When a girl goes missing, two of her friends and a mysterious set of strangers find themselves drawn to the cabin in the woods where she disappeared. As events unfold, they will laugh, they will drink, they will kiss, they will make love — and most of them will die. This mid-Missouri-shot horror film was directed by St. Charles native Matt Stuertz, lensed by St. Louis’ go-to cinematographer Chris Benson, and features a cast of primarily local actors. Stephen Tronicek here at We Are Movies Geeks hails the film as “one of the funniest and most engaging pieces of exploitation to be crafted in the past few years” and describes TONIGHT SHE COMES as “the best homage to the ideas that Sam Raimi set up in ‘The Evil Dead’ since Drew Goddard’s ‘The Cabin in the Woods.’” The website UK Horror Scene is just as effusive in its praise: “These ain’t just pretty people getting stalked in the woods; these are shaded characters with flaws and personalities.… It’s the type of horror we’ve been waiting for, and then some. Funny, scary, vomit-inducing, unpredictable and flat-out insane.”
Tom Stockman: What was your filmmaking experience before TONIGHT SHE COMES?
Matt Stuertz: Before Tonight She Comes I had written and directed many short films (including quite a few 48 hour short films that I co-directed with my friend AJ Meadows) and also co-written and directed a feature called RWD that came out on VOD platforms last year.
TS: How did you become interested in films? Did you grow up a horror movie fan?
MS: I’ve always been a huge movie watcher, but I didn’t get into actually making films until a bit later, around the time I was in college. I definitely started off as more of a sci-fi / action-adventure fan, and then slowly and steadily turned that love into a love for horror. I feel like the thing that unites both of these, however, is my love of over the top gore and practical effects, which have always blown my mind no matter what genre they appear in.
TS: What horror directors have inspired you?
MS: Big inspirations for me are John Carpenter, Ti West, Edgar Wright, George Romero, Kim Jee-woon, Stuart Gordon, and many many more.
TS: How did you come up with the story for TONIGHT SHE COMES? Was it tightly scripted or was there much improv in the final film?
MS: The main idea behind TONIGHT SHE COMES hit me after I had already decided on the title, and gone through a few iterations of different things before that. Then I ended up writing it out over a few months, and then letting it sit for a bit. I came back to it a few months later, hated it, scrapped everything, and rewrote the film from scratch into what it now is over the course of about a week (and then several more weeks of rewrites). The final product is pretty tightly scripted, but there are some pretty choice lines in there and a few moments that are improv and vast improvements made by the great cast.
TS: Did Dal Nicole, who was naked and covered in blood through much of the film, know what she was getting in to and was she a good sport about it all? Is there anything she would not do?
MS: Dal was definitely a great sport about this aspect. I had gone over with her all the basics of her character, so she definitely knew what she was getting into beforehand. The thing that ended up being the craziest probably is the fact that we shot the film about an hour outside of St. Louis in November and December, so for all those outdoor scenes it was quite cold.
TS: What was it like cleaning up that bloody house when you were done shooting?
MS: Luckily for me, it was other members of the crew doing cleanup, so I’d say it worked out great – ha ha! They fully cleaned that thing up too, and fixing everything we broke as well over the course of the shooting.
TS: What local locations did you use for TONIGHT SHE COMES?
MS: We mainly filmed in a cabin in the woods location in Ditmer, MO. It was an awesome spot that our caterer Bob Rocca found for us after a previous location ended up falling through. Turned out to be almost exactly what I had scripted the location to be in the screenplay, so it worked out quite well. And aside from that we filmed in a few random wooded locations and used a house that the FX lead Shae Spradley owned at the time.
TS: If you had more time and money, what are some things that you might have done differently with TONIGHT SHE COMES?
MS: The main thing I’d do differently is use any extra money to add more time to the schedule, especially for FX shots. They just take forever, and it’s definitely worth spending the time to get them right. For everything that ended up in the film, we definitely spent the time on it. A few other bits got cut out.
TS: What was the schedule for TONIGHT SHE COMES?
MS: The schedule was 15 shooting days, which went by very fast.
TS: Would you like to continue making horror films or do you want to branch out to other genres?
MS: I currently have several screenplays written that are very horror (but different sub-genres), and I’m in the process of writing another right now that’s also horror. I feel that any film I direct, horror or not, will have some sort of horror aspect to it regardless.
TS: How has TONIGHT SHE COMES been received so far?
MS: Extremely well! The audience reception at festivals I’ve been to has been awesome, and it has been great speaking with people that dug the film, both in person and via podcasts etc. Was definitely a bit nerve racking before the world premiere but right after that, I had a blast.
TS: What are your release plans for TONIGHT SHE COMES?
MS: TONIGHT SHE COMES is currently in the process of being sold, and should be hitting many territories relatively soon, via blu-ray, DVD, VOD, etc. I have quite a few pretty cool bonus features so I’d definitely recommend checking it out on a format that contains these.
TS: What’s your next project? Would you consider a sequel to TONIGHT SHE COMES?
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