Bookwild - Damian McCarthy's Oddity: A Paranormal Horror Whodunit Thriller

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

This week, I talk with Damian McCarthy about his genre-mashup, paranormal horror thriller Oddity.  We dive into how he crafted plot around visuals, and how he brought together multiple ideas into Oddity's fabric.Oddity SynopsisA psychic medium attempts to uncover the truth behind her sister's murder at the site of the crime. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

So it's very much like, well, I've only got to make one film. I'd like to just put all these things into it that I'd like to see. I had all these floating ideas that never really had a place to put them. I had a guy with a glass eye and he gets wiped out and all his left is the eye. And I had, you know, these twin sisters and one is into psychometry and object reading and, you know, collecting all the spooky stuff. And I said, well, she'd be cool. And the guy trying to talk his way into the house saying, I've seen somebody in there. All of these things, you know, they were all just in my, you know, my, you know, my,

my book of ideas essentially and it was like, well, I don't know what to do with them, but they'd been there for years because it would be hard to stretch any of them into a feature film. I'm going to start writing Oddity. It was like, oh, well, there's a way you can kind of bring all these these things together. This week I'm switching it up a little bit because I talked with writer and director of the film Audity, which is this really cool subgenre mashup of horror, thriller elements, mystery elements, um, who done. elements. It has so many of my favorite subgenres, I guess, is what you would say, in it. And I think that's why I loved it so much. We saw it in theaters and it was absolutely terrifying. And then when

I rewatched it before the interview at home, it was still terrifying. And I knew it was going to be happening. So there is a whole section at the beginning that's spoiler-free. So if you haven't watched it yet and you just kind of want to hear a little bit about it to decide if you do want to watch it, you can listen. And then it's clearly marked when we do get into spoilers, which was a really fun conversation. It was really cool getting to talk about story with a whole other medium where I'm not normally talking to people about visuals. And it was really cool to hear how much the visual is what drives Danian's storytelling. That being said, let's get into it. So I wanted to get to know a little bit about you before we dive into the movie.

So what got you into writing or did you always know that you wanted to write? Basically, what's your story with that? Yeah, I guess it was just a lifelong love of story, really, of books, short stories, I guess mainly when I was younger. And then obviously films. My parents had a VHS rental shop when I was growing up. so it was always, you know, it was one of those kids always inside the,

the shop, taking home anything good, re-watching it. This would have been in the mid-80s or early 90s. Yeah, and it just, it was just something I always liked. Just, you know, kind of my imagination would just, I was always just thinking up this stuff, I guess, for whatever reason, it just interested me. I was never very, you know, was never very good at school

or it wasn't very athletic. So this seemed to be where my passion wins, into stories and just my imagination, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That is so cool. Well, my next question was going to be about directing or filming or picking up a camera, like where that came from too. But it sounds like maybe that was even related to your parents renting movies as well. So when did you kind of get into the film aspect of it? It was quite late, I guess. So I went to, I went back as a mature student when I was 22 to St. John's College in Car. I live in Cork in the south west of Ireland. It's a film school here.

And I went back at when I was 22, it's about 20 years ago now, I guess, when they opened up this course, I started teaching digital filmmaking because digital had just come online. But it was still in that transition time between shooting on film, where it was still 16 mil and 8 mil, before, you know, YouTube and the kind of, you know, before everything went digital and making a film was just so much more accessible for everybody. So that was kind of my first time ever really picking up a camera or, you know, filming anything. I was never somebody as a child that was, you know, playing with Super 8 cameras or camcorders at home or anything like that. Yeah, that was really the beginning of it, I guess. Just made lots of bad short films that get screened at any film festivals, lots of trial and error. But I always say this to film students anyway. The best way to learn is just to do it.

You'll have an idea. It's really good in your head. Let's see a percentage of that, you know, you can get onto the camera. If you're, you know, I think they say if you can get 70% of the way you see it in your head onto the screen, you're doing pretty good. So for those first score films, it was probably average around 10% of the way it was in my head to what it was on the screen because it was so bad. But, you know, part of the process, I guess. I think it's, and it will be forever.

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's always, yeah, you always have to kind of be bad at something when you start it, even if you're like intrigued by it. So you kind of have to get through those like messy first trials of doing something. Yeah. But that is something I kind of wanted to talk about too because this is obviously I normally talk to authors of books. And it's obviously very different writing a book versus like a screenplay for film,

especially because of what you were just talking about. Like it's like when you write it, if you're writing a book, you can just kind of write whatever. and like that's the visual that you're thinking of, but there is so much more to translate when you're having to then turn it into like an actual film that's representing your ideas. So what have you,

you said you kind of wrote short stories too. What is like the differing experience for you and like turning something into a film versus just like maybe writing a short story? I guess I always say if I was a better writer, if I had more talents or maybe just, you know, better educated, I would have been a novelist because I think in some ways it'd be easier because you can just write in that bottle and it's anything and anything you want.

You know, you can get into the character's thoughts, you know. The budget doesn't, you don't have to think about budget as much at all. It doesn't matter. So very much when you're writing a screenplay, especially when you're starting out, you have to figure out, well, how do I do this? If you don't have any kind of financing or resources or anything, you're going like, well, if I don't know how to do this, you know, we won't be able to do it. So I'd made a lot of short films and they were always written around everything that I had. access to or something, you know, even an interesting person or an interesting prop or a place, because I knew I'd be able to do that. And then I made one feature film called caveat. And it was

very much, again, written around everything I had access to or I know somebody that could, that could, you know, beg, borrow or steal something that I needed from. And, you know, I still think that's always there. Even I'm working on my new film now. And it's, you know, you're still trying to write within certain, you know, within certain limitations. I think it's good, though. I think it's good to have those, to have those limitations because it makes you be more creative and try to figure out, still trying to figure out how to do it. And that helps, obviously, when you're trying to figure out how to, you know, how to film it.

And oddity was very much the same. Oddity was written around an interesting location that I had access to. And, you know, I knew it would be one location and just trying to tell a story within that. space. But if you're right, or of course, you can just, you know, go nuts, right, whatever you want. And if people want to adapt it for a film, it'll become their, it'll become their problem. That's true. That was going to be another one of my questions too, is the, so it's, well, that's another, that's a whole other thing. There's a lot of genres blended together in this movie, but, um, the location is super, like, it, it adds to the, like,

gothic, kind of eerie vibes that are going with it. And I thought that the house that you filmed in was so, it was just so cool. Like I was like, I want to go to this place. So I was going to ask if you had like a visual and that visual in mind and then you found the place or if you had a place and kind of rode around it. So it sounds like you knew a place you could use. Yeah, well, it's my friends that own Bantry House in West Cork. And that's an old renovated stables at the back of the house. And I shot my film caveat there.

but we had built sets in that room. And I just thought the room was cool, you know, the walkway and stone walls and all this kind of thing. And I just said, well, if you set a, I had this idea for the haunted house film, which was oddity. And I said, well, if you set it in this room, as opposed to your standard, you know, spooky old house, there's something really just an odd feeling in that room.

It's, you know, it's claustrophobic, but it's the same time you can shoot it quite wide and, you know, you get these great angles. So yeah, there definitely was a point, I think, when if we couldn't have gotten permission to film, but I just wouldn't have made the film, I would have moved on to something else. Because I thought the location was so important. But yeah, again, it's like coming back to, you know, what you said about the difference between writing a book and a script, is you're still trying to write around something that you can already, you know, already visualize and it already exists.

And that was definitely the quality. That's really cool. is my husband and I, my husband's a photographer and videographer and then I edit, mostly social media content, but that's something that he's run into when he goes to just like do a fun project or a passion project. Sometimes not having any constraints makes it harder for him to be creative. So we've also kind of had conversations about that, how sometimes having the constraints or a structure that you have to follow actually help.

you be more creative. So that is that is kind of fascinating thinking about like just the inspiration point can be so different, but it still can inspire something really cool. Yeah, I think those those limitations are great. Even yeah, I've heard directors talk about that sandbox that they're given to play in and then they know that like, okay, I have my four, I have my four, I have my four walls, everything inside your know is what I can do. Whereas if you can kind of do anything, you know, sometimes not the best. And you could, you know, you could not, you could not to you could point out certain filmmakers I guess and look at their earlier films

where they had less access to budgets and special effects and stuff like this and some of that stuff is very creative and then maybe look at films they made later which are very big and maybe not as I guess just in my opinion anyway maybe not as not as interesting as some of the earlier

stuff they made where they had to be a little bit more creative at what they were doing. Yeah yeah that's a really cool point the other thing that I brought up a little bit earlier is that it's like there's kind of this genre matchup. So we have mashup. We have paranormal elements. There's a horror element. We have a psychic twin who's kind of our whodunit detective, but we're kind of using the paranormal

as the way that she solves it. There's home invasion. There's horror. I can't remember if I said horror already. Did you go into the story knowing you wanted to blend all of those together, or was like the story you wrote, it just happened to be all of those? It's probably a really pessimistic answer, but I think I've said it before that like, I always worried that it'll be the last, you know, when we made Audity, I said like, this might be the last film I get to make. You just never know, you know, because I think films are just, caveat was such a difficult film to make that I wasn't sure if I, you know,

wanted to make more. And I said, okay, like, let's see how oddity turns out. So it's very much like, well, if only got to make one film, I'd like to just put all these things into it that I'd like to see. And I had all these flow. ideas that never really had a place to put them. I had a guy with a glass eye and he gets wiped out and all's left is the eye. And I had these twin sisters and one is into psychometry and object reading and, you know,

collecting all the spooky stuff. And I said, well, she'd be cool. And it kind of went on like that. It was just, I had just all these, you know, the guy trying to talk his way into the house saying I've seen somebody in there. All of these things, you know, they were all just in my, you know, my book of ideas. essentially and it was like, oh, I don't know what to do with them. And they'd been there for years because it would be hard to stretch any of them into a feature

film. When I started writing oddity, it was like, oh, well, there's a way you can kind of bring all these things together. And I was never really sure if it would work because it does, you know, it does bounce across a few genres of subgenres or like it's a, as you say, it's a home invasion. It's a bit of a psychological horror, supernatural horror, a little bit of a mystery. And just trying to get all those to work. That was kind of the challenge with the script.

But weird, they seem to, in my head anyway, it seemed like, well, these old things all seem like they could work together in a film, but I wasn't sure if the film would work, but I guess that's what you've got to try to, you know, you try to take that chance when you do it. Yeah, so it's really just all these old ideas I had and trying to bring them together into this thing

that I really wanted to see. And I think it's good, just because there's such a mishmash of horrors and it can work, you know, it can work sometimes and thankfully people seem to like Audity they think that these things nobody really seems to get thrown out by a

sudden change in whatever the threat in the film is but if I'm watching something with my girlfriend that she'll be like she won't be scared of anything supernatural just anything ghosts that just won't scare but it's more that you know like a kind of a thriller or that

you know she might find something like the orphan or silence the last much scarier than I don't know, maybe Ringgoo or something like it, which I always find quite interesting. So I guess one of the things from a horror film, you know, from a former filmmaker point of view,

try to say, well, yeah, there's ghosts in it, but if you're not afraid of ghosts, then maybe the guy trying to talk as we into the house, something to be afraid of. If that doesn't catch you, then maybe it's the psychological threat or whatever it kind of hopes that there'll be something in here that'll catch out everybody at least once, you know.

Yeah. Kind of a little bit of the challenge with us. Right. That makes a lot of sense. I love that perspective because this summer there was just, there was a lot of discourse around like what scary means. So I got like, that was really fascinating to me because like you're pointing out it's so subjective

because like you said like some people are never going to be scared by a ghost. And for some people that is the most terrifying thing to think about. And there was. And I enjoyed long legs, but that was where that came out. That was where I was starting to see all this discourse about like, they were saying like, oh, this is the scariest movie that's been made in 10 years and like all the like footage of the, I can't think of it, Micah's heart rate like going up really high when she saw Nicolith Cage.

And I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it as a movie, but it wasn't, I wouldn't say it was terrifying for me. But then my friend watched it. And he was like, why didn't you tell me that this was terrifying? And I was like, well, I didn't say, it just, it just wasn't as terrifying for me. So then, um, we heard about oddity on TikTok actually. Um, and a someone was saying like that Longley's didn't necessarily terrify me, but this one did. And so we were like, okay, let's let's go see it. And like on our way there, we were talking about like, what, like, I haven't like been totally terrified in a theater in a little while.

I was just kind of like what we were talking about on the way there. And I was like, it's so hard to know what's going to get you. But there is a scene in this one that we'll get to after we're into spoilers that we were sitting there. And my husband turned to me and he was like, this is terrifying. And I was like, yes, it is. So there are, there are a lot of elements at play. And I do think it's kind of cool that scary is different for everyone. Yeah.

I mean, I don't read a whole lot about oddity online and just try not to. Right. Most part it seems to be quite good. But I see that, you know, I read about other horror films, obviously just as a fan. I think scariest film of the year has been attached to pretty much every horror film that seems to come out this summer. It's just there. I really enjoyed long legs. I thought it was, you know, because I'd seen Lackett.

For some reason, just seemed to get lumped in with oddity. There's such different films, but I seem to come across the two of them just be, I don't know where they've released close together or maybe that's scary. It was here. They were released within two weeks of each other, I think. So I think that's kind of why. Yeah, yeah. But I thought they were very different, but I thought Long Lakes was great. I know, Alex Perkins is such a director anyway, but it's a very unsettling. But, you know, horror is so subjective. I mean, you could watch one thing and go like, and find it scary at all,

and the next person found it. Yeah. Terrifying. I've seen a bit of this with Skinnamar Inc. Did you see, did you see Skinnamarine? No, I haven't seen, but I heard people talking about it this summer, too. Such an unusual film, and it's on Shudder, and it's like, it's a low-budge film that I think was made during the past. pandemic and it's a slow movie and uh but just very interesting and i found watching it was going yeah it's it's quite slow and it's it's you know it feels very um very creative the way it was made but that really got under my skin when it was finished for whatever reason it was no kind i was um here on my own at the time kind of going to bed you know after it's going like wow that that film's kind of it's been a while since i've been a while since i've seen by some i seems have

kind of gotten in there for some reason you know so i couldn't tell you why it's not like the end of, you know, ring goo or something where you can really put your finger on. Well, this is terrifying because of, you know, this reason. But that movie, whatever was, it just seemed to, you know, or like under the skin was another film that when you finish you're really unsettled after watching that. So there's, you know. Yeah. I think unsettled is a good word for it too, because that's what I, that's kind of how I felt about long legs. Like there's just kind of like dread throughout all of it. And you're just like, you're just kind of tits, even though there's not these like, huge jump scares super often, but unsettling, I think, is like that really good word, too,

where the whole time you're like, where is this headed? What does this mean? Yeah, it's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something off about the whole feeling in the movie, which is great. Yeah. And the shots were, it was like really beautiful to watch was like the other part that I felt like, which I kind of noticed because I rewatched Audity this morning, actually. This is still kind of mourning for me over here. But some of the shots were also, like the color grading is very different. I think Auditie is a little more like green blue-ish.

But there were some of the like really squared off shots that were reminding me of some of the ones in long legs too. So just there in my brain space together. It sounds like, so you were kind of mentioning that the like objects were kind of the things in your mind. And then you also knew you had that house that you could shoot in. Was there anything plot-wise that was like the inspiration for this one? Or was it mostly kind of like those visuals that came to you first? It's usually the visuals and then just trying to wrap these, again, just wrap these floating ideas I had for scenes around this main story of the two sisters and one of them, one of them getting killed. Yeah, that's pretty much the idea, you know, and then just kind of built out from there.

Then you start bringing in the other characters and working out your plot. I guess. Yeah. That's always that's like one of the most fascinating things to me with this getting to talk to writers is how many different ways inspiration can come to you. And so some people, it's like the character was the first thing or vibes were the first thing. And they don't even get to plot until later. And I feel like it makes a lot of sense that with movies that could be even more common that you just have a really strong visual in your mind. And then you kind of work around that. Yeah. I think of and I've said this before. They always liked this old interview Guillermo del Torre he talks about, he would just start with some image, whatever it would be.

And he just, that will be, he can see the film from that and start building out from that. And I do think with Audity, it became like, you know, that, that, that, that tent that she's set up. Like, I think it was like, oh, that would be a cool poster kind of thing, you know, like on that. Just imagine this yellow tint in this big empty room. It's like, she's, you know, she's camping out here as she's doing the place up. And, you know, then the haunted desk bell and all these kind of things. They start to, you know, going through your, going to your old ideas. well yeah a lot of this makes sense I could bring all these together now and uh I find that anyway

you find a lot of old ideas that have been sitting there for a long time they just start you know you never know what to do with them and suddenly it's like this is exactly how I should end in this script so yeah that's so cool I did have a question about the yellow tint so actually I'm gonna we're going to get into spoilers now so if you haven't watched it go watch it and then come back basically I feel like we've probably intrigued you enough and also I love revenge stories. So, and I know a lot of the listeners do. So I forgot to mention it's also relatively revenge driven. So I'm sure we've piqued your interest at this point. So if you haven't seen it, go watch it. I have a bunch of spoilery questions. But since we just came from

the tent, it stuck out to me too, because even when I was trying to describe this, like we saw it in theaters probably five or six weeks ago at this point, which is why I wanted to rewatch it and kind refresh it in my brain because I couldn't take all the notes I wanted to in the movie theater. But the tent stood out to me so much, even when I was describing this to one of my friends recently, and I hadn't rewatched it yet. And then when I was rewatching it, there's like when the man comes to her door to warn her at the very beginning, it's also like very prominently right behind her. And it is like glowing yellow. And then you see it later as we find out more about the story. and it was like glowing yellow too.

Was there anything behind that imagery and the color choices and stuff? Or was it just like that idea kind of just stood out to you as an image? I think it's just that that's her point of safety. You know, I guess just from that my feeling of it would be like that's the one place that's not as cold and dark as the rest of the house. Maybe it was able to always affect the lighting that this would be almost like our, you know, what's, I guess what we just say, what's motivating all the lighting in the house?

The idea was always to have it feel like it is that it is an old ghost story that it's supposed to feel like it's a lamplice and kind of, you know, those warm tones of, you know, orange and yellow against all this dark shadow. I just thought it would just look visually interesting. And because it's so prominent in those scenes, just because the film is nonlinear, that every time we cut back, you know, that you're back there very quickly, you know, that it has that feeling between these two people because the lighting is so, you know, so quickly recognize. I guess was the idea behind it. Yeah. Obviously for the murder scene, I just, I knew they never wanted to show it. It was always the idea just to skip past it. Yeah.

Never really, just, I mean, the film is a little bit silly in some ways. I don't think it takes itself too seriously. There is comedy in it. It just thought if you had quite a, quite a violent moment in the middle of it, it thought it would have, you know, maybe made a little bit less rewatchable, or it would have been something about it that would have taken people out of it. It's still hopefully shocking, but. I just don't know why it would show it.

It just didn't feel like it belonged to the story. So even, I think even in the script and certainly in storyboarding, it was just, let's just skip past it. But that shock of, you know, from a perfectly clean, yellow, bright tints, suddenly just being destroyed with blood.

A locked off camera, I just thought that there would be something, you know, but again, something kind of shocking about that. Yeah. There was, there are quite a few things that actually happened off camera too, which I thought was really intriguing. And I feel like it really adds up the suspense and the horror in certain moments.

So like you're saying, we have this moment where she realizes someone's in the house, which I have another question about that. And then she unzips the tent. And then like you're saying, we just cut and now there's blood everywhere. So we like understand that she died, but we didn't see it. there's also the stuff that's in the wooden man's head. Like we find out that there's stuff in there, but we don't see her put it in there.

So we kind of don't know what it is, but it's like alluding to something kind of witchy and magical. So how did you pick the things you wanted off-screen versus on-screen? I suppose the style, okay, we'll say the object's in the head, for example. It's like, well, she's obviously, she's having. a week since she's discovered, you know, she's had a week to prepare for this revenge and get the wooden man ready. I just like, yeah, think that whatever she's had to do at home, whatever kind of ritual, you know, incantations, whatever, you know, whatever this whole thing is that

she's, I guess, whatever, this whole ceremony that she's done at home to get this guy, you know, up and running eventually, that, um, it's just completely left, left open to the audience's imagination. I mean, you could have showed you, you could have showed her in the room and there's candles everywhere and, you know, she's reciting this stuff and she's placing the, you know, she's placing the objects in one by one. I think it's just, um, it's just weirder to show it from almost Yanna's point of view. I mean, Jana's so kind of set in the real world, I guess, that she's like, what is, you know, she says like, what, what is all this? Yeah. It's kind of the idea. It just ought to be more interesting that, that the audience would have to go, oh, clearly this is how it works.

This is something that she's done off screen in the last week. And I guess the other stuff that just not showing is again or you know that happens off screen is just to add to the mystery i suppose yeah yeah i agree um so from the beginning the was something i thought that's really cool is it kind of flips the trope on its head that like the weird looking guy it was actually trying to help her was that intentional because it felt like such a flip to me like we always think like oh the weird looking person is probably the person who did it. Was that intentional or was it just kind of like the visual you had? I guess it's the visual.

I suppose it's playing with horror tropes a little bit. You know, that I think, I mean, Carolyn Bracken's playing two roles in it, you know, that she's playing both sisters. But then I kind of feel in some ways that everybody is, you know, everybody is playing two parts one way. I mean, like Tyke, Tyke Murphy, who's, is our old and trying to talk. into the house. I mean, he did quite a difficult job because he's trying to play, you know, he's a very skilled actor to do that because you're trying to play like boat menacing and like

there's no way I let this guy into the house, but also something kind of vulnerable about him and sincere and at the same time non-threatening. It's like, okay, I will let this guy in because he is trying to, you know, he's trying to help me. So I mean, you know, and then of course Ted is, both playing this concerned grieving widower and then obviously, you know, sociopath killer as well. So, you know, on and on. They all seem to kind of have, have this double side to them, I guess. Yeah. The other part of that, just kind of an extension of that, is you're kind of thinking this whole time that it's like the crazy or mentally unwell people. Like you're thinking like, oh, this is, this has to be the cause of something so violent.

And then like you're saying, what we actually learn is the very like normal looking guy who like works to quote unquote help people with mental health issues is the one who is actually the most evil. And I mean, Ivan actually kills her. But I think he's, I think it'd be safe to say he was at least a little bit manipulated by Ted as well. So was that kind of was that part intentional or did that just kind of come through with the idea of having like duplicitous characters? I think so, yeah. I suppose it be quite obvious if, you know, it's like I'm a big fan of B movies in the 80s, you know, just stories in general, the, you know, the escaped mental patient is roaming, you know, roaming the world, just killing people, that kind of thing. Yeah. It's just to flip that, really, you know, to say like, yeah, that this guy obviously

did have trauma or whatever in his past, but he's, you know, he's still showing up, you know, he's doing the right thing. It's the doctor. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the other than, you know, it's, again, it's just playing with tropes a little bit. Yeah. So there's also like a really huge focus on eyes, sight, blindness. It like really feels like a motif throughout it. So we have Darcy is blind. I noticed like Ivan's mask when he's there to kill her.

The like eyes slots almost look like bullet holes was the best thing that I could think of when I was looking at it. And then there's even when when Darcy is talking to Yanna, about Olin, she says something along the lines of like, if I only had one working eye, I would kill to protect it too. So what was your idea behind all the stuff with eyes and sight in this one? That's a funny one because I sometimes think when you're writing this stuff or when you're making it, it's there on some level, but it's never super intention. It's not like, okay, there's going to be this, you know, a recurring motif of whatever it's going to be in the film. And it's not until afterwards, and you watch, you go, oh, yeah, this is clearly,

it's very obvious. It was the same with, same with caveat. People were saying that there's, there's a continuous, like, circles. There's circles and holes everywhere in the film. And it's like, what's the idea then? It's like, you know, you don't, you know, I wish I'd had a better answer. It happens. I've seen interviews with Danny Boyle talking about that when he,

that when he finishes films or even when he's making films, he doesn't know what it's about, doesn't know what the theme of the film is, but it's like when he finishes, he watches and even like after a little bit of time passes, you can kind of go, oh yeah, this is what I was doing. This is what is.

Yeah. There might be a little bit of that. Maybe, you know, sometimes who knows where these things come from. It's such a terrible answer. I wish I had some great answer. No, it's interesting to me too, no matter what. Like I've had people say that where it's like I didn't notice until after I wrote it. And that just seems even more magical to me almost that it was just there.

So I don't think it's a bad answer. It's kind of just show up. Yeah. You know, it'd be nice if you could say everything in the film was so carefully constructed and completely intentional. But I guess, you know, it's like any other art, you know, these things find their way in and, you know, who knows where they came from. Yeah.

I think that that is a good reminder. I'm writing something. I'm getting there. But every time someone has an answer like that, it's a good reminder to me that like it doesn't all have to be so rigidly planned because I'm like that in a lot of other areas in my life. So I think it's cool to hear that for some people, some of it is just like the process of creating.

It's not that you have to like overthink everything to like make something that has stuff in it that pops up. I think if there's some. Sometimes if there's no answers to these things, it means that some ways it might make the story, you know, you can come back to it again and go like, well, I don't know what that means. I need to figure that out. I'm like that with a book or film. It's like I don't really get it. I really like when I finish a film and I'm unsure of how I felt about it. Like I like to think I liked it, but I something about it, I got to go back and watch it again. There's been so many films like that are going, okay, I've got to take a lot of look at this because I didn't really, I didn't fully get it. But I know. I like it and you start to slowly uncover things or notice things that you hadn't in the first viewing. Yeah. That's it was actually my experience then rewatching it, which is, I mean, I've had that experience with other films as well. But it's like the first time you're watching it, you really are experiencing it and trying to just like follow, especially with thrillers or horror that have like twists, which is a lot of what I read and watch. you're also just trying to like kind of figure it out while you're watching it and then the second time because i kind of like knew what it was and then i was thinking more about like questions for it it was also different experiencing it that way as well so it's like even as an experience of a movie sometimes the second time you watch you like catch more of those things too yeah yeah um so we've mentioned the death scene a little bit but um

basically, one, I think the reveal was so terrifying to me. So hopefully if you're listening at this point, you have seen it already. But the fact that she realizes, like, from looking at the camera, like, the continuous pictures that were being taken, that revealed, that was when my husband turned to me and was like, I am terrified right now. And I was like, yes, this is, it's so creepy to think, I think it's because home invasion feels so invasive for lack of a better word because you're like you think you're somewhere safe and someone could be in there with you and it was from our conversation about what is scary

I haven't I haven't seen anything recently that sticks in my head in terms of like like when I was younger I would have like more nightmares if I watch something like that and we'd seen the movie like four weeks prior and my husband was gone for a week for work and I woke up in the middle of the night because my dog was just standing at our door barking into the hallway and was just like barking like there was something out there. I hadn't thought of the movie in like a month and all of a sudden it was that image that was like in my mind was like him in the mask and I had to like sleep with my lights on for the rest of the the rest of the night because I was like oh my gosh this is just like stuck in my head now. That's brilliant. I love to hear of that. That's fantastic.

Yes. Yes. That's what I've been telling people I'm like that visual like it is crazy the way certain visuals stick with us even when we know they're fake, even when it was like weeks before. But all of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh, what if there's a guy? Like, I couldn't turn away from the door because I was like, what if there's someone standing over me and I don't know? So a couple questions from that, I guess. The review with the camera, I thought it was so creative. Like, what was the moment like thinking of that? And then also just like the scene of then like you see him out and then you see him out there. And then she's dead already. Like how did that all come together? It's just to build that suspense because you've been through such a long conversation with Tyke and Carolyn and he's trying to talk his way in.

And then when she's left on her own, then you kind of know, okay, here we go. You know, now this is where your suspense starts. And maybe very easy to have like a jump scare. She goes, okay, I didn't believe him. And then she gets into the tent. And he could have been inside the tent or he could have been just, you know, you could have heard a noise outside the tent and it opened up the thing slowly. It just felt like it just had to plant it that. No, she is in trouble and, you know, Tyg's character, Olin was telling the truth.

There is somebody in the house. And it's just a thing that they're like, okay, now it's just a matter of time. We know that she's in big trouble. The guy is somewhere. And it's just finding ways into going like, how do you really drag this out and really build that suspense up until, you know, you finally reveal it? Because it's very easy just to do a jump scare and, you know, it's there. But it's just trying to get that building that suspense is always where all the work in this, you know, the storyboarding. And then the performance, we Cullum and the lads shot it.

And then obviously with Brian the editor and Aza, hand the sound designer, all of those things. You know, you have to give all of them loads to work with as opposed to just, here's one shot where it's a jump scare. You know, if you build that up. And just for Carolyn as well, it's just great that you can kind of get herself into that, you know, work herself up to the point that she does in the film when he finally revealed. So really the idea of the camera was just to give myself is just to really, to really. really, you know, put that foundation under us to say, like, she's in really big trouble now because this guy is in the house somewhere. So from the point where you know this to the point where it's revealed, that thing is where, you know, where it takes, you know, essentially everybody

working on the film to get that, you know, to get that scare, right. You know, whereas if you just don't have that, it's like, okay. Yeah. But I guess it's like anything. It's like any kind of a slasher movie. And I guess that is really the slasher element part of it. Like, um, you need to know that the killer is here somewhere, but it's like the whole suspenses in, well, where is he and when is he going to attack? You know, so that was kind of the idea. Yeah, I even, I obviously rewashed it.

I obviously knew what was going to happen. I turned the volume down because I was like watching it. My husband was still sleeping upstairs. I was like, I know this is going to be loud. And it still made me jump. Like, it's just, it's terrifying to think of. So the wooden. man is another like

fixture object in the movie as well and I read somewhere it's related to some Jewish folklore possibly so how did how did that come together? But yeah I guess it's the idea the golem that that you know that was made of clay that would come to life

you know from whatever whatever they needed it to do but from a horror point of view is very much that the idea I think originally was that she was going to show up with a doll like a kind of a you know you're a kind of Annabel Chucky kind of small dog, but it's just been done to death, done to death and done perfectly,

you know, like I think those films have covered it really well. I just thought it'd be a lot funnier if you showed up with something to just really, really big and awkward is just sitting at the table, you know, to the point of borderline comedy where it's like, is this thing ever going to do anything?

Because it's almost kind of a little scared after a while. And it has been very rewarding to watch it and, you know, to see it in festivals or, you know, going to the cinema to see it. with friends to see people react to when Caroline and Caroline are having their, are having, you know, are sitting down at the table and you cut to that shot of it's just sitting there with them. And no really that freaked out by it.

And even just the kind of ridiculousness of that situation has always gotten a laugh or maybe a little bit of a nervous laughter because obviously it's, again, it's a little bit of a, you know, a ticking bomb. It's a matter of time before it will do something because it is a horror film. So it was just really kind of bad idea. It was like, well, if this thing's going to sit there for the whole film and become almost like this center horror piece with all this other stuff happening around it and the flashbacks and the mystery unfolding

and all of the horror of the home invasion and all this and ghosts thing. But this thing's still just going to be there. I don't know. I think even on set I'm saying this will be really funny. This will be funny if it's just there. And I guess it's scary, but it kind of, you know, there's that, you know, horror comedy eners.

are so close. We did shoot stuff where we would, you know, turn its head left and right. You know, it's always looking forward, but we would, you know, get a take where we had it looking at Carolyn or she's walked away and now it's looking behind. And we're just like cutting all that stuff out of

because it was like, no, it just, it feels worse when it's not doing anything, you know? Weirdly. Right. The more it's doing it should, it should be creepier. But strangely enough, it just seemed to fall a little bit flatter when we'd watch it and he's you know he's moving his head or he's doing little things is it like no it's better to just you know he just got to wait yeah finally do

something bar that he looks up and I think we we get a little that's what I was going to ask about when she looks over and drops her phone yeah I think because that's the only time we had a move it just gets a much bigger reaction or yes no other little bits and pieces it'd be like you've kind of diluted that one then a bit you know yeah yeah but that that yeah and go ahead oh you're fine i was just going to say it is like the fact that it's not moving or doing anything too is why you also kind of like forget about it for a little bit and so then that's why like you just haven't seen it a little bit and then she like peers over the edge and for whatever reason that's even like this jump scare that it's staring back at her even though you know it's

been down there you're just like not seeing it so then like the few times you do you're like okay that's unsettling Yeah. So also, Darcy, basically, Darcy eventually realizes that she killed Olin and that he was actually innocent. Yeah. And she says a line about how she's going to have to pay for that. Was her, was that supposed to be foreshadowing that to her death was like some of why she died? Was that supposed to be connected to her paying for that death? Or was that just kind of. coincidental that she says that and then she dies shortly after. I think we talked about the line, myself in Carlin, and it was like, well, she's going to pay for it so much, going to pay for, you know, legally here. She's going to be arrested, you know, whatever it's going to be or else in the afterlife,

you know, if, I'm sure she believes in hell or she believes in some kind of punishment that it's going to catch up with her there. Yeah, whatever, whatever it is, whatever was, whatever, whatever it is behind the line. I think it just means that, you know, it's going to come back, it's going to, you know, it's going to, you know, it's going to come back and get her, which I guess it does in it, because she doesn't, she doesn't survive the film. Yeah. Yeah. She was not. Yeah.

Which kind of ties into, like, at the moment that we think we're going to have this huge revenge payoff, like, the wooden man, basically, uh, she falls because, uh, Ted, Ted, yeah, opens the trap door. And obviously, she's blind. or whatever that is, like a space in the floor. Yeah. And she falls because she didn't know that happened. So she's basically laying on the ground, like bleeding profusely out of her head and like barely alive. And that's when she's able to summon the wooden man.

And also Ivan has been sent back there. So he's there. And so the wooden man is going after him. Gets him in a headlock. I'm assuming that's also because it looks like that's how Olin died. Like his head got literally smashed. she's about to do that and then she looks up and she sees her sister through that kind of trap door and then I think that's the final image we see there because then we jump to him

to Ivan in a hospital room so obviously he survived so what was the decision to not have him die and is it anything because I was trying to think through it as I was watching it is anything related to like seeing her sister and then just wanting to be with her sister was that kind of what was implied or why did you go with that choice? Let me see so I guess

it would be as you sometimes wonder if you're going to if the character's going to lose sympathy if they get very violent or if they do something that's like oh this is this is quite far and I think if she had killed them I don't know

it would weirdly feel kind of anti-climatic. It's definitely one of the scenes of the film when I watch it. I think I've watched it now for the last time. You know, I don't think it's a very long time before I watch a film again. But yeah, it's definitely one of those scenes of film where I mean, it's like everything you shoot. You'd love to do it again.

And it's one that I definitely still pick at or I go, there's stuff that I can get. Again, it's the one I can see now how a million different things I would have done. It's fine. You know, it works grand. Yeah. But I think with it was still the idea that she doesn't go through with it fully, one because it was taking her last breath and she dies.

Right. But I think just when I try to come back to what I was thinking of when I wrote it, it just felt like that if she'd gone through it and she'd like burst his head and, you know, done this. It's like it feels, again, a little step too far, something about it, even though he deserves it, you know, but it still worry about the audience losing, you know that you're going to lose the audience right at the end whereas if she just died and then decided to let this go and and you know knowing I guess whatever punishment

is going to catch up what Ivan anyway that she would let that happen yeah yeah I think there was some thinking like that behind it just yeah because we do yeah we do see that then like Ted basically commits Ivan and is calling him crazy because of course how many people are going to believe that a wooden man is the reason that he got beaten up um so it also that's that was the other thing i was wondering as i then watched the rest of it i was like it also gives a chance to even show how terrible ted is and like his abuse of power like i have a note that was like abuse of power obvi i was like okay

that's that's definitely there so we kind of get that continuation with his character too that That's true, yeah. That's happening. Absolutely. I mean, it could have been something like that too. It could have been even in terms of writing. It's like, well, if you kill him now, then you're pretty much just, you know, who's Ted talking to now? Is you monologuing to the mirror, you know, like it's just going to be.

Right. You know, it's just going to, we don't get any sense of what, we never see that mask slipped in fully. You know, we never really get a good idea of detached or, you know, or dangerous this guy. is, I guess. And I think you can kind of see a lot of that when he's talking to, you know, when he has Ivan strapped down at the end, and he's going to feed him to this, you know, to sky down the hall. Like, so. Somehow I forgot about that part, like the, the, he must be a cannibal is released on him. So I was like, it's obviously like the very last scene. And I was like taking notes. I was like, okay, my dog's like clearly about to want to go for his morning walk. So I'm like, okay, we're near

the end and then all of us so when his face does appear i i jumped then too i was like i totally forgot about that part and something about him like starting with eating his toe is just like like i'm not going to have my feet out from under my covers for a few nights um but with ted then that final scene that we do get is so cool um the haunted bell we were talking about earlier gets delivered to him And this is obviously after she died. But at the beginning of the movie, when he walks into her shop, she even says something along the lines to him. She's like, ring the bell and see what happens. And he kind of smirks because he doesn't believe in it.

And it's like it helps us become very aware from the beginning that he doesn't believe in all of this stuff that Darcy, her abilities and stuff. And so at the end, he does ring. And you get like multiple shots of him like looking around and kind of, again, being kind of smug and being like, ha. there's nothing here and then that final image uh of the movie is that there is that the bellboy this ghost of him like standing right next to him so one i guess it could be interpreted either way like maybe the ghost kills him or maybe it doesn't but if if we're interpreting it that he did finally kind of get his comeuppance was that a through line that you're planning from the beginning that his like hubris would eventually be his downfall.

Absolutely, because he doesn't, he doesn't experience anything supernatural in the whole film. He's constantly being told by everybody around him, even Ivan saying, I'm going to hell. He's constantly told these things that he just, you know, he's almost irritated to listen to this stuff. Just really won't entertain it. And I think that this sending this haunted death belt was very much like a plan B for Darcy.

He was like, okay, well, if I fail, still going to have this, you know, ready to go in the post to take him out. And I guess you kind of just said, like, with his own arrogance and, you know, wouldn't be able to resist ringing this bell and just proving her wrong, even though she's gone, you know? Yeah. That was always the idea because I really like stories or films. And I know I'm onto something good when I'm watching a film.

And, you know, you're into that, you're definitely into the third act. And it looks like it's all wrapped up. And I love to find myself saying, where is this going now? It's like everybody's dead or there's no way to catch the guy and or this is going to be some stupid fake out where somebody we thought was dead, but then they come back. I love that. I love when, you know, writers will put you in that spot at the end where it will

like, wow, it feels like we're wrapped up, but we're still in this. That was always the idea with this. It was like even burn the wooden man. Like, like burn the wood and kill everybody that the villain is completely alone. It's like, but now what do we do? And that was always the idea of planting that desk bell very early. And there's a very specific line in it where she says, well, the last two people to ring it were found dead. And he's kind of, yeah, sure.

So it was just to plant that, that you're even telling the audience, if he rings this, he is going to die. You're not going to show it, but like, you know, that he's, you know, that he is doomed as soon as he rings it. So that was the idea with it even from the script phase. In terms of shooting it, like, I had made a short film years ago called, he dies at the end in 2008. And it was like the first thing I'd ever made that worked. I'd made lots of terrible short films. I couldn't get him into festivals.

But that short, because it was only four and a half minutes. It was a good exercise in just, you know, for me, just learning how to build suspense. It's like the guy in his best friend. He would have built the sets on. all of my films since and uh stuck him in front of the camera and just tried to see if you could build suspense with a guy seated and

what you do then with the camera and this silent performance was very much in some ways like a remake of that it was kind of remaking that little shorts to end this and it was the very that was the very first thing we shot for oddity too that was like day one

um when Gwillam arrived and uh you know you never know it's you know day one with actors and And, you know, you obviously, you've hired them because they're talented and they seem nice to hang out with for a couple of weeks you're filming. But he was brilliant. And it's just, you know, there's no dialogue. He's completely alone.

And just what he did with it, I just loved us. I mean, he's just even at the ending where he's sitting there, he just looks. I mean, Gwilom's just, he's this lovely guy in reality. He's like, you know, the nicest guy you can hang around with it. But then, like, he does this thing in the film and in the ending, he's so smug and he looks so happy with himself. He's gotten away with us. It really made me laugh. filming it day like on okay this is going to be this is going to be good working with him and obviously

Shane whiskers in who played our our bellboy I mean he's in the film for seconds but uh it is nice to see him get a you know to get a reaction and get a laugh when he does show up yeah yeah because it's it's multiple like I feel like there were like six different cuts of Ted looking around. So the whole time you're like, okay, there is going to be a ghost. Oh, there's going to be a ghost this time. Oh, there's going to be a ghost. And you almost have like given up.

You're like, oh, maybe it's not going to happen. And then you finally get that scene where he is there. So it is. It is another one of those like fun payoffs where you're kind of like drawn in. And then you're like, okay, maybe I can relax now. And then it turns out you can't. So I loved it. And it does kind of someone who loves the revenge genre.

I mean, that's a subgenre. It's not really its own genre. It is helpful if you're wanting that final feeling of like, okay, he's still, she still got him in the end. Yeah. And it's a funny one because, I mean, I've seen a lot of, you know, there's been a lot of positivity for film, obviously. And it's funny because that final shot, that last 10 seconds, whatever, or even just that last scene in general, that seems to have been the thing that people have mentioned a lot. really love it. I've seen a couple of things where it's like,

I hate that final shot. You go, really? I find it quite funny. Whereas other people, other people's like, I love that lash out. That's just the best way to end them. It's the one where definitely people have an opinion at it.

Somebody said to me that you should have ended it as soon as you rang the bell. Like, ding. Oh, yeah. Because now it's completely in the imagination of the audience. I do see the point. It was kind of boring. Like, would you go back and rewatch it? then you'd like to get a glimpse of this,

of this, you know, demonic bellboy standing there. I don't know, but it's nice. It's nice to make something where people go, or, you know, where you have an opinion and it likes it. Mm-hmm. Talk about a little bit of this. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like that was reminding me of,

a spoiler alert, I guess, but it's been out long enough in inception when like the, is that a dradle or whatever the spinning thing is, when it just wobbles for like half a second. and then it cuts. Yeah. Versus like still kind of getting the payoff after the bell. Because it's like also she's mentioned the bell boy.

It's fun to actually get to see him too. But it also still doesn't go all the way to like show him dying either. So it still kind of has that feeling. Yeah, you never could have showed him like being, you know, torn limb from limb by this demonic bell. Yeah. Like, oh, where'd you end that film? But I think even originally the way it was storyboarded and we shot it that way too

was that Gwillam was going to be done. You know, okay. this was all nonsense in terms of this ghost story with the bell. He was going to stand up and as he stands up the camera was going to rise with him and our bell boy was going to be here and go into this kind of close up shot.

It wasn't crazy. There was something about it not in the performance or anything, but just something, it was like, it's fine and it'll make sense when we edited it in. But it was just then we were between setups and Gwillam was sitting down at the table and everybody's, you know, busy around the place and he's getting ready, you know,

for the next shot. And we had Shane standing as the bellboy, but he had these contact lenses in so he couldn't see anything. So he was just staying very still. Because nature contact lenses wouldn't let him wander around. So just for safety, he was just standing there. The way they were standing is the way we had the shot,

because I was at the other side of the room, and I was like going, oh, there's something really funny about that because Willam just looks, and he's quite a relaxed guy anyway. He's just seen quite happy sitting there. And then Shane looked quite odd, standing there in this, trying to keep himself very still and I guess because he had these things in his eyes.

And it was like, oh, let's get that as well. Let's just, you know, these things happen when you're filming. It's like, well, let's grab a shot of that because that's quite interesting. And then, of course, it became the end of the film. So, you know, you know, I guess it's cool. Like, sometimes that's how it comes together. Yeah. Yeah, you just have to be open to it, I guess.

Like, since the visuals can just be so different, like, depending on, like you're saying, wide shot, close up, whatever can make such a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I obviously loved it. In case everyone couldn't tell at this point. So I'm so happy I got to talk with you about it. Where can people follow you to stay up to date on everything?

I'm not great on social media at all. I have an Instagram account. I got to go back. It's still there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not fully. I'm there. I'm on Instagram anyway. Yes. How's the movie going? And yeah, a few people have messaged me there. and, you know, a track band. And yeah, that's probably the best.

It's probably the best. Yeah. It's what worked for me. That was how we got kind of on this. Yeah. So it definitely works. I will link that in the show notes for everyone. And otherwise, thank you so much for talking with me about it.

Great. Yeah, it was lovely to talk to Kate. Thank you for that. Yeah, thanks for having me.