You ever been to one of those Christmas parties, where the host is just a little too drunk and things get a bit awkward? He goes on about his time in the military, his deceased wife, his spiritual problems. He invites, no, begs everyone to hold hands in a circle and perform a séance with him, and you all know it’s silly, but you do it to just placate the poor guy so that the night doesn’t get any weirder. We’ve all been there — you connect to the spirit world, a bound and gagged woman breaks out of the closet where she’s been kidnapped, you don’t know if she’s a Nazi, your friends think about killing her, etc. Christmastime, right?
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Well, if you haven’t had that unique experience, you’re in luck with Brooklyn 45, a delightfully kooky yet tense and clever little thriller that feels like Sam Raimi rewrote Death and the Maiden. It’s the third film from Ted Geoghegan, who has been making distinct, often grim pictures about different periods in American history where paranoia, tribalism, and the ghosts of our past have taken hold in various ways.

Brooklyn 45, probably his lightest film, looks at ‘the greatest generation’ by studying a group of military officers and agents in 1945 as they get together for a post-war shindig. Bookended by arrivals and departures, almost all the film takes place in one room, where the perfectly named Colonel Hockstatter demands that his friends from the war take part in a séance with him. His wife is dead; she apparently went mad after the war, driven to suicide by immense paranoia, believing her neighbors with secret Nazi spies. What the Colonel’s guests don’t realize is that one of those neighbors, Hildegard Baumann, is tied up in the closet as they attempt to communicate with the dead.

Larry Fessenden portrays Hockstatter with a mixture of madness and melancholy that’s infinitely memorable, and Kristina Klebe does a wonderful job as the surprise guest at the party who claims she’s completely innocent, and must use her wiles to keep these warhawks from ganging up on her. Fessenden and Klebe spoke with MovieWeb about Brooklyn 45 and its themes.

Larry Fessenden Inhabits a WW2 Military Man

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Fessenden is an excellent director himself, having turned the horror genre upside down with indie classics like Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter. He’s an underrated actor as well, with a kind of Nicholson-meets-Bukowski vibe, and he’s worked with Geoghegan before in that capacity; the two share a predilection for intellectual, mature horror dramas. While Brooklyn 45 certainly exists in the horror realm, with its supernatural undead, it’s more of a chamber drama that offers a unique, intimate perspective on the post-war period in America. That’s arguably what drew Fessenden to the film more than the ghouls and ghosts.

“What really struck me about this particular project was Ted’s connection to his father, who was an advisor on the script,” explained Fessenden. “Ted wrote it, and then gave it to his dad, who was not only a historian but a veteran, and he had much to offer in terms of details and advice, and they did work together on it, back and forth for some time. As Ted would tell you, the night that his dad says, ‘I think you have it, I think it’s done,’ then he passed away.” He continued:

So the project was haunted by this origin story that Ted would tell, and I think it gave all of us a feeling of an obligation. Obviously, the material already gave us an obligation to do right by this story, and both veterans and the idea of prejudice, which is certainly alive and well in America now but was different in those days. And we’ve all been in horror movies, so that’s just in our DNA, and that’s why we’re assembled here, to get some chills, but there was another dimension for this project that was very heartfelt.

Kristina Klebe on Why Brooklyn 45 Is Personal and Meaningful

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For Klebe, whose father is German, Brooklyn 45 also had some personal significance. “The story that Larry told, everybody knows about Ted’s father, which made it so powerful. And for me, personally, I really channeled my grandmother. I wore her wedding ring in the movie, and I think for a lot of the women in that time period, to be judged based on their language and the way they sound,” explained Klebe, “I can only imagine, so I kind of channeled how I imagined they would have felt at that time.” She continued:

My parents watched it the other night, and my mother was so affected by it. She wouldn’t stop talking about it, it just affected her so much because, you know, growing up post-World War Two, I think they don’t talk about it as much as we do, that generation. She felt it was so powerful. Klebe, a writer-director in her own right, felt an attachment to the part from the beginning. Like Fassenden, she’s friends with Geoghegan (the indie horror community sticks together), and saw the script in its early stages years ago. It was in the horror wheelhouse, sure, but Brooklyn 45 is a different gem altogether.

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“I co-wrote Two Witches. I helped Pierre [Tsigaridis] get that together because I really believed in him as a first-time feature filmmaker. Coming from that, this was just a different project than I feel like I’ve done in general, in so many different ways,” explained Klebe, who continued:

I mean, first I had read the script like four years previous, before the pandemic when Ted was trying to get it made at first. Second, Ted is a really good friend of mine. And so when I first read it, I was like, I really want to play this part. He was like, ‘I just don’t know; the producers gave me this list…’ And they were all like, you know, Diane Kruger and all these famous actresses. I’m like, ‘Well, I’m a famous German actress. I’m just German-American.'” “So I was trying to convince him for a long time, I wanted to do this,” continued Klebe, who almost seems like an amalgam of Mary Lynn Rajskubkub and Diane Kruger herself. “The script, I think, is so meaningful, and from a dramatic point of view, the writing is so poignant. It has all the horror aspects, but it’s almost like that is just icing on the cake. I mean, of course, the supernatural element is really a huge part of the story, but I feel like there’s just so much meaning to it.”

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So, what is that meaning? Well, the film examines the spiritual and ethical crisis which took hold after World War II, when so many people witnessed (and took part in) genocide and inhuman atrocities. Brooklyn 45 also intersects with our current sociopolitical situation, and really any historical moment where a group (Germans, Jews, Muslims, Communists) is scapegoated and culture is torn asunder by suspicion. Like many horror films, there’s an abundance of social commentary here.

“Look, this is the point,” explained Fessenden. “I’ve always said I think horror has a way of showing us things that reveal the darkness in our nature, in our society, reveal our anxieties reveal really how much potency there is. And you know, it’s about fear. So I think in every horror movie, there’s something that’s relevant to the moment.”

“What’s cool, is that even a period piece can still evoke problems. You can still watch Frankenstein and you would find contemporary resonance, that’s sort of the thrill of horror and also why it’s so essential. It’s cathartic, and I think for the most part is, in fact, a warning of sorts. You know, obviously, in Frankenstein it’s ‘don’t mess with science or play God.’ In a case like this, it’s fear of the other, scapegoating people, judging people by their accent. Obviously it’s relevant to today, but that’s always the truth — everybody scapegoats the other team.”

Related: Brooklyn 45 Review: A Post-War Séance Turns Tense

‘The other team,’ in this instance, begins with Klebe’s character before tribalism and other accusations set in. Col. Hockstatter’s dead wife thought she was a Nazi, and everyone dismissed the woman until she took her own life. Now, the group of veterans, wounded by the war, catch a bit of that same madness and start to think, maybe his wife was right? While it’s purposefully a bit ambiguous, Klebe knew she didn’t want to play Hildegard as a Nazi, though.

“In my mind, she was not a spy and not a Nazi. Like there was no question, even from the first day,” said Klebe. “She’s innocent, you know? In my mind, 100% she was, but I think it was just written in a certain way. And I think Ted directed it in a certain way to make sure that the ambiguity remained, which is his job as a director and creator — I think if there’s no ambiguity, then the whole story doesn’t work. You have to believe that there is a possibility that she might be the things that some of them say she is, otherwise it doesn’t work.”

Starting a Séance and Playing a Villain

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Klebe’s character is introduced after one of the best scenes of the film, an intense, nearly nine-minute existential confession and veritable mental breakdown from Hockstatter. It’s an astounding scene, and Fessenden gives one of the best supporting performances of the year. “I have these long monologues in the beginning, which we did rehearse for a day. And it was fun to break the ice with the whole group, doing this long monologue, and kind of get over the willies,” said Fessenden. It’s an intense moment that rests on his shoulders, and his approach to playing this disturbed character results in an unforgettable scene.

Related: The Best Monologues in Movies, Ranked

“First of all, I learned the text. That’s the hardest part for me, because I have no memory left,” explained Fessenden, who could’ve fooled us based on this scene. “But then, I keep analyzing the words and find some truth and empathy in it. You know, I was not in the army, but you can draw from things. I run a company, so I have been the boss, and the idea of giving orders and so much of life, for better or worse, is about power. So I think my relationship with each of the folks in the room […] there’s sort of a power relationship, and that’s essential to my storyline.”

“But that’s my way into a story, and finding where that character’s headspace is. It’s all on the page, the contours of that monologue are really wonderful. And of course, it has rage against religion and other things, and the injustice of his wife having off herself. She won’t get into the pearly gates, and all of that. So you just really think about where that headspace is.” Fessenden continued:

Obviously you don’t play a villain, so I certainly think he was aware of his power, but he’s not aware that he’s a bad guy, even when by the end, at some point, he’s feeling rather demonstrative about what he thinks should go down. But you play it from the heart. That’s how most nasty people see themselves. Some of the people in Brooklyn 45 may be nasty, some may be tragic, some may be pathetic, but they’re all human, all too human, and reflect us all. From Shudder and produced by Divide/Conquer, Raven Banner Entertainment, Hangar 18 Media, and The Line Film Company, Brooklyn 45 will stream on Shudder and AMC+ on June 9th.