All Pumped Up for Horror

Toronto Notebook: Thandie Newton & Hayden Christensen, All Pumped Up for Horror
Though they’re stalking the red carpet for Toronto’s Midnight Madness program with the creepy Vanishing on 7th Street, Thandie Newton and Hayden Christensen both have happy memories of Toronto.

Christensen also has a strong affinity for Toronto. “I grew up here, so this is home. I don’t get to spend an awful lot of time here, but I feel like I’m a true Torontonian at heart, so it’s nice that we have such a great festival here. The city really comes alive for it.”

Alive is good. Which brings us to the two stars’ film, Vanishing on 7th Street, where remaining among the living is a tricky business. A creepy low-budget horror film from director Brad Anderson, Vanishing is a spooky end-times scenario where nearly everyone has disappeared, shadows move with a life of their own and darkness comes on ready to kill.

As Christensen says, “I enjoy a good scare. But [Vanishing on 7th Street], for me, sort of goes beyond the genre and allows an audience to not be so overly manipulated and really kind of think about what they’re watching. This is my type of horror film.”

How do Newton and Christensen maintain their energy for extensive freak-out scenes of emotional intensity and terror? Newton laughs: “Emergen-C packets.” Christensen, linking motion and emotion, explains his method for madness: “Lots of pushups right before you shoot.” Newton agrees: “I was always jogging up and down on the spot. It helped.” Read All ?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Articles, Events, Vanishing on 7th Street. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.