Interview: Director Raymond Creamer dishes on his pregnancy horror movie Goody Goody
There have been plenty of horror movies about demonic babies, such as Rosemary's Baby, It's Alive, The First Omen, among others. Writer/director Raymond Creamer's feature debut, Goody Goody, follows in that tradition, but it's largely a single location film that looks and feels like a single-take movie. The movie also feels relevant in the context of AI medical advice and everyone thinking they're an expert because they Googled something. The film stars Samantha Robinson as Goody, who insists on an at-home birth, despite midwife Sarah (Colleen Foy) urging her to go to a hospital. As the film progresses, the birth turns demonic and frightening.
Goody Goody also stars Colby Hollman as Goody's husband, Jayson, and Zoe Renee as Candace. The film will stream on Shudder beginning September 18.
We recently interviewed Creamer about Goody Goody, including the film's unique style, subject matter, and influences.
This interview was edited for clarity.
The Horror Lounge: How did you develop the idea behind Goody Goody regarding an at-home birth and a demonic baby, and were you inspired by other demon baby films like Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen?
Raymond Creamer: I wasn’t terribly inspired by a lot of movies. I do draw inspiration from movies visually, but when I’m writing, I don’t think too much about other movies. My first love was ghost stories and folklore. I feel that’s a pretty strong current through a lot of what I write.
The first germ for this movie landed in my brain because of a cousin of mine. He and his partner, about 15 years ago, had a home birth. Their midwife waved the yellow flag a bit and said everything was okay but to go to the hospital. They listened to her and everything was fine, but I remember hearing that from him and I thought, what if they couldn’t have left?
When I landed on the film being a pregnancy horror and taking that turn, for me, I was much more interested in doing what those other movies hadn’t done. I love Rosemary’s Baby, but it’s like 95 percent gestation and then they cut do the baby in the basinet and the coven fawns over him.
Once I had written it and felt comfortable with the shape the script had taken, I started seeking out in utero horror films. I still didn’t feel like I had seen this, of zeroing in on the labor. For some folks, that may not work. If you ask any mother, they’ll probably tell you labor is repetitive. [Laughs]. But almost from an experimental level, I wanted to see how far I could stretch that rubber band. There was stuff in the movie that I liked but I was cutting until we locked it. You can’t do this for 81 minutes. An audience will do it for 80, but not beyond that. From the beginning, I wanted to keep it lean and mean. There is an inevitability to it. You open on a woman in labor. That baby has to come out one way or the other. That was the end game we were hurdling towards. There was a challenge of how to keep that ball in the air for a feature, but I don’t think there’s filler in there.
The Horror Lounge: The style and direction feel like a single-take film. Can you talk about the style of the film?
Raymond Creamer: From a shot construction standpoint, I don’t really know what this is. If something is overcut, I get dizzy and nauseous and check out. I don’t know all the stuff in my creative DNA on that front. As many great movies that have come out over the last 26 years or so, a lot of my favorite movies are from the 60s and 70s. I love John Carpenter. I love George Romero. They let a shot evolve rather than feeling like you have to cut something to ribbons.
If you’re going to do a movie in one room, you have to stick your neck out there. Try to make it more cinematic and use the camera inventively to earn that runtime and earn people’s trust. My least favorite movie is just pictures of people talking. I don’t want to sit and watch people argue in close-up. I want to see how their relationship changes in the frame.
On the day, it was about going in, seeing what the actors were doing, and situate the camera in a way that would best accentuate those dynamics. I wanted to be open to the energy that the movie was giving us, but that starts from a point, for me, that I like seeing the performances evolve. It’s baked into my DNA at this point.
The Horror Lounge: Samantha Robinson goes through so much in this. Can you talk about working with her?
Raymond Creamer: Samantha was the first person to sign on. She was the top of the list for Goody. If she had turned it down, I don’t know who I would have gone to next. I only wanted to work with Samantha on it. The film’s producer represents both of us, she on the acting side and me behind the camera. She read the script, dug it, and was on the character’s wavelength. As many challenges as this project threw at her, not just physically, but the tight schedule and shooting in the middle of the night and middle of winter, there was never a moment when Samantha complained. She understood that this movie was a gauntlet.
Samantha is the body. Colleen is the mind, and Zoe is the spirit. They completed each other.
The one and only time that Samantha had a request for me as a director was when she had to do those contortions. She said she was happy to do it, but that it took a lot out of her. I thought it was a totally reasonable request, considering everything the movie asked of her. She was incredible. It’s important that no one on set ever feel unsafe. That’s of paramount importance for me. Considering all the elements and the pool, as well as the contortions, it was one of those things where I told her she had the right to complain more than she did. [Laughs]. She gave it 100 percent, and I’d say it for the rest of the cast. They put everything into those performances.
The Horror Lounge: Where was this filmed, and other than the at-home birth aspect, why was the single location so important?
Raymond Creamer: We shot in Ely, Minnesota, which is a really small town, north of everything. If you leave there, the next stop is Canada, more or less. It was a beautiful town. The local crew was incredible. They were gung-ho to work on something that wasn’t a local commercial.
With regards to the cabin, a lot of that is intuitive. The script was going to take that shape no matter what. It didn’t make sense to leave that space. We shot all of the stuff in Minnesota and shot the flashback in Los Angeles, where it’s summer all year round. I remember telling the sound team that if the rest of the movie sounds like winter, it has to sound like summer. That to me creates a counterpoint between Goody and Jason’s home and the warmer, more suburban area where Colleen lives. There’s no tension in those daylight scenes in the flashback.
On the one hand, I thought of this script as a bit of a freight chain. It has one destination and we get there as fast as possible. The movie had to take on more of a pot boiler. We had to have them in a pressure cooker. To me, it just made sense, even down to the aspect ratio. I really wanted to highlight the architecture of that space. Inside and outside, everything is closing in and looming in on those characters. To me, the cabin is just as important of a character as anyone else.
Catch Goody Goody when it streams on Shudder beginning September 18.
Comments