IN THEIR SKIN, while as intense as home invasion requires, also provides a neat spin in the motives of its invaders, one that explodes in a show stopping scene Fango is exclusively giving you a peek at—accompanied with words from director Jeremy Regimbal—below.

Like many cinematic couples, post-trauma, Mary (Selma Blair) and Mark (Joshua Close) retreat to an isolated country home to sort their lives, and what they now mean. Soon, their seclusion meets intrusion when clingly, overly nice neighbors Bobby (James D’Arcy) and Jane (Rachel Miner) won’t seem to leave. They want to be around Mary and Mark. They want to be Mary and Mark.

Which, is where the scene in question comes in. Midway through, an unexpected bit of violence hits the household and is the catalyst for the full extent of Bobby and, more specifically, Jane’s crazy. As Mary grieves over a corpse and her situation, Jane joins her side to earnestly mimic the cry. It’s a surreal, gripping moment, and one FANGORIA was immediately taken with. (See our review of the movie here.)

FANGORIA: It’s such a powerful scene in the film. What was the conception and your decision to shoot it in a straight on, unflinching manner?

JEREMY REGIMBAL: We played around with a lot of different ways to shoot it and when it came down to it, I think there’s a lot of moments in the film we do as one-ers, or long, drawn out shots. Sometimes, when there’s editing in the middle of a scene or a moment, it takes you out of it—gives you a chance to blink, in a way. We didn’t want people to be able to pull out of it. There was that and also just the fact that Selma and Rachel, their performances were so great. It was just such a creepy, awkward moment. It was near the end of the day, so we ended up getting only three takes of it. It was pretty hard for any actor to go through, even that, three times. The big reason, I just wanted to keep that tension there and also suck the sound out of the background to really pull you into what’s happening in the foreground. It’s like pulling inside of Selma’s head, there.

FANG: You get a kind of picture of insanity from the ground up, being on the floor with Selma and Rachel, while the background is a bit of chaos. Was there a rehearsal process involved?

REGIMBAL: We had a week and a half of rehearsing the whole film, in general. We went through that scene, but there wasn’t necessarily a full scale rehearsal of that scene. It was a pretty intense moment. We talked a lot about it, but when it came into it, it was a pretty actually intense moment on the day, which worked out kind of perfectly. Everyone was pretty on edge and it was near the end of the day, and I think all that energy just went into that scene. We’re really happy with it.

FANG: That scene is where you kind of grasp the full madness of what Bobby and Jane (James D’arcy and Rachel Miner) are attempting to pull off here.

REGIMBAL: That, for me, was the big shifting point. There was a lot of shit talk and there was definitely a fear, a certain level of danger in the air. As soon as he does that, this thing is getting real. That’s why we wanted to do a big shift in music, and even in the scene that happens right after that, the first time we use camera movements. It was all building up until that point, a big shift on all levels.

FANG: What’s funny is the explosion of violence directly prior seems nowhere near as crazy as Jane’s cry mimicking.

REGIMBAL: Definitely, I love that. Rachel is amazing and we were so happy she could be part of the film.

FANG: Which out of the three takes did you use?

REGIMBAL: I believe it was the second. I remember fighting on the day because it was the last thing up, and we were doing our best to keep it under twelve hours per day. remember we were past twelve hours at that point. I’m pretty sure I fought to get one more, last take and I’m glad I did, because I remember it was the last. Whether it was the second or third, I forget, but it was the last thing we shot that day and we all left kind of quietly after that [laughs].

IN THEIR SKIN is currently available On Demand, and in select theaters November 9.

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features