In recent years, experimental horror movies have resonated with viewers when they are direct reflections of impeded senses. In the A Quiet Place movies, audiences witness characters attempting to remain completely silent, as they live in a world where monstrous creatures hunt exclusively by sound. In the Bird Box films, characters navigate a post-apocalyptic world in which seeing otherworldly creatures causes victims to kill themselves. Netflix’s new film Don’t Move is grounded more in the real world, though it similarly presents a situation in which a protagonist has limited control over their own physiology. In this case, however, it’s more of a race against the clock of our hero overcoming the effects of a paralytic drug.
Netflix describes the movie, “A grieving woman hoping to find solace deep in an isolated forest encounters a stranger who injects her with a paralytic agent. As the agent gradually takes over her body, she must run, hide, and fight for her life before her entire nervous system shuts down.”
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SocioLayers caught up with directors Adam Schindler and Brian Netto developing the film, collaborating with Sam Raimi, and what the future could hold for our main characters.
SocioLayers: How did this project originally come about? How did this script make its way to the two of you?
Brian Netto: Well, it came from the two of us. We didn’t write it, but this was our original concept. This is a concept that we had probably dating back to 2016 or 2017. Anyone who writes knows, sometimes you have a kernel of an idea, and sometimes it pops, and sometimes it doesn’t. This stuck around for a while, because we just thought it was really this universal fear of the ability to be trapped inside your own body. It’s frightening.
Anyone who’s ever had sleep paralysis, or even just the concept of it alone, it’s frightening, so it stuck around for a while. I think it wasn’t until we figured out what the journey of the main character was going to be, for Iris, and we figured out what she was going through in her life, and why this particular event would be perfect for someone going through something like this.
I think once we had that, and we had conversations with the writers, T.J. Cimfel and David White, they had written our previous film, but that was a spec, so we brought it to them. They’re great with character. They live in genre, but it’s always smart and grounded. Once we figured out, this will be our character, this is what she’s going through, and then built the antagonist off of that, it all came together pretty quickly.
It originally originated from us, and we just … they’ve done a phenomenal job, what they did with it, what they did with the script, we just were so pleased with it and just flew through it when we read it, and just fell in love with it right away, even more than we already had been with the original concept.
Going along with that, you have this kernel of an idea, almost a decade ago, whether it be just through the passage of time or once you get these writers involved and they put their own spin on it, did the project drastically change from that original idea back in 2016 or was it still pretty faithful to that core concept?
Adam Schindler: It was 100% faithful to the core concept, which was simply, can you do a genre exercise where the main character is paralyzed for a majority of the movie? That was the biggest thing, was like, “Okay, is that something that you can do? How would you actually do that?” The biggest thing for us, when we brought T.J. and David on, they wrote this and we developed it over a portion of the pandemic, the middle portion of the pandemic to the end of it, and very much like this: four [Zoom] boxes there in Chicago. Four Zoom boxes, us developing the script in that way.
The biggest thing for us was, we told them, “We don’t want to go into her head. We don’t want to do voiceover.” We want to try to keep it as much in real time as possible. We thought that would be the best way to do it, and the most suspenseful way to do it, would be along for the ride with the character. We hadn’t really seen anything like that before. We’re like, “Is that possible?” So yeah, it really didn’t change.
We all developed this character, Iris, and then figured out what her journey was going to be. Once we figured that out, we’re like, “Okay, we have something,” and then it was just matching an antagonist to her journey that prods her along as, or pokes her with a syringe along, as you would, to flush out her and what her journey is.
Netto: When the initial concept came to be, we didn’t know exactly where it was going to be taking place. I think once we figured out that this is why and when we meet her, I don’t want to give anything away, but when we first meet Iris’s character, the place she’s in mentally and physically, we knew where she was going to be mentally, but we just made sense, like, “All right, what if she’s visiting this particular location for this specific reason?” And, thus, that became the setting.
That was the one thing that was never blocked in, the place, but obviously it makes the film so much more unique. Telling a story like this in broad daylight in a very lush, green, beautiful, frankly, beautiful setting is what, in many ways, sets it apart and also just gives it a very unique look. It’s not in a dark, dingy basement. It’s not in an urban setting. It’s in nature. That presented challenges, but also gave it, again, we’re really proud of the marketing materials and what they’re using to put out into the film.
It just looks like nothing. It looks like not a lot of other films in this genre that are coming out recently. So I think we love that it has its own little imprint in look, so that was unique.
I think another thing that really helps your movie stand apart is that you have this built-in, ticking clock. What I appreciate is that it’s the opposite of so many horror movies where there’s a ticking clock of: this horrible situation is going to happen at the end of the movie and you’re getting closer and closer. This was, “No, actually, the further into the journey we get, the more likely we are that she will get to escape this situation.” Was that an intentional flipping of the script that was also part of that original concept or was that something that came through the collaborative process?
Schindler: No, that was originally the whole concept was exactly that, exactly what it turned into. We just thought we had never seen anything like that, and we were like, maybe it’s just because it’s impossible to do. But we spent a lot of time working on it and figuring out, like, they say, “Paint yourself into a corner,” we have all the specific sequences that we wanted her to have to manage and work her way through. Just paint yourself into a corner as far as you can, and then try to get yourself out of it. There were a lot of times we painted ourselves into a corner in developing the project, we painted her into a corner and said, “You actually can’t get out of that.”
Because another thing that we really charged the writers with, we wanted it to be as realistic as possible. So we want to make sure every character that she comes in contact with throughout the film or the story is making a decision that that character would make at that point and not doing movie stuff where it’s like, “Oh, I’m just gonna fake it, I’m just gonna do this just because it gets us moving and gets the story going.”
We were really keen on trying to make sure every character made sense, the decisions they’re making make sense to the situation that they’re in.
Netto: We’re big on structure, so a lot of times when we’re watching a film, if something really works, you can always go back and look and go, “Why does this work? The spine of this is so tight, it’s so strong.” Sometimes you can watch a film and you can see the machine working behind the scenes. Like, “Okay, we’re at this point in the story. Now they got us to this point in the story.”
Sometimes, it’s recognizable, and the times when it’s not recognizable, but you realize, “Oh, wow, they got us. I didn’t understand that this was gonna be the hook, but this is great. It makes sense. And this is the midpoint.”
So, for us, we just love the idea that the middle section of this was going to be this paralysis and then, for the audience that doesn’t know where it goes from there, now she’s waking up again, but that’s just as agonizing because it’s not happening fast enough, so we really love the idea of that.
Also, structurally, this is a story where the emotional arc, the emotional journey that she’s on mimics the structure of it, because she’s at a low point when the film starts, but it gets lower. When we get to the midpoint, she is at a really low, low point, physically and emotionally and psychologically. Of course, the whole point of this story, the thing that really made us gravitate towards this journey for this character, was the idea of someone picking themself off the mat, to use the sports metaphor. It’s just getting up when you’re down and she’s in a tight spot. I think all of those things just combined, and, of course, the skill of the writers made it feel just so tight and the back half is just as intense as the first half.
Speaking to that realism, was there much research or did you allow some creative liberty when it came to the actual, physiological paralysis components? Were you like, “Actually, based on this research, this would not be possible, but it’s a movie, so let’s ignore that,” or was it, “No, in our research, we’ve discovered that these are the things that would come back first, then these muscle groups would come back second?”
Netto: The writers, first off, they did the research, did a really good job. They didn’t tell us what they were basing this particular drug on and we didn’t ask, and we very purposely did not mention it in the story. Once the script was done and we went through it and we started getting further into production, fortunately, no one had any questions about the drug or why it worked or how it worked, but a good friend of ours that we grew up with, his wife is an anesthesiologist and [star] Kelsey [Asbille], in her press has been touting her.
So I’m going to say it one more time: Amanda Boland, Mandy, we had a Zoom session with her. We had two. The initial one, it was so cool because, of course, she’s a nurse by trade. We first met with her and reading a script is not easy for people that don’t know how to read scripts, but what’s so cool is that we sent her the script, we met with her and she had all these notes and she’s talking about this and it was so cool to watch. It’s always fun to watch someone that has a very specific trade and they’re just really good at what they do and she was able to break it down in a really interesting way.
Then we brought Kelsey into a Zoom session and I think there was only one thing in there where it was like, “All right, maybe that isn’t exactly how it would work,” — we’re not gonna say what that is — “but for purposes of our story,” we were like, “We need this to be this way so it’s going to work.” But the one thing she did do, when she first had our initial session, she was like, “The drug you’re talking about, the onset of this particular drug is a little bit slower, so it’s probably an older drug because newer drugs, the onset is a little bit quicker.”
From that, we were like, “Oh, that’s perfect. Because then it makes sense that this character has access to something that’s either older, or he might have built it himself. He might’ve made it himself.” So all that lined up well enough for us to feel comfortable moving forward. But one thing she did help out was with the idea of the breathing, which she was like, “The breathing, it’s going to be very specific. It’s going to be very hoarse. It’s going to be ugly. It’s the kind of thing that might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up,” and I think Kelsey did a great job of conveying that in the film, so I think it was pretty accurate.
Schindler: You hear a little bit of that in the trailer for it, that strident breath that makes your skin crawl.
I do want to bring up the involvement of Sam Raimi in this movie and how that came about and if he was hands-on, not in an overwhelming degree, but if he offered some mentorship or some advice here and there? I think that’s the dream, is a literal horror icon being involved in your production in any capacity is exciting.
Schindler: Well, we worked with Sam on a previous project. We did an episode of 50 States of Fright for the now-defunct Quibi. Sam also directed an episode there, so that’s our first time we’ve ever worked with him.
He’s very hands-on. So, in that 50 States process, he read through the script, every line of dialogue, talked about everything, same process here. You finish the script, we send the script out to the various different places, hoping somebody raises their hand. Zainab Azizi, who is Sam Raimi’s producing partner at Raimi Productions, she was the one to pick it out of the pile and said, “This. We’re making this movie.”
We met with Sam in pre-production going through, we literally spent hours going through the script. Line by line, reading the script, he took a character, he took action lines, and has some of the best script-to-screen notes we’ve ever received just in regards to … His whole thing is, “What do you want the audience to react to? How do you want them to react? How are you going to elicit that response?” It was all about, from camera angles to lines of dialogue, the character arcs, making sure things make sense or questioning us on things, like, “This is what our approach is going to be,” and, “Oh, okay. Have you thought about this?” “Yes, we have.” He’s a hundred percent hands-on.
That’s his process, at least as it relates to our experience with him. He was on set for some of the film, traipsing up mountains, back there offering support. The biggest thing that we’ve learned in our experience with Sam is that there is nobody that’s more enthusiastic about you getting to make your movie than Sam Raimi. He is the consummate cheerleader, four decades deep. He’s back there, supporting you, clapping, cheering.
It was the same thing when we turned in our director’s cut of the film, just to watch him respond to it and be an audience member. We’re thinking he’s going to be sitting there skeptically, like, “I’m the producer and I got to put my fingerprints on this and that.” But it was just fun to watch him cheer and yell at the screen and throw up a fist and then get down to work about how we’re going to make it better.
Netto: He is the guy for us when it comes to horror films. His stuff is so influential. Evil Dead, obviously, but anyone who knows me knows that Darkman was my favorite film for a good majority of my life. Darkman was hugely influential, A Simple Plan, Drag Me to Hell. The Gift, someone was talking about the other day, I guess that got a new release. He was so influential on us, just us as audience members, so the idea that we’ve had a chance to partner with him on two projects and have two more with him that we’re working on, that is invaluable
Echoing what Adam said, this is a tough business, it’s always been a tough business and it’s getting tougher, but if you attack it with the mentality that he has, in which it’s always about enthusiasm, just never losing the love for it. And you fall out of love with things sometimes. That happens, but it feels like, the person we met, when he first got to Hollywood, he still has that love for it. And that’s so awesome. I think that can really carry you through the lean times in between projects, when you’re hearing “no” a lot, because it happens. You hear a lot more no’s than yeses, and so I think having that mentality, which I think is just who he is as a person, but it’s certainly a lesson to be learned. We took that away. The idea that we’ve worked with him twice, it’s hard to process.
[50 States of Fright], that was an incredible experience because there were some really cool filmmakers on that show.
Schindler: And are now good friends. It was like filmmaking camp. It felt very much like that. With Sam being the camp counselor, and then all of us getting to go shoot our little movies and him offering guidance and availability, and then also just the money and resources to go shoot something that we wanted to shoot.
Netto: It was pretty incredible experience.
The casting for this project, it’s going to be challenging because you have Iris, who is so restrained, so restricted, having to cast an actor who can say a lot without actually doing a lot. Then on the other end of things, you have Finn’s character that’s obviously a bit more maniacal, but he’s not an outright cartoon character, he’s not like Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate, a bonkers-level villain. What was that casting process like? Did one of the characters get cast first and then the other actor cast as a complement?
Netto: Kelsey was cast first and she came on pretty early in the process. I hadn’t been as familiar with her stuff on Yellowstone, but was very familiar with Wind River. Anyone who’s seen that film and her scene, it’s, wow, it’s pretty incredible. And then Fargo, which, I’d seen the show, but didn’t realize it was her. She was totally unrecognizable. If you can do a Coen Brothers style of performance, and then you can do something like Wind River, like, “Okay, she’s got range,” and then you meet her, and we met her with Sam, and Sam was a huge fan of Yellowstone. When he realized we were meeting with her, he was very excited.
She was just so thoughtful and so sweet. Speaking with her, it was just like, “This is the character. This is who we need to embody this role, because this woman is going on this really harrowing journey.” She just threw herself into it. When we first met her, we met her on a Zoom on Super Bowl Sunday. When she came on, it was like, “Oh, that’s her. That’s her. It just felt like her.”
Schindler: Casting films, our films, we just got to use our gut. You have casting directors and they’re putting … Every person that’s sent our way, in this type of situation, is a phenomenal actor. It’s just, for us, feeling like we developed the script from the scripting process and everything, so we knew this character back and forth. It’s just a matter of using your gut. We both were, after that Zoom, just like, “Yes, that’s the Iris character.”
It was the same way with Finn [Wittrock]. The people are sending us things and, I heard his name, I wasn’t really familiar with a lot of his work on American Horror Story and what have you, but they sent along clips and reels and things for us to look at. He was in a scene with Renee Zellweger where he’s playing opposite her and she’s playing Judy Garland, he plays one of her husbands. It was just a simple scene where they’re sitting at a piano and they’re just talking and having this thing, and we were just like, “That’s it.” Again, it’s just gut, you go, “That’s the guy we need.”
Finn’s character wears a lot of masks in this movie and, for a portion of it, carries some of the narrative, dialogue-wise. It was important that that character was somebody that you just wanted to watch. Immensely watchable, charming, sometimes sadistic, but can play those equally and navigate that just seamlessly.
And that’s Finn. Remarkable actor. Just speaking to the process of actually shooting the movie, watching Kelsey and Finn work was one of the highlights of this whole. They’re just such different actors, but they were caring, and they were down for whatever. We’re asking Kelsey to lay there, like, “Don’t move, but move us.” That’s not easy to do. I know people think, “Oh, just lay there on the ground, and we’ll be fine.” It’s not that easy.
Then to watch Finn, there were sequences where they’re sitting and you’re on Kelsey and we’re shooting on Kelsey, and, a lot of times, the actor would be like, “Well, I’m not in the scene, it’s not on me, put a stand-in here for eye line. Then I’m gonna go over here and prepare for my part.” But they were just very giving with each other. If Kelsey needed Finn there, even though he wasn’t on camera, he was there, emoting and being in the scene. She was doing the same for him, and it was just really great to watch, because, a lot of times, you don’t get that collaborative thing so much. Sometimes it’s just, “I’m here, and I’m doing my thing,” but it was really like a family. The whole production was pretty much like a family.
Netto: There’s a world in which you can have a more obvious villain in a role like that. I think one of the things we were really protective of, and all the producers agreed with this, was just the idea of having someone that you understand how they operate out in the world and how they’re able to do what they’ve been doing for so long and be as successful at it as they have been, up until the point when we meet them. If “success” is the right word to use it, but undetected and not caught.
For us, it was just like, “Well, who would this person be? How do they operate? What does it look like being out every day in their shoes?” And again, there’s fun in someone that is more mustache-twirling and this and that, but I think for us, it was like, “Nah, it just feels so much more frightening.”
The stuff that usually inspires us and frightens us is when you see someone that is just evil walking around in plain sight, every day, and you don’t recognize it. Everybody always says, “I didn’t know the neighbor, he was so quiet.” Well, they never say, “Oh, I knew it from the start,” they never say that. This person would have been caught a long time ago, so that’s what we were trying to embody. I think Finn, he was able to tap into that. As dark as that is, he was able to find that place, and that’s what I think makes it sing as well as it does.
Was there a particular scene or sequence that logistically was the most challenging to bring to life, whether it was because of the practical locations and shot setup, that was difficult, or finding the right pace in the edit that was particularly difficult? Also, was there a scene where the two of you didn’t fully see eye to eye once you actually shot it or discussions that were harder to get on the same page about?
Netto: Production, just being in the water. We hadn’t done anything on water before, and we have two sequences that take place there. I always say it slows everything down by half, and maybe by more. So just logistically, we have actors and crew, and there’s safety, there’s continuity. If you get wet, you have to dry it out. Those are the things where it’s hard to process until you’re there doing it. I think we had just enough time to get it all done, but at the same time, you’re scared that you’re going to be running out of time, because there’s so many things that are coming your way.
For example, the lake at the end, that was not closed off. We didn’t have 100% [of it], people might be passing in the background on boats or canoes. You’ve got waves that are coming by, so continuity is different. Those are the things that are scary. It explains why sometimes people will go out of their way to go, “Well, do we really need to do this in this location? Can we do it? Can we have it on a backlot? Can we have it in a tank? Can we do these things?” And a lot of it is because of control.
Control, it costs money, but at the same time, you realize you don’t have those elements that can come out of nowhere that can derail a day or half of a day. I do remember there was a period of time when we had waves, serious waves coming in, and we were just thinking, “This is not going to match anything of what we had before.” I think we were able to navigate that as well as can be. But yeah, water.
Schindler: As it relates to anything that Brian and I weren’t on the same page with, Brian and I, we’re big on prep. Everything is handled in prep, so any of those discussions never really carry over onto set. We have everything planned out.
We know exactly where the camera is going to be and what the plan is, at least, so that you’re on the day, you can play jazz if you need to, because the lights come in a certain way or the wind’s coming here. “Oh, I didn’t know that building was in the background.” As long as you have a plan, you’re fine.
There was one issue that Brian’s going to smile about, because it was literally the only thing that we didn’t fully prep, and it’s a good lesson for us, at least. It’s one thing that we didn’t fully prep.
It’s a small thing, but a big thing that we were like, “Next time we’ll just figure that out,” and it involves Iris’s character grabbing a string, I won’t give it away. Figuring out the position of her hand, how she would do that.
Netto: It was, “How is she going to signal using that, without giving anything away?”
Schindler: It was a decision where we were there on the day, now you have 50 people standing there like, “How are we going to do this?” That was the only time where we were like, “Okay everybody, just give us five minutes, literally five minutes.” And we sat there with our DP, Zach Cooperstein, who was amazing, bringing all these images to life. Talk about a constant cheerleader, like Sam Raimi, that’s Zach Cooperstein. The happiest, hardest-working guy probably on our set.
He was there and helping us figure it out, and it took us about five minutes and we settled on what you find in the movie and then on we went. But it was a good lesson for us. Even the smallest things, we should have prep.
Netto: A really small thing.
Schindler: But it took time. When you’re shooting and you have a certain amount of time in a day, those things can really stall you out. Lesson learned. We will make sure next time that we have everything prepped.
Netto: In terms of pacing, our editor was Josh, “Senor Etier” we call him, Josh Ethier, who is a producer in his own right. He and his partner, Joe Begos, have been making movies for a number of years. [He’s] just an encyclopedia of film. He is a passionate person. He’s an incredibly bright person. He’s a great cheerleader and he’s a damn good editor, so he was just a really great partner to have on this.
In terms of pacing, we have edited our first two feature films, which is largely out of necessity, but it was a really fun process for us. I think the first time we’d actually used an editor was on the 50 States episode, an editor named Justin Lee, who works in Vancouver. He just did Heretic for [Scott] Beck and [Bryan] Woods. He was the first time we’d ever used someone else outside of the process. I don’t even know that it was an option for us to edit it, frankly.
But we fell in love with the idea that another pair of eyes, another brain in the room, is just a better thing for your movie.
Schindler: Also having somebody, this is the first time we’ve ever had somebody start editing the movie as we’re shooting. A shoot at this level, this is the thing, they need to get started. I never felt like he was ever telling us, “We need this,” or, “We need that,” but it was more of just having Zooms with him and having getting emails from him saying, “This is cutting together like we think it’s going to cut together, guys.” Having that behind you, the reinforcement of, “Just stick to the plan, because it seems to be lining up the way we imagine.”
Netto: He was so enthusiastic. After a while, I’m just like, “Listen, there has to be something we’re not getting,” because it’s easier for me to hear criticism, even if it’s constructive, than it is to hear praise. I’m just like, “We can’t just be getting all of this, there has to be work.” There were a couple of times he was like, “You might want to get this or that,” but mostly he was just like, “This is gorgeous. I get what you’re doing. I see the movie that you guys are trying to make,” and it was awesome to hear that.
Then, getting in the editing room, which, we shot in Bulgaria, but we did that here in Los Angeles, and he had an editing room in his home and we just sat there for the back part of the summer into the fall. It was awesome. It was such a fun process. I think he understands film so well. He understands all the different genres. He can talk any genre ad nauseum.
He understood what this movie was and I think he just was like, “Oh, I got this. I understand. We want to live in certain moments longer than others. But, more than anything, just give this thing time to ratchet up the tension,” and he just got it.
Schindler: He would be like, “This is like that 1976 Czechoslovakian, art-house movie,” and in this moment, I’m just like, “Whoa.” He’s that encyclopedic with his knowledge of film. But he’ll give Brian all the criticism. That’s why we worked together good together. Tell me all the good things that you like about it and then we’ll meet in the middle somewhere. That’s why we work together so well.
WARNING: Spoilers below for Don’t Move
For people who prefer concrete answers or do not enjoy ambiguity, because Finn’s character is left, not definitively dead, there’s a sequel that could pick up from a park ranger stumbling across him and trying to get him some help or something like that. Do the two of you have a definitive ending in mind for his character and also for Iris? Or in your mind, is the joy that ambiguity? You don’t even want to think about what the next scene would have been for either of these characters?
Schindler: Brian and I have a concrete idea as to where this movie ends, but we love ambiguity. We love ambiguous endings because, not just for the fun of it, but more for, since Iris’ journey is so specific and there’s something that’s happening with that, I’m not going to give away what that is in this interview, but the idea of it being universal and then letting the audience take from it what they will and carry that on into their next day is really exciting for us.
I think the point of film, at least the films that I like to watch, I love genre, we love genre, I always have, but if you can mix genre-sugar and medicine and walk out feeling something emotional and being like, “That was a hell of a ride, and I feel something on a human level,” that’s just kismet, that’s the ultimate right there.
Netto: Our first film is a small movie called Delivery and we thought it lined up and had a very specific — it was telling us a very specific story, but it wasn’t until we started going to screenings and people had so many different interpretations of what was happening and we just fell in love with that. Now, this film, similarly, we think it’s actually … I think what you’re asking is more about the fate of some of the people involved, and I think one of the reasons it works is because, again, I know we’re in the spoiler-y section of it, but the reason she leaves him, the way we leave both characters is very specific. She is picking up with a story that was told earlier in the film, she’s carrying that through, but also, at the same time, it’s like, this is her story and her journey, so she’s trying to figure out what her path is and really not worried about what his path might be, wherever that leads him, so it feels like it’s pretty definitive.
The cool thing is, in the test screenings we’ve been having, the way that people respond to the last words that she says and then also the way that we cut out of the story, people have had really unique interpretations of what it means for her, when the frame ends and they’re like, “All right, well, now what?” So that’s been awesome because it was never intended.
Schindler: I remember it being like, “I think it’s this,” and we were like, “Oh, man, I didn’t even think of that.” But you could really think back on it, you’re like, “Yeah, maybe.”
Netto: There’s been thoughts that she might be taking a really interesting path after this movie ends, and we’re just like, “Sure.” To me, when you watch a movie, the greatest joy you can have is when you’re thinking about these characters after, but you’re thinking about what their life was like before the movie started and after, so when you go home, you’re just like, “I wonder what’s going to happen.” It’s like when we watch Memento, I remember like, “God, I wonder what’s happening to Guy Pearce’s character? What small towns is he just wreaking havoc on right now?” because you just don’t know, he’s just a dog without a leash, and you don’t know where he’s going. And that’s a compliment that people are actually caring or thinking about what’s next for her. Because you don’t often care, right?
There was a joke, we had a running joke when we were in Bulgaria, because we kept calling it, Sam [produced] Don’t Breathe, and this is Don’t Move, and we were like, “Well, this is the Don’t-iverse, so maybe we’re going to have another one.” Who knows? We have batted some ideas around of what it might look like. I think an audience has to want it, and then it has to actually make sense.
Schindler: We didn’t write this as a thing that can continue, but there’s ways in which the story could continue if it needed to be, and that feel organic. At least to us, feel an organic way to do it.
Netto: We’re just happy people are thinking about the journey of what’s after, I think that’s awesome. I love that, when I see that in the film, so if that’s what this is giving to people, then that’s awesome, that’s great.
And I think you fully accomplished telling Iris’s journey at this point in time, and the next movie could be a romantic comedy, her journey doesn’t necessarily need to be a genre film, and the same thing for Finn’s character. If he’s found, it could be a prison drama or whatever. There’s so many open-ended ways for that journey to continue, and I don’t feel at all that it was just, “Make sure to come back next October for Don’t Move Too: Stop Moving,” or whatever the hell.
Netto: Don’t Stop, Can’t Stop.
Knowing it’s coming out on Netflix, for as much as there are disappointments in some degree of not getting the theatrical experience, just knowing it’s this equalizer. So many people just have access to Netflix who might stumble across your movie or anyone else’s movie that wouldn’t normally seek it out, and just knowing there’s going to be an audience for this, it’s going to be a test.
Netto: That’s a good point about the Netflix of it all. We made this independently, but they raised their hand and said we love the movie.
Schindler: They’ve been fantastic, absolutely fantastic. They want people to see the movie, they’re super excited about it and excited for people to see it, as are we. People’s televisions and stereos are way different than they were 10 years ago, so they’re hearing all the great sound, all the great sound work by the sound team, Darren Hannis and Andrew Rice. Everybody did so much hard work on this and did their best, it’ll be fun to have as many people as possible to see the movie. That’s, ultimately, the goal of making a movie is to get as many people to see it as possible, but no better outlet than Netflix for that.
Netto: It’s been awesome to watch these films this summer that came out and did so well, the Neon films in particular. I’m thinking Longlegs, seeing that, and Cuckoo came out afterwards, and it’s been great to see these films that come out, and people are talking about them, and then at the same time, Rebel Ridge came out, I watched it opening night, Friday night. I sat there, and I was so excited for the film, and it did not disappoint, and I think people were talking about that film just as well. [Jeremy Saulnier] has a following and we’re huge fans of him. I think, for us, we’re just excited that people, whatever size film, and wherever you can find them, it’s nice that people are taking chances.
For us, where we are in our careers, it makes sense that this is something where people — we don’t have to tell our family, “This is how you see it, but you got to see it here on this platform, and then on that platform, and this date,” and they’re just like, “I don’t know.” So I think the cool thing is you say Netflix, everyone has Netflix, and it’ll go out simultaneously across the world at the same time, and it’s just something nice about knowing where it’s going to be, and it’ll be easy to find, and also the kind of film it is, it just sucks you in, you might start it not knowing what you’re getting into, and then you won’t be able to stop, and that’s something that’s fun as well.
A good story is a good story is a good story, and us three all being horror nerds, or genre nerds, just because I saw some movie on video that came out 20 years earlier, that doesn’t make it any worse because my first introduction to it was on my TV, and at the time, it would have been a CRT, 17-inch TV with the built-in VCR, as opposed to seeing it in theaters. It just tips you off to things, and people can follow your work, go back into some of previous projects, and also keep their eyes out for what you all do next.
Netto: The first time I saw Children of Men was on an Academy screener on my television. It blew my mind. I couldn’t stop talking about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see 1917 in the theater. I saw it on Netflix, maybe three or four months ago, because I missed it. I saw it and it blew my mind, and everyone’s like, “Yeah, dude, we saw it. It came out four years ago.” I had just never got to see it.
Schindler: That was me, that was Brian’s impression of me going, “Yeah, dude, it came out four years ago.”
Netto: It blew my mind. My point is, it’s great to play on a big screen. It’s great to have the communal experience, and I think for some films, that’s a necessity, and for others, it can or it doesn’t, it doesn’t hamper it. I’ve watched some great films on my phone, sorry to say. I’ve watched things on tablets, and I’ve had amazing experiences with other people in the theater. Just saw The Substance a couple of weeks ago. You have to see that. That’s a great big-screen movie.
I just love content. I just love stories and I don’t care how I’m told, or how I see it. That’s always been — that’s been me. I can enjoy something on any platform, and if it’s good, it’ll get my attention. I think that’s the biggest thing. Is it engaging? I saw Bullet for the first time on my phone, waiting in the waiting room. My niece was in the doctor, and I sat and I was like, “This film is incredible,” on my phone.
I know I’m the exception rather than the rule. I understand that, and would it have been great to see it on the big screen? Great, but it did not diminish the experience for me at all. It was just as engaging.
Don’t Move is now streaming on Netflix.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.
