Congratulations on the film, it’s a brilliant thriller that’s gritty, raw and hard-hitting.

I really appreciate that. It was always important for us to get the day labourers right – they are the entrance to the story, and I wanted the first twenty minutes of the movie to feel very realistic so that we are right there with them and it’s almost like the audience are joined with these characters that are then thrust into a horrific scenario. We saw the movie as two things – a slice of life character portrayal of these struggling workers and then meeting with the big bad villains who are out to get them.

Without spoilers, can you tell our readers what to expect from Beneath Us?

It’s the story of four undocumented day labourers who are living job to job, standing outside of hardware stores kind of begging for work. One day they get picked up for a job of a lifetime that’s much higher paid than anything they’ve done before and everything seems too good to be true and when they get to the house and begin working they slowly begin to realise that things are not what they seem.

Beneath Us is your feature directorial debut – how proud are you as a filmmaker to see your creation come to life?

I’m thrilled. I’ve been a film lover for my entire life, and I made several shorts along with a few screenplays. It’s always been my ambition to make a feature – so I’m very proud that this is my first one. It was a bit surreal being on set making the movie after remembering the initial spark and inspiration for the story. Seeing how far it has come has been a thrill for me and I look forward to allowing the world to see the film and hearing what they think of it.

You co-wrote the film with Mark Mavrothalasitis, where did the idea for the story come from?

So, funnily enough, I was at a Home Depot and I noticed this interaction (that happens at hardware stores all across America) between a woman in a nice SUV lowered her windows and a swarm of day labourers all offering their services and asking for work. They were all bigger men and I instantly thought I should be nervous for this woman and then it struck me – the level of trust in this arrangement of these undocumented workers getting into a car with a complete stranger being taken to their home. No one really knows where you are and there’s no official record of you even being in the country – so I started thinking of the possibility of a story like that working as a film. So I rang my co-writer Mark Mavrothalasitis, who I’ve worked with a lot since college and who is half Mexican, and told him this idea as he would be a perfect collaborator and that very day we started working on the script. The idea too gave us the chance to take these day labour characters and show them in a new light as the protagonists.

A particular shot towards the end of the film was very evocative of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Are films of that genre and ilk some of your inspirations?

Absolutely. I think that in terms of the villains what we are doing with Liz and Ben is similar to what they did with the villains in Texas Chainsaw Massacre – it’s larger than life depiction of, in that case, it was people that you might meet if you wander off the wrong street living in the middle of Texas, whereas here it’s larger than life version of the doting housewife and upper-middle-class white couple. We were certainly inspired by that movie for sure amongst others such as Funny Games and Misery.

Throughout the film, there are some very clever instances of framing and character actions that really elevates the fact that Liz and Ben are “above” the other people around them – again, was that a stylistic choice that you always wanted to pull off?

Yes, we tried to show that Liz and Ben are in control in their environment and that the protagonists are stepping into this foreign world when the gates close and then they are trapped in a maze. Whenever possible we wanted to showcase that.

Lynn Collins does a terrific job as Liz, a proper posh psychopath of a character – what was the audition process like with her and how much fun was it to work with her?

It was extremely important to get the antagonist role perfect and we spent a long time searching for the perfect Liz. I couldn’t be more thrilled with Lynn’s work and how she played the character. She immediately got it and understood what we were going for – she was very generous with her talent and time and was willing to do anything. Making a larger than life horror villain with her and that requires really pushing yourself and she nailed it every single time. She was amazing.

At the heart of the story there is a real emotional connection between the two brothers Memo and Alejandro, how was it finding the important balance between character progression and the thrills?

We always saw them as two sides of the same coin – where Alejandro the older brother represented the hard-working man who is embracing the American Dream and Memo the younger brother is very sceptical and is a foreigner and there’s a natural conflict between the two that plays out throughout the story. By the end of the film, I think that both characters learn something from each other and incorporate their strengths and weaknesses – Memo is a tough guy who is not willing to make any concessions or suck up to anyone whereas Alejandro is willing to encroach to provide for his family. The two of them at the end begin to understand why the other is the way that they are.

Can you tell us about any of your upcoming projects?

So, I’ve recently been writing a few screenplays and a couple of them are almost ready to go so I hope to have another movie to show you fairly soon! It’s still keeping in the horror and thriller genre – I think that the stories I tend to gravitate towards are movies that are within that genre but are using the genre to have a discussion about a topic that is socially relevant.

Beneath Us is out now in select US cinemas