Visit the official "In Fear" UK website http://www.infearmovie.com/
Reminiscent of vintage psychological thrillers and bolstered by newcomers Iain De Caestecker and Alice Englert in its main roles, In Fear plays out in real time and hinges on a claustrophobic, unrelentingly tense visual style. Looking to shed pretense and genuinely scare his actors, Lovering withheld the script and often concealed what was about to happen to them. Add a dark forest, and the fear became real.
Though propelled by visceral thrills, the film transcends genre and offers a study in fear itself, creating a cerebral fable in which fear - of the dark, of the unknown, of ourselves - governs our nature, compels our choices, and may well seal Tom and Lucy’s fate.” John Nein – Senior Programmer, Sundance Film Festival.
In Fear is Jeremy Lovering's first feature and is produced by Nira Park (the producer of all of Edgar Wright's films - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and the upcoming The World's End, as well as Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block, Greg Mottola’s Paul and Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers) with James Biddle through her award-winning UK production company Big Talk.
Director’s Statement:“Violence is the mother and the daughter.”
In Fear. Official Teaser clip. Violence Is The Mother And The Daughter.
A few years ago I went to Ireland to visit an Anglo-Irish family who lived on a massive estate in the middle of nowhere. I turned off the main road by a pub and followed the signs. After half an hour the road brought me back to the pub. Convinced I must have missed a turn I set off down the same road, making sure I followed every sign. The day turned into night, it started pouring with rain, there was no-one around and it became clear I was going round in circles. It was strange how unsettling it was - I think it was just that I really didn’t know what was going on and maybe I began to wonder if there was ‘something out there’... It felt like I was in the middle of some fable or urban myth, or slightly annoying Zen Koan. I took a side turning, to see where it went. The road turned into a narrow lane and I realized I wouldn’t be able to turn round. Then I saw another sign….which brought me back to the pub again. I went in and asked the landlord if he knew what was going on. I noticed a couple of the men drinking there, smirking. The landlord laughed and explained that there was a longstanding joke whereby some people from the village turned the signs around so that any you followed would always bring you back to where you started. The joke was harmless but had its origin in centuries-old ethnic violence. The landlord said his son would show me the way. We turned again into the narrow lanes, the son driving a Land Rover in front. I’d felt frustration earlier, inexplicably humiliated, the first vestiges of anger even and now I was completely trusting this stranger, following this man who may just be having another joke.
From that experience I came up with In Fear - a psychological horror that I wanted to be totally frightening but rely on classic suspense rather than gore. I liked the idea of the home invasion movie relocated into a car, of creating an intense sense of claustrophobia and using a shooting style that gave us freedom to film in an incredibly intimate way, of building suspense through incremental steps and escalating fear.
In Fear. Official Teaser clip. How Much Do You Love Your Life.
I wanted to tap into the primal fear of the dark, the unknown, being lost, and the very real fear of being terrorized by something unknown for no understandable reason. I guess I wanted to show two characters floundering around trying to make sense of what was going on and how to survive as some kind of allegory for all of us trying to work out how to get through life. To create a portrait of a relationship compressed and exaggerated by circumstances and events - the tragedy of suspicion, betrayal and blame, the hope of forgiveness and maybe even love.
Jeremy wrote a treatment or story outline that was around 30 pages and had example dialogue. This went to financiers and then a pitch followed. Both director and producers agreed, for this film to be as terrifying as it possibly could, it had to be made in an unconventional way. The actors would never know the story and would never be given a script. He wanted the actors to feel the fear so that we as an audience could totally empathize, feeling their fear as our own.
This meant they could not plan their destiny because they did not know how the story would end. They simply must not know what was coming. It felt, by putting the actors in as real a situation as possible the film could be incredibly visceral, immediate and believable.
Jeremy worked out the story he wanted to tell, he wrote guide dialogue and as a genre piece, he made sure he would hit the genre beats. The framework would be solid but it would always be just a blueprint. The plan was to work on and develop the characters, set up a series of increasingly threatening and violent events, then set off on a journey where the script would have to evolve every day in order to successfully navigate with the actors to propel the characters to the correct ending. He created the character archetypes he wanted but he couldn’t go any further without a cast...
Casting.
If there had been a script, there were so many good actors in the age group [18-25] who could do it, but because of the process that the film was going to utilize it meant that there were specific and unique qualities Jeremy was looking for. The actor had to be able to improvise incredibly naturally with great spontaneity, they had to have a clear sense of self without yet knowing the character they were going to play and they had to fit the archetype that Jeremy had in mind even though he hadn’t yet created the character.
They had to be brave enough to embark on the journey with Jeremy to create the characters and mould the story without the safety of a script. They had to want to portray being in the state of fear through letting themselves wander into that dark place. They had to understand the fear of the unknown but be prepared to go with it.
For ‘Lucy’, Jeremy cast Alice Englert, for ‘Tom’, Iain de Caestecker and for Irish local ‘Max’, Jeremy cast Allen Leech.
In Fear. Official Teaser clip. Revenge Or Redemption.
Rehearsals.
The rehearsals lasted only as long as ‘Tom’ and ‘Lucy’ had known each other - two weeks. Again, this was in order for the actors to find the same mental state as the characters.
Having totally bought into the idea of making a movie without knowing the plot and the level of trust necessary for this, Alice and Iain applied this process from day one. During the rehearsals they made sure they didn’t talk to each other in depth about their character. They would go for a coffee in character and so divulge parts of their back-story but only in the same way that any new couple might. There were of course many discussions about who they were, who they wanted to be, and how they wanted to appear to each other but Jeremy only talked about the characters in the present moment and how they might respond.
Jeremy says it was the actors who developed the depth and complexity of their characters and each day they’d come to rehearsals with more - learning their own and each other’s idiosyncrasies, their strengths, their weaknesses, their humor, their source of happiness and their fear.
Scenarios were played out and these fed into the evolving storylines, occasionally Jeremy gave them a scenario that was a situation from the film - getting lost, blaming each other, playing stupid games - and this had a dual purpose: to try out the characters to see where they were going and to give Alice and Iain a sense of anticipation. One time they played a truth game that finished in such a way that they realized just how vulnerable they would be not only through not knowing their own story, but not knowing each other’s story. But from that moment of exposure they and Jeremy realized how much trust they had to have in each other.
If In Fear was in many ways to become a home invasion movie but in a car, the production needed to find a location to film that replicated the same sense of containment. There were discussions about shooting in a studio but this was quickly discounted - again ‘reality’ was paramount to maximizing the frights.
In the end Bodmin Moor in Cornwall and the forests around were settled on. The moor itself had the same peaty colours as Ireland; it was barren, beautiful but lonely, soulful and threatening. The forests were deep and silent. You can look out on it in the dusk and see things that might not be there. The narrow lanes with overhanging trees and raised hedges would provide a perfect, controllable, continuous network that our characters could easily get lost in, drive without seeing another soul and where they would be terrified about being attacked.
It also provided a progression that matched the story - wide roads at first, open landscapes closing in - so sections were chosen to match stages on our characters’ journey. Not only would the night be closing in, but nature would be closing in as well. It would become damper, more isolated, rougher.
The Shoot.
No low-loaders, no A-frames, no tracking vehicles - the car was key. It was the primary set, ‘Tom’ and ‘Lucy’s’ sanctuary and their coffin. The audience had to feel they were in it with them. So the shooting style had to be immediate and DOP David Katznelson had to constantly crush himself into different places in the car or find new angles to rig the cameras and let them drive away.
Sometimes it was just Jeremy, David and the actors, other times the actors went off on their own. On the occasion of a special event the car and surrounding location would be rigged with multiple cameras and the crew would vanish into the dark. Three cameras were predominantly used - the Alexa which gave more latitude, more scale and an extra hour filming at low light, the Canon 5d which gave intimacy and a GoPro that was used for action moments where it didn’t matter if the camera was broken.
Post production.
The jigsaw continued long after the shoot was over. Hours of footage that rarely matched meant it felt at times like assembling a documentary, this gave it an added sense of reality. The story remained the same but there were a hundred ways to tell it and editor Jon Amos and Jeremy were constantly reinventing and refining it. One change in nuance, one alternative take, could change so much. And so they experienced all over again the shifts in suspicion and trust, building the suspense incrementally and matching the tension the actors felt.
With the sound designer Julian Slater and the composers Roly Porter and Daniel Pemberton on board, there was a new and vital piece of ammunition. Roly’s experience is as a composer outside of film and this would prove to be invaluable. In a way he was able to carry on the process that had been applied to the performance and the shooting. He didn’t anticipate what was going to happen, he composed in the moment without a script to create a fantastically inventive and original score that meant the scares worked better, the tension became tangible, and the horror became more powerful.
Alice Englert (Lucy).
Australian newcomer Alice Englert is a rising international talent. Growing up in a thespian family, she spent many of her formative years immersing herself in film and has an intensity and on-screen presence well beyond her years.
In 2006 she made her film debut†in Jane Campion’s short feature, The Water Diary. Alice, only 18 years old, has since played lead roles in four feature films and is quickly becoming one of the most versatile young actors of her generation.
Written and directed by filmmaker Jane Campion (Alice’s mother),The Water Diary†was one of an eight-part feature, 8, exploring eight directors’ takes on a different environmental issue. Gus Van Sant and Gael Garcia Bernal also contributed as directors on the project and the series of independent stories premiered at Cannes.
Alice has played leading roles in the feature films†Singularity opposite Josh Hartnett and† Sally Potter’s†Ginger and Rosa, alongside Elle Fanning. The 2012 BIFA Awards nominated Englert for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for her role as ‘Rosa’. Alice recently appeared in the novel adaptation Beautiful Creatures, a supernatural family drama for Warner Bros. Alice played the mysterious Lena Duchannes alongside Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Emmy Rossum and Alden Ehrenreich. Alice stars opposite Iain De Caestecker in Jeremy Lovering’s psychological horror, In Fear, which had its world premiere at Sundance 2013 and will open in the UK this August.
Alice has appeared in Italian Vogue shot by legendary photographer Bruce Weber, and on the cover of Australian Harper’s Bazaar.
Iain De Caestecker (Tom).
Iain began acting at the age of nine, when he attended classes at The Scottish Youth Theatre. It was through the theatre that he received his first professional role, playing ‘Billy’ opposite James Cosmo in the short film Billy and Zorba. Iain was then taken on by a children’s acting agency who found him roles in various TV shows, as well as the Warner Brothers feature film, The Little Vampire and Richard Jobson’s directorial debut 16 Years of Alcohol, starring Kevin McKidd.
After finishing school, Iain applied for a place on an acting course run by Langside College and spent three years training under David Lee-Michaels. It was here he rediscovered his love for theatre. However, Iain was still able to take time out from his acting course to film roles in River City and the BBC3 series Lip Service.†Upon finishing the three-year course, Iain went straight into filming a supporting role in the feature film Up There. 2011 saw Iain taking a lead role in the critically acclaimed BBC3 series The Fades, which won a TV BAFTA for Best Drama Series. Iain then went on to star as ‘James Herriot’ in the BBC1 series Young James Herriot.†He also landed roles in the feature films The Comedian and Shell, which were both screened at the London Film Festival and are due for general release in 2013. Iain will next be seen starring as the lead role in Jeremy Lovering’s psychological horror, In Fear, the story of a car journey that turns horribly wrong, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2013.
Most recently, Iain starred in The Secret of Crickley Hall for the BBC opposite Tom Ellis and as a supporting role in the upcoming Filth, with James McAvoy. 2013 will also see him star in Not Another Happy Ending alongside Karen Gillan, Anna Chancellor and Kate Dickie. Most recently, he has been signed to HBO’s new Marvel Comic series ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ and is also starring in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut How to Catch a Monster.
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