Film Name: Stop Dead
Director: Emily Greenwood
Writers: David Scullion
Starring: Priya Blackburn, David Ricardo-Pearce, Sarah Soetaert, James Swanton
When a workaholic city detective and her laid-back partner try to stop a dishevelled girl staggering
down the middle of a country road, they discover she’s being stalked by some unseen entity with a
horrifying ultimatum: you stop moving, you die.
In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds leading up to the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, I got a chance to ask Director Emily Greenwood a few questions about the film ‘Stop Dead’
‘Stop Dead’ has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival on Sunday 14th January at 15:00pm
Q. Your film Stop Dead has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us
what we can expect from the film?
A. Some light humour, creepy suspense, weirdness and s*** your pants jump scares.
Q. What attracted you to the script which was written by David Scullion?
A. I was searching for an original horror, something deeply dark, mysterious and suspenseful with a
simple but clever and utterly terrifying concept in the vein of Lights Out (2016) and Mama (2013). When writer David Scullion told me about The Still Man, a character that makes you keep walking, because if you stop moving, you die, I was immediately interested.
Purely by coincidence, the morning I met Dave, I had watched an interview with Ridley Scott during
which he spoke about directing and said, “If you can’t thrive on stress don’t do it. You’ve got to
embrace it. Stress for me is being inactive. If I’m working and it’s coming in every direction I’m
completely relaxed.“
When Dave told me about the concept of The Still Man I realised this character essentially represents
the fear of stopping. The feeling that we are all trapped in a life cycle that forces us to work, eat,
sleep and keep going until the end. Having been persistently working towards my first feature for so
many years, it’s a theme that means a lot to me.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
A. I had a number of visual references both for lighting and grade, but also for angles and blocking. I
find it really helpful to have visual cues that show exactly what I have in mind on all these levels, so
that once we’re on location I can flick to a particular image as a reminder and the DoP knows exactly
what I mean. I had images from David Fincher’s Se7en (1995) and Zodiac (2007), plus images from Drive (2011) and Locke (2013) and other random shots I found through Googling. I had mapped out three different colour zones for around the car – white for the front, dirty yellow for inside and red at the back, so several of the reference images illustrated this.
Q. Did you make any changes from the original script during filming?
A. Yes. There were the expected dialogue tweaks. I also changed the position of The Still Man at
different points to make sure we spent a relatively equal amount of time in all light zones around the
car. I also changed his position from outside to inside the car, when the female police officer first sees
him, which made more sense to me story wise and within that change, I also added a jump scare
which went down really well with audiences!
Q. What were some of your favourite moments during filming?
A. It was genuinely the most enjoyable shoot I’ve ever worked on! There were some particularly fun
points though, like when we filmed The Still Man walk. Since we achieved his jittery walk effect
entirely in camera, we were able to see the result on the monitor straight after the take, so that was
exciting.
The other memorable moment was filming the blood FX when the teenager dies. The SFX team
rigged up her facial prosthetic with blood lines that were connected to holes in the prosthetic at one
end and large syringes full of fake blood at the other. I had to call “Action” on the blood, which I’ve
never done before! We had one costume change in case it went wrong, but thanks to our highly
skilled SFX and make-up departments, everything timed perfectly and we got it in one take and as
with the Still Man walk, because it was all in camera, we could see what it looked like live. So much
fun and so satisfying!
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
A. Other than the usual lack of time, I don’t remember anything going majorly wrong. With the shot
facing into the car headlights, we had a couple of ugly lens flares that just wouldn’t go away! We
tried filters and repositioning the lights, but they wouldn’t budge and because of time constraints I
resorted to the ‘fix it in post’ solution, which we did. Some were taken on as VFX by Sarah Godden at
Primary VFX and the simpler ones were fixed by Georgina Cranmer in the Online at Goldcrest.
Q. What makes Stop Dead stand out as something different in the horror genre?
A. It’s difficult to be different after so many years of filmmaking history, but I’d like to think that Stop Dead has a bit of an “edge” to it. Something creepy and weird, but also cool, that audiences like. The
vast majority of films these days rely on CGI to create their horror effects. I’m very proud to say that
around 90% of the FX in Stop Dead were done in camera and CGI was mostly used to touch up or
finesse anything that didn’t quite hit the mark in camera. Achieving this level of FX in camera can
sometimes make the difference between keeping your audience absorbed in your world and
breaking the suspension of disbelief.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
A. The main thing I hope for is that people have fun watching Stop Dead! Beyond that, hopefully
most people will understand the “rules” of The Still Man and then the most savvy cinephiles may go
home thinking about the fear of stopping.
I was amazed reading a public review on IMDB the other day which couldn’t be more spot on when it
says, “Life is going forward … you can and should look back of course. But you should never stop
moving…. Once you stop .. you are dead. Well it sounds a bit like Darwin and all that … but there is
some truth to it.” That is ultimately what it’s all about. I never expected everyone to read that much
into the proof of concept – that’s for the feature – if they do though, that makes me very happy!
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. Yes. I’m working on the feature version of Stop Dead, with the same team – writer David Scullion
and producers Jude Goldrei and Douglas Cox. It’s called THE STILL MAN and the script should be
ready to go out early 2024, which is very exciting.
It’s of course the same concept as STOP DEAD and follows a workaholic city detective who tries to
stop a ruthless serial killer, but discovers it’s a terrifying, supernatural entity with a horrifying
ultimatum: if you stop moving, you die. THE STILL MAN is going to be a psychological horror roller
coaster ride, with plenty of suspense and jump scares to keep the audience at the edge of their seats
and an interesting theme that should hopefully have people thinking too!
Q. If someone was looking to direct their own film what advice would you give them?
A. Above all, be nice! So many people in this industry behave badly – they’re selfish, they lie, they
bully. Making films is pretty stressful at the best of times – there is never enough time, you will not
get enough sleep, things go wrong that are out of your control, so at least try to keep your cast and
crew happy by treating them with respect.
Preparation is key. Storyboards, reference shots, top down diagrams of the set, script analysis, shot
lists. So much of the work happens before the shoot, which never goes like you expect it to. But if
you prepare well you will be able to handle anything that’s thrown at you!
Be conservative with your shot lists. Cut it down to what you think you can shoot, then reduce it
more… then be prepared to have to make further cuts during the shoot!
Be flexible and think on your feet. Like I said, nothing goes to plan!
Give simple instructions to everyone, especially actors. When I first started out, I used to go into all
sorts of emotional backstory with actors when giving notes, but I realised over the years that a
simple direction of just a few words is so much more effective.
Be decisive. I used to really struggle with making decisions sometimes, which is a terrible thing for a
director who has to make tons of decisions throughout a production. One day I realised that when I
can’t make a decision straight away, it’s because I like both ideas. So rather than umming and ahhing
for ages, I just pick one or even ask the person asking to decide. Either way, I know I’ll be happy with
the outcome!
Don’t be too proud to take other people’s good ideas or advice. Do whatever is best for the film,
because at the end of the day, you’re the one getting credit for it!
Social media links:
instagram.com/stop_dead_film
instagram.com/emily_greenwood_films
facebook.com/emily.greenwood.902
twitter.com/Greenwood_films
‘Stop Dead’ has been selected to plat at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival on Sunday 14th January at 15:00pm.
You can find out more about the festival and purchase tickets here:
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!
