We here at STARBURST recently got the chance to pick the brains of Irish Horror Filmmaker Lee Cronin to talk about his debut feature The Hole In The Ground which is out now in the UK. Lee discusses with us the inspiration that made him start his filmmaking journey, the importance of being different and finding the perfect leading lady for this spine chilling film.
STARBURST: First of all, a huge congratulations on the film.
LEE CRONIN: Thank you so much, that means a lot.
What films inspired you to become a filmmaker?
I’d say there was a part of my life around about 8 or 9 years old when I decided I wanted to become a filmmaker – I saw a lot of films that I shouldn’t have at that age because of my older siblings being a lot older than me! Films like Jaws, Nightmare on Elm Street and The Shining definitely had an impact along with watching Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 back to back which was a major moment for me. They all dug into my brain and stayed there and to me, creating a tense atmosphere and pushing the boundaries was what filmmaking was back then. You can’t escape your influences.
The main aspect of The Hole in the Ground that stood out to us was your attention to detail in the relationship between Sarah and Christopher. When writing the film, was that mother and son relationship always the focal point that you wanted at the core of the story?
Completely. It’s funny because when you hand over your film to distributors it’s not necessarily going to get presented or advertised in the way that you want. So the film in a lot of ways is a seen as a “creepy kid” film by the general audience but never once did I and my writing partner reference that it was about a creepy kid – it’s primarily about a son and his relationship with his mother and the mother’s paranoia and doubt when her son starts behaving differently. That relationship was everything we wanted and was always our primary focus.
With the film being different from the normal horror films of the modern era, was that the plan all along having something that would emotionally connect with the audience?
I think so, yes, I think that my natural instinct is that I’m drawn to the horror that you can create in domestic circumstances. My want and desires were to play around with that. It goes back to my first experience with horror, I would observe my siblings and other people freaking out and I thought “Wow, I have the power to do that”. So, making stories that people can identify with was the key. With The Hole in the Ground, you don’t need to have a kid to get it, we’ve all had somebody in our lives that you know really well or intimately and then to take that idea and twist it so we see them in a new light and make them a stranger is terrifying. I think that that aspect is what separates it from the rest and the fact it’s an independent Irish horror film we had to try something fresh.
How important was it to you to find the right actor to play Sarah? Seana did a tremendous job we’re sure you’ll agree!
Absolutely! When you make a film it’s an interesting journey because you write a script and then submit it and it’s not until you are put into the position to make decisions that you truly see what you want from it. So, I’d written the character of Sarah initially a lot as you see in the film but she was probably a little more vocal and chatty. What I saw in Seana was the ability to deliver a lot of internal emotion without having to verbalise so much so the instant impact that she had when I cast her was that I cut some of the dialogue in the film because I didn’t have to use that as a way of progressing the story. One of the things I’m very happy about with the film is where it goes in the final 15 minutes – that’s because we keep everything so grounded and that is helped out immensely by Seana’s performance too. She suited the tone perfectly. James, who played Christopher, was superb too, their chemistry was terrific.
The film never relied on lazy exposition – it all felt natural. We loved the way that you approached the ending. It was very light on dialogue, threw a monstrous curveball at the audience and left things ambiguous which is great in horror films. Was that creative decision decided early on?
A great question, I remember knowing that the script was ready to be made once I’d written the epilogue and there were moments where I debated on where it should end but I thought of something that helped me decide – When you’ve experienced negative things in your life or you’ve had difficult times or faced your monsters, you are left with scars that you carry forward – and I thought I have to show Sarah moving on. She enters the film with one set of scars and ends it with another set but that is what makes her who she is. Audiences are left questioning the meaning of the ending which is really interesting, and I think that makes it stand out. If this was a big studio production I probably wouldn’t have had that ability to make that decision.
As the writer and director, what was your favourite scene to bring from the page to the screen?
No one has asked me that question like that before! I don’t know what my favourite scene to bring to life was but I can tell you that my favourite scene to shoot was the eating of the spider. The reason why was because it was at the top of the second week of shooting – the first week had been a little quiet, a lot of the scenes that were quiet – so when we shot this, everything clicked and it properly felt like we were finally making a horror movie. I also love the fluidity and impact of the epilogue. The epilogue was the final day of the shoot too and it felt exactly the way that I imagined it when writing the screenplay.
Can you tell us about any of the other projects that you are working on?
I’ve just finished writing the second draft of a film called Box of Bones which I’m making with the exact same team as The Hole in the Ground, so that might be the next thing we shoot but I’m also working on something a bit more international that I can’t really talk about at this current moment in time.
The Hole in the Ground is out now on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital Download in the UK.
