Interview: Bobby Roe and Zack Andrews on Making a Sequel & Halloween Traditions for THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT 2

In 2014, The Houses October Built quickly became a modern cult hit among horror fans, and now the entire team has returned for a sequel that features the same of haunt enthusiasts (Bobby Roe, Zack Andrews, Brandy Schaefer, Mikey Roe, and Jeff Larson) who set out to profile a new batch of scare-minded attractions, only to find themselves on the run from the infamous “Blue Skeleton” group that left them traumatized after some terrifying Halloween shenanigans the year prior.

Daily Dead recently caught up with The Houses October Built 2 co-writer/director/co-star Bobby Roe and co-writer/co-star Zack Andrews to discuss how the sequel came to be, keeping Halloween traditions alive, and more.

Look for The Houses October Built 2 in theaters and on Digital HD/VOD on Friday, September 22nd courtesy of RLJ Entertainment.

Congrats on coming back for a sequel, guys. Did you know when you did the first film that this could be a possibility? And did you already have plans for where the sequel would go, or was there something that came about based on the success of the first one?

Bobby Roe: It was always something that we wanted to do. When we both mapped out what we wanted to do with this story, it was actually more about the start of the first film and the end of this film, and the more that we dug into it and started dealing with some time constraints and how big this world was, we kind of saw that the natural break, which is the end of the first movie, was more of an intermission. So when the first movie ended, we hoped that the movie would be well-received enough and did well enough so that we'd be able to finish the story. It was really important to us, and we're really excited that we got to do that.

There’s a bit of a different focus in part two, where you guys aren’t just going to the straight-up haunted houses this time around. Can you discuss mixing things up for this film?

Bobby Roe: When we started digging into this, the big thing was bringing Brandy back and having the audience swallow that idea. It's a pretty big watermelon to swallow, to have her and everyone come on this journey again, so an important part of this storyline was that she's not having to go to the haunted houses like we did before. And for us, from a production side, we wanted to show the audience a variety of events and different styles of Halloween and how it's celebrated.

I thought the stuff in Minnesota was really fun because, honestly, I had no idea Halloween was as big as it was there until I saw this.

Zack Andrews: Yeah, there are 30,000 zombies in that one scene. That's actually a Guinness World Record, too, so to be able to capture that was really cool. Also, just being able to expand our filmmaking repertoire with using the drones and some of the more cinematic shots was great, too.

When you do a documentary-style or found footage movie, everyone is inclined to think it’s the “easy way out,” but I actually feel like it’s a lot tougher than it looks. I would love to hear about trying to work within the confines of the technology, but also making these cameras feel organic to the story, and then managing all that while you guys are still part of the cast, too.

Bobby Roe: Well, I think what also is probably under-appreciated is the challenges for actors in found footage films. There's a lot that goes on in these movies and it's actually really hard to give a natural acting performance when you only have one camera angle that you're supposed to use. When you're making a normal feature, you can do cutaways, so there are a lot of outs. There are not as many outs in found footage, and I think a lot of people just overlook that.

And that's a shame, because the actors are working just as hard as they would on a traditional feature. So, that being said, there's that, and then with what you're saying about the camera angles, we always have to justify who is filming. That's everyone's biggest complaint is who is filming, and who put together the film right at the end. That's what everybody wants to talk about. So hopefully all of that has been answered with this film.

Zack Andrews: The authenticity, too, of what we're trying to pull off, specific to this movie not even just that sub-genre of film is that we are actually at real places and interviewing real people and having these real experiences, and so I think that's the natural way to bring you on this Halloween adventure with us, and if you did it a little bit more traditional, you'd lose some of that, and it just wouldn't be real.

When you guys did the first film, nobody really knew who you guys were, so there was no reference for anyone. Did the first film help you guys when you came to people for this second film and were they super receptive to what you wanted to do?

Bobby Roe: Well, I think there's good and bad that comes with that. With most of these haunts, the scare actors have seen the movie, and that’s awesome, but now you have to be careful, because these scenes can feel staged because now they know they're on camera. They used to never know, so it didn't feel the same. Now they have a reference of the movie like you were saying, so there's that good part about it. But we’ve always structured these movies like Borat, similar to what he did with these real people in real situations. If he tried to make a sequel, it wouldn’t work because that barrier is shattered.

But, since doing the first film, we would get emails, probably a couple every week, from different haunts asking to be in part two, hoping there was a sequel and opening their doors to us, so that was really cool.

Before we go, the one thing I wanted to talk to you guys about was how these films are all about that Halloween spirit. I love that even though you do these different experiences in this, it’s still all about the traditions, moving away from some of these more “extreme” experiences that have become so popular over the last few years.

Bobby Roe: These movies have always been a love letter to Halloween in general for us. I don't know if you've seen the original doc, which is a special feature on the Blu-ray, but that's where it all started. What we enjoy is how innovative and fun you can be inside a haunt. You don't want to hurt somebody. You want to take them through this experience that feels like Disneyland for adults. People who go to these things want to have that same feeling you had when you were six at Disneyland, and I would say it parallels pretty well with a really, really good haunted house and Halloween for adults. But a lot of that is referenced in the quote from the first movie, where it’s the violence that we do against each other that’s scarier than any kind of possible monster.

Zack Andrews: I don't think the typical haunted houses are going too far, either. I know that I've never been fooled into being somewhere that didn't advertise what they are, so that means if you're going to an extreme haunt, you know you're going to an extreme haunt, and that's what you want. It's something they signed up for, and that’s very different than the types of experiences we wanted to explore in these movies. They’re very different.