Five FrightFest Facts From Brandon Christensen director of Still/Born

1. Tell us about your film?
Brandon Christensen: Still/Born tells the story of Mary, who has lost one of her two twins at birth. While dealing with the loss of the child, she begins to suspect that something evil is trying to take her other child and she begins to lose sight of what’s real and what is imaginary.

2. How did you get into making horror movies?
Brandon Christensen: I’ve always been a fan of horror movies. When I was in kindergarten, for some reason I was able to watch IT when it was on TV with my dad. Big mistake, as the film scarred me for almost a decade until I finally grew a pair and watched it again.There’s just something about the visceral response you can get in a horror movie. As a filmmaker, it’s fun to tap into that vein. To take something that might be seen as normal and put a dark twist on it to make someone afraid of it.Paranormal Activity did a great job of taking your safest place, your bedroom, and turning the creeks in the night into something that you may need to be afraid of. And put in your head the idea that when you fall asleep, you may not be alone. Those feelings are unique to horror movies and I think, especially as a first time filmmaker, its fun to be able to experiment with exploring those ideas.

3. What film would you love to see screened at FrightFest and why?
Brandon Christensen: I would love to see the new IT. Having been scarred by it, I have since read the book and even the 2014 draft of the script that leaked out to see how it compares and I think, from that earlier draft, they did a fantastic job. It’s been 27 years since I saw the original, and as luck would have it, now I have a son in kindergarten that I could very easily scar for a decade if I were to watch this with him. I won’t…but you know…what a way to reminisce.
I think the film is going to be very special.

4. If you could create your own award to give at the FrightFest, what would it be and why?
Brandon Christensen: Do they have SCARIEST FILM already? If not, that one. Horror has split into a lot of different ideas. Psychological, gory, I think a lot of different things affect different people but at the end of the day when the lights go out, I think the audience wants to be scared. There’s a lot of ways to do that so it would be interesting to see what is voted “Scariest”.

5. If your life was made into a horror film, what would it be called and who would play the starring role?
Brandon Christensen: Oh man… I’m a commercial director in my home life and so I think it would be the story of a man forced to do a terrible project with serious repercussions if he doesn’t. Every hour that the project isn’t finished on time, one of his children is sacrificed. I call it “DEADLINE”. Starring Jason Bateman because he can do no wrong.

Get your tickets for Still/Born HERE

avatar

Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

Related post

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.