A New Horror Film Turned a Richardson Theater Into a Puzzling, Scary Story of Artistic Sacrifice

Anyone who's been in a stage production – whether it's for a civic theater or a Broadway stage — knows there is one word you NEVER say during the run: Macbeth.

The curse of William Shakespeare's bloody tragedy became a "Betelgeuse"-esque death chant to actors and crew members in the 17th century leading up to its premiere at the Hampton Court in London before King James I. According to the legend chronicled by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the production was riddled with grisly mistakes. The actress who played Lady Macbeth died before opening night. Stage knives were replaced with real ones, leading to stabbings during rehearsals including one that killed the actor playing King Duncan.

If anyone says the name "Macbeth," theater crews and casts will come up with chants, handshakes and God knows what else to lift the curse. Some theater companies take it even further, says writer and director Ezekiel Decker.

"Some theaters have the ghost light that they leave out on the stage overnight," Decker says. "It's either to keep the ghosts away or keep the ghosts company, something like that. I'm not the overly superstitious type, but I tend to play it safe with that kind of stuff."

Decker and co-writer Logan Rinaldi have spent a lot of time in theaters, seeing these bizarre, harmless rituals play out before opening night. It made them wonder what it would be like if one theater troupe took it to such an extreme that lives would have to hang in the balance to expunge the theater curse. So they wrote a new feature-length horror thriller called The Woman Under the Stage, directed by Decker and filmed at The Core Theatre in Richardson. It premieres on Thursday, Aug. 3, at the Angelika Film Center as part of the USA Film Festival.

The independent horror film stars Jessica Dawn Willis as a promising actress who scores a lead role in a big but bizarre theatrical production that requires a high level of commitment and dedication to its production. But it's not just a bloody, screaming slasher flick. It's methodical, mysterious and downright scary to watch as Willis unravels the story behind her situation and this meticulous artistic effort.

The Woman Under the Stairs has been in development for more than a year on a $30,000 budget, a third of which came from crowdfunding. It has received some glowing early reviews from film websites such as Dread Central and JoBlo. So it appears to be resonating with an audience eager to see what Decker and his team have put together.

"Robbie came to me with an idea based off an old short film we had done about an actor in a stage play who goes crazy and starts killing people in the production," Decker says. "We thought, hey, what if we take that it flip it on its head and make a stage production that's kind of culty and an actress who thinks she's going to be killed in the production?"

The production scouted theaters all over Dallas and beyond for a suitable location and they settled on The Core Theatre, which allowed them to shoot at night. Even though the film can feel very closed-in at times, Decker insists the Richardson theater space is quite spacious and gave them a lot of room to create the shots they needed. 
"The Core really stood out to us as something that felt like it has a nice scale but also has a very isolating feeling that works nicely with our story," Decker says. "The movie is supposed to feel claustrophobic, and I'm not saying their theater is claustrophobic but we're able to move things around to make it feel that way at times."

The movie isn't just about delivering scares. It paces itself so it can explore more important and timely themes about the sacrifices and even abuses some artists are willing to endure just to deliver their vision and help it live long after its closing curtain.

"These days with [the film company] A24 releasing films like The Witch and Hereditary, I think horror spreads itself out and gives more than what people are expecting from it," says producer Mitch McLeod, who met the director while working on the set of Decker's 2019 indie existentialist film Dancing With Myself. "It dives into a lot of heavy themes like what someone is willing to sacrifice to obtain immortality for their art and also kind of delves into sometimes abusive attributes that go along with the art world that go along between the artist and everyone else.

"It's very much a human piece," McLeod adds, "just as much as it's a drama and it's a horror."

Decker says the film's central message also points to those times when artists go over the line to get something they want committed to celluloid, the canvas or the stage. It's a story that's played out so many times in the rise of the #MeToo movement that it risks becoming so reactionary that we become numb to the shock of such deplorable behavior.

"Becoming an artist, you can push yourself really far to do things that can be really uncomfortable and maybe even get yourself hurt and I think it's important that ...  I want to really tell a story that comes a bit more at the question, 'Was it all worth it?'" Decker says. "'Was it worth it to put yourself through that and achieve certain things?' I hope people talk about the movie and is it worth it to put ourselves through hell to achieve artistic endeavors."