By Cleo Falvey
A bucket of fake blood, a couple of floodlights and a camera. That was all that seniors Dillon McGuire and Sarah Sturman needed for the filming of their horror web series “Better Angels.”
McGuire and Sturman first thought of creating a show together when they were in 8th grade after bonding over the genre of horror.
“We both found that we loved writing and had the same fascination with darkness and with evil and gore,” Sturman said. “Gore was a big one. And we came together and we said, ‘Hey, let’s write a screenplay.’”
The web series was filmed in Sturman’s house and around Brookline over the past summer. According to senior Carla Yacoub, an actress in the web series, filming at night outside was creepy but fun.
“It was always a little tense, and we were always scaring each other outside and freaking each other out,” she said. “That’s what it’s about, and it was really fun.”
According to McGuire’s father, Tim McGuire, the web series aims to change peoples’ perceptions of horror.
“I think he thinks everyone thinks of horror movies as slasher movies,” Tim McGuire said. “His take on it is that it’s much more about human behavior and reactions and responses to things than it is about slashing.”
According to Sturman, the show was also about exploring the limits of horror.
“What’s your limit? How far can you push people? Do they fall off the edge?” Sturman said.
The second episode, “Hush Little Baby,” features a psychotic woman who keeps her son locked up because she loves her husband more than her child. According to Dillon McGuire, the horror genre allowed them to confront people with uncomfortable, dark truths they might not want to acknowledge.
“We teach each other that honesty is the best policy but then we punish people for honesty,” Dillon McGuire said. “I think horror is a really powerful genre because in horror, you can ask questions and do things you otherwise couldn’t do.”
According to Sturman, a lot of the horror in “Better Angels” was intended to be from the psychological suspense rather than actual slashing.
“We explore very dark themes and people are either just completely over the edge or veering near there,” Sturman said.
She said the show is also aimed at addressing the mindset of the killers.
“We play a lot with the reactions of the normal people to the psychopaths,” Sturman said.
Dillon McGuire said that filming the web series was an interesting experience because he had the opportunity to play antagonistic, evil characters who were the polar opposite of himself.
Dillon McGuire has been involved in acting ever since the 2nd grade, and has since then worked in many theater productions, such as The F.U.D.G.E Theatre Company’s production of “Macbeth.” He said the change from traditional theater to being on camera was a little strange at first.
“One of the things that’s different is that in theater you’re taught never to break character and never to stop, because in a show you can’t do it over again,” Dillon McGuire said. “But if you’re filming something you can just stop recording and start again. It took a long time for me to get used to the fact that if I made a mistake, it was okay, and that I could start over again.”
In addition, Dillon McGuire said that horror was a way to open serious discussions.
“When you’re watching horror, you’re more accepting of things that aren’t status quo,” Dillon McGuire said. “So I think if you want to make real commentaries about things, a good way to do so is about something that is frightening.”
Cleo Falvey can be contacted at [email protected]
