British star Nick Frost says horror films relax him

Actor and writer Nick Frost said he has been watching horror films since he was a child as they make him feel “relaxed and at ease”.

The British star appeared at the UK premiere of comedy horror film Get Away, which he wrote and co-stars in alongside Irish comedian Aisling Bea, Maisie Ayres and Sebastian Croft.

“I’ve always loved comedy and I’ve always loved horror – even as a 10-year-old I was watching horror films,” Frost told the PA news agency on the London carpet.

“I think there’s something about it that my brain works, because I know it so well. Even though it’s horror, it kind of makes me feel relaxed and at ease.”

Talking about the writing process for Get Away, about a family whose holiday takes an unexpected turn when they discover the remote island is inhabited by a serial killer, Frost said “it’s the same as everything”.

“I sit and I put the telly on, and I watch horror films all day, and I just write, and that’s it,” he told PA.

“I make pages and pages and pages and pages of notes, not just for Get Away but for things I’m going to do in two or three films’ time and start to kind of put a bank together.”

Frost said he has “learned to lower my expectations” regarding the quality of the first draft, knowing “from that point, it’s just going to get better and better and better” as the cast and director bring fresh ideas to the script.

The 52-year-old said inspiration for Get Away, directed by Steffen Haars, came from a 1992 mockumentary about a serial killer called Man Bites Dog, and a 1998 dark comedy film by Lars von Trier called The Idiots.

“I really like films where (they) get to a point when something is revealed about these characters that you’ve kind of enjoyed along the way, and then you’re given the option as an audience, whether or not do you now hate these people, or do you still kind of like them,” Frost added.

In comparison, his co-star Bea told PA “I genuinely get scared all the time from everything”.

“There’s currently a rumour (that) there is a mouse in my house and I don’t really want to go home tonight – so I’m not great with fear as a genre,” she said.

“But this was quite fun to be inside it, because you’re less scared because you actually are sitting around eating sandwiches all day in between the murders and stuff like that.

“So, that slightly makes it easier to be in it.”

Bea also spoke about challenges of production on the film, which included having to “run around a forest full of flies with jam all over you all day” to portray fake blood.

The 40-year-old added: “We would laugh so much all day long and have such a laugh, even among dead body parts and covered in fake blood and stuff like that.

“Pretty fun job, I have to say.”

Croft, 23, said he was “happy to just be a fly on the wall” as Frost and Bea improvised on set.

Get Away will be released on Sky Cinema in the UK on January 10.