The movie that “frightened” Robert Pattinson so much he fell asleep brandishing kitchen knives
He might not be the single biggest actor of his generation, but Robert Pattinson has become the cool pick for cinephiles.
Any connections he once had to the Twilight franchise have completely evaporated thanks to his terrific selection of interesting roles from auteur filmmakers. If anything, the clout that he received from his time as a sparkly vampire ensured that he now has the opportunity to pick parts that are as weird as possible.
Pattinson is no stranger to horror, even if the films he appeared in could only be loosely described as fitting within the genre. David Cronenberg may be the master of body horror, but Pattinson starred in two of the director’s more cynical class satires with Maps to the Stars and Cosmopolis, even if they did have some disturbing moments, and Robert Eggers’ black-and-white fantasy The Lighthouse was both frightening and hilarious. Even The Devil all the Time, the period thriller in which Pattinson played an insane religious zealot, might be more aptly placed in the gothic drama category than that of a straight-up horror film.
The man has certainly worked with filmmakers who have a predilection towards horror, including Claire Denis, Bong Joon Ho, and Werner Herzog, so it seems like only a matter of time before he does something in the genre, but the actor revealed that doesn’t really have the stomach for all manner of the scaries, such that he watched an unnamed horror film from a director he had met with, and was thoroughly terrified by it.
“He’d done this horror movie, and I watched it, and I kept thinking that someone was breaking into my house, and so I was sitting on my sofa with two kitchen knives, waiting for the person to come in,” Pattinson said, “I fell asleep with them basically in my neck on the couch. My girlfriend came in, and she was like, ‘What is happening?! Why do you have two knives in your face and you’re sleeping?!’”
While he did not identify the director or horror film in question, it’s possible that he could be talking about Parker Finn, whose upcoming remake of Possession he is signed on to only produce, because of his packed schedule, which includes A24’s The Drama, Dune: Part Three, The Odyssey, Primetime, and The Batman: Part II, but the remake has assembled an impressive cast that includes Callum Turner and Margaret Qualley as the leads.
Finn’s latest work included the horror film Smile and its sequel, which were certainly films with haunting imagery, and whether Pattinson was truly scared of the more mainstream titles is unclear, but his decision to produce the director’s latest project does certainly suggest that they have some mutual respect for one another.
Then again, it’s always possible that the actor is referring to a completely different horror director for a project that hasn’t yet been reported on.
Pattinson has always had an aptitude for waffling between making massive tentpole blockbusters and smaller, more personal films, and even with the few massive films on his plate, it seems like it would only be a matter of time before he returns to make dark, disturbing little horror-adjacent projects again.
