Exclusive: Bobby Roe And Zack Andrews Take Us Into The Houses October Built 2
Matt Boiselle
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Back in 2014, we were witnesses to a found-footage styled film that broke away from the pack of stale productions before it – The Houses October Built took us inside the scare attractions that are determined to make their audiences lose their bodily functions using a myriad of tactics, and director Bobby Roe alongside writer Zack Andrews pulled off a creepy film, without a doubt. Well, get your diapers ready, cause the latest installment is going to be released today in select theaters and On-Demand services. We recently had the chance to discuss The Houses October Built 2 (review) with both Bobby and Zack, and here’s what they had to say – enjoy!
DC: Zack – what can you tell us about what’s happening in the latest film?
ZA: When we originally came up with this story, we thought it was more of like a two-parter, and the ending of the first one felt a bit abrupt for some people, but it was kind of the intervention between that chapter and this one. Basically, the group has survived, and now my character has to figure out how to get everybody back on the road to find Blue Skeleton, so we try to convince Brandy (Schaefer), which is a little more difficult this time around (laughs).
DC: That leads directly into my next question – was this in fact an idea to do a second film from the get-go, or was it a “wait and see” kind of thing to see how the audiences reacted to the first film?
BR: To be honest, we looked at this even in four parts – the haunt community, and the haunt world is so big and vast that we couldn’t possibly cover it in one movie. You know, you try to pick the best that you can within a certain region, but the best thing that you can do is try to expand the world and we hope that we’ve done that, and we want to show new parts of the world and how they celebrate Halloween in general. If the Blue Skeleton grows globally, then we’ve got a bigger story to tell. Without giving away any spoilers, there was always a story to finish. We remember that the first movie where a sequel picked up right off after the first was The Karate Kid 2, and I think that’s always stuck with me in particular is when Daniel Larusso walks out of the All-Valley tournament, we didn’t miss one beat of his life – years had passed in our lives, but we didn’t miss a beat of his, and I thought that was fascinating, and that’s what we tried to do with Houses 2.
DC: Over the course of filming these two movies, have you or anyone in the crew come across a particular haunt that you felt went TOO far over the line?
ZA: I think in different ways for different people, which is part of the fun of what makes a scary movie a scary movie, and what makes a good haunted house effective. We did a press tour in between two movies and I remember Michael (Roe) at one place was blindfolded and pushed off a 10-foot ledge into foam padding, and I see how that could be seen as taking it too far. We’ve had shotguns put in our backs, and I got put into a chopping block and they brought out a giant axe like they were going to take my head off (laughs) – it’s different things for different people, and I think that the audience wants that line crossed. They want that feeling of “oh shit, this actually might happen.”
BR: To add to what Zack said about that experience, we found out that that place had 120 “piss-outs” where people actually piss their pants and were taken out of the haunt. I think that we’ve become somewhat numb to stuff, and we just want something different and creative, and these haunts do a really great job of giving us that, but where is the line and when will it actually be crossed is yet to be decided.
DC: After the release of Houses 2, what will you both be working on next?
ZA: We were brought on to write a movie with some of the producers of “The Walking Dead,” and we can’t really talk too much about that now, but that’s planned for next year.
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