Interview With Filmmakers Jason & Heather DeVan Of ALONG CAME THE DEVIL II

Writer/director Jason DeVan’s direct-to-video release Along Came the Devil emerged as a pleasant surprise last year, milking a micro-budget for everything it was worth, while assuring audiences that it was “based on true events.” That’s a line that tends to have a lot of caché with fans of demonic possession movies, and there are a lot of them.

It’s not surprising to see a sequel come down the pike, and not surprisingly, the “true events” aspect isn’t up front, as the filmmakers venture further out on their own. That won’t matter to fans of the original at this point, and the fact of the matter is, with two of the director’s children onscreen, as well as his wife, actress and producer Heather DeVan in both onscreen and producing capacities, this is very much a family project.

Jim Dixon for Film Inquiry: Thanks for talking to me. I don’t know if Jason remembers, but he talked to me on the first Along Came the Devil.

Jason DeVan: I do remember. Good to talk to you again.

Good to talk to you. I saw Along Came the Devil II yesterday, and I was glad to clear up the controversy over whether it’s a Roman numeral two or an Arabic two. I always go by what’s on the screen. All the advertising has an Arabic two, but on the screen it’s clearly a Roman numeral two. So that’s what I’m going with. So let’s talk about the sequel. I thought there was sequel room on the first movie, and I remember Jason saying he wanted to make a sequel. So how did the project come together?

Jason DeVan: Like we talked about the first time, we had so many notes and ideas that we weren’t able to get into a low budget film on the first movie. And it’s funny because a lot of fans noticed that—fans were like, “Oh, I felt like it needed this, and it needed that.” And some of that came when we ended up cutting Part I down. But for the most part, when Gravitas Ventures called us and asked if we would get started immediately on Part II, it was a no brainer—it was pretty easy because we had so many things we still wanted to do. And in doing a Part II, we were able to steer in a different direction from some of the true story of Part I, but also answer questions from Part I and take it into a new direction that we were excited to do, which obviously you saw that we did.

You had an unusual ending on Part I, and I guess it’s okay to talk about that ending now—that clearly exorcism doesn’t always work. I know Jason’s a fan of The Exorcist, which did not sequel well, but you had more room to work with than they did. You have a you have a different leading lady, this time. The part of Jordan was played by Kyla Deaver in Part I, and Laura Wiggins plays her, and plays her very well in the new movie. Would I be indelicate in asking why the switch?

Jason DeVan: The switch came because of the timeline. With Kyla Deaver, she’s only 15, so we felt like the timeline of her leaving for college, that Tyler wasn’t quite old enough. I’m not saying that she couldn’t pull it off, but because of the age range that we wanted her to be, which was around 20, we thought she was just a little too young. It was a hard decision to not bring Kyla back, but that was our decision-making process.

Heather DeVan: If you notice, in Part II she does have a little cameo, from when Jordan’s character is young—it’s what Kyla is supposed to be.

I did. And Mark Ashworth is back although his character has come has changed significantly.

Heather DeVan: [laughs] Mark Ashworth is a genius actor. He’s an Atlanta-based actor who’s incredible.

Jason DeVan: And I was gonna say Jim, with Mark Ashworth coming back—it’s funny—I talked to him on the first film and told him that I had an idea that I’d be bringing him back, and he said you know he appreciated me saying that, but he didn’t think like I really would. Without giving too much away, our tussle with his character coming back, because he plays such a bad guy in Part I, was to rebuild his character in this one, but then also from rebuilding it to add that twist and spin at the end.

Casting the DeVan Clan

And I don’t want to give away too much of your plot, because there is a big third act twist which actually did take me by surprise, because there was somebody else I thought was acting more possessed than the one who ends up creating all the havoc—but this is a DeVan Clan production after all, and I see you’ve added another DeVan to the cast.

Heather DeVan: [laughs] Yeah, we sure did!

Jason DeVan: My youngest son, Cassius [DeVan], who plays Xander—

Yeah, he’s, he’s really good. That’s his older brother, I assume, who’s back from the first one?

Heather DeVan: Yes.

Jason DeVan: Our oldest son, Patrick [DeVan], is in the first one—the bow tie character Dylan. And he is now much older and he’s six foot nine. And our other two sons are also actors. Cassius is our youngest, who plays Xander. Tristan [DeVan] is the middle son and he has a little cameo in the store.

What’s it like having your whole family involved in the project in different ways?

Heather DeVan: It’s amazing. We’ve lived in LA for 20 years, our children are actors, and they grew up in the acting industry. So we spent a lot of time together in that aspect, because we’ve always kind of been in the industry with each other and supporting each other. So it was just a no-brainer to have, you know, Cassius come in and play Xander, because we collaborate so well together and our kids really listen to us.

Jason DeVan: And always say too, because of what we do, the kids have pretty much grown up thinking everybody in the whole wide world does movies and acting because they didn’t know anything else. So it made my decision-making process easy, because I knew that they could handle it, that the family could handle it. I knew what they’re capable of. So there wasn’t any sacrifice, by bringing in like a family member, forcing them into a role where they’re not really that good. That’s one thing I would never want to happen, where people say the person’s only playing the part because they’re the director’s son, the director’s wife—you know, the family’s really competitive, and good at what they do. So it made it that much easier on me.

“Dad, I want a stunt double…”

Casting my memory back several decades, while I always I thought my father walked on water, when I was a teenager, I could nonetheless be difficult to deal with, and fathers and sons do have a tendency to butt heads at a certain age. Do your sons ever bust your chops on the set? Like, “I’m sorry, dad, I’m just not feeling it that way—”?

Heather DeVan: [laughs] That’s a great question!

Jason DeVan: [laughs] That is a great question. I’m going to give you two examples of like the only times where I literally was like, “Oh my god, I’m working with family and two actors.” The scene—I don’t want to give anything away—but one of the scares where the little boy is running to jump in bed—to get the timing down, working with mom and son, as the director were, you know, not related to them at all that day, took a little longer than I would have liked, which had everybody cracking up, and I’m laughing, and then when Xander gets lowered down on the sheet, he was only coming down three feet off an apple box, and he was like telling me, “Is it safe, are there mats on either side?” And I’m like everything’s fine, and we start cracking up, and I said “Oh no, my son’s becoming a diva—”

Like “Oh no, Dad, I want a stunt double—”

Heather DeVan: [laughs]

Jason DeVan: [laughs] Pretty much.

Every Shot Deliberate

I think the other scene you’ve alluded to by the way, I I’m pretty sure I know which one you’re talking about, and I thought the way you lined up the elements in the shot was brilliant. It seemed to me that several times during the movie you were deliberately framing things so the characters were placed in a very restrictive frame, almost like they were trapped or imprisoned. Was that a deliberate choice? Or am I just noticing too much?

Heather DeVan: I’m going to chime in really quick. So before we started filming, Jason and his DP, who was Jay Ruggieri on this one, sat down for I would say for like a month, and he came in four hours daily and he and Jason would come up with every single shot and so every shot had a purpose and a reason. I was blown away by the shot list.

Jason DeVan: Jim, I had some shots from The Shining, some from the original Dracula, you know shot that if fans notice them, they’ll be be very familiar to them and resonate with them. There was a claustrophobic feeling that I wanted you to have, but I also wanted you to have shots that while you were watching feel like “I know this, this feels so familiar to me, this is a classic shot,” while we were telling our story.

There was stuff in the third act particularly where I picked up on The Shining and Halloween—you brought Bruce Davison back. Was he excited to do the sequel? I mean he’s got a very meaty part—

Heather DeVan: Yeah, he was Bruce [Davison] is amazing— during the couple of years since we did Part I and now this one, we’ve become very close. He does great work with—he took his role very seriously.

Jason DeVan: And obviously in this one his role is even bigger and more prevalent than in Part I and I let him know that, that it was nice to work with him you know, like hands on as to the direction we wanted to take his character, and he knows that I have so many notes for another film, Part III, that we were able to sculpt and mold his character into where we’re going, almost to a sense where it could be psychological, maybe where to it’s all in his head, where he’s making all this up, but who knows—?

Is Heavy Makeup As Much Fun As It Looks?

I’ll be looking forward to that one. I have a last question for Heather—an actor I spoke to some years ago happened to mention that he really wanted to do a heavy makeup role, like a guest shot on one of the “Star Trek” shows, maybe playing an alien—and I just wondering if that heavy makeup stuff is as much fun as it sounds.

Heather DeVan: In-credible! It’s funny ‘cuz I there were times where I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror—I was freaking out. George Troester did all of the special makeup. Jason doesn’t like a lot of special effects. He likes practical effects, so most of the makeup on me with all practical, and George just killed it on this one, in my opinion.

Jason DeVan: She was great. You were wearing the makeup—you never complained!

Heather DeVan: No, I loved it—I loved it. It really makes you feel more like you’re in character anytime you have makeup on. It helps you believe.

Watch Along Came the Devil 2