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  • 3 years ago
SUCOPRESS/Raquel Laguna. Scottish film director John McPhail talks in this interview about his next movie, DEAR DAVID. In this horror film, shortly after comic artist Adam (Augustus Prew) responds to Internet trolls, he begins experiencing sleep paralysis, while an empty rocking chair moves in the corner of his apartment. As he chronicles increasingly malevolent occurrences in a series of tweets, Adam begins to believe he is being haunted by the ghost of a dead child named David. Encouraged by his boss to continue the “Dear David” thread, Adam starts to lose his grip on what is online…and what is real. Based on the viral Twitter thread by BuzzFeed comic artist Adam Ellis. DEAR DAVID opens in theaters on October 13th.

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00:00 the same challenge I think probably on every film which is you never have enough time and money.
00:05 Like I was extremely lucky that I had an incredible crew that sort of like you know
00:13 just really really pushed through. I had an amazing cast who were just incredibly
00:20 work with extremely lovely people that just sort of like you know really threw themselves at this.
00:28 So the only thing that was as I said it was the hard thing for us was to say time and money.
00:32 That's always it. But at the time there was something that was like it probably was Buzzfeed
00:39 at the time you know there's like you know like the 20 scariest things happening online right now.
00:44 And yeah like you know I came across it and got hooked and sort of like be checking in all the
00:53 time on Twitter to see what was going on with it. But I came kind of late so but you know
00:59 so after like I forgot about it until the script landed on my desk and I was like oh my god this
01:06 I know this. So yeah so like I found out about it online at the time as it was sort of going off.
01:14 Yeah that's where brilliant like Augie like really threw himself into the role of Adam Ellis.
01:20 Like it was brilliant. He suffers from sleep psychosis as well so like you know sleep paralysis.
01:31 He's had that a few times in his life and he fully believes in ghosts and he just
01:36 came through something and you know and was feeling really good about himself but could see a
01:42 lot of the things that was happening to Adam in this script that he'd just gone through. So he was
01:49 incredible. Justin Long who I grew up watching was just so funny and brought so much to it and
01:56 and was such a pro as well. Like you know watching him work was brilliant. I've always wanted to work
02:01 with Andrea Bang. Like I've got her in like so many like sort of prototypes like I like projects
02:07 when you sort of as a director you're usually sort of building like look books and decks and you know
02:12 ideas for cast and I've always got Andrea on everything. I think she's just brilliant and
02:18 she's an incredible actress and an incredible filmmaker herself so that was brilliant and
02:23 Trisha Black for me was like the find of the century. Like the funniest person. Like she's
02:28 just so so funny and loved working with her like I would do it all over again. I mean like I think
02:39 that it's what's different about it obviously is that it was based on a twitter thread. You know
02:44 I don't think there's many films out there that are sort of that are based on that. I think that
02:50 it plays in a place that you know that you know that I personally I'm scared about and I've tried
02:58 to put a lot of my own fears on screen and yeah so like it's obviously it's also like a haunting
03:07 and that sort of like digital age so like again I feel like it can stand in a few different places.
03:13 I think it's like how people love roller coasters like you know the thrill of it you know. I
03:20 personally love horror because it does it tickles me in a lot of places like the same as like you
03:27 know you you want to watch a comedy to laugh or you want to watch like a like a romance movie,
03:32 fall in love, like you watch a horror film you get scared like you know to sort of push those sort of
03:39 like you know boundaries of sort of of what's reality and as I say sort of definitely diving
03:48 in on sort of facing your fears as well as some of them are absolutely brilliantly funny like
03:53 there's certain things in horror that really tickle me, that really make me laugh, that other
04:00 people would be horrified but it's just it's just my sense of humor and I like a lot of horror fans
04:06 out there they they see a lot like you know they also see the character behind it and the trauma
04:13 behind it because as I say that like a lot of particularly horror films I love anyway are
04:18 usually about trauma and you know we've all experienced those kind of things and sort of
04:24 hearing those kind of stories so it can help people get through their own traumas.
04:27 Like I love Alien like like the original Alien movie like it's it's incredible. I love I love
04:35 Event Horizon, I really love Event Horizon, it's one of my favorites. So like Alien though because
04:43 of the sort of claustrophobia of it all and and what it went on to become and you know where it started from.
04:49 Yeah.
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