The real star of the haunted-house movie ‘The Parenting' is a 29-room mansion at Doyle Community Park in Leominster
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'The Parenting,' which premieres Thursday on Max, is based on a screenplay by Kent Sublette, who is one of 'Saturday Night Live''s head writers. It's a throwback, Johnson said, to the lighthearted jump-scare flicks of their shared 1980s youth — 'Beetlejuice,' 'Gremlins,' 'Ghostbusters.'
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Nik Dodani, left, and Brandon Flynn in "The Parenting."
Seacia Pavao/Warner Bros. Entertainment
The film imagines a gay couple (played by Nik Dodani and Brandon Flynn) who have invited their parents to join them for a getaway. Rohan's mother and father (Falco and Cox) are uptight and proper; Flynn's folks (Kudrow and Dean Norris, who played Hank Schrader on 'Breaking Bad') are fountains of corny jokes.
The impending nightmare of the two families' mutual discomfort takes an enormous twist when the house they've rented proves to be possessed. It was the site of a teenage seance in the 1980s, one that led to the deaths of three people and the ongoing presence of an evil demon.
This mansion at the Doyle Community Park in Leominster was used for exterior shots of the haunted house in the movie "The Parenting."
The Trustees
Exterior shots of the grand manor at the center of the film were taken at the
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'It was fun to be here when they were filming,' said Anna Wilkins, a director at the North County Land Trust, which leases office space in the complex. She said the crew ordered truckloads of snow for an exterior scene.
The filming became a point of pride for the locals, she said. 'North Central Massachusetts sometimes gets ignored, but for the folks who live here, it's a pretty awesome place.'
Edie Falco and Brian Cox in "The Parenting."
Seacia Pavao/Warner Bros. Entertainment
The film's cast fell into place after Cox signed on. Before shooting the final season of 'Succession,' the veteran actor was looking for something completely different, said Johnson in a video call earlier this week. He got it, and then some: After encountering the demon, Cox's character, Gerald, goes off the deep end.
'I had a failure of imagination,' Johnson recalled with a laugh. 'The studio wanted him, and I was like, 'Good luck. He's never gonna do it. Did you read the script? It's this crazy-demon, haunted house, silly projectile-vomit movie.' But he loved the script.'
As Gerald's wife, Falco ('The Sopranos,' 'Nurse Jackie') is a comically withering presence.
'She's not a fussy actor,' said Johnson, whose previous films include 'The Skeleton Twins' with Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig (2014). When he asked Falco if she had any questions about her character, Dorothy, she replied, 'No, I think I get her.'
'And she gave this lived-in, funny, perfectly calibrated performance,' he added.
Edie Falco in "The Parenting."
Seacia Pavao/Warner Bros. Entertainment
The rest of the cast followed suit, Johnson said. Posey, who plays a loony former goth kid who is the house's caretaker, has been delighting fans of 'The White Lotus' with her eccentric Southern belle in the show's current season.
'She's nice and kooky in this movie, too,' said Johnson. 'She brings her own wild ideas to the table, which I'm very open to, and so is Kent.'
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Though Sublette wrote the script before he and Johnson met, the director said he could relate to the theme of the two families' awkward first meeting. He was raised in the 'crunchy Pacific Northwest,' he said. Meanwhile, the parents of his partner of 19 years, the food and humor writer Adam Roberts, are from Boca Raton, Fla.
'When they first met, it was like they were from different planets,' said Johnson.
'I was really interested in a larger theme, which is that there are evil forces in this world, and those evil forces rely on us little squabbling humans to fight with each other over our stupid issues,' he said. 'The demon in the movie sows discord. And that's a tactic to take over the world.'
The film plays a horrifying ordeal for laughs, and Johnson has fond memories of the shoot.
'I had a blast,' he said. 'I'd go back in a heartbeat.'
James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.
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