House of Spoils is a horror movie with a layered protagonist. The Chef, played by Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose, is as complex as the dishes she cooks. In pursuit of creating her dream restaurant, she walks the line between passion and obsession, the latter of which is intensified by the spirit of a witch on the restaurant grounds.
Co-writers and co-directors, Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, craft a very compelling fairytale with as much humanity as horror. Recently, Cole and Krudy spoke with Immersive Media about writing the film’s compelling protagonist and directing House of Spoils.
[Note: This interview contains spoilers]
What were the first building blocks for Chef, figuring out who this person is and who she wants to be?
Bridget: I loved the end point of the character first, and actually, that’s a big part of how we wrote it too. We were trying to write a film about somebody finding their voice, and then it developed into a story of a chef. We really related to this mix of ambition and self-doubt. A lot of our writing comes from a personal place, from our own experiences working on film sets as young whipper snappers, camera interns, and PAs and stuff. I would say it started from a place of the part of us that is ambitious and driven and just really wants something. And then enter Ariana, I don’t know if you want to take over, Krudy?
Danielle: No, you’re nailing it. She’s both part of us. I think we wanted to give her permission to explore all the extremes that sometimes we might shut away. We wanted to let her unleash sometimes. We wanted to give her permission to not be perfect so that we could actually, in a bigger picture in the end, relate to a bigger arc.
It was a lot of allowing this character to start in a place that’s uncomfortable, like when she comes at the character of Lucia (Barbie Ferreira). That’s not something that Bridget and I necessarily have done, but this character needs to be allowed to go there so that she can fully make it to the other side.
With this character being very close to the both of you, what conversations did you have with your cinematographer, Eric, about the feelings you really wanted to visualize?
Bridget: I love that question. There are so many of these conversations with production designers and with DPs that aren’t acknowledged. We wanted the filmmaking to have an immediacy and map her journey. I would say more formal in the kitchens at the beginning, at the point where she’s very regimented.
Something we discovered on set the times we really needed to be handheld and moving the camera with kitchen and the temperature. She was a little off-kilter, a little off-base, and I feel like Eric was amazing about pushing to bring that life to it, to those kitchen scenes where things are unraveling.
Danielle: Eric was also committed to telling her arc in a big picture way where he fashioned two looks for the movie. This initial look brings a lot of tempered greens. The color scheme of the wallpaper inside her house, it was bringing out earthy tones. And then after she comes out of the ground — spoil alert — we expand the aspect ratio and change the colors as well. So, the palette adjusts to be a little more vibrant, a little bit more fiery to represent this new chef that’s grown.
Was making a horror movie with color and warmth important to you both?
Bridget: Yes, absolutely. We talked a lot about the color palettes for this garden and trying to find the right feeling, like something you’ve discovered, something that’s been there for a long time.
Every movie has its own needs. We wanted to have the colors to serve not just the chef’s personal arc, but also the arc of her food, which is very much her creative journey. And so, making sure that we could support as she brings in ingredients from the garden, that you could feel them come out in the images on screen.
When you got to the editing room, how’d you want to increase the sense of atmosphere and unease?
Danielle: I would say our anchor was always the chef, what the chef goes through, and how the scene can support her psychology or her emotional experience. It was us trying to react to the material and what Ariana was bringing. Our editor, Marc Vives, he’s deep in story and character, so that was a really natural place to find our direction in a lot of ways.
Bridget: We had a lot of fun repurposing shots from other scenes to scenes. We always wish we had more shots of the garden. We tried to do a lot and even did a little mini pickup shoot. I think the nature shots felt important to the transitions and the atmosphere. We only wish we had more, but we milked every little thing we had.
I will always remember the worm, putting it on a leaf for a certain shot. It’s a silhouette worm, that stuff was so fun. When shooting, you’re just so desperate. Shooting food was time consuming, all the resets, and so we are always just so desperate for the basics to get the story on the screen. We had the luxury in post to be able to realize we had a couple holes and do some pickup shots of nature stuff.
House of Spoils is now available to stream on Prime.
