Film Name: Trapped in Time

Anti-heroines, twisted time loops, and unreliable narrators in Victorian funfairs that aren’t what they seem…Nina Romain looks at how a historic day out can end up as your worst nightmare.

In a new Exclusive Interview on Blazing Minds ahead of Horror-on-Sea I got a chance to ask Co-Writer/Director Nina Romain a few questions about the film ‘Trapped in Time

Trapped in Time will play at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 11th January at 10.00am

Q. Your film has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we
can expect?

A. Hopefully everyone will get a slight twist on a horror trope of the time loop, that doesn’t end the
way you might think it will.

So the audience starts with seeing Claire [Greasley] dressed up for a historic day out, in her Victorian costume heading to the Amersham Fair. This is actually a historic 1938 Tube, with a wooden floor, which runs from London to Amersham once a year. En route, she meets Charles [Brewer] who is also in Victorian costume and reading a newspaper from 1857, and assumes of course he’s also cosplaying. He tells her she is in fact in the wrong time, which of course she ignores, and she gets out to walk around the show enjoying the 19th century fair. There she encounters him again, and he warns her she needs to go back to her own time. Finally she meets him for the last time with his gang of 19th century thugs and realises things are going to go very badly for her.

My microhorror is only 6 minutes long so you always worry about cramming in enough, and hopefully it works. I love the performances: Claire is the Everyman (or Everygirl) just looking for an innocent day out, or so you might think, and Charles as the Victorian gang leader gives good creepy vibes, switching from the distinguished gentlemen to cane-brandishing psychopath.

It’s going to be amazing to see the Horror-on-Sea crowd again – I’ve been going since 2018 and it’s
always great to catch up with the horror fam!

Q. What were some of your influences when writing the script?

A. The original Westworld (1973) SF horror was kind of the starting point for me, where you go somewhere for a fun day out and then realise you’re trapped inside that fantasy world. I’ve always been interested in the idea of escaping into a world created for entertainment where you think everything’s going to be perfect – and then discovering that in fact you can’t get back. Amersham’s incredibly picture-perfect with all the historic houses and flowers and gardens, and everyone there was really friendly and welcoming…so I wanted to add these disturbing Victorian thugs to it.

Fortunately, as it was a historic fair, the cast’s Victorian outfits blended right in.

Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?

A. Well, costume-wise our gang leader Charles said the shoot had a very Peaky Blinders’ feel to it, with the gang in white shirts with black caps. I was also inspired by Clockwork Orange’s bleak world with everyone wearing white.

My other main influence is that I’m obsessed with all found footage. Unusually for a horror, we shot during the day, although we did the poster in the Vauxhall tunnels to give a dark, Gothic look. Our editor gave the 19th century world a bleached out, deliberately darker tinge when Claire arrives at the fair, so the sunshine is gone and it looks like night is approaching. Or maybe the nightmare is taking over.

Q. Did you make any changes from the original script during filming?

A. One thing I had to drop from the original script was a subplot involving a cursed object which sadly got cut as we found out it wasn’t really necessary. We see Claire turn from this harmless little blonde in her cute baby doll Victorian Lolita dress, in the opening scenes, to a determined and dangerous gang member. If you look at the poster I think you see the foreshadowing of her joining the Victorian gang and eventually challenging Charles for the leader role. She’s a force to be reckoned with. I like the way you see Claire switch from this 21st century gal on a carefree day out, to a Victorian thug as she develops her new personality in a new world.

Q. What were some of your favourite moments during filming?

A. All the crew were great, including Claire who was in my first short to screen at Horror-on-Sea in 2018, Fright Corner. There were certain scenes she couldn’t get time off work to shoot, so I had to be her stand in, so to speak. As always, I would rather not direct as well as produce, but the found footage works, as the audience can only see what Claire can see.

Working with Charles again, who plays the gang leader, again was of course very cool as well – we’ve worked together in Oxford on Alice in Nightmareland where he played a disturbing White Rabbit channelling a Mafia Don, as well as on Ship of Death on a Halloween boat tour. So when we’re on set, he’s always in character, either a Victorian killer, a Halloween comedy pirate with crazy dreads, or a 19th century cane-carrying dandy. I’ve got no idea what he looks like in real life in just jeans and Tshirt! I’d probably walk straight past him if he wasn’t in character…

Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?

As always, I was also working on a shoestring budget so we had to think out of the box. So it was a nightmare having to shoot something set in the 19th century with the occasional background glimpse of modern day people and cars. You’d have a Victorian gangster thug standoff and then someone on the latest iPhone would wander into the background – so we had to weave it into the story.

Q. What makes it stand out as something different in the horror genre?

I don’t know if it really stands out, but I think it uses its locations to best advantage. We got to shoot in two beautiful locations, both Amersham’s Historic Fair with vintage cars, people in costume, and a kids’ fair ground. The Victorian Vauxhall fair was amazing, with performers including crystal ball jugglers, strongmen, acrobatic group the Acro Chaps who were hilarious, and masked devils…but sadly I had to keep the final cut as short as possible.

Trapped is more experimental than most of my microhorrors, with a skewered reality – we never know if our heroine has really gone back in time or if she’s hallucinating this whole thing. Does the final incident she witnesses ever happened or does she invent it as reason as to justify what she does next? There’s a clip in black and white right at the end which I used to indicate maybe everything is really taking place in her mind. I wanted to have a very Life on Mars riff – I’ve always been fascinated in how much you can rely on the lead character.

Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?

A. I hope the horror crowd like it and can see it was a really enjoyable shoot and a twist on the take of every time loop movie, where the lead just wants to break out and return to their real life like Phil
in Groundhog Day, who just wants to break free and lead a normal life. In Trapped, we realise Claire
doesn’t want to break free from the time loop, she wants to escape 21st century life and stay as a
Victorian gang member. And maybe she’s right.

Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?

A. I’m hopefully planning a longer shoot next year.

Q. If someone was looking to write and direct their own film what advice would you give them?

Profit from my mistakes! Don’t try to do too much with too little crew, and don’t try to desperately save money by shooting too much in a short time span. I’ve really got to stop doing that!

Trapped in Time will play at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 11th January at 10.00am

You can find out more about the festival and purchase tickets here

Philip Rogers

Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!