Kevin Bacon Reveals Why He Keeps Coming Back to Horror

August 14, 2022

During an interview with ComingSoon, They/Them star Kevin Bacon discussed his history with horror films and why the genre is so exciting for him.

When asked about his long relationship with the horror genre and They/Them, Bacon talked about the unique setting and high stakes:

“I love horror because horror has very, very high stakes. It’s life and death, and that’s good stuff to act,” Bacon said. “John could have made a movie that was about gay conversion. It could have been a dark little indie sort of drama, but to his credit, he realized that horror is a genre that has the possibility of reaching a lot of people. We see that all the time when things come out of the gate and have a very widespread appeal. So to take this background, this terrible idea, this horror in itself of gay conversion, and then plug it into a very traditional structure, for us — a 70s camp slasher movie — was, I thought, a super brilliant idea.”

Bacon also spoke more specifically about his character from They/Them, the charmingly menacing Owen Whistler:

“To his [John Logan, director of They/Them] credit, he wrote a guy that was not a cookie cutter, crew cut, flag-wearing, right-wing or religious nut, you know? He wanted to soften the edges of this character and make him a little bit more of a Dead fan or something and make him feel as reasonable as possible,” Bacon explained. “I think that when you set that up, then there’s room to really shock people in a way that happens later on in the film, obviously.”

“Kevin Bacon plays Owen Whistler in this slasher horror film set at an LGBTQIA+ conversion camp,” says the synopsis. “Several queer and trans campers join Whistler for a week of programming intended to “help them find a new sense of freedom”. As the camp’s methods become increasingly more psychologically unsettling, the campers must work together to protect themselves. When a mysterious killer starts claiming victims, things get even more dangerous.”