The Evil Next Door is a new Swedish horror film that explores evil spirits through the lens of a newly formed family. When recent stepmom Shirin (Dilan Gwyn) moves into a new home with her husband and stepson Lucas (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez), strange things start to happen around her as she worries for her child.
Filmmakers Tord Danielsson and Oskar Mellander spoke to Screen Rant about what inspired the story and how working with a young actor like Dominguez.
Screen Rant: Tord, I know that you had a personal experience in your duplex. Can you talk to me about how those events inspired the film?
Tord Danielsson: Yeah, we had some neighbors moving out. And one night when they had left, I heard strange noises coming from the other side, but I knew that side was empty. I started talking to my wife, and first off, she didn't hear him. I was like, "Am I imagining this?" Later on, I heard the noises again and talked to her. And she was like, "Yeah, I think I heard something."
I never got an explanation for this, and it probably was just like the new neighbors checking in and taking measures or whatever. But that inspired me because Oskar and I had at that time talked to this family up north in Sweden, who had experienced some really creepy stuff. Those two things together really became the inspiration for the movie.
There was also this family that claimed there was some evil entity that took their child in 2014. Oskar, can you talk about how that shaped the film along with Tord's story?
Oskar Mellander: Yeah, it's loosely based on things we heard because people know that we're writing screenplays and doing movies. We hadn't done anything close to horror by then, but we had a common friend that told us to talk to his family. We actually chatted with them on Facebook and all that, but we promised them to not say too much about them. It's loosely based on that.
Tord Danielsson: Their story is not as gruesome. There's no dead children, and we made it much more gruesome in the movie. But I think the whole family dynamic was there in their story, not being believed and the stepmom's thing, and eventually moving out because they still believed that some kind of entity was after the child.
I love that you were able to tie in the stepmom aspect. As a step-parent myself, I can relate to it a little bit. What inspired that added element to the film?
Oskar Mellander: I think we have a lot of friends, and also my sister. She's, in Sweden, you called it a "bonus parent."
It's always a little bit complicated. How are things going? I can't get too involved, or can I? It takes time to build a sort of confidence. That child was a little bit older, but we thought, "What if this happened a little bit earlier?" When someone is not that talkative and can't tell a coherent story and all that.
And we wanted to play with the notion of if she's actually doing something to the kid. The way we tell it, nobody believes that she did because it's her story. But in an earlier version, there was actually doubt, because we told it from a different angle. And I think that's where we found the inspiration because we needed another story. And we didn't want it to be spectacular - but smaller, like a family thing.
Doing horror is almost like being a cinematic magician because it's whether or not you can trick the audience into believing things. How many of the horror elements were practical versus digital, and how did you guys make those decisions?
Tord Danielsson: We started out with the idea that everything was supposed to be practical. While shooting the movie, we really didn't think we were going to do any CGI at all. But then we had to do some reshoots, and we couldn't get Troy [James] to come back to Sweden because of the pandemic and everything. So, we needed to add those CGI elements.
While we did that, we did some other ones, like a kid in a window and stuff like that - because of the pandemic. I think if it weren't for the pandemic, we wouldn't have any CGI at all. Because both me and Oskar love practical effects and seeing things in-camera. Knowing when you're doing it if this is working, it's scary.
Can you talk to me about your ideology of crafting tension in a film?
Oskar Mellander: We've never done horror before. We did [a horror series], but that wasn't actually scary for real, I think. It was mostly a little bit comical, and more to the slasher type of horror.
But we took the thing really seriously and studied up. And there's no book you can read to tell you how to do it. I think we studied everything that we liked, and saw how they do it. And then we tried to do it in the same way, but not not the same. The scenes aren't the same, but in the same way, and we shot a lot of extra material so we can edit.
Tord Danielsson: We were so scared that the movie wasn't going to be scary. Because in Sweden, we don't have this big tradition of doing horror movies. So, we watched all our favorite American movies and directors, and we were so prepared and did the homework. I'm so glad you're saying this about the tension and everything because we put so much work into that. Because that was scary for us: what if this movie doesn't become as scary as we wanted? Then it's nothing; it's a comedy without laughs or a horror movie without screams.
Eddie Eriksson Dominguez is brilliant in this movie on so many different levels. What did he bring to the role of Lucas that wasn't on the page?
Tord Danielsson: I think for us, Lucas was kind of nothing on the page. He was just the little kid that's scared. He's nothing to us; he's a MacGuffin in a way. But then, when Eddie came out and we saw him in the scenes, that character became so important for all the scenes. He's a real person. And he was five years old when we did the movie!
It was special working with someone who's five years old. But we designed this method of working with him that, after a while, we could do stuff that we never thought we could have done. Like these long, long takes with Dolly shots, with him walking by himself doing stuff and reacting to things that won't be there until post-production, and not looking into the camera.
And all this took a lot of work because a five-year-old gets easily distracted. In a horror movie, if someone looks at something, you think that's something special. So we had to pull his attention all the time, and it took a lot of work. But in the end, he's such a great little kid. He really made the move.
Oskar Mellander: Yeah, he did. And we allowed ourselves to toss the planning for his scenes out the window and start again, with what we'd learned for the first week. We can do more with it, we can push him because his performance was supposed to be edited in to cut to him. We found out quickly that we could follow him and do things that we never thought was possible. So we just allowed ourselves, to the horror of everyone else on the team and a lot of people, just toss that and do it another way.
We changed that every week, and that pretty much killed us when we shot it. But when things can get better, you just have to push it. Just do it.
Tord Danielsson: All the producers were like, "You have to cast an older child. You cannot cast this five-year-old. He's great, but this is not a good idea." And we liked him so much, but it could have been a different movie if we had to shoot it in that style. Because not all scenes are done in the same style, even the scenes with him. And we didn't think that would be possible at the beginning.
It shows that you guys really did your homework, but in the course of making this film, what is it that you learned about the horror genre that you can take to other projects?
Oskar Mellander: One of the hardest ones is you have to do your homework and get things right from the beginning. Because you can save it to a degree, but it's unforgiving in a sense. Because if you cut it up too much, or if you do the sheep stuff, it's not scary.
Tord Danielsson: And I think also, you have to trust your gut feeling. This is scary, it's going to be scary, but we're still nine months away from this being scary. Because we have to edit it. And during these nine months, so many people like producers and suits they will tell you, "This is not scary. Take it away, take it away. This is not scary." We had so many people telling us that, but we stuck to it and it became scary. That was a great lesson for us. You have to trust yourself.
Oskar Mellander: Yeah, because we know what this thing will be when the sound is on and the grading and everything. When it's finished, it'll be so scary. And I feel it a certain tiny bit of tingling that will become horrible - or terrific in horror.
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Reviewed by Riyad
on
July 16, 2021
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