Daily Front Row

2012 March 20

Intruders of TriBeCa and MePa

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Clive Owen, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
NICK HUNT / PatrickMcMullan.com View Gallery

(NEW YORK) Who's afraid of the dark? Possibly Ludacris (aka Chris Bridges), Lindsay Ellingson, Julie Taymor and Dree Hemingway, considering they all caught last night's screening of creepy thriller Intruders, hosted by The Cinema Society, Giorgio Armani, and DeLeon Tequila at the Tribeca Grand. The flick, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and starring Clive Owen, involves a face snatcher-type of shadowy horror figure named the Hollow Man who incidentally is sans facial features. Also game for a bit of a cinematic spook: Amy Sacco, Padma Lakshmi, Paul Haggis, Anna Sophia Robb, and Sami Gayle.

"I don't specifically remember my nightmares, but I do remember the intensity of bad dreams as a young child," explained Owen. "It's completely overpowering, and I've seen it with my kids as they've grown up. It's difficult for children to process and understand that a bad dream is not real." 

Forget childhood nightmares: what about totally adult anxieties? (It bears mentioning that your Daily happened to have read New York's fascinating "Listening to Xanax" cover story en route to Intruders, perhaps a bit unwisely.) "If I wasn't living in an apartment, I know I'd be fearful!" said a wide-eyed Rachel Roy between munches of popcorn. "As a single woman with two kids, absolutely. I'm chickenshit!" confided Roy. 

Turns out, even those closest to the action (and most intimately aware of the faux effects behind the fear factor) get kind of creeped out. "I had problems with sleeping while we were shooting," confessed Fresnadillo. "There's a sequence in the movie where the boy thinks the monster-type figure is behind him; that was a very sleepless night!" But going "dark, deep, and personal" in the artistic process has its benefits, too. "It's like a kind of therapy," Fresnadillo explained. "You have to go to places where there might be wounds."

The crowd headed north after the filming for a tipple or two at Double Seven in the MePa, with enough DeLeon for all (or those unafraid of Tuesday morning hangovers, at least). "As for Fresnadillo's preferred mode of tequila intake? "Raw! I usually do it without a lime or salt or anything. It's the perfect drink for starting the night." Cheers! 
ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV