Memo to publicists: moments before an interview is due to take place, please don’t plop down a copy of a newspaper containing a movie review, good or bad, of the film in which the interview subject has a starring role. That said, Bryan Kirkwood, who plays mysterious romantic interest Jake in the gay slasher film HellBent, took Michael Wilmington’s two-star review in the Chicago Tribune (“I got a mediocre review,” Kirkwood said) in stride, in between gulps of coffee and a bottle of orange juice at the Intelligentsia Café on Broadway. The night before, Kirkwood, who is straight, made the rounds of Chicago’s North Halsted Street gay bars to promote the film, and was good enough join me for the interview (warning: contains SPOILERS).

AfterElton.com: HellBent is in theaters at around the same time that The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Cry_Wolf are also playing. What do you think is the allure of horror movies, whether they are slasher or supernatural based?
Bryan Kirkwood: The suspense and the thrill of it. That’s what separates it from the others.

AE: When going to the movies--how high on your list would a horror movie be?
BK: They used be bigger. In the eighties, when I was a kid, I used to love the old slasher films. Then I think they got a little bit campy, with the Scream series. I wasn’t as much into those. But I think that Paul (Etheredge-Ouzts) really brought some of the elements of the old stuff back to HellBent. But horror movies are always a blast.

AE: Do you have a favorite slasher or supernatural horror movie?
BK: Not a favorite, but I would probably say that I loved all of the Halloween movies. It’s kind of ironic considering that Joseph Wolf, who did the Halloween series helped produce HellBent (laughs). I loved the Halloweens and the Friday The 13^ths.

AE: The first time we see Jake in HellBent, he is getting a tattoo on his back.  I happened to notice, sitting across from you, that you a tattoo on your wrist and finger.
BK: Yeah, I have some tattoos.

AE: More than those two?
BK: Yeah, I’ve got like ten.

AE: Was the tattoo on your back in the movie yours?
BK: No, that was something they did. They actually covered my real tattoo, because there was some significance to the wings tattoo in the movie.

AE: Did that take a long time?
BK: Yeah, they airbrushed them. It was a process everyday to cover the tattoos and then add the other one.

AE: In addition to the tension created by the presence of the masked slasher, there is also erotic tension between Jake and Eddie. Can you say something about playing to that aspect of the movie?
BK: I think we wanted to bring some tension in the dynamic of the relationship between Eddie and Jake. It brought another element of suspense to it. In any relationship, there is tension involved in the control aspect, which played well with the movie.