Manitoba-born star not afraid for what comes after Sundown

For four weeks in January and February, a creepy movie called Sundown crept into Winnipeg and outlying communities with little fanfare.

But it’s notable in many ways. It’s a female-centred horror production with some exciting talent, including the Manitoba-born star of an upcoming Stephen King adaptation by director Mike Flanagan (Dr. Sleep).

The title Sundown implies a kind of vampire story from director Rebekah McKendry, who shot the horror indie The Elevator Game in Winnipeg in 2022. (She also scripted another locally shot 2022 horror film, Bring It On: Cheer or Die, which she could not attend because she was directing the Lovecraftian thriller Glorious in Mississippi at the same time.)

At the time Cheer or Die was released, McKendry expressed some frustration with shooting films under COVID-19 restrictions, even though they were actually conducive to conveying the atmosphere of The Elevator Game, given that it involved shooting large chunks of the film in an elevator, or in easily enclosed locations in Winnipeg’s Exchange District. Glorious, too, was almost entirely set in the washroom of a roadside rest stop.

At the time, she told the Free Press: “I’ve made a bathroom movie and I’ve made an elevator movie, and now I want to shoot in a field. It’s going to be a western because I don’t want the feeling of four walls around it.”

Shooting Sundown was almost as good as a western, given that it’s a siege movie (think Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo), only with a trio of women holding off a horde of undead ghouls, as opposed to outlaws.

Don’t use the V-word, however.

“We don’t use the word vampire,” McKendry says. “It is three generations of women, a grandmother, a mother and an 18-year-old daughter, who are very estranged and haven’t spoken, and when they do, they can’t do anything but bicker.

“But they have been brought together to a cabin by this lost family member who was murdered. And once there, they find there is something in the woods gathering around them, waiting for sundown. They’re literally seeing these things gather in the shadows of the trees and they realize that they’re completely trapped.”

The youngest of the women is Kay, played by Manitoba actress Summer Howell, 21, who just came off playing the title role in Flanagan’s upcoming miniseries Carrie (set to première in October on Prime Video). Sundown is the first project she has taken on following Carrie.

“I just got back on Halloween from filming for five months in Vancouver. I had a couple months to finally chill, do holidays, and then got right into this one,” Howell says.

“Kay is the daughter of Val and granddaughter to Donna, both of whom are very headstrong and confident women and know what they’re doing all the time, or at least it seems like it until (stuff) hits the fan.”

Val is played by Camille Sullivan (Shoresy) and Donna is played by Irish actress Olwen Fouere.

“Kay wants to be like an adult or at least treated like one, but she’s still a kid at heart and has to deal with a lot of monsters,” Howell says.

Going from a huge Mike Flanagan production to a comparatively small indie film was no problem, Howell says, referring to Shawn Linden’s locally shot 2020 thriller Hunter Hunter which, coincidentally, also featured Sullivan as her mother.

“Obviously, there’s a big difference going from, like, being in a huge studio and everything’s perfectly organized because Mike is very specific with how he works, compared to an indie, where things are more on the fly and ‘Let’s figure it out as we go,’ which I love,” she says.

“I love doing indie projects. Hunter Hunter was one of the best experiences of my life. So, yeah, I welcome it with open arms.”

“(Summer) came as a recommendation,” McKendry says. “I’m friends with some of the directors on Carrie, and so as I started looking at people to cast, her name was thrown in, and I put a call in to my friends who were just fresh off Carrie and they were like, ‘Oh my god, she’s amazing.’ So we just went straight out to her and she has been awesome.”

Perhaps the most famous person involved in the film is executive producer Slash, the renowned Guns N’ Roses guitarist.

A seasoned film producer, Slash invited lots of attention when he showed up in Winnipeg to check out the production, says Winnipeg producer Juliette Hagopian.

“A lot of people on crew wore their heavy metal shirts, like (first assistant director) Kerri Webster, who had her Guns N’ Roses T-shirt on,” Hagopian says.

winnipegfreepress.com/randallking