Dark Sky Films is branching out. Quite possibly poised to have some of their biggest years ahead, they’re taking the surefire reception of HATCHET 2 and the upcoming HATCHET 3, and accompanying with original visions; the kind horror fans often cry out about lacking. Midst the anticipated slate, there are both Nazi monsters and a killer clown. But perhaps most exciting is the quiet, unsettling bit of south of the border atmosphere from Adrian Garcia Bogliano, HERE COMES THE DEVIL.

A young filmmaker of flavor, Bogliano is already deep into his career, crafting a host of varied, often confined stories balancing blood, fun and often a smear of social/political interests. Like the company funding his latest nightmare, however, Bogliano is stepping out.

Leaving his comfort zone behind for the wide, scorched Tijuana landscape, he tells FANGORIA, “I felt like I’ve hated most of the supernatural films that I’ve seen in the past few years. I felt that it was interesting to move from what I consider my comfort zone—the slasher, or real horrors—and make my own supernatural film. Since I started working on it, [HERE COMES THE DEVIL] was some sort of homage to a film that I like a lot, but is not a horror film per se, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. Amazing movie, but it’s not quite a horror movie. It was difficult to approach that way, but I started to work with a couple of ideas with references to Nicolas Roeg’s films, particularly DON’T LOOK NOW. The most important reference is THE TURN OF THE SCREW, by Henry James. With those elements in my head, I made the story of two parents that go with their kids to the outskirts of Tijuana and the children disappear. They come back the next day, but something has changed in them, and the parents try to find out what happened. It was working with two different lines: one is the supernatural horror, and the other is “what if something real has happened to them?”

“The film is open to very different interpretations, which I think is the most amazing thing about PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK,” he continues. “You don’t get to know what happened, and there is this element that is really disturbing. That is really what I wanted to make, a very disturbing film. The ideas of the film, I think are really disturbing. More than what we are showing, it’s the idea. There are a few elements that are suggested, or told—things that start to appear there—but you don’t get to see that much. There are a few very violent moments in the film, also, because I always like to show some stuff. I think that you can work on a very subtle level for a while, but sometimes you have to show something to the audience.”

Returning to his aforementioned displeasure with recent offerings, Bogliano reveals the true nature of his distaste, what he feels is a rampant misunderstanding of the master of suspense. “I feel like what I was hating about most of the supernatural films is that they don’t show things because they don’t know how to. They don’t have a clue. They try to pretend to do that because they are so subtle, and say, “no, this is a Hitchcockian approach,” which is a sentence I totally hate. Hitchcock was not that subtle in his horror films. Look at FRENZY, it’s a fucking disturbing film. Look at his real horror films: PSYCHO, THE BIRDS, FRENZY. Those are pretty disturbing films, and he’s showing everything. When the people say that, they misunderstood the whole point. They are probably talking about his suspense films, not all his horror films. Suspense is about suspense, but when you’re talking horror, the guy wasn’t fucking around, showing what he had to show. For a lot of directors, I feel like it’s easier to say, “This is more Hitchcockian, I’m not going to show anything,” because they don’t know how to do it. And I realize that I wasn’t so sure how to show this kind of stuff either, but it’s challenging to try and find ways, and I’m pretty sure that the next time I make a supernatural horror film, it’s going to be better. The other film that I was kind of obsessed with, and each time I see it, I love it more, is THE ENTITY. That’s the kind of supernatural horror film that I wanted to approach.”

And the challenge doesn’t only lie within subject matter. To date, Bogliano’s films have often been interior tales, “That was the idea. I wanted to get away from that comfort zone. PENUMBRA, COLD SWEAT, 36 STEPS and my first film, ROOMS FOR TOURISTS are all in very small locations. I said, ‘Fuck it, I want to go a lot of different locations.’ There are different challenges, you need a better production. You have to have a very tight production and schedule, and everything’s got to be on the same page to do something like that.”

HERE COMES THE DEVIL is currently undated.

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features