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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Fearful symmetry

Briana Evigan trades her Capezios for pointy weapons in slasher revivals

By: Randall King

11/09/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Here's synchronicity: Briana Evigan arrived in Winnipeg last Friday to shoot Mother's Day, a remake of an '80s horror movie, even while her film Sorority Row -- another remake of an '80s horror movie -- opens in theatres today.OK, the horror genre is all about the remakes these days, so that may not be all that impressive a coincidence.

Try this on: Evigan, 22, is a trained danseuse who first burned up the screen in the lead role of a street-smart hoofer in last year's terpsichorean melodrama Step Up 2: The Streets.

The star of the first Step Up, Jenna Dewan, likewise starred in a Winnipeg-lensed horror-thriller in the role of a vengeful witch-turned-supernatural killer in the 2005 movie Tamara.

It's a happenstance that begs the question: Why do horror movies seem to enjoy putting dancers in harm's way?

"I can see the logic of that," says Evigan in a phone interview. "I'm sure it makes it easier for them to teach us stunts and all that physical stuff because we're very active to begin with.

"You learn a lot and you learn a lot quickly when you're a dancer and you're being choreographed and that helps a lot with the stunt work. It's so quick," she says.

And if the challenges of screaming, running and fighting for your life may seem less satisfying than executing a ball change or a chassè, don't waste your breath telling Evigan.

"For me, that's the fun of the part, doing all the crazy, bloody run/get beat up/beat up somebody else stuff," she says. "It definitely comes easily and I would imagine a lot of it is because of my dancing."

Evigan's mother, Pamela Serpe, was a dancer and her grandmother was a dance teacher. But her dad, Greg Evigan, is an actor perhaps best known as the star of the TV series B.J. and the Bear and My Two Dads.

Between those two influences, Evigan seems to have staked out a place for herself in thrillers. Her resumé also includes a 2008 episode of the NBC horror anthology Fear Itself, which happened to have been directed by Mother's Day helmsman Darren Lynn Bousman.

In Sorority Row, Evigan plays Cassidy, a sister in a sorority whose members are marked for doom after a cruel prank results in the death of a young woman. It's a remake of the 1983 slasher The House on Sorority Row.

It's "a very physical role. There was a lot of fun stuff to work with," Evigan says, relishing in particular a climactic scene in a burning house.

"We were covered in fire retardant gel and it was freezing cold (on location in Pittsburgh) and I have this sequence where I drop through the floor and I'm hanging on by a bracelet," she enthuses. "That was the coolest, most fun part. That took a lot more time and practise and talking and making sure that everything was safe before I did it."

Evigan can't say too much about Bousman's reworking of Mother's Day beyond the filmmaker's disclosure that it is very loosely based on the 1980 film of the same name.

Evigan plays Annette, the house guest of a woman (Jaime King) whose property comes under siege by a psychopathic family under the guidance of a homicidal matriarch, played by Rebecca De Mornay.

Wednesday, Evigan was practising playing pool in preparation for the role, which appears to be the polar opposite of the comparatively nice girl she plays in Sorority Row.

"She's as tough as a nail and sexy as can be," Evigan says. "She's pretty much the girl who's going to intimidate the other girls, and she's a survivor. She wants to survive and fight and you better not get in her way."

Hmm. And does mastery of a pool cue come into play in her fight for survival?

"I can't really say much about (what happens) because they have not released a thing about the stuntwork," Evigan says. "But I'm definitely going to be in there fighting."

Sorority Row opens in theatres today. Mother's Day is shooting in Winnipeg through October and is tentatively scheduled to open around May 9, 2010 -- just in time for Mother's Day.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 11, 2009 D1

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