Ryan Simpkins turns horror tope on its head

Hold onto your nerves, because horror is making a comeback, and it is going to be scary. On circuit right now is one of the most gripping hair raisers released for some time. It’s called The Exorcism and is anything but B-grade. The cast is A-list and the tension real.

The Exorcism is a film about a film, the plot imagines supernatural events surrounding the production of horror’s classic possession flick The Exorcist in 1973; Ryan Simpkins plays the role of Lee Miller, the daughter of Anthony Miller, played by Russel Crowe. Simpkins’ Lee is a central character in the film, as she becomes increasingly concerned about her dad’s deteriorating mental state while working on the set of a horror movie. It’s a scary movie, with added spice and segues.

Was ‘The Exorcist’ set haunted?

Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce and Adam Goldberg also count amongst the stellar cast along with musician Chloe Bailey. It’s a possession flick that’s got all the elements of classic horror along with twenty first century upgrades.

Simpkins said that the film challenges the genre’s familiar, well-worn conventions. “We love horror, we love the genre, and we love the movies that came before,” Simpkins said. But the film’s creators, Simpkins said, saw an opportunity to bring something new to the table, something that reflected their own perspectives and challenged the status quo, from the plot through to possession.

“Why is it always that a man must save a young woman? Why is it the young woman that’s always in this vulnerable, scary position? What would it look like if a man was in that position instead and the woman was the one with the power?” she said these were the kind of questions explored in the story.

“It was really exciting to confront those tropes and flip them on its head,” Simpkins said. There are also, as she called it, queer elements to the film that would not have been okayed by audiences and critics decades ago while, conversely, past stereotyping doesn’t exist in The Exorcism.

Horror flicks have a formula

“I think what makes a horror film work is, you start in a grounded place… and then all this awful stuff happens on top of that,” she said and added that The Exorcism is a love letter to traditional horror movies.

On set it was as intense as the film itself, Simpkins described an almost metaphorically haunted environment. The ghosts of classics like The Exorcist and The Omen. “It was really hard work. Our days were really long… it felt like you were sort of locked in a time loop,” she said.

This intensity wasn’t just a result of the gruelling production schedule but also the weight of the film’s subject matter. The story’s exploration of trauma, possession, and psychological horror created a charged environment that the cast and crew inevitably felt. Simpkins shared that this atmosphere was both challenging and motivating, pushing everyone involved to create something that would honour the legacy of the horror films that inspired them while also forging a new path.

From Frasier to freaking scary: David Hyde Pierce

Simpkins said each cast member brought something different to the project, contributing to a dynamic on-screen experience. “Chloe Baily comes from the music world, then you have David Hyde Pierce, who’s a comedy veteran. Russell is movie star level and Adam Goldberg’s like a weird character actor,” Simpkins said.

She loved her colleagues and said Hyde Pierce was one of the sweetest, loveliest and most fun people. She said his presence on set not only provided a sense of levity in a film full of dark themes but also helped ground the more intense moments with a sense of warmth and humanity.

This camaraderie extended across the entire cast, she said, “It was very collaborative… Russell honestly made me feel empowered to share my voice on set, and he is an absolute work-machine,” Simpkins said.

In real-life Simpkins said that she has not experienced anything supernatural. “I’ve never seen a ghost. Thank God. If somebody tells me they have, I believe them. Because, like, why wouldn’t you?” she asked.

“It’s not that I don’t believe in it, but I haven’t experienced it. I’m open to it being real. But I also don’t want it to be real, because that would really scare me, really badly.”

Simpkins has never seen a ghost

The closest she has ever come to the supernatural was when an Uber driver related an experience of his own to her en route somewhere. “He told me that there was an entity that kept on changing the way in which he closes his curtains at home,” she said.

He would do it a certain way, come home after work, and it would be different. She said she didn’t discount the possibility that it was very real to the driver.

“It’s a great time for horrors because people are looking for escapism,” she said. “The world is such a horrific place right now and has been for a while. There’s war, there have been three strikes in Hollywood, everything is uncertain,” she said.

The popularity of superhero films was the first wave of escaping to other worlds and now, Simpkins said, as the genre fades, horror is a natural next course in the entertainment buffet.  “When everything is in question and the industry feels so scary, the movies that would come out of it are innovative horror films.”