Hey friends! Barbarella here, fresh from Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. While there, I had the opportunity to catch WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS? While it tells the true story of a woman’s encounter with an incubus, it’s somewhat less about the ghostly encounters and more about a woman trying to be believed decades prior to the #MeToo movement. Doris has a difficult life raising three children, but it gets worse when an evil entity begins terrorizing her.
In addition to watching the movie starring Heather Graham in the titular role, I also had the delightful opportunity to sit down with director Nick Simon and actors Heather Graham and Mimi Rogers to chat about the supernatural and the movie.
Barbara: What were your viewpoints on the supernatural before you started working on this and have they evolved or changed since then?
Nick: I believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe in ghosts until the late 90’s when some friends and I lived in this house that wasn't scary looking at all. It was built in the 60’s, and it was definitely haunted by something that did not want us there. I saw things, heard things, felt things. Doors slammed, beds would push; it was really terrible. I would hear people running up the stairs in the daytime, so things like that. I worked at a coffee shop randomly, later. When I had to open up in the morning, every once in a while, I'd see somebody in the corner of my eye, and then he’d be gone, and you’d just feel this horrible thing, so I totally believe in ghosts, absolutely.
Heather: Yeah. I definitely believe in them. I've never had the experiences that Nick had. Mine's more of like feeling an energy, like going in a room. I had a house that I moved out of, but I feel like it had a haunted wine cellar. I mean, nothing really bad happened. I think maybe the ghost was like somewhat benevolent, but everyone that went in there said they felt some weird energy in there.
Barbara: Hmm, interesting.
Mimi: Yeah, I haven't had any like direct contact or experience and, you know, I'm skeptical. I think there are a lot of charlatans in the area of supernatural phenomena and psychics. I've had a psychic telling me stuff, and I'm like, “That's all wrong.” But I leave myself open to belief, because a lot of things have happened in the world that there is no logical explanation for. I came into the story definitely believing that this woman went through a pretty horrific experience, and it's something that's never been technically explained. I think an important element for people watching this film is it's really not about, “Do you believe in ghosts or don’t you believe in ghosts?” It's just about believing that certain things happen that we can't explain, but it doesn't negate the fact that they happen. A woman being believed is kind of a core element in our film. I definitely went into the film believing that she had gone through these experiences. Again, I haven't had personal experiences.
Barbara: I’ve always been kind of open to the idea of it, because it's like weather. Weather used to be considered supernatural, and then we learned about what causes weather, so I feel like there are things we still don't know.
Mimi: There are so many things.
Barbara: Mimi, how did you get involved in this project?
Mimi: Well, really, quite fortunately, I was just offered the part, and when I read the script, I thought the story was fascinating. Of course, I immediately went online. I wasn't familiar with the story, so I read all about it. (To Nick) Did I talk to you about it?
Nick: I can’t remember. I don’t think you did.
Mimi: I think I just said, “Yes.”
Nick: Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you called me. (To Barbara) I had a very short list, and I wanted an actor who I knew would be able to come in and be the boss of an entire department of men in 1974. There’s only a handful of people who can play that.
Barbara: Yeah, I love that female perspective in that environment. I thought that was great.
Heather: She has true empathy. The men are just like, “Well, scientifically, you know, we believe you,” and she's just empathetic.
Mimi: Dr. Ross and Doris are the ones who get down to brass tacks.
Nick: Yeah, all the men are buffoons in the movie, except for the children.
Barbara: Would you talk a little bit about the character design of Mr. Whosit?
Nick: Yes, it was based on a couple things. I had a weird dream about being bitten by a man with large gums and baby teeth. That was weird, and I woke up thinking, “I got to write that down.” Then I talked to a friend of mine, Mario Torres, who's a creature designer – he’s worked on Guillermo del Toro films and things like that – and he's like, “I can sculpt that.” He’s the one who introduced me to Kevin Keppy, who is a creature actor. He's like, “Kevin would be great for this role.” The script didn't have an entity in the film; we weren't going to shoot one, but then as we kept on going, the characters see things, and they’re there for a glimpse, and then they’re not, so we thought we should show this, and we cast Kevin.
Heather: I think that added a lot.
Nick: It really does. I recently reread “No Country for Old Men,” so I kind of based the haircut on that.
Mimi: You see that guy with that haircut in 1974: psycho.
Barbara (laughing): That's the psycho cut?
Mimi: You don't have a hear a word. That guy is a psycho.
Barbara: My understanding is that you talked to Brian, Doris’s son. What kind of conversations did you have with him?
Nick: Tom Fenton, the writer, spoke with him [for an extended period of time]. I think it took him seven years to get this movie made. He built his relationship with them to the point where Brian trusted him to give him rights to the family. The story hadn't been told the real way, because nobody had the rights to the actual story. THE ENTITY is loosely based on what happened, but also, it's told in a different way. Once we start talking to him, you know, it was really important for him to just make his mom feel like she was…
Heather: Honored.
Nick: Yeah. He’s like, “I don’t want my mom to look bad.” Yes, she drank, and she never married.
Heather: She was not traditional, but who cares?
Nick: Yeah, in 1974, it was wild. In real life she had four kids by four different dads, so you can imagine what that was like.
Heather: Has Brian seen the movie yet?
Nick: He read the script. He only had one note on the script. His note was “Mr. Whosit was the bunny, and Franklin was the one who attacked my mom.” We knew that, but we just thought that Mr. Whosit was a scarier name.
Barbara: I don't know why, but that gave me chills right now.
Nick: He was like. “The most important thing to my mom is that she didn't lose the kids, so she didn't want to talk about it.” It wasn't like other famous stories in the 70’s where people were like exploiting and trying to make movies and books and things like that. She didn't really want to do that. It ended up happening, but never with her, and she never really talked about it afterwards, you know? It really did follow her to different places.
Mimi: She could very easily have ended up in a situation where child services would take her kids.
Nick: 100%. She was terrified of telling the people at UCLA, and then she told them and thought they would be able to help, and they didn’t, then she just ended up leaving.
Barbara: Yeah, I got mad at them several times in that movie.
Nick: Good.
Barbara: That was the goal?
Nick (laughing): Yeah. Yeah.
Barbara (to Heather) Did you have conversations with him as well?
Heather: You know, I unfortunately didn't get to talk to him because I think Brian’s wife was sick at the time, so I ended up just grilling Tom about her. I remember him saying that she liked guys on motorcycles. She had four kids, but each had a different dad.
Mimi: Of course, she liked guys on motorcycles.
Heather: I got some juicy details that I used to kind of create a backstory.
Barbara: It was a pretty heavy role. Is it hard for you to come out of that? What's your process like to kind of shake off a character?
Heather: You know, I have to say, I felt really bad for Doris. Like, can you imagine if a demonic entity was attacking you? I tried not to think about it, because the very first time I read the script, I was terrified. You know, you're falling asleep at night, and you’re like, “Oh my God!. Am I going to be like in a traumatized state this whole time?” But I tried to just focus on, “I want to save my kids. Of course, I want to not be attacked as well, but I’m looking for a positive outcome to this horrible situation.” She’s a fighter; she’s a survivor, right? So, I wanted to have her be more of a fighter.
Nick: Yeah, and that's what Brian wanted, too. He wanted to show that his mom was a hero for them, you know?
Barbara: What does it mean to you to have this film playing here at Fantastic Fest?
Heather: It's really amazing to do an independent film, and then to get this huge way to get it out to the world through this festival. It is such a great, hot genre film festival, so I think we're so grateful. It's an amazing community.
Mimi: I'm tremendously excited because this is a movie that deserves to do really well. I think, given the right platform, it will do really well. Nick did a spectacular job. I mean, sixteen days.
Heather: With an independent movie, you're like, “How am I gonna get through the noise to get it out?”
Nick: I feel like Fantastic Fest is the biggest genre festival in the world.
Heather: It's a huge one.
Barbara: It’s the best one if not the biggest.
Nick: The people that come are legit horror fans. I grew up loving horror films.
Heather: Yeah, the screenings sell out immediately. It’s cool. Everyone’s excited to come see the movies. It’s incredible.
Nick: It's also terrifying because this is for a specific audience that know horror movies. You hope that they will like it.
I think they liked it. I know I did. The fact that WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS? isn’t your traditional haunted-house story makes me like it that much more. I also had a great time talking with Heather, Mimi, and Nick at the festival, and I wish them the best of luck with the movie. Hopefully, non-festival-attendee genre fans will have an opportunity to see it at some point. It’s worth watching.
