Grimmfest’s Grim Tidings from Jared Connon, producer of ‘Forgive Us All’

Premiering yesterday at Grimmfest 2025, the post-apocalyptic horror Forgive Us All landed with a visceral, blood-splattered thud – and for veteran producer Jared Connon, it marked both a personal and professional milestone. A brutal, neo-western survival tale set in a virus-ravaged wasteland, the film taps into our collective fear of collapse, while delivering high-octane thrills and truly gnarly gore.

Having spent three decades behind the scenes of epic productions like The Lord of the Rings, Mulan, X and Pearl, Connon brings a rare level of blockbuster experience to a genre that thrives on grit, grime, and guts. Now, with Forgive Us All, he’s thrown his full weight behind independent horror — and the results are feral, furious and fiercely cinematic.

Shot on location in Queenstown, New Zealand, and starring Evil Dead Rise’s Lily Sullivan, The Gray Man‘s Callan Mulvey, and screen veteran Richard Roxburgh, the film fuses survivalist horror with sharp allegory. It’s a bleak, brooding descent into moral ambiguity and viral terror — with just enough hope to sting.

We caught up with Connon fresh from the film’s UK premiere to talk twisted influences, terrifying prosthetics, and what happens when fear becomes your worst decision-maker.

Grimmfest’s Grim Tidings from Jared Connon producer of Forgive Us All

Tell us why you are at Grimmfest

It’s all thanks to the fantastic efforts from the team at Light Bulb Film our UK distributors.  Being invited to screen Forgive Us All at Grimmfest is a BLOODY great achievement for our wee post apocalyptic horror, especially given it’s also our UK theatrical premier.  I’ve had a few friends have their films screen at Grimmfest over the years, and they’ve all said what a great festival it is for getting genre films out to an absolutely ravenous audience.  We’re super excited by the opportunity.

How did you get into horror?

Like most teenagers, I grew up digesting copious amounts of extreme horror, alway hunting out the thrill of a shadowy jump scare or the revulsion of a gut twisting SFX makeup gag.  The more extreme the better !!  I never imagined I would actually end up making horror films, and for the early part of my career that was the case.  Here in New Zealand however we have the king of splatter horror right on our back doorstep, and I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with Peter Jackson since the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, where I got see up close how effective good SFX Makeup & Prosthetics can be when great artists are at work.  I found this side of film making both fascinating and exciting.  But it wasn’t until I was brought onto Ti West’s horror films X and PEARL which were shot here in NZ that I really got to see Richard Taylors WETA Workshop deliver on some of the most incredible on screen gore in my career.  Those films are what tipped me over into becoming completely obsessed in what it meant it to create and deliver a horror film.  It was so much fun watching all the gags come to life on screen, I was hooked.  I doubled down on re watching all the old horror classics to study what it took to make great horror film, and I’ve been shooting, developing, watching and creating horror ever since.  I LOVE IT !!!!

What scares you the most?

On screen I thinks it the mental decline of a character.  As you watch and absorb the terror they’re experiencing, I’m drawn into identifying with how powerful fear is and how quickly it can erode your state of mind. The rapid onset of poor decision making is often driven by fear, resulting in ever increasing worst outcomes.  When people concede their power to fear, things go wrong very quickly.  When I’m watching a film, seeing people respond in a such primal way is always terrifying as it’s a state that is so easily unleashed in ourselves and society.

Who or what is your favourite horror character?

Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick The Shining is verifiably one of the most terrifying characters I’ve ever observed in a horror film.  Watching him become possessed by his own mental breakdown and turn on his own family is absolutely horrific to me.  Kubrick delivered the deterioration at every point in a truly disturbing manner, while Nicholson’s performance was undeniably next level when it came to dread and instability. Two masters at work.

What is the grimmest thing you have ever seen?

Well to keep it in the horror film vein, I’d have to say The Substance is right up there for me.  The shock and contrast of beauty to gore ratio was deeply disturbing.  The fawning of society leading to the darkest and most narcissistic behaviour possible, resulting is some of the most disgusting body horror I’ve seen in a long time was at the same time horrific, grimm and terrifying.  I had to watch it three times to really soak up the messiness of everything that was going on in that film!

Forgive Us All will be available on Digital & DVD from Monday 13th October.

Forgive Us All trailer