Canadian actor Lochlyn Munro is a familiar sight to genre fans, most notably for his recent role as Hal Cooper–aka revenging serial killer the Black Hood–on the CW series, Riverdale. His newest role is chancellor Bruce Van Horn in the new college slasher, Initiation, from director John Berardo where, “during a university’s pledge week, the carefree partying turns deadly serious when a star athlete is found impaled in his dorm. The murder ignites a spree of sinister social-media messages, sweeping the students and police into a race against time to uncover the truth behind the school’s dark secrets…and the horrifying meaning of a recurring symbol: a single exclamation mark.”
It’s a fun inversion of a lot of slasher tropes, and Munro seems to have a blast playing his take on the “crusty college dean” trope, so it was a real pleasure to speak with the actor by phone about the new film and his genre history.
STARBURST: One of the things that struck us upon watching Initiation was the fact that you and Jon Huertas and Bart Johnson–all the adults in the movie–also have experience in teen dramas.
Lochlyn Munro: Yeah, I know, right? It’s funny because when I did the movie Dance Flick for the Wayans brothers, I actually going for a slight parody of Bart’s character from High School Musical. It’s kind of funny that I’ve done that a couple of times because during Riverdale, Skeet [Ulrich] and I used to always joke that I also did a parody of his Scream movie character [in Scary Movie]. I have a way of doing that. I just like to parody other people’s lives, you know?
Going all the way back to when you got your start as a young actor yourself, you were on 21 Jump Street. What’s it like now, playing the dad on Riverdale, as you mentioned, or in this film, the crusty chancellor?
I remember a moment specifically during our first table read of Riverdale for the pilot. Luke [Perry] and I have known each other for a lot of years and we looked across the table at each other and just kind of laughed at it. All these young good looking kids are on the show and that we used to be able to date all those young good looking kids, and now we’re their fathers. The tides change, you know, but now it’s a lot of fun.
I was just really really humbled that John [Berardo, co-writer/director] and Brian [Frager, co-writer] wanted me to play this character in their film. I had a great time. I love this: really enthusiastic, fun, smart young filmmakers. It was a very exciting time for them to get this off the ground and I was really lucky to be part of it.
You’ve gotten to do a lot of really interesting sort of genre stuff over the course of your career. Is that something to which you’re attracted or are those the roles that just happened to come your way as a result of doing some of that early on, like Nightmare Cafe or Highlander?
Oh my gosh, you remembered all that stuff?
We love Nightmare Cafe.
That was interesting, that show. I guess I just love movies. I love stories. And whether they be comedic, whether they be horror films, whether they be really interesting and dramatic films, I guess it just comes down to being able to create characters and great stories.
Again, even though Scary Movie was sort of a parody on horror films, you still had to sort of play it real because then all the situations around it work, whereas if you make fun of them, then the audience sees sort of a fakeness to it. I played Greg in Scary Movie as real as I could to create that character and that, I believe, is where the comedy came from. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do horror, comedy, and serious dramas. I’m really lucky that I’ve been able to tackle each genre.
What specifically attracted you to Initiation? Had you seen John’s short film, Dembanger, before you read the script?
No, I hadn’t seen his short. I was aware of the project when the casting person, Ricki Maslar, who was casting the film has always been a really good friend of mine, phoned me up and said, “Hey, would you be interested in coming on board with this stuff? You know, it’s a smaller movie, but I think that the filmmakers are really cool and I think you would enjoy it.”
I was fully on board because, one–I adore her, so anytime she asks me to do anything, I’m always on board because she’s got great taste. And once I met the guys–again just really passionate, smart, young filmmakers, and, and I loved being part of it. I thought that story was great. They shot it in a way that they created suspense, they created questions, and then they pulled no punches. Just a ton of great classic film beats, you know? It was pretty easy for me to say, “Yeah!”
The only thing I have a hard time with is that, every time I do a horror film, I forget that it’s always scarier at night and I suck at night shoots, man. I just have such a hard time. My internal clock doesn’t work that way very well.
What’s really interesting about the film is the message that it has and the way it sort of flips the traditional slasher script. It reminds us of old Italian Giallo movies: dude in the mask, stalking people with a lot of interesting interpersonal drama. What specifically did you like about the character of the chancellor? He’s a little weaselly.
Yes, yes. I think a lot of the reasons for that are, in a sense, I always felt that Van Horn was always balancing humanity and business. He had a responsibility to protect the students, which to me personally would have been first and foremost, but he also felt like he had a responsibility to protect the integrity of the school and what that brings to his school, whether it be hefty donations from the well-to-do.
Did he do all the right things? I’d say no, but he was trying to balance everything that he felt that he could and I think that that was a great approach to create that character, because it also created suspense for the audience, wondering how involved is Van Horn in this whole situation?
We have to ask: did you go to college yourself?
During my college years, I actually played in a hockey league in Canada called the Western Hockey League. I did do a bit of college for one year. I actually was taking classes because I wanted to. I was interested in forensics and stuff like that, so I took a couple of psychology courses and whatnot, and it’s kind of interesting because I think that that also lent its hand to creating characters and in the film world, as well.
I can honestly tell you, I do wish that I had a four-year college experience. I think that would have been amazing. I’m hoping that that’s what my daughter and my son can now achieve and experience.
That’s fantastic that you studied forensics, given the number of cops you’ve played over the years. That just seems like such a perfect background detail that we’re so happy to know.
Isn’t that weird? It’s so fun, the cop roles and stuff like that. I’ve never made a conscious effort to them to just play cops, but they come my way a lot. You can say I’ve played a detective many times in my career. A lot of people do talk about that and I think, “Well, I guess the reason being is that there’s just so many storylines involved with the law,” you know? They’re endless. You just pick up the newspaper and go through the newspaper. That’s probably how they do Law & Order: every day, one of the writers or the showrunners read the New York Times and create stories out of what they’re reading.
Saban Films will be releasing INITIATION in theaters, on-demand, and on digital May 7th.
