A man wakes up in a flat he doens’t quite recognise, with a flatmate he is not sure he knows, and a black door that seems to disappear when you look at it directly.
Possibly on the weirder end of the films I’ve made, the idea was to create a creepy atmosphere out of a bright, mundane location. Daylight horror is always a fun challenge, and a crew member referred to the look of the film as a “Creepy Squarespace Advert”.
Because of this look, unlike most horror films, the creep factor here could only really come from the performances. Noah Hawley’s Legion and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks really inspired my directing choices (literally named Sami’s character David).
Sami Sumaria as David
A lot of Sami’s performance was about making it seem like he was dreaming. That strange state where you’re not quite aware you’re dreaming, and so you’re willing to accept what you see without question, but always with a strange feeling that something isn’t quite right.
Nick delivered a wonderful Lynchian performance, and as the shoot went on it became clear that letting him improvise would always yield really interesting results.
Ben operating
We picked the Cookes because of that subversion. Creating a space that is just too nice, too beautiful to be real is a Cooke specialty. Elliot Gilfoyle at Origin, who provided the kit, described the Cookes as having a strange 3D wrapping effect on people. And it really worked. Pushing the bright look just that step further, with the context and performances, really added to that underlying creep.
The other fun choice Ben and I made was to make the real world incredibly sylized. The infinite darkness and skewed sense of perspective of the scenes we shot in the studio were meant to disorient and confuse, to question what is and isn’t real.
Ben and I framing a close up
The Door That Isn’t There
Starring Sami Sumaria, Nick Burdett and Alex Rogan
Written and Directed by Clement Jochem
Produced by Kyle Borg
Cinematographer: Benjamin Tate
Shot on Alexa Mini with Cooke s4i Lenses