Stars Jake Weary, Jessica Lowndes and Julianna Guill with Director Kaare Andrews

Alex Scott-Webster: What can you tell us about the film?

Kaare Andrews: The film is a very Twilight Zone inspired tale of a bunch of teenagers. One is a pilot and they take a small plane on a little trip and they get lost in a supernatural storm where things may or may not be hunting them down until they’re all dead. That’s kind of the log line.

Alex Scott-Webster: How is the switch from doing comics to doing your first feature length film?

Kaare Andrews: It’s good. I draw comic books for my day job so I was taking a break from that to do the movie and then I ended up drawing all our props so I ended up drawing comics anyway. It’s a little different because I didn’t write this film, I just directed it and these days I write a lot of my own comics. I did a book called Spider-Man: Reign which I wrote and drew. Right now I’m just drawing Astonishing X-Men which Warren Ellis wrote. It’s fun. Being able to draw helps you to communicate to people very quickly, very clearly and very easily. It’s all about storytelling with visuals in the end.

Alex Scott-Webster: So your background in comics made it easier to storyboard?

Kaare Andrews: Yeah I did all the storyboards I drew all the props, designed the creature, anything I could do. All the visual effects I was able to draw over and give notes on. I was part of every visual decision in the movie from wardrobe to lighting. I like the visual side of film making.

Alex Scott-Webster: Where can we find Altitude after Screamfest?

Kaare Andrews: This weekend it’s also playing in Korea. It’s also playing in Italy in November. But it’s coming to Wal-Marts and Best Buys everywhere on October 26th.

Alex Scott-Webster: You took some flying lessons for the film. Are you actually flying in the film or was it for accuracy purposes?

Jessica Lowndes: More for accuracy. Because of an insurance policy I wasn’t allowed to actually take it up in the air. A lot of it was green screen. It definitely paid off when I was doing the film. I went to the Santa Monica airport. [The instructor's] name was Joe Justice and he did such a great job. He’s an amazing flight instructor. It’s definitely something that I’d maybe like to pursue one day.

Alex Scott-Webster: You’ve had previous experience in horror films. What is it about Altitude that makes it different from the other things you’ve been in?

Jessica Lowndes: I think it touches on four different genres, which I really like. It starts out like a thriller and later there’s a horror/sci-fi/fantasy aspect. The director, Kaare Andrews is fantastic. He has such a great creative vision and is coming from comics and the whole world of artistry. His vision was amazing and I think it looks really beautiful. It’s based around a comic so it’s something fun and something different and something challenging and I’m obsessed with a challenge. That’s everything. I read the script and I was terrified. I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off and then at the end it’s not so scary

Alex Scott-Webster: You had a lot more involvement with the film than most actors typically do. Can you talk about sitting in on the casting and other aspects?

Jessica Lowndes: I got the script and it’s also filmed in Vancouver, where I’m from, which was definitely a bonus. I was able to sit in on the casting of it and I knew Ryan actually, Ryan Donahue beforehand and he got cast as my cousin. I got to be on the other side, which I know as an actor how terrifying auditioning can be so it was fun to read with everybody. I think we got an amazing cast because this whole movie is green screen, we were literally in a six person plane for 30 days. It was really intense because you weren’t even able to stand up at full height at all. You really need a strong, durable cast and I think we got one.

Alex Scott-Webster: Who do you play in the film?

Julianna Guill: I play Mel. She’s an artsy girl and is very into film and wants to go to film school and at the beginning of the film you’ll see she has a camcorder. Throughout this experience she’s documenting her friends and their reactions. When things start to go wrong she’s going to hide behind that camera and separate herself from reality. She’s making a movie and dealing with her fear that way. It was a very fun character to play.

Alex Scott-Webster: How was shooting inside the plane?

Julianna Guill: 21 days with the five of us in that plane that you just couldn’t stand up in. So that was a very interesting experience. I had certainly never worked like that in front of a green screen before and it was actually very cool. It was challenging to be in there but I also think it really helped the performances because we’re in this tiny plane and we can’t get out and that’s just the reality of the situation. It definitely brought a lot into the movie.

Alex Scott-Webster: You’ve been in horror films such as My Super Psycho Sweet 16 and Friday the 13th, how is Altitude different from your previous horror experiences?

Julianna Guill: Altitude’s really more of a thriller. In horror there’s a villain and there are murders and in this it’s just a different experience. There is a villain but it’s not tangible and you don’t know what it is for a while. This has more action than a horror movie and is really more of a thriller.

Thanks to Kaare, Jessica and Julianna for taking the time to talk with us. As Kaare mentioned in the interview, Altitude can be found in a store near you on October 26, 2010. Check it out.

We start off with a flashback from years before as a small plane housing a female pilot and a family of three gets into a mid air collision with another plane that comes out of nowhere. Flash forward to the present and the pilot’s daughter Sara (Jessica Lowndes) is taking her friends to a concert in what is presumably her first flight without an instructor. During the flight the plane begins a climb in altitude caused by a loose screw blocking one of the mechanisms. They enter a dark storm cloud that they can’t find their way out of and some of the passengers become convinced that something is in the cloud with them.

The plot design is somewhat reminiscent of The Descent. Instead of having the creature show up right away, the film gives us an inescapable situation that builds tension and displays how each of the characters acts under stress. Then, when the tension is already high, it introduces the creature and all hell breaks loose…sort of. The creature comes on screen and is explained away pretty quickly. Some people are knocked off by it, since this is a horror flick, but once we get the full reveal it doesn’t get to do much before it’s gone. This is a shame because it’s a really cool creature design and I would have loved to see it directly menace the characters longer.

The film looks incredible. Director Kaare Andrews is a well known comic book artist and it’s clear that he had his day job in mind when creating these shots. Nearly every shot in the film looks like an incredibly well drawn comic panel, which can be partly attributed to the great green screen use for the environment. The storm cloud looks especially foreboding and the creature, done entirely with CGI looked great inserted into the environment. As a huge comic book nerd I loved this approach and I reveled in the amazing visual stimulus the film was giving me. Equally good are the characters. Great comics generally have exceptional character development and I was glad to see that this held true as all the characters have their own identity in the flick. The actors are mostly great as well. Jake Weary’s asshole character was especially effective as I wanted to reach through the screen and choke the life out of him on more than one occasion.

The one thing I wish this would have carried over from comics however, is the brevity of this type of story. As I mentioned above, Altitude would work great as an episode of an anthology series or film but standing alone with a feature length is its downfall. If you’ve never seen this type of movie before you might be surprised by how it ends but I saw it coming within the first 5 minutes of the film. This made the rest of the running time seem overly long as I waited for at least some cool monster action. Therefore, the small amount of monster action once its revealed was highly disappointing.

I didn’t dislike Altitude as it does a ton of things right, but I did feel slightly disappointed by it. This could have been a truly great entry into the sci fi/horror genre. As it stands, it’s a technically great film whose story has trouble standing on its own. Considering how well made this is as a debut film however, Kaare Andrews is a director to look out for.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

“ALTITUDE is about a quintet of friends who set out for a weekend vacation in a small plane, which soon begins to malfunction as they fly into a threatening storm that turns out to have something even more deadly dwelling within it. Comics artist/music video and short-film director Kaare Andrews makes his feature debut at the helm from a script by Paul A. Birkett, and the cast is headed by THE HILLS HAVE EYES II’s Jessica Lowndes, MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16’s Julianna Guill, Ryan Donowho, Landon Liboiron and Jake Weary. The discs will present the film in 2.40:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound on the DVD and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound on the Blu-ray; special features on both are:”

• Audio commentary by Andrews

• “ALTITUDE: Behind the Scenes” featurette

• “Green Storm” featurette

• Original concepts gallery

Turn those frowns upside down because Altitude is going to give you a creature in the skies that looks like it came from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft.

Synopsis: After a mysterious malfunction sends their small plane climbing out of control, a rookie pilot and her four teenage friends find themselves trapped in a deadly showdown with a supernatural force.

Source: STYD

MTV

The network plans to release an Uncut, download-to-own version in addition to the edited Television telecast.

Synopsis: “My Super Psycho Sweet 16 marks the first premiere from the new slate of original movies produced by MTV and is the network’s first foray into the horror genre. The film tells the story of Madison Penrose (Juliana Guill), a spoiled and beautiful high school queen bee, and Skye Rotter (Lauren McKnight), the class outcast whose father Charlie Rotter committed a series of grisly murders a decade before the movie’s events. Madison’s plans for the ultimate birthday bash are ruined when Skye shows up to get closer to Madison’s ex-boyfriend Brigg (Chris Zylka), but things get really psycho when Charlie returns to crash the party too. My Super Psycho Sweet 16 offers the perfect blend of teen drama, sly humor, horrific thrills and eye-popping special effects.”

Source: MTV