>>PREVIEW
DARK CORNERS
Directed by Ray Gower
Alliance Atlantis, 2007
"I’d like to be able to say yes, but honestly, I don’t know. Yeah, no. Shooting it was fun though." It’s rare that an actor will admit in an interview that she didn’t like her performance in a movie, let alone the movie itself, but Thora Birch is one of those rare Hollywood actresses that, well, is honest. From her turn as Kevin Spacey’s daughter in American Beauty to nerd extraordinaire Enid in Ghost World, Birch has had a great, varied career, which makes her new film, Dark Corners, just baffling.
Dark Corners belongs to that most dubious of genres, the "psychological thriller," and, as such, somewhat defies description, replacing old-fashioned, B-movie charm for a muddy plot and design. She plays two characters – Susan, a happily married woman dealing with costly in-vitro procedures that won’t, um, stick; and Karen, a mortuary worker pursued by a superhuman serial killer. Is one dreaming about the other? Dark Corners doesn’t seem too concerned with figuring that out, haphazardly throwing in random scenes of bondage, gore and bizarre Christian symbolism as it heads towards an ending of baffling, Freudian convulsions.
Birch goes through the wringer in this movie, but she isn’t a horror fan. So, why’d she do it? One of her favourite authors is the Marquis de Sade, so maybe that has something to do with it. "I thought the dual role would be a challenge – that if it was pulled off in the right way, people would be confused. I was very conscious to try and figure out how I could make the characters different, so people wouldn’t know it was the same actor. Some people asked me who my favourite character is, but I can’t relate to them at all. That was the fun of it. I wasn’t looking at it as a mind-twisting, psychological thriller, but something fresh and new. There are moments in it that are so preposterous, dark and campy."
Despite all of the characters sporting American accents, the film was shot in England, with English actors. She says she likes shooting in the U.K., with the exception of one particular day. "We shot at this sugar factory in east London. I can tell you, it was the most sickening day. The poor employees were one step down from wearing gas masks – the process of cooking it smelled like hangover gook with maple syrup."
How does she prepare for intimate or violent scenes? "I think the best thing is to not prepare. It’s easier to be in the moment. I don’t find it difficult to be in front of people and the crew. Maybe it’s the exhibitionist in me."
For many fans, she’s still remembered for her role as Enid in Terry Zwigoff’s cult classic Ghost World. It’s not something she plans to return to though. "I’m not in a rush to do a whole bunch of work. I think the angsty teen stigma was around for a while, but I haven’t felt the pressure to do it. Well, maybe some remnants." |
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