Writers/Directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell, the exciting duo behind recent horror movies The Djinn and The Boy Behind the Door, are back with a new intense horror movie in Push (read my review). The film, which just received its world premiere at Sitges, follows a pregnant realtor, Natalie, who must survive a night of terror when […]
![‘Push’ Directors Reveal Their Secrets to Creating Maximum Tension in Simple Home Invasion Horror [Interview]](https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/image004.jpg?fit=836%2C430&ssl=1)
Bloody Disgusting spoke with the filmmakers ahead of Push‘s premiere about the film’s origins and how they keep wringing maximum, nail-biting tension from minimalist, single-location setups.
Like the filmmaker’s previous films, Push (formerly titled Open House) takes place almost entirely within a house. But this house is a labyrinthine mansion, lending a much bigger scale and a deeper sense of isolation. That, of course, was by design. It turns out, though, that Push was one of the filmmaking duo’s earlier scripts.
Powell explains, “We wrote it before The Boy Behind the Door and The Djinn. I remember that it was really more of David’s idea because he started as a real estate photographer. I remember he was at this shoot, and he called me; he was all alone in this secluded house. He was like, ‘This is really weird. Someone could just come here and kill me.’ It was creepy. Then he said, ‘This feels like there’s some of an idea here.’ That’s where the original concept really came from. Beyond that, a lot of our stories, which you wouldn’t know based on our first two movies, I think really surround these really strong female leads. We’ve wanted to convey that for a while, and this was our first opportunity to actually jump in and do that. So that’s where it came from originally.”
With so few characters on screen and the setting vital to the home invasion thrills, the mansion estate becomes a character itself in Push. Just as important is the casting of Natalie, the heroine facing the perils of a killer and an oncoming baby at once. Which was trickier to cast? “The house was always a character in our minds,” Charbonier affirms. “It’s funny. Some people have said our three movies are all home invasion movies, and that’s really just out of having to operate on this indie level and trying to be more resourceful. But we knew that it was really important to get a house that felt like it had many dimensions and a lot of layers and that we could really explore and follow the characters. But then, of course, the audience is watching the movie for Natalie, our lead; you have to sympathize with her and relate to her. They were equally hard and important.”
“I feel like we just thrive for some reason when our backs are in a corner,” Powell says of working in the independent space. “I almost feel like it’s out of necessity. It’s just how we’ve had to operate in the industry so far. A lot of our stories get designed around our resources, and this one was one that we wrote prior to having any of these pieces in place, which is great. We were able to really tailor a lot of sequences and everything to what we had, especially that elevator that was not in the original script. The house is not a set; the house has that elevator, and we were like, ‘This must be featured.’ So we ended up designing a lot of the movie around how can we turn this into the midpoint where everything turns on its head.”
An intense standoff in Charbonier and Powell’s ‘The Boy Behind the Door’
Powell continues, “I think that for us, simplicity is really underrated. A lot of movies now end up having these really bloated long run-times and have all these twists and turns, and that can be very effective. I don’t want to crap on that because we haven’t done that, and honestly, it would probably be really difficult for us. But there’s something to be said about really just leaning into creating a tone and a vibe and just really putting people in your headspace and feeling like you’re in that situation. That’s something that we really respond to when we’re watching movies, and we want people to experience movies the same way that we know we do.”
It’s not just the massive house that gives Push a more cinematic quality than the filmmakers’ previous directorial efforts, but Daniel Katz‘ cinematography, which provides a more mature, atmospheric look that harkens back to the ’90s. That was very important to Charbonier and Powell. Powell explains, “For us, this is really a visual medium. I know that’s always a controversial thing between, ‘Is cinema a visual medium? Is it an actor medium writing?’ We really lean into the visual part of it a lot as our stories are really simple, so you have to lean heavily on the visual part of it. One thing we really, really knew we wanted to do going in was to have a lot of long oners, where you’re just really following Natalie in these unbroken takes.
“The house itself is so cavernous that it really lends itself well to creating that with cinematography and just laying the groundwork for the audience to really understand the layout of the arena that our hero is going to be fighting in. We had a ton of discussions upfront about that and really always wanted to lean heavily into a ’90s tone. We wanted to have this feel like a little bit of a throwback to our favorites. I feel like both of our previous movies have a little bit of a throwback vibe as well. This one, we really wanted to lean in on those ’90s movies that really spoke to us growing up but still have a little bit of a touch of modernity in there.”
Their third outing as directors only reinforces this duo’s ability to induce extreme tension from the most simple setups. When asked what their secret weapon is to nailing tension, again and again, Charnonier has an appropriately simple answer. He tells Bloody Disgusting, “We always do try to approach things from character because again, you want the audience to be able to relate to who they’re seeing on screen and hopefully see themselves in the character in some way, or really be able to see themselves in the situation that’s being presented.
He continues, “One thing that we don’t like that we see in a lot of movies is… too much dialogue, too much backstory. It just always seems to weigh down a movie or scenario when, in reality, if someone is in a life-or-death survival situation, they’re not going to talk about their family history or a trauma with the boyfriend; they’re just not going to talk about these things. They’re going to be focused on one thing, which is survival. That’s just something we always try to stay true to.
“We just want it to feel like a ride, and we really want the pacing to always be tight.”
