Jon Heder is a horror buff.
This becomes apparent just a few minutes into a Zoom call, when he cites the sixth film in the massive “Friday the 13th” franchise as his favorite.
He’s a big fan of 1980s classics like “The Shining” and “The Thing.” He loves the “chill factor” of “Rosemary’s Baby.” And while he doesn’t consider the 1993 film “Fire in the Sky” to be horror, it’s one he’ll often recommend to people for a Halloween night watch.
Over the years, he’s watched a lot of horror movies. A few have really stuck with him. A lot more have wasted his time.
But in pretty much all of them, the “Napoleon Dynamite” star known for his offbeat brand of comedy has had a similar mindset.
“Rarely do I sit there thinking, ‘Gosh, I gotta be in one of these.’”
Yet, on this Wednesday morning, just a couple of days before Halloween, the actor is a little groggy because he’s just woken up after doing a night shoot in Toronto, Canada, for an upcoming horror-comedy film called “The Big Kill.”
And this isn’t even his first horror film.
He’s dabbled in scares on the big screen throughout his career. There’s the character he voiced in the 2006 animated film “Monster House,” and the 2016 movie “Ghost Team” — which he actually described as more of a “bizarro” genre than horror.
But categorically, the movie he considers to be his first true horror effort is an indie film that was shot over 10 days in Provo, Utah, in a house just north of his alma mater, BYU.
That film, “I See the Demon,” has been generating buzz this year. In March, it premiered at San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival; it won best screenplay and best feature film at Grimmfest in Manchester, England; and it was most recently an opening night feature at Provo’s FilmQuest.
The film will likely have a PG-13 rating and a domestic release in the near future, according to Salt Lake City-based director Jacob Lees Johnson.
For Utah viewers, Heder probably won’t be the only familiar face: “I See the Demon” also stars Mallory Everton, an original member of the BYUtv sketch comedy show “Studio C.”
Heder and Everton, who are both deeply entrenched in the world of comedy, chatted with the Deseret News about working on “I See the Demon” — and if the sci-fi/horror/psychological thriller marks a new direction in their careers.
‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ ‘Studio C’ stars team up for horror film
Everton’s last two films were comedies — including a Monthy Python-esque Oregon Trail adventure where her character had dysentery.
So when she got the script for “I See the Demon,” the initial horror stemmed more from the idea of doing the film than the storyline itself.
“I was like, ‘Are you aware that I have only done pretty much pretty zany comedy?’” she said with a laugh. “I was really flattered, but also immediately scared.”
But Johnson, the director who studied film at BYU and had come to know Everton through the program, didn’t hesitate in his decision — and actually believed Everton’s comedy chops were crucial for the film.
At the start of “I See the Demon,” a woman named Lucy (Alexis Zollicoffer, “Freaky Tales”) sees a strange object floating in the sky right before coming home to a surprise birthday party with her friends.
As the party carries on, Lucy realizes she doesn’t remember details about her day. Around her, unsettling moments unfold that only she seems to notice — and her friends are disarmingly quick to tell her there’s nothing to worry about.
The idea in bringing Everton and Heder onto this film, Johnson said, was to create a “natural believability between comedic and serious.” The bulk of the film’s 82-minute runtime centers on ensemble scenes at the birthday party, and to make that work — to make it seem like a real group of friends — Johnson needed some levity.
“I just think he did such a good job of utilizing people like me and Jon to help tell the story, and help really make the the ensemble click in the way that it needed to for the film to really sing,” Everton said. “It’s the director’s job to help (actors) understand what movie they’re in. And Jacob just killed that. He just crushed that.”
For Heder, the ensemble nature of “I See the Demon” was a big draw. He loved the “summer camp feel” of hanging out with the entire cast and working through scenes together. It was somewhat of a throwback to the early days of his career, before “Napoleon Dynamite” catapulted him to fame.
“When I first started doing studio films, you’d have such a great time with the cast. And then ... ‘Oh, we’re gonna break,’ or ‘We’re done with this scene,’ and everybody goes to their big trailers,” he said. “There’s kind of almost a coldness there. Not that it’s on purpose or the people, it’s just kind of how this thing is set up.”
Even during the short timeframe of filming “I See the Demon,” Heder bonded with the cast. It marked his first time working with Everton, who was 15 years old when she saw “Napoleon Dynamite” at a theater in Portland, Oregon.
“It’s always nice to meet a hero and have them turn out to be Jon Heder,” she said. “And that’s just to say that he’s even more wonderful in person. I can see why he’s been so successful, because he is a true joy to work with.”
‘Everybody contains multitudes’
Even though he’s currently in Canada shooting a horror-comedy, roughly two years after filming “I See the Demon,” Heder doesn’t consider this to be the horror movie era of his career.
He’s filmed a few things in between that are decidedly out of the horror realm — including “Thelma the Unicorn,” an offering from “Napoleon Dynamite” creators Jared and Jerusha Hess.
”I’m not, you know, privy to one genre over another,” he said, noting that it’s more about being drawn to a story and believing he has something to contribute.
That’s true for Everton, too — but she also hopes “I See the Demon” won’t be her last horror film.
She knows that could potentially be a challenge, since she’s best known for her comedy. But out in Los Angeles, where she now lives, she’s also been working more on her own screenplays and writing music — another new direction in her career.
“Everybody contains multitudes, but people only know about the thing you’ve done first a lot of the time,” she said. “They don’t know that you have interest in a different genre, or that you have interest in a different medium. And so there is definitely always a concern that people aren’t going to embrace all of you, that they only really want this part of you.
“But I think it’s just a pain point that hopefully anybody on any interesting adventure is going to have to deal with,” she continued. “People are going to have to continue to let you expand, and let you move into different areas and try new things. So it’s definitely present, but not something that you let steer the car.”
For now, Everton is enjoying the horror movie ride.
The final product for “I See the Demon,” which was filmed on a modest budget even by indie standards, is a testament to its director, she said.
“My dream for this film, and for Jacob in general, is that people understand that if he was able to pull off this much with this little, just imagine what he could do with even slightly more resources — or perhaps double, triple, or 10 times the resources,” she said. “I just think he’s the real deal.”