EXCL: Stevan Mena on Bereavement

Talks status, music, actors and more…

There’s a reason that both the one-sheet poster and a bevy of photographs have surfaced on-line this past week for Bereavement, filmmaker Stevan Mena’s prequel to his debut feature Malevolence. The long awaited follow-up is finally done!

Mena told Shock that the final cut of the film was completed just last week. One of the biggest challenges Mena told Fango about last month was deciding on how to cut down his already epic film into the traditional normal running time. Despite having to excise one minor sub-plot for time purposes, Mena says, “I couldn’t be happier with it.”

When asked why he dropped the Malevolence sub-title and decided instead on calling strictly Bereavement, Mena explained, “This movie completely stands on its own. You don’t have to know anything about the first Malevolence, in fact it’s actually a benefit if you haven’t seen the first film because there’s certain obvious twists in this movie that for people who have seen the first film are going to be obvious, but if you haven’t it’s going to be a surprise. So better that you don’t see it and then go watch Malevolence right after this one.”

One of this writer’s personal favorite aspects of the original film was Stevan Mena’s fantastic score, which evoked the classic feel and themes of Charlie Bernstein, John Carpenter and Wayne Bell. Howling Wolf Records gave the entire score a proper CD release last year and Mena once again encores as the composer of the prequel. While it’s mostly all new music, Mena confesses that we will recognize a few themes that hearken back to the original. “Sutter’s theme from the first movie is the main theme for this film. For example, when he’s reading from the book in the last movie, that recurring theme is Sutter’s theme in this movie. That’s probably the only piece of music you’re going to recognize. The ending was originally temped with the opening theme from the first film, but we replaced it at the last minute with something that I felt was so much more suitable and made for a perfect end theme. But yes, there are some themes that will recur.”

In terms of the actors, Bereavement features a group of some of the most talented and promising currently working in film. Alexandra Daddario, who just appeared in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief carries this pic as the sympathetic lead Allison along with fan favorite actor Michael Biehn playing her uncle and guardian Jonathan Miller. But the actor to keep your eyes on is Brett Rickaby, who portrays serial killer Graham Sutter and who just appeared in this weekend’s remake of The Crazies.

“All I can tell you is this guy in my book is already a legend,” gushes Mena about Rickaby. “As far as one of the greatest people I’ve ever met, certainly as one of the greatest actors I’ve ever worked with. Just a complete collaborator. He got completely lost in this character and there were times I had to talk him down off the ledge, because he was so lost in the character of Sutter. There were times we were actually scared and you can quote me on that! There were people in the crew – as nice as this guy was, there’s a part of him that got so lost, he seemed like he had a screw loose. I can’t wait for people to see his performance.”

We’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear release details for Bereavement. In the meantime, check out the one-sheet poster and over 50 stills from the flick in our database right here. Below is a making-of featurette put together by the Icons Of Fright crew.

Source: Rob G.

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