Film Name: Hi-Fear
Directors: Anthony Catanese, Tim Ritter, Todd Sheets, Brad Sykes
Writers: Anthony Catanese, Tim Ritter, Todd Sheets, Brad Sykes, Josephina Sykes
Starring: Geoff Allen, Sheila Brandon Allen, Raven Black, P.J. Brescia, Brandon E. Brooks
What’s your greatest fear? That’s the question posed to ambitious young illustrator Natalie, who is forced to create four of the most terrifying stories imaginable for the new comic book “Hi-Fear”. In “Losing it at the Devil’s Whorehouse”, some unlucky lads out for a night of fun run afoul of a den of sin that just might cost them their lives. A cop and a televangelist commit the perfect murder in “When Shadows Come Alive” only to find themselves stranded in the woods with a family of cannibals.” “The Streets are Watching” follows a homeless youth through an all-night urban odyssey as she tries to escape from a demon-possessed madman. Finally, “Day out of Days” concerns three isolated film crew members who find themselves at the center of an apocalyptic invasion. With each tale more twisted than the last, “Hi-Fear” is a frightening finale to the “Hi-8” trilogy.
Following its recent selection at Horror-on-Sea, I got a chance to ask co-writer/director a few questions about the horror movie Hi-Fear.
Q. Your film ‘Hi-Fear’ has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect from the film?
A. Hi-Fear is the third and final part of a trilogy of horror anthology films that my producer (and wife) Josephina started back in 2013 with “Hi-8: Horror Independent Eight”. For this new movie, we asked four veteran indie horror directors to explore their greatest fears. Because everyone has a different idea of what truly scares them, we have segments featuring everything from supernatural horror in an urban setting to rural families of freaks to extraterrestrial visitors. So, Hi-Fear has something to scare everybody!
Q. What were some of your influences when writing the script for the segment “Day Out of Days” plus the wraparound “What Are you Afraid of?”, and what was the process for working with co-writer Josephina Sykes?
A. “Day out of Days” was loosely based on an idea I had years ago for a doomsday scenario set in a limited location. After co-writing and producing our segment “Cold Read” for Hi-Death, Josephina and I decided the “Day out of Days” concept would be perfect for our next anthology and set about developing it further. The biggest challenges were figuring out how to make an apocalyptic SF film while still keeping it intimate and not relying too much on special effects. We also had to compress the action, which was originally intended for a feature script, into a 30-minute timeframe. We worked out a detailed treatment together (which included exactly how many “days” the story would take place over – no small thing in a film like this, where every passing day signifies greater environmental and psychological changes), then I went and wrote a first draft of the script. We then worked on that a bit back and forth before arriving at a final draft.
The wraparound took a bit longer to figure out. On our anthologies, we’ve always tried to avoid the classic “Cryptkeeper” type of wraparound. However, since Creepshow is one of my favourite anthologies, we decided to do something in that vein, only instead of someone reading a comic book, we watch the stories being created. Once I hit on this idea, everything fell into place. We downscaled the script a bit because by this time, the pandemic was in full force. We ended up with a story that only utilized one primary character, with the terror created through sound work, VFX and some cool sketches that come to life, guiding us smoothly into each segment. And we ended up with an actual Hi-Fear comic book, which you’ll see at the end of the film.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
A. Melancholia, Under the Skin and Annihilation were all points of reference for the style and tone of
“Day out of Days”. All three are atypical, character-driven SF films that have a slow building sense of dread – and they all convey a sense of wonder along with the terror that I really admire. I also looked at non-SF films like Symptoms, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death and even Jean Rollin films for inspiration, especially for the scenes with the main female character, Laura, alone in the woods. I guess I’m very European in my influences!
As with any movie, though, ultimately you want to create your own visual style specific to the story. One of the things I decided right away was that there would be a clear-cut visual difference between the interior scenes (which would all be filmed on a tripod) and exteriors (which would all be handheld). I felt that would create a strong sense of unease and imbalance to the outdoor scenes in which the characters leave the house and often interact with otherworldly forces in the woods. Lighting was also a major stylistic element to consider, as it gets brighter as the film goes on till there is literally no night – a reversal of the usual horror cliché that was a challenge to keep track of and create with minimal resources. Along with our lighting package, we used everything from cell phone light refractions to canned haze to table lamps to create these on-set lighting effects.
Q. Did you make any changes from your original script during filming?
A. Not really. Some scripts are flexible enough to take a bit of improvisation here and there or endure some changes on set, but this one was so intricately built that an omitted scene or altered line of dialogue would have majorly disrupted the structure and flow. Thankfully, we didn’t have to cut anything during the shoot and we didn’t drop any scenes in post, either.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments during filming?
A. Making “Day out of Days” was like summer camp – all the cast and crew stayed in the same vacation house in the woods where we were filming. This created some logistical challenges but also brought everyone closer together, I think. This immediate bonding was all the more remarkable considering I hadn’t worked with any of the cast and crew before, nor did they know each other. But everyone gelled quickly and there were a lot of fun times, whether it was an actor grilling burgers and dogs for everyone after filming his scenes, an actress stepping in to apply burn makeup to another actor, or my DP and his assistant coming up with a cool handheld camera move that wouldn’t be out of place in an Alfonso Cuaron film. We filmed “Day out of Days” in November 2019, just a few months before COVID hit. It’s hard to imagine making a movie this way today.
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
A. We had one actress who was less cooperative and more “distracted” than the others. She had committed to a few nude scenes and of course, on the day of filming, tried to avoid doing them. This wasn’t my first time dealing with a situation like this, and she and I settled on a compromise that worked for everyone. Apart from that, she’s actually great in the film and more intuitive about certain scenes (like interacting with an alien that would be added later) than I would have expected considering her lack of experience.
We also had some sound issues to contend with, as you often do on location shoots. Although we were filming in a “quiet” mountain community, there were chainsaws buzzing off and on almost daily from a faraway logging site. Sometimes we filmed “around” the noise and other scenes we shot with minimal background noise, which we fixed with ADR later on. But as we were completely undisturbed during the entire shoot, I would say this was a minor inconvenience.
Q. This is the third film in the ‘Hi-8’ series which brings together a collective of indie horror writer-directors. How did the original idea for the series come about and can we expect any more films in the series?
A. The first film, Hi-8 (short for Horror Independent Eight, but also a reference to a video format used by myself and others in the 1990s), grew out of some conversations I was having with other filmmakers back in 2012, lamenting the state of the industry and how filmmaking “used to be fun”. So, we hatched the idea for 8 veteran directors to go back to their roots, literally, with analog cameras, practical special FX and minimal budgets, to produce shorts that would form the movie Hi-8. Hi-8 was really well received – played over 20 fests all over the world, made some “best of the year” lists and got some great reviews – so we immediately moved on to a sequel, Hi-Death, which, as its title implies (HD) took things up a notch technically and in terms of story length. And now here we are with Hi-Fear, which is easily the most ambitious of all three movies. Everyone loves a good trilogy, so Josephina and I decided to end on a high note and make this the final film in the series.
Q. Hi-Fear brings some new and returning directors to the series. What was the process when selected what other directors to bring into the series?
A. On Hi-8, we approached veteran filmmakers who’d been working since the 1980s or 90s and had some indie classics under their belts. One magazine even called our directors’ lineup “The Expendables of shot-on-video horror.” I’m proud to say that of the original group, writer/directors Tim Ritter (Killing Spree) and Todd Sheets (Bonehill Road) have contributed segments to all three films in the series, as have I and Josephina, so we are really the creative core of Hi-8. When we made Hi-Death, we decided to give some newer filmmakers a chance, and that’s how we started working with Anthony Catanese. He has since directed segments for both Hi-Death and Hi-Fear, and he has his producer Sara Casey also helped with the title sequences, wraparounds and some visual FX on both films.
Q. What makes ‘Hi-Fear’ stand out as something different in the horror genre?
A. Hi-Fear’s greatest strength is its diverse and fresh approach to the horror genre. On all these films we’ve always allowed the filmmakers creative freedom, and I think you can feel that in the end result. Each segment offers a different type of horror, and none of them are the generic “slasher” or “zombie” stories that we’ve seen a million times before. Hi-Fear is a real rollercoaster ride that offers everything from gory comedy to backwoods noir to sexualized sci-fi.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
A. At the most, I hope Hi-Fear challenges the audience’s idea of what horror is and can be when it’s set free from genre stereotypes. At the very least, I hope the audience will be entertained and debate over which segment is their favourite. Either way, hopefully it will make them want to seek out the other two films in the series.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. At the moment, I’ve been working on special edition Blu-ray releases of some of my earlier films, and I also will be publishing my second film criticism book later in 2023. There are also tentative plans for a new movie that Josephina and I will be making through our production company, Nightfall Pictures.
Q. If someone was looking to write and direct their own film, what advice would you give them?
A. I would advise anyone wanting to make their own film to try and get as much practice as possible before setting out to make a feature. That could mean going to film school, or making shorts with your friends, or working on bigger sets to get an idea of how things are run professionally. I did all three when I was in my teens and early 20s and all of that experience was helpful when I started writing and directing my first professional features in L.A.
I would encourage anyone who’s directing their first feature to try and do ONLY that…DIRECT. in other words, get a DP to shoot it, a producer to handle logistics and money, actors to play the parts, an editor to cut it. I know it’s more popular nowadays for filmmakers to wear multiple hats, especially on smaller films, but having the right collaborators will not only help you focus primarily on directing the film but your film will also benefit from their creative input.
Finally, I would add that whatever film you choose to make, make sure it’s something you’re prepared to live with for years, as the work is never done even after you’ve made that final output or seen the finished product for sale. Hi-Fear took over two years to make from preproduction to completion, partly because of the pandemic and partly due to the nature of indie filmmaking. But I am proud of the end result and hope everyone enjoys watching it at Horror-on-Sea.
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!
