Exclusive: Ali Cobrin and Slaine Talk About Living in the Girl House
Scott Hallam
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Trevor Matthews’ directorial debut, Girl House (review), is out now and is a dandy of a slasher movie. Two of the film’s stars, Ali Cobrin and Slaine, recently sat down with Dread Central to give their takes on Girl House.
Cobrin stars as the female lead with Slaine as the lecherous Loverboy, a seriously disturbed loner who gets a bit too emotionally attached to her, leading to some bloody ramifications. Girl House was released digitally on February 14.
Slaine gave us his synopsis of the project: “It’s about a girl who turns to do web camming, porn in essence, because she’s having a hard time financially. And you never know who’s watching. I happen to play one of the guys who’s watching the website, and he’s a deranged, obsessive lunatic who’s obsessed with this particular site. It’s interactive, and he’s on it every day and becomes overly indulgent in the site. When they start making fun of him a little bit, he loses his mind and decides to kill them all.”
Playing one of the girls he’s speaking of, Ali Cobrin talked about her role: “I play a girl, Kylie, who’s in college and can’t foot the bill anymore. So she turns to an adult website. She was approached by the owner, and she’s like, ‘That shit’s crazy!’ And then, ‘Oh my god, am I really going to do it?’ And then she does it. Things are going seemingly well until a crazy stalker killer fan of the site comes because he’s obsessed with her.” And that’s where Slaine’s character, Loverboy, comes in.
And Loverboy is an incredibly damaged character that Slaine plays brilliantly. He delivers an intensity to the role that really brings it to life. He discussed how he was able to make Loverboy seem so realistic. “Basically, a lot of the real acting in it was the emotional part,” Slaine said. “You see the killer before he dons the mask. You see who he is before he becomes the killer in the movie. I tried to focus on that. I thought he had a broken heart at the root of it. So I tried to go back to times in my life when I was made to feel less than, or ostracized, and I put myself into those feelings. The scene where he loses it, where they’re making fun of him and he loses his mind, for that scene I tried to take myself back to some things that really upset me in my own life and brought those feelings and put them into the scenario that was in the movie.”
Cobrin gave us a peek into a technique she used to help rev up Kylie’s fear. “The second half of the film had elevated circumstances with a lot of blood,” Cobrin said. “To get scared I used a method. We were in the middle of nowhere in Canada. We were an hour outside Ottawa in a suburb in a woodsy area and being so isolated and all those night shoots in a row in the dead of winter when it’s freezing. You can use all that, and all of a sudden you’re like, ‘I’m scared as shit, in the middle of nowhere, and no one’s around; and there’s a guy named Loverboy who’s going to chase me.'”
There were plenty of challenges these two performers faced during the ambitious shoot. Slaine discussed the rather unique mask Loverboy wears during his rampage. What exactly was it? “Incredibly uncomfortable, that’s what it was,” Slaine said. “I had some experience wearing a mask onscreen before. For The Town we had masks for two of the robberies. Masks can be very uncomfortable, but for The Town I could pull the mask off in between takes and get some air. But with this film the mask tied in the back, so I needed people to put the mask on and tie it; and once it was on, it was on for the day… or at least until a break. It was brutal. It was really uncomfortable; I couldn’t see enough in it. But I think it added to the film because I felt like a real fucking psychopath with that thing on out there. It was like a transvestite linebacker.”
Plenty of credit needs to go to the F/X team that put this nightmare together. Slaine talked about how important it was for all the special effects to look perfect. “They did a fantastic job,” Slaine said. “Whenever you do a film, your performance is only a small piece of it. I do music, too, and it’s kind of a one-man show with music or a couple people putting a project together. But with a movie you really need everybody to pull their weight and do their job in order to make the performance realistic. Because if anything takes you out of the suspension of disbelief, it fucks things up. So I think they did a great job. It was great working with all of them.”
For Cobrin, it wasn’t just the visuals that got to her. “I think it’s spooky,” Cobrin said. “I think it scares people. The sawing the head off, that scared me. Just the sound of it was awful!”
As with many of our favorite slashers, Loverboy is a man of few words. Slaine explained that the silence and internal struggle of the character was a big draw for him. “I knew right from jump that was what it was going to be,” Slaine said, “and that’s what I was interested in. It’s not driven by the dialogue because there isn’t a whole lot of it with this character. Really embracing the monstrosity of the character and knocking down any inhibitions of looking cool on camera, which you have a natural tendency to want to do. Especially in roles that I’ve had before, when you’re a gangster, those are kinda cool roles. This was totally different. That’s what attracted me to it.”
And working in Girl House with a group of amazingly beautiful women, we had to know if it was as exciting as we’d imagined. “I was playing the monster,” Slaine said. “This wildly unattractive guy. So it wasn’t quite how you might picture it, being on set with half a dozen beautiful women. I was wearing a onesie.”
It isn’t every day that an actress gets a role like that of Kylie. Cobrin was asked to do some pretty intense things, as well as perform just like a cam girl would. Did she have any trepidation? “Yes!” Cobrin said. “It’s always a little weird. But, being a fan of overall slashers, I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I can do this.’ I really like to jump into a character full force. Some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s the leading lady.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s just a character.’ You’re always acting as a character. For me it was just about jumping into Kylie and going through what she had to go through.”
To close, Cobrin discussed some of the deeper meanings to Girl House. Being set in a house designed to be continuously broadcast on the Girl House website, cameras become a huge part of the film. “There’s also a bigger message, too,” Cobrin said. “Kylie, as she’s trying to save everyone, she’s also trying to destroy these cameras that are freaking her out and taking over her life, and they’ve ruined everything. Obviously, these cameras are for an adult website, but in the bigger picture, there are cameras everywhere. Everywhere we go, it can be known. If someone is motivated, they can find you.”
Synopsis:
A Halloween-style slasher for the digital age, it follows a beautiful young college student who, needing money for tuition, moves into a house that streams content to an X-rated website. After a deranged fan hacks in to determine the house’s location, she finds herself in a terrifying fight for her life.
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