by James Fletcher
Although most will recognise Angela Sarafyan from her brilliantly fatalist turn as Westworld’s Clementine Pennyfeather, the dystopian town’s oppressed prostitute, the Armenian-American has carved a significant career as one of Hollywood’s finer character actors with guest-roles ranging from Buffy The Vampire Slayer to The Shield, 24, and American Horror Story.
Recently, Sarafyan has been making a mark in the feature film category, with 2021 seeing no less than five inclusions to her resume, including the recent Hugh Jackman sci-fi thriller Reminiscence, the prison drama Caged and comedy-horror King Knight, while her latest, the supernatural horror A House on the Bayou, sees Sarafyan take the lead to headline a sinister Louisiana set chiller as a wife and mother struggling to hold her family together against her husband’s infidelity.
“I think that horror really has this special space, because it can live out our nightmares,” reveals Sarafyan on what attracted her to join A House on The Bayou. “You have cinematic permission to teach lessons about life at times.
“It’s not just blood splatter trying to create a reaction, but in this film, there’s a story here. There’s a lesson here. There’s a journey.
“A journey to where they are and where they end up. The twist and turns are fun to explore because we might think one thing, but then it might be something completely different.”
Although firmly grounded in the horror tropes of America’s Deep South, where legends of musical devils challenge random strangers at crossroads, and sin is far from a conceptual idiosyncrasy, A House on the Bayou does delve into the modern American family dynamic.
Joining Sarafyan in the cast as her flawed husband is Paul Schneider (Tales From The Loop), whose frail masculinity plays flawlessly against Sarafyan’s determined maturity, while the couple’s daughter, Anna, played by Lia McHugh (Sprite from Marvel’s Eternals) rounds out the splintered family who find themselves tormented at a secluded holiday rental by some locals – led by a mysterious youth named Isaac, portrayed by Jacob Lofland (Maze Runner: Death Cure) in a stunningly perverse and creepy turn.
“He’s exactly like that in real life,” Sarafyan comments with a deadpan tone before breaking into a wide smile. “No, I’m kidding. He’s so sweet. He’s so gentle and sensitive. He’s nothing like that. But I loved how he played Isaac. It was really inspiring to watch.
“I absolutely love Paul Schneider,” she continues with a refreshing sincerity. “I really, really, really admire his work. How we went about doing this was interesting because with Lia and Jacob, for example, we would spend time after work, to work on the scenes of the next day and really created this bond together. Kind of like being in theater, you’re rehearsing and then filming the next day and working all day together and coming home and rehearsing, going to sleep. It was this really beautiful thing.
“But with Paul, he was a bit more to himself. Every action creates a reaction, so I built their relationship based on his behaviour, his willingness and who he turned out to be as part of their relationship.”
Releasing under the Blumhouse Television banner, A House on the Bayou is directed by Alex McAulay, who also penned the script and produced under the cover of COVID-19, a factor that Sarafyan admits may have added some ‘method’ to shooting a narrative that takes place in an isolated house in the wilds of Louisiana.
“I think that whole isolation was definitely an addition to this story, but not necessarily because of what was happening on set.
“I think that the isolation of living that way for over a year, or however long it was, added to who we are, who we have become and then came into this story that way. If we really were influenced more directly by the pandemic, I wouldn’t have let Isaac be in that house at all. I’d be like, ‘Peace out, bitches. No, thank you. Go make your food somewhere else’.”
While A House on the Bayou marks a definite shift into leading lady territory for Sarafyan, it would be remiss not to ask her personal thoughts on the supernatural elements of the genre, given that she is obviously comfortable playing in the realms of the fantastical, especially elements of America’s storied folklore.
“There is a lot going on in Louisiana. If you’ve never been to New Orleans, for example, first of all, one thing I will say about New Orleans and Louisiana is the people are delicious.
“And you can go to Louisiana, you can go to New Orleans by yourself and never feel alone because there is art everywhere; that place resonates. But besides that, I would say there’s a lot of history of bad stuff too.
“There are so many ghosts of the past. It feels like the perfect setting for this kind of story.”
A House on the Bayou is available on Digital now
I hope to see this movie soon!