‘Alone At Night’ Cinematographer Peter Buntaine Talks His ‘Pumpkinhead’ Inspiration
Jordan von Netzer
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An isolated cam girl at a remote cabin in the woods, what could possibly go wrong here? This is the premise of Jimmy Giannopoulos’ latest slasher, Alone at Night starring Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars), Luis Guzmán (Wednesday), Pamela Anderson (Baywatch), model Winnie Harlow, musician G-Eazy, rapper A$AP Nast, Paris Hilton, and more. The full synopsis reads:
Vicky (Benson) is a young woman looking for an escape after going through a harrowing break-up. After retreating to a friend’s remote cabin in the woods to clear her head, she continues modeling sexy lingerie for her devoted followers on 18 & Over, an adults-only, live-streaming website. But when the power keeps going out, Vicky discovers something terrifying awaiting her in the dark — a masked killer wielding a crowbar who’s hellbent on bringing her night to a grisly end.
Serving as the film’s cinematographer, Peter Buntaine took a very interesting approach to the look of Alone at Night. He wanted the film to look like a 90’s B-Movie horror flick more than anything. His thought process being,
“I think the experimentation that is already present in the horror genre really gets off the rails (in the best way), when you are looking at the third or fourth installment to a franchise. So, we would watch some of the later and more disliked Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th entries to get inspiration, all while having a good laugh.”
Read Buntaine’s full Q&A below.
Alone at Night is now available on VOD.
Dread Central: How did you become involved with Alone at Night?
Peter Buntaine: I met the director Jimmy on his previous film Birthday Cake. I did some work as a camera operator and also as a DP for the flashback sequence, which is the opening of that film. We stayed in touch and wanted to work together again.
DC: How would you describe the look of Alone at Night?
PB: It’s a 90s B-movie direct-to-video horror, thawed out and dressed in modern clothes like the kids did to Brendan Frasier in Encino Man.
DC: What did pre-production look like for you on this film?
PB: I was helping Jimmy and Raul with preproduction before I was officially attached to the project, going through the script and flagging things that might need special attention either timewise or a specialized piece of gear, to help them make a budget. Once I signed on to the film, the director Jimmy and I had creative meetings on location—reading through the script and brainstorming ideas. This is in addition to technical scouts and the things you usually do.
DC: Is Alone at Night one of your first horror projects? Did you feel like you were able to experiment more with this genre?
PB: Alone at Night was the first horror film I’ve worked on, though to be fair it is just as campy, comedic, and sexy as it is horror. It is sort of a riff on a teen movie, or a send-up of teen horror almost. I think that is what I love about horror as a genre. It can be so many things from dark comedy, to psychological thriller, to splatter or gore-centric visceral stuff. And horror audiences are open to this idea of a big, diverse genre.
This open-minded attitude absolutely translates to working on the set as well. You can read a scare in a script and choose on set to play it for laughs or for fright. And there are no real rules for the technical side either: the long take Steadicam in The Shining or the handheld energy of Texas Chainsaw are both equally iconic in the genre.
DC: Did you watch any other horror films to get inspiration for Alone at Night?
PB: I signed on to the movie in October when I am watching scary movies anyways, so it’s hard to draw the line at where casual viewing ended and preparation began. There are some pretty direct/on-the-nose homages to some classics that horror fans might get a chuckle out of. As far as the look of the movie goes though, I really tried to push that 90’s B-Movie look more and more to the front.
My biggest touchstones for the look were Pumpkinhead and Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. The colorist on the film, Stephen Latty, responded positively to those two as well, so I know I was on the right track. I was going through a bit of an Ernest Dickerson thing at the time, I got really into Surviving the Game, but I’m not sure how much of that shows up in the film. I also got really into looking at some of the horror sequels in major (and some minor) franchises.
DC: What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome while filming Alone at Night?
PB: Production during COVID was an enormous obstacle. I forget the exact numbers, but it cost the film dearly in terms of time and money (that could have been spent elsewhere) to make this movie then. Beyond that, there was a lot of complaining about the cold. I’m from the northeast, so it wasn’t a problem for me! But morale got low among some of the LA crew members on the long overnights outside.
DC: What would you say is key to lighting characters in the dark woods?
PB: Nighttime exteriors are always a challenge. First intellectually – do you want to fake moonlight? Or do you want to motivate practicals? I was struck recently watching Deakins’ work on Prisoners that he doesn’t ever fake moonlight, he puts a practical somewhere far in the background and just lets things go really dark. And it really adds a dimension of darkness and realism to that movie. We went the opposite approach.
One of the first things I said to Jimmy after reading the script was “I think whenever a character goes outside at night, it shouldn’t even really be dark at all, just blue. Like a bright, fake neon blue.” And we can change the color over time. Just to lean into the look and be bold. Well, that approach was great for the vibe for sure, but proved very difficult to achieve on our budget. Basically, we had to light very selective areas of the woods and stage action carefully there, to make it look like different areas.
DC: The inside of the house is partially lit by Christmas lights. Was that to create atmosphere or did you really rely on those to light the scene?
PB: Jimmy loves Christmas lights, the color, and the atmosphere. His last movie takes place at Christmas. I wasn’t going to complain about them—they look great. I don’t think there were enough of them to light the scene, at least not in the style we had been lighting the movie. Which again, was very motivated by these 90’s B movies. They were shooting film and they usually had strong, directional light sources, not the sort of glowing ambiance that is more popular these days, which the Christmas lights would have been great for.
DC: Are you personally a fan of horror films? If so, what are some of your favorites?
PB: I am personally a huge fan, but it is always hard to list favorites. I watch too many and I’ll get too hung up on narrowing it down. Argento, Martino, Bava, Fulci—the Giallo movies were really huge for me at a certain point in my life, but that’s a bit boring to talk about. I’ll say recently I rewatched all the episodes of the Tales from the Crypt TV show and there is some truly amazing stuff in there. I also recently watched Christmas Evil for the first time and it’s awesome. I really love the Christmas slasher subgenre. Also, I discovered Blood Rage last Thanksgiving, and there really should be more Thanksgiving horror.
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