Director Emerges From Haunted House With Extensive Notes

TORONTO — Filmmaker Arturo Ruttenberg emerged from Blackwood Manor on Monday with a legal pad full of notes.

“The pacing of the apparitions was frankly a little self-indulgent,” said Ruttenberg, 42, explaining that the demonic entities lacked clear character motivation. “I kept asking the phantom crying baby in the nursery, ‘What are your stakes here? What is your inner truth?’ We really needed to find some levels so the haunting didn't just feel one-note.”

The director was equally unimpressed by the estate's atmosphere.

“I had to give notes to the bleeding walls,” Ruttenberg said. “You have to build tension gradually. If you blow your load with a full arterial spray in act one, the gore hasn't been earned. It just reads as campy.”

Ruttenberg ultimately cut the scout short, later complaining to reporters that he had to step in and personally demonstrate how to eviscerate his production assistant because the basement demon refused to commit to the blocking.