Interview with Writer & Director Craig Ford and Producer Jonny Bunyan of ‘The Witching Hour’

Horror films might not be everyone’s cup of tea but they undoubtedly can and have beenused in film as a fabulous vehicle for social commentary. When filmmaker Craig Ford was looking to explore a series of cautionary queer tales, he looked to his beloved horror genre for inspiration. ‘The Witching Hour’ is Craig’s third and final instalment in the ‘Queer Bedtime Stories’ trilogy, although it works perfectly as a standalone short. His young protagonist, played brilliantly by Reubens Baggley, is battling not only with insurmountable grief after losing his dad but is beleaguered by struggles at school and at home, and finds an unsettling solace in bizarre nighttime bedroom apparitions. Craig felt a pull as a filmmaker to tell a different kind of coming out story, one that doesn’t focus on the cliches and tropes which dominate, but instead reflects the honest and real struggles experienced by those in the process of understanding and accepting their sexuality.  

RocksBlogs took the time to catch up with Craig and his producer Jonny Bunyan about the making of the film and explored some of the more technical sides to the production which all contribute to his beautifully nuanced and creepy tale.

‘The Witching Hour’ will screen at Brighton Rocks on Saturday the 25th of June at 9:30pm as part of our horror shorts programme “Beware Ye Who Enter’ at The Actors. 

Where did the idea come from to tell a coming-out story in this manner?

Craig: I watch a lot of queer cinema, especially what’s in the mainstream, and I get really fed up watching the usual coming out stories between two hot 20 something guys. They are usually set at school, university or in a hyper-straight environment and are always pretty sexualised. I understand the basic reasons behind these productions but that’s not how I remembered it. I remember being younger, very confused and feeling like I was the only one going through this, it was all subtle and nuanced for me as a kid. A glance at a male model in the KAYS catalogue that lasted a little too long, kids calling me gay but no one really understanding why or what that meant (looking back I can say with a degree of confidence it was me being as camp as tits that did it). So with this in mind I wanted to capture those very first moments we feel as kids, knowing we are different but not really understanding why. 

What is your particular approach to script writing and developing the story?

Craig: Once I have an idea the first thing I always ask myself is, how can I make this a horror? Horror films were always an escape for me and I naturally want to tell all my stories through that twisted prism. 90% of the time my logical brain will tell me, “you can’t, please stop doing this, move on with your life!” I will consider this, ignore it and move on to mood boards. I always need a bit of help before I start writing the visual language. I’ll pull screen grabs from films I think would work, looks, imagery and costumes. Once I have this I can start imagining a world for the characters. Next, I start building a playlist with scores and music I think would work with my idea. I will then crack on with the first draft using my moodboards and the music as inspiration. 

Jonny: My job as producer is to assist in making the creative story an actual reality when it comes to the logistics in filming. I truly believe in making anything work no matter how small the budget and this was certainly the case when we realised the script focused heavily on the central character’s bedroom. Finding an early 1970s interior home proved very difficult so, with the help of our brilliant production designer Haydn, we transformed my own living room into a 70s kids bedroom. In order to fit in the crew and create a mix of perspectives that were vital for the tone of the film, we built a false wall which we could move forward and back. 

I love the spooky toys. How did you animate them?

Craig: I bloody love creepy old toys! My husband hates an old scandi looking doll I found at a jumble sale and we are convinced it’s haunted so we call it EVIL LIESEL, she’s in the film, keep an eye out for her! The old 70’s Action man had a little switch at the back that you slide to move their eyes. I went hunting in my mum’s attic for mine but he’d been thrown out – SCANDAL! So we went searching on Ebay and then filmed the eye move in with someone  slowly working the eyes from the back. The naughty bear was my little sister’s when she was a baby. It’s a battery operated bear that moves and talks whenever someone moves around it. I remember it freaking me out when she was born so I went on the hunt for it in the attic and to my delight there it was, in an old bag peering out at us. A quick battery change and Naughty Bear was back!

Jonny: In addition to the bear, toys that mysteriously fell off the shelf were assisted by good old fashioned fishing wire. This wire is very thin and in the right light, not visible on camera. It took a good few goes to get it right but as a producer, it was nice to see the art of smoke and mirrors used (as opposed to a trick added in post) to make it as real as possible.

Your sound design is so key to the film you have all of the weird and wonderful horror sounds to build that tension. How was this part all approached?

Craig: We spent about a grand making this film and when you are making a film on a budget, sound should become your best friend. It can make crap battery operated teddy bears look terrifying. In the edit I’ll earmark parts I think need to be elevated with sound or music. Sometimes I’m not sure how, I just know they do, so I will start rewatching horror films making notes on sounds and stingers that I like or I think would work. I also work with an amazing film composer called Luke Johnson who I’ve worked with a couple of times. I send him two cuts of the film, a clean version and a version where I have added in film scores from my playlist, this helps him get a feeling of what I’m after and we then start finessing and layering. 

I have to applaud your young star’s performance. Due to the mature content in the film, how did you work with him so as to pull off  the incredible execution?

Craig: Reubens is fab and believe it or not, this was his first film! This was also my first time working with a child actor. Unfortunately I’m not much of an actors director but there is something quite pure and wonderful about working with kids. They see the script and the film from a less jaded viewpoint which helps to capture a really earnest performance. We spent time rehearsing with him but we didn’t want to over do it and see the better performances happen in the rehearsal. We talked a lot about what makes him sad and during the photo scene we stripped out the crew and spent some time before the camera rolled talking about those sad feelings. 

Jonny: We knew that because the lead role was a young child and his performance would carry the film, we had to find the right actor for the job. We wanted to find the right mix of an actor with some experience but critically, someone who had a raw talent that would naturally come across on screen. Working with a local drama club in Brighton, we auditioned Rubens 3 times and each time we saw the spark and eventually the brilliance of his portrayal of the main character. As it happened, while he had some stage experience this was his first time on screen and so Craig worked with him in a one on one rehearsal process to give him all the help he needed.

I also want to highlight the performance by Harriet Thorpe. The mum is based vaguely on mine, that idea of a snappy single mum doing her best. Weirdly I always had Harreit Thorpe in my head when writing it, she always reminds me of my mum, especially in Brittas Empire. When Jonny asked who my dream role for mum would be I told him Harriet Thorpe and he somehow managed to get her on board! 

You spent a long time on your edit. How has it changed and morphed over those 12 months to get the film to a point you are happy with?

Craig: The original cut of the film was 35 mins. My original idea of a long lingering 70’s style horror had come to bite me in the balls as no festival was prepared to take a 35 min short film. We had a lot of beach scenes between father and son peppered through. I loved these scenes and the performances of both Reubens and Patrick Oldham (who also plays the monster) however, from our first screening to cast, crew and friends the feedback was clear. The beach scenes slowed it down and felt dull. The issue I then had in the edit was that to remove them was to lose certain plot points that I couldn’t lose to tell the story. We tried so many different ways but in the end we used the beach scenes as flashes and used parts of the dialogue as VO.  It’s always hard editing your own work as you feel so emotionally attached to it all, but if you have to hack at it – do it. If you really can’t because you’re still too close to it then walk away for a while. I guarantee that scene or plot point you felt so strongly about keeping will seem so obvious to cut out after a few months of not looking at it. Hence why the edit took so long. I needed some perspective. 

Can you tell us more about the ‘Queer Bedtime story’ series?

Craig: Sure! I’ve been telling cautionary queer horror stories for ten years now, the first was a film about HIV set in the Eighties so we used eighties vampire horror films as our inspiration. The second was about gay married life set in modern day so we wanted to use modern horror like Insidious to tell the story. And the Witching hour will be our final film, a coming out story set in the 70’s using 70’s horror as its inspiration. Maybe in the future we will release them as an anthology feature film, who knows! Oh and, seeing as we live in an age of connected universes, they do all inhabit the same world, so if you want to know what happens to Victor next check out “I Wouldn’t Wish the Eighties” on Prime Video. 

What do you hope for your film?

I really hope it finds its audience. I get so bored watching sexualised coming out stories when realisation starts at such a young age. I hope we have shown a somewhat different approach to that. It is also the last in a series of ‘Queer bedtime stories’ we have been making with the idea to put them together for a bit of an anthology feature. Like a gay tales from the crypt or Creepshow