In the new horror-comedy Get Away, the Smiths seem like your average British family, if maybe a bit… morbid? We meet them as they're driving to a ferry where they'll embark on a holiday to the fictional Swedish island of Svalta, but not everyone is happy to see them.
"In fact, they're not welcome at all," Nick Frost, the film's writer, tells NPR.
He also plays the patriarch, Mr. Smith. "They shouldn't be there. It should only be for the Swedes and they just don't listen," he says.
See, as polite as they may seem at the outset, the Smiths just don't care whether they're welcome or not. They're here, and the locals are just going to have to deal with it.
"This is Europe, yeah?" Actor Maisie Ayres, who plays Jessie Smith, tells an ornery restaurant owner at the start of the film.
As Frost tells it, it's pretty typical for British tourists – or American ones, for that matter – to act so entitled. "There is a community of Swedish nutcases who do not like foreigners. You are not on the island and the Smith family ignore every bit of advice to not go, and straight away they essentially walk right into a very angry group of natives," Frost said.
On combining horror and comedy
I love horror and I love comedy and I don't see why we can't be all of those things at the same time, you know? But I think traditionally in films we've done, the horror has to be frightening and horrific and the comedy should be funny. It should stand up as a comedy. And then, by the way, here at the end there's a kind of slash-fest.
Folk horror and its influence on Get Away
This comes from me spending 20 years on and off going to this tiny Swedish island. My ex-wife's family, they're Swedish, and they have a beautiful house on this tiny island. There's only 40 houses, there's no roads, there's no cars … and I was always amazed at how much culture they had, you know, the Scandinavians in particular. Coming from Britain, and London: yeah, we do have culture, but it's not like they have there. Ours has been dumbed down slightly. I just love the fact that my children got to grow up around a society that had that kind of culture.
They celebrate things. They dress up as dogs some days. They stay up all night drinking vodka on other [days]. You know what I mean? Every community has its little cultural quirks and I just found that fascinating. [But] even in 20 years I never really felt like they accepted me. Being British, there's this kind of desperation to be accepted, [like] 'please like me.'
Entitlement of British tourists
I think that generally is the dynamic of English people. We're still surprised when people don't speak English. We're flabbergasted that no one would take into consideration our needs. We are that really. I think historically on [Svalta] we suggest that four British sailors were killed 250 years ago and then our British family invade the island 250 years later.
What a horror comedy can teach an audience
There's a Belgian Dutch film called The Vanishing and then there's also a [Belgian] mockumentary called Man Bites Dog where a film crew follows a serial killer around to get a glimpse into his life. Both of those films – the central antagonist is a serial killer. They are homicidal maniacs. They're not nice people. They're awful people. But what those filmmakers did really well was, you know, they're rubbish at their jobs … you know you get to a point where you empathize with them because they appear human and I really like that.
I got a chance with this to kind of do the same thing where you shouldn't like the Smith family in the end – I don't want to give spoilers away – but you shouldn't "kind of" like the Smith family. But as an audience member, if you can walk out of the cinema, of the theater, and say 'they were kind of nice, they were cute and funny,' it leaves people a bit torn when they come out, which is great.
On the 20th anniversary of Shaun of the Dead
It feels great. I think I tried to keep a vibe of that in Get Away, too, in terms of I haven't made it to make a specific type of audience laugh. I've made it to make [actor and co-writer] Simon Pegg laugh and I've made it to make [co-writer and director] Edgar Wright laugh. So that's my audience: Simon and Edgar and I think I took that away from Shaun of the Dead. I've been working now as an actor fairly successfully for 20 years now, and I think I'm very thankful for that kind of longevity.
Worst tourists: American or British?I don't want to upset anyone here, but I think Americans in America, they just fit. It works. But if you take Americans anywhere else, it just doesn't really work. It's not a good … culturally it's not a good fit. But British people in Britain are sometimes really annoying.
Get Away is in select theaters now.
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