The career of Kevin Lewis could make a fine movie on its own — after making a series of lo-fi films, there was a long absence of Kevin Lewis projects until he returned 13 years later with a bonkers Nicolas Cage movie (Willy’s Wonderland), but he nearly died before he could see it released. Fortunately, he recovered to see that film’s success and is now busier than ever, with multiple anticipated horror projects on the horizon.
His current film, The Accursed, follows up Willy’s Wonderland with a more restrained horror story about mothers and daughters, guilt, and inner demons. In the film, Elly returns home after the death of her mother, a schizophrenic woman she left behind in an act of survival, though her guilt obviously plagues her. Perhaps it’s that guilt (and a desire to get away from her mother’s creepy home) that convinces her to take a weekend job as a caregiver for a woman in a coma, an old friend of Elly’s mother. While there (in the standard ‘cabin in the woods’), Elly is not only haunted by her past but by the feeling that the old, comatose woman has something very, very wrong with her. Lewis spoke with MovieWeb about his career and journey to make The Accursed.
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The Absence of Kevin Lewis and His Return With Willy’s Wonderland
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After the 2007 film The Third Nail, it looked like Lewis had taken a prolonged break or disappeared from the film, but of course, that would be misleading. “Well, I have four kids out of it,” laughed Lewis. “I was on some projects, and they were just stopping and starting, and at the time it was just so frustrating because I had so many of these things going and then they kind of collapsed […] It’s funny because on IMDb, they don’t really show you all the work you put in.” Instead of becoming cynical, Lewis focused on himself and eventually reemerged triumphantly.
“I’m a big believer that you’ve just got to take a break from things sometimes. I just needed a recharge and a reboot, and to kind of reignite my passion for filmmaking. And maybe that takes a long time,” said Lewis. “I just kind of took a breather, and then I got that script to Willy’s Wonderland, and that just didn’t happen overnight. That took a while, and Nic [Cage] was so loyal. He really wanted to make that movie.”
Willy’s Wonderland followed a wonderful Nicolas Cage as a silent drifter who pays for his broken-down car by cleaning a spooky, abandoned family party palace reminiscent of Chuck E. Cheese, where demonic animatronics try to kill him. The Five Nights at Freddy’s style film was a hit and energized Lewis like practically nothing else had in a long time. “When I made Willy’s, it was like I had that zest to make movies again,” said Lewis. “It reignited my passion, and I was just really excited. I treated that movie like it was my last, like I was never gonna make anything else. I put everything I had into it.” In a brutal turn of events, it almost did become Lewis’ last.
Lewis on Life After Covid
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Lewis wrote a moving piece for Indie Wire about his nearly fatal case of Covid-19 in the weeks leading up to the release of Willy’s Wonderland. “I was rushed into the ER with COVID-19 viral bilateral pneumonia and two blood clots in my lungs. My world had changed. I was not staring into the abyss, I was living it,” wrote Lewis.
“After spending several days in complete agony with an oxygen mask blowing into my lungs at 100 mph and blocking my vision, I was not getting better — I was getting worse. It was decided by my doctor that I was to be admitted to the ICU for 24-hour monitoring.” He spent a terrifying week in the ICU battling for his life, a fight he won with the help of his family and an amazing staff of medical professionals.
“That really changed things,” said Lewis. “When I got out of the hospital, I just wanted to enjoy life, seize the moment, and try to really work and make some movies and art. So, The Accursed came along, and it was just the perfect storm of everything.” After so many frustrations, stops, starts, and scares, things seemed to actually go well with The Accursed, and they still are with his next films.
A Filmmaker’s Hopeful Advice
Lewis continued, describing his personal and cinematic recovery with grace:
Now speaking from the other side of death, the subject so many movies are about (from Lewis or otherwise), the filmmaker has a new perspective, and it seems to be fueling his craft. “My advice is — you never give up. You just never know where you’re gonna be. If someone said to me that I was going to make Willy’s Wonderland with Nic Cage five years ago, I’d have said, yeah, right, whatever, but here I am. So you just never know what life has to offer. You have to be open to it.”
I felt like it was meant to be, like it was organic, and that’s really cool. And then with [his upcoming film] Oak, it was kind of the same thing, and I’ve got like three or four others that I’m working on right now that look good. So it’s great. It’s like, okay, so I had a dry spell, things didn’t click or whatever, and now I’m getting a lot more than I bargained for. So it all works out.
Sarah Grey and Mena Suvari Star in The Accursed
In many ways, it was the break from filmmaking and his newly found perspective that is allowing Lewis to make films like Willy’s Wonderland and The Accursed. “What an artist does is kind of take life and sift through it, and then you come out and make your movies or music or whatever. But you have to live a life right? And so I lived a life when I took a break from Hollywood,” said Lewis. “Movies used to be everything. I ate, slept, drank movies. And then I had family and I had kids [and the ICU experience] and everything, so things changed a bit for me and for the better.”
Lewis’ scrape with death changed his actual filmmaking process, which can be seen in the patience and subtly of The Accursed. “It gave me a little more patience and faith, too,” said Lewis. “I think it really taught me to be present in the process, and that as a director, you have to be present for your actors and for what’s going on.”
He was definitely there for Sarah Grey (of The Order fame), who does a phenomenal job as the increasingly disturbed Elly. “She’s great, right?” emphasized Lewis, who showed Grey the Catherine Deneuve film Repulsion to prepare her. It’s a difficult role, a beautiful woman whose sanity one sometimes questions but who warrants a great deal of empathy. “She reminds me of an old Hitchcock ingénue, like Kim Novak of Grace Kelly.” Alongside Grey, The Accursed stars Sarah Dumont and Alexis Knapp, plus a surprising, Nurse Ratchet-style performance from a great Mena Suvari. “I don’t think anyone’s seen her like this before,” raved Lewis. “She lets her freak flag fly, and she’s great.”
The Accursed Follows Women Fighting Their Demons
Aside from a unique combination of demonic possession, generational trauma, witchcraft, and psychosis, the cast of almost exclusively strong women was appealing to Lewis, and also helps The Accursed stand out from many of today’s horror projects. “I got the script, it was about women and it was really organic. I was raised by a single mother and I have two sisters, and I’ve been married for 20 years. I’ve got a daughter who’s 16. So it’s all familiar to me,” said Lewis, whose film passes the Bechdel test with flying colors.
“They’re not talking about their boyfriends, men aren’t rescuing them, we don’t have a boyfriend showing up and getting killed,” said Lewis, listing off the typical horror clichés. “I just think it was really cool that this is a movie about the sins of the mothers revisited on their daughters, and about grief and regret. Honestly, it’s about inner demons and how you need to face your demons, because one way or another you will face them.”
As August Wilson wrote, “Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” The Accursed chronicles that wrestling match with darkness, a fight Lewis knows well and is still winning.
A Blood Red Films and Storyoscopic Films production, The Accursed is available on October 14 through Screen Media Films. You can find theatrical screenings and where to watch the film digitally here.
