Starring Val Kilmer, Armand Assante
“Green” seems to be the rising name of the game in horror. In the last year and half, filmmakers have been imbuing their bloodshed with a “love Mutha’ Earth” sorta message with varying degrees of success (we’re lookin’ at you Shyamalan). The latest horror film with an eco-aware eye is The Steam Experiment from director Philippe Martinez.
Currently filming in the verdant environs of Grand Rapids, Michigan, it’s written by Rob Malkani and stars Val Kilmer as a professor yearning to get his hypothesis about global warming front page newspaper exposure. His theory suggests mankind is devolving into chaos due to rising temperatures. To prove this, he captures a group of strangers and uses them as test subjects, locking them in a Turkish steam bath. He’ll only reveal their location to the authorities if his findings garner the media attention he thinks they deserve.
Armand Assante plays the detective on the professor’s trail; Patrick Muldoon, Eric Roberts, Eve Mauro, Quinn Duffy, Cordelia Reynolds and Megan Brown play Kilmer’s guinea pigs.
Over the weekend, ShockTillYouDrop.com gabbed briefly with Mauro who called in from Grand Rapids to talk to us about her part and the film. The actress, who stars in Wicked Lake, recently wrapped The Devil’s Dungeon and, on the other end of the budget spectrum, Universal’s Land of the Lost. Busy girl.
“Armand’s all wrapped up, and Val wrapped a couple of days ago,” she says, giving us an update on how far along Steam is in shooting. “I’ve only shot one scene so far, that’s with Val – an interview scene, then we’re going to start rehearsals tonight for the steam room. Val Kilmer is the nicest f**kin’ guy I’ve ever met. He makes the scene comfortable for you. So professional.”
Describing her character, Jessie, Mauro says the role “is one of the stronger ones, very gritty. Initially she’s a bitch, a waitress with a lot of problems with relationships and she goes into this whole thing for the money. She’s not liking to the surroundings or the people she’s with. She’s very feisty and aggressive, you could say.” So Jessie knows she’s getting involved in an experiment? “We go in thinking it’s a dating service we’ve learned about online. They pay money for all different people. We don’t know what’s going on then we find out we’re locked in a f**kin’ steam room. Things just start unraveling. The temperatures start going up.”
Similar to tightly wound, claustrophobic ensemble pieces like 12 Angry Men, Steam‘s set-up, Mauro says, carries the air of an intimate play. “We work off of each other and we’re all in this room,” she explains. “We’re going to do a read-through of the script one full time with no breaks. The director, Philippe, wants us from today on to be in character the entire time, even off set. It’s going to be really intense. It’s going to take two weeks to recover from this film, like a really bad hangover.”
Global warming, the Mayan calendar, a dash of Hitchcock – all factors in Steam‘s big “mind-f**k” of a plot (we gotta love the mouth of Mauro), but what’s in store FX-wise? Those locked in the steam bath will definitely be experiencing some changes. “You’re going to see interesting things that are not in regular movies, but it is gory and it’s going to get…” Mauro hesitates, laughing before revealing anything too spoiler-y. “You’re going to be surprised by what happens when the craziness sets in and what we do to each other. What the steam does to us. The FX are something I’m looking forward to, the special effects guy showed me sketches and images. We’re going in today and he’s amazing. Great for the people who want to see the blood and guts.”
Keep it here for more on The Steam Experiment and we’ll keep our eyes avidly fixed on Eve Mauro’s budding career.
Source: Ryan Rotten
