Heather Langenkamp Talks About 'The Butterfly Room'

"The Butterfly Room" is one of those movies that is really coming in under the radar. It just debuted at the Laemmle NoHo 7 without much in the way of publicity, and that's a shame because this thriller directed by Jonathan Zarantonello proves to be a real treat for horror fans as it features several actors we all remember from various horror and cult classics. Among them are Barbara Steele who is best known for her work in a number of Italian gothic horror films like "Black Sunday," Ray Wise who left an indelible impression on us with his performances in "Robocop" and "Twin Peaks," Erica Leerhsen who survived a few ill-fated horror movies like "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" and the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Camille Keaton who suffered such unforgivable brutality in "I Spit on Your Grave," Adrienne King who memorably decapitated Jason Voorhees' mother in "Friday the 13th," and P.J. Soles who showed us things we really did like in John Carpenter's "Halloween." Looking at this cast, you'd think that this was another version of "The Expendables" but with horror icons.

Another big horror favorite in "The Butterfly Room" is Heather Langenkamp who is still best remembered for her role as Nancy Thompson in "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Here she plays Dorothy, a single mother who has her own reasons for keeping her son away from butterfly collector Ann (Barbara Steele). As the movie goes on, you find out exactly why Dorothy has such a bone to pick with Ann, and it is not worth spoiling here.

Langenkamp dropped by the Laemmle NoHo 7 for "The Butterfly Room's" opening night, and she did a Q&A with the movie's second assistant director Brian McQuery. When asked how she became involved with this production, Langenkamp explained that it started with a journalist friend of Zarantonello's who introduced the director to her while at a horror convention she was attending.

"This journalist friend was my introduction, and I noticed that Jonathan was lurking in the background (laughs) for several hours," Langenkamp said. "Finally we struck up a conversation and he gave me the script later. I have to say that when I read it, I felt that the part of Dorothy was one of the better parts that I've read in many, many years. I think, from what you see on the screen, she's a very strong woman and she's a very fierce mother and I really enjoyed playing such a part. I remember we got together at this restaurant in Santa Monica, and I think I shocked Jonathan a great deal by telling them how much I liked it and how I really loved this idea that this horror movie focuses on an elderly woman which is something that is really rare."

In addition to all the horror icons, there are also several child actors in the cast who play kids that become way too friendly with Ann. Now there's a saying that the things to avoid while making a movie are working with animals and children, but Langenkamp found working with child actors like Ellery Sprayberry and Julia Putnam very informative and fascinating.

"It's kind of a lesson every day in how to be so natural and so in the moment, and I always get a lot of inspiration from children like Miko Hughes (who appeared opposite Langenkamp in "Wes Craven's New Nightmare") who was like that for me," Langenkamp said about working with child actors. "You just zone in with them as they really experience the movie in a different way I think, and it is really refreshing. Ellery was really fun to work with, and I remember this one day when she had to go too long hair to short hair too long hair and everybody was panicked. But Ellery was just smiling and taking it all in stride, and we had a lot of fun on the set as I remember."

Ever since her days battling Freddy Krueger, we haven't seen as much of Langenkamp as we would like. For her acting has become a part time job, and she spends most of her days running AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up Studio in Los Angeles, with her husband David LeRoy Anderson. One of her more recent acting roles was as a character named Moto in "Star Trek Into Darkness," but her role as Dorothy in "The Butterfly Room" is the biggest one she has had in some time. This led one audience member to ask her if coming back to acting was like getting back on a bicycle where everything comes back to you.

"I would have to say not at all like riding a bike," Langenkamp said. "I think that you're much more self-conscious about how you're doing as you get older especially if you've taken time off. I was really worried a lot of the time about whether I was going to be able to get my chops back up to speed, and I'm happy with the way the movie looks on the screen. I'm much happier than I actually thought I was at about 6:45 tonight (the movie started at 7:40 pm) because I get a lot more critical of myself too as I get older. Both of those things combine actually, making for a very uncomfortable day today, but now I can relax. I don't think it's like riding a bike. I wish it was more like that."

But even after being away from acting for a long time, Langenkamp still has a great love for it. She explained why that is the case and also talked about what it was like working with Steele who is probably the biggest horror icon in the cast of "The Butterfly Room."

"It's probably my favorite thing to do," Langenkamp said of acting. "I think one the most creative things that a person can do is bring a script to life and think of the character and think of how you're going to interact with someone like Claudia. Those scenes were a lot of fun and especially all the scenes with Barbara Steele. She is one of my personal heroes and someone that I greatly admire, so I often watched her. She's a very elegant woman and she's very powerful, so sometimes I would just watch her and try to learn from her in the thing she did to be kind of a majestic creature in the film. I learn a lot from the people that I work with and I always and see what their techniques are and how they get prepared, and I take whatever I can from people like that."

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Heather Langenkamp Talks About 'The Butterfly Room'