Two themes that played pivotal roles in William Brent Bell’s ‘The Boy’ franchise were parenting and the mourning process. Fans of those two films will be happy to hear that his latest outing, Separation, doesn’t fall far from the tree, dissecting the harsh consequences of divorce and sudden death in the family.
Penned by Nick Amadeus and Josh Braun, and starring Rupert Friend, Violet McGraw, Mamie Gummer, Madeline Brewer and Brian Cox, ‘Separation’ tells the story of Jenny (McGraw), an 8-year-old girl who finds solace in her comic book artist father (Friend) after her mother is tragically killed in a hit-and-run. Sharing her brownstone bedroom with a creepy collection of puppets known as the “Grisly Kin” – based on her father’s work – these frightening characters suddenly start to come to life and Jenny is the only person who can see them. When the motives of the ghoulish creatures become clear, the lives of everyone are put very much in jeopardy.
With ‘Separation’ getting a full-scale theatrical release April 30th through Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment, SCREAM sat down with Bell who revealed just how close to home this latest project turned out to be before he went on to reveal some spoiler-free inside information about the long-awaited, soon-to-be-released prequel to Jaume Collet-Serrat’s 2009 horror hit, Orphan…
Words: Howard Gorman