Black Sunday Confessions – Dave Gardner, writer-director of ‘Surprise!’

Our Five Black Sunday Confessions series continues today with Surprise!, Dave Gardner’s razor-sharp one-take comedy horror that screened at the Black Sunday Film Festival yesterday.

Directed and co-written by Essex filmmaker Dave Gardner, Surprise! follows a working-class mum who arrives home to what may be the worst surprise party imaginable. Shot in a single, breathless take, the film blends social satire and creeping dread, skewering the ruthless competitiveness of the upper middle classes and the terrifying lengths people will go to for their “darling children”. It is a film that finds its horror not in monsters or the supernatural, but in control, expectation, and the quiet panic of not knowing what comes next.

For Gardner, whose background spans acting, writing and directing across film and audio drama, the film is rooted in something deeply personal. Inspired by a genuine fear of surprise parties, and shaped through collaboration with co-writer Jo Overfield, Surprise! balances absurd humour with genuine unease, drawing influence from folk horror, dark comedy, and the uncomfortable intimacy of being trapped in a single unfolding moment.

Ahead of yesterday’s screening, Dave Gardner took part in Five Black Sunday Confessions, reflecting on creative rebirth after lockdown, early cinematic trauma, and why the idea of losing control might be the scariest thing of all.

Dave Gardner, writer-director of Surprise!

1. Tell us about your film and what brings it to the Black Sunday Film Festival.

Surprise! is a one take comedy horror short about a mum who comes home to the worst surprise party ever. It’s about the ruthless competitiveness of the upper middle classes and how they’ll do anything for their darling children. I guess for me that is what I find truly scary and horrifying. I’m an essex boy, so I knew about BSFF and really hoped we would be included in the selection and I’m very grateful to be a part of it.

2. What moment made you realise you wanted to create films, not just watch them?

As we approached the end of lockdown I had a realisation that I wasn’t ready for my life to go back to the way it had been before all of that. I used to write music when I was in my late teens / early twenties and I always got a buzz out of getting ideas that you fall in love with and believe in and I wanted to feel that way again, but this time with filmmaking.

3. What was the first film that truly unsettled you?

If we are going way back I used to be terrified of the bit in Superman 3 when Vera Webster gets turned into a cyborg when I was a little boy. The wires wrapping around her and the pinkish red slime belching out of the computer and her lifeless expression and walk. I wish something could scare me like that again.

4. Who would be your dream collaborator, living or dead?

David Lynch. I love the way he talked about ideas and the art life. There’s something so profound and unsettling about his work that defies logic and explanation. I just know it moves me deeply.

5. If your worst fear became a film, what would it look like?

That is in part what inspired Surprise! I’m a control freak, so surprise parties are things that really worry me. It was coming up to my birthday when we (my co-writer Jo Overfield and me) were coming up with the idea and I started to get worry my wife Eve (who did the costumes and cocktails for the shoot) was planning a surprise party, so decided to go down that road of, what is the worst thing that could happen… and we took it from there.

Other than that, my next film is a sci-fi comedy horror about a guy who changes into an egomaniac cruel monster – perhaps I’m worried that might happen to me. I sure hope not.

Surprise! screened at the Black Sunday Film Festival yesterday. Keep checking back with Love Horror for more interviews, filmmaker insights and festival coverage as our Five Black Sunday Confessions series continues throughout Black Sunday weekend.