Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski just wanted to keep it real.
In their line of work, that meant using practical effects on their low-budget horror film The Void instead of cheaper digital effects that dominate the marketplace these days. Yet while incorporating hand-made creatures and makeup might have added some authenticity, it also added some headaches.
“This movie was very problematic, to say the least, to make,” Gillespie said by phone. “The nature of the schedule, it was very run-and-gun. We were working with a super-restrictive budget.”
The Canadian filmmakers are part of a collective known as Astron-6, which is best known for campy micro-budget horror projects such as Manborg and Father’s Day.
However, both have a background in the work of special effects — “we’re above amateur, but maybe below expert,” Gillespie explains — and have worked in the art and makeup departments on a few Hollywood blockbusters. So while their latest project feels like a step forward, it’s really just a combination of their shared interests.
“It’s definitely less tongue-in-cheek than anything we’ve ever made before,” Gillespie said. “Maybe we just picked up some skills along the way that we brought to this. We definitely tried to make it as ambitious as possible.”
The story is simple enough, following a handful of folks — including a sheriff, a pregnant woman, and feuding neighbors — who become trapped inside a short-staffed rural hospital when they realize that evil lurks outside, and possibly within. That leads to a night of terror in which they must put aside their difference to fight for survival.
Gillespie said the look of the film was influenced by everything from Alien to No Country for Old Men to throwback horror films such as The Keep. He estimates that 95 percent of the effects are practical, without any digital enhancements.
“All the big sequences are done as practical as possible. From inception, it was always going to be a practical creature-effects movie,” Gillespie said. “Because we’re in the industry, we have access to a lot of resources in that regard, and it would be stupid not to exploit that. It’s sort of a misconception that practical effects have disappeared and everything is digital now. If you can do it real, then do it real. It will always look more convincing.”
The logistical problems that threatened to derail The Void were mostly a result of the painstaking effort needed to pull off throwback effects clashing with the realities of a constrained production schedule.
“Practical effects look great, but they’re notorious for not working all the time. You need as much time as possible to get what you need from them,” Gillespie said. “Every time you have a practical effect, it’s almost as if it’s never been done before. We definitely were pushing the limits of reason in terms of what we could actually get.”
Shooting locations provided another obstacle. The film was supposed be a shot largely inside a large decommissioned hospital in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, just across the Michigan border.
“It looked like a total nightmare already,” Gillespie said. “We didn’t have to do much with it, so we were right on board.”
But while filming was subsequently delayed for several months for financial reasons, the hospital was declared off-limits because of health hazards. So the filmmakers shifted production to an abandoned high school not far away.
“We couldn’t even go in there anymore,” he said of the original location. “We had to improvise and turn this high school into a hospital as quickly as possible.”
