find one in East Village. But as it’s usually said, the devil is in the details. The previous tenants suffered tragic deaths. Can Alex and Ben survive the evil spirits haunting the apartment? The suspense builds up throughout the movie and the characters are thrown into an exhilarating race against time to beat the evil forces possessing the apartment. Also appearing in the film are Pat Dwyer, Stephen Mosher, Michele Ammon, Patrick Wang, and the always fascinating Sally Struthers.
The story is not only about horror. Piper uses this film as a social commentary about the housing crisis raging America and the pervasive ageism in the workplace as well. The movie is ultimately an entertaining production with good old horror and suspense, with great visuals to complement the fine acting and sharp script. It is a fun film to watch this Halloween season to awaken your fears of darkness and evil spirits.
Below is the interview with Writer/Director Allan Piper, Jennifer Leigh Houston, and a question for Sally Struthers.
Allan Piper
Glamgical: You wore a lot of hats in this movie. How did you organize your schedule?
Allan Piper: I was lucky to have the help of a ton of people on eVil Sublet — most of all producers Jennifer Leigh Houston (who’s also the star and my wife), Chris Pearson, and Beth Ann Mastromarino. But for most scenes I was a crew of one. This wasn’t so much for budget (although it definitely helped with that) as it was because we were filming right after covid lock-down, and it was important to keep the number of people on set to a minimum.
Glamgical: Tell us about the technical aspects of the movie. What camera did you use? What kind of lenses? How about lighting?
Allan Piper: I primarily used the Panasonic GH5. I used a few lenses, but I particularly relied on the Meike 12mm T2.2 Wide Angle lens. It’s good for shooting in low light. A wide angle lens is practical for shooting in the confined spaces of a New York apartment, but it also creates a subtle distortion of space that is good for making an environment feel haunted.
I went for high contrast lighting because it is beautiful and spooky, and also true to the actual apartment where Jen and I lived. That apartment seemed to have an unnatural resistance to light. We used to walk around with flashlights in the middle of the day when all the lights were on.
Glamgical: Horror is a very popular genre. Why do you think people are so attracted to it?
Allan Piper: When the world is scary, people look to make-believe scares for catharsis. The first real boom in horror movies came in the 1930s amid the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe. Cold War nuclear fears spawned the 1950s monster movie boom. During the social unrest of the Vietnam era, the great horror movies of the late 60s and early 70s were born. Our country has been through a lot in the last few years, so I’m not surprised we are again looking to scary movies to help us process it. I certainly am.
Glamgical: Is the set your actual apartment?
Allan Piper: Yes, we filmed eVil Sublet in our actual apartment. The movie was inspired by real strange occurrences that happened in that apartment. Doors would open and close on their own. Lights would go on and off. Jen repeatedly felt a cold hand touching her in the dark. She was often awakened by weird cries in the night, and once a voice screaming “MOVE!” In her ear. Not long after filming, we finally did move.
We managed to record some unexplained phenomena and edit them into the movie.
Glamgical: You make some important social commentaries on the movie. How is the housing crisis, discrimination, and racism shaping America today?
Allan Piper: Chris and I conceived of eVil Sublet more than a decade ago, when the idea that someone would choose to live in a haunted apartment just to save on rent seemed uniquely New Yorky. But now I think all Americans can relate to being forced to endure extreme conditions to keep an affordable roof over their heads. America’s affordable housing crisis is what makes the movie’s premise believable.
And this is also a movie about evil, and there’s nothing more evil or destructive in our society than racism and misogyny — which, in eVil Sublet, turn out to be as great a danger as anything supernatural.
Politics is a big part of my life. I was a filmmaker for both the 2012 Obama campaign and the 2016 Clinton campaign. I was the supervising politics producer for NowThis throughout the Trump years, and I’m now the head of content for Inequality Media, the nonprofit co-founded by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Glamgical: How did you find your actors?
Allan Piper: I wanted to work with people I love. I’m blessed to have talented friends, and for the most part, Chris and I created the roles around them.
We created the lead role of Alex for Jen. There are not enough multi-layered roles for women (particularly women out of their 20s and 30s). We wanted her to be funny, strong, sexy, and scary, and to play the full gamut of emotions from joy to terror.
Pat Dwyer (Ned) and Stephen Mosher (Lorne) were the subjects of my last movie, the documentary Married and Counting. In 2010 and 2011 (back when same-sex marriage was considered controversial), they traveled the country to get married in every state that would let them, and they entrusted me to tell their love story. Having seen how electric they are on-screen together, I was eager to put them there again. This is their first time on-screen together as actors.
I’ve admired Sally Struthers (Reena) all my life. We met her socially at a party at Pat and Stephen’s and became good friends. It turned out that doing a horror movie was on her bucket list. I was thrilled to get to work with her. Reena is a different sort of role than you’d expect to see Sally play, and that’s all I’ll say about Reena.
Glamgical: What challenges did you encounter while filming this movie?
Allan Piper: We were filming the first scene on March 7, 2020 — the day New York declared a state of emergency due to covid. We shut everything down, lost deposits, lost airfare, and put things on hold for over a year.
Since Jen and I lived together on the set, SAG gave us permission for me to film her with no one else while the rest of production was shut down. We ended up adding new scenes of Alex alone in the apartment, some of which are now my favorite scenes in the movie. Since I play the Great Manfredo, we also filmed the Alex/Manfredo scenes together with no one behind the camera.
Production resumed in September 2021. Beth was our covid safety coordinator. She made sure there were no infections on our set.
Glamgical: Do you think it is more difficult today to find financing for film projects?
Allan Piper: Indie film is always hard to finance. I can’t say whether it’s easier or harder than when I made my first feature, Starving Artists in the ’90s.
eVil Sublet was partly financed with the offer that crowd-funders would have their faces turned into ghosts in the shadows and corners of the apartment. More than 200 ghostified faces are hidden throughout the movie. There are 13 in the trailer alone. Having hundreds of hidden faces makes the movie scarier. Viewers will jump in the middle of a scene when they realize there’s been a face peering out of the shadows the whole time.
Glamgical: How important is the festival circuit for independent films like eVil Sublet?
Allan Piper: Film festivals are one of my favorite parts of the process. The people I’ve met and the movies I’ve seen at festivals have shaped my career. On the festival circuit in the ’90s with my first movie, Starving Artists, I met Phil Leirness, the 2nd unit director on eVil Sublet and Jerome Courshon, whose company Lion Heart Distribution is eVil Sublet’s distributor.
With eVil Sublet wanted to premiere at the Coney Island Film Festival (and did) because Coney Island is such a big part of the movie. That was followed by Grossmann Fantastic Fest in Slovenia, HorrOrigins Film Fest, Haunted House FearFest, Another Hole in the Head, the New York City Horror Film Festival, the DC Independent Film Festival, and Independent Film Festival Boston. We won a total of 10 awards at these festivals.
Glamgical: As a film director, what is the most rewarding part of your job?
Allan Piper: I strategically loaded this movie with people, places, and things I love, so the most rewarding part was working with those people in those places. Thanks to Wonder Wheel Park’s Vourderis family, we got to film inside the historic Spook-a-Rama and on the Wonder Wheel! We got to have a musical number where Jen sings with award-winning cabaret star Leanne Borghesi! Nothing makes me happier than sharing the things I love with other people.
Jennifer Leigh Houston
Glamgical: What do you like the most about your character?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: I like that she’s brave. Above all else, she’s brave. Much braver than I am. I also like that, just like me, she’s a problem solver and goes headlong into fixing whatever is going wrong even if it means she may be in mortal danger.
Glamgical: There is horror, comedy, and sexiness in this movie. How did you prepare for all of that?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: Hopefully, if I’m livin’ my life right, I’m ALWAYS prepared for all of that. No, seriously, I prepared a lot. I made sure my body was in (ok) shape for all the running I was being asked to do, I tried to have my look right, and I did my homework on the script. I wanted to make the actual filming aspect as easy as possible by being really prepared when I got on set. And also, let’s be honest, the script was literally written for me and my ex, Charley Tucker to star in. I’ve known Charley for over 20 years, and we’re really comfortable around each other. Allan knew that when he wrote it for us, and hopefully, we easily gave Allan what he was after with the relationship. When the pandemic hit the month we started shooting, all of my good intentions about the way I was to look all went to hell in a handbasket. Continuity was a bitch, and some of it simply had to be reshot later because we simply didn’t look the same after lock down. Thank god that for the majority of the film, I’m supposed to be a disheveled mess. Because I was.
Glamgical: What do you think is the main message to the audience through your character?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: My message to the audience is twofold: always listen to your gut, and don’t ever let anyone else’s ideas about life and what IS and ISN’T possible sway you from what you know to be true.
Glamgical: What is the main housing crisis in New York right now?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: Wow, well, that’s a complicated topic. Greedy landlords, for one thing, and I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about that, superimposed upon an ever-growing homeless population. My heart breaks for folks that have their heart set on coming to live in NYC but ultimately being relegated to the way outer fringes because that’s all they can afford. And usually with more roommates splitting the rent than is desirable.
Glamgical: Is media doing enough to portray the LGBT community in a positive light?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: I think we’re getting there. But I still think it has to be less remarkable, ya know? I mean, I think it’s important to keep peppering our stories with LGBTQIA folks throughout. Constantly. And not every story that contains an LGBTQIA character has to be a huge drama. That is NOT to say that we don’t still need coming out stories and transition stories, and civil rights stories, because we haven’t fully arrived at equality. Not by a long shot! But just like our movie, there are lots of queer folks in it, but this isn’t a movie about being gay, or bi. It’s a story about people trying to live their lives, and unravel a very scary mystery. And as it turns out, they just happen to be queer. I think we could use a lot more of that kind of representation.
Glamgical: In a recent interview for Variety, Isabella Rossellini mentioned that Hollywood abandoned her in her 40s. How can actors—especially actresses—fight back against ageism?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: Well, the first order of business is having writers keep writing stories which include, or revolve around older women. I mean, let’s be honest, we can go on talk shows, or TikTok, or whatever, and bitch and moan about how invisible we feel and how underrepresented we seem, but until writers are willing to write stories for us, there’s not a damn thing we can do. I don’t know how to convince younger people who think that just because we’re older, we have no value. And to be honest, I think that type of ageism is really an American thing. We’re seriously ageist here.
One of the things that’s exciting about horror and sci fi films is their willingness to push boundaries, and we’re seeing them do that now in creating better roles for grown-up women, as we’re seeing with Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Curtis in the latest Halloween series, Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton in Suitable Flesh, and Crampton in Jakob’s Wife.
(Side note, Amy Schumer wrote the most fantastic skit about it being an actress’s “last fuckable day” with Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette. https://vimeo.com/509440429
When I saw this, I laughed first, then cried a little because I knew it was true.)
Glamgical: How was your experience working with Allan and Sally?
Jennifer Leigh Houston: Well, I knew what working with Allan was going to be like, as he has directed my music videos and my online cake show, Jen’s Shut Your Cake Hole, and I had worked with him on his last feature documentary Married and Counting, so I knew we worked well together, and I knew what he expected of me.
But I had never worked with Sally before, and although I was a bit nervous to work with this absolute ICON, she was so generous and lovely to work with that I literally cried when she wrapped because I didn’t want our scenes together to be over. (I also hacked up our first take together because she made me laugh so hard I couldn’t keep it together) I certainly hope it won’t be the last time. I really hope so.
Sally Struthers
Glamgical: This is your full-length horror debut. How did you like the experience?
Sally Struthers: I’d rather be part of the scaring than be scared. Horror films frighten the poop out of me. And they stay with me. They’re like a side-of-the-road accident. You can’t look away.
I was thrilled that I got to be in this movie because when you’re a septuagenarian and you look back at your career and you say, ‘Is there anything I haven’t done that I would really like to do?’ being in a horror film, like Jamie Lee Curtis, was on my list.
eVil Sublet is equal parts creepy and hilarious. And it never lets up.
eVil Sublet
Story by Chris Pearson & Allan Piper. Written Directed, Shot, and Cut by Allan Piper. Produced by Jennifer Leigh Houston, Beth Ann Mastromarino, Chris Pearson, and Allan Piper.
