Irish filmmaker Ivan Kavanagh has carved quite a name for himself, especially in horror circles thanks to 2014’s skin-crawling nightmare, The Canal. Now, following 2019’s gritty western, Never Grow Old, this week sees the director return to the horror realm with a character-driven genre bender that demands particularly close attention to all the sordid details.
Penned by Kavanagh and starring Andi Matichak (the Halloween franchise), Emile Hirsch (The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood), and Luke David Blumm (The King of Staten Island), the film picks up the story when a mysterious group of individuals breaks into Laura’s (Matichak) home and attempts to steal her eight-year-old son, David. In the aftermath, they decide to flee town in search of safety but David suddenly becomes extremely ill, suffering from increasingly sporadic psychosis and convulsions. Following her maternal instincts to save him, Laura finds herself having to decide exactly how far she is willing to go to save her son.
With the film releasing in Theatres, On Demand and Digital this Friday, March 5, SCREAM sat down with Kavanagh who revealed the frightening personal experience that planted the seed for the film and how he lucked out on discovering the perfect actor to play the pivotal role of the titular son.
Words: Howard Gorman
