Last year, American Mary won major awards at Screamfest including Best Actress for Katharine Isabelle. Isabelle returned to Screamfest on screen, though not in person this year, with Torment. In Torment, Cory Morgan (Robin Dunne) takes his son Liam (Peter DaCunha) and new wife Sarah (Isabelle) to his cabin for some bonding, only to be plagued by home invaders with an agenda for breaking up the family. We did get to speak with Isabelle by phone, from the set of her next movie which she couldn’t talk about. She also couldn’t say much about See No Evil 2, in which she is starring for her Mary directors Jennifer and Sylvia Soska. So after Torment stuff I did what we do, talked about Ginger Snaps, American Mary and Freddy Vs. Jason.
CraveOnline: When a horror director casts you, at this point are you like, “I got this?”
Katharine Isabelle: I know I have a reputation for being in horror movies but I’ve been working for 27 years. I have over 100 credits and I’ve probably only done six or so horror movies, you know what I mean? It’s not the majority of what I do. However, because horror fans are so enthusiastic, they’re so passionate, you don’t get the same kind of passion for independent Canadian dramas. You don’t get conventions for independent family dramas like you do with horror movies.
I think every time I do a horror movie, they are generally quite different as far as my character and the things that are involved with it. Of course, running, screaming, looking scared, I got that down pat. [Laughs] But there’s always something different and new to me in what I’m doing.
That’s sort of what I was getting at. A lot of actors may do one or two horror movies and then refuse to do them again. You’ve come back and found different things to do in them.
Well, that’s the thing. I don’t watch a lot of horror movies because they scare me. I’m kind of a chicken but I really enjoy shooting them. They’re fun. They’re crazy. I think cathartically, they help make me a normal person. Every month or so I get to scream, freak out, bludgeon people to death, shoot people, have a complete meltdown, whatever. I go about my daily life and I’m actually quite normal. I don’t have this built up rage because I guess I release that every once in a while. They’re just fun. They’re more fun than sitting around talking in a house, which of course I enjoy every genre of film, but I do like making horror movies. They’re fun. They have an enthusiastic, passionate fan base for them.
I noticed it even goes back to an episode of “Goosebumps” for you.
Yeah, yeah, sure, of course. Fear is a very basic human emotion. It’s driven humanity to do practically everything for its entire existence. It’s very, very primal. It’s very deeply imbedded in us and I think that’s always something people are willing to explore and look at. I think it’s valuable.
There are so many scenes in Torment in the dark. How dark was it actually on set and was it hard to see the marks you had to hit?
No, it’s sort of fly by the seat of your pants and you’re working with the camera guys as a team and you’re both trying to figure it out together. There’s not always hard marks. Of course there are, but generally when there are hard marks, you pace it out. You don’t have to look for visual marks, you can pace it out generally and get a feel of the space around you and figure it out from there.
So it’s maybe not as technical as I imagined it might be?
There’s definitely lots of technically difficult things in that movie but if we fumble around and get to the wrong place, they’d just scream, “Katie, move to your right” and then we’d just keep going.
As the stepmother in Torment is that the most maternal role you’ve gotten to play?
I’ve done some of that before. That one was a little bit different in that he was a stepchild who hated me. So it was meant to feel a little awkward and out of place. She wanted to be accepted so I wasn’t given the chance to be super maternal because he hated me.
I think she tried.
Yeah, she tried.
Was some of the psychological stuff in Torment more difficult than the basic horrific stuff?
I didn’t really have a lot. Most of that stuff was involving the scenes with Robin and Peter who plays the stepson. I was basically just chased around. I think the pink pig lady talks to me once when I’m in a car and I’m way too buzzed out to even understand what she’s saying. The whole psychological game of them interacting with the family wasn’t so much me. The beginning part where she figures out that someone’s been in the house, that thought has scared me since… I think it scares everybody. It’s fucking scary. It goes back to when you’re a little kid and your parents leave you alone for an hour and you’re just convinced that a horrible monster is going to get you any second.
That’s right, the father and son have more of the psychological stuff.
Yeah, they have all that. I’m just being chased. I don’t know what’s going on. They’re not really psychologically messing with me. I’m just trying to survive.
What appealed to you most about Sarah and Torment?
I just thought some of the visuals were fun, were interesting. I’m freaked out by the idea of people in those kind of masks. I just thought it would be fun. Once I talked to [director] Jordan [Barker], these things come up and you go, “Okay, do I have time to do this? Is it shooting in a place that I like? Is it going to kill me? No. Is it going to be fun? Probably. Is it something I haven’t done exactly before? Yes.” That’s it. I like shooting horror movies. I thought it was fun, I thought it was scary, I thought it was dark, so go for it.
