One of the most delightfully creepy movies of the year is Girl on the Third Floor, starring wrestling legend Phil “CM Punk” Brooks in his feature film debut. This meticulously crafted haunted house morality tale also marks the directorial debut of Travis Stevens, the horror producer responsible for critical hits like Big Ass Spider! and – more recently – We Are Still Here.
Brooks stars as Don, a would-be patriarch who aims to renovate the home he purchased for himself and his pregnant wife. Of course, things immediately take a turn for the supernatural, and Don’s true character is revealed as his sanity begins to slip away. With a slight running time of just over 90 minutes, Girl on the Third Floor’s slow-burn approach is balanced out by its elegant pacing and tight focus on only a few characters; there’s no fat on these bones, resulting in an efficiently ruthless horror experience with plenty of uncomfortably macabre laughs thrown in along the way.
While promoting the release of Girl on the Third Floor, director Travis Stevens spoke with Screen Rant about his directorial debut. In the interview, he discusses what it’s like to give up a movie to the public after spending years nurturing it from an idea to a full-fledged work of art, as well as what it was like to work with Phil “CM Punk” Brooks. He also discusses his commitment to practical special effects and how nearly every single effect is done entirely in camera, with but a single exception.
Girl on the Third Floor is out now in theaters, On Digital, and on VOD.
We’re in the home stretch of the movie’s life cycle, at least from your end. You’ve probably been living and breathing this movie for a long time now. You made the movie, you finished the movie, you did the festivals, and now it’s about to go out to the public. When do you just get to put your hands up and take a victory lap?
I like getting to talk to artists at this point in the movie’s life cycle. It’s almost like it’s “last call” before it belongs to the public forever. Is there anything you want to say, any last pitch you want to make to the Screen Rant reader of what they should expect from Girl on the Third Floor?
Man, what a great question. I feel we’re very close to that. And I couldn’t be more excited. You make something and you want people to understand what your intentions were. You’re not sure how it’s going to be received. It’s all out of our hands now. It’s up to the audience to decide how they feel. I’m ready for it. I’m excited to see what people say.
Without spoiling anything, that’s one of my favorite things about this movie! So, the legend is you had to renovate your own house and then had to turn it into a horror movie. Is that correct?
I would say one of the keys to this movie is, don’t take anything at face value. We have a guy who goes to the house and you assume he’s a good guy, but maybe he’s not a good guy. Then you’ve got a female protagonist who you may have some feelings about, but then you learn those were incorrect. I think that’s basically it. Don’t take it at face value. Look deeper.
You’ve made a name for yourself as a producer over the years, but this is your first movie as a director. Was that something you had been meaning to do for a while now? What was it about this movie that made you go, “I’ve gotta call the shots on this one?”
I heard that version of it, and it’s a better story, but the reality is, the company that produced the film owned the house. They wanted to make a haunted house movie there. That was the start of it. We had a house. The local legend was that it used to be a bordello and two women had died there, and it actually was just across the street from a church, and that was the starting point for me. Coming up with a story that utilized all those facts.
Not only is this your debut, but it’s also Phil’s first movie. I was honestly shocked when I learned that. I mean, he’s so magnetic. How did you know he was the one for the part even though he hadn’t been in any movies yet?
It was something I thought I was going to do much earlier, but I just got too busy, you know? I’ve been very fortunate to work with a lot of incredible writers and directors. Suddenly, ten years had gone by. I was like, “Oh wait, I’d better get back to my original goal.” So on this one, it was a combination of an opportunity and I had a story to tell with this house. I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to do so.
When I talked to him, I was so impressed at his cinematic pulls. He was talking about people who worked on The Thing by name, and I was like, “Okay, this guy knows what he’s talking about.” Did you have any time on set to chat and pick each other’s brain on horror lore?
I knew him through how he conducted himself in his other career. Just watching him in interviews he did with Ariel Helwani before his MMA fight. Watching how he conducted himself through the wrestling phase of his career… I just had a lot of confidence in him because I think he’s a really good, talented person. I guess, with anything, whether it’s acting or directing, you’ve gotta start somewhere. Probably the most important thing is finding out how hard you’re willing to work, and are you easy to work with, and Phil was both! I’m super excited to see what he does next with other directors, because I think he’s fu***** awesome!
I’m finding that’s true of a lot of wrestlers. They are big nerds who just happen to be super ripped!
Yeah, he’s a horror fan! Just yesterday, we were sitting around, talking about the movie Kuffs with Christian Slater and Milla Jovovich. He mentioned it out of the blue, and I was like, “Man, this dude knows a lot of movies!” He’s just a lot of fun to hang out with and talk about movies with.
Are you a big wrestling guy? Did you get any fan moments with Phil? Like, “Oh my God, I’m working with CM Punk!”
Yeah! I only know two, but both of them were just the nicest, buffest people I’d ever met!
I don’t know if there’s a single CGI effect in this movie. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but is everything 100% in camera?
No, for whatever reason, I stopped watching wrestling in the early ’90s. It’s one of those things where it’s so pervasive that you’re always, I dunno, with social media and everything, I find myself reading about Roman Reigns, and reading about AEW Even though I don’t watch it, it’s such a big part of our culture. But yeah, I fanned out over Phil about the stuff he was talking about, not the stuff he had done over his previous career. I’m a fan of him as a person, not as a personality. I was completely aware of him as a martial artist. I watched all his fights, because I was curious to see how he was going to do, well before we set about making this movie. So I felt I had a real understanding of him before we worked together. He’s a fighter!
Stuff like the marbles is so interesting. Because you think, yeah, it could be done more easily with CGI, but it’s so much more impressive when it’s literally a marble falling down a stairs, because it’s real, it’s being directed like an actor, even.
There’s one shot that takes a practical effect and adds a CG element to it. CG can be great, but we were shooting in the actual house, and it was the first film for many of the actors, and it was my first film as a director, so it seemed smarter to lean into things we could actually see, so we would know the reality of the blood seeping out of the wall, or what a marble rolling across the floor looks like, rather than having to imagine it. So yeah, we dedicated a lot of time and resources to actually doing it in camera, and it makes it easier, because you see what you get.
Did you do any kind of method stuff with Phil? Did you make him sleep in the house or anything, or could everyone go home?
Thank you. As a filmmaker, it’s a odd thing when you’ve done twenty takes and you’re the one throwing the marble down the stairs and you’re going, “It’s not quite right!” That’s the downside of it, but it felt better.
What were some of your inspirations, what are some of your movies, horror or otherwise?
Everyone went home. I had delusions of, “I’m gonna sleep in the house for the month of prep. I’m gonna become Don, the main character.” The first night I walked over there, it was pretty clear staying in the house would be a terrible idea, because the house didn’t want anybody there. So, okay, that was a bad idea. But I tried to put myself in the character’s shoes so I could tell Phil about it, rather than having him do it.
That’s such a great message to get, especially from a horror movie. Like, if you go into a movie looking for a message, it might not resonate as strongly as if you go into a movie and are blindsided with that message, right?
I think the big influences on this one would be Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser… I drew a lot of inspiration from contemporary artists. Painters and photographers, sculptors, and a lot of those influences found their way into the film when composing shots and the overall aesthetic. I just wanted to make a movie that leaves the audience with information on how to live a more fulfilling life.
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Yeah. You want to plant a seed. You don’t want to necessarily scream in somebody’s face, “Hey, be a better person!” But if you can plant a seed and they draw the conclusion themselves, then great: maybe you’ve made something that’s scary and can maybe improve somebody’s life. That’s the hope.
Girl on the Third Floor is out now in theaters, On Digital, and on VOD.
