The official lowdown goes like this: Theyve been the best of buddies for more than a decade, but now theyre changing getting married, getting promoted, going bald, going insane. During a male-bonding weekend, they will discover a spectral corridor through the woods an impossible hallway where none should be. It will lead these five men into fear, into betrayal, and into the biggest change of them all: By weekends finish…theyll be dead.
Shock spoke to Kelly briefly earlier this week about the film.
Shock Till You Drop: In my review, I cited The Corridor’s Stephen King/Richard Kelly influence – now that I have you on the phone here, you’re probably going to tell me I’m way off, right?
Evan Kelly: [laughs] A lot of the influences of the film and story would be best suited for our writer [Josh MacDonald], but we all shared a love of Stephen King. It’s not as overt as it has been identified. For example, a lot of people have brought up Dreamcatcher, but I stopped reading King at The Tommyknockers, so I have no idea what Dreamcatcher is and I’ve never seen the movie. I’ve asked people, should I? But I’m told, don’t bother. But I take it as a compliment if someone refers to Stephen King because he does great atmosphere, concept, characters almost second to none.
Shock: Yes, certainly not a bad thing. The Corridor certainly works as a movie about this bond of friends – how much time did these guys spend together before cameras rolled to pull off that plausible friendship on screen?
Shock: You say this “corner of Canada” – how isolated were you and how difficult was it to shoot in those conditions. I mean, you’re in a cabin in the middle of the woods in frigid temperatures…
Kelly: [laughs] The whole challenge of shooting in snow… I was completely naive and thinking, why are there not more films shot in snow? We cannot get production value like freshly fallen snow. We should do something in snow. When Josh started writing, we always had a winter story in mind for a variety of reasons. The logistical challenge of shooting in snow, I got a lot of my ignorance removed from me. It’s really hard to shoot in snow. We were not wildly removed from civilization, but the first morning we were way out anticipating our crew to stake out everything and that night, we got a foot and a half of snow. It was heavy. We were all up at 4 a.m. trying to get someone who could bring a plow in for the access road so we could even shoot at all. If you make it through those challenges, there are some incredible scenes where the snow is heavy on the branches and looks great. It’s also hard to reset snow. We do a take, how do we reset the snow? Do we get a snowblower or fill it back in? You think about the times you shoot in sand. The snow we were getting turned into ice. Rock solid. We knew most of what we were shooting in wide shots would be a single take chance.
Shock: There’s a slow burn quality – ableit an engaging one – however, it erupts into some crazy violence…
Shock: So, now that The Corridor is seeing a release, what have you been at work on?
Kelly: Due to the indie nature of things, for the last three and a half years of prepping it, completing it and managing everything on a daily basis – and the needs of maintaining a job – I do not have anything right now. But I am looking for the next film to do and take the next step. Our writer Josh just finished his first directing gig, a short film, so keep an eye out.
