The Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation sinks its fangs into theaters this Friday, August 26, 2022. Described as “a contemporary horror thriller,” The Invitation tells “the story of a young woman who is courted and swept off her feet, only to realize a gothic conspiracy is afoot.”
That conspiracy involves bloodsuckers of the classic literature variety. Ahead of the film’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with director Jessica M. Thompson about the modern interpretation and its production. The filmmaker shared with us that she filmed her vampire movie in a castle that shares ties with blood-obsessed serial killer Elizabeth Bathory.
But first, why was Thompson interested in Blair Butler‘s script in the first place?
She explains, “It was to me, the Bride of Dracula origin story. That was what captivated me because we haven’t seen that. We’ve done Dracula so many times; let’s do the brides. There are new stories we want to see and want to know about, and we use that as a jumping-off point. It’s more of an inspiration point than trying to stay true to the book or retell it.
“We have some of the characters and some of the character names that come throughout, and I think those are nice little Easter eggs for true Dracula fans. But I hope people are open-minded when they come in because we’ve put a modern twist on those characters.”
Because The Invitation is a modern interpretation of Dracula’s Brides, Thompson wanted that to reflect in the film’s score.
Thompson tells BD, “I told Dara Taylor, our composer, ‘I want to steer away from using traditional instruments, or if we do, we manipulate them so that they don’t sound traditional.’ For instance, there are a lot of strings in the score, but she does a technique and plays them in a different way. Instead of playing them with a bow, she played them with their fingers, creating a different sound. It’s like the score also exemplifies that theme of a contemporary Gothic film, and it was really important to me to use female vocalization. You may not even realize women are singing, but there are quite a lot of women singing in the score. We have three women like the three brides, and they become more haunting throughout. When it’s a beautiful romantic or fairytale moment, it’s a different octave, and we allowed them to expand it.”
That fairytale quality extends to the look of the film, as well. The Invitation features a bold, contrasting color palette.
Thompson shares, “I love that it’s a genre mesh. I’m drawn to those stories, but it is romance meets horror, and it is contemporary meets Gothic. Autumn Eakin, the cinematographer who I worked with in my first feature, The Light of the Moon, and this one, we have a very similar color palette. We use a lot of those oranges and those teals to create that contrast. That’s also going into the layers of the stories we want to tell, which is this upstairs, downstairs. There’s this fairy tale and this nightmare. There are these two worlds going on within the film. That’s something that we wanted to exemplify.
“Also, with the production design, for instance, we walk into this Gothic, beautiful castle, but all the light fixtures are completely modern. Some of them are strange and almost postmodern. That was an intentional design choice that I made with Felicity Abbott, our production designer, to blend these two worlds. To me, it’s like Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel). Evie is our modern woman. She’s our modern every woman, and she’s walking into this old world. Of course, she doesn’t know how nefarious it is and that it’s a cult, but she’s walking. I wanted to create that contrast and those layers throughout the film.”
The Gothic castle setting makes for a character in and of itself. The Invitation shot at the Nadasdy Castle; the location shares a surprising connection with the infamous killer Elizabeth Bathory, making it uniquely perfect for the vampire theme.
“That was always really important to me to find the right castle,” Thompson reveals. “We just by chance happened to be filming in Hungary, which is funny because it’s one of the Dracula origin areas of the world, and it also lent itself to the story well. As soon as I walked up and through the gates to this castle in Nadasdladany, the castle we used, I was like, ‘Oh, this is it.’ It was so stunning. But also, it’s in that English style, which the film is set in countryside England, so it’s in that Tudor style. So it’s the right architecture, and the bones were beautiful.
“Then when I walked in, I saw a portrait on the wall, and I realized it was of Madam Bathory. The Blood Countess. Then I found out the castle was built by Madam Bathory’s great, great-grandson. Whenever there was a strange noise in the castle, everybody was like, ‘What was that?’ There were ghosts in there.”
The Invitation releases exclusively in movie theaters this Friday, August 26.
The post ‘The Invitation’ Director Jessica M. Thompson on the Film’s Connection to Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.