Horror Favourites – Nathan Shepka

Dead Before They Wake is a topical thriller based on true events and available now. We sat down with the co-director, star, and producer Nathan Shepka to grill him on horror films and more.

Starring Grace Cordell (Cara), Manjot Sumal (The Last Bus, hit BBC sitcom Scot Squad), Kareem Nasif (The Job), Dr Who legend Sylvester McCoy (The Hobbit trilogy, The Munsters) and Patrick Bergin (Sleeping With the Enemy, Patriot Games) the film follows nightclub bouncer Alex who is hired by a retired lawyer to track down a missing teenaged girl, suspected of being snared by a trafficking ring, and to bring her home no matter what it takes.

The film features an original score by Academy Award winning composer Joseph Renzetti and is directed by Andy Crane and Nathan Shepka. Shepka commented: “We wanted to base the film on real events and researched how UK sex trafficking gangs operate to give the film a grounded sense of reality. It is important to highlight what goes on every day and can often by ignored by the mainstream. We don’t feel any studio would have taken on the story in this way, it is likely to be a divisive and controversial portrayal. Ultimately there still has to be a pay-off for the audience; the film culminates in a brutal revenge-driven showdown.”

An actor, producer, and director from central Scotland Shepka has produced and directed five feature films via Shepka Productions including upcoming gothic horror The Baby in the Basket, mystery thriller When Darkness Falls, and action film Lock & Load.

Below Nathan Shepka gives us the low down on the scary movies he loves the most:

“For me, the best horror has always come from situations that could conceivably happen. In fact I think a better word to describe it would be terror; that feeling of constant dread that at any one moment something bad is going to happen. I find that far more terrifying than the supernatural. Serial killers for example are far scarier than zombies – because they are real.

In my opinion, films that convey that unnerving sense of foreboding perfectly are the likes of Nocturnal Animals, Shutter Island, The Witch, Bone Tomahawk, Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes (2006). You know something is off, you know something bad is going to happen. Whether the protagonists are tough or inept becomes irrelevant when the threat is so real.

That’s one of the things that we tried to really play into towards the end of Dead Before They Wake and I was really pleased when a couple of the reviews picked up on this;

‘There’s a point with about twenty minutes to go where I suddenly realized this was unlikely to end well. It’s all downhill from there for almost everyone, and the way this finishes is impressively grim.’ – Film Blitz

Dead Before They Wake isn’t a revenge film as such but certainly we drew inspiration from some of the more realistic revenge movies of late including Bull, Bad Day for the Cut, Blue Ruin and further back Harry Brown and Death Sentence. It’s a delve into a seedy underworld of depravity though and we try to disturb with something not far from the truth.

I suppose the horror from our film comes from the fact that not only could these horrific things happen but they are, every day in our society. It wasn’t necessarily a way of highlighting that or shining light on the fact that often the law doesn’t seem to do anything about it for fear of some kind of backlash, if anything the media has more than covered it well. However I did think it would make an interesting and harrowing subject for a film, one that didn’t pull any punches or sugarcoat it. We wanted it to be distressing.

In terms of direct inspiration we probably took a lot from You Were Never Really Here. Although where that film shies away from showing the violence we wanted to dial it up. I’m not Joaquin Phoenix so we couldn’t rely on people watching it without some sort of entertainment or “pay-off” at the end. Who doesn’t want to see traffickers go splat?

We also took inspiration from the BBC mini-series Three Girls, which is based on the Manchester area sex trafficking scandals, of which our film takes a lot of the underpinning plot. Our bad guys operate close to the same way that the perpetrators did in reality.

Quick fire on my favourite horror films of last year; The Substance (unbelievably well shot and on a lot of best of lists), Heretic (Hugh Grant should have diversified years ago, captivating performance), Trap (loved the ludicrous premise even if it seemed to lose its way a tad), First Omen (I clearly liked it better than most, one of the most tense cinema experiences in a long time – again, the foreboding sense of dread is perfect), Longlegs (again, masterclass in tension and dread) and Terrifier 3 (way too much fun). There were a few I missed the chance to see which I’ll need to catch up on.

All time favourites though, I’d probably wind the clock back a few decades.

Chiefly Rosemary’s Baby. I remember watching that for the first time and the terror that comes from the fact that nobody “believes” her or nobody is really listening to her is panic-inducing. The fact that she’s so alone and goes unheard by everyone around her I thought was a great feeling of claustrophobia and it had me on the edge of my seat. This along with the likes of Black Narcissus, Benedetta, Saint Maud and Don’t Look Now were all inspiration for our gothic horror The Baby in the Basket.

Elsewhere in the 70’s I’d say The Omen and The Exorcist are still top 10 for me. The success of these films I think comes as much from the family drama and the great writing as it does the actual physical horror. Alien is another one, probably unbeaten by any iteration since (apart from maybe Aliens).

Psycho, fantastic. Eerie, atmospheric and the plot developments unravel with deft handling. The Sixth Sense gets a mention purely for the killer twist. Eden Lake, horrifying, unflinching and utterly grim – again, plays on the dread and “it could happen” aspect so well. The Evil Dead, brilliant fun. Similarly Braindead, so entertaining. The Wicker Man gets a mention for embracing sheer “can’t take your eyes off it” oddness. And lastly shoutout to The Silence of the Lambs, The Fly, The Brood and The Vanishing.

Really tough to choose, there’s a lot of classic horror out there!”

Dead Before They Wake is available now via all digital download and streaming services including Amazon, Fandango, iTunes, Google Play and YouTube Movies.

Dead Before They Wake trailer