The most dangerous memory is the one you forgot
SYNOPSIS
Sami has turned her house into a fortress against a malevolent entity that has decimated her neighborhood. She waits for a family that never returns and the “why” is at the heart of this psychological thriller that explores the dangers of repressed memories. As a child Sami regressed into a fantasy world after a tragic event and now we see clues that adult Sami might be on same path. From the military arriving to evacuate her, then home invaders using her house to build a bomb from Hell – Sami’s world becomes more and more extraordinary as the clock ticks down to a shocking finale.
JOURNEY INTO THE WOMB
Writer/Director Frank Cappello’s thoughts.
Every movie starts with an idea, shaped into a script, meticulously planned and then forged into a film. My first three films took this traditional path, necessary in order to schedule cast, crews, locations – you can’t just wing it with so much riding on a film’s ultimate “return on investment.” The Womb was nothing like that. It was born out of an event that none of us had ever experienced – a worldwide pandemic. When your life force is staying busy creatively, it’s tough to be told to stop – move inside – and wait for the threat to pass.
No.
I needed to make something. A film? But how? Let’s see, what did I have? Well, we just moved into a big empty rental that was in a suburban neighborhood straight out of E.T. It had tall ceilings. Backyard of weeds. An old rotting fence. High tension power lines passing over a field beyond that fence. An alleyway on one side of the house that felt haunted even in the daytime. And what else did I have…. oh yeah, one very gifted deaf actress:
CAMI VARELA (co-producer)
(“Sami”, Cami Varela and “Young Sami”, Hannah Zamora)
“We’re going to make a movie.” “We are?” “You’re going to be like Walli, from that Pixar movie.” “ Which movie?” “Walli.” What’s my character? “Walli.” “I’m going to play a cute robot?” “No, you’re going to play SAMI, at two times in her life.” This went on for a bit and the beginning came into focus: A world in permanent lockdown, a woman in a homemade hazmat suit, buries bodies out back, plants seeds on each grave which has turned this garbage strewn hillside into something a little more … pretty.
(Actors Myron, Martin, Cami, Anzu and Cyrus at first screening)
So I wrote the first 10 pages and Cami and I shot it on a rainy day. Showed it to some actor friends and they showed it to their friends and once they got the courage to step out of their “safe places”, they said – “What’s my role?” So I wrote scenes that were just for them and shot for 4 days with four actors – just one crew person – which meant no one could get sick from the invisible monster we were all hiding from.
And about that – “What if this “virus thing” mutated into something that wasn’t invisible? What if it got bigger and bigger and because we could see it – maybe we could hide from it or even kill it.” That idea started a 3 year journey that pulled in more and more actors and crew people – a few more locations and — scads of nifty visual effects.
At the beginning I was writing alone, but suddenly I had a co-writer and that was The World and every time I tried to turn left – The World grabbed me and told me to go right. I fought it at first but eventually gave in and let the river take me. The movie that finally emerged was far from what I set out to do but was exactly what it needed to be.
When I step back now and look at what was created, I’m amazed how closely the structure follows the phases we all went through for those same 3 years. The fear of death drove us into our “safe places” – that was easy – but when things got better, many were reluctant to leave those “safe places” behind. The world had changed and so did we. Reality became something personal to many, which created an entirely new threat, not one from ‘out there’, but something else deep inside our own mind.
Frank Cappello
Me lost in my greenscreen world having a mind altering drink. Cheers.