Set to release in select theaters and On Demand today, Lullaby is a new supernatural horror film starring Oona Chaplin and Rámon Rodríguez. Rachel and John are ecstatic following the birth of their son, Eli, but their mood quickly shifts when he cries for months on end. Desperate for a moment of peace, Rachel sings Eli a lullaby from an ancient book she received in the mail from her mom. However, the couple finds they caused more harm than good when the song summons a supernatural entity that is determined to claim their baby as its own.
Lullaby is written by Alex Greenfield and Ben Powell and directed by John R. Leonetti. In addition to directing, Leonetti has also worked as a cinematographer on multiple projects. He is most notably known for the 2014 horror film Annabelle, which served as a prequel to James Wan's The Conjuring. Liane Balaban, who plays Rachel's sister Vivian, and Kira Guloien who plays Lilith, are also featured in the main cast.
Screen Rant spoke with Director John R. Leonetti about the different work he's done throughout the horror genre and how the theme of motherhood makes Lullaby a more relatable film.
John R. Leonetti Talks Lullaby
Screen Rant: I absolutely loved Lullaby. I looked at your IMDb and noticed that you've worked on several of my favorite horror films.
John R. Leonetti: I was, as fate has it, lucky enough to meet James Wan on the first one that we worked together which was Dead Silence for Universal. He and I just became kind of a team for the next four movies in a row. I had been involved in horror before this—Tales from the Crypt, Childsplay as a cinematographer—I enjoyed making horror movies. I'm not even a horror movie buff or wasn't at all. You use so many tools in the filmmaker's tool bag to enlist the audience in the characters, and then you mess with them, basically. And I love that. So it's just kind of random how it all happened.
I ended up working with James, and it was actually at a test screening of The Conjuring that there was a producer, Peter Safran, on it, who was sitting in front of me. We became really good friends, we still are buds. He turns back to me and goes, "You know, you should direct Annabelle." And I went, "Hmm, yeah, maybe," and that happened. Because that was so successful, and not just because of me, it was everybody, I got labeled into directing more horror movies. It's been fun. I do want to do other things. I'm involved in another movie that's got a potential horror aspect to it, but it's more of a thriller. It's almost more psychological. It's a fun genre.
Given all your experience in the horror genre, what is it about Lullaby that really made you want to get involved with it?
John R. Leonetti: I loved the Lilith character. If you think about it, she was the first women's rights person. I'm a fan of women and their rights. I was raised with three sisters and my mom. I have a brother and an Italian family that was very Italian, but I appreciate the power of women in the world and in history. That was really interesting to me. She got boned in the mythology. She got screwed. The most powerful thing on Earth is love and the love of a mother for her baby. There's nothing more binding and powerful.
That was really interesting to me. It hit me the moment I read the script and finished the last page. I said, "Do you know what would be really cool? To make an opening title sequence where you show all these lullabies." And they're all dark. If you start thinking about it, they're all dark, and to set the tone for the movie, I thought that would just be a creatively fun, cool thing. In the opening when you meet Vivian, you can see we intermingle those images. I thought that was fun. I guess that's part of it. I just really, really liked the Lilith character and I think that was the biggest part.
You previously said it was important to make Lullaby relatable, so the scares would feel more real. Was Rachel's fear of being a bad mom a part of that?
John R. Leonetti: Yeah, the most powerful tool a demon has, or a spirit has is to get inside your mind. As a mother, that's it. That's the most powerful thing. Especially since she was a very successful restaurateur. And then in real life, with every mother and father and having babies and the separation of work and whose taking care of the babies and all that, it's a very relatable thing to really everybody once they go through it. So that conflict is so good to play with. Oona did a good job with it.
The central relationship is a huge part of the story. What kind of work did you do with the actors to build that dynamic?
John R. Leonetti: Great question. I do a couple of things and I do this with every movie I've directed. Even in television, I take the time to do it. I take every character out of the script and go through every scene, and I write down in every single scene what emotions, what feelings, and what conflicts they have—what they're going through in every scene. I almost create a graph of the flow of what they go through, and I take that out, and then I talk to the actors.
I write it and I send it to them and I say, "What do you think about this?" so that we get on the same page, literally, before we start shooting. So that I do independently with each one. But then, unfortunately, the reality, which most people don't know, is I only had them together in person the week before we started shooting. The Friday before the Monday we started shooting, or the Saturday, the set was built. That's their house. I didn't want anybody else there.
I went down, I showed it to them, I walked them around, and we sat there for hours, almost a whole day. We bullsh*tted, I got them used to their house, I left them alone, and I let them talk. They're both professionals. They're really good actors, so there's that facet, too. I did introduce them before of course. I think they FaceTimed together a bit before. They're both very accommodating professionals, and they became buds pretty quickly. That's what we did, and it seemed to work.
I noticed this theme of endlessness throughout the movie when Rachel's looking under the sheets, when she's in the mirror world, and when she finds the babies. Was there a connection there?
John R. Leonetti: That's really interesting insight. Great question. We, on this side of the veil, in reality, wonder what's on the other side. In my opinion, that's the essence of what makes it interesting, effective, commercial, everything you can say about it. There are all different kinds of religions, and it all deals with what's on the other side. All of them, in many ways, are the same, if you really think about it. If you take World Religion class, which I did in high school, it opened my mind to so many things.
What's on that other side is actually infinite if you think about it. Even Lilith's nursery—it's intended to be endless. And under the bed, we built like a 30x40 foot fake bed and had her go around there. I put a GoPro on a boom pole. That's how we did the scene. It was so simple, but it was so effective. It seemed endless. So much of what's in our minds, what we conjure in our minds, is right here, on one hand, and yet, on the other hand, it's endless—the chasm of thoughts and where they come from and where they go.
You're really onto something. I can't say that that was a theme that I necessarily intended, but the fact that you get that is phenomenal. It's the unknown and the endlessness of it that makes it so vast and actually scary. You can't grab it. You just don't know. As a matter of fact, this film that I'm attached to, which hopefully happens, it's called The Angler...it's all about guilt and what it conjures in your mind and what you project and see. Is it real or isn't it? Is it supernatural, or is it all in your head? That to me is super exciting.
About Lullaby
Rachel and John arrive home from the hospital with their newborn son, Eli, to begin the next chapter of their life. But they soon find themselves struggling with a colicky baby, who won’t stop crying. Rachel comes upon an ancient book, sent by her mother, containing what appears to be an old Hebrew lullaby. They soon find the song has summoned Lilith, a figure from religious mythology, who has spent eternity stealing newborn babies. She finds help in her sister, Vivian, who suffered the same fate, losing her own child in the same enigmatic fashion. The couple must find a way to protect their child from this mysterious demon and her horrible servants, fighting a power they never even knew existed.
Check out other interviews with the Lullaby cast here:
Lullaby is available in select theaters and On Demand now.