Interview With Daniel J. Phillips, Writer And Director Of AWOKEN

Awoken is a horror movie about insomnia and demonic possession. It was co-written and directed by Daniel J. Phillips and filmed in South Australia.

It is the story of Kara, a young medical student, who moves her sleep-deprived brother into a secret medical facility when doctors refuse to treat his Fatal Familial Insomnia. Trapped together underground, Kara and her colleagues soon learn that losing sleep might not be the worst thing that could happen to them.

I had the opportunity to speak to Phillips about his influences, filming the movie, and his next projects.

Sean Fallon for Film Inquiry: Thanks for speaking to me Daniel. I watched Awoken last night and loved it. In writing a movie about sleep, or the lack of, what kind of research did you do? Did you and co-writer Alan Grace try any sleepless nights to get into the mindset of the characters?

Daniel J. Phillips: Sleep’s always been a topic that’s been interesting to me. It seems like one of those mystical things that we still don’t fully understand with so many possibilities for horror. The majority of the research Alan and I did was mostly into the religious aspects of the movie, but Alan was the one who discovered Fatal Familial Insomnia – which is a real thing. We already had the sleeplessness thread, but the FFI was the thing that tied it all together and made the film really work. It’s also something that pretty much no-one’s heard of, that’s never been done in a movie, which these days is nearly impossible. So we learned a lot about that disease, and made sure it’s representation in the film was as realistic as we could make it.

The Exorcist, my favourite movie, is the gold standard for exorcism movies. Were you conscious of trying to avoid comparisons while making the movie?

Daniel J. Phillips: I think with any film dealing with demonic possession and faith, it’s difficult to avoid a relationship to The Exorcist, which is the mother of all possession films. It’s definitely a massive influence on all films in the possession sub-genre. The Exorcist is absolutely one of my favourite horror films, and instead of trying to hide any influences and try and dupe what is a very intelligent audience, I decided to lean into it. There are lots of moments for fans of horror and its tropes in this film, and references to The Exorcist are all over the place. From the red font in the credits, to the upside crab walk of Blake near the end of the story, to the way certain scenes are shot.

What were your other influences with this story?

Daniel J. Phillips: The Shining is an obvious one with some of the music, and the title cards of course. The funny thing is, that the two very obvious references, being the upside crab walk (Exorcist) and the title cards for the day (Shining), weren’t actually in the script. When we were shooting the dream sequence scene with Benson, we were doing all kinds of poses as lights flickered on and off and it just wasn’t working. The crab walk was just something that Benson said; “Hey I can do this thing. Should I do it?” And I was like “Yes! Absolutely do that!”. With the title cards, this was something that happened in the edit. I worked very hard to create a claustrophobic, bleak feel and tone to the film, but we needed to let the audience breathe and escalate the situation so that it didn’t feel like one big long scene. I didn’t want to cut outside to a shot of the moon or something, so the title cards were a great solution to show time passing, give the audience a break – and also show how long Blake had been awake for.

Benson Jack Anthony, the actor who plays sleep-deprived Blake, was absolutely incredible. With the scene of his backbones protruding, was that his own body or was their special effects to augment it?

Daniel J. Phillips: Benson is one of the most dedicated actors I’ve ever worked with. Very early on after he was cast, he had said that he had done a lot of research into sleep-deprived people, and asked if he could lose a lot of weight for the role. I was all for it as long as it was done safely, which he did with a nutritionist monitoring everything and creating his meal plans etc. He got down to insanely low body fat, which allowed his neck and back bones to protrude the way they did. The idea of seeing his back was always the plan, with the breathing being scary, but I never expected him to be this gaunt. All of the shots of him in the film are 100% real. We added some makeup to his back and neck to accentuate it a bit – but there’s no VFX there at all – that’s all real.

I’ve always wondered this, but when you’re filming a horror movie do you try and keep an atmosphere of spookiness on set or is it only scary between Cut and Action?

Daniel J. Phillips: Out of all the work I’ve done, anything horror is always actually the most fun. Because there’s so much prep on things like blood or scary scenes, and because it’s all done in pieces, you’re not really scared in the moment very often. That’s really about all of the pieces coming together in the edit to make it work, and the music of course. So most of the time it’s actually just people laughing and having fun and telling each other how cool everything looks. Amidst, you know, all the insane stress and pressure that comes along with making a film! It’s more people marvelling at the artistry of the brilliant crew we had more than people running off the set in fear. Spooky locations and sets certainly help though…

What’s next for you?

Daniel J. Phillips: I’m attached to a few projects in the U.S. and a couple here. A few horrors and a nice coming of age story – something very different that I love. I’m very excited and ready to jump into my next feature as soon as possible – it’s just a question of which project will go first at this point.

Finally, if you could have been a fly on the wall during the filming of any horror film ever made, which would you choose?

Daniel J. Phillips: That’s a tough question! I don’t think I could go past The Shining. Seeing not only one of the greatest films ever made be crafted, but also seeing Kubrick work would have been insane. There’s some deeply amazing directing going on in the way the atmosphere is created in that film. All great films have that certain unexplainable magical part to them, where it can’t really be replicated, when it just “works”. And with that film – every single frame of it just works and to get a glimpse into that would have been something very special.

Film Inquiry thanks Daniel J.Phillips for taking the time to speak with us!