A young woman must protect her family from a terrifying supernatural entity in Director Rob Savage’s horror mystery, The Boogeyman.
Based on the short story by Stephen King, Savage’s film tells the story of high school student Sadie Harper, who alongside her younger sister Sawyer and her psychiatrist father Will are all reeling from the recent death of their mother. When Lester Billings, a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at their home seeking help, he leaves behind a chilling paranormal creature that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims.
On June 4, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Savage discussed the making of The Boogeyman during a Q&A moderated by Director Parker Finn (Smile).
During the conversation, Savage divulged that his directing style starts by asking the questions, “What’s the point of each scene? What is the driving force? It has become one of the foundational ways I make movies. I try — when I am on set — to know what every scene is doing pretty distinctively. When I am talking to the Actors or to the Cinematographer, we all get in a huddle and it really feels like everyone is aiming for the same thing as opposed to the camera fiddling around with something that is going to annoy the Actor. Everyone seems to be on the same page if you can isolate the feeling you want to give the audience and the experience you want to take them through.”
He also shared a technique he employs to bring his filmic visions to life. “I keep a day-to-day database of images that strike me — whether that is from a movie I love or from cinematography — in a folder. I’ve been doing this for 10 years. Every time I get a visual language for a movie I am working on, or a TV show, I start to pull from this database. I started to pull from these images, and I wanted to feel like every decision in this movie was confidently made. We found a shared sensibility that was beautiful and well-designed, but very grounded.”
Savage’s other directorial credits include the features Dashcam, Host and Strings; and episodes of the series Soulmates, Britannia, Fear Haus, True Horror and Bite Size Horror. He became a DGA member in 2021.