Why Shut In star Naomi Watts should never take a bath
Prune-like skin is the least of Watts’ and countless other horror film characters’ problems whenever they bathe, or worse, fall asleep in the tub
For God’s sake, Naomi Watts, stay away from the bathtub!
It’s a lesson the actress didn’t learn before shooting her thriller Shut In. When strange stuff starts going down, do not – repeat, do not – go near, much less luxuriate, in a hot bath.
Pruney skin will be the least of your concerns.
“If you’re in a bathtub in a horror movie, you know what you’re signing up for,” Watts acknowledges. “Expect the worst. Bad things happen around there.”
Watts should know. In 2005’s The Ring Two, her character Rachel Keller saw her son terrifyingly transform into the film’s deadly spirit Samara in the tub, leading to a very wet battle. Yet in Shut In, Watts’ Mary Portman, who believes she’s losing her mind during a storm in her isolated house (big red flags there), decides to relax with a soothing bath.
In the pivotal scene, Portman naturally dozes off and has a nightmare.
When she wakes up, “it’s clear she has fallen asleep,” says director Farren Blackburn. “It’s not so clear whether the nightmare woke her or if she’s hearing someone downstairs trying to get into the house.”
Bad baths have played out throughout film history, often in cinematically pleasing claw foot tubs with beautiful victims. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Claire nearly drowned after someone (surely not her perfect husband, played by Harrison Ford) booby-trapped her tub in 2000’s What Lies Beneath.