LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Tom Hughes stars in British indie horror “Shepherd”, portraying a widower searching for respite from his spouse’s loss of life by taking a job on a barren Scottish island.
However what first seems as a distant getaway turns right into a terrifying nightmare as Hughes’ character Eric, a shepherd, is haunted by a mix of guilt, paranoia and ghostly apparitions.
Filmed on the Scottish island of Mull, the film premiered eventually month’s London Movie Competition and hits British cinemas on Friday.
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Reuters spoke to Hughes and director Russell Owen. Under are excerpts, edited for size and readability:
Q: What was the genesis of “Shepherd”?
Owen: “There was a really well-known story off the coast of Wales, the Smalls lighthouse … what I took from that was the isolation and the insanity, then created a personality to occupy that atmospheric scenario.
“… The event of (Eric) was born out of associates that I would recognized had gone via despair, some had misplaced their lives to it and so I wished to craft one thing that was open-ended so individuals might resolve whether or not he was mad, whether or not he was alive or not, whether or not he was nonetheless on the island.”
Q: What have been the challenges in placing this collectively?
Owen: “One of many hardest issues is encouraging everybody to go and movie on the far northwest of Scotland in the course of winter, on an island, get a home constructed and a lighthouse, and all kinds of the insets constructed and whatnot.”
Q: How did you come throughout the venture?
Hughes: “I … learn the script and was drawn to it … I discovered the problem thrilling. You do not typically get the chance to helm a movie and attempt to maintain that story with out anybody to actually bounce it off … For lots of the movie, it is simply me by myself, and that was a problem.”
Q: Did the isolation on Mull play to the strengths of what you needed to deliver to the function?
Hughes: “The island was like a manifestation of his inside state. He is nearly conjuring the isolation for himself by going to this island … And so due to this fact, by proxy, being the actor taking part in the function, the island carried a weight for me on being there, getting to 5 o’clock, you’ll be able to’t simply go to a restaurant in the course of a metropolis … there might solely be one focus, and that one focus was the movie (and) the character.”
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Reporting by Mike Davidson; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Enhancing by Alex Richardson
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