Blood and carnage have followed Julian Richings everywhere since he relocated from Oxford, England to Toronto, Ontario in the mid-eighties.
Even though IMDb lists over 214 credits to Richings’ name, the 65-year-old character actor is best known for a string of horror projects, including such films as “A Christmas Horror Story”, “Saw IV”, “Wrong Turn”, “Urban Legend” and “Mimic”. Then there are the numerous television roles on “Supernatural”, “Channel Zero”, “Hannibal”, “Bag of Bones”, “Kingdom Hospital” and “War of the Worlds”. Richings obviously feels at ease in this creepy genre.
“I love telling stories about our deepest fears and phobias,” Richings tells ET Canada. “I think it’s something that unites us all. Right from fairy tales, they go into the dark aspects of our life. Horror is not just about our fantasies and our dreams, Freedom 55, and all the beautiful teeth that we can have and the beautiful shapes that we can be. It’s about the fears, the underlying phobias that we all carry. That’s very valuable and rich material.”
Richings doesn’t stray far from home in his latest terrifying endeavour, “Anything for Jackson”. Currently available on streaming platforms, the terror tale casts him as Henry, one half of an elderly Satanist couple. Along with his wife Audrey (Sheila McCarthy), the pair are grieving over the recent death of their grandson.
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Their solution: Kidnap pregnant young mother, Shannon (Konstantina Mantelos), in order to implant their grandson’s soul into her unborn child. But dabble in the dark arts and something is bound to go horribly wrong… and does. The movie could have spiralled into cliché horror territory, but Richings responded to the narrative’s more human elements such as loyalty to a partner.
“There’s this idea of a couple with a very long relationship,” Richings says. “They are both dealing with grief very badly. It’s tearing them apart, particularly Audrey. Henry, in some ways, is an enabler. He tries to make sure she is OK. He kind of goes along with her ideas of reclaiming their past, even though they are misguided. It’s his love of Audrey further and further down this path. That’s a really interesting, complicated territory to explore.
“Plus, just the fun of working on a movie with a partner,” he adds. “We often go on solo, heroic journeys, but this is very much the journey of a couple and the inner dynamics of a couple. That’s something that isn’t often explored with depth.”
Henry and Audrey’s age also factors in. It’s not often that an older demographic gets represented in the horror genre. Richings says, “There’s a lot of significance in that” and “it’s why this movie has resonated with so many people.”
“I think underneath everything, there’s an idea that our elders are making some very poor decisions for our younger generation. Our elders want the world to be just as they thought it was, some sort of magical idea of how it used to be. As a result, they are making some poor decisions,” he explains.
“And they are definitely not given a free pass,” he continues. “These decisions that they make are wrong and foolish. They are in way over their heads. The interesting thing about the movie is what happens is the young woman who initially enters the film as sort of a victim, as a third person, gets stronger and stronger. It’s important she’s not a vulnerable pregnant woman in an offensive manner. She’s a woman with a viewpoint and a plan to get herself out of it. It makes for a very interesting three-way dynamic. It’s not just two people oppressing a younger person.”
“And, then it gets even more complex when the outcast member of the satanic group becomes embroiled in the things,” he adds. “It suggests a satanic group isn’t necessarily an evil group, but perhaps it harbours some very unwell and disturbed people. The actual group itself is treated quite warmly and as a community.”
“Anything for Jackson” comes off as an old-school tension-builder in the same vein as “Rosemary’s Baby”. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of more modern-day, in-your-face horror. Contorting dead bodies, a snowblower that isn’t just for clearing the driveway– It’s enough to elicit chills from anyone. Richings admits he enjoys both spectrums of gore and suspense.
“The yuck factor isn’t there when you are on set,” Richings says. “It looks what it is, a bucket of red liquid. It’s just uncomfortable and strange when you are there. You don’t get the shock. Either one is OK for me. Personally, for me, when I am watching a movie, I prefer the subtle approach more than the full-on shock horror. That’s my druthers.”
“The beauty of both of those, for an actor, is when you are on a horror film, there is a sense that you park your actor’s ego at the door, and you make the scene work,” he offers. “Generally, it’s a scare or a build-up to a moment of revelation. It’s really less about an individual’s motivation and it’s more about the rhythm of the scene. Often, horror film sets are the calmest and fun to be on because everyone is working towards the same goal.”
Not every movie ending wraps everything up in a tidy, little bow. Whether Henry and Audrey succeed, whether Shannon escapes or whether a demonic presence makes it to Earth would constitute a huge spoiler. However, the ambiguous final scene leaves things open to interpretation and fan-theory speculation. And that’s just fine with Richings.
“What I don’t like is when endings are vague and ambivalent,” Richings concludes. “I feel this is an interesting ending. It doesn’t tie things up. It doesn’t make it a neat, ‘Oh, well he got his comeuppance and she got what she deserved.’ It’s more of a sense of the journey continues. We are very much focused on the young mom-to-be.”
Next up for Richings is another horror vehicle, “Chapelwaite”. Adapted from Stephen King’s short story, “Jerusalem’s Lot”, the TV event serves as a prequel to his second novel, “Salem’s Lot”. The 10-episode series takes place in the 1850s and finds the leads confronting an ancient darkness that has plagued their families for generations.
“Unable to spill many details except that he’s portraying Adrien Brody’s uncle, Richings notes, “it will come as no surprise about the kind of character I am playing.” “Chapelwaite” also marks Richings’ third dive into King territory after “Bag of Bones” and “Kingdom Hospital”.
“The way that King writes is really the perfect launch pad for cinema,” Richings concludes. “He writes scripts that can be taken and have a sensibility that is cinematic. Because this was a short story, the show’s two writers have taken it and expanded it. They are also obviously familiar with the world of Stephen King and the kind of fear seeping into this community in New England. It’s great and scary.”
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