Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies | Tagged: heart eyes, Screen Gems, sony pictures, stephen murphy

Heart Eyes Cinematographer on Recapturing 80s/90s Horror Slasher Fun

Heart Eyes cinematographer Stephen Murphy spoke to Bleeding Cool about bringing back "fun" and "escapism" of 80s/90s slashers to cinema.

Valentine's Day isn't an atypical holiday when it comes to the horror genre, given its themes of love, but one can equally make the case that it's perfect, given the pain, heartbreak, and cynicism. Screen Gems & Sony's Heart Eyes offers that change of pace as a dark comedy slasher in the vein of other classics like My Bloody Valentine (1981). Directed by Josh Ruben (Werewolves Within), Heart Eyes follows the theme "Heart Eyes Killer" as it wreaks havoc on Valentine's Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. Cinematographer Stephen Murphy spoke to Bleeding Cool about how the film provides the kind of fun he hasn't seen from his usual projects, sharing his love for 80s/90s slasher films with Ruben, sequencing one of the film's most memorable kills, and his upcoming horror film Primate.

Heart Eyes Cinematographer Stephen Murphy on Recreating the Escapism of the 80s/90s Films

Bleeding Cool: How did you get involved with Heart Eyes?

I came to 'Hard Eyes' through my agent. The producers had reached out to my agent and sent me a script. I looked at the script, and it was an interesting mix of genres. I wanted to meet Josh (Ruben) and see his take on it. I had a good chat with Josh and liked his energy. He's a nice guy and has a great enthusiasm for filmmaking. He particularly loves slasher movies and romcoms, so I thought I'd jump on board and give it a go.

How do you compare this film to your previous work?

It's very different. Everything you do, there are certain similarities and differences. I try not to repeat myself from job to job, so the advantage of being a freelance cinematographer is I can do a romcom one week, do a slasher film another week, or do another job back-to-back that way. 'Heart Eyes' is a lot of fun, and I've spent the last couple of years doing lots of serious stuff, maybe except 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' the last two years have been serious projects. It was nice to do something that was escapism and pure fun.

It's not often that you do horror, but how does 'Heart Eyes' distinguish itself from others, and what was it like helping to bring Josh's vision to life?

The main distinction for me is that any of the horror projects I'd done beforehand had been quite serious and dour, whereas ['Heart Eyes'] was all about escapism and fun. Josh had a clear idea of how he wanted to treat the storytelling to enhance that sense of fun, particularly with how he was going to use the camera and how he was going to cut it. He spent quite a bit of time in prep getting certain key sequences storyboarded so that he could try and describe how he saw that kill or moment. That helped us all get into Josh's way of thinking. It was a nice sign that it was going well when everyone would go to work every day and enjoy killing someone differently.

What was the most difficult sequence for you to cut?

The most difficult technically was the drive-in sequence. The drive-in sequence we shot over maybe four or five nights in the wintertime. It was in New Zealand. It was right on the coastline, so it was quite cold. There were a couple of hundred extras, a lot of moving parts with the cars, and nestled within this sequence is one of the kills that's featured in the trailer where one of the characters gets stabbed through the throat with the camera revealing she'd been killed by pulling back through the gaping wound in the back of her neck.

That was technically complex, shooting it on a motion control rig to try and shoot it in different elements and get the background of the actors, get the prosthetic throat, have a probe lens to travel through the prosthetic throat, and reveal the actress. It just required a little bit of thinking about it, but we had a great team with us, and we spent a lot of time figuring out how to do that shot, how to do the different pieces, and what order to do it. Since Josh is so clear about what he's trying to do and how long he needs the shot to last, it meant we could all…the work we were doing was very focused and specific, so it came off without a hitch, which was great.

As far as creative influences, were there some you noticed how 'Heart Eyes' inspired you with other genre films like 'My Bloody Valentine' (1981), or did it feel more like an original work?

Do you mean what we were talking about as we were prepping the movie?

Yeah, as you're prepping the movie and setting it up?

We figured out pretty quickly that Josh and I were of similar age and grew up loving a lot of the same movies. A lot of our banter was about the same things. Josh loves 'Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives' (1986). That's one of his favorite movies. He is also fond of a lot of romantic comedies. He loves Sam Raimi movies, so we'd be talking about that stuff, like 'Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight' (1995). 'Darkman' (1990), 'The Monster Squad' (1987). A lot of the movies we were talking about had this "fun" quality to it, but they weren't necessarily trying to be incredibly serious.

It was trying to engage the audience on a level of bringing them along for the ride and treating the storytelling with an element of escapism, which both of us feel is a little missing in cinema. Everything's serious now, whereas my memory of going to the movies in the 80s and 90s was that it was more escapism and fun, and you could get a bit of a release from the real world.

Can you tell me anything about your next project, 'Primate?'

The only thing I could say about it is that it's another horror movie, and I got involved because it is in what I would consider an old-fashioned monster movie. For similar reasons, that's something I've always wanted to do. Growing up, I originally thought I was going to be a makeup effects artist. I love monsters and making them, so to get to work on an old-fashioned monster movie where we have a real monster on the set was already good fun.

Heart Eyes, starring Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding, Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Devon Sawa, and Jordana Brewster, is in theaters.

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