There’s Something In The Barn Interview: Martin Starr On The Horror-Comedy’s Gruesome Holiday Twist

New horror comedy, There’s Something in the Barn, is currently available to stream on Digital and follows a family who uproots to Norway once they inherit a family estate. Unbeknownst to his parents, Lucas befriends a vindictive barn elf and must play by his rules in order to keep the creature from lashing out. When the family fails to pander to the elf’s demands, their festive Christmas holiday turns into a gruesome fight for survival.

The film is directed by Magnus Martens with Martin Starr leading the cast as Bill. Starr has previously worked on projects such as Silicon Valley, Party Down, and Freaks and Geeks. Additionally, he is known for playing Bodhi in Tulsa King, which is slated to return for season 2 on Paramount+. Amrita Acharia, Kiran Shah, Zoe Winter-Hansen, Townes Bunner, Calle Hellevang-Larsen, Henriette Steenstrup, Paul Monaghan, and Jeppe Beck Larsen complete There’s Something in the Barn’s main cast.

Related

10 Biggest Questions Tulsa King Season 2 Needs To Answer

As fans eagerly anticipate the return of Sylvester Stallone’s collaboration with Taylor Sheridan, Tulsa King’s Season 2 has big questions to answer.

Screen Rant exclusively interviewed Martin Starr about what attracted him to the holiday horror film and the complications of shooting on location in Norway.

Martin Starr Talks There’s Something In The Barn

Screen Rant: I adored this movie. I was stressed, I was laughing, but I was also still really in the Christmas spirit.

Martin Starr: All the Christmas music really helps.

It was a great combination. What attracted you to the film and made you want to get involved in the project?

Martin Starr: I had a connection through Kjetil who was one of the producers. He also produced this movie Dead Snow 2 that I did in Norway. We shot in Iceland, but it’s a Norwegian movie. That’s how I initially was reached out to. I really liked the script. Honestly, I didn’t quite see it in the tone initially that we hit, but it’s really fun to see how much things can change in the edit and how much it just feels like a 90s throwback horror movie or monster movie vibes. It takes me back to my childhood. It’s just a throwback to what I loved about watching movies when I was a kid and what made me want to be an actor.

What are your thoughts on stories that put a gruesome twist on the holiday?

Martin Starr: I like sitting down with some popcorn and lighting the fireplace and getting to snuggle up with family and watch something that reminds you how fun the holidays are, while also being a little bit gruesome and funny and playful and hopefully a little bit scary at times. I guess it depends on how sensitive you are.

What’s it like going back and forth between these scenes where you’re putting up lights and doing Christmas activities with holiday music and then having to switch gears and fight for your life?

Martin Starr: That’s fun. I like it. I like shooting the action sequences. All of the play fight stuff is fun. We rehearsed for that for days and tried to make it look as seamless as possible. It’s really a fun part of movie making for me.

Can you share some insight into filming the stunts and those action sequences? There are so many fun chaotic scenes in the second half of this film.

Martin Starr: There are very few digital effects other than a little bit in the chase sequence, but the majority of it was all practical effects. We all got splattered with blood when the cop gets killed. All that was real. Especially in a world where you can do an entire movie just sitting in front of a green screen, it’s really fun to get to interact with the environment and feel everything and actually go through the journey that the characters are on in the story.

With this being a horror comedy, how does that play into your reactions and change how you might approach these scenes versus if this was a straight-up horror?

Martin Starr: I don’t know. Comedy is my jam. I think that’s natural. I’m not as familiar with just straight horror. I haven’t really played in that area yet, but comedy is just always fun. It’s always fun to try and figure out what is going to get a laugh. My instincts are always to play subtlety, but there are some bigger moments in this movie for sure.

You mentioned this earlier, but did you actually shoot the film in Norway?

Martin Starr: Oh, yeah. My cousin lives in Norway. I’ll take any excuse to go hang out with him for a while. He actually worked on the movie with us.

Since you were on location, how was filming on the estate? It was a beautiful place you were at.

Martin Starr: It certainly had its difficulties. We didn’t get snow. I don’t know if you’ve heard of global warming. This isn’t a political message here [laughs], but we didn’t get the snow that they usually get around that time. I think it was late November, so we had to actually bring snow in by the truckload to make it feel the way that we needed it to for the movie. So that’s fun.

But overall, it’s such a beautiful place to be up in the mountains in Norway. The people are so sweet. Everyone learns English so young. I think in second grade they start learning English, so communication isn’t an issue, which obviously can be difficult in other parts of Europe and in other parts of the world. There, it’s wonderful. The people are just so sweet and nice and hardworking. We also shot half the movie on stages in Lithuania. That was also beautiful. I had never been to Lithuania before.

I really enjoyed your character. I thought that he was this very positive happy-go-lucky guy. What was it like bringing this energy to him?

Martin Starr: It’s certainly fun to get to play that kind of character. It makes you happy. It’s generally nice to not play a miserable character, because it just kind of seeps in and can become depressive. So it’s really nice to just be the happy-go-lucky guy for a bit of a change. It’s fun. It’s also a fun kind of comedy to play with to not be the brightest bulb in the box but just happy all the time. Ignorance is bliss.

At the end of the day, this is a film about family which is very in line with the Christmas spirit. How was building that dynamic with the rest of the cast?

Martin Starr: Fun. We all got along great. Townes, the boy who played my son, was actually American, and they moved to Norway during the pandemic. He was a local hire, but still was an American kid. And Zoe was from Norway, but her mom was American, so her accent was great. It’s always nice to get to work on a movie like this where you’re in such close quarters, and you get to make friends with new people and get to know new people. It’s like summer camp—or winter camp in this case.

If you had three words to describe this movie to someone who hasn’t seen it, what would they be?

Martin Starr: Norwegian happy times. That’s it. I don’t know if that really sums it up at all, but put on the spot, I did my best.

What other projects do you have coming out? Are there any updates on Tulsa King or Party Down?

Martin Starr: We’re going back to Tulsa King early next year. It’d be great to go back to Party Down, but we haven’t heard anything yet.

About There’s Something In The Barn

In this holiday horror comedy, Bill (Martin Starr) moves his American wife Carol (Amrita Acharia) and children Nora (Zoe Winter-Hansen) and Lucas (Townes Bunner) to Norway where he’s inherited a family estate. While Bill dreams of turning the adjourning barn into a bed and breakfast, his family struggles to adapt to Scandinavian life. Lucas discovers a mischievous barn elf from ancient folklore living in the barn with a set of rules the family must follow. When Bill dismisses Lucas’s warnings and fails to follow sacred holiday traditions, the elf plots to get rid of the American intruders at any cost.